Mark & Mandy

My parents came down for Easter and we all headed up to Beaver Creek for a long ski weekend. The Grammie and Grampa were very happy to have both of their bunnies together (Elsie did not care for the rabbit ears, saffie on the other hand was quite pleased to be a bunny!)

Elsie prefers the role of jockey – Go grammie, go!

Our first ski day was at beaver creek where Mark had us skiing moguls till our legs gave out …

We met up with Josh, Amy, Saffie and Elsie for Apres Ski at the Park Hyatt – Elsie brought her pink uggs but decided to switch shoes with grammie for a bit

For the second ski day we headed to Vail with Josh! It was a perfect spring skiing day – sadly we forgot that mountain sun and reflective snow = sun burn! We all paid the price the next day. Tuesday we headed back to vail for a quick lunch/tour before we had to get back to the real world …

I am sad to see the ski season go, if anyone wants to buy me a mountain house – please send me a note!

Auntie Chloe gave Elsie a Stanford Onsie for Christmas … its still a bit big, but she loves it! (her stanford spirit did not help them win the basketball game)

Elsie was playing in her room and I found her in her closet undo’ing all of my organization … clearly she has a better system

She also now seems to only want to hold her bottle by herself

Little Miss Independent!

This afternoon we did a quick photo shoot with Elsie … I am having some custom stamps made for her 1st birthday invitations … an English Garden Tea Party! Here she is posing in a flower headband …

Elsie is officially walking! Well I guess you would call it wobbling … the funny thing about our bean is that she had decided to do things in her own style. She isn’t able to get to a sitting position on her own, or stand up on her own, but she has no fear about wobbling around. Here is some video that we captured …

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc1IryoSdVM[/youtube]

The Ides of March is Grandpa Michael’s birthday, so Elsie wanted to send a happy birthday hi! She’s too young to write a card, but perhaps a very cute couple of outfits will suffice for this year! She can’t wait to see him on her first birthday in a few weeks.

With Easter coming so early this year, Elsie decided it was time to channel the Easter Bunny

Tonight we are off to Vegas to celebrate many things … the launch of Google Sites, Julie being cancer free for 2 years and my 30th birthday (actually I am re-turning 30 this year since I was preggers last year and pretty lame). Joining us on the trip Scott, Julie, Drew, Vivian, Josh, Amy, Heidi and Jason.

This is a adults only trip so we are leaving the chillin’s behind … we are flying grammie and grampa down to watch Elsie and Saffron and Pat Johnston is coming down to watch Niko. I am a nervous wreck – why? Because I am me – a nervous wreck about anything!

Even though it is clear that my parents have successfully (well at least with me) raised 2 children I still felt necessary to over arm them with information about Elsie.

I created the Elsie User Guide …

the user guide is complete with 8 pages of information including special “Mom says” notes. In the guide you will find information on

• A typical Day Guide – a schedule overview
• Going out checklist – What to pack in the diaper bag
• Food Guide – What food is in the freezer
• Troubleshooting – tips and tricks if you encounter a bump
• Extras – looking for a binky, bloanket or wipes…
• Fun things to practice Here are two sample pages.

Cheers to Grammie and Grampa who will be caring for my prized possession while we are out on our first adults only vegas extravaganza! I am sure they will do great!

Saturday we spent some time in our backyard enjoying the 70 degree weather …

This morning we woke up to a blizzard…

Hopefully the trees weren’t tricked!

On Friday we decided to head out to the Aquarium for a quick viewing and some dinner. This was our first visit to the aquarium since Elsie was born and we hoped she would enjoy the underwater adventure.

We started by looking through a periscope where I swear I heard elsie say “1 ping only” [1].

Dad was wearing her and after looking through our photos I realized what a ham he is for the camera … here they are posing by the trout

now next to the potbellied seahorses

Another smile from Dad viewing the coral

which really was quite lovely

The aquarium also has a tropical area where they have some tigers … Elsie wasn’t as impressed as I was (I am pretty sure this tiger is related to my own Crenshaw)

Elsie enjoyed the big fish area – where she banged on the glass to attract sharks

And of course she also loved the moon jellies (although probably not as much as mom)

Fortunately I was along to save her from the shark …

And to finish of the tour we stopped by the ray pool – these suckers actually come flying on over thinking you will have some food. Elsie was very excited, I was very not … sharp little teeth + chubby little fingers = nervous mom.

After the tour we headed to the Aquarium restaurant – which is very fun. They have big walls of tanks and during our dinner the divers came in to feed the fish. Its hard to see here – but the diver is giving elsie some underwater scuba signs – elsie signed back “Hullo!”

Elsie was a great dinner date!

[1]: reference to the Hunt for Red October – one of my all time favs!