Halloween Fun!

Halloween is over and the kids really had fun. This was the first year that everything made sense to Jenna. I am going to be curious if she still thinks that she gets candy for saying "trick or treat" at people's doorsteps. She's so cute she would probably succeed at still getting candy from them.

Here is our handsome Jedi Knight and beautiful Cinderella. This picture was taken before our church trunk-or-treat party last Saturday night.

Here is our princess with her prince. (Okay, maybe he's the king because I am the queen.)

At the trunk-or-treat Robby was surprised to find his arch-nemesis Darth Vadar. These two enjoyed several light saber duels throughout the evening.

Fortunately we were able to get them to stand still for a little bit to pose for a picture together.

And this is the part Jenna liked the best... the candy!

Hiking a local mountain trail

Guest blogger Robby here. In preparation for our Grand Canyon hike, we took family practice hike #2 yesterday, with special guest stars Aunt Andra and Audrey. This time we actually managed to bring our camera.

Here are a few of the highlights, from the cave (more like a large alcove) at the top:

Jenna enjoys some rock climbing. (It's not as steep as it looks--the camera was tilted.)

Our good-looking boy, still looking a little flushed from the hike up.

As you can see Little Robby wasn't the only red-faced one in the group.

Jenna's looking fresh because she got to ride up the whole way. We had three loads of about 25 lbs.--Jenna, Audrey, and a backpack full of 72-hour-kit goodies--that the three adults passed back and forth up and down the mountain. (Jenna did walk part of the way down.) Little Robby carried about 12 lbs. of water in an ill-fitting school backpack, although his load lightened quickly as we consumed its contents.

Overall, we gained 800 feet over the 1.6 miles to the top, close to the grade of the Grand Canyon trails we'll take. We were pretty wiped out by the time we returned to our starting point.

Here are some bonus Jenna pix, as she models several of her favorite moods:

For our birthmom...

Today, as I was taking a little bit of time surfing the internet, I stumbled onto a YouTube video about birthmoms. As I watched it, I began thinking about you and decided to write a message here especially for you. While writing this, I sit here wondering where you are and hoping that you might feel the love I have for you. As an adoptive mom, it is quite frequent that my thoughts reflect upon my daughter's birthmom. Everytime I hug her and kiss her my unending gratitude goes to her beautiful birthmom. I can't truly describe the feeling in words. When I think about you, my heart is already feels that same love and gratitude for the choice you are making. I know we haven't met, but I also know you are a beautiful person, and at the right time we will meet. We can't wait for you to become part of our family. I hope that in the meantime you can feel our prayers of comfort and peace for you.

With love,
Sharon

Let's do the Shamu Splash!

On our second day in San Diego we decided to try out Sea World.

When we arrived it was raining a little, and we sadly realized that we only had one umbrella for six people. I forgot to pack the another umbrella, so we all huddled together as we waited to go through the admission line to get in the park. Fortunately, the rain was not drenching, just steady and a little heavier than a drizzle.

My parents decided that they would rather not get wet in the rain so we went to the gift shop in search of another umbrella. They had sold out by the time we got there, so we ended up getting ponchos instead. We found out later that we were glad to have them because...

Little Robby wanted to sit in the "Soak Zone" during the Shamu Show. Okay, "Big" Robby has not stopped giving me grief because I told him that although we were sitting in the "Soak Zone" I figured that sitting 10 rows back it wouldn't be so bad, right?! I figured we would be splashed, but not "soaked."

Well, as you can guess, I was wrong! Laugh all you want... Poor Jenna wasn't laughing. She was a little disturbed by Shamu splashing her. About the worst part was that I tried to cover Jenna with one side of my poncho to protect her and managed to accidentally expose my lap in my haste, so my legs got soaked. Yes, soaked!

Fortunately, the whole show is not about Shamu splashing the audience so Jenna still came out with a smile in the end.

Here is my one picture of Shamu jumping out of the water to splash the audience.

Actually, what got us soaked was not Shamu doing a belly flop, but what you see at the end of this video. (I found this on YouTube, and it is exactly what we saw!)

Aren't we cute in our Sea World ponchos.

Eventually the sun did come out and we were able to put away our ponchos. Here we are taking a ride on the Sky Tower overlooking the park. Jenna was so happy to be able to go on a ride with everyone.

Boy would she have been excited if their new Sesame Street exhibit had been open. As you can tell she was happy just looking at the Elmo picture.

It was fun seeing a few creatures I have never seen in real life like this beluga whale...

and this walrus. Boy was he huge!

Okay, so you might guess from the fact that we are wearing long sleeves and light jackets that the outdoor tempurature that day was not extremely warm. (Robby was only in short sleeves because he doesn't like his jacket. Not to mention the fact that jackets aren't something you worry about too much in the Arizona desert.) And when it is chilly is definitely not a time that you really want to be getting wet, but Little Robby just had to ride Sea World's one roller coaster, Journey to Atlantis (seen here). Luckily those ponchos came in handy again!

After the roller coaster was done our Sea World Adventure was over. We saw four shows (Shamu, dolphins, sea lions, and pets), saw sharks in a tunnel through their tank, viewed penguins, and several other interesting creatures. All in all, it was very fun!

Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us make this trip possible! We really enjoyed going with you!

Legoland California

We just got back yesterday from a fun vacation to San Diego. One of Little Robby's favorite places to go is Legoland, and we just had to go back since we had such a great time on our first visit. On this trip, we had fun taking my parents. My dad wanted to go back to San Diego because he served there while in the Navy a long time ago (I won't tell you how many decades it's been since then! ;)

This was our second ride of the day... the traditional "Teacup Ride." I wish I had pictures from the first ride that the boys took, because it was interactive, and I got to splash them with "water bombs" by pressing a button provided to spectators. It was great fun trying to time my sprays to get them wet!

One of the highlights of the day was for Robby to get a chance to play with the Lego Mindstorms. The last time we went to Legoland we didn't know that you had to sign up to play with them so we missed our opportunity because all the sessions had ended by the time we got there. This time we made sure not to miss out!

Lego Mindstorms are programmable Lego robots. You create programs on a computer to tell the robot what to do then you download it to the onboard computer and run your program. Very cool, I must say! As other participants left our session, the instructor even let me play with one for a while. It was great!

Here you can take a look at Mindstorms in action.

During the first half of the day, poor Jenna was feeling very left out watching Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, Mom, and Chap go on the rides when she didn't get to. She would watch from the side very forlornly and plead, "My turn?! Jenna's turn! Ride!" Eventually Daddy had pity on her and took her over to where there were rides that she was big enough for. She was so happy! The picture above was of her in the helicopter ride sitting next to Daddy with the camera.

Here she is checking out Lego Miniland USA (an area of impressive Lego made buildings).

Little Robby and Grandma and Grandpa stand in front of Legoland New York City. It was fun seeing the Lego version of buildings we had seen last summer on our trip to see Aunt Donnette (August 2006).

And to end a good day at Legoland we had to have pictures with everyone. First the kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Then the four of us.

And lastly all six of us.

And finally our little Lego maniac in front of his favorite place -- Legoland California! Maybe some day we will have to go to Legoland UK or Denmark or Germany!

One last bonus pic... Jenna discovered that standing in the bathroom drawer in the hotel was lots of fun! What a silly girl!