California, Here We Come (Part 5)

Our day at the San Diego Zoo was fantastic. We saw many animals much closer up than we have seen at the National Zoo -- elephants, pandas, giraffes, zebras, peacocks, gorillas (esp. one's butt), hippos, camels, and meerkats are all represented in the photos below. The highlight for me was seeing koala bears for the first time -- I wanted to take one home so badly! Katie enjoyed seeing all of the animals, and she especially enjoyed the petting zoo, where she pet several goats. Well, "pet" isn't the right word. She "pet" the goats the way she "pets" our dog Bella -- in other words, she hits them with both hands like a drum. :-)

My mom was my hero that day (as she usually is) for holding Katie while she napped in her arms. We rode in a ski lift over the zoo, which was much better than having to walk all the way back to the entrance. And it was a blast spending getting to know my future sister-in-law Lindsey that day -- she and Stephen had gotten engaged the week before, and the Zoo was our first time to spend time together in person. (She is currently staying with us this week as she hunts for a job and apartment in our area.)

She's Walking!!

On Sunday, June 8, just a few hours after learning that her best friend Daniel (7 weeks older) was walking, Katie decided she couldn't let Daniel outpace her and walked for the first time! She took three steps to get to a toy. So exciting! While I couldn't get a video of the first few steps (we were watching National Treasure 2 at the time -- how dare she not give us warning beforehand?), here's a video taken shortly afterwards which shows a step or two.

And while I'm sharing the good news, let me share a few more highlights from this past week:

While we were dodging tornadoes, my friend Amy and her daughters took advantage of the regional blackout to come over for a fun sleepover! The next day, after our power finally came on, I babysat the girls and Katie fell asleep on 10-year-old Caitlin's lap as they watched "Hairspray."

Friday night our family took advantage of the 3-day weekends that John now gets every other week (what a blessed life we have with his new job!) and headed to the beach to visit with John's parents. It was way too hot to actually lie on the beach this weekend, but John's parents watched Katie several times so we could sleep in, go to the movies twice, and go out to dinner. What a wonderful, relaxing weekend -- especially when John's parents were supposed to be celebrating their own 36-year anniversary. (Speaking of which, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, GRAMMY and JAY-PA!) Highlights from the weekend were Katie walking for the first time, trying chocolate ice cream for the first time, and enjoying her new doggie raft in the pool. She also now moo's spontaneously when I point to a picture of a cow.

California, Here We Come (Part 4)

(Sorry for the delay in finishing the recounting of our recent trip to California. We've been dodging tornados around here! It was hard being without power 12 hours and without internet access 18 hours, but I still feel blessed that we and our loved ones and our home are all safe. One house on my parents' street was split in half by a tree. :-( )

Anyway, back to sunny memories...

Thursday of last week was our built-in rest day. We didn't have any scheduled plans except a possible get-together with our friends Glenn and Sara. Glenn was John's roommate in college and post-college, as well as one of his groomsmen. Sara is due with their first baby on June 8. Thus, we didn't know if we'd be visiting them at their home in Carlsbad, or at the hospital! This was especially true when Sara started experiencing mild contractions the same day we were to visit them.

Thankfully for us, they were just warm-up contractions, and we got to have a nice afternoon with Sara, including some beach time, as well as a delicious sushi dinner with Sara and Glenn. We specifically requested this sushi restaurant since we'd been there before and LOVED it -- and we recommend it to anyone visiting Carlsbad! Sushi Taisho is YUMMY!!!



We had a wonderful time with Sara and Glenn, and Katie had a wonderful set of naps that day for the first time on the trip. Life definitely started looking up at that point. And to cap the whole night off, my brother Stephen's fiancee Lindsey arrived that night, and we absolutely loved getting to know her. Here's a photo of her meeting my parents for the first time the next morning:

Click here to read more about our trip. And tales from the rest of our adventure are to come...

California, Here We Come (Part 3)

We're baaaack! And I am SO glad to be home. Now I can finally start catching up on blogging our California vacation.

My last California post was about our time in Pasadena. We left Pasadena on Tuesday and drove the few hours south to Escondido, California, where we met up with the rest of my family. While John unpacked the car, Katie experienced a swimming pool for the first time. She loved it!

Unfortunately, I realized a few days later though that her main interest in the pool was drinking the chlorinated water. So I had to be creative about the way I held her in the pool.

The day after we arrived in Escondido, our family went to Sea World. It was fun in some regards, but Katie would have enjoyed it much more if she were a bit older. She had trouble focusing on the fish, and was too young to go on any of the rides. She didn't nap much either which added to the stress of the day. Her favorite activity at Sea World was crawling around on a toddler mat in the Sesame Street section with her cousin Ali:

She also enjoyed seeing the killer whales and dolphins, and meeting a horse and a Sesame Street character:

Near the end of the day, we had reservations for Dinner with Shamu. We sat around the killer whale pool while eating from a buffet. They had told us that we might get a little wet. However, John, our digital camera, and our nephew Drew got completely SOAKED when the killer whale decided to splash our side of the pool. Our camera conked out after taking these photos. Thankfully it came back to life the following day.

Here's a photo taken by the Sea World photographer before the dinner began (and while John was still dry):

This was probably our most exhausting day since our plane had landed in Phoenix. Thankfully the next day, scheduled as an R&R day, things started to turn around.

To be continued...