Whale Watching!

For my birthday, my mom got tickets for Freddy, Nathan, and I to go Whale Watching! None of us had ever been, so it was an exciting day for us! (I wanted to include this first picture to show what Nathan was wearing, since you can't really tell in any of the other pictures.) (The shirt's got the "whale" part down, and Nathan's taking care of the "watching" part.) :)

Here we are at the port in Dana Point, waiting to board the boat.

(Nathan was busy looking at the water, probably wondering when we were going to go swimming.) This was once we were on the boat and waiting to leave the dock. We were watching a sea lion in the water and some (really dumb) guy that was trying to swim up to it. As we were leaving, we saw the US Coast Guard stop him (and tell him what a really dumb idea it was to swim up to a wild sea lion, I'm sure.)

And off we went! Full speed ahead! They had only seen one blue whale earlier in the day, but it was just passing through. Most other groups had only seen dolphins, but each trip is different, they ensured us. (I was really hoping that we would see EIGHT KILLER WHALES, like the people that went on June 1st got to see.)

It was really, really windy once we were out on the water, so I went and sat down on the benches with Freddy and Nathan. It was still really sunny too, since the sun was starting to set and I, of course, forgot my sunglasses in the car. :/ But I did have my hat! After a little while of driving? sailing? (whatever you do in a boat), we found a pod of common dolphin that were feeding in the area. Fun! They're called common dolphin because they can be found all over the world and are not just native to our area. There were a LOT of dolphins! And! The captain of the boat said that for every one dolphin we see on the surface, there are SEVEN more down below that we're not seeing. Wow! He was saying that we were probably among about 400-500 dolphins. Amaaaazing.

Now, it was really, really hard to get pictures of them, because they're fast suckers and my camera is a slow sucker. But these are the best ones we got--My very favorite part was seeing the mommies swimming with their little babies. It was SO adorable! Female dolphins gestate for 12 months and then give birth to about a 30 lb baby. Then the baby drinks the mom's milk--about 45% fat, for 12 months. Females are pregnant every other year---so it's pregnant for 12 months, nursing for 12 months, pregnant for 12, etc. :/ Fuuun. But do you see the little baby in this picture? So cute!! As the boat moves, it creates waves and the dolphins like to swim up and surf on the waves, just like a surfer would. So, the dolphins actually come up to the boat to play with it! As a dolphin swims near a boat, the dolphin actually knows the speed, direction, velocity, etc. of the boat so it's literally impossible to hit them.Nathan fell asleep with the boat rocking so rhythmically, and Freddy felt sick with the boat rocking so rhythmically. :/ Right before getting on the boat, he scarfed down his dinner in the parking lot. Bad idea. He never actually threw up, but felt pretty queasy at times.On the way back we saw a couple sea lions sitting on a buoy in the harbor. They usually have like 15-20 piled up on that little buoy, but they're night feeders so most were likely down under water eating dinner. The captain told us all about them, but my favorite fact was that sea lions don't know how to swim when they're born! They have to be taught in the shallow water before going into the deeper waters. Interesting!

We had such a fun and exciting trip! Thanks, Mom, for such a memorable activity as a family!

Freddy's First Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to Freddy!!! I was so excited for Father's Day this year, obviously because it was Freddy's very first one. And if anyone deserves to be recognized as a great father, it's Freddy. More on that later, but first-- a run down of Sunday's events.

12:01 am, Sunday morning-- Wished Freddy a HAPPY FATHER'S DAYYYYY!

12:02 am, Freddy opens his presents. He got a new game for his PS3-- FIFA World Cup 2010! He also got couple nice collared shirts for work-- in lavender and wine. And finally a mix CD (Appropriately named "WHO'S YA DADDY MIX- Father's Day 2010") of all sorts of his favorite songs. :) He loved them all, but his new game most.

After church on Sunday we drove out to Moreno Valley to Freddy's cousin, Belen's, house to a family get together. We had a BBQ, which was delicious, and also Skyped with some relatives in Ecuador.

I liked the two kitties and wanted to play with them! Except, I wanted to play a cuddling/petting game and they wanted to play a scratching/biting game. :/ We ended up playing their game. :(

Nathan wasn't too excited about the cats. His favorite part was the huge, plush dog in the second bedroom. He liked it a lot.This was our first time going to Belen's new house and it was beautiful! We had a lot of fun together and enjoyed catching up with relatives. Most of them hadn't seen Nathan since Christmas and were amazed with how much he's grown! Here we are sitting on the couch Skyping with Ecuador...Freddy and Nathan singing together... it sounds something like-- "AaaaahhaaaAAAAaaaahh!" How nice... After that we went back home and relaxed the rest of the evening. It was a really nice day and we enjoyed spending time with our family.

And I just wanted to take a second to say how lucky I am to have Freddy as a husband! He's an incredible spouse and blew me away with what a great dad he is to Nathan. Freddy always loves to play with Nathan every chance he gets. The way Nathan's eyes light up and the huge grin he gets on his face are proof of just how much Freddy means to him. I'm so thankful for Freddy's commitment to fatherhood and how well he takes on the responsibility. And it's especially amazing how Freddy never had younger siblings to take care of or even a dad in his life as a role model. Yet he's broken the mold and stuns me with how naturally it all comes to him. :) I really am so grateful for him and I hope he enjoyed his very first Father's Day (one of many to come)!

Laker Game Tonight!!!

We're SO READY!! It all comes down to this! Game SEVEN!

Game time! Woot! I don't think Freddy's ever loved any of Nathan's outfits more than this one.

Gooooo LAKERS!!! Hopefully we'll be posting pictures of being at a Laker Celebration Parade some time this week! ;-)

Outdoors-ing

Today when Nathan and I went to get the mail, we realized what a nice day we'd been missing by sitting inside! We took a blanket and some toys outside to play and enjoy the sun (except we actually sat in the shade). :) So! Enjoy some of our pictures!
Nathan loves hair. Mainly pulling it. So here you can see that while I was like, "Nathan!! Look at the camera! Nathan!!" He was more like, "Oooo, hair!" :/Also, it's funny how true it is about kids liking the simplest things. For example, Nathan has like a thousand toys to choose from and what are his favorites? He really likes the Tylenol (he chews on that little squeezy top on the infant drops) and the Desitin. {Rolls eyes.} Whatever. {Shrug.}Oh yeah, also I was planning on changing his outfit (i.e. I had taken his old outfit off) but he was kind of enjoying not wearing clothes. Also, putting on clothes is Nathan's absolute least favorite thing to do.And these ones, once I finally did get him dressed, were just super cute (I thought.).
I love being outside! And Nathan does too! Our apartment complex has such nice common grounds; it's just so relaxing to walk around and enjoy all this beautiful, California weather. :)

Nathan's First Tooth!

Well. It's finally here!

We've been suspicious that it just might be here, but Nathan sounds the alarms and begins a lock down on his jaws every time we even think about checking.

But last night, I saw it with my own eyes!!

That's right! Nathan's got a tooth!! His bottom left tooth came in!Now, I know this picture is awful, but it's the only one I could get of him with his bottom jaw showing. :-/

(And don't worry, he wasn't really as terribly sad as he looks. He was just a little mad that with all his toys around him, I wouldn't let him play with my phone.)
It's been a long, tough road to get to this point... and now it's a long, tough road for me (man that thing is sharp!). So now we're working on learning lots of things.. waving bye-bye, crawling, and not biting Mama (!!!). You can imagine which one I'll be most glad when he learns.

And just so this post doesn't just have a sad baby on it, I'll add a super cute one..

This was after a long day, one second he was sitting on Freddy's chest playing with his soccer ball and the next second he was out!

Cute, huh? :)

Happy Birthday to Tracy!

For my birthday, Freddy surprised me with tickets to the Lion King, the musical! Fun!! I didn't even know it was in town (and they really aren't-- they're only here in Costa Mesa for a week). So last night, we dropped off Nathan at Freddy's parents' house and took off for our very first time leaving him for that long (so far the longest has been like an hour and a half--for Emily's wedding). And off we went! There was NO traffic at all (amazing!) and so we got there in perrrrfect timing! Here we are just before heading into the theater.

Wow. It was amazing!! We both loved it! My favorites were the stilt giraffes, the elephant, the cheetah, the antelope... actually, I loved all of it!
Here's Zazu-- he was GOOD... I was really impressed with how well they played him.And there's Simba and Nala all grown up... awww how sweet. :)I was really impressed with how they did the wildebeest stampede-- that was incredible! Overall, it was an excellent show and so much fun to be at! Afterwards we raced back to Monica's to find our little boy just as content as ever! Whew! He wouldn't take a bottle with milk for him, so they just gave him whatever of the pureed pear he would eat. As you can imagine, he was glad to see us, but was doing just fine with Grandma! What a relief! I think we were worse off than he was-- we missed him! Thank you to my wonderful husband for planning such a fun night for the two of us!

Best Memorial Day EVER!

Sunday night Freddy and I were planning for Memorial Day. I was pleading my case that we had to do something, after all, it's Memorial Day!!! Maybe we could go to the beach? No.. everyone will be at the beach. Maybe we could go to Disneyland? Six Flags? No... everyone will be at Disneyland or Six Flags..
So! We ended up having the BEST MEMORIAL DAY EVER!
First, we woke up and went on a walk. It ended up being the longest walk ever. Not that we were lost, we just couldn't find a street that connected back to where we wanted to end up. It ended up lasting almost an hour and a half, but it was fun!
Then, we went to Walmart to do some shopping and get some groceries. We also ended up finding new swimming trunks for Freddy and a matching shirt, too. It took longer than we thought, so we split a Subway sandwich (the Orchard Chicken Salad Sandwich is the BEST!)
Then! We came home and watched a couple episodes of my new favorite game show, the Newlywed Game. Freddy and I always get out a note card and pen and we play too-- answering the questions and then trying to match each other's answers. (And we almost always get better scores than the actual contestants, too!) It's SO much fun!
After that we went over to the pool to go swimming and ended up spending most of the time in the spa instead.
We came home and had barbecued cheeseburgers that were SO delicious! Probably the best ones I've ever made...
After dinner we went and played tennis at the tennis courts just outside our apartment. It was SO much fun! We're still learning, but it was the perfect weather outside. Nathan sat in his stroller playing with toys right at the net... he was our line judge. :)
After tennis we came home and had ice cream cones--obviously delicious. And we ended the night with watching a movie together-- 2012. It was pretty good, but the more important thing was that we had enjoyed such a wonderful day together as a family. Of course we spend time together often, but it's not every day where we get to spend the entire day with one another. We felt like we'd gotten so much accomplished and yet had such an enjoyable day at the same time (and the best part was that we didn't even really spend money to do it-- sure, grocery shopping, but we would have done that anyway... I mean, like it's not like we went to an amusement park or something).
That's going to be a memorable Memorial Day, for sure!

Pre-Memorial Day Fun

I figured I'd better hurry up and blog before I get any more behind. SO!
Memorial Day weekend was tons of fun! On Saturday, Freddy's parents and grandma came over to visit! We decided it was a great day to head over to the swimming pool! Yay!
Exccccept that that morning we had like a tornado outside. It was suuuper windy and our poor pool, which is usually crystal clear, had about a billion leaves in it. Laaame. So! We got crafty and Freddy went back to our apartment and brought back our strainer. The pool would have been way too hard to clean and it wasn't very warm anyway, but the spa was perfect and well worth our time! So, here we have pictures of us enjoying the spa.
First, a picture of Freddy and I-- finally. Here's Nathan with Pepe and Monica, my in-laws. In this picture I'm pretty sure Nathan was busy eyeing his toy turtle... And that's Nathan's little, wrinkly foot after being in the spa for a while. :) Cute...This is one of Nathan's very favorite places to be--sitting on his Daddy's shoulders.

And I know this family picture is pretty awful (in regards to us being ready to take the picture), but it's the best one we had of us as a family, so I had to add it.Then it was time to go back home to watch the Laker game and start our barbeque.Nathan was so tired and relaxed from being in the spa. It was so adorable how he just rested his head on Freddy's shoulders as we walked home. :)

All in all it was a great day... The Lakers won and our barbeque was delicious! What a fun day with the family!