For Patient Friends

We spent the first 2 weeks of August in Utah enjoying some great reunions with friends and family. While there I took some family pictures for some friends and am finally finished with them. Thanks for your patience D and B!

Even though it was August, the morning was pretty chilly. The girls were troopers, though, and mom did her best to encourage them and keep hands warm!

Mom specifically wanted me to get some pictures of her youngest who is 18 months old. She has such beautiful eyes and soft squishy arms! And trying to get pictures of her was a fiasco--she never stopped moving! But I had such fun playing cat and mouse--and she did get caught a few times!

Post Catch-Up

I have been back-dating some posts as I've started to catch up with blogging from our past year. Just in case you've missed them, scroll down or use the following links to visit the posts I've added.

Welcome Baby Luke!

Halloween Deja Vue

Baby Shower

Toshi's Baby Bump

Dierberg's Cakes

Naples Advenure

Key West Adventure

Making Snowmen

These are the only kind of snowmen we'll be making in Florida!

Ella was a great little helper when I made these snowmen for a Relief Society project.

Thanksgiving 2010

For Thanksgiving this year we packed up the car and made the long trek up to Virginia. Blair's sister, Melissa, lives near Richmond and we were glad to spend some time with her and her family. On Thanksgiving day itself we went to Melissa's sister in law's house. They were gracious hosts and even put us up for the night. Some things worth noting about the trip:

*Ella did better than expected on the drive, mostly thanks to a portable DVD player and plenty of planning ahead on my part. We were so grateful for the DVD player we borrowed from our friends that we decided to get our own on Black Friday to use on long road trips/plane rides.

*Even though we were in an unfamiliar city, we still dragged ourselves out on black Friday and got some great deals.

*Driving up the coast from the bottom of Florida was a lot of fun! We loved going from summer weather, shorts, and flip flops to beautiful fall colors and sweatshirts to no leaves on the trees and jackets. It really made me miss the changing seasons.

*We loved spending time with Melissa and her family and hope to go back as frequently as we can.

I didn't take any pictures on our trip (lame, I know) so here is a picture of Ella a few days before our trip taking care of her baby doll.

Alligator Sighting

Since moving to Florida my family has been teasing me about alligators. Imagine my excitement when I looked out my back door and spotted an alligator in the canal! We happened to have people over to watch General Conference at the time so we all spilled out into the backyard and I grabbed my camera.

I got within about 6-7 feet of the big guy and snapped a few pics. I figured there was a 2 foot drop from the bank to the water level so he wouldn't come up on land. Only later did I learn that alligators have amazing jumping ability--they can travel twice their length in one shot. This guy was about 8 ft. long. Needless to say, I won't intentionally be getting so close to one again.

Butterfly World

Blair got a special deal at work for us to go to Butterfly World on the cheap. Ella loved seeing the butterflies and she talked about it for weeks and weeks afterward. She also loved smelling all the flowers and watching people feed the birds in the mini aviary. If the deal comes up again we'll definitely go back.

Welcome Baby Luke!

My friend, Toshi (seen here), had her baby and I asked her if I could snap a few pictures of him. It was a quick session as far as newborns go and Luke didn't want to sleep for us, but I still love what we got! He's 9 months old now and quite a nice chunk!