Welcome to Sea World

First of all, sorry for the horrible looking posts (with tons of space between everything). It doesn't look like that when I'm writing it. Lance says it's because blogger has crappy html. I don't see anyone else's blogs looking like this so I don't know why mine is having such a problem. Anyway, Monday morning, we went to Sea World. Here's Skye getting a glimpse of her first animals... the beluga whales (Lance's favorite)!
We all enjoyed watching the belugas.

The best part was the baby! Yep, this mother had a baby. The baby is gray.

It stayed pretty close to its mom most of the time.

Also in the polar region were the polar bears!

We saw this one get a drink and even swat at a fish!

In a polar bear cave. They had loud growling noises in there that scared Skye. She didn't want to go in at first, but Lance finally coaxed her in for a picture. You can kind of see how she's covering her ears!

This was looking at the belugas from underneath the water.

We thought it was funny that they spent most of their time swimming upside down!

The baby beluga!

As much fun as the whales and bears were, Skye's first big reaction came from seeing the walrus. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of it, but as soon as she saw how big it was she loudly exclaimed, "Whoa!" Skye was the one who chose to go to Sea World. I asked her last fall if she wanted to go to Sea World or Disneyland and she said Sea World. I'm glad that's where we went. It was a lot of fun. Stay tuned for more!

Interrupting My Vacation Posts

They say that life is full of surprises. Here's one of our own:

Yes, it is a surprise or an accident or whatever you want to call it. We were not trying to get pregnant. We were going to wait until the summer to try, but now I'll probably be due the end of November sometime. Skye is thrilled, of course, since she has been pestering me forever about having a baby! As for the boy or girl question, I have this feeling it is a boy. So far this pregnancy has been very different from my last. I'm a million times more sick than I ever was with Skye. I feel HORRIBLE most of the time. I've already got some cravings and I never got a single craving last time. I have to pee more this time--seriously, waking up four times a night to go to the bathroom just sucks! But in the end, even though it seems like I'm having a boy, I really want another girl. The main reason is simply because we are all agreed on a girl name. However, we all have very different ideas for a boy and no one seems very willing to bend. Lance wants Ben Lomond, I like Jack, and if it's a boy, Skye wants to name him Squiggles. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

We took Skye rock climbing yesterday.  It was the first time she's gone with her new harness.  She was a bit concerned some of the time, but also had a fun time.  It was great just to be outside and enjoy the mountain air.

 This bird kept flying around.  It had a nest near where we were climbing.  I think it was going to get food for its babies.

 It was a fun day!

Vacation Day One

Last Sunday we flew into San Diego. Skye did great on the plane even with a layover in Oakland. She loves helping with her suitcase even though it's probably as big as she is.
Here's Skye her first time on the beach at the ocean! Our hotel was right on Mission Bay so we went out to the beach every day we were there.

Meeting the ocean for the first time!

I LOVE this picture Lance took of us! Isn't it great?!

Lance had to go for a swim, of course, even though I thought the water was a bit cold!

Skye got braver and braver and even ventured in quite a ways herself!

We spent much of the time being horses (Skye is an animal more than she is a girl--what a great imagination she has). She and Daddy were hyper horses having races down to the water!

Easter

A couple of weeks ago, I arrived home to see a pinata hanging in our closet. Lance had gotten it, thinking Easter was the week before it was. We kept it concealed for a long time, then decided to invite one of Skye's friends over for some fun. We didn't have a bat so we had to sort of improvise with other things.

The girls gave it their best shot, but Lance finally had to give it some good whacks to get the candy to fall out. It was a lot of fun.

Here's Skye in her Easter dress. She picked it out herself. I was shopping for shirts at the Children's Place when she suddenly held this dress up to me. I told her I didn't want to get an Easter dress back and put it back on the rack. I went back to looking for other things only to have her bring it back to me. Since she seemed to want it that much, I got it. And I'm glad I did because she looked very beautiful in it!

The Ponds

Any time we drove past Ponds Park on the freeway, we'd notice a lot of pelicans flying or swimming around, so we finally decided to go check them out. Of course, first I had to get a picture of this!

We were hoping to see a bunch of pelicans, but unfortunately there was only one! But we still got some cool pictures of it. 

Skye had a performance today at a park in Bountiful.  It was pretty chilly, but it's always fun to see her perform.  She's come a long ways since Christmas!

Winter Zoo Adventures

Back in January, there was one of those days that felt like spring so we headed to the zoo. Unfortunately, the nice weather didn't last. It ended up snowing on us, but it was fun seeing the animals in the snow. They were pretty active. You can't see it that good, but this elephant was throwing mud on its back! Just a good picture!

Skye had fun in the snow.
I was just glad they had free hot chocolate for us!

The tigers were seriously trying to catch snow on their tongues, too!

Riding a tiger!

We probably had the most fun watching the tigers play!

We also had fun watching Zuri, the baby elephant, in the snow!