Discovery Kingdom

My sister Katie had decided to take her kids on a Daycation yesterday so that they could have a little fun this summer and was kind enough to invite Sienna and I to go with them.  We went down to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for a fun day of animal shows, rides and hot weather (I think we went through 8 water bottles!)  Here is our day in pictures...

Katie and Me

 

Mason and Sienna waiting for one of the shows to start.  We saw the Tigers, Birds of the World, Shuka the Whale and the Dolphins.

(She like whale show the best.)

Playing in the Splash Pad for some relief from the heat...

 

Jeep Ride...She was so excited to go on a ride by herself...mommy sat in the back.

 

Dolphin show, complete with Slurpees and Nachos.

 

Sharing Dip n Dots with Lucas

 

By far her favorite part was the merry go round.  We rode that thing four times!  Sienna's least favorite part was probably waiting while the big kids went on rides.  We had a great time spending time with Katie and her kids.  I'm excited to take her again when she gets big enough to ride some rides :)

4th of July

We had a great fourth of July!  We went over to a family friend's house and went swimming with all the cousins.  Sienna was so excited to go swimming with daddy...

Daddy enjoying a  much needed break from all his studying...

 

After swimming we headed back over to me parents and played with water guns and bubbles until dinner was ready and dinner was seriously delicious!  Once it got dark enough we started the fireworks.  Sienna hated it at first...

 

But she got used to it and eventually she fell asleep about 3/4 of the way though.  Silly girl.

After fireworks we ended the day with red, white and blue cupcakes.  

 

It was such a good day.  We hope your fourth was as wonderful as ours.

Drive Ins

On Tuesday Tracy and Chad invited everyone out to the Drive Ins to see Brave and the Avengers.  I decided that we would go but just for Brave so that we could get home at a decent hour plus I had already seen Avengers and since Nick didn't come I didn't want to have to drive home super tired.  We met up with everyone and had fun hanging out waiting for it to get dark and the movie to start.

I couldn't believe that Sienna stayed awake for the whole movie!  I thought that it was a cute movie and was glad that Sienna could move around as much as she wanted!  It was a perfect way to go to the movies with my crazy girl. <3

Jill's Yes Day.

There is a lot of pictures for this post mostly so that Katie and steal them.  Last Friday Sienna and I were lucky enough to be included on Jill's last day with Grandpa before she gets all big and goes to Kindergarten and CDI with her big brothers.  Grandpa had a list of a bunch of things Jill wanted to do so we went out and tried to check off all the things on the list.  We showed up a little after the day had started so by the time we had joined them they had already had donuts for breakfast and gifted balloon bouquets for her preschool teachers.  We started off with horse back riding in William Land Park...

Sienna didn't want to ride the horse but she was okay looking at them and even petting them,  Jill loved it!  She got to go around four times with Grandpa on the biggest horse they had.  After that we went off the list and hit Funderland for a few rides since it was right there.

 Sienna LOVED the merry go round!  Jill's favorite was the Dragon coaster and we all decided that next time we would try out the log ride.

Lunch at McDonalds...

Feeding the squirrels at McKinley park after we stopped for a cupcake at Icing on the Cupcake...

We also went over to the pond at McKinley park and saw the ducks!  Jill really wanted to feed them but we hadn't brought bread.  Luckily some nice people came by and offered the girls some bread!  Sienna ate most of hers but did manage to give some to the ducks.  We even got to see three ducklings!

We went to the pet store so that Jill the animal lover could look at all the animals...

We also went to Home Depot and got a pumpkin plant that she could plant at grandpa's house.

We ended the day playing in a little pool at Grandpa's and then watching a movie of her choice with popcorn and m&ms!  Sienna missed out on the last activities because she had finally crashed and was taking a much needed nap on Grandpa's bed.  It was such a fun day!

Sacramento Children's Museum

One of the things that I have really enjoyed lately is having the opportunity to spend more time with the moms that live around me.  Some of the moms in our ward have weekly Wednesday excursions and anyone is invited.  We have been to two different ones and are excited to make some more new friends before the summer is over!  

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Sacramento Children's Museum in Rancho Cordova.  I had been wanting to take Sienna but wasn't sure if she would be big enough to enjoy it.  She was a little hesitant and was definitely in an in between age where the toddler stuff didn't really interest her but the bigger kid stuff she struggled with a little.  However, we did find some things that she LOVED.  She would have painted forever and didn't want to leave the water area or the giant lite bright.

We ended up having a lot of fun and were glad that we went and will probably go again when she is a little bit bigger!

Summer Time...

Summer was here for awhile and then a random cool down came.  That didn't stop us from hanging out with the cousins in the pool though.  It was windy but we had a spa and snacks...what else do you need?!

Camping 2012

 I was so excited to go to Santa Cruz this year for our annual camping trip and even more excited that Nick was able to come with us.  We had a great time visiting the tide pools, hanging out, going to the beach and especially going on the "ice cream" hike!  Sienna didn't love the journey out to the tide pools but she did love looking at all the sea life and even holding a star fish!

 We did go to the beach, but unfortunately the weather that day was cold and super windy so we only stayed for like a half an hour.  That was enough time though to check out the ocean and dig around in the sand with her new sand toys from Grandma Hudson.

 

      

One of our favorite traditions is the ice cream hike.  There is a trail down from our campgrounds, through the Redwoods and at the end of the trail is a little visitor's center where Grandpa buys everyone ice cream!  

 

 

We also had plenty of fun hanging out at the campsite especially with bubbles 

and family to play with. 

 

 

Our only downsides where that Sienna decided that she needed to sleep in mommy and daddy's sleeping bag and she was terrified of the fire.  Although I would rather her be afraid of it then want to touch it!  We had so much fun!