The Funnest Day of My Life!

Well we survived our trip to California for Uncle Ryan and Brooke's wedding! It was so much fun. Even Harrison cried on the airplane "I don't want to leave California!" We are forever grateful to PaPa and Grandma for traveling with us -- it made it much easier on Mommy and of course it was just more fun in general!

We headed to Sonoma first and while the grown ups went out to enjoy a day wine tasting, Mom took us kiddos to a mini-amusement park across from our hotel called Traintown. Even Mom had to admit that it was a pretty fun place to spend the day (definitely a distant second to sipping fine wines and enjoying the adult company, but while pregnant, it was a great alternative). Traintown had a mini train that we could ride on to a little miniature train town that had a little saloon, jail, school house and petting zoo. After the train ride, there were tons of rides - a kiddie roller coaster, ferris wheel, carousel, flying planes, etc. It was fantastic. Harrison was too little to ride the roller coaster alone and Mommy was too pregnant to ride along, but luckily a nice dad there offered to let Harrison ride with his teenage son (thus explaining the stranger next to Harrison in the picture!).
Saturday was the big day. Mommy took me to see our cousin Joey who made my hair gorgeous while Daddy took Harrison to get ready with the boys. We met up at the church and although Harrison seemed a little tired and there was a moment of concern on Mommy's part, we made it down the aisle together just perfectly (unfortunately, Mommy's camera wasn't working perfectly so we'll have to wait for the professional's pics to prove how cute we were). The reception was fantastic....a beautiful outside party, a gorgeous night and great music! I danced ALL NIGHT LONG. A huge thank you to Uncle Omar and Aunt Christie for keeping me entertained on the dance floor all night -- somehow Mommy missed out on getting a lot of pictures of us dancing....probably because about an hour into the reception, Harrison fell sound asleep on her lap and stayed that way all the way until the end of the party! I kept running over to Mommy to tell her that this was the FUNNEST day of my LIFE! I told Brooke a few days later I wanted them to get married again so we could go back and do it all over....I think she almost fainted at the thought!

Sunday we drove back to San Francisco and headed down to Pier 39 and the Aquarium of the Bay. Harrison reported that the his favorite part was riding the elevator -- go figure! We were also pretty impressed by the moving walkways that took us through the glass tunnels to see the fish...
Monday we headed to Great America and had yet another "funnest day of my life." They had a ton of rides that were just our size and we managed to ride every single one of them...plus we got to watch a Live Dora show and meet Dora and Spongebob and play a few carnival games to win
large prizes that we had to figure out how to shove into our suitcase!

Daddy and Harrison are in the back row of the first car and Papa and I are
in the first row of the second car that you see....

taking a dip in the pool in our skivies when we got back to Christie and Omar's...
We spent every evening at Aunt Christie and Uncle Omar's house for dinner and Brooke and Ryan would come over to join us, so we had a lot of time to enjoy spending with everyone. It was such a fun trip and we can't wait to see everyone again soon!

Fast Forward to the Teenage Years

This weekend brought us an interesting glimpse of the future filled with makeup, popstars, and the two of us kiddos getting new cars and learning to drive!!!

First, though, just a quick picture of my little brother trying to help Daddy change some light fixtures. He got his tool belt on and climbed up on his little stepstool to help out. He sure thought he was handy!
While Harrison was helping Daddy, I headed out to one of my first "big girl" birthday parties at my cousin Mikenna's. She turned 6 and she loves Hannah Montana, so she had a VIP/PopStar birthday party where we got our hair, makeup and nails done and even had a photo shoot at the end! We had to wear pop star attire and Mom & Dad sure thought I looked like I was 14 instead of 4! If you look closely, you'll see a little bit of my hair on the top is purple! We got to put hair extensions in -- so fun!
After the party, I wanted to go see Grandma and Papa to surpise them and show them my new look. Well, they certainly surprised me! They took us out to their new shed and there were two little cars parked out there for our birthday presents (mine is a few months early, but they were pretty smart in thinking that I wouldn't be too happy if Harrison got a car and I didn't!). Harrison got a black pick-up just like Papas and I got a pink mustang. We jumped right in and started driving. After our first crash, which occurred as soon as we both stepped on the gas, we started to get the hang of it and we were driving all over the place. We were so excited. Thank you Grandma and Papa!!!! We're already asking to go back to the shed this morning.....hope Papa and Grandma are ready for us to call and ask to go out there every single day!!!
We're taking Daddy to the airport today -- he has a conference in Chicago for a few days and then he's coming home to meet up with us and get on another airplane ride when we all fly out to California for the wedding. We'll post lots of pictures when we get back from our trip! Keep your fingers crossed that Harrison and I do our jobs right at the wedding!!!!

California!

Mommy's doctor says everything looks perfect with the twins and he has given her the green light to fly to California for Uncle Ryan and Brooke's wedding -- as long as she promises to be a good girl and take it easy while she's there. She promises to start taking it easy as soon as she stops jumping up and down. She's very excited and relieved --- and, of course, glad all is well with the babies. In another three weeks we'll have another ultrasound to see the little ones.

Now she's off to celebrate at Girls Night Out. yea!

The Zoo

Wow....what a week....and it's only Monday night! Yesterday, the county fair. Today, the zoo! As mom sat here wondering what on earth to do today, I again mentioned my desire to go to the zoo (not sure where this has been coming from, but I recently got on a kick of wanting to go to one). So, mom decided that we might as well make our first border crossing into the state of North Dakota and go to the zoo in Bismarck. Turned out to be a great idea! We took the train ride around the zoo first and got the lay of the land and picked out the animals we really wanted to go see, and then of course went to go see most of them! They had a brand new baby chimpanzee who was pretty darn cute (except for a very noticeable male appendage that Mom did not expect to be so prominent on such a tiny little monkey....and, yes, I did notice it!). I loved the bears and some birds and a cute little raccoon that tried to make friends with me because he saw I was eating animal crackers. We also spent time at the children's zoo and fed a few goats, donkeys, chickens and pigs. Then we let Mom sit on a bench in the shade while we burned off the rest of our energy at the playground. It was a perfect day. I even commented to Mom that I didn't know the zoo would be so much fun! (silly me, this was my idea and I didn't know it would be fun????). Harrison and I both fell asleep on the car ride home and Mom was able to get us into our beds without us waking up....so it's a good night for her too!Tomorrow, life returns to normal. We head to daycare for the day while Mom heads to the doctor for her check up. She'll be sure to post the latest news...Good night!

County Fair

This weekend was the Potter County Fair and we spent Sunday enjoying some of the events. The day started off with a nondenominational service that we attended because Daddy had been asked to give the Message this year. As usual, I was a good girl, but Harrison was a little more entertaining to those sitting around us. He was very confused by the whole set up....as we sat in the bleachers at the grandstand, he kept commenting (loudly) "Mommy, this is not church." Mom kept trying to shhh him and explain it was different church, but he didn't seem to get it. When Daddy was speaking, he did a little better job sitting still and was clearly listening because Daddy was finishing up his talk and said something about people thinking about where they are going in life and Harrison (rather than take this as a rhetorical question) answered "HOME!" Luckily, people seem to find that kid cute and we made it through to the end of the service!

We enjoyed BBQ for lunch out at the fair (as usual, I dined on a plain bun....man, am I adventurous!). But I did try some strawberry pie and Harrison was glad to help me polish that off. With full bellies and a gorgeous, sunny day, it was time for the demolition derby! Harrison had been asking all day (including, of course, out loud during the aforementioned service...."when can we see the cars crash?"). He was very excited and even more thrilled that Papa and Grandma came out to watch with us...
During one of the breaks, they did a candy throw for the kids. They made us all line up on the hill and wait while they tossed out the candy....Harrison wasn't exactly following directions
Harrison had a blast, but even more than the actual derby, I think he enjoyed watching the forklifts and other John Deere equipment that would come out to clean up the cars. He even got to go sit in the fire trucks that were there on hand --- and managed to find the switch to turn on the lights to one of them!

The rain moved in just as the derby ended which was perfect, so we came home for popcorn and a movie. It was a really fun day!

Daddy takes off today on a tour with the Appropriations Committee. Mom has most of the days planned out to keep us busy without him....she's still pouting a little because she's missing the annual Shaw vacation week at the beach in Delaware (the doctor seemed to think traveling alone with us would be a lot of work for a lady pregnant with twins -- how could he think that about two such adorable, sweet kiddos????). Today is the only day we don't have anything planned, so Mom is currently thinking of some crazy ideas to entertain us and get us out of the house or out of town today....Stay tuned, if we do anything fun, we'll let you know!