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A Week of Love and Fun

This week was full of Grandma and Grandpa, which was wonderful! Monday, Paul and I took Joseph to the San Antonio Zoo (Grandma and Grandpa stayed home and enjoyed quiet time).

In the petting zoo [1]
In the petting zoo
Checking out the zebras [2]
Checking out the zebras
Rhinos are huge! [3]
Rhinos are huge!
Looking out over the zoo [4]
Looking out over the zoo
Cheese! [5]
Cheese!
Loving looking around [6]
Loving looking around
Tired boy with his souvenir monkey plush. [7]
Tired boy with his souvenir monkey plush.

We were quite impressed with the zoo. The tickets were inexpensive ($10/ea. for me and Paul w/a military discount, free for Joseph), and there were a lot of really cool animals. We’re definitely going to go back, and may even get the season passes. Joseph loved showing his monkey to Grandma and Grandpa when we got home (and it has resided in his crib ever since).

Tuesday through Friday went flying by with a lot of visiting and relaxing. On Friday, we hung out at the house while Paul was at work. Once Paul got home, we decided to go shopping, and ended up getting Joseph a new set of wheels. The funniest thing about getting him his new “bike” (right now it just scoots, but there are fold-out pedals that he can use as he gets older) was that once it was put together, he didn’t want to get off! In fact, he pitched the worst fit I have ever seen in his short little life when it was time to get off the bike to come to dinner. He’s better about it now, since he knows the bike isn’t going anywhere.

Cheesing it up. [8]
Cheesing it up.
Wheels... [9]
Wheels…
More wheels... [10]
More wheels…
More wheels... [11]
More wheels…
and even more wheels...yes, it is the first thing he runs to in the morning! [12]
and even more wheels…yes, it is the first thing he runs to in the morning!

One funny thing that Joseph learned to do this week was say the word, “awesome”. He really made us proud with that! He said it over and over the first time and now pulls it out on occasion (though never when the camera’s recording, lol). He’s also getting better with dealing with his toothbrush (he prefers to brush his OWN teeth), chewing his food (as opposed to just letting it sit in his mouth until it’s soft enough to swallow), and holding a spoon (I help him load the spoon up with food and actually get it INTO his mouth).

Saturday meant saying goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma. 🙁 Paul stayed home to get some yard work done while it was still cool and Joseph and I took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport. We miss having them here, but we had a wonderful visit, and we’ll see them again relatively soon (Paul’s brother, Jason, is getting married in June, so we’ll be making a quick trip back to California). I was feeling kind of down, so I brought up the idea to Paul of going to Sea World in the evening. It’s so nice to have passes! We’re able to go for just a few hours at a time whenever we want. Well, as long as they’re open, lol. We discovered that, unlike San Diego, this Sea World has certain times (like the entire month of April) where they are closed during the week and only open on the weekends. I think it changes once the summer months get here to where they are open every day. So we decided that since they were open, we’d take Joseph and walk around. We decided to take him to see the sea lion and otter show which he seemed to enjoy (and which only lasted 20 minutes…which is about as long as his attention-span is, lol). At the end of the show, we got up to leave and noticed a couple sitting behind us that had a little girl about Joseph’s age. As they were looking at each other and assessing the situation, the little girl decided to lean in and give him a kiss (well, she just gently brushed her face against his, but you could tell what she meant by it). It was so cute!

Too into the show to stop for a picture. [13]
Too into the show to stop for a picture.

We had just enough time after the show (and before needing to get home for bed) to see the penguins and puffins. We were going to stop by the dolphins on the way out, but the area was closed for a private event. We’ll just have to make sure that we see them next time.

This morning, we were trying to come up with things to entertain Joseph and Paul came up with a brilliant idea. He blew up the kiddie pool that we picked up to go in our back yard and filled it with Joseph’s stuffed animals. Joseph knew right away what to do:

Playing with one of Paul's old phones while sitting in a sea of stuffed animals...and an old computer mouse. [14]
Playing with one of Paul’s old phones while sitting in a sea of stuffed animals…and an old computer mouse.

It was a great way to end last week and start this one!