Our Trip to the Phoenix Zoo

Have I mentioned that we are having fun here!! We got to go to the zoo for free with a pass from our library, YEAH for FREE!! I'm not sure if we go to the zoo for Aiden or for me. I love the zoo!! We had so much fun, even though it was HOT! This was in front of the flamingos. A favorite of mine at the zoo.
This zoo is cool because they have several exhibits where you walk into the animal's area and get to be right up close to the animal. If the animal would let you, and if you wanted to risk loosing a finger, you could reach out and touch them. That's how close they are. I loved it! Oh...Aiden did too. The exhibits we got to walk into were the Marmosets (kangaroo), and the monkeys. That little tiny fence did not stop the Marmosets from jumping over and coming right up to the stroller. So fun!
The monkeys were jumping and climbing all around you. It was awesome to be so close.
A favorite part for Aiden was the water play areas. They have two. Aiden walked around the fountains that would shoot up and hit him right in the face, and he didn't even care. He loves the water!! They have water slides and all kinds of fun things to do in the water!
My all time favorite animal at the zoo is the Giraffe! Aren't they awesome! Aiden and I paid to go feed them. Aiden was so brave to hold that piece of lettuce while the giraffe's long, slimy, blue tongue came at him! He would only do it that one time though. He didn't think it was as fun as I did.
The giraffes get two pictures on my blog because they are so cute. I just love them!
The tiger came and layed right in front of us. It was awesome because then Aiden actually saw it, and it made for a great picture!
They also have a petting zoo and farm area at this fun zoo! Aiden LOVES tractors, and thought he was in heaven when he got to sit on one all by himself.
We got to pet the goats! There were lots of them, and they didn't mind people at all. Aiden was squeeling with delight and patting them and they didn't even notice he was there. He loved petting the goats!!
We had a very fun day at the zoo! We love doing fun things for free! See my other blog below about our trip to the Children's Museum!

Aiden's First Steps

Today Aiden walked for the first time!!! He took his first steps along the ledge in the swimming pool. He loved walking in the water! We wanted to see if he could walk on dry land like he did in the pool, so Allen stood him up and let go of his hands and he just started walking. It was the craziest thing. I had no idea he could!! It wasn't like he took a few steps and fell, he was just cruising like a pro. It was so awesome!! Click HERE to see the video of him walking. My little boy is so big!! I can't believe it!

Our Trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum

We are having so much fun in Phoenix. Our library has a program where you can go to different cultural museums, and other places for free!! We are all about FREE, so we got a pass to go to the Phoenix Children's Museum. It was so much fun!!! It wasn't really a museum, just 3 levels of fun things for kids to see and do. Aiden had a very fun time but had missed his nap so was VERY tired and didn't enjoy it as much as he could have. Plus most of the things were designed for kids a bit older than a 1 year old. Although they have an entire section for kids under 3, which was nice for us! This is Aiden on our way in. He was ready for some fun!!!
Every inch of the museum is covered with something fun, bright, and colorful to look at. All of the decorations are made from recycled stuff, which I think is way cool! These are fish made from used laundry detergent bottles. Fun huh!
Aiden sitting in a car all by himself. He thought it was cool to be in it by himself and steer with the steering wheel.
This was my favorite part. They had an area, probably 12 feet by 24 feet ( a huge sized room), that was filled with these bright green pool noodle, styrafoam, things. They were so close together that once you walked in you couldn't see the person walking in front of you. It was a sea of green noodles.
They have a big colorful maze of fabric tubes where the kids can crawl around. Aiden was the smallest kid in there, so mom had to be a kid too and crawl around with him. He thought this was really cool!!



We had such a fun time playing at the Children's Museum! We can't wait to go again for free!!

Our Temporary Condo

Here are pics of the condo where we are staying till we can find a house. It's furnished, which is nice so we don't have to unpack and repack all of our stuff.


















Our favorite part of living here are the 2 swimming pools! We go swimming every day now since I'm not working and dad is gone to work most of the day. Aiden is a fish!! He loves swimming more than anything. He is so brave and goes under the water falls and under water. He kicks and splashes just like he's really swimming.We love it here! The weather's great, the pools are nice. Anyone is invited to come and play!!

Moving!

We did it!! We finally moved. We packed up all of our earthly belongings, and on a rainy and wet April 25, 2009 we loaded everything on a big Budget truck and headed out to Arizona.


















We had so many friends, neighbors, and family come help us get everything out of the house and packed on the truck. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came and helped! We could not have done it without all of you.
Allen had the truck packed so well that we still had lots of room left in the truck. After everything was packed we had lots of help from family to clean out the house and do last minute fix-ups. We spent the night at my mom and dad's house. It was so nice of them to have us in their home and took really good care of us. The next morning we finished some last minute things at the house and we jumped in the big truck and took off. Michael was amazing and drove our car down with so we could all be together in the truck. It took us 12 hours to get to AZ. I didn't have my camera, so all I had was blurry pictures from my phone.












Aiden was amazing on the long 12 hour trip. I couldn't believe how good he was. We only stopped 2 times. I think he cried once. He just loved being in that truck. I think he liked being right next to dad and mom, and he could see out the big windshield! He was an angel!!
We got to AZ late, and Larry and Diane had us stay the night at their house. It was so kind of them to have us stay!! The next day we unloaded all of our stuff into a storage shed. We were able to find a condo to rent that very day and moved in. It is completely furnished, which is nice so we didn't have to unpack all our stuff. We are only going to be here until we find a house.
I usually dread moving, but I must say that we were so incredibly blessed with tons of help on our move. It wasn't bad at all. Thanks again to everyone! We love and miss all our friends and family in Utah (and Idaho). We look forward to our new adventure here in sunny AZ!

Aiden's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Aiden's 1st Birthday on Tuesday with a BIG party. It was so much fun! We invited all the neighborhood kids over. We had a Safari Hunt and then they colored spots to put on Aiden's big giraffe. There were 16 kids. We tried to get a picture with all of them and the colorful giraffe, but as you can see not everyone was happy about the picture.

It was fun to have so many friends, and family at our house to celebrate Aiden! We ate hot dogs and cake and ice cream. So glad that grandma and grandpa could be there to help with all the little things I was too busy to do.

We were so glad that Aunt Jodi, Uncle Michael, cousin Bailey, Uncle Andrew and Randy were all there too.

My favorite part of the party was when Aiden got his very own cake to dive into. He didn't really understand what he was supposed to do with it at first. But all the kids showed him how to get your hands into it and smear it all over.

I can't believe my baby is one year old. Time goes by so fast!! Thanks to all our family and friends for their love and support! We had a very fun day!!!

First Pet

Aiden went to his first birthday party for a little girl in our ward. As a party favor he got a goldfish with the bowl and food. HE LOVED IT!! He would watch it, and talk to it. He would do the sign for fish every time we walked into the kitchen where it was. We named the fish "Hot" because that is the first word Aiden said.

Alas, like all 10 cent goldfish do, "Hot" went belly-up about five days later and he took the big swim down the toilet. But all drains lead to the Ocean, right?