I'm crazy about this little family of mine. They're so precious to me. Last Sunday, I convinced everyone to hop in the car and go take some photos down in Morgan Hill. For the very small amount of time I took photos, I caught a pretty good number and no one cried! Extra bonus! I think my daughters are finally getting to the age where they realize that I'm going to take photos anyways so they might as well cooperate and get it down a little bit faster. Now to choose one to use on our Christmas card. I'm leaning towards the funny faced one.

More photos of our weekend in the Redwoods! After we packed up our gear, we went for a walk through the Redwoods. It took us about twice as long as it should've to do this loop, but so it goes with kids. Vigorous walking is grounds for a melt down.

Next time we go camping, I want to take my time in the morning - drink a few cups of tea and pack up at the last minute, but without feeling crunched for time. A more leisurely morning camping is on my to-do list.

It was really great to camp again in the Big Basin Redwoods. I needed to take a deep breath in nature... It wasn't quite enough time, but it'll have to do. Camping is always fun and it's gotten easier to pack all of our gear, food, etc. It's becoming a smoother process altogether and so even more enjoyable. And bonus... we had our best sleep camping ever! Yay! We're getting somewhere. And now for lots of photos...

We received so many recommendations to visit the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in Old Town San Diego, and I'm really glad we did! It was a fun visit with an excellent interactive presentation. Mormons were instrumental in settling San Diego. It was really neat! Holly loved it and wanted to go through the whole thing a second time, and when I said no, I had the thought, maybe she'll serve her mission here. Who knows? There were lots of lady missionaries in old timey dresses.

We did very little shopping while in San Diego and what we did do was done at Old Town. We bought a nativity and blanket and some tea. I know right? Big spenders. But to be honest, I loved that shopping wasn't anywhere close to important. I really felt like the focus of our trip was being together and making memories. And we did! It was uh-mazing!

Going to the zoo was so much fun! A definite San Diego must. We loved seeing all the different animals and I feel like we saw so many! It was a ton of walking and our girls were troopers about it. Conor gave Greta lots of little shoulder rides to rest her legs.

We saw pandas which was so exciting! Greta was thrilled to see kangaroos (I think a trip to Australia needs to be added to our to-do list). I got a tad emotional thinking that my gandkids may not see some of these animals. And then I thought, well if we lived a 100 years ago I wouldn't have seen any of these animals!