28 Weeks, 5 Days

Dear Baby Batts #2,

Today we went to the zoo! But of course, we started with some coffee from Starbucks. This has been our little tradition - get coffee, then carry on with the day.

The zoo was fun: we especially liked the giraffes (mama's favorite - I saw them wild in Africa one time!), the African wild dogs, and the elephants. Today was Earth Day, so there were some vendors set up on the zoo lawn, so we walked through and looked at their wares, too. It was such a beautiful day, and we were worried about sun burns, so we went home to rest and eat lunch right after we were done walking through.

After lunch and a nap, we headed to the beach. And this time, we played in the water! It was fairly warm, which was nice, and we just walked out some, let Ruth "swim" between us, looked at shells, and relaxed on the sand. When we bought our beach towels, daddy picked out four - one for each of us... including YOU! I might put everyone's name on their towel.

We took a long way back to our apartment, just window shopping, and I'm so glad we did because we stumbled upon a Farmer's Market! We all had a hankering for some cookies, but instead, we found some malasadas (a donut type thing filled with fruit) and we munched on those. We decided to go get cleaned up and walk back for dinner.

So we did! We ended up eating lots of fruit, meat on a stick, spring rolls, and some Mexican-style jambalaya stuff. It was all so good. Because the Famer's Market was right in the middle of a shopping district, we looked around there, too.

I think what we love most about this vacation is that it's just the three (four!) of us to consider. We can do what we think will be fun without worrying about someone else's agenda. In fact, we've enjoyed it so much that daddy and I talked about planning a vacation like this every year. Sometimes it may be to places like Hawaii or Disneyland, sometimes it may be to places like Ireland or Iceland... but sometimes, it may be juts down to Seward or Juneau. The point is, we want you girls to grow up with memories of our family vacations, doing fun low-key things like this: daddy and I each pushing our little girls in umbrella strollers as we navigate a new town together.

Adventure is out there, little Clara. Let's go find it!

Love,
Mama