New Year's Day at the Zoo

After a fun evening with Janice and Ellen of yummy food, a game of Yahtzee (which amazingly Derek didn't win), and about 15 minutes of Mama Mia, we called it a night on New Year's eve. With all four of us getting sleepy, Derek and I headed back home and drifted off to sleep well before the midnight fireworks. 2008 was a pretty good year, but we definitely look forward to all that 2009 has to bring.

After getting a good night sleep, we woke up to a bright and sunny New Year's day and decided to go to the Wildlife World Zoo out in Litchfield Park. We had seen plenty of commercials for the park on TV, but had never took the time to head out west to visit. The park just opened a new aquarium a couple of weeks ago, so it seemed like good timing to visit.

Apparently many other families had the same idea today, so the park was pretty crowded, but we still managed to have a great time. They had everything from zebras and tigers, to warthogs and a rhino. There was even a really neat giraffe feeding station where you could feed the giraffes right out of your hands! Lots and lots of birds and quite a few different exhibits for reptiles, small mammals and many sea life exhibits.

After spending a few hours of walking at the park, we decided that we deserved ice cream and a movie, so after a quick stop at a RedBox to pick up Kung Fu Panda and some Double Fudge Brownie ice cream, we settled in for the evening at home.

All and all...it was a great way to start 2009!

Christmas 2008

It's a quiet Christmas here in Anthem. Luckily for us, Derek has been home, so we were able to have a nice holiday dinner last night with Larkin and our friend Ellen. We had all the traditional food to stuff ourselves with - turkey, mashed potatoes (with the peels), gravy, corn, rolls and pies for dessert.

After dinner we spent some time showing Ellen how to play the wii fit. It was quite entertaining to watch Derek play the hula hoop game!

We woke up this morning to a cloudy Christmas morning and its turned to quite the downpour. We are happily staying indoors and watching Christmas movies and playing more games on the wii.

Tomorrow its back to work for all of us - Larkin and I to the office and Derek is off to Puerto Vallarta. (not a bad gig, eh?)

We are sending holiday wishes to all of our family and friends and are so excited to have added two more family members this year - Alyssa Marie and Jacob Leslie! Its amazing to finally be an aunt and uncle!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Well...here we are!

Since everyone seems to be jumping on the blog band-wagon, I thought we would join in too! I love reading Shy and Shawn's posts and now that Mom is on here too, it should be awfully fun! Hopefully we can keep up with everyone.

Love you all,

Dora and Derek