Pre-Cruise Adventures

Let's be honest. A lot has happened since my last non-cruise post over six months ago. I haven't posted about Stella in over 6 months and 6 months is a very long time during which a lot can happen when you're only 2. I was actually looking over my last Stella post from last September and she has grown and changed so much since then. And now I have mommy guilt for not documenting it better. I guess it's time to go back in time a little and see what we can remember.

During the month of September, Gilroy Gardens was having a special petting zoo exhibit. I knew that Stella would be in absolute heaven seeing all the animals and I really wanted to squeeze a visit in before we left on the cruise. We had a lot going on, so I picked a day where I had a few open hours and we headed over. Just as I thought, Stella was in heaven. She loved every aspect of the petting zoo and probably could've stayed there all day if we had had the time.

She loved looking at the animals:

She loved petting the animals:

She loved trying to hold the animals:

She loved hugging the animals:

She loved trying to feed the animals:

She loved being surrounded by the animals:

I think it was one of the more magical days of her life and it was totally worth squeezing in. And those animals sure are patient.

Our other pre-cruise adventure was Stella's first Giants' game. You may remember this post about Mr. Frisby's awesome work party last June. As I mentioned in that post, at the party we got two free tickets to the Giants' game that was two days before we left on the cruise. We're not ones to pass up a free baseball game and since Stella was still free, we decided to bring her along so she could experience her first of hopefully many Giants' games.

That afternoon we went to the Giants' dugout to pick up a Giants' shirt for her so she would be properly attired. We decided to take the train up to the city and Stella loved it. She was super cute posing in front of AT&T Park:

She was also super cute posing with Mr. Frisby:

Unfortunately, she just didn't understand what was going on on the field and it was hard for her to see what was going on from way up high anyway. So, she had more fun trying to go up and down the stairs and run up and down the aisles. Hopefully when we take her this year, she'll be a little more into the actual game.

The game ended up being super long. When Stella was getting super tired and it had been over two hours and the game was barely halfway done, we decided to call it quits and we made a beeline for the train station. We barely caught the train going back home (otherwise we would've had to wait another hour) and settled in for the ride home. The gentle rocking of the train put Stella to sleep pretty quickly and we had a very late night. We had fun, though, and Stella even got a little certificate to commemorate her first Giants' game.