After Christmas we flew to Arizona to visit my family. The kids have 16 cousins down south and they all were around for entertainment. The oldest cousin is 12 and the youngest is just a few weeks younger than our kids. Ella and Luke absolutely loved being with all the cousins! There's never a dull moment, that's for sure!

And speaking of wild animals, we also went to the Tucson Zoo. It's a very small zoo, but perfect for little kids because you can see the entire zoo in about 2 hours. By that time, they're tired and ready to go anyway. It's not the first time they've been to a zoo, but the first time they weren't old enough to sit up and enjoy it. (We tried to go with my family in July. It was blasted hot! Plus, Clifton could barely walk because he had at least a second degree sunburn on his foot from being at the lake the day before. His foot was an unearthly shade of glossy red and purple with white little dots. And it was huge and swollen. So we stayed about 20 minutes and then left. Sorry about the tangential story, but it was kinda interesting, right?)

So this time, they did sit up and enjoy it, but I think they liked people watching more than the animals. No matter, they seemed to enjoy it. And so did the cousins.

A few weeks later, back in Utah we took Ella and Luke to an aquarium.

Luke loved the little frogs in one exhibit.

We tried to get them both to touch the water in the stingray exhibit. Luke was willing, but Ella they didn't go for it. Notice the little thumb braced determinedly against the side of the tank. Maybe next time.