Birthday Girl!

She's one! My how time flies! It's been so fun to watch Allison change and grow and show her own personality. She is such a great baby--she's cheerful, she sleeps so well, she's tolerant of her not-so-gentle brother, and her jabbering is dang cute. We love our little one-year old!

About the 'birthday festivities':
We decided to go to the LA Zoo on her birthday. We were all excited for a fun Saturday outing. However, apparently ALL of LA was excited to go to the zoo at that same moment. After driving an hour to the zoo's exit and then sitting in traffic for over an hour to just get off the exit (which only leads to the zoo), with both kids screaming in the back, we finally gave up. We took the next possible exit and piled out of the car as fast as we could into an Iranian produce market, which was the only place with an A/C that we could find at the moment. We were way out of place there and we looked pretty silly just standing there trying to gain our composure after a traumatic traffic experience. After finding our way out of the 'Iranian Quarter' of LA, we discovered downtown Glendale. Not exactly where we were expecting to land, but it was full of restaurants. So we quickly changed our plans from going to "Allison's Favorite Activity Spot (the zoo)" to going to "Allison's Favorite Restaurant" (California Pizza Kitchen). Not that a one-year old had any idea what was going on, nor has she ever been to the zoo or tasted pizza before, but that's what we decided. Allison learned a new skill at her official Birthday Lunch: drinking out of a straw. She was obsessed with the activity.
Anyway, we had a fun day together. She even ended up getting to buy a birthday present at the bookstore: a silly Scooby-Doo book because she ripped it.
We threw a party for her on Sunday with 2 families of friends. There were a total of 9 kids in our little apartment. It was so fun to have them here to enthusiastically sing and help her blow out her candle.
Below: Hopefully you can make out the butterfly cake in the pictures; that was Amy's fun project to decorate a cute cake. Thanks to the grandparents for the wonderful presents--you'll see they (Jacob of course took over the present-opening) had a great time opening them.

Train Ride

We randomly received free train tickets in the mail, so we decided to use them and make an event of it. At first, we wanted to use the train to get us to a destination, but after checking our schedule and the train schedule, it didn't quite match up to get us anywhere useful. So, we made the train our destination! This was Jacob & Allison's first time to ride on a train and they had a great time! There was a very friendly conductor who gave Jacob a lot of Metrolink gear and let us stand up front to see the tracks in front. We met the conductor who was controlling everything and got to see the tunnel straight on as we entered.
So, what was our plan? Well, we didn't really have one, but we got off at the Burbank airport. We sat and ate our picnic dinner on the edge of the runway and watched a few planes take off. We explored some airport displays and then stood on the top of the parking garage to see more planes take off. Then it was time to catch our train back.
We had a great time talking to passengers and they got a kick out of the kids and their excitement for the train. It was a very fun outing for us all, our "Night of Transportation." Riding the train and watching airplanes, what more could any 3 year old (and a Mechanical Engineer) want?!?