A Sad Farewell...

At 18 weeks along, it's time to say GOODBYE to my skinny jeans...

And HELLO to these bad boys!

The Scariest Pumpkins You've Ever Seen...

Joshua has been sick for the past 5 days or so, so we haven't left the house much. In order to keep ourselves from getting too bored, we've been making LOTS of crafts.
Here we are painting our pumpkins...

Pretty Scary, don't ya think?

A Night of Murder, Mystery, and the Bee Gees...

This year was our turn to host the Annual Murder Mystery Night.
This was the 5th year we've done this with friends

Kari and Jeremy, and Tom and Laurel.
We had a great time boogying to disco music, enjoying wonderful food, and getting into character!

(thanks, Laurel, for the photo montage, which I am totally stealing here)

Mommy's Little Helper... Part 2

Whenever I’m not feeling well, I’ll tell Summer that my tummy hurts. No matter what she’s doing, she’ll come right over and lift up my shirt and tickle/scratch my tummy and say, “There you go, Mommy. Does that feel better now?” I have to say yes, because it is so amusing.

Mommy's Little Helper... Part 1

Well, I am 14 weeks along in this pregnancy and I am definitely feeling better. I must say that this time around has been so much more difficult than my first two pregnancies.

Summer has been such a sweetheart through it all. I must share a few examples of her cuteness. One particularly rough day, I managed to talk Summer into lying down with me for a nap. As I lay there trying to fall asleep, I was so sick to my stomach. I was complaining to Summer and she said, “I know what you need, Mommy. I’ll be right back.” She dashed off to the kitchen and I could hear her rummaging around. She came back into my bedroom with a cup of water and about 5 cookies. She said, “Here, Mommy, cookies in bed always makes me feel better.” So, we lay there and ate cookies, and you what? It actually worked. I felt a little better and we both fell asleep. When I went to make the bed later that day (before Ryan got home from work!) I found lots of crumbs – on his side of the bed!

Thanks, Summer, for taking care of Mommy.

Ahhh... The Joys of Motherhood...

On days like this, I just have to laugh or else I'll get mad...

"uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh..."

is all he had to say for himself.

Fun at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin...Part 2

Day #2...

Ahhh... the perfect S'more (for the baby, of course)

Hanging out with Dad watching "Playhouse Disney"

In the kids' happy place - the sandbox

Scaring the chipmunks away

Happy to be here.

What a fun weekend!

Fun at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin...

Day #1 at the cabin...

As soon as we woke up (which was EARLY), it was "The chipmunks need breakfast!" Notice Joshua has a cookie and a flower - he kept saying, "Here chicka-munk..." in his Joshua language (which most of time only Mommy can understand ).

On a beautiful walk.. it was perfect Fall weather.

Going 4-wheelin'...

Throwing rocks in the water and laughing at the "ker-plunk" and splashes.

Summer making a "rock picnic"

Taking a break (with the favorite blue "bankie")

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for a wonderful time.

p.s. I'm officially done with the 1st trimester and am feeling SO much better.

Introducing...

"Acorn #3"

So... this is who's been making me so sick (and chubby!)

Due to arrive March 31, 2009

Recent Photo Shoot...

While Kimi was in town with cute little Jacob, we grabbed the chance to have some photos taken of the kids... what an adventure!

Here are just a few...

Summer and Joshua with Jacob.

Thanks, Whitney, for the many great pics!

Stomach bug?

So, I've been feeling rather nauseous and very very tired...

I'm really sensitive to smells and I'm having the weirdest cravings (i.e. I NEED a bean burrito every morning at 10:00 a.m., and a Subway sandwich at 11:00 p.m.).

Hmmmm.... I wonder what's going on with me. I hope it passes soon.

Not feeling well.

Sorry - not much posting going on around here. I have not been feeling well.

Hopefully I'll get back on track soon.

We had some photos taken of the kids recently, so I'll post some soon.

Fun at the Bountiful Handcart Days...

We had a lot of fun Wednesday night at the

Bountiful Handcart Days Celebration.

We caught the tail-end of the parade,

and had a great time over at the park.

Pony rides!

Bounce House
Twirly-rides
Swings!

This had a huge slide that the kids (and Daddy) loved!

And, of course, lots of junk food!

The real treat - Summer got to stay up til 10:30 to watch the fireworks (from the trampoline, no less!)

Now that's a humdinger!

Check out Joshua's boo boo. He konked his head on the corner of our dining room table while running around. It knocked him flat on the ground!

It turned into quite a nice bruise...

Trip to England...

We just got back from a wonderful 10-day trip to England...

We left the kids with Ryan's folks (who are home from Hong Kong for a month-long vacation), and away we went.


We've wanted to visit England for a while, and for several reasons... just a few:

1. We're fans of British literature- Jane Austen, C.S. Forester (who wrote the "Horatio Hornblower" series), C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, etc etc...



2. We're fans of British music - Keane, Coldplay, Annie Lennox, Beatles, etc. etc.



3. Family History Research - Ryan's side (Oakes), and my mother's side (Rowe) came to the US from England. We were interested in seeing where they lived.



We spent 5 days in London hitting all the usual tourist spots - my favorites:

• The British Library - which had a fabulous display of beautiful and fascinating items, from medieval bibles to Jane Austen's diary, as well as handwritten music from Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and the Beatles. :) Also Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, Shakespeare's first works, etc. etc... I loved this place!


(outside the library - that's Newton I'm sitting below)




• Tower of London


• Westminster Abbey


• Windsor Castle


• British Museum


• St. Paul's Cathedral


• We were able to see the musical "Wicked" - it was amazing!


• We ate lots of delicious food - my favorites - "local" Indian food, pub food (i.e. cottage pie, fish & chips), and chocolate. I don't know why, but the chocolate tastes better there. I'll bet I ate 10 Kit Kat bars while I was there. I brought home several candy bars to do a taste test.

(Ryan outside "Ye Old Cheshire Cheese" pub, rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire of London. The food was great. It was a favorite hangout of Charles Dickens)

(Do you like Big Ben coming out of the top of Ryan's head?)

(At Platform 9 and 3/4 from the Harry Potter film)

We took a couple of side trips outside of London -

• Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare country), and Warwick Castle


• Stonehenge - very mysterious


• Bath - an old Roman city. Also Jane Austen lived there at one point and it is the setting for two of her books, and Salisbury - amazing city with one of these oldest cathedrals in Europe.

(That's the base of Salisbury Cathedral behind us. Inside is the oldest working clock in Europe, built in 1386)


• Portsmouth - we were able to tour old British Naval ships (exciting for us given our interest in the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester), also where Jane Austen's Fanny Price is from. :)


• Birmingham - where Ryan's ancestors are from. This was a huge city during the Industrial Revolution - it was very intesting to see where Ryan's relatives would have lived (19th century low-income housing) and worked (factories).

I think one of my favorite things during our trip was talking with the locals. As unpopular as America is right now (specifically Pres. Bush), the Brits are still quite enamored with American culture. Will Smith is huge over there! Also, the upcoming Presidential election is very exciting to them.

It was fun to discuss the differences in accents and vernacular such as:

Rubbish = Garbage

Flyover = Overpass

Chips = Fries (they call potato chips "Crisps")

Bin = Trash can

Holiday - Vacation (We were asked several times "Are you here on holiday?")

Loo = Toilet

Whilst = While ("Please mind the gap whilst existing the train.")

Tube or Underground = Subway

We found we had to repeat ourselves a lot. We were talking with a local we met at a museum who explained to us that we're not hard to understand, it's just that folks aren't expecting our American accent. What? We're not the ones with an accent! :) My favorite was when we were buying some treats at a convenience store and the checker, who was Indian, asked if were American. We answered yes, and he then added, "You talk funny." He said this in an Indian/British accent mind you.

We had a wonderful experience, but by the end, we were anxious to get home. We missed the kids terribly, but Summer and Joshua had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa.

I must add that although I love all things British, I was very happy to return home to the good old U.S.A. When we arrived in Newark from London and had to go through Immigration and Customs, we handed the guard our passport. He stamped it and said, "Welcome home." There on the wall was this huge American flag. I saw it and said a quiet prayer of gratitude. What a wonderful blessing it is to live in this great country.

Cheers, mate!

Happy Birthday...

To My Best Friend and Sister,

KIMI

I LOVE YOU TONS!

(I'm guessing 1979?)

(in 1992)

(Going on our cruise in 1996)

(Jackson Hole 1998)

(Jen's bridesmaids in 2003)