Celebrating Bella's 8th Birthday!

Today we got to celebrate my beautiful Bella's birthday! To start the day, Craig made her favorite-- French toast-- which was a yummy way to start the day.

Bella decided that she wanted to go to the Los Angeles Zoo. We were so lucky because Craig got today off for Cesar Chavez day! It was a very nice day for the zoo--not too hot or cool, just perfect. Bella had made a list in advance of all the animals she wanted to see and checked them off as we saw them. She was so cute walking around with her clipboard! The first guy we saw was an alligator right near the entrance.

We were also delighted to find this adorable ladybug!









Soon we saw the meerkats and the flamingos. Both were fun to see.











Shortly after, we saw a few Koala Bears. They were so adorable sleeping all snuggly in their trees. They were Bella's favorite.











Another favorite were the Orangutans! There was a mom and a baby and they were so cute! A man went up to the mom and said "Why don't you throw me that stick?" and next thing we knew, she threw it at him!! So the man threw it back, and she threw it again!! This time it hit another man on the ear!! (I'm sure it hurt, but nothing serious.) So the man did not throw it back. But then, the Orangutan got another stick and threw it! I was almost to leave because I didn't want the girls to get hit! But then luckily she stopped. It was so surprising and funny!

We also loved watching the Gorillas strut around, the huge "baby" behind it's mama.

We loved the giraffe's--they were so cute! The girls loved the big banyon tree across the way. I could hardly get Ceci out of it--that's why I didn't get a picture of the giraffe eating leaves off the tree! I probably can't remember all we saw, but we saw a tiger, a camel, zebras, mountain goats, lions, tortoises, an elephant, a brown bear, a peacock, kangaroos and much more. The girls had a wonderful time. We stayed until after closing and had to run to make it to the gift shop before they closed!! Bella had her heart set on this little purse with a little Cheetah inside. I'm glad we could get it for her--she loves it.














So we went to Twohey's for dinner. We LOVE their bittersweet chocolate sundaes! It was great that Grandpa could join us, too! The girls love that at Twohey's they give you a coloring page and crayons so they were very happy. After dinner, we got our Sundaes and sang "Happy Birthday" to Bella. I CAN'T believe she's 8 years old!











Afterwards, we gave her her gift which was one of the things she'd requested-- a beautiful music/ jewelry box. It has a horse that goes round and round and plays "Claire de Lune." She loves it!

More celebrating tomorrow with Grandma!

Our Ward Picnic

This was the day after I found out our computer was officially crashed and that our pictures were possibly lost. I cried the whole night and whole morning! I was so sick and heart-broken! I was soooooooo glad that our ward was having a picnic so I could snap out of it and try not to think about our pictures. The girls had a wonderful time. I now look at this picnic with much happiness even though I was miserable at the time. We were so blessed to get our pictures back!! We know many prayed for us and we are sooooooooooo grateful!

Our Computer Crashed :(

Craig and I just found out that our Macbook completely crashed on Monday night. :( We had hopes that our precious information (documents, and most importantly, our pictures) would be totally fine and recovered, but today we found out that that is not the case. Of course, we are heartbroken and feeling pretty sick. We still have some hope that they may be recovered through a place called Drivesavers which is where we are sending our hard drive tomorrow. But at this point, we just don't know.

I am asking any and all who read our blog to please pray for us!

We know there are worse problems in the world than pictures, but our pictures are sooooooooooooo precious to us. I've only blogged a small portion of what we really have. They mean soooooooooooooo much to us. Last Saturday, we gave the girls a beautiful birthday party. All those pictures are gone at this point. Also all the pictures from their parade and play are lost at this point. I am ashamed to admit we had none of these pictures backed up even though we had bought an external hard drive that has sat in our room for several months.

Again, I'm asking you who read this to please say a little prayer for us that all our precious pictures will be recovered! We will appreciate it with all our hearts. We are sooooooooo worried.

Planting our Seeds!

What a fun project! First, we went to the Dervaes (freedomseeds.org) to pick up the seeds that we ordered. We had also bought some seeds at Armstrong. (botanicalinterests.com) I highly recommend Freedom Seeds because they are a small family-owned business and for us, they are local (and super-nice!)

We made some signs to identify our seeds and then we got planting. We filled our peat pots with some good potting soil and then planted our seeds! I am so amazed by seeds-- that something so tiny can carry all the information necessary to grow into a huge plant that produces wonderful vegetables, fruits, and flowers! How can anyone not believe in God? What an amazing Creator. And at this time when we celebrate the resurrection of the Savior, what a beautiful symbol of the resurrection--a dormant seed that comes alive! As we planted, we talked about this. We are soooooooo excited for our seeds to sprout!

Sculpting Beeswax

Today we decided to get out our sculpting beeswax and make something. The girls LOVED it--it's a wonderful material to work with and it smells soooooo good! Bella made this ADORABLE pond with a frog and Lala made this little girl. So cute!

Alhambra Community Gardens

Only about 3 blocks away from us, there is a big community garden where Alhambra residents can get a plot to garden. Today we took a walk over there to check it out. It was very inspiring to see what other people are planting. There were lots of vegetable and flowers. It was so fun to walk around and enjoy God's creations!

The Slumber Party

We then moved on to the "Slumber Party" part of the party. We got pizza from Petrillo's and root beer. We watched the movie, "Enchanted" which is really cute. During the movie, everybody got their nails and toenails painted! It was really fun--the girls loved the sparkly nail polish the best. By the time the movie was over it was after 10pm! Unfortunately, it couldn't be a true slumber party for Yazi and Ari--they had to go home because they needed to be back for a little league engagement so we had to say goodbye. Yvonne, Mila and Ceci were already asleep so a made a bed for Bella, Lala and Sophie. I think we all got a pretty good night's sleep!

In the morning, I made chocolate chip pancakes and blueberry pancakes with cream and fruit. YUM! We were sad when Sophie and Mila had to go, but what a fun party it was!