What A Fun Vacation!

So we went on our vacation to San Diego the week before Thanksgiving and we had such a good time. It was so nice to get away & have some family time. We left Saturday & went as far as Phoenix & spent time with family there & spent the night in Maricopa with Gary's brother (Thanks Jeff & Sue) and then went on in to San Diego on Sunday afternoon.

On Monday we went to Sea World & we all had a blast! It was so neat to see all of the Ocean Life & the shows that we caught were really neat. There was no way that we could see everything there in just one day though.

On Tuesday we spent the whole day at the zoo. It was neat & the kids enjoyed seeing all of the animals but we walked the whole thing which got old really fast, especially for Alyssa. They had really neat animals though. The panda bears were really fun to watch, 3 of 13 in the U.S. are at the San Diego Zoo. We also liked seeing the koala bears, the hippos, and the ringtailed lemur (King Julian on Madagascar). Then there were lots of other animals that were very strange looking things.

Wednesday, we drove to Escondido & spent the whole morning looking for a chiropractor for my poor hubby whose back was killing him from all of the walking the past two days. After several failed attempts at getting him fixed up we decided to grab some lunch & head on to the Wild Animal Park which was there in Escondido. We saw a lot of the same animals there that we had seen at the zoo so it wasn't all that interesting to us. They did have a really neat bird aviary though that had a lot of really exotic birds. We bought some nectar & took turns feeding to one type of bird (I forget what it's called). When Alyssa took the nectar, one bird landed on her head & started to try & eat her hair bow. Needless to say, she was kinda freaking out & I wasn't exactly fond of the idea of birds all over me either. Bryant liked them & was trying to grab them, probably not a great idea, so Daddy had to be the trooper & take over. At one point Gary had like six or seven birds on his arms, head, shoulders, etc. But he paid the price too because one of them did a doody on the back of his shirt. YUCK! That night we went to Old Town, which is the old part of San Diego. It was really neat. They had all kinds of street vendors & they had a band that was playing music. We ate dinner at this place out on the patio & while we were eating even got serenaded. It was really neat.

On Thursday we decided to go to the beach in the morning. Go figure, the day we decide to go to the beach was the one day all week that it had to be cold. I let the kids (Gary being the biggest kid of all) play in the water for a few & took some pictures & then decided to go at the sight of poor Bryant shivering. So then after a quick trip back to the hotel for baths, we headed back to Sea World for the afternoon. It was by far the most fun. Who knew that it would be that amazing?!? I can only imagine being one of the trainers for those animals.

Friday was the dreaded day that we had to check out of our hotel & head back to Arizona. After we got all of our stuff loaded & checked out of our hotel, we went back to Sea World one last time to finish up the last few things we hadn't seen yet and then on the road we were. We stopped in Phoenix again and stayed until Sunday with Gary's sister this time (Thank You Corri & Nate). It was great to finally get to see our new nephew! Over the weekend two of Gary's brothers & their families came over for pizza & we were all able to visit for a little while. Then Sunday we headed home. Even though it would have been nice to have avoided reality for a little while longer, it was also nice to be back home. Unfortunately, Gary had to go back to work first thing Monday morning which meant I was left to unpack & catch up on laundry all by my lonesome. Go figure! :)

Here's just a few pics from our trip! (out of tons & tons)

Alyssa & Shamu

Bryant's Hand vs. A Gorilla's Hand

Believe: The Shamu Show

Bryant as a Baby Giraffe

The Shamu Show

Our Family at Mission Beach

Taking a break at the zoo

Alyssa... Not to fond of the situation

Alyssa's Dance

Last week was parents week at Alyssa's dance class. I took some video of the dance that they just started learning for the Christmas recital. It really is a cute dance! I've been so much more pleased with her dance class this year than I was last year. She has a much better teacher this year. Unfortunately, my digital camera doesn't take very good video & plus my batteries went dead right in the middle of it so I only got the last part of the dance recorded, but here's the little bit that I got.

Our Happy Halloween

Halloween is always one of the most hectic holidays around our house. We always try to make sure that the kids get to go show their costumes to all of the relatives & good friends that we have in town plus that they get in enough trick or treating to make buying the costume & getting them all dressed up worth while. All of this in just a few short hours. Even though it is usually quite chaotic we still have a good time. This year we tried to make our visits to family & friends' houses "short & sweet" and we also took the kids to a trunk or treat out in Solomon which made it a little less hectic. We even were able to squeeze in dinner at Arby's so that the kids had something in their stomachs besides candy. Having Halloween on Friday made it especially nice since nobody had to get up early the next morning. After all the nights festivities we came home & played some games before going to bed. Now we just have enough candy to last us FOREVER. We always make sure to buy candy that we like to eat because we are never home to hand out any to trick or treaters. And as hard as I try to resist, I am probably the one who eats the majority of it.

The cutest witch I've ever seen! Our lion that WOULD NOT

keep his headpiece on.

Definitely Time for a Haircut!

Well I knew it wasn't going to be the easiest thing in the world. That's why I took him to a professional. That way I wouldn't be the one he was fighting. I took Bryant to get his first haircut today. I kept putting it off because I wanted Gary to take him, but with as little spare time as Gary has Bryant would probably be looking like a girl before that happened & he was already getting pretty close to it. His hair was getting so long so I took him to a place here called Fun Cuts that is especially for kids. He was kind of bewildered at first & kept putting his hands on his head. Then when she cut the top with scissors he was perfectly fine & playing with the car. Then she got out some trimmers to cut around his ears & neckline. They made a louder noise than the clippers did & that did it. You can tell what happened then.

All in all it wasn't too bad. The girl was done in no more than five minutes. She's super quick! It would have taken me probably at least an hour or more. So here's a couple more pics of the end result! It took me forever to try & get a decent picture. Bryant can't stay still for even a second, EVER!

I was trying to spike the top a little but styling boys hair is not my strong point I guess. And forget trying to distract Bryant with anything to keep him still. I guess it just takes making him cry to get him to sit down for two seconds.