Long Beach.

For our first day in California we decided to head to Long Beach. We found this awesome harbour area that we had a blast exploring.

The pier just happened to have a little carnival area. So you know Elena and Robert insisted we stop!

Robert is pretty good at hitting the jackpots on the ticket machine!

Then we walked around some more and had fun being silly together. :)

We grabbed some lunch at a little pizza place right on the pier. Elena was so excited to eat outside!

After lunch we decided to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, which just happened to be right across the street!

She especially liked the interactive parts - she got to touch a shark, sting ray, sea urchin and starfish!

The aquarium had this little water area for kiddos to cool off, complete with a jaws shaped blow dryer!

Big sharks were in this tank - and check out how huge that sting ray is!

They had a lorakeet feeding section just like Tanganyika - but here they actually climbed onto your hands!

After the aquarium we found one of our favorite places - Bubba Gump Shrimp Co - around the corner so we decided to grab dinner there before we headed back to the "Tello" as Elena kept referring to our hotel!

We packed a lot into one day and this little girl was worn out! What a fun start to our vacation!

Going back to Cali...

Well, after a 4 hour delay on our flight...Elena and I are officially in California again! :) We are so excited to spend some much needed time with Robert this week! My little girl looked so big pulling her little suitcase around the airport all by herself! She is growing up way to fast!

We will keep you posted about all of our fun adventures this week!

Butterflies.

Last weekend my Mom and I decided to take Elena to Botanica to check out the butterfly house. There were a ton of butterflies flying around and Elena thought it was pretty awesome.

It was very hard for her to sit and be patient and wait for the butterflies to come to her, but she finally started to get the hang of it.

They even had little coloring pages with information about different butterflies for the kids to color.

Elena loves butterflies and she really loved the butterfly house! :)

Go fly a kite.

Last Friday the weather was absolutely gorgeous! Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy and finally a night with out the threat of any crazy thunderstorms! So we decided to take Elena's kite out and fly it for the first time. She was so excited!!

I didn't realize how fun flying a kite was! We both had a blast and were giggling and laughing like crazy as we took turns chasing it and each other!



And I just have to show you what Elena's hair does when I put it up in pigtails~how cute is this little curl? I am going to be so sad when she doesn't have these adorable little curls anymore!

Splashing around.

Last week we came across this little overflow of water from a pond near our house and I swear Elena thought it was the best thing ever!


Seriously, who gets THIS excited about water?? :) That's my girl!

Big Girl Bed.

Well, after 2 years and 9 months I finally let go of having Elena in a crib! She was definitely ready for a big girl bed, especially considering she was climbing out of her crib all the time. So we finally got one for her this past weekend. She has done really well so far! After I put her down she usually gets up about 3 times to "potty" (seriously doubt she is really potty-ing all of those times!) then after that she stays in her bed until the morning! She has a serious obsession with the movie Tangled, (which is a whole other post in itself!) so we went with that for her sheets - lets just say she is in heaven!! :)

I can't believe how quickly my little baby is growing up!!

Just keep swimming.

This week Elena has started swimming lessons! We think it is very important for her to learn how to swim, especially since she is in or around a pool almost every day in the summer. She is a master with the life jacket on but she really needs to be able to swim on her own. Monday I was working out of town so I missed her first class (my mom was able to take her). So I was very excited to take her on Tues, until she started whining about not wanting to go on the way there! Then she also fell asleep on the way there (by the way, she is doing her best to give up naps all together but seriously still needs them!) which made her extra groggy when we arrived. As soon as we go to the door she started crying - I mean hyper-ventilating, screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs, snotting-all-over-me crying! The instructors basically wrestled her away from me and took her away. I was starting to tear up too! :( I didn't even get to watch her lesson b/c they asked me to stay away from the windows! Lots of other moms told me not to worry, and that their kids all did this as well at the beginning but loved it after a couple days - which was reassuring to know. They also warned me that today might be worse too, so I was mentally prepared for battle today. But when it was her turn she walked in all by herself like a champ! I was so proud!

Today I got to watch and of course I just had to take some pictures! She seemed to be doing really well!

Patiently waiting her turn on the edge,

but she is definitely a ''splasher'' while she waits - lol.

I was so relieved to see how well she was doing!


She even went all the way under to retrieve a toy from below!

She came out talking about how fun swim lessons are! Whew, what a relief! :) I was a very proud mama today!