Finally I Can Post Pictures

These are the pictures I was trying to post from my last blog.

Well the holidays are over & everything has somewhat gotten back to normal around here. Gary has finally gone back to work after being on vacation for the last two weeks. The holidays are always so hectic around here and even more so when Gary is home & we are trying to get some projects done around the house. Unfortunately his vacation is never much of a vacation, instead just a chance to finish up household chores. At last we are finally done replacing every single old, ugly window in our house with new dual paned windows. We also replaced our back door & built a new storage unit during his vacation. Hopefully this storage unit will provide better protection for our stuff than the old one did in case we get flooded again.
Christmas was as usual a lot of fun. We really enjoy getting to spend time with the family. I don't think we saw our house more than a couple hours a day for the whole week of Christmas. It actually is kinda nice that way because if we aren't home to make any messes then that's just less housework I have to do. The kids got a power wheels truck from Santa & they have had a lot of fun with it. We've loaded it up & taken it with us to grandparents' houses & to the fairgrounds one day and let them ride it. It has prepared us for what a crazy driver Alyssa is & will be when she gets older. Bryant likes to get in it & play with the radio. Probably sooner than we like he'll figure out how to operate the rest of it. Well anyways, I was going to post some pictures from Christmas, but for some reason it won't let me upload them so I will have to try to do that part later. Hope everyone had a good Christmas & Happy New Year.

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.