San Diego Zoo

Two days after Sam came home we went to the San Diego Zoo. This was our second time going there. the first time around Gwenith and Gilbert had an ok time, but this time around they really enjoyed themselves. They loved looking at the animals. They knew what most of them were and told us.

These are of Gwen and Gilbert waving to the birds.



By the Gorilla they have this area of statues that the kids can look at and for people to take pictures. Gwenith and Gilbert were so excited to see the gorillas.

Gwenith and Gilbert enjoyed the fishes. Which I think is funny because I think fishes are boring. But hey what ever makes my kids happy makes me happy. With the fishes were alligators.

My favorite exhibit was the pandas.

This is Gao Gao, is a male giant panda. He was born in the wild. He was rescued in 1993 suffering from injuries which resulted in the loss of nearly two thirds of his left ear.

Bai Yun is a female giant panda. She was the first successful birth of a giant panda at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in China. In the spring of 1999, Bai Yun was artificially inseminated with sperm from Shi Shi, a male panda at the zoo at that time. On August 21, 1999, Bai Yun gave birth to Hua Mei, the first giant panda born in the United States to survive to adulthood. Bai Yun has since given birth to three other cubs, Mei Sheng, Su Lin, and new born Zhen Zhen, all via natural mating. Bai Yun and Gao Gao, are considered the most reproductively successful panda parents in captivity in North America.

Zhen Zhen is a female giant panda born to Bai Yun and Gao Gao

Here are some other animals at the zoo

By the end of the afternoon (we were only there for five hours) Gwenith and Gilbert no longer wanted to site in their stroller.

At the monkey exhibit Gilbert meet a boy named Josh they hit it off great. They had the best time looking at the monkeys.

old post

for some reason two old post just popped up (here and here). I don't know why my blogger dashboard are saying I wrote them last night. I wrote them back in September, in fact I swear those are ones I wrote but I never published them.

pictures of Sam's homecoming

here are the pictures I promised you all yesterday. You all thought I forgot didn't ya, lol. No I just took forever going though them all deciding which ones I wanted to show you all. I warn you there is a lot that I want to share with you all, but they are all good ones:

these are the signs we made the morning of, while waiting for Sam's ship to come in.
G&G looking for Sam's ship to come in

first views of the ship
Gwen telling me there is daddy's ship
I just think this is a funny face she is pulling there so I had to share it.

Gilbert pointing to Sam's ship saying "there he is" (daddy)


This is at the pier gate waiting to be let on so we see daddy.

first view of daddy!!! He in the group of two, in the middle of the picture, he is the one on the right. (if you click on the picture you can see him better) There is a story behind this picture. I did not really know for sure this was him. I knew where he most likely would be standing (Sam and I forgot to talk about where he would be standing when they pulled in so I just guess he would be at about the same place he stood the day the left deployment. So I just took pictures and hoped he would be in one of them. Guess what I was right!!!


We are finally on the pier. Gilbert is waving his flag for daddy, which I did not even tell him to do, he just started to do it all by himself! Gwen is pointing to the saying "daddy" "there he is" (which at that point we did not know where he was)
Our first for sure sighting of Sam!!

Gilbert and Gwen were so happy to see daddy! They had such big smiles!

Gilbert showing daddy his flag.

Gwen and Gilbert showing daddy their signs

look Sam had flowers for me!

These are of us waiting to get on the ship, but at least now we are on the pier and are able to see and talk to Sam finally

We finally were able to board the ship! Gwen and Gilbert went straight to Sam and gave him a BIG hug!

I had picture of my car that I had decorated with sayings too, like the front window, but the condensation made the paint run so it did not look good, so I am not going to share the pictures.

Just to give you a little time line. Sam's ship was suppose to be in at 8:30 that morning. Our first sighting of it was at 8:19. It was not pier side until 8:40 (see it takes that long to pulled in). We were finally let on the pier at 9:00 (a couple of ladies got on before that but they were the ones that had babies and won the first hug and first kiss stuff). Our first for sure sighting of Sam was at 9:12 (they let us on the pier but would not let us to down to were the ship was at). We finally boarded the ship at 9:20. We left the ship, with Sam, at 9:40!!

A whole month!

I can't believe I have not written in a whole month! I am sorry I have not written on here. I got my feelings hurt at a chat site that I use to go to (yes use to, I am not going there anymore, don't I sound like I am 2 again) and I just stopped typing. I have totally missed writing on my blog though. I can't tell you how many times I do would something and think I need to write about this. I am still not over what happened but I am not going to let if affect me here. I like blogging so I am going to continue doing this! Now I have to catch up on all the blogs I use to read. But first I will let you all know what has been happening with me. Yes I am back in California. I made here in 12 hours. My mom helped me drive my car here. It was actually not that bad driving my SUV and pulling a trailer. I hardly felt it pull at all. I had some guys from my ward (church) come that evening and helped me unload some of my belonging out of the storage unit here. There is a longer store about that but I am going to wait to share that another day. I got over half of our belongings out of the unit over the next four days before Sam got home. In my dreams I had the whole house set up and ready by the time Sam got home but that did not happen, lol, I wish it would have but oh well.

Sam got home November 3!! I was so excited that day and so what Gwen and Gilbert! I woke them up that morning and brought them to my bed so I could tell them what going on that day. But Gwen and Gilbert remembered from the night before. They started to jump and down that daddy was coming home today! It was so cute. We went to base two hours before the ship was to arrive. When we went thought the gate Gwen and Gilbert both clapped, I guess they remembered that that was were daddy last was. When they saw the ships at the piers. Gwen said "there they are". I told her yes those are like daddy ships but that is not daddy's. I got us breakfast there. We sat in the car, watched Tinkerbell and eat. About an hour before the ship was due to arrive the pier began to get busy. I started to get really excited. That hour passed really fast. We made signs saying welcome home daddy. When the ship arrived Gwen and Gilbert saw that all they guys standing on the deck and they told me they saw daddy, but it was not Sam it was just guys in uniforms, like daddy. When we finally saw Sam Gwen and Gilbert got so excited. It was so cute. I am going to share the picture tomorrow when I have more time to upload them on here. When we were finally allowed to get on the ship Gwen and Gilbert went straight to Sam and gave him a BIG hug. They such big smiles on their faces. They were so happy daddy was home. It still makes me cry of happiest to this day.

Sam then took two weeks for leave (vacation) we spent a week here playing house. We went to the zoo and Sea World. Then we went to Utah for four days so Sam could visit with family and we could pick up our other car that was still there. Sam has been back at work now for two weeks and I am still getting the house together. I am almost done so a few things left that I am planning to get this next week when Sam is underway (yes he is back out to sea again, don't you just love the Navy).

Ok I think I have typed enough for today. I need to go take a shower before Gwen and Gilbert wake up from there nap. Sam bought me Wii fit a month ago and I just barley started using it a couple of days ago and I love it! It is so fun and I think I am getting exercise, I get my heart rate up and I sweat so I guess that is a good thing. But anyways it is so fun you got to try it. Now let just keep our fingers cross that I lose some weight!