Seattle

Last weekend we celebrated our 9th anniversary (April 28th) with our first ever 'just us' family vacation. Prior to Magdelyn our Seattle vacations consisted of rock concerts, poker, and sporting events. This year we went to the Zoo and then we went swimming.

The Seattle Zoo is INCREDIBLE. She was in awe that her story book animals were coming to life. She chanted "more animals!" throughout the 4 hours we spent there.

A gorilla and her baby.


Peguins, right up close.


Crocodiles (her new favorite animal sound, which includes hand action, is SNAP!)


Every once and awhile we had to run to keep up.


She fearlessly fed the bird 'dinner.'


Otters


Elmer the Elephant (since returning home she's called every elephant 'Elmer')


We made it to the flamingo enclosure just in time to see a flamingo couple fornicating and a family next to us being forced into an impromptu sexual education discussion with their grade schooler. Awesome.


A few lions sun tanning.


We went back to our condo in time for her nap (Tim worked out - I went shopping) and when she awoke, SWIMMING!



The only down side was that she puked on the way there, poor carsick little thing. Besides that, it was a perfect 2 night get away. I heart Seattle.

Rewind....to mid october.

California.

One week before we shuffled homes, we tripped to Palm Springs with Magdelyn's best friends: Grammy and Papa, Auntie Broni and Uncle Jeremy and their kids; Emme, Spencer and Ryder.

Palm Springs summary: We swam, ate, slept and went to Applebees for my 31st birthday. I didn't spend too much time actually in Applebees as Maelyn preferred this bench to her high chair. We've since decided to abstain from torturing servers and other restaurant patrons until further notice.


Then we went to Disneyland.


We'd barely stepped through the gates when I had my very first ever celebrity sighting.



That's Noah Wylie from ER. We discussed his attire at length. Why would he be wearing skinny jeans and a heavy plaid shirt on the hottest day I've experienced in maybe ever. Did he think that along with his scraggly beard and aviator glasses he'd be disguised? It didn't work. It might have, but his personal Disneyland escort totally gave him away. He was there with 2 kids and a lady his children called Grammy. Which is FUNNY because our kids call OUR Mom GRAMMY???!?!? It was SO meant to be. We all rode the jungle cruise together.


Broni is pointing at him with her head. He's wearing glasses and located at the opposite end of the boat.

Other must have, and self explanatory, Disneyland photos:




Magdelyn has a thing for Chickens. More details on this 'infatuation' in my next post.

camping

I wasn't sure if it would fly, this business of our annual camping trip plus Maelyn. I'd been tortured on a vacation once before with her. When we arrived at the site, perfectly timed just before her first nap I felt optimistic that it would go smoothly. We hurried the tent up and put her into her playpen (which we'd practiced sleeping in the week earlier). She screamed. Her lungs out. Hysterically. Despite obvious exhaustion, she was clearly communicating...this is not my room (or any of the rooms that I've agreed to sleep in). I got her up, and napless we headed for the beach. The night she did a similar thing, but eventually drifted off. I was discouraged, and not hopeful that I'd remain at the site for the duration of the booking...

That night was fine, and by the next day she had (almost) given the tent the stamp of approval. By the last day she was happy in the tent - in fact, her fussiest was when we were packing the tent back up!

Besides the first day, Maelyns biggest impact on the trip was our early mornings and thus -- earlier bedtimes. While we previously might have lazed in bed till 8 or 11 we were up with the crack of dawn and exhausted by 10pm. If it cramped our co-campers style (Chris and Shereen), they were very gracious about it.

Shereen and Maelyn


We want Maelyn to learn young that the best vacations include reading a book on the beach.



WATER BABY! This child loves the water at any temperature.

Leah and Maelyn playing her favorite "rocks in the cup" game.

Chris doubted that it would happen, but snuggles occurred between these two. Further proof:






Camping lesson #1: maintain sleep schedule as best as possible. Camping lesson #2: Bring the Jolly Jumper. Maelyn's portable highchair annoyingly didn't fit on the picnic table so she jumped through basically every meal.

I was going to label this post as "annual camping trip edition 5" or something like that but when I thought about it, I realized that Tim and Chris and I have been camping every summer since before we were married. So, since the summer of 2000. Which means we've been camping together 9 years running. That's some faithfulness. Cheers Chris! Here's to 9 more!