Zoo Times Two

Elise had a fieldtrip to the zoo a couple of weeks ago.  I signed up to be a parent chaperone and Jody and Sarah decided to come along for the ride.  The weather was beautiful and we had a really fun day.  The two girls that were in Elise’s group are both in our ward.  It was funny to see their different reactions.  One of them would get super excited about every animal we saw (scream and giggle kind of excited) and the other one only wanted to spend about 12 seconds at any one exhibit before she was bored.  It was interesting.  The highlights were seeing the wolves up close, watching two tigers fighting, the baby giraffe, and the polar bear.

I decided to buy a membership to the zoo so I could take all of the kids a couple of times this year.  They got out of school early on Tuesday because of parent teacher conferences, so we headed down.  It was a perfect day to be at the zoo.  By the time we got there all of the fieldtrips had left for the day and we had the place pretty much to ourselves.  It was awesome!  We lucked out with our timing and saw lots of cool animal behaviors.  Emily made a list on the way home of all of the fun things we saw:

Between nagging the kids about homework and cleaning their rooms and practicing piano, lots of days I feel like I am just a bossy, grumpy mom.  It was really quite lovely to just hang out with them and have fun together.  We should do it more often.

Elise's Baptism

Elise got baptized on Saturday.  It has been a LONG wait for her.  The baptisms in September were on the 1st, so she missed it by 5 days.  She was a little bitter for a while that I didn’t have her on my birthday.  She thought it would have been so cool to have her birthday on the same day as mine and my mom’s (30 and 70 years apart respectively).  Plus, she could have gotten baptized on her birthday (like Emily was).  She came to terms with it after I explained that moms don’t just get to pick the day their babies are born, but she still had a hard time waiting a month and seven days after her birthday to get baptized.  I didn’t mind the wait since it gave us more time to get everything ready, but I wasn’t in love with the idea of her getting baptized on the 13^th.  I got over it when I realized it was the mirror image of Ben’s baptism date . . . 10-13 and 01-31.  Phew.

The day of her baptism was pretty busy.  We went to Abby’s last soccer game in the morning and then headed home to get the house and food ready for company.  With Ben and Emily, we just had everyone come over for some treats after the baptism.  A couple of my friends said that we should really feed people dinner if they were coming over afterwards and I foolishly gave into peer pressure.  The dinner turned out fine and Elise liked having everyone stick around longer, but it was sure a lot more work than baking a few batches of cookies and making rice krispy treats. 

The baptism itself was great.  Elise had lots of family and friends there to support her and she loved every minute of it.  Nothing ruins a perfectly good Saturday for Ben like getting in church clothes and going to a baptism, but even he did fine when he saw that his friend Korbin was at the church.  We were the host ward again, so we were the last ones to the font.  The water was warm and it only took one dunk.  Elise was lots faster getting dried off and ready than the little boy in our ward who got baptized right after her.  She was so happy that she finally got to wear her baptism dress. Grandma Reatha took her shopping for it in August and it was the longest two months of her life to have to wait to wear it.

We kept up the tradition of making a slideshow.  It takes a ton of time to pick the pictures and put it all together, but I always love the final product.  It is fun to have eight years of life wrapped up in a nice little 11 minute DVD.

We sure love Elise!  She is a happy, funny, spontaneous girl.  She has a big heart and is the most naturally generous kid I have ever met.  We feel blessed that she is part of our family.

Mom Miss Party

Thursday night was the Mom Miss party for Activity Days.  Elise was excited that she was old enough to go with me and Emily this year.  It was a costume party and we were supposed to wear opposite costumes.  The old standbys of salt and pepper wouldn’t work since there were three of us, so we decided to go as cops and robber.  The girls looked so cute in their policewomen outfits.  At the party we each made our own English muffin pizzas, put on a little skit to show off our costumes, and then played board games (our group played Apples to Apples).  I’m glad that I get to be a mom to girls and I sure have fun hanging out with them. 

Day 5: Thursday, September 13th- Huntington Beach

We were pretty worn out from the previous 3 days, so we slept in a bit late and were really slow getting ready to go to the beach.  Malinda was a little grumpy about how slow everyone was by the time we actually left, but she eventually got over it.  We made our way there through California traffic and got to the beach a little after 1:00.  We decided to go to Huntington Beach, and it turned out to be a great place.  After playing in the cold September ocean water for a short while, we were very glad to don our wetsuits that we brought along.  We enjoyed hours of boogie boarding, collecting sea shells and sand dollars, and sliding down the little sand cliffs (Abby).  We attracted a few seagulls when we were eating lunch, and one of them decided to use Elise’s head for target practice.

After playing for about four hours at the beach, we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and to get some dinner.  I made a quick trip to El Pollo Loco while the kids and Malinda showered and got in PJs, and we had some yummy Mexican fast food for dinner while relaxing to some cable TV.

Quote of the day: “The worst thing of the trip and the funniest thing of the trip is that a seagull pooped on my head!” – Elise

Day 4: Wednesday, September 12th - Second Disney Day

Our original plan for this day was to head to the beach, but at the last minute we changed plans because the weather was supposed to be warmer on Thursday. To get into the park quickly so we could get the fast passes for the new Radiator Springs Racers, I left early with the 3 older kids while Malinda and Abby got ready.  We got the Racers fast passes and had some time to kill before we could ride, so we headed to Toy Story Mania and rode that a few times before the lines got too crazy. 

We zig-zagged back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure a few times, running back to Disneyland to get some photos and ride Splash Mountain a few more times (with more bribes for Abby). 

Heading back over to California Adventure, we hit California Screamin’ a bunch of times both with and without fast passes, Goofy’s Flight School, Soarin’ Over California, and Silly Symphony Swings.  Abby went on the Carousel and Toy Story Mania extra times with Malinda while I went with the older kids on California Screamin’.  We went on Tower of Terror a bunch of times since the older kids and I loved it so much, and Abby was content to hang out in A Bug’s Land.  Malinda was a nice mom and rode with her even though the spinning rides made her feel pukey.  We got to ride Radiator Springs Racers again, and it was hilarious seeing Abby wave and smile at Mater (in the ride) like he was real! 

It was a HOT day and the kids were pretty pooped by the afternoon.  They were taking a break on a bench and met the coolest street sweeper man ever.  He we quite entertaining with his rhyming life story and a great example of having a positive attitude no matter what your job is.

We had lunch at the Pilot’s Grill, (which is now our new favorite place to eat at Disneyland… just say yes to air conditioning!).  We headed back to Disneyland in the evening to hit a bunch more rides there including the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and Star Tours.

Quote of the day: "Don't come in here.  I smell bad.  I reek.  I can already tell." – Abby