Joey and I are leaving for Albuquerque tomorrow. We will be accompanied by my sweet friend, Cheryl who flew out to San Diego just to help us with the drive. We are stopping in Phoenix for the night and should be in Albuquerque sometime Saturday afternoon. I'm sure my blogging will be even more spotty than usual, but I'll try to post something while I'm there. If you think of us, please pray for a safe journey!

The other day Joey and I were driving around town. Well, I was doing the driving, and Joey was providing the commentary. A stop light turned yellow right before we were going to go through an intersection, and I had to brake kind of abruptly. All of a sudden, from the back seat, I heard, "Whoaaaa!" Once the light turned green I accelerated quickly so I could change lanes because I needed to turn right at the next street. Again I heard a dramatic, "Whoaaaa!" I feel like 17 months is a little young to be a backseat driver.

We are house sitting for my parents right now while they are up in Oregon visiting my brother at grad school. Since my parents live about 5 minutes away from Legoland, we decided to take the opportunity to go. A little secret among the locals is that they let you into the park for free for the last hour. Legoland for free is the kind of deal I like!

Since we only had an hour, we got into the park and just started walking with a mission to find something fun for Joey to do. Well, mission accomplished, because one of the first things we ran into was DUPLO Playland which is geared towards toddlers. And this little toddler...he had a blast!

After DUPLO Playland, we spent about 20 minutes power walking through the rest of the park to find other rides Joey can go on next time we come. I'm really thinking that might be tomorrow!

If you've never been to Legoland and you're ever in Southern California, I highly recommend it. It's a really impressive park. Just walking through it was fun because so many things are made out of Legos. Andy and I kept pointing at things and saying, "Wow! Look at that! Oh my goodness! Look at that!"

After Legoland we had dinner at In-N-Out burger. Life in Southern California may be expensive, but it sure has its perks!

So when people talk about the terrible twos I always figured that that happens when your kid is two.

Well either that was a naive assumption or Joey didn't get that memo.

Joey now knows when you ask him a question, but whatever the question is, he shakes his head and says, "No!" emphatically. He's not meaning to be contrary, he just really seems to think that's how you answer a question. The weird side of me gets a lot of amusement out of asking him questions like, "Do you want to have some ice cream?" just to hear him refuse. He's really going to kick himself one day when he finds out how much ice cream he's turned down.

Now it's not difficult to understand how he learned the word, no, but his other new favorite word is, "Mine!" At first I just thought he was saying the word without knowing what it meant, but he really uses it appropriately (and constantly). Where did he learn that!? That word is hardly ever used in our house, but to hear Joey you would think Andy and I have major issues fighting over possessions.

While Joey really does seem to be in the terrible two stage, he's also never been more fun. Brain research indicates that kids might act out more around the age of two because that's a big period of brain development. I sure see a connection. Andy and I can't get over how amazing it is to watch him grow and learn new things. What a blessing he is in our lives, terrible twos and all!

It's funny that I tend to be so punctual in real life, and so delinquent on my blog.

Anyway, I thought I would share some pictures from our Easter trip to Phoenix. I really should say our Easter/March Madness trip because Andy thought we went to Phoenix to celebrate college basketball!

While I didn't get any pictures of Andy watching basketball, we did get some pictures of Joey's first Easter egg hunt.



Joey seemed to enjoy finding the eggs, but he LOVED it when he found out there was fun stuff inside the eggs!!!

As soon as he opened all of his eggs, he got up and headed for the backyard to look for more.

Last weekend Joey starting having a runny nose and a congested cough. Monday night he got his first fever. Tuesday morning he started rubbing his ears, so I took him to the doctor's office. He ended up having an ear infection in each ear.

Joey has been sick a couple of times before, but this was the first time he was absolutely miserable. I'm thinking the fever really put him over the edge. On Tuesday "being miserable" meant he cuddled and slept on my lap all day. It was heavenly. Being the wonderfully compassionate mother that I am, I thought, "Wow, I wish Joey was sick all the time." Don't worry that comment gave back to bite me in the rear the rest of the week.

Wednesday through Friday "being miserable" meant he fussed, whined, or cried at me all day, and worse yet, did NOT want to cuddle. Oh well, at least I got one glorious day! He's still definitely under the weather, but I think he's finally feeling a little better.

Andy and I decided to buy a memebership to the San Diego Zoo/Wild Animal Park. The membership gets Joey and I in for free, plus another guest. It also gives us free parking which is super nice.

Today Joey and I took our first trip to the Wild Animal Park. Whereas the zoo is downtown in San Diego, the Wild Animal Park is just about 25 minutes east of us. It's so close, I'm hoping to make it there about every other week.


We met our friends Tami and Mollie there, but we got there first so we hung out in the African Aviary. Joey loves birds, and he was so excited to see them up close. A worker started feeding the birds right in front of us so they all swarmed around. One bird kind of swooped against Joey's head. It freaked him out a little, but he quickly recovered.

Tami, Mollie, Joey and I had lunch in this playground area, and then the kids played for a while.

Joey and Mollie are getting to be little buddies. This will be a great picture at their wedding one day.

One exhibit I was really looking forward to was the lions because we heard there were seven little lion cubs out with their parents. Also, when you ask Joey what sound lions make, he does this really cute little roar.

When we got to the lions, Joey walked right up to the glass. I don't know how well you can see it in the picture, but the lions are laying on a jeep. He started roaring at the lions, which made everyone around him laugh.

For some reason the lions made Joey feel quite amorous because he randomly started hugging and kissing Mollie. All the people around started oohing and aahing over them.

This is right before they were hugging so much that they both fell over, bonked their heads on the ground, and started screaming. One man watching said, "Now that's what I call falling in love!" It was really funny--minus the screaming part.