Elizabeth's first Zoo trip

If you know me, you know one of my very favorite places on earth is the World Famous San Diego Zoo. I love it! We have season passes and go as often as we can. So I was excited to take Elizabeth for her first, post birth zoo trip. This is how she spent most of the trip:
Yeah, I know, what a party poopper. She did wake up briefly towards then end because she needed to eat. FYI, the hummingbird exhibit is a great place to nurse a baby. Not a lot of people go through there, there is a long bench area to sit, and you can watch hummingbirds. Plus it is close to the skyfari, so Grace and Gunnar rode that while I fed the baby. It was a perfect relaxing way to end the zoo trip.

Grace enjoyed the zoo more than her sister. She got to walk under the belly of a huge elephant statue (if that doesn't sound like fun, I don't know what does).

She also found her name on a sign. Super exciting.
She checked out the polar bears (who were sleeping).
And the zebras too.
I also greatly enjoyed my time. I loved seeing the polar bear was sleeping just like my girls and Gunnar, with his hands over his face.

I got to see my very favorite animal at the zoo, the otter. It allows me to make cheesy otter jokes, which I love. You really otter see them, they are so cute!
My very favorite part though, is watching my beautiful daughter check out the animals and the world around here. God is so good to allow me the gift of being her mom!

Night time zoo

I love the night time zoo! Actually, I always love the World Famous San Diego Zoo. Gunnar and I have been members there since we got married and have enjoyed many long walks there. We don't make it there very much anymore as we live so far away, we mostly stick to the Wild Animal Park. Although I enjoy the Wild Animal Park, the Zoo will always be my favorite.

The night time zoo is by the far the best, for so many reasons. The summer evening weather is amazing, there are so many less people, the animals are more active, and they shows are usually more fun than the regular "reduce, reuse, recycle." On a side note, it donned on my last night that the zoo was so ahead of their time. They were into reduce reusing and recycling way before it got super trendy.

Last night, on the spur of the moment we called my parents to see if they wanted to join us for a trip to the zoo. They agreed and we met there.

We went on the skyfarie to get to the far side of the zoo, as I was not really wanting to waddle all the way over there. Grace was very hesitant and did not want to go on it. We couldn't figure out why until we got on, and she asked in a very serious voice "are we going to go upside down?" Once we assured her we weren't she was all smiles and enjoyed it. It is so funny how her little brain works.We walked around the new Elephant exhibit. It was great! I have never seen the lions so active. The male lion was roaring super loud, which was amazing. I had never heard that before. I am pretty sure if I heard that in the wild I would be super scared. Thankfully there was a little net and a ton of people between us. I figured one of those people would be slower than I am, so I wasn't too worried. Grace wasn't overly impressed, she kept putting her hands over her ears. I guess she wasn't a fan of the roaring.Around the "Elephant Odyssey" there were these cut outs of scientist that you could take pictures with. Grace and Grandpa Pa were big fans, as you can see. My dad's degree is in biochemistry so it was a good fit.
The elephants were super funny. One was breaking a huge log into pieces. Always impressive. I totally think he/she was trying to show off.The closest we got to an elephant was on the big screen as we walked by. Grace wasn't sure what to make of it it.
It was so nice and refreshing to take a walk in the coolness of the evening. Grace found some thingies to jump on. Yes, I know that is probably not the technical term for them, but as I am adding a picture, you can see what they look like, so I decided not to bother with a better explanation. What would you call them anyways?Oh, I also saw a peacock. It was just hanging out and didn't even move when we walked right by. Sorry for the bad picture quality, I just wanted to show that I got super close to a peacock. I was very excited about it. Did I mention how much I love the zoo?We made it to the show just as it was about to start. In other years, the evening show has included acrobats or people in animal costumes, but this year there were actually animals in it. A surprising twist. It was a bird show, and multiple birds didn't do what they were supposed to do, which is always entertaining. The rooster ran off into the zoo, which seemed to fit with our experience with roosters.
Grace had a wonderful time with Grandpa Pa and Grandma Ta. She has been asking me all day when we can go back to the zoo.

Just because....

Here is a family picture from a couple weeks ago. We went to an event at the Zoo with my mother-in-law and had a great time!

Highlights

Life seems to have settled into a nice pace after Easter. Grace keeps me smiling, she always seems to have something funny to say. I read online yesterday that for her age she should be speaking in 2 word sentences (like "more food" ect.) I was very excited because she speaks in like 10 word sentences (like yesterday she said "I want my friend Grandma to give me more water" or "I want to go walk around block with Grandpa. He hold Guapo. I hold Dulce."), thus making her very advanced. She also can tell stories about things that happened in the past (Guapo pooped on grass. Grandpa pick it up and throw it in garrrr-bage") and can use adjectives (like "my red shirt dirty" or "mommy get my comfy panties from the drier"). But in keeping me humble, she STILL can't jump AND she has been getting jumping lessons/practice for quite some time from a friend at church. Oh well, I guess she can't have it all. :)

I mentioned taking the dogs for a walk with Grandpa. She did this a couple weeks ago when we spent the morning there. She LOVED it and has been talking about it constantly since. She was so excited to head down on Wednesday and take them for a walk around the block (a very small block) by my parents house. Thankfully, my parents dog Dulce is as mellow as can be, so she is really easy for Grace to walk. It was the highlight of her day (possibly her week). They looked super cute together!

Sunday she got to wear one of the new dresses she got for her birthday. She looked like she belonged on the Alps churning butter, but very cute nonetheless.
Monday we went to the zoo with some of our dear friends. We didn't see anything too spectacular and after walking for a couple hours decided to go get lunch somewhere. That was actually a major ordeal, seeing as our friends aren't very opinionated, and Gunnar has a hard time figuring things like that out when he is hungry.

Trying to figure out lunch plans
Gunnar looking cute, Grace binging on craisinsIsabel and a wort hog

Anyways, other than that, the week has been rather slow. I finished a new quilt for Grace's crib and Grace hung out in her pajamas. We hang out with the chickens in the "party room"(aka the garage).

God is so good! It is exciting to watch him work. I am so thankful that I am able to be home with Grace and that I get to watching her change and grow. Gunnar is loving country living (See previous post about our 12 chickens). For as much as I dreaded moving here, it is really turning into a healthy season for our family.

Such a little ham!

She has such good English muffin eating form

Grace's new quilt