Two!!

Over the past few months, Anabelle has been learning what birthdays are: 1) They usually occur at the community rooms for our apartment complex, 2) they mean games and contain food that is oh so good, yet that she can only handle a few bites, 3) many of her friends are there to play with her, and 4) there are lots of toys there that she cannot touch. It has come to the point that often as we walk past the community rooms that she points at them and says, "birthday? birthday? Where'd it go?" Anyway this past week as we told Anabelle that her birthday was coming up, she would get excited. When it came on Saturday, she loved it even though it didn't really contain any of the four points previously described. Anyway, to explain, we were all really sick this past weekend (especially Maria). We'd promised to take her to Sea World all during the previous week, so since she was acting fine (only had a runny nose) and I was feeling okay on Saturday morning, Anabelle and I went there for a few hours in the morning. Anabelle loved it there. When we first got there, I took out the map and showed it to her, and asked while pointing at the various exhibits on the map, "What do you want to see first?" So of all of the animals at Sea World, what did she want to see first (and keep asking for after we saw them)? Yes, you guessed it, the Anheizer-Busch horses! So the first thing she saw on her first trip to Sea World was a horse... go figure....

After that we visited the penguins, the beluga whales, polar bears, walruses, and dolphins. Anabelle loved them all. Her favorite moments were: 1) watching the penguins and then trying to walk like them, 2) watching the video in the arctic exhibit, and 3) showing the dolphins to her new freind, "Dude" (a stuffed turtle I bought her that she promptly named after the turtles in Finding Nemo). She loved Sea World and was really sad to leave... good thing I had bought a year pass that day!


We had originally planned on inviting all of her friends over for cake, but since Maria was really sick (and Anabelle and I weren't 100% well either) we canceled it. However, to not have her miss out on her birthday, we got her a little ice cream turtle, put candles on it and let her go.

She loved her ice cream turtle, but she made sure to tell Dude "No touch ice cream!" We also let her go at the presents. She got several Curious George books, but what she loved the most was a big stuffed Curious George from Grandma and Grandpa... Dude didn't get nearly as much attention the rest of the night.


Anyway, it was a great birthday, despite us all being sick. The only sad part was that this morning as she woke up, and walked out to the front of our apartment with BaBa, George and Dude in her arms, she went to our table, pointing at it and said in a very sad, longing way, "Where'd the birthday go?"
Anyway, so if you see Anabelle now, ask her how old she is, and she promptly spout out "TWOOO!!"