beach.

my favorite part of the trip is over... for some reason the beach just makes things so much better. i love the sound of the waves, the wind, the sand... siggh... i want to go back.

 buut things we've learned at the beach:

1. traveling by yourself with a baby is hard! props to all the single moms out there, i don't know how you do it.

2. baby loves the aquarium! for the time that he was awake {which was not a whole ton, sitting in the stroller tends to do that to him} he stared at those fishies and seals and sea otters like nobody's business. he was quite the happy man.

3. mom is very out of shape. we went bike riding around, and i about died. ugh, i need to work out more. as soon as i get home.

4. kite flying is hard business. not only can i NOT do it, i broke mine, by having it dive bomb into the sand.

5. once you pop with icecream, you can't stop. somehow, we ended up with thin mint, butterfinger, chocolate, heath bar and vanilla frozen yogurt in the freezer.

6. guacamole is delicious. end of story. {notice how the food tends to make a number of these}

7. baby LOVES mobiles. somehow from the time we left home, to when we got to the beach, he became interested in toys. which of course, we did not bring any to satisfy him because he never cared. oops.

8. mom is a fantabulous bargain shopper. the outlet malls proved very successful, with my two pairs of lucky jeans on sale and then another 40% off, totalling 95% off of $115.00 each, to $26.00 total. every time i think about it, i get excited.

9. someday in my dream house, my shower is going to have at least 4 nozzles, and be huge. and i'll have a jacuzzi tub. i spent many hours in the shower/tub this past week soaking in all i could of the fabulousness that i'll lack at home.

10. we're a pretty cute family, if i do say so myself. =}

wrong.

ok.... maybe we were wrong.

but...

strange how he can look so much like one person... and then so much like another.... weird eh?

{yes, i am in canada now.... in case you couldn't tell by the "eh"}

{don't my boys looks so handsome?? =) }

phoenix.

i don't have any pictures because i left the sd card thing at home, but instead of having a 1,000 year long post when we get home, i figured i could at least write what we've learned in the first 1/3 of our trip.

1. baby=vehemently hating car seats with a passion. about 4 hours into the drive we realized that this was gonna be a long one. he was ticked. and that's an understatement. and we thought the drive down was bad, well it got worse driving around phoenix. we're talking blue in the face, can't breathe, and we're silent for like 10 seconds because we're so mad screaming. it was fabulous.

2. f1 go carts make me a little nauseous. and apparently i'm super slow at them. not only did i lose to my husband and dad, i came in dead last out of everyone on the track. these go like 50 mph, but apparently the highest i got mine to was like 20 something... i suck.

3. i love weddings. nicoles wedding was fabulous. made me want to get married again-- to which my husband responded "it'll be to someone else then because i'm never doing that again". pffft.

4. phoenix is freaking hot. as much as i love how big it is and how theres so much to do, the heat just gets to me. i get sweaty just getting in the car and that grosses me out. levi did apply to two dental schools down there though, so i guess we'll see how that goes.

5. baby loves swimming. cracks me up to watch him and daddy floating around the pool. it's pretty cute actually. he makes all his crazy noises, and hates his little water hat but he's oh so cute when he's in there. he gets exhausted and conked out for several hours afterwards. also a plus.

6. baby is an attention magnet. my cousin used him to get girls to talk to him, in church he becomes the talk of the sacrament meeting, at weddings he is just dressed "so cute", friends say "oh i can't wait to see zak". who cares about the parents eh? we're so boring compared to him, not that i'm bitter, it's just funny to see how he is the talk of the town.

7. wards outside of utah=awesome. he was the only baby in the sacrament meeting and even his little ah ah ah ah ah was like super loud. this ward was like our singles wards when no one makes a peep. i forget sometimes that there are places outside of utah that are normal and no one lives right next door to each other.

8. i can't wait to get out of provo. i'm so tired of utah. phoenix made me remember i like big cities and happening things...

ohh babe is waking up now, but i'll post pics soon and update our fabulous beach time as well.

phew.

the time has come. for our 3 week trip. holy moly, it's a lot of work packing for that long. especially for two of us.

we are off to phoenix [with a stop at the grand canyon just for pictures] for NICOLE'S WEDDING {huzzah! it's about time}this weekend. levi leaves on tuesday to come back and take finals, and i am off to SANTA CRUZ {wahoo}on wednesday with the babe [first airplane flight, we'll see how that goes], where levi will meet up with me on friday. we're there until the next thursday and then we're off to CANADA until the 4th of july.

it's going to be crazy. i'm going to miss my bed. i hope i packed everything i need for the child. hopefully.

p.s. i think i should mention that i packed a small suitcase for this trip. my husband was impressed with me. as i was as well. little did i know that i would ever consolidate clothing to make it easier to haul. sheesh, i'm becoming a mom.

p.p.s. buy some headbands/clips from me so i'll have something to do while i'm at the beach/canada. details on fb =)

adios amigos.

joy.

mommy has found something fabulous for baby:

these turn this: 

into this: 

within about 2 books, we are out. who knew books were so exhausting?? 

p.s. the babe has slept all week from 10:00 to 5:00 {on the dot} every single day. pure joy.   

learning.

i'll admit, while being preggo i had all these aspirations for our child- he will never ever sleep in our bed, he won't be attached to sucking his thumbs, suckys, listening to music when he goes to bed etc etc.

first night- baby sleeps in our bed. 

first week- baby becomes addicted to sucky to calm down and go to sleep. 

we have spent the next several weeks, with the babe in the bed so that we can keep his sucky in his mouth and for some reason he goes to sleep faster. let me tell you that's been a challenge with the husband who subconsciously tries to kill the child in his sleep, by covering his mouth with his hand or covering him with blankets.

as we all know, mommy likes her sleep so this seemed to be best option so she didn't have to get up all the time for the babe.

however.... 

- this past week we've learned that baby can go to sleep in his own bed. even when he's wide awake, he'll eventually go to sleep after he sits there talking to himself for a bit. who knew you could leave a baby alone and he'd just go to sleep? score one for mom and dad.

- we've also learned that when we don't start out with the sucky- we don't need it to go to sleep. score two for mommy and dad.

it's quite a good feeling knowing that we figured out how to get the child to work our way.

 

[grouchy grouchy baby]

{it's amazing how this little bugger makes everything better when it's in his mouth. whoever invented these is a genius}