Vacation

 We just got back from our family vacation, We choose to go to San Diego this year, with a few stops around and about along the way. We had so much fun. It is always so nice to take a break and get away from it all and just play, and Play we did! The kids got to go swimming almost everyday we were there which is well their dreams come true!

 We took them to the Ocean for the first time! It was sprinkling a bit the first day we went to the beach, and the pacific is cold anyways, but the kids had a great time, and went in and played, My friend Christy again, gave us some great tips on the area so we were able to to a lot of family friendly activities and avoid some of the not so great activities. We loved the beach, we didn't find many sea shells at this one but the beach we went to the next time we did. It was so fun.

 We went to Balboa Park and toured via bike the whole family could ride, Jimmy was upset he didn't get to peddle, but he loved the hills anyway. It was a great way to see the park and all it has to offer

 one of eight, this is one of the eight pools that they had at our resort, we probably could have just played in the pool all day everyday and never left the resort they had so many activities and things to do, Some of the pools had water slides which was just what Addy ordered, she loves water parks. We did movie night by the pool twice they made smores and popcorn and you could watch the movie while swimming  under the stars or cuddling in blankets on beach chairs like us. 

 More beach time, Oh how I love and Miss the beach!

 We of course made it to the Zoo, we couldn't not go to the number one Zoo in the States and see what it was all about, we went on a perfect day it was overcast and not crowed, the animals for the most part were quite active and about, it was awesome, Jimmy of course wanted to ride every animal we saw, he had to make do with the statue ones. We also perfected our Roaring this trip....LOL

 Such cute bugs

 Not our normal furry friends, I didn't realize Sesame street was teamed up with Sea World, Jimmy loved the rides at sea world for 3 nights after we went he would wake us talking in his sleep asking to go on the Elmo ride again, so cute, even if it was in the middle of the night. The kids really liked the play area, and the shows were really impressive. A solid two thumbs up for us.

 Since we were staying at the Lawerence Welk Resort we all had our pictures taken with his bronze statue, I was running the camera most of this trip so this is one of few pictures taken of me. We had a kick with all the musical influence at the resort. For those of you who don't know or remember the first show Addy showed any interest in was the Lawrence Welk show, so once a week at 6 we would sit down with her and let her watch Lawrence Welk, She was glued to it and loved every minute of it, it was 6 months or so before she would watch anything else and show any interest in it, not that we pushed tv by any means. Side note her and Jimmy both still love the Big band and Variety Shows particularly Lawrence Welk, they both really enjoy music and dancing and the fun in life....

 More Beach time, they kept getting braver and braver, Addy loved it, Jimmy had a wave sneak up on him and crash over his head, after that he spent the day running to and from the water, he was so tired that night. It may have been my favorite part of the trip though watching him face his fear then changing his mind and running like mad to get away. He is so expressive, it cracks me up.

 If you only knew what this photo is worth and how much therapy it took to get us here, AMAZING!!!

 Tiny Palm Trees, the kids were in love with everything their size including the trees.

 And if you know anything about us, you know we are a Disney family, so we totally surprised the kids and went to Disney we didn't tell them until we were across the street, Addy was so excited, I should have had my camera ready. We didn't take many pictures though because the ONLY thing we forgot for vacation was the charger for the camera battery. BUMMER  We had oodles of fun at Disney we had never been as a family to Disneyland, in fact the one and only time I had been there is when I was 6 so we got to see and do a lot of things they don't have at Disney World it was a lot of fun. I think the favorite by all was the Aladdin show though, it was very good. Carsland was a hit Jimmy thought it was great to ride tractors and tires and Addy's favorite was the pirates of the Caribbean???? Doug totally let her go on that and she loved it so much she talked us into all going including Jimmy, whose favorite ride is like me It's a small world, he did like it, but then asked to go on his favorite, that's my boy!

Sadly our vacation had to come to an end, we came home to snow, the kids instantly started singing Jingle bells, and it was like we had never left our cold wintry home, with the exception of we have slight tans and the kids are running around in shorts because the refuse to believe it is cold outside.... Oh we do love vacation....

Going on Safari....

 I have to admit I was so lucky I got the letter S for coop, my dear creative friend Christy did all the work for me as she had the letter S for her coop and posted all her fabulous ideas, I had already decided to do a safari and then just incorporated a chunk of the fun she had into it. It was so smooth. Thank you Christy. So We did these animal cupcakes for snack and then I made the ones below to talk about Size, the kids all wanted the biggest cupcake, they were so funny about it but they did just fine with the little ones and loads of strawberries and their swirly straws.

 Before we headed off on our adventure we did sweet smelling strawberry scratch and sniffs by taking a picture of a strawberry on card stock painting it with white glue and then sprinkling strawberry jello over it, the kids were amazed, I could have stopped there.We were so busy with the activities and fun I didn't get many pictures. But we didn't we went on a safari and hunted six animals, rectangles because that was our Shape we were learning and the number 19.  We used our Senses to learn about each of the animals. Throughout the house I had hid eggs that were shaped liked animals (thank you Easter clearance) and the kids could grab them as we found them we would stop the hunt and do the S activity, like sing, play Simon says, slither like snakes, stand, sit, sew our shadows on, I had 20 s activities in the eggs they found all but two

 Ready to go hunting, for elephant they had to listen to the sounds it made and decide what animal it was, for chimpanzee they had to dig their food out with a stick and taste different things, it was dried blueberries in chocolate pudding, for lions we did a lion hunt, with rhythm sticks and then we used our noses to hunt the scent of cotton balls peppered with essential oils, for hippos we played human hungry hungry hippos and threw cheerios at each others masked faces, which was hilarious I wish I had video of that. The Panda we watched the live Panda at the San Diego Zoo to see what we could learn with our eyes and for Lemurs we leaped all over to see if we could leap as far as them, not quite but we did have some good leaping.... 

 I found safari hats at the dollar store, and I made vests out of paper grocery bags, then Doug actually made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and duck tape, I was three paper towel rolls short for making our snakes so jimmy, addy and I did that later We had awesome S sheets that Christy had created, the kids loved

All and all the S turned out quite Super 

Thanks again christy I hope you have the same letter as me next time, LOL could I be that fortunate? 

See What I can Do

 Every 8 weeks or so Addy's gymnastics class has what is called a see what I can do day where parents and whatnot are invited to come and the kids show off their skills. These are from one of those nights, Gymnastics has been one of those things that has been SO GOOD for Addy and always surprises me with the things it helps here overcome and do, she loves going with Doug and Jim. And she loves coming home and teaching Jim all that she has learned, we usually see more of her skills that she has learned at home then we ever do in the See what I can do show, but it is still fun to go and see her, it is the one time that I also go to gymnastics, I get oodles of outings and fun things with her and Jimmy this is Dad's special night with them and they both just love it! They are so MONKEYS!