Our winter vacation... is it March already?

Boy I'm behind on this blogging thing. Hundreds of pictures are accumulating on my computer I don't even know where to begin.
One of the coolest things we did over Christmas break was to go visit Russell's family in Arizona. We left around 5pm a few days after my birthday and drove all night. Russell insisted on driving most of the way saying I should sleep so I'd be rested to take care of the kids when we arrived the next morning. Haha! Funny joke. I woke up in panic every time the car hit a bump, took a sharp turn, slowed down or accelerated... not my idea of a night of rest. Anyway, It took us about 14hrs to get there (and that's fast!)
We had so much fun there. Josh and William were entertained the entire time we were there. Not a minute to get bored, they had lots of play time with Gramma and Uncle Cody, new toys, new DVDs, a new house to turn upside down, a garden etc...

Fun times with Gramma

While we were there Russell's Mom took us on a family outing to the zoo. It was a great hit with Joshua.
What fun memories we created that day.

A tank full of sharks, Josh stood there mesmerized for a good 15minutes

Attempting to touch the stingrays, horseshoe crabs and starfish (he's braver than me, he actually touched the stingrays)

 A slow paced but interesting show

The long awaited felines. I don't think we'd ever been so close to a leopard before.

Riding a dinosaur on the carousel.

 A crocodile... ew! I'm really not a big fan of reptiles

 And feeding giraffes (they have REALLY long tongues!)

 William's favorite animals were the penguins. They were so playful. He kept following them on the other side of the window and was so excited to see them dive and twirl in the water.

We were also very lucky to be able to spend some time with Great Gramma Parks who was visiting her niece in the Phoenix area. It was her first visit with Joshua and William and they (especially Josh) fell in love with her. (Who wouldn't, she has to be the prettiest great gramma in the world). We had a great time visiting with her and her niece Christine.

As usual, Russell's Mom had the best birthday present for me. She sent Russell and I to a Swiss restaurant ("Le chalet") for a delicious meal. I had a very authentic raclette with cold cuts for dinner and a sugar and lemon crepe for dessert. Russell had a Salmon flamenkuche and a buckwheat crepe. It was heavenly, really!