Backpacking at Red Box

We took Mary on her first backpacking trip and she had a great time. She loved hiking, picking flowers, and being outside. It was a short 2.5 mile hike each way.

Camping at Prado Dam

We love to go camping every month but it is a little harder in the winter but after finding some warm sleeping bags for everyone we just had to take a short trip. Mary had so much fun crawling around and getting dirty. We all had a great time.

Picking Lemons

Mary loves to play in the backyard and also pick lemons off our tree. We are enjoying the great weather in the backyard almost everyday.

Videos of Mary

Mary has been so active lately and she gets into things we don’t want her to very quickly. She wants to walk more and more each day and loves to eat all kinds of foods.

Bike Ride

I love to take bike rides but we tend to not go very often because of Brian being so busy. This one was on a very nice paved trail next to a man-made river. There were a lot of road bikes on the trail and a few walkers. We stopped at a park and ate a nice lunch while playing with Mary. It was a good day to be outside.

Long Beach Aquarium

We took a nice trip to the Long Beach Aquarium with the Fishers. Mary had such a great time splashing in the touch pools and wanted to touch the birds so much.

Mary’s First Snow at Big Bear

Mary got some snowsuits and boots for Christmas so we could take her to the snow. We drove to Mt. Baldy and there was basically no snow and hundreds of people trying to sled in about half an inch of snow on top of rocks. So then we drove to Big Bear which is a higher elevation and they had great snow. We drove a while and found a nice place with no other people around. We went snowshoeing  around while pulling Mary in her stroller which we made skis for and it worked great on the snow. It was pretty warm in there too. We all had a great time.

Magic Mountain & Knotts Berry Farm

We had a busy few days around Christmas. I feel like we went to so many amusement parks but they were so fun. We went to Magic Mountain with the Satkos and enjoyed so many intense rollercoasters while Grandma and Grandpa Satko took the babies on some small rides. Then we went to Knotts Berry Farm with the Olsons and took Mary on some more rides. She loved the merry go round the most.

Hollywood & Santa Monica

We enjoyed having the Satko family in town for a few days. We took a trip to see the sights in Hollywood and found this really cool candy store that was so fun to just walk around and look at all the interesting things they had there. We saw the walk of stars, the chinese theatre, chinatown, and In-N-Out. Then watched a beautiful sunset from the Santa Monica pier.

Christmas

This was Mary’s first Christmas and she had so much fun! She was the baby Jesus in the nativity play and poked at the Santa piñata. We had a great Christmas Eve dinner of tamales and a Christmas day breakfast at IHOP. We had to do some coaxing to get her to open the presents but after they were open she loved playing with them. Her favorite was the big cube toy from Grandma and Grandpa Satko. She literally jumped out of Grandpa’s arms to get to it. It was great! Once she started playing with some of the toys she did not want to open any more. We gave her some snowsuits and boots, a xylophone piano, a bouncy ball, and a fisher price telephone.

Playing at the Beach

Mom, Dad, Christina, and Allison surprised us by showing up at our house on Christmas eve. I was not expecting it at all. So we went to the beach and had a great time playing with Mary and enjoyed being outside. Mary loved playing in the water!

Newport Boat Parade

Brian and I had a nice date together watching the parade of boats all lit up with lights and music at the Newport Bay. It was such a fun sight to see the huge yachts and the Catalina Express ferry alongside tiny rowboats and kayaks. This boat had a huge inflatable snowman on top. There was one yacht that was pulling a little dingy decorated like a shark so it looked like the shark was chasing the boat. We had a great time.

Mary Loves to Stand

Fun With Bouncy Balls

We found some fun balls to play with at Wal-Mart and Mary laughed so much when I bounced them that she couldn’t sit up straight.

Pictures with Santa

We finally found a free Santa to take pictures with and Mary loved him! She was not scared at all and enjoyed touching his soft coat. She especially loved the candy cane he gave her. So yummy and slobbery.