Folsom Zoo

Today Sienna and I headed out to the Folsom Zoo with some friends of ours from church.  The zoo is actually an animal sanctuary so is very small but kind of perfect for toddlers with a short attention span.  There were even peacocks and roosters just roaming around which the kids thought was pretty cool. 

After the zoo we went over and rode the train and then picnicked in the park!  If your ever in the area you should check it out.

Jelly Belly Factory!

Since Nick has some time off of school right now we decided to take a day trip and visit the Jelly Belly Factory.  It was the first time we have taken Sienna and she thought all the machines were pretty cool but her favorite part was definitely trying out all the Jelly Belly flavors!

My favorite was actually getting in some daddy time...and the chocolate covered gummi bears!

State Fair 2012

We did the State fair like old people this year.  We walked in so we didn't have to pay for parking, got there right when it opened, didn't ride the rides and we gone before nap time...and it was awesome.  We hit the animal nursery, the exhibits, the petting zoo and checked out all the stuff for sale.  We had the traditional corndogs, took a golden bear picture and Sienna got a tattoo.

 

 

  

  

 

All in all, a great day!

Grandpa's Birthday!

July has been crazy busy around here and last weekend was especially crazy!  My dad turned 60 and we celebrated in style.  The Esslingers even came from Idaho to celebrate the big day.  We started the celebrating on Thursday, Dad's actual birthday with a family BBQ.  It was so much fun to have everyone there and watch the cousins play with eachother.

On Friday we all got babysitters and headed out to Raley Field to watch the Rivercats game.  Katie did a great job planning everything from getting the suite, to making sure Dinger came and said hello to Dad, to delicious cupcakes and a birthday message on the screen.  It was a great night!

On Saturday most of the crowd went golfing and then we had a party for Dad with friends, swimming, cake and Dos Coyotes.  

We had such a fun weekend!  Happy 60th Birthday Grandpa.  We love you!

Discovery Kingdom

My sister Katie had decided to take her kids on a Daycation yesterday so that they could have a little fun this summer and was kind enough to invite Sienna and I to go with them.  We went down to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for a fun day of animal shows, rides and hot weather (I think we went through 8 water bottles!)  Here is our day in pictures...

Katie and Me

 

Mason and Sienna waiting for one of the shows to start.  We saw the Tigers, Birds of the World, Shuka the Whale and the Dolphins.

(She like whale show the best.)

Playing in the Splash Pad for some relief from the heat...

 

Jeep Ride...She was so excited to go on a ride by herself...mommy sat in the back.

 

Dolphin show, complete with Slurpees and Nachos.

 

Sharing Dip n Dots with Lucas

 

By far her favorite part was the merry go round.  We rode that thing four times!  Sienna's least favorite part was probably waiting while the big kids went on rides.  We had a great time spending time with Katie and her kids.  I'm excited to take her again when she gets big enough to ride some rides :)

4th of July

We had a great fourth of July!  We went over to a family friend's house and went swimming with all the cousins.  Sienna was so excited to go swimming with daddy...

Daddy enjoying a  much needed break from all his studying...

 

After swimming we headed back over to me parents and played with water guns and bubbles until dinner was ready and dinner was seriously delicious!  Once it got dark enough we started the fireworks.  Sienna hated it at first...

 

But she got used to it and eventually she fell asleep about 3/4 of the way though.  Silly girl.

After fireworks we ended the day with red, white and blue cupcakes.  

 

It was such a good day.  We hope your fourth was as wonderful as ours.

Drive Ins

On Tuesday Tracy and Chad invited everyone out to the Drive Ins to see Brave and the Avengers.  I decided that we would go but just for Brave so that we could get home at a decent hour plus I had already seen Avengers and since Nick didn't come I didn't want to have to drive home super tired.  We met up with everyone and had fun hanging out waiting for it to get dark and the movie to start.

I couldn't believe that Sienna stayed awake for the whole movie!  I thought that it was a cute movie and was glad that Sienna could move around as much as she wanted!  It was a perfect way to go to the movies with my crazy girl. <3

Jill's Yes Day.

There is a lot of pictures for this post mostly so that Katie and steal them.  Last Friday Sienna and I were lucky enough to be included on Jill's last day with Grandpa before she gets all big and goes to Kindergarten and CDI with her big brothers.  Grandpa had a list of a bunch of things Jill wanted to do so we went out and tried to check off all the things on the list.  We showed up a little after the day had started so by the time we had joined them they had already had donuts for breakfast and gifted balloon bouquets for her preschool teachers.  We started off with horse back riding in William Land Park...

Sienna didn't want to ride the horse but she was okay looking at them and even petting them,  Jill loved it!  She got to go around four times with Grandpa on the biggest horse they had.  After that we went off the list and hit Funderland for a few rides since it was right there.

 Sienna LOVED the merry go round!  Jill's favorite was the Dragon coaster and we all decided that next time we would try out the log ride.

Lunch at McDonalds...

Feeding the squirrels at McKinley park after we stopped for a cupcake at Icing on the Cupcake...

We also went over to the pond at McKinley park and saw the ducks!  Jill really wanted to feed them but we hadn't brought bread.  Luckily some nice people came by and offered the girls some bread!  Sienna ate most of hers but did manage to give some to the ducks.  We even got to see three ducklings!

We went to the pet store so that Jill the animal lover could look at all the animals...

We also went to Home Depot and got a pumpkin plant that she could plant at grandpa's house.

We ended the day playing in a little pool at Grandpa's and then watching a movie of her choice with popcorn and m&ms!  Sienna missed out on the last activities because she had finally crashed and was taking a much needed nap on Grandpa's bed.  It was such a fun day!