Friends from the mission

One of the best parts of our trip was meeting some of the people I'd heard Cody talk about from his mission. They were the nicest people and offered friendship and help instantly. (The couple in the middle are the Nygren's. Bryce served the same time as Cody there and we stayed at the resort with them and another couple from their ward. It was a good combination of people to travel with. We all got along really well)

This is the Rocca family. They picked us up when we arrived to Cancun (funny story.. we actually took a taxi to their old house.. luckily the girls living there knew them and called them for us, and they came and picked us up there)

Anyway, we were a mess after flights and driving late to Dallas the night before. They took us to church (it'd already started by the time we got there, and Cody and I were in shorts and t-shirts from traveling!) I was a little embarrassed for looking like such a scrub but everyone was just so happy to greet us.. it didn't matter what we were wearing. The Rocca's took us back to their house and fed us lunch and got rides lined up for us to the resort. . . so hospitable.

I really enjoyed spending time with this family as well. We spent the last couple of evenings with them. They made us dinner one night, and they took us out and showed us some different places and things. This particular evening was their anniversary of when they'd been baptized. We had a lot of fun with them!

Cancun

So Cody and I leave for Cancun this weekend. (He served his mission there) We'll be there for a week. I'm very excited (hello.. Cancun.. how could I not be!), but I'm a little sad thinking about leaving Ansel for a week :( Yep, haven't left him for more than a day yet, so this is the first big abandonement. He'll be with Grandma and Grandpa Sneddon, at home, and his Aunt Rachel should be home too by then which he'll be excited about, so I imagine he'll do better than I will with it!

A day at the zoo

Ansel took his first trip to the zoo yesterday. We went with my friends Melinda and Jovi and their kids. It was a bit crazy at first.. of all days to go we just happened to hit a day where there where a million school groups there!! But then most of them left and it was a nice, enjoyable day. We got lucky with perfect weather too. It'd just rained the day before and cooled things down a bit.

Eliza, Wyatt, and Ethan in their cute new wagon

The peacock strutted his stuff for us

The otter showed off a little too.. it became known as the "water cat" by the kids!

Ansel loves trains....

So we ended up taking a little ride,

which he REALLY enjoyed

Luckily, we were even able to get a naptime in for Ansel!!

It was naptime for some of the animals too.. the cheetahs, mountain lions, bears, tigers, etc. Not a lot of excitement that time of day!

The monkey family, however, was very entertaining. There were two younger monkeys that were chasing each other all over the place. The kids got very excited watching them.

Watch out for the ostriches! This one bit Melinda's foot! Luckily she was wearing tennis shoes!

I always forget how big the hippos are until I see them! Definitely wouldn't want to mess with one of those!

Ansel got to feed the giraffe some crackers. (That was tricky... as I mentioned in the last video post, he loves crackers and it's his new word he uses all the time.. Needless to say, it was a task to get him to feed it to the giraffe and not himself!!)

Looks cute, but kind of rude.. they'd let Ansel pet him (which he loved doing) as long as he was holding a cracker, but once the crackers were gone they snorted on him (pretty big gust of air!)and walked off... I was left with a disappointed boy!

Fun at dinner

Ansel was having fun playing at dinnertime... we even got one of his newer words "cracker" on the video!

Happy Mother's Day

Hope all the mothers out there had a great day! We did.. Ansel (with Daddy's help) made me a very cute card with his hand and foot prints (dipped in paint). Definite scrapbook item :)

Rain, rain...time to play

We've had quite a bit of rain lately. Ansel loves to feel it. He loves being outside.

Stair climber

Ansel LOVES climbing the stairs, and he's pretty quick. He's done single steps forever now, but he recently started eyeing the stairs so we thought we'd let him have a go at it. He didn't have any trouble and looked like he'd been doing it forever. Now if he go down to do laundry, he's just a minute behind me!
P.S. this outfit, which has a little tie and sweater vest with it, is 3-6 months!! how crazy is that!? I know Ansel runs on the small size, but he usually wears 12 month clothes atleast. I don't know why they make the dress clothes so big. We tried a 6-9 month one first, but the shorts fell right off him!