Spring Visit to Mimi and Papa's House

For Spring Break this year (2017) we decided to head down to Alabama to see Mimi and Papa (and Gigi and Uncle Trey!).  The week just seemed to flew by!

Montgomery Zoo
Went to see Beauty and the Beast
Meeting Trey's girlfriend, Ashley

We met up with Heather, Justin, Sean, and Robin in Auburn.  The kids had a great time playing on campus and eating pizza!

Our flight out of Atlanta was early in the afternoon, so we had time to meet up with some friends.  Uncle Trey and Ashley picked us up at the house early that morning and drove us up to Atlanta.  We were able to meet up with our friends Patrick, Akila, Amara, and their new baby Kareena and grabbed breakfast with them.  All in all, a great end to a great visit!

Link to pictures

Visit to Mimi and Papa's and other November Happenings

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Alabama to spend the holiday with Mom's family: Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey.  We also got to meet Uncle Trey's new girlfriend, Jacie.  It was a whirlwind visit.  We flew down on Sunday and flew out on Friday.  In between, we went out to a hibachi restaurant to celebrate Kara's birthday, visited the Montgomery Zoo, visited Great Grandpa H. (who recently moved to a retirement home in Montgomery), and enjoyed some excellent home-cooking from Mimi.  We were able to meet up with the McDonough family, while they we in town to visit their family.

We kept things pretty low key for November other than Kara's birthday and our visit to Alabama.  We got a decent snowstorm in the middle of the month, which the girls enjoyed playing in.

As soon as we got home (and got mostly unpacked), Kara had us take out all the Christmas decorations.  Kara had a great time putting up the tree and all the ornaments.  Emily had fun setting stuff up, but was much more interested in playing with some of the decorations.

Recent quotes:
11/15: "I like Kara. Her my best friend." -Emily

11/15: "I love spending time with you, Dad." -Emily

Kara to Mom: "Do you know who the real Santa is? Because I do, and I'm looking at her and him (gesturing towards Dad)"

Link to November happenings pictures

Link to Shorter visit pictures

Visit to Shorter - Fall 2014

Early this month, we packed up the girls and went to visit the family down in Alabama. This was Emily's first flight since she was just a tiny baby, so we were a little nervous about her. For the most part, she did very well. She even passed out for about an hour, which made the time go by much faster. Kara, of course, handled the flight like a champ... as long as she had a screen (Mommy's iPad or her LeapPad) to look at.

While we were down there, Justin, Heather, Sean, and Robin McD came down to visit us at Mimi and Papa's house.  We hadn't seen them in almost two years, and we'd never met Robin!  To paraphrase Heather, "Robin and Emily are best friends, they just may not know it yet!"  Emily and Robin got along pretty well.  For the most part they just played next to each other, though Emily was not too happy when Robin took a ride on her Mickey airplane (her favorite toy at Mimi and Papa's house).  The girls even held hands walking around outside, which was pretty sweet.  Kara and Sean got along really well, mostly because Kara led Sean around the whole time they were there and Sean seemed okay with that.  Sean was such a good sport doing crafts and even reading to Kara.  We also had a little birthday party for Kara.  Overall, it was great to see our friends.  Hope to see you guys again soon!

On the last full day of our visit, we headed into Montgomery to check out the Montgomery Zoo.  It's a really great zoo for kids.  It's not too big, so we could check out almost the whole zoo.  Plus, it has a pretty awesome playground and petting zoo.  We even got to feed giraffes!  The girls both had a really great time.

The trip home was just plain no fun at all.  An arctic front moved into Denver while we were down in Alabama, which caused delayed flights leaving Denver.  We checked our flight status before heading to the airport.  At that time it said our flight was still on schedule; however, about 15 minutes after getting dropped off at the Atlanta airport, we got notification that our flight had been delayed.  In the end, the flight was 2.5 hours late taking off, so we spent almost 4.5 hours at the Atlanta airport.  The flight went pretty smooth except Emily was pretty irritable.  We realized about halfway through the flight that she felt quite warm.  We hoped that if she could just get a good night's sleep, maybe she'd feel better.  We landed in Denver about 8:30 (almost 2.5 hours late) to single digit temperatures.  While Dad was waiting on the jetway in the freezing weather, Emily was throwing up in the terminal.  Fortunately, after that, Emily started acting much better.  Then, Dad forgot one of our bags on the shuttle while we were trying to get everyone and everything to the car.  He had to chase down the shuttle through the icy parking lot in 0 degree weather.  Whew, that was brisk!  Fortunately, the drive home went off without any hitches, and our travel day concluded safely.

All in all, it was a good trip, and it was great to see everyone!

Link to pictures

More Florida Summer Fun

We have been keeping ourselves very busy down here in Florida.  We made it down to the beach one day as a family (Emily's not a big fan of the sun and heat).  We also made it out to EPCOT one last time before the summer crowds start (which was a surprise visit for Kara).  Here's how the talk went on the drive into the park:

Mommy - Kara, do you see the sign in front of us? [it was the entrance sign for Disney World]
Kara - It's a sign for Disney World!  Are we going to Disney World?
Mommy - You'll have to wait and see.
Kara, talking to herself - I think we're going to Disney World.  We seem to be following the signs.  It would be fun to go to Disney World, and I think we're going.  But Mommy says she doesn't know where we're going.  I hope it's Disney World!
Mommy - Kara, do you see what's in front of us? [it was EPCOT]
Kara - EPCOT! (throwing her hands up in triumph)

Kara is getting adjusted to her new surroundings.  We signed her up for a sports camp, so on Tuesday and Thursday mornings she runs around playing soccer with other kids.  She seems to have a great time with that.  Kara has also taken to putting on productions for Mommy during the day at the condo.  In one show Kara was pretending to be a dinosaur.  When Mommy was pretending to be scared, Kara replied, "It's just make-believe, nothing's going to happen to you."  And then later said, "It's all controlled, don't worry."  Sometimes she will pretend to be the animals and act out their parts.  Other times she will be the ring master - "Introducing Cecil the Dolphin and Cecil the Octopus" (for some reason she seems to like the name Cecil).

Emily is becoming a very talkative and happy baby.  She often times will chat up the caterpillar toy on her bouncy seat.  She's also taken to giggling while playing with Mommy and Daddy.  She is getting stronger all the time.  She rolled over for the first time at 11 weeks old.  She also can stand on her legs (with lots of support from either Mommy or Daddy).  It really is amazing how fast they grow!

Speaking of babies, congratulations to Justin, Heather, and Sean on your newest addition!  We cannot wait to meet Robin.

Link to pictures