Zoo

Last Saturday we took Anna to the Santa Barbara Zoo. We weren't going to go to the zoo, we had been planning to go to the temple but we couldn't find anyone to watch Anna (Kristen and Nathan went to the temple too) so we changed our plans. Side note: I felt a little bad about not going to the temple but the thing I had scheduled for next Saturday was canceled so we are planning on going then.


When I told Anna what we were doing that day, the first thing she said, matter-of-factly was, "animals eat me?" She didn't sound scared or anything, just that that was what was going to happen. I assured her that the animals would not, in fact eat her because they would be in cages. She seemed good with that.


We had the best time at the zoo. This is the first time Anna has been to a bigger zoo than the teeny tiny local one (seriously small) and she loved it. She pretty much ran the whole time.


We got to see them feed the otters and the penguins so that was a lot of fun. The weather was perfect (of course, it's Santa Barbara) and we even got an awesome parking spot.


They have a little kid's playing place with this cool hill that you can slide down on a piece of cardboard. There were a bunch of kids there so it took a while before we could get some cardboard and then a little longer for Anna to be willing to do down on her own but she got it in the end and liked it.

We were there for about three hours which seemed just right to see the place without being too pooped. It was a great family trip.

The Obligatory Quote Post

Anna says the funniest things. Here are a few of my recent favorites:

- One day when Jason went to the temple and was gone all day, she said she was sad. When I asked why, she said she had "lost my daddy."

- While I was watching Dancing With the Stars and some of the professionals were doing their routine she said, "wear no clothes." I tried to tell her that they were, in fact, wearing clothes just not very many but she didn't seem to buy it.

- Just about anytime I offer to help Anna but she doesn't need it, she says "me got it". Conversely, this morning she asked for my help and said, "You're a good helper."

- She also likes to let me know what she wants by saying, "me point". That way she doesn't have to mess around with me not understanding her, which is sadly frequent.

- She is working on counting. She loves to do it but skips a few numbers. It goes something like this "one, two, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

- When we come down the street going home, she says, "I see my house!" Apparently she thinks we live here (just because we have lived here longer than anywhere else in her lifetime, go figure). She also likes to point out "Brennan's house" when we pass it.

- Any time I'm talking about someone, she asks, "you talking about me?"

- Once when we were going for a walk, she said, "knock knock, whose there? banana" then she would laugh. She did this over and over again and cracked herself up.

- When she is playing in her kitchen, everything cooks for "two minutes".

- "Say night night boys", every night before bed.

- Then, just after I was thinking how she had never said it, she said, "Wuv you mom."

Beach Day

The other day we went to the beach. It was still a little bit chilly to go in the water (which isn't saying much around here, it has to be in the 90s at the coast for me to want to get in that water) but we found a nice wind block and flew kites.


Nathan is a big kite person. This may have had something to do with living in Wyoming (where small children can get blown away if not held onto - literally) but Kristen said he got started when he was in graduate school in Baltimore. Now his kids all seem to be pros and Nathan was very patient with letting Anna feel like she was doing it.

All of their kites are two stringed ones that are fun but a bit trickier to keep up. By the end of the time we were there, I felt like I had gotten a hold of it and could keep mine in the air for a respectable amount of time. And I didn't even crash my kite into anyone. Go me!


Ironically, I was not looking forward to going and was contemplating staying home. All I could think of was everything I didn't like about the beach (the sand mostly). Then when we got there, it was so nice that I was glad I had gone. If we end up staying here for a long time, I can see needing to be practically dragged to the beach or else we'll never go. My poor kids.

Funny Mommy!

Anna has taken to saying this when she is in trouble. I first noticed it when I was trying to put her to bed at my parent's house. After a difficult time getting her down (lately she has been really wiggly and talkative while I sing to her) she started crying several minutes later. Since it was a new place, I was singing to her again and she said she was poopy. Naturally, I'm not going to leave her in a poopy diaper all night so we left the room to change her. No poop. I was so frustrated and there she was saying it was funny! Grrr!

It has come up several time since then and each time I try to keep my temper as I tell her it is not, in fact, funny but not nice or naughty or rude or whatever it is. I was telling Kristen about this the other day and her son Peter (6) was listening. Now he tells her things are funny when he does something to her that makes her mad. Then I hear the poor girl saying "no, Peter, no funny!"A part of me feels like this isn't nice but the rest of me is all for it. Maybe then she will stop when she sees how annoying it is and it wasn't coming from me. Somehow, if it were from me it would be mean but since it's from him it's ok.

Olympics

I know the Olympics ended a week ago but I only just got around to watching the closing ceremonies so it's got me thinking about them again. I was able to watch a fair amount of them this time (way better than last time when I was in India and didn't know the Indian websites to watch it on). Kristen's family actually got cable for the Olympics once we realized we couldn't watch full events on the internet otherwise.

I LOVE the Olympics. Jason and I spent our date night watching the opening ceremonies at my mom's house. Poor Jason fell asleep on the couch before it was over but I stayed up and enjoyed the whole thing. Then, the first day we had the cable set up, I watched it all afternoon with Christopher and Jonathan. Who knew snowboard cross was so interesting.

By far my favorite events are the figure skating. I stayed up late watching the women's short and long programs on tv. The online coverage was interesting because they showed it as if you were in the arena. All three plus hours of it with Zamboni breaks between the groups (that was harder to get to watch since Anna's naps aren't usually longer than two and a half hours). I find I really like the commentary. It's not as intrusive as it used to be and it gives a lot of good background on the different skaters and how their seasons have been going.

I even got Anna into watching it. She would watch the figure skating with me for little bits of time. She loved to watch them jump and after each one, she would say "more jumps!". One day I was watching the ladies and Anna was sitting on my lap. She held onto her leg in a position that looked just like what the skater had just been doing. Then she got up and started trying to spin on the bed. It was so cute.

Other than the events I knew I wanted to watch, I love how the Olympics gets you watching and interested in the sports that you wouldn't think to watch otherwise. Other than snowboard cross (which was awesome) I also got into bobsled, Nordic combined (we did so great in that one), slalom, pretty much whatever they showed in prime time. The funny thing about me is that I get all caught up in the athletes' stories that I want everyone to win. It seems like they all work so hard and it means so much to everyone that I don't even really care what country they are from. Heck, I was really happy for Canada to win men's hockey and for all the golds they got (this was the first home Olympics that Canada won a gold in and they got 14).

I'm so glad they changed the schedule to every two years. Although, I'm less interested in the summer Olympics, I'm still looking forward to London in 2012.

Is that Strange?

Jason and I don't know, off the top of our heads, how old we are. We were talking about it the other night and had to seriously think about what year it is and the fact that our birthdays haven't happened yet. So is that strange?

Etiquette Dinner

As mentioned, on Saturday before Valentine's Day, Jason and I were the host couple at a youth Etiquette Dinner. Let me explain first what this means. The Stake youth leaders had couples come and put together a table with the settings and decorations and sat with the kids to kind of mediate the conversation and help the kids know how to have good table manners and things like that.

For the week before, Kristen and I were trying to figure out what we should put on the table. Kristen has white on white plates so we kept trying to think of how to add color to the table.

Hilary has white plates with a red stripe around the edge so I used half of each kind and alternated them.


It was a subtle difference but I liked it. Then Kristen has stem water glasses that we used. Jason had the idea of using candles. We put them on a red plate, tied a fun ribbon around them and spread red rose petals and candy around the table.


We were totally stoked when we found some round red place mats on clearance. They were just what we wanted to have color on the table and gave it a subtle polka dot look (with the ribbon on the candles tying it all together).


Once we got everything set up, we looked around and I liked our table best. Poor Jason had to keep hearing me talk about what I liked best about our table and why I preferred it to all the other ones. I find that when I am planning something, I'm not very good about visualizing what the end result is going to look like. So, when I do it and it turns out well, I'm pleasantly surprised.

The dinner part of the evening was fun too. We had a full table with two boys and four girls and the conversation went well. Generally, it flowed through the whole evening. The end was a little bit funny. They passed out conversation starters and they were all about death. Things like: 'if you had one day left to live, what would you do' or 'where would you like to be buried' or 'what do you want on your epitaph' or 'if you could take one thing to heaven, what would it be'. We thought that was pretty funny.

Then the boys were able to collect the balloons and suck helium. They brought so many home and one balloon didn't fit in our trunk and it flapped spun in the wind. Sadly, it didn't make it home but it was fun to see how far it went.