We Love The Zoo

Wednesdays will become our weekly zoo day for the summer. It'll be a family adventure or a mom and daughter bonding activity depending on Matt's work schedule.

We started the afternoon with a trip to see the chimpanzees and orangutans and then slowly moved on to the gorillas, macaques and gibbons. The orangutans were lively today and rolled around, swung from their ropes and wrestled with each other.

We ventured to the pandas, but evidently they were hiding. Their enclosure was closed because of panda research most likely. The female panda might be pregnant so they have had a close eye on all of them. So....we headed to see the elephants.

Yum....fruit roll!

The Elephant Odyssey is Jen's favorite spot. Kalista got a bit hungry by this point in the day. Here she is sucking on her fruit-by-the-foot (she prefers the paper lining since it keeps her fingers less sticky). Stickiness is the least of our worries. Because the flavor is berry blue, you guessed it, her lips ended up getting stained a beautiful blue color. Everyone who passed by us gave us a double look over to make sure Kalista was okay due to her new lip color.

As we started to head to the front of the zoo, we happened to catch the giraffes during mealtime and they wanted nothing to do with all of us staring at them.

Yum...grass!

We made a very large loop around the zoo and ended with the koalas. We happened to get there late in the afternoon as they were all waking up.

This is Budaru, a 7 year old male koala

Kalista had a long day and you can see it on her face

Hi Papa..Cows Go Moo

This past weekend we ventured back to the San Diego county fair to get our taste buds stimulated. It took us about an hour to get up there and park our car. As we walked around, we watched dare-devilish folks bungee jump above the food court, commented on the safety of all the carny rides and navigated skillfully with our stroller through massive amounts of people. We strolled around in the vendor halls and made it to the art exhibits this time around.

We admired the work of many talented San Diegans as they exhibited their paintings and art work. Jen found the elephant painting exhibit finally. She was a little disappointed that actual elephants were not painting their masterpieces, but instead framed artwork by elephants were displayed on the wall. Eh...can't be picky, right?

We also ventured to the photography exhibit where Kalista pointed at almost all the photographs and squealed. She must have been having a great time.

Kalista soaking up some sun in the Paddock area

We caught a couple rounds of boxing as we rested in the Paddock Area of the Del Mar Fairgrounds. It might have been rigged since the fighter from San Diego won each fight. Kalista soaked in a little sun and snacked on an apple slice.

Kalista is cruising quickly and baby step walking across the room

Even after the fair, Kalista was a ball of energy....cruising and walking around. Besides her new found confidence in walking, Kalista said "Hi Papa!" loud and clear yesterday when she looked at Matt. It was a big surprise to hear her say such a little phrase so well, since she babbles most of the time.

We were working on an animal puzzle today and she repeated *neigh* and *moo* when we got to the horse and cow. She is truly a sponge absorbing everything around her. No more potty mouth for us in the house...oh F#$#*@* S*$&#@$!!! (just kidding...we have clean mouths)

Standing and hanging out in her favorite spot

I Love Nemo!

Hello everyone! Sorry we don't have any new pictures this week. It is so true what they say about taking pictures of your kids...as they grow up...you capture the memories in your heart and not as much on camera. Kalista is also very hard to catch for a picture now that she is cruising around quickly.



She is another step closer to little toddler-hood. Besides take baby steps by herself around the house, she said "NEMO" yesterday. She now has the words for all of the most important things and people in her life. She can now say: mama, dada, dog, doggy, Joey, Bella, hi, baby and Nemo ("Finding Nemo" is by far her most favorite movie of all time next to "Tangled" and "Gnomeo and Juliet").

My New Monster Doll

Our neighbor, Hiroko, was so generous and creative. She crocheted Kalista a monster doll. Its name is Sherbert...since it is pink and orange and reminded all of us of sherbert. We have goggles from the movie, "Despicable Me" and Kalista loves putting on and taking off the goggles on Sherbert.


The monster doll was the highlight of the week. Not much has happened since the County Fair, except trying to figure out why Kalista's g-tube site keeps leaking. It's starting to get annoying having to change her outfits multiple times a day since a large wet spot shows up on her onesie. Kalista is so smart now; she touches her g-tube button when it starts to leak to let us know that it's (1) getting wet and (2) uncomfortable. Hmmm..it's such a mystery!

Oh wait...we did see Ms. Tami, Kalista's PT, this week and she told us that she has no concerns about motor development. Kalista is so close to walking all by herself...she just needs to take that leap of faith and go for it. We don't have to go back for another visit with Tami until September.

**NEW UPDATE** Check out the compression wrap page for more updates on her wrapping progress.

We're Going To The Fair

We woke up this morning and debated on whether we should go to the New Children's Museum downtown or the San Diego County Fair. Fried food, carnival rides and animals won....so we packed the car and headed to the Fair.

Kalista enjoying her first county fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds

We strolled through the exhibit halls and checked out all the vendors and exhibits. We even ran into our next door neighbor walking around. We decided to bring our own lunches this year to be a little bit more health conscious. Typical fair food includes many things like deep fried cheeseburgers...deep fried Klondike bars.....deep fried pickles....deep fried heart attack waiting to happen.

Despite the health hazard, we couldn't help but wonder what some new additions to the fair menu tasted like- fried Kool-Aid and fried Girl Scout Cookies (aka Thin Mint). Final verdict....eh....they were okay. Fried Kool-Aid tasted like a thick doughnut mixed with Kool-Aid. The name ended up being more appealing than the taste of the fried ball itself. We all know you can imagine what a crunchy, warm Thin mint would taste like...so we'll stop there.

Yup...fried Kool-Aid. Who would've thought?

Kalista looking at the baby pgymy goats

Kalista enjoyed looking at all the animals. Many of the them were bigger than her...oh heck...many were bigger than us. We saw a pig named Peaches who weighed 600 pounds and many of the steer were larger than all three of us combined. Kalista liked the little pygymy goats and piglets the most since they were more of her size. The llamas were in full display today and even showed us that they too can look like full-sized poodles.

"Poodle-Llama"

We missed the piglet races this year, but made it to the turkey stampede race instead. It was funny seeing all the turkeys chase after a little red RC truck on the track. Those turkeys run pretty fast!!!

Jen wanted to check out the elephant who paints, but couldn't find where the exhibit was. Instead, she ended up getting onto an elephant, named Becky, for a mini ride. Go figure...she was destined to see an elephant at the Fair.

First Trip To The Zoo

Okay....we admit...we kind of dropped off the face of blogger for a bit there. It has been two weeks and many events have happened since our last posting. So, we'll sum it up in a photo montage.

At the end of May, Jen celebrated yet another birthday (we won't say the big number...since you're not supposed to ask ladies that question without getting the death stare).

Happy birthday momma!

On Memorial Day, we had a quaint little picnic and Kalista had some fun at the playground. She enjoyed a nice swing ride and shimmy down the slide.

Even dad took to the swings

We kicked off June with a BBQ and had some very tasty steaks and burgers off the grill. Matt, the master chef of the house, once again impressed us all with his culinary skills. Our cousins came by the house to visit and enjoy not only the food, but also an afternoon of creativity. Jen got herself a Cricut paper cutting machine as a birthday gift and has been caught up in scrapbook and card making mode. She decided to hold an impromptu card making session and everyone went home with some original masterpieces.

Kalista impressed us all and took her first three steps by herself this past Sunday. We think she even impressed herself, since she had a big smile when she landed in Jen's arms. We haven't seen a repeat performance since then...oh well.

When she's not running around, she likes watching Tangled and knows how to work the controller

She has been going through more teething woes and her left front tooth has sprout through the gums. She has three visible teeth now.

It is finally Wednesday and we decided to head to the zoo this morning for a few hours before Kalista's music class at Gymboree. It is her first time to the zoo! We made it through a few major animal exhibits before she fell asleep. Kalista visited the giraffes, elephants, wombats, meerkats, koalas and a few more animals before she dozed off. Too bad she missed the pandas and polar bears. We'll just have to save that for another trip.

Kalista's first trip to the zoo

A peacock came to greet us

Nice kitty

Did you know this??? We didn't.

Jen's favorite animal is the elephant.
Matt's favorite is the hippo.
Wonder what Kalista's will be?

Kalista loves papa

That seal is way too serious!