The Beach

After the Wild Animal Park we headed to the beach. I haven't been to the beach for about 8 years so I was so excited! Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere to change where we were at, so I didn't get in my swimsuit, but I had fun anyway. Kate loved playing and eating the sand, but hated the water. It was so cold! Ever since then she cries when she gets near water. I hope she gets over that soon. Anyway, I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking for the rest of the post.





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Wild Animal Park, take two

On Saturday we went to the Wild Animal Park again. This time with the whole family! I didn't take as many pictures this time around, but it was just as fun.

I love how all the kids are doing their own thing in this picture. It cracks me up.

Maddock and Kate are so funny together. While we were eating lunch he kept grabbing Kate's hand and saying " 'mon Kate! 'mon!" Then when I was trying to get a picture of just Kate, he stepped in front of my camera and said "Cheese!".




Most of our time was spent hiking through the park to see the amazing elephant, tiger and lion exhibits. We rode the safari train, and then stopped at the gorillas.
We were all VERY entertained by this sign. Dustin's arms are almost as long as a gorillas! Everyone else had to see how long their arms were too. Some were close, but Dustin definitely has the monkey-est arms!

Sea World

The rest of the family arrived around 11:30 Thursday night, and we headed to Sea World the next morning.

The weather in San Diego was beautiful! It wasn't hot, and there was a cool breeze. Sorry again for the picture overload, but it makes it easier for when I convert my blog into a book.

Once again, Kate loved all the fish! When we were in the aquariums she loved to get right up to the glass and watch the fish. She would laugh and point at them. She even touched a sting ray. Such a brave little baby!


Although it was nice outside, I still felt it was a little too cold to ride the water rides, so I played with Kate while everyone rode Journey to Atlantis. She loved walking around and splashing her feet in the water. It might have been her favorite part of the day!

Just kidding. I know her favorite part of the day. We got to see Elmo! Kate loves Elmo, and she was so excited to see him she didn't want to wait in line! We celebrated the event by buying Kate an Elmo doll.
She also loved playing in the Sesame Street playland and we even took her on a ride. We went on these spinning teacups which looked very tame. The only requirement for her to ride was that she could walk. So we got on thinking that it was going to be a nice smooth ride for babies. They didn't even let us hold her on our laps, she had to sit beside us. When the ride started we quickly realized that this ride was a lot faster than we thought it would be! I did everything I could to keep the cup from spinning too fast, while Dustin held on to Kate. She didn't seem upset though, she just laughed! Funny girl.
Of course one of the best parts of Sea World is the shows. We went to the Sea Lion and Otter show earlier that day, and we finished the day by watching the Shamu show. Kate was so tired she didn't want anything to do with it. So I just stood up and held her.


It was a great day!

San Diego: Part 1 of many

We got back from our wonderful vacation in San Diego this morning. I took about a million pictures so since this blog is also my journal/scrapbook, there will be a ton of pictures and posts to come.

We left early thursday morning. With our free stand-by flights, we've figured out that it's easiest to get on the first flight of the day. Yes, you have to wake up earlier but it's so much better than driving. We arrived in San Diego at around 9:00. The rest of the family wasn't going to arrive until later that night so we had a day to ourselves! We couldn't even check into our hotel until 4:00 so we rented a car and went to the Wild Animal Park. We were very tired since we had been awake since 4:30 that morning, but it was a blast anyway.



I love this zoo! For those of you who haven't been there, this "zoo" is more like a wildlife preserve. It's really spread out and you have to take a safari to see all the african animals. This is actually my favorite zoo. I don't know, I guess I just like seeing the animals in a more natural environment. Although it's enormous, it doesn't take very long to see, but it's very very fun.

I was so surprised with Kate on this trip. She loved the zoos! She would laugh, point, and clap at all the animals! I didn't expect her to care at all, so it was so much fun to take her and show her the parks.

The lions exhibit at the zoo is my favorite! The lions love to get right up to the glass. While we were there, the keepers fed the lions. They had a delicious snack of bunny rabbits. They were not like rabbits that you see in your backyard, they were white pretty ones like you would find in a pet store. They were frozen so we didn't get to see them hunt them down, but we did see them chow down on them. It was so crazy! I think it may have scarred the kids watching especially since I heard one mom say something like "see the bunnies? like the easter bunny?". Hahaha.



The elephants exhibit was also amazing. They had three little elephants and one is really tiny, it was just born on February 14th. So cute! I could have watched it all day it was so adorable.

How precious is that?



We left around 3:00 and checked into our hotel. The hotel was really nice and they even gave us complimentary dinner that night! We had chili and cornbread. The cornbread was delicious and the chili was not. But it was a completely free dinner so I can't complain! It was an awesome day and a perfect start to a great vacation!

One Lucky Husband

What does Twitter + my husband =?

20 tickets to a Suns game!! Not just any tickets, tickets to a suite! Dustin entered a contest on twitter a couple of weeks ago, and on thursday they emailed him to tell him that he had won! How lucky is that? We invited some of our friends and had so much fun at the game.

The game we went to was Sunday's game against the Trailblazers. Yes, it was on a Sunday, but come on...we WON tickets. I'm sure the big guy understands.

The view from our box.
Kate in her Suns outfit.

Since we were in a suite, we brought the kiddos. They had so much fun playing with each other while the adults enjoyed the game.

At first we constructed a baby cage out of all the chairs, but it seemed a little crowded.
The game was exciting and we won 93-87. They gave out these little basketballs to the kids.Thanks to Twitter and the Suns for giving us such great seats! We had an awesome time!