Easter 2011

This year's Easter was the best one to date. Not only was Rae old enough to understand the Easter Bunny, but she was also old enough to listen to and care about the atonement. She loves listening to stories of Christ, and she really enjoyed the Easter pageant this year. Even though we were in a terrible spot, and could only see if we stood up, she watched most of it, and was even able to tell parts of it to her Sunbeams teacher the next day. I hope for better behavior from Laynee at the pageant next year...

This was the first year that both girls hunted eggs, and they did so good! The Easter bunny put an R on all of Rae's eggs. When they found eggs that belonged to the other one, rather than leave it where they found it, they would pick it up and take it to their sister...and then celebrate it's finding together. It was so cute.

San Diego Zoo

We decided to take a long weekend a few weeks ago and go to San Diego to use our zoo membership one more time before it gets hot there too. It was the best decision ever! The girls were AMAZING the whole drive there and back. Santa brought them a dual screen DVD player for the car for Christmas, and they were so happy to just watch movies the whole six hours there. We stayed in a hotel in La Mesa about 10 minutes from the zoo and were put in room 111. The whole time we were there, and still at least once a day, Rae talks about the One's and how badly she wants to go back. As we would walk down the hall she would say "one one four, one one three, one one two, and here's ours, the ones!" It was seriously so cute!

The next morning we woke up and went to the zoo. We started off by riding the train tour around the whole zoo because we knew there was no way we could ever see everything without it. Our first mistake was sitting on the bottom level of the bus. Rae really wanted to ride on top,and she was a stinker for almost the rest of the day. She whined and refused to look at ANY of the animals, but she stayed in the stroller so we pretty much ignored her. Laynee wasn't about to let a cranky sister ruin the zoo for her. She got more and more excited with every animal she saw. She was so happy, and totally in her element. She has always loved any animal, and it was cute to see her try to say all the new animal names. When we were worn out, we rode the Skyfari back to the front of the zoo to leave. Both girls LOVED it. For the first time since we got to the zoo Rae was smiling and laughing, and Laynee just tried to hang over the edge screaming "whoa" at the top of her lungs. Neither one wanted to leave when Jeff and I were ready, but both were sound asleep in the stroller before we even got to the car.

The next day we got up and went back to the zoo for a few hours. We started off riding the Skyfari back to the back. We saw a few exhibits, rode the Skyfari back to the front, looked at the snake exhibits, and decided to head home. We were so happy to be able to take our first vacation without extended family. It was nice to not worry about toddler tantrums slowing everyone down. It was so nice to be able to take things at our own pace and just enjoy being together. It was so nice even, that Jeff and I were able to laugh through most of those toddler tantrums. I can't wait to go back in October!