Pfun in Pflugerville

This was an exciting weekend for Sophie since she had TWO birthday parties to attend! Today, we went to the birthday party of the son of my good friend, Deb. Brandon turned four years old and he celebrated his big day at the Scott B. Mentzer Water Park in Pflugerville. Sophie and I headed up there and proceeded to have a blast! The water park is so great for small children. It had a wading area, jumping fountains, mini slides, a lazy river and two big slides. Typical Sophie, she rushed in and I spent the next three hours chasing after the daredevil.

We started off easy and went down the mini-slide:














Mommy decided she needed a break from the pool and convinced Sophie to play in the fountains for a bit:

I surprised myself by having the nerve to go down the 20 foot slide with Sophie without David around. Sophie LOVED it. Every time we finished the slide and landed in the pool, she pointed back towards the stairs and said "I do it again, Mommy". She even tried to swim away from me straight towards the slide without getting out of the pool first! It's hard to keep up with this girl!

Sophie was beyond tired, but kept pushing herself to play more and more. We got out of the pool after going down the big slide for the ump-teenth time and she said "I want more", but then proceeded to crash on my shoulder. That's what happens when she's four hours past her nap time! I knew it was time to end a perfect Sunday afternoon.




















The fashionista had some Capri Sun before we headed home. Thanks for a hosting a wonderful birthday party, Deb!

Hannah's 7th Birthday Party!

Today was so much fun! We drove to San Antonio to celebrate Hannah's Birthday with a luau at Jenn & Wade's neighborhood pool. As always, Jenn did an unbelievable job decorating the pool area with pink & green everything. The food was delicious, the cake was beautiful... no detail was left untouched! We all had such a blast! Sophie swam for nearly 3 hours straight, which more than tripled the amount of time we typically spend in the pool. She was a fish - jumping in and swimming 10 seconds under water all by herself. The swimming lessons have really paid off this summer.

It's no surprise that kids copy each other. Today, Sophie decided she wanted to jump off the DIVING board after she saw Ethan jump. I can't believe those two! They are only two years old and jumping fearlessly several feet from the air into a pool 9 feet deep. I love it!

Sophie's cousins, Sarah and Hannah, were trying hard to get a picture with Sophie.















The next 3 pictures show the progress of Sophie's diving board experience... from walking down the board by herself, to getting ready to jump, to the "air shot".











































Sophie, along with all the other kids, had a chance to hit the pinata:

Late Night Fun!

We were happy when Kristin & Josh asked us to watch Ethan so they could have a night on the town! We don't see our nephew nearly enough! So, Sophie was excited all day when we told her Ethan was coming over to play! David and I decided instead of having the two of them tear up the house, we were going out for dinner at Home Slice Pizza, which serves my favorite pizza in town. The kids were fantastic and so well-behaved! They get so riled up together, I decided to give them a warm bath so they could relax before putting them to bed for the night.

I couldn't resist snapping pictures of them giggling as we were getting ready for bath time!

Ethan and Sophie played so well together in the bathtub! I could have left them in there for hours!

Swimming Sophie

Since we were only spending about five hours at the the various parks and Sophie wasn't napping at all, we had a few free hours in the afternoons, which we spent at the hotel pool. Sophie is really thriving in the water. She was even counting 1-2-3 and dunking her entire head under the water all by herself. We weren't even asking her to do it! Considering I'm not a huge swimmer, I think she takes after David!

Our final day we spent in Coronado, touring "The Del" and having lunch in Little Italy. It was sad to get back on the plane, but we will definitely be planning another trip west again. I would love to visit again within 3-4 years as I never got tired of Southern California this go around!

Look at the smile! You can see in her expression that she's having a blast at the pool!

And, here's our human beanbag. She loved Daddy throwing her in the air!

View the San Diego Zoo

What better way to top off our last full day in San Diego than visiting the #1 ranked zoo in the US? I was looking forward to this day as I've heard so many great things about the San Diego Zoo! The lasting impressions I took with me were: the zoo was enormous (it would be difficult to see the entire place in one day), and the set up of the entire park and exhibits was extremely impressive. Just like the Wild Animal Park, you really felt up close and personal with these active animals. We saw all kinds of apes (gorillas, orangutans, monkeys, chimpanzees), big cats (tigers, leopards, lions), bears (polar, panda, brown and koala), hippos, birds, giraffes, kangaroos and so many other species that I can't list them all!

Quick picture before we got started mapping out our trail path to view the "aminals", as Sophie calls them:

Sophie was having her own conversation with the gorillas. She was mesmerized when the mommy and baby came right up to the glass and the adult gorilla was looking at her. If there wasn't a glass partition, she would have been petting the gorillas:

Last thing we did was visit the Children's Zoo section, where there were even more animals! Sophie was fortunate to get to pet billy goats and sheep in this petting zoo. Just like the day before, she insisted on petting each and every one before we left the petting area. I am so pleased that she's not afraid of most animals and really has an appreciation for them. Though, in this picture she's petting one and already looking for the next billy goat she could pet and hug:

Sophie really wanted to get down on their level: