San Diego Zoo

On Monday we ate IHOP for breakfast per Reed's request (again) and headed out to the zoo. It is huge!!

It had beautiful plants everywhere - the colors and variety were so pretty!





Lots of animals to see!


They had a cheetah in an enclosure with some dogs. They were put together to be playmates when they were babies. It was funny to watch. This white dog was a maniac- running around like crazy and playing with the cheetah. Pretty cool.








This camel had a hump that had flopped over. Weird.


Neither of the boys was tall enough to make these work, but I thought it was cute anyway. :)


We rode this sky thing across the park. It was a little high up and kinda scary, but you also had a great view of the park and surrounding area.


Reed had been asking to get his face painted, and all the kids who had it done looked so cute, so I gave in. He chose a spider...


Hudson chose the Lochness Monster. They were so excited!


They had a thing there called Joey Jumps (by the kangaroos of course). They hooked the kids up in these harnesses and they just went to town. I'll try to upload a video later- it was funny.





We had a very full day at the zoo and we didn't even see it all. When we got back to the house, the boys wanted to play on the beach. You can tell how overcast it is in the picture... It has been that way since we got here! Legoland had a little more sun, but not much. It seems the further away we are from the coast, the more sun there is. Anyway, Susan and I were in jackets and they were playing in the water. It was about 67 degrees.





Another fun day under our belts. We're having a great time!

Legoland

We arrived in San Diego on Saturday afternoon. We drove to the beach house and my, my... It was awesome!!! This is the view from our living room balcony. It has been cloudy each day, so I'm waiting for a sunny day to catch and awesome sunset...

On Sunday, we went to Legoland. We stopped at IHOP (per Reed's request) for breakfast. On the way, I think Reed was about to jump out of his skin by how excited he was. He was so excited that he was almost yelling the entire day pointing out stuff to show us. Here we are at the gate. And yes, I still match my boys. I will do it until Reed gets embarrassed... Maybe I have a couple of more years.






We got there a little early, so we had to waste a little time up front near the gate. They had some dinosaurs and other neat things all made of Legos.





Other pictures of statues and things we encountered...


A triceratops...









DadDad and the boys with Lego Indiana Jones







We rode a few things- this rope thing was fun. You "pulled" yourselves up and then let go and it would slowly fall. Reed and I tried to race Brian and we won! I was pretty pleased about it until I realized he wasn't really even trying.






They had racetracks that the boys rode around on and received their Lego liscense. Hudson's was just an oval track.







Reed's course was a little more complicated. He had to stop at stoplights and stop signs. He had fun.







Lego Darth Vader.







Hudson hanging onto DadDad like a monkey. (Side story: I took Hudson to the doctor the day before we left because he had another abscess on his leg. He got on antibiotics, but those things develop rapidly and are VERY tender, so we have had to be careful how we hold him. Whenever anyone held him, we had to be careful with positioning so that we didn't hurt his leg. )






Me and my sweet boys waiting in line...






Lego Miniland. Awesome. They have built copies of all these cities and landmarks in Legos!! First we have Mount Rushmore. So cool!







Here is New York...







This was in the New York section... Can you guess what it is? The Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park! So cute!






Grand Central Station







The Star Wars section. Reed loved it. So did Brian :)

















All in all, Reed LOVED Legoland. He kept saying "This is the best day of my life" over and over. We had a great time.
Later that afternoon, we went over to The Sealife Aquarium. They evidently have a partnership with Lego, because they had Lego people all over the place. It was cute.











First time I have ever seen an octopus in person. It was... bizarre.


















Brian almost got eaten by a shark. :)





The boys holding hands. So cute!






It was a fun, but tiring day!

Our Anniversary

Today is our 9th anniversary. Last weekend we got away for a night at the Gaylord in Grapevine. I had never been there before, so it was a treat! What a beautiful hotel! We went out to dinner at Old Hickory Steakhouse. Here we are before dinner.

Dinner was awesome. I had the most tender filet mignon I had ever had. We had a nice slow relaxing dinner and they served us with a complimentary dessert.


It was a white chocolate caramel creme brûlée. It was wonderful!
It was so nice to get away, just the two of us. Happy anniversary to my best friend and love of my life!

An exchange between the boys yesterday-

Reed picked up a toy and said "Why is this wet?"

H- "Somebody licked it."

R- "Did you lick it?"

H-"Nope."

Breaking News

Hudson is officially potty trained. Seven years of changing diapers has come to a close. I am beyond excited.

That is all.

4th of July

We had a really fun, but TIRING 4th of July. It was SO hot and I think it drained us all of our patriotic energy. :) We started out the morning heading to the parade. We got to our spot with some time to spare, so we decided to look around the square a little bit. We saw a booth selling little turtles and Reed has been wanting one for a while now. We looked and I was instantly sucked in because they were so cute. I caved and Brian bought Reed one. We have heard lots about them carrying diseases, so Flame (the turtles name) will not be handled much and when he is, hands will be washed immediatley and thoroughly. :)

We were in the shade for the parade and it was still HOT. (When we got in the car afterwards, my thermostat read 108. Yikes!)

We sat in front of a friends' business and Grace and Hudson spent a lot of time inside eating cereal. :)

Here we are, sweat and all...

We spent the afternoon swimming at Gammy and DadDad's (thank goodness we had access to a pool!!!) That evening we gathered in our usual spot to watch the fireworks. I always enjoy sitting and talking after a long day of sitting and talking. :)

The fireworks were great - they are always my favorite part of the day. Hope you all had a great 4th of July! God bless America!