Skip to the holiday!

Again, not really any excuses for not blogging as Mommy's finally over the sickness. Loads has obviously happened in our lives in the last few months, but I'll just skip all that and move on to our holiday to California to visit Auntie Ivanna.

Michaela was pretty good travelling to America. Unfortunately, on night one, she went to bed at about 11pm and woke at 2am - poor Daddy had to get up and it took hours to get her back to sleep. Daddy had a hard first couple of days, but Michaela soon settled into her normal routine.

We went to Sea World on our second full day there. Michaela enjoyed it, but was a bit grumpy come the afternoon, so we cut our visit a bit short. But we did get the purchase of the holiday for Michaela - her new sunglasses! Here she is touching a star fish. Auntie Ivanna has a pool in her back yard, so a lot of days, we got to go swimming. Michaela really enjoyed that and was getting confident enough to push herself off from the side (wearing her arm bands of course). This is one of Mommy's favourite photos of Michaela. I just love the little look on her face! Also, just up the road from Auntie Ivanna's is a play park. Most mornings Daddy would take Michaela and Akilah (Auntie Ivanna's dog) to the play park. Michaela thought it was her job to walk Akilah to the park. Luckily Akilah was very patient with Michaela.
We went to San Diego's Wild Animal Park too. It was very hot there and built on a hill, so a bit rubbish for Mommy walking around and Auntie Ivanna pushing around, but we still enjoyed the day. Michaela's favourite part was getting to touch the animals in the petting zoo. She soon discovered from some 1st graders that the animals liked to eat the leaves!
We also managed to get to Disneyland. I think this was Michaela's favourite day because there were so many children to see! I think she would have been happy just to sit in her stroller and people watch. Her favourite ride was the tea cups, so we went on it twice.
She also seemed to enjoy the carousel. She wasn't impressed with any of the rides that went in the dark though. And best of all, we all managed to get in for free!
Near to the play park, there's a primary school, so they have another play park there too. Michaela loved the big slide, but Daddy had to go down it with her too. We even managed to get Akilah to go up, but she wouldn't come down.
Owen's dad wanted us to go to Denny's while we were out, so we did and had a massive brunch there. This was just Daddy and Michaela's food!
And after seeing us take so many pictures on holiday, Michaela decided she'd like to try too, so here's her best effort at photography.
Great holiday, but unfortunately, it's likely to be our last for many many years - we just cannot imagine taking three kids on holiday!

Quick update on Michaela- she's started talking in sentences, definitely started with the terrible two tantrums, has the most amazing memory and is generally just turning into a little girl now. Much to Mommy's disgust, pink seems to be her favourite colour. And at the moment, her favourite number is five.

We'll try to get a picture of Mommy's belly sometime soon - we think it's about the size Mommy was at 8 months with Michaela, and we're only at month 5!