David, Cody and Aidan

Play

2012-01-24T16:25:00.000-08:00

I am loving this new stage of play for Aidan. I love seeing the creative ways he uses his toys and the voices he makes when he is playing on his own. He is definitely changing and becoming more independent.

I am also loving our family time together just the three of us. Maybe its me getting ready for our family to change but I feel like I'm really recognizing how awesome my family is and cherishing the fun moments we have together at home. I absolutely love watching David and Aidan play together and keep grabbing the camera and video to try and capture these special moments.

Big Boy Bed

2012-01-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

This big boy is about to become a big brother. With the arrival of baby #2 just a month away we decided to get Aidan a toddler bed to be ready for when it comes time for him to pass on his crib. We really had no intentions of having him sleep in in now or even for a couple months after the baby is born. We just hoped he'd get used to it being in his room and then the transition wouldn't be as hard.

To our surprise he loved it and asked to sleep in it. I wouldn't say he has transitioned completely but we are definitely moving in the right direction. It is so nice that the timing is up to him.....we actually don't know if we're ready for him to be able to get up on his own. We like the boundary the crib provides. Last night he wanted to sleep in his crib. Today for his nap he wanted to sleep in the 'big boy bed'. I guess we'll let him call the shots for now...

Apparently the bed is good for reading

Testing out the new bed

Such a big boy

Snow!

2012-01-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Snow! Here's a little of what we've been up to this weekend.

Play Kitchen!

2012-01-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

I had the idea for a long time to make Aidan a play kitchen. Whenever we go to play areas or preschool rooms he is drawn to them. There are so many cute ones you can buy but thanks to Pinterest I was inspired by many DIY kitchens that people have made from a dresser, night stand or entertainment center. I searched around and found this little gem for $3.99 at Goodwill and thought it would be a perfect starting place for a kitchen. The one thing I forgot to consider was how much time we were already spending on house projects (our windows) and also how busy we are during the holidays. What was mostly an enjoyable project became a lot of work at times and was a pretty stressful project to take on this time of year.

First we took out the drawer, sanded the entire thing and cut out a hole for the sink. We also cut boards for the over door, side cabinet, back panel and shelf. We then primed and painted all the pieces and then screwed and nailed everything together. As I write this description it sounds so easy but it took a long time. I think working with an existing piece of furniture adds a challenge because we had to cut everything to fit with what was already there.

Here is the finished product:

I did a lot of shopping to gather all the materials to make it look as real as possible.

Sink- metal bowl from Goodwill
Faucet- used faucet found at the ReStore
Oven and door handles- from Ikea
Oven knobs- closet rod end caps from Home Depot
Burners- wooden basketball cut outs from JoAnns (painted grey)

Not to mention multiple trips to Home Depot and Lowes for hinges, paint, screws, L brackets, magnets etc.

We did have a lot of fun making this and it will be in our family for a long time. We hid it for Aidan to open during his party but he found it a little early. We heard him banging around and he comes running out with a pan with grin on his face. "Mommy, eat!" and then ran back to get cook me something. That makes it all worth it! He has been enjoying playing with it ever since.

Aidan's 2nd Birthday

2012-01-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

Aidan's is 2 years old!
We had a lovely celebration with family this weekend and Aidan and we can't believe he's already 2.

We decided to save all birthday festivities for a family party last night at our house. After a nice dinner Aidan got to see his awesome fire truck cake that his Aunt Rachel made. It was so creative and even had real lights on it!

Here are some pictures of Aidan opening presents with his two helpers (and best buds David and Danagan). The packing peanuts were the biggest hit (even though there were nice gifts in the box). Overall Aidan was spoiled with many nice gifts from those who love him. He is a lucky guy! We made him a play kitchen for his birthday which he found before it was time to open gifts. He came running to me with a pan in his hand and said "Mommy, eat!" and was very excited. It was such a great reaction to see after putting in many hours creating it for him. I will post kitchen pictures soon.

As for our 2 year old. Aidan is very social and loving to those around him. He says "hi" to strangers and repeats it over and over. He is getting able to say more and more which makes it nice since he has stronger opinions about what he wants and can now communicate it to us. He loves fire trucks, snowmen, playing with his vacuum, dancing around, going to dance class among other activities. He is a great helper and I am amazed at how much he understands and can do. He loves to sing his version of the ABC song which doesn't really resemble the real thing. He can also sing most of Twinkle Twinkle little star. He cracks us up and has such a sense of humor. We feel so lucky to be his parents!

Happy Birthday Aidan!

Christmas!

2012-01-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful and busy Christmas. It started out by us giving each other a new camera! We are thrilled to have made the leap into DSLR cameras and although we don't know what we're doing we're excited to hopefully get some better pictures of our family. I am so tired of blurry pictures and hope I can do better at capturing our favorite moments with clear and beautiful pictures.

Christmas eve we spent over at our family friends' house like we do each year with my side of the family. My mom's best friend from college Anne is like an aunt to me and we look forward to our regular Christmas eve dinners with her and her family. Aidan was especially sweet even when we stayed way past his bedtime.

Christmas morning we woke up early and had a nice time with Aidan opening gifts and seeing what Santa brought for him. Favorite gift from Santa was the vacuum for sure although here is a picture of him vacuuming and writing on the chalkboard at the same time. I wish I could multitask like him.

We got ready to go and went over to spend the second part of our morning with the Koenigs where Aidan once again received wonderful and thoughtful gifts. Favorites were this horse from the Cardinale great grandparents (a gift for Aidan and Danangan) and this awesome firetruck. We enjoyed a turkey lunch and went home stuffed with great food.

After a much needed nap at home we geared up for yet another Christmas celebration with my dad, mom and brother. They came over to our house and we had a lovely dinner and opened gifts together. Aidan enjoyed talking on the phone to Mamaw and Papaw, reading books with Uncle Casey and playing with his new train set.

We had a wonderful Christmas and feel so blessed to be surrounded by family and friends. It was so fun for David and I to share this special holiday with Aidan and to see his excitement in every little detail. We are still hearing about Snowmen, Santa and Christmas trees and will probably be looking for them everywhere we go even as we head into the new year.

December

2011-12-28T15:22:00.000-08:00

For the last month we have spent pretty much every second of free time either working on our window project or getting ready for Christmas. We both decided that the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is not a good time to take on home improvement projects as we feel we rushed through all of our favorite holiday traditions.

We decided to replace the three big windows in our living room and one by the back door. David's dad offered to help us and we are so thankful for his carpentry skills. He ordered the windows for us and then David and Jon installed them with some help from David's brothers. After that day we or rather David has spent hours painting multiple coats on the trim pieces getting them ready to install this weekend. Our garage was filled to the brim with wood drying and it was a bit claustrophobic to even go in there.

Before:

After- here's the back window without trim

On another note here is a picture of my growing belly at 29 weeks. We are getting pretty excited about the upcoming arrival of Baby Reggie as we call him. Hopefully a good 2 months before he comes but still it feels very close.

Thanksgiving weekend

2011-11-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we also got to spend a lot of time with family. Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner with David's family at Bekky & Juston's house. We had a lovely feast and everything turned out great. I think my favorite this year was the delicious yam dish that David and I made. It was quite a hit and even those who are not usually a fan were commenting on how good it was. After dinner Aidan was acting quite strange as in wanting to sit on my lap and not wanting to get down. He even said to me "night night" and "home." He had a little fever and was so adimant about leaving to go to bed that we left early. Luckily for David and I we were sent home with 3 kinds of delicious pie.

Friday we enjoyed a "North Pole Breakfast" which for us this year consisted of going out to get donuts and eating them while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate. We then worked to pack up the car to head out to my Dad's house in Winthrop. We drove the 2 1/2 hours to Leavenworth and stopped at my grandparents cabin to eat our lunch and take a break from the car. We packed up their stuff, my mom arrived and then we all (Mom, Casey, Mamaw and Papaw, David, Aidan and I) drove the 2+ hours to Winthrop to where my dad lives. Overall Aidan did great in the car and we were appreciative of such a patient kid.
My dad has a house that is in the middle of a winter wonderland. He has been working for the past 5 years to remodel his house and it was great to get to see all that he has done. Of course Aidan loved getting to spend time with his "bumpa bis" (Grandpa Chris) and his dog Layla. One of Aidan's favorite games, when he wasn't hitting Layla, was to pet her and have her give him kisses. He thought it was hilarious. It was really great for me to see him interact with my dad, Casey and my grandparents since he doesn't get to see them very often. I think they enjoyed it just as much as he did!

Dressed for the snow

Aidan playing with Mamaw and Papaw. I loved seeing them all together this weekend.

Papaw

We had a Salmon dinner Friday night and then a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. We played in the snow, ate and ate, and sat around catching up. The real bummer was that Aidan was sick all weekend and had a fever and was not really himself. He had two terrible nights and David and I were definitely sleep deprived all weekend. We packed up the cars yesterday and drove back to Seattle.

Koenig Family Weekend

2011-11-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Two weekends ago we had the chance to spend time with almost all of David's immediate family at a lodge outside of Arlington. David's dad rented Jim Creek Lodge which is located at a Navy recreation facility about an hour north of where we live. The lodge had I think 14 bedrooms, a huge kitchen and dining area and a nice living room complete with a pool table and fireplace. We all enjoyed spending uninterrupted time together and ate way too much food. Aidan loved getting to spend so much time with his cousin Danagan. Except for Aidan's troubles sleeping in a new place I would say the weekend went very well. We hope to make this kind of a getaway an annual thing. Perhaps next year we'll rent a house on the Oregon or Washington coast.

I guess I was too busy relaxing to take pictures because as I was looking for pictures I took I realized these are the only ones I have.

Out on a walk. Obviously going the wrong way

Daniel's attempt to get Danagan and Aidan to keep up

Weekend Getaway

2011-11-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

We have had a busy couple of weeks and have been gone for the past 3 weekends. Though we had great adventures we are glad to slow down for a little bit. Three weeks ago I surprised David with a romantic weekend getaway to Victoria, B.C. We had talked about going somewhere for a babymoon before this baby is born and seeing as Aidan was 6 weeks early we wanted to make sure to do it before the end of the year. With some secret planning and a lot of help from our families I was able to plan a surprise trip for just the two of us. Somehow I even managed to keep David out of the loop until the night before.

We left early Friday morning and took the Victoria Clipper over to Victoria. Seeing as we took a passenger ferry we then were planning on spending the weekend without a car. Unfortunately the weather didn't quite agree with our plans and we spent most of the weekend walking around in the rain (hence the lack of pictures). Thank goodness for nice restaurants, coffee shops and cute stores to give us a break from the weather. We loved not having to cart around toys, snacks and various other toddler gear and took advantage of not having to be on a schedule.

We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast (another perk to traveling without a toddler) and enjoyed an ocean view from our room. The breakfast each morning was delicious and we loved being able to just walk downstairs and be served a hot meal.

Dashwood Manor- our Bed & Breakfast. Such a cool old house with lots of character!

We had a great time exploring the Craigdarroch castle.

The Parliament building at night

Overall we had a fantastic weekend! We both agree that Victoria is a great place to visit but would recommend going when the weather is nice. The rain really got in the way of our plans to see Buchart Gardens and some of the other tourist sights. Sunday night after a long, rocky boat ride we were pretty excited to get back to see Aidan. However, I think he had such a good time with his Nana that he didn't really notice we were gone.

More Fall Fun

2011-11-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

Some other exciting things happened in October for our family. David's dad Jon returned home from his third deployment overseas. This time he was in Djibouti, Africa for 13 months. We are glad to have him home safe and it has been fun for Aidan to spend time with his Grandpa. Right when we got back from meeting him at the airport Aidan was taking his hand to show him the "tools" Grandma got for him to play with. I'm glad we will all be seeing more of Jon now.

Just after Jon got back, David's grandparents (Cheryl's side) and Uncle Keith came to visit. We had a nice visit with them and I know they were thrilled to spend time with Aidan. I guess they were glad to see us too.

We are loving Aidan at this age and it seems like each day he is saying something new or mastering a new skill. One day last week I realized that he can now climb up onto the stools in our kitchen. We are amazed each day at how his mind is developing and how he can remember things we do and repeat them. He loves books and a new favorite thing to do is lay with us on the floor and read them together.

It is also fun to see his sense of humor develop. He put this nursing pillow over his head and was running around with it knowing that he was being funny.

Halloween was fun this year since Aidan was able to do more. Aidan had many opportunites to wear his chicken costume. Daniel and Laura had a Halloween party the week before Halloween and then we had also had our PEPS Halloween party. The Saturday before Halloween we went to the "Trunk or Treat" at church and Aidan really got the hang of saying "Trick or Treat" and then taking a piece of candy. By the time it was actually Halloween I was pretty much done with festivities but we still made the most of it. We went to a Halloween themed toddler gym in the morning and then after a short nap Aidan and I took the bus downtown to David's work and Aidan once again got to strut his chicken stuff. That night we took him trick or treating to the neighbors in our cul de sac and I am sad to say that it was the first time we met many of the people that live on our street. One couple said "welcome to the neighborhood" when we mentioned that we live a couple houses down. I had to inform them that we've been there for over a year....sad. Aidan enjoyed the candy part and in fact started giving up the "trick or treat" part and just said "Candy?" Although he loved collecting it he didn't eat any of it. Lucky for his parents they now have quite a stash!

PEPS Fall 2011

2011-11-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Recently we have enjoyed some fun fall PEPS events with the moms and toddlers in my PEPS group. We took a trip up to The Farm at Swan's Trail on a beautiful fall day. The kids loved the animals, the 4 little pigs story (where they tell the story and have real pigs run around), a hay ride and playing in the pumpkins.

Pictures on the hayride. They lasted like this for about 2 seconds

What a good looking group!

One of my favorite moments of the day was watching Aidan and David playing on the grass. Aidan was putting grass on David's head and they were both just giggling away. They sat here together for a long time just having a great time. I am so glad Aidan enjoys time with his buddy David.

Another annual PEPS event is the Halloween Party. Meg does such a great job with this and even had creative Halloween themed food for the kids. She hosted the party at my house this year and I was thrilled to have her bring over decorations, goodies and games. We realized that as the kids get older they are harder to contain and harder to keep in costume. We didn't get a group shot of all the kids by themselves but here's a look at last year...

And now this year...notice most of them stayed in their costumes for about 3 minutes.

Sure looks like they are having fun

Thanks for a fun party Meg!

My little chicken

Bean bags are so much fun!

Pumpkins and Apples

2011-10-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday we went up to Bellingham to join our friends Rachel & Phil for a fun fall day. We went to Stoney Ridge Farms and enjoyed looking at pumpkins, picking apples, eating apples, watching the goats, eating donuts and spending time in the sunshine. After Stoney Ridge we went to Bellewood Acres, an apple orchard nearby. We got to do some apple tasting and bought delicious apple cider and sparkling cider. It was a beautiful fall day!

Picking apples! We brought home over 20 lbs

Aidan loves goats. He may not look like he's having a good time but believe me he had been saying "goat, goat" over and over.

Aidan and Katheryn

Baby

2011-10-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

In preparation for Aidan having a new sibling we decided to get him a baby doll. Keep in mind that despite my efforts to help him attach to something Aidan has never taken to a binkie, blanket or stuffed animal. Much to our surprise he loves his baby, asks for it and knows how to take care of it. Lately he has been obsessed with putting a new diaper on the baby. He and his baby go to sleep at the same time and we hear him reading in his crib. I like to think he's preparing for when he gets to be a big brother. I find it sweet to see him be so caring and gentle towards something when I feel like I spend a lot of time policing and trying to teach him not to hit or push other kids.

Feeding the baby

Another favorite new toy....a stroller!

Speaking of babies....we find out on Thursday if baby #2 is a boy or a girl! Can't wait!

Aquarium

2011-09-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday surprisingly turned out to be a beautiful day!

Great day for a bus adventure and to meet friends at the Seattle Aquarium.

Aidan enjoyed the fish and seals and sea otters but might have gotten just as much enjoyment from running around pushing the stroller (or rather his buddy David's stroller) and keeping tabs on his friends. Just before we left we got to see the diver feeding the fish and he was pretty mesmerized by that. Overall a great day!

A picture post

2011-09-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

A playdate with Aidan's best bud David. They both were confused why there was no water in the pool. Sorry boys, this mama was lazy (and it wasn't that warm outside)

Despite Aidan's desire to constantly tackle him, David seems to still like hanging out with us. Sorry buddy!

Aidan sitting with Papaw at our most recent Leavenworth visit.

Spending time in the Wenatchee river. It was not very deep. Perfect for a curious toddler!

Playing in the sand

Finally we took a picture of my growing belly. Despite what you think I am bigger than I was before, even if I don't look it. I am 18 weeks along now and can't wait for our 20 wk ultrasound when we get to find out the gender of our baby.

Have I mentioned that Aidan LOVES broccoli? Here he is shoveling it in with two hands.

Our tomatoes are producing so much right now! We have 2 Roma plants and 2 cherry tomato plants and they are providing us with plenty of fresh tomatoes.

You Go Girl!

2011-09-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I have misplaced my camera so I can't upload or take pictures right now. This is why I've been slacking on the blog posts lately. Thanks to my friend Meg I have some pictures (that I stole directly from her blog) of a 10k that we ran yesterday.

We woke up early and drove down to Tacoma for the You Go Girl 10K/Half Marathon. We were wondering how it would go since we have been barely running lately. Instead we've been exercising at the gym by taking Zumba, BodyPump and Step classes. We signed up for this race a long time ago and just had to push ourselves to not just walk after the first few miles.

Meg 24 weeks pregnant and me 17 weeks

We finished in under 12 minute miles (yes our pace was 11:59 to be exact) and therefore our overall time was 1:14. We were very proud of ourselves! Not bad for 2 pregnant ladies who haven't been running much! This race reminded me that its sometimes nice to push yourself past your comfort zone to see what you are capable of doing. We are stronger than we think!


At the finish!

Afterwards we met up with Meg's husband Chris, David, Meg's family friends who also ran and their husbands and went out for lunch. It was a perfect end to the race and we drove home exhausted, stuffed and ready for a nice hot shower.


The group (Meg's family friends who told us about this race in the first place)

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

We had a really good three day weekend that involved haircuts for Aidan and David, a family trip to the swimming pool with ice cream afterwards, good food, beautiful weather, the zoo with friends, Red Mill Burgers, the park with Bekky and Juston and their cute puppy Maggie and a trip to Jetty Island.

It is good to finally have summer!

I'm pretty sure this is Aidan's third piece of corn

Yum!

Aidan helping me water the flowers

Our friends Rachel and Phil came down from Bellingham for the day and we went to the zoo with our kiddos. Katheryn and Aidan are almost exactly 1 year apart and we hope that soon enough they will be good friends.

Hmm....maybe puppies eat woodchips

Here you go Maggie

We decided to go to Jetty Island on Monday which is a man-made island in Everett. The ferry is free but we had to wait a long time since it was a holiday and the last day of the season. It was worth the wait though and we had a great time playing in the sand.

2011-08-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my brother was in town (he is currently living in Vancouver, BC and is in a grad program at UBC). It was fun for him to see Aidan and Aidan loved seeing his uncle Casey. He can't stop saying his name and whenever he sees a picture of him repeats "Casey" over and over.

Aidan stayed a home with his Aunt Rachel while the adults went out for a very belated birthday dinner to celebrate Casey and David's birthdays back in March.


Reading with Nana

A few more random pictures.... Back when we found out we were pregnant with Aidan we were living in Honduras. The director and secretary of the school we taught at gave us this shirt. They were trying to find a shirt that said "made in Honduras" but couldn't so they settled with this one that means "100% Honduran" They told me I had to send them a picture of him in it and it finally fits. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of him in the shirt but without the hat.

Aidan loves his hat. He asked me to put it on him.

writing a note to daddy

love this kid!

Surprise!

2011-08-22T13:38:00.000-07:00


Happy Father's day!

We found out some exciting news on Father's day...we are expecting baby #2! Aidan has brought so much joy to our lives and we are excited to meet the next addition to our family. We also can't wait to see Aidan as a big brother. I am already 13 weeks along and am feeling pretty good. Luckily I haven't been very sick, just tired. Stay tuned...baby expected February 24, 2011. Who knows this baby could be born on leap year day.

4th Anniversary!

2011-08-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary!

I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful husband that I come to love more each day. Happy Anniversary David! It has been a fun four years and I can't wait to see what is in store for us next!

Whidbey Island Saturday

2011-08-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we took a day trip to Whidbey Island with my mom. We started early and packed many adventures into our day. First we stopped by Coupville's arts festival. Aidan's favorite part was the firetruck they had on display that he could go inside

We also checked our the wharf where they had 2 pirate ships on display. Seeing as Aidan was running around as he was we opted not to take him on the boats. Next stop for us was Ebey's landing. We had a picnic lunch on the beach and then hiked the loop along the beach and then back on the bluff. The plan was to have Aidan take a nap in the backpack but he had other ideas. No nap for Aidan that day.

After our hike we drove to a lavender farm on the island. It was small but Aidan enjoyed running around.

Classic Aidan running face. I love how his cheeks move when he runs!

Someone was getting a little crazy at this point

Our next stop was Deception Pass but it got cut short due to Aidan having a meltdown. We then crossed the bridge back to the mainland and had a nice dinner in Anacortes before heading home. It was a great summer trip!

Thursday

2011-08-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

Library computers, picking daddy up early from work, watching sea planes take off and land, chasing ducks, throwing rocks and burritos for dinner.

I can't think of a better way to spend a sunny Thursday

See Ya Later

2011-08-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Aidan has become obsessed with saying goodbye and pretending to leave. Usually this includes a backpack or purse and a round of kisses. This time he added a nice blue hat. I only wish I knew where he was going.

Smoothie time

2011-08-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

Help me down!

Smoothies are delicious! Why don't I make more of them? Yesterday Aidan helped me make one by adding the fruit and stirring. Then I turned on the blender and I think it scared him. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of him before he stopped 'helping'. What I love about smoothies is that they are different every time. Here's what we had (more or less)

Delicious fruit smoothie

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2-1 cup frozen mango/papaya
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1/2-1 scoop protein powder (optional)
1/4 cup or more water, juice or milk

Mix in blender and pour into a glass. Add straw (it makes it so much better!)

July

2011-08-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

July was a month full of many trips and noteworthy events. Aidan and I left for Leavenworth at the end of June and David came up on the train a few days later. We enjoyed spending time with Mamaw and Papaw, many walks and parks, throwing rocks in the river, visiting the fish hatchery, and spending time with Daniel & Laura when they came up to visit.

Playing at the cabin. Aidan entertained us for hours.

We also spent a lot of time at parks and at the river. Aidan loved throwing rocks and made up some sound effects to go with it. Sort of a Pshewww

When Daniel and Laura came to visit one of the fun things we did was go to a petting zoo just outside of Leavenworth. We had no idea it would be so fun! We checked out all the animals, pulled the boys around in wagons, all went on a cow train, played at the park and spent hours having fun in the sun.

The boys loved their wagon ride!

The half-birthday boys

My dad came up for the 4th of July (which happens to also be my dad's and Aidan's half-birthdays!) We spent some time outside throwing pop-its.

Other July events include spending time at the Greenlake wading pool with friends. Here Aidan and David are enjoying a snack on the blanket before a second round in the pool.

We also went as a family to pick strawberries at a farm in Arlington. We were worried that it would be hard to keep track of Aidan since he loves to run and usually has his own agenda. We forgot about the fact that he would have an endless supply of delicious strawberries. Turns out that is enough to keep a busy 18 month old occupied for hours.

mmm....strawberries

23 pounds of fresh strawberries!

Aidan and Daddy playing in the sand

The last notable event from July was our camping trip with our PEPS group. Five of the families were able to go and we went up to Lake Easton for 1 night. We had a blast eating good food, playing at the beach, going for a short hike and spending time around the campfire. Sleeping was not such a good time.

June

2011-08-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Late June we went to the Zoo with Daniel, Laura and Danagan and checked out the new Dinosaur exhibit. It was pretty cool but I think the boys weren't thrilled about it.

We saw many of the awesome animals at the zoo including the petting farm area. Aidan wasn't too keen on petting them but loved washing his hands afterwards

New blog goals

2011-08-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

So I realize that I have been terrible at updating our family blog and have decided do something about it. I wanted to just start over and make a new blog but I spend a lot of time perusing other blogs and keeping up with what is going on in everyone's lives through Facebook yet rarely update on what is going on in our life. I'm going to try and be more regular at posting so I've set a personal goal posting twice a week.

So with that said I have a few months to catch up on and then can start recording more of our day to day adventures. Hopefully our blog will get a facelift soon too!

April and May

2011-06-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

In April we went to the tulip festival with our friends Phil and Rachel and their new baby Katheryn. It was a lovely day and we spent most of our time chasing Aidan around the fields. We managed to get a few pictures.

There is a fine line between smelling the flowers and picking them. It was difficult to know which he was doing.

Here are some pictures of Aidan playing around the house.

Aidan and his buddy David. Usually David is not so happy about Aidan trying to ride him.

Aidan decided to wear his hamper and made it all the way from his room to the living room like this.

He found a new favorite spot to sit

Phone obsessed

For my birthday we took a drive up the peninsula and then a ferry ride back. We tried to keep up with Aidan but he was pretty fast.

1st quarter 2011

2011-04-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Well we've already completed the first quarter of 2011 and I haven't posted a thing. Time to catch up.

Here are a few highlights of the last few months:

Aidan turned one! We celebrated with an "uno" fiesta at our house. It was the first time we had many of our friends over and it was fun to celebrate Aidan's first year and our new house. Aidan got this great teepee from his grandma Cheryl. It doesn't look like he enjoys it but don't be fooled. He loves to look out the window and give kisses to those looking in.

Aidan started walking. He now walks all over the place and gets into more places than before.

We took a day trip up to Concrete, Wa to see the eagles. This is my favorite picture from the trip. We did see lots of eagles and enjoyed the beautiful drive.

Aidan loves to play and is such a happy boy. He says mama, dada, "Auntie", go, up and down. He signs "ready set go" and "up and down" and sometimes will sign "more"

In March we took a family vacation to Phoenix, AZ. David had a conference there so we decided to head down the week before and have a family vacation. It was so much fun getting to be together as a family and to get away from the rainy weather. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed exploring the city, hiking and lots of good food. We drove up to Sedona one day and got to see some beautiful sights.

We got back from Arizona and then spent a lot of time with family. David's sister Bekky got married so we were busy with that. Aidan and I got sick last week but have now recovered and I think things are back to normal.

Holiday cheer

2011-01-05T17:54:00.000-08:00

In December we did many fun holiday activities to celebrate the season. I love this time of year and it was especially fun this year getting to share it all with Aidan. We had our annual Seattle trip with David's family where we met up downtown, took the monorail to Westlake Center. We then rode on the holiday carousel, saw the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton, window shopped, saw Santa (Aidan slept through this in the carrier which is why we don't have a picture of him and Santa) and had delicious hot chocolate. We had a great time and were lucky enough to get a nice warm winter night. Unfortunately though, we forgot our camera.

We went and met up with some friends at Carkeek Park to see the Christmas ships. They stop in the water in front of the beach and project the singing of the choir on board for all to hear on land. It was really fun and the choir was great. We plan on making this a holiday tradition.
Another fun thing we did was go to see the live reindeer at Swanson's nursery. Here are a few cute pictures from that outing.
Aidan and his buddy DavidAidan, David and Elsa

Thanksgiving/ Half Marathon

2010-12-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to have David home for 4 days in a row and we packed many fun/festive things into our weekend. First we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at our house with some of David's family and my mom. We did the turkey for the first time and I have to say it turned out perfectly!Friday morning David and I got up at 3am to take advantage of the Black Friday sales to get a new TV. Luckily the store we went to was about 5 minutes away and we were able to go, get it, come home and go back to sleep. Rachel stayed the night so that we could leave Aidan and we are so glad we were able to do that!

Meg and I have been training for the Seattle Half Marathon and our race was Nov. 28th. It was such a fun experience to run with her and be a part of something so big. We felt like real runners and accomplished a huge goal. My mom and David watched the boys and came to cheer us on (Meg's husband Chris was on call at the hospital so he couldn't be there).
We finished in 2hr 20min which was great time for our first half marathon. We had such a good time and are now discussing which will be our next race.

Snow!

2010-12-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

We had a lot of snow right before Thanksgiving. We thought we should get Aidan all bundled up and let him play in it. He immediately wanted to be put down so he could crawl but as soon as his mittens came off he changed his mind.

Aidan 10 months

2010-11-17T09:06:00.001-08:00

Aidan is now 10 1/2 months and is getting more mobile by the second. He crawls everywhere and loves to pull up on anything, especially me and any other adult that he can get his hands on. He loves to make all sorts of noises such as "Ma-ma-ma" and "Ba-ba-ba" and many others that are difficult to transcribe. He also loves food and it is so fun to be able to give him the food that we are eating.

Halloween Fun!

2010-11-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

We did many fun things for Halloween. Aidan got to dress up many times for baby halloween parties with friends, our PEPS baby Halloween party and a 5K race I ran (the pumpkin push) the day before Halloween. By the time actual Halloween night came we were about done with dressing up and David, Aidan and I spent a lovely evening at home with my mom and friend Meg and baby David. Here are a few pictures to sum it all up.

Yes or No?

2010-10-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

Fall

2010-10-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

I love the fall weather that we have been having this year. It is beautiful and I have tried to make the most of it by spending a lot of time outside. I joined a mom's group (PEPS) when Aidan was born and we still meet once a week but we have also started getting together more regularly and exploring the great kid friendly places in the area.
A couple of weeks ago a few of us went to the Seattle aquarium. I think Aidan really enjoyed it and could actually see the fish.Last week we went to The Farm in Snohomish where they have pumpkins, a great corn maze of Washington state, a hay ride, a little farm among other things. We took a lunch break and the boys enjoyed their baby mum mums. This is David (Meg's baby) and Theo (Pilar's baby) They even had piglets that were only 5 days old. So cute!Here are Meg and Pilar in the pumpkins. The boys fell asleep before we could get any pumpkin pictures.
A couple of weeks ago David and I went to Bellingham to visit our friends Phil and Rachel and we ended up going to a pumpkin farm up there. We forgot our camera but took tons of cute pictures with their camera that I will post when I get them. We picked 30 pounds of delicious apples and then last week Meg came over and we made apple pies and applesauce with them. It turned out better than we could have hoped.

Crawling

2010-10-20T20:54:00.001-07:00

About the same time that we moved Aidan started crawling. He had been rocking back and forth on all fours for months and even mastered downward dog. He was so close for so long and then finally he got the hang of it and started moving around the house. Now he follows me around and has taken to bringing an item with him such as his ring toy, my slipper, or his shoe. I love that I was able to see him gain this new skill. It is such a magical time and I am amazed at how babies learn. I am so glad I get to stay home with him and witness these changes.

The big move!

2010-10-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

September 17th we got the keys to our new house! We have been looking for awhile and found a house that meets our needs. We live in Shoreline now and find it nice to be closer to both my mom and David's parents. We love it and have been busy moving, organizing, unpacking and enjoying all the space that our new home gives us. Here is Grandma Cheryl playing with the boys in our backyard on moving day.
Aidan has helped us with many projects around the house. Here he is helping his dad install a new garbage disposal.Our backyard.

Catch-up

2010-10-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

As you can see I'm a bit behind on keeping this up to date. Aidan is now 9 1/2 months and a lot has happened in the past 2 months. Here are some pictures to show what we've been doing.
Trying to be creative in entertaining Aidan while I attempt to cook. He liked this for about 2 min. He still prefers to be in my arms or climbing all over me. Both options include me being with him at all times so I am trying to find ways to help him play on his own.
Serious bath picture. He loves baths and has been taking them in the real bathtub like a big kid. He especially loves laying down on his back and having his hair washed.
In August I ran my first 10k. Well actually if you were to ask me a few months ago if I was a runner I would have given you a "are you kidding me?" look and a firm "no way!" But my friend Meg said she was starting to run to train for the Seattle 1/2 marathon and that she was not a runner either. So we started training slowly and I made it my goal to run a 10k at the end of August. I did it! David and I ran the 10k and David's mom Cheryl and sister Bekky walked the 5k and took Aidan with him. Here Aidan is enjoying a post run snack.
We celebrated our 3 year anniversary by going on an Argosy dinner cruise. The weather was questionable that day but it cleared up just as we set out on the water. It was fun and filled with good food, beautiful sights and great music and dancing.
Aidan has started eating more and more and loves eating fruit out of this bag.
Feed me!
At the end of September we made one last trip up to Leavenworth before my grandparents headed back to Missouri for the winter.

Aidan 7 1/2 months

2010-08-20T10:22:00.001-07:00

Here is my big boy. He is growing so fast and is now sitting on his own. He is working on crawling which so far consists of him getting on hands and knees and rocking back and forth. He often wakes up during the night and feels the need to practice this which translates to him getting frustrated and calling out for help. Our nights have been rough for the last few weeks but we have seen improvement this week. How can you get frustrated when he gives you these cute smiles?

3 year anniversary

2010-08-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

It has been 3 years since we were married and we are even more in love than before. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful husband who supports me in all that I do. We celebrated with a blackberry cake and bought a new house. More about that soon.

California

2010-08-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

In the middle of July we took a vacation to California to visit David's family and celebrate his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. We spent the first part of the week visiting with his grandparents and uncle Keith.
David took Aidan swimming for the first time. He loved it and even would kick his legs around like he knew how to swim.We spent time with Aunt Deb and Kate and they showed us around Long Beach and let us borrow their car to explore LA.We went to Hollywood, the observatory, Santa Monica pier and many other places along the way. It was a great trip filled with hot weather, beaches, and lots of family.

Cooking

2010-08-05T15:23:00.001-07:00

I love my little kitchen helper.

Leavenworth

2010-08-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of July we spent a week in Leavenworth with my grandparents. It was fun to have time relaxing in the sunshine and Aidan enjoyed getting so much attention.

We celebrated the 4th of July, my grandma's birthday on the 5th and Aidan's half birthday. He is now 6 months old and I can't believe how big he is getting. He is now rolling over (only to his left for some reason) and loves to interact with other kids.

5 months old!

2010-06-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Aidan is 5 months old! Can you believe it? Here's what we've been up to lately.

Over Memorial day weekend we decided to fight the traffic and head up to Leavenworth so that Aidan could meet his Great grandparents. My grandparents (Mamaw and Papaw) live in Leavenworth half the year and in Missouri the other half of the year. They were thrilled to see Aidan and he was in a good mood most of the time. When we were heading up there on Friday, it took us over 4 hours to make the trip that usually takes 2 1/2 hours. Aidan was not to thrilled about that but soon recovered. It was a relaxing weekend full of food, cards, garage sales and Aidan watching. We drove home Sunday night so that David could be at work Monday. Yes David had to go into work on Monday because of a big project he is working on....which brings me to my next topic. Work has been a bit busy for David lately which means late nights and some weekend work. May is a busy month for his company as they get ready for a June 7 deadline. We are stoked that has passed and now his work has calmed down and he is able to come home on time.
This past weekend we had Aidan's baby blessing. Thanks to Grandma Cheryl for the cute outfit and to our friends and family for coming and being there for this special event. We had a picnic at Carkeek despite the drizzly weather. Aidan doesn't even know how lucky he is to have so many people who love him.We have been taking many walks lately and are getting a lot of use out of our carriers. We love them and Aidan does too. The other night we walked to the library to return some books and it was getting close to Aidan's bedtime. Take a look.

Before
After (This was pretty funny as David had to hold his head up)
And lastly a few more pictures of our cute little pumpkin head.

Feed me

2010-05-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

New York!

2010-05-31T10:57:00.001-07:00

Last week Aidan and I headed to upstate New York for my brother's graduation. We went with my mom and spent a nice long weekend touring Hamilton's campus, getting to know Casey's friends and participating in graduation festivities. It was nice and sunny and was a nice change from the weather here in Seattle.
Here we are at the airport. Aidan was great the whole trip out there. He slept most of the plane ride and even though our flight was delayed he was his happy self when awake.
We flew into Albany and spent the night at a hotel nearby the airport. In the morning we rented a car and drove about 2 hours to Clinton. Aidan slept the entire drive, which if you have witnessed him in the car you know this was a miracle.
Here we are touring the campus
Aidan got to spend a lot of quality time with Grandma Cleo this weekend which was really nice.
We stayed with some friends my mom met when she visited last time. They have a beautiful house on campus and we were so comfortable there.
Congratulations Casey! He majored in Physics and is heading up to UBC (University of British Columbia) to start a Master's program. We are thrilled that he will be a bit closer in Vancouver, BC.I left Monday to head home with Aidan and my mom continued her trip by meeting up with a friend and heading to Boston. My return trip was rough and due to delays and too much time waiting on the plane Aidan screamed a bit too much for my (and my fellow travelers') liking. I met some very generous people who helped me out and their generosity made my trip much more enjoyable.

Lastly a few more cute pictures of Aidan.

Garden

2010-04-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we worked on a garden at my mom's house. David really wanted a garden this year and seeing as we don't have any yard, we got creative and asked my mom if we could plant at her house. She has a great space for a garden next to her house and so we worked together to come up with a plan for the space. We got the soil ready last Saturday and just when that was done it started to pour. We took a break and soon enough it was dry enough to plant. We planted a few things and then will be planting the rest soon. I am excited to see what comes of these little seeds. Thinking back I can't really remember actually successfully growing something from seed. My mom is a wonderful gardener and I have enjoyed many home grown veggies but have never planted them myself. We are both excited to see our little plants grow...and to have something tasty as a result!

David has entered a busy season at work. This is bad news for everyone involved and we are looking forward to June when it hopefully will go back to normal. Aidan still gets to spend quality time with Daddy at night and is usually full of smiles and words for David when he gets home.

Tulips, Temple and Catching up

2010-04-24T13:37:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago David and I had a wonderful weekend trip North to Mount Vernon, Langley BC and Bellingham. We had a couple of things we wanted to do and decided to make it a fun packed weekend. We left Saturday morning and went to the tulip festival in Mount Vernon. We got there before the crowd and picked a lovely day for touring the tulips. Most of our time was spent capturing cute pictures of Aidan in the tulips. They sure make great backgrounds for pictures. He wasn't very amused but was pretty happy throughout our time there.

We then got back in the car and headed to Langley BC to the open house for the Vancouver BC Temple for our church. When a Temple is opened they open it to the public for about a month before it is dedicated and you can tour the inside of it. The Vancouver temple was so beautiful and it was amazing to see such craftsmanship. We were so glad we went and even walking through the temple in such a big group there was a special spirit there. Aidan too must have liked it because he was quiet the entire time.After that we went to Bellingham to visit some friends, Rachel and Phil. They kindly made us dinner and let us stay with them. Aidan cooperated again and even went to bed early so we could stay up and play cards. On Sunday we got up and went to church at our old building. It was so nice to see friends that we haven't seen in so long. After church we walked around Boulevard park (one of our favorite Bellingham places) and then headed back to Seattle in time to make it for a birthday dinner at the Koenigs celebrating David and Katherine's birthdays. Overall it was a fabulous weekend and we loved going away, spending time as a family and seeing such great sights (and friends too!).

...and this boy who usually hates his carseat was a champ!

Springtime

2010-04-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well it is now April and time is flying by. Aidan is 3 months old and is growing so much. He is quite the talker and after he's eaten he often talks and smiles for quite some time. His fa He is very entertaining and we just can't get over how cute he is.An exciting event in March that I haven't mentioned yet is that Aidan's cousin Danagan was born. Daniel and Laura had their first baby on March 5th and we got to be at the hospital to welcome him to the world.
Cousins! Here they are the day after Danagan was born.Here are Aidan and Danagan at about 11 weeks and 3 weeks.

A couple of weeks after Aidan came home we went to Gorditos burritos to get our free burrito. If you wrap up your newborn and let them take a picture, you get a free burrito! This burrito fed both David and I and then one of us lunch the next day. We were glad we were not able to solo eat a burrito the size of our baby.

Orlando!!

2010-03-29T14:33:00.001-07:00

We are long overdue for an update. Things are going well and Aidan is growing so fast. He feels like a brick when we pick him up yet he's just over 10 pounds...or so I think, he hasn't been weighed in a couple of weeks. Highlights of the past few weeks include Aidan learning how to smile and our trip to Orlando.
Aidan learned how to smile about 2 weeks ago and it is awesome. I woke up one morning after a rough night and he was just smiling away at me. It is hard to be frustrated with such a cute baby. (It is really hard to get a good picture of him smiling because usually smiling comes with lots of hand waving and body movement)
Last week David, Aidan and I went to Orlando for a few days just before David had a conference there. We figured since he was going anyway we'd make it a vacation.We were up for an adventure with a 2 1/2 month old baby. So we left Friday and then I flew back with Aidan on Wednesday and David stayed for his conference and came back Friday night. We went to Gatorland, Epcot center and drove to Daytona beach. Here are some pictures from our trip.
Here he is on the plane. He was great and slept the whole time, waking up every couple of hours to sleep and then going right back to sleep.
Here we are at Gatorland. It was a beautiful day and we got to see all the famous events such as Gator Jumping and Gator wrestling. It was actually more fun that either of us imagined.We went to Epcot center and had a great time going on rides and just walking around and seeing all the exhibits. Aidan spent most of his time in the carrier and loved it. He slept pretty much all day.Here we are at Daytona beach. We were pretty disappointed with the beach and it was really windy so we didn't spend too much time here.
When we were at the Disney store we found this stuffed animal Squirt which cracked us up. We sometimes call Aidan a turtle when he moves his head and neck around. We couldn't resist a picture.

2010-02-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of Aidan 5 weeks old. Thanks to David's brother Daniel and his wife Laura (koenigphotography.net) we have some beautiful pictures of our little family. Aidan is now 6 weeks old and we finally passed his due date yesterday. I am thrilled we are no longer in the negatives and now he will pass through some of the normal newborn milestones. He is doing great and is a very happy baby. He is on a pretty consistent 3 hour schedule and has transitioned from bottle feeding to breastfeeding like a champ.

Home!!!

2010-02-04T11:12:00.000-08:00

This is from when we were in the hospital (the day he came home I think). Please excuse the ugly outfit they put on him...kind of girly if you ask me. I love his face in this one.

Notice the dimple
Aidan is now 4 1/2 weeks old which if I was still pregnant I would be 38 weeks along today. We are now home and loving it. We came home last Wednesday and so far Aidan is doing very well adjusting to his new environment. He is eating well and his visit to the pediatrician on Monday confirmed that he is gaining weight. When we left the hospital he weighed 5lbs 14oz. On Monday he was at 6lbs 10oz! Now there could be some discrepancy in the scales but either way he gaining weight. We are working now to transfer from bottle feeds to breastfeeds and he is proving to be pretty good at doing both. Right now my life consists of feeding, pumping, burping, rocking and resting. However I feel so lucky to have a baby that sleeps for 3 hour chunks at a time (at least for now), an awesome husband and family and friends that are so supportive. We feel so much better now that we can relax at home instead of trekking up to Everett everyday.

On another note, we have some exciting news to share...David got a new job! It was pretty crazy timing but it is very exciting for our family. He is now working for Milliman, Inc., which is an actuarial firm in Seattle. Now David can officially call himself an Actuary. He interviewed for the job 4 days after Aidan was born and then found out a couple of weeks ago that he got it. He then started Feb 1st and so far is enjoying the challenge, change and opportunity that this job is providing. It is great because he works downtown Seattle and can take a bus from right outside our house to right down the street from work. We also enjoy the change in schedule and are getting to spend dinnertime together which we love.

NICU

2010-01-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

Something about sleeping on daddy's chest just puts Aidan right to sleep
One of his first baths. He obviously did not like this part
After the bath he was laying under a heat lamp and zoned out. Sure wish we had one of these at home. (Notice the cords...one is attached to his foot to monitor oxygen saturation and the others are various probes on his chest)

Here are some pictures of Aidan during his 3 week stay in the NICU. We are pleased to let you know that we were able to take Aidan home when he was 23 days old. Basically this time was spent waiting for his suck, swallow, breathing coordination to develop and for him to gain weight and strength to eat on his own. I have been pumping like crazy since he was born and we have been feeding him breastmilk from a bottle. It is easier for preemies to get milk from a bottle because it requires less effort on their part. When he would get too tired from that we would put the rest down a tube that went through his nose into his stomach. Eventually he became stronger and took all feeds from a bottle (nursing about once a day). So then we thought we would be able to come home. Aidan had other plans.

The entire time we were at the NICU Aidan had monitors attached to him monitoring his heartrate and blood oxygen levels. The morning we thought we were going to go home he had what they call an event where his levels went down to a level that is concerning for the doctors and then the nurse stimulated him to help him recover. When this happens it guarantees us another 5 days to make sure that it doesn't happen again. This isn't to say that he wouldn't have recovered on his own (we all have periods of apnea but recover quickly) but since someone felt it had gone on too long and stimulated him, they didn't want to risk him doing that at home. This was very hard news to take since we had finally set our minds that he was coming home. Fortunately time flies by in the NICU and 5 days later we were able to come home.

Surprise!

2010-01-04T09:35:00.001-08:00

David and I have had quite the surprise over the last few days. I guess 2010 is going to be a pretty exciting year for us seeing as it started out with a bang. Saturday, after a seriously do nothing day I went to bed and woke up a 1/2 hour later to my water breaking. It is quite a shock to have a bunch of fluid coming out of you without you having any control over it. So we knew that meant my water had broken and proceeded to call our midwife. We were planning to have our baby (in February) at a birth center in Everett. However, when a baby is 6 weeks early it calls for some hospital help. We packed our bags and headed up to Providence Medical Center in Everett at 2:30 in the morning. They gave me Magnesium Sulfate to try to stop my labor so that they could have 48 hours to give me some steroids and let them work. The steriods quickly build the baby's lungs so that he has an easier time breathing when born. Sunday we spent the whole day trying to keep as still as possible as to not make labor progress any faster than it already was. After an exhausting day of monitoring his heartbeat and worrying about when the birth would be we had another night of no sleep. I had a couple of contractions that caused the umbilical cord to stress and therefore affected his heartbeat. That was pretty scary. Monday I woke up feeling horrible and realized it was the Magnesium Sulfate. After they took me off it and I had some food I felt a million times better and was able to get some rest. That afternoon I went to the bathroom and then realized that the cord had prolapsed causing a need for emergency c-section. We knew that we were going to have a c-section because the baby was breech but we thought I would be awake and that David could be there for it. I guess our baby had other plans. I went into the operating room at 4:52 and they made the incision at 4:57 and our baby was born at 4:59.

Aidan Michael Koenig was born at 4:59 on January 4th (which happens to be the same birthday as my dad!) weighing 5 pounds exactly. He was 17 1/2 inches and came into this world with a high pitched squeal. He is doing great and is amazing the doctors each day as he does more and more on his own. He was able to breathe on his own from the beginning and quickly was able to keep his temperature so now he is in a crib with many monitors and an IV helping him get the nutrition he needs to grow. They tell us that he will be in the NICU until he can eat on his own which could take a couple of weeks. We feel so lucky to have such great care and are thankful for the outcome of this unplanned event.

I was discharged from the hospital on Thursday and since then have been trying to take it easy so that I can heal. We spend our days at the hospital and then sleep at home to try to get as much sleep as possible. It sure is hard to leave Aidan.

So here are a few pictures of Aidan's first days....

Holiday cheer

2009-12-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful holiday weekend. It started with us going out Friday night to pick out our Christmas tree. We went all the way to the lot nearby and picked out a sweet smelling noble fir. We both were freezing a the lot which makes for a quick decision and once we thawed out at home and drank up some hot cider we were much more full of Christmas cheer. We enjoyed putting up our tree while listening to holiday music and then relaxed in our nice warm apartment admiring our fine work.

Saturday we went with David's family for the annual "Seattle trip" which includes dinner at McDonalds, a ride on the Monorail, window shopping at Westlake center, a carousel ride and gingerbread houses at the Sheraton. It was another cold night but was fun to walk around and see all the holiday decorations downtown.

We are at 30 weeks this week which means that this baby will be coming in just a few short weeks. I have 2 more weeks of school...well technically only 9 more days, until winter break. I can't wait. The hard part though is that I then can see the end. When we get back in January I only have 5 1/2 weeks before I'm off to get ready for the baby. I have been feeling great yet am seeing that this baby still has a lot of growing to go, which means my stomach does as well. I can feel a lot of movement which is really exciting.

This is a picture of David and I at thanksgiving. (Thanks Daniel and Laura for taking it for us)

Not much to report

2009-11-21T15:42:00.000-08:00

It has been I think 6 weeks since I last posted. I guess I don't feel like there is much to report. Things are going very well and we are now settled into our apartment and are now counting down the months to this baby coming. I am finally showing and although these pictures aren't the best, you get the idea. I love seeing my stomach grow and imagining our little boy in there. These are pictures of me at 25 and 26 weeks.

BABY!

2009-10-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

Its a....BOY! We had a great time on Friday getting to see our baby and he was not shy. We are having a boy and are very excited! Now we just have another 20 weeks to go before we get to see him in person.

September

2009-10-01T16:56:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures from our trip to the Olympic coast at the beginning of September.

Well it is finally feeling like fall. It has been an enjoyable September and we are happy to have had such nice weather. I think my students also enjoyed the sunshine and we had about 5 fire alarms pulled in the first few weeks of school. They were mostly right at the beginning of 6th period and we even had 2 in one period last Friday. We'll see if those keep happening now that the rain has started.

Teaching is going well and I am busy keeping up with planning, grading, meetings and my energetic high school students. This marks the completion of the first month and so far I really enjoy it. David is busy at his job tutoring and has been studying for the next Actuary exam in the mornings before he goes to work at 3. Together we have no doubt the worst schedule we've ever had but we are making do. I leave for work at 7 and get home around 3:30 M-F. David leaves at 3 and gets back at 9:30. He has Fridays off but then has to work 11-5 on Saturdays. We are trying to take advantage of the time we do have together so if you haven't seen us for awhile, that is why...we are busy.

I am now at 20 weeks which is an exciting milestone...halfway there. I can feel the baby kick and enjoy knowing that there is a little person in there. My students still don't know I'm pregnant so I'm not that big yet but I think in the next few weeks things will change. Tomorrow we are having our first ultrasound and will find out the sex of the baby. We can't wait!

We also have some other exciting news...we found an apartment. We just found out today that our application was accepted so we will be moving into our own place pretty soon. We will be living in the Shoreline/Seattle area on Greenwood.

Well that is about it. I'll try to post more soon.

Back to School

2009-09-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

I procrastinate on updating our blog when I don't feel like uploading pictures. Somehow I think you can't post without a picture to go along with the news. A few exciting things have happened lately and I thought I should share.

#1 I got a job! Not just any job, a real job! I am teaching Spanish full time now at Lake Washington High School in Kirkland. We started school this week and so far I am enjoying it. I teach 3 first year classes and 2 fourth year. I feel so lucky to have a reliable job with benefits.

#2 We got to hear the baby's heartbeat! This was a big deal for me because I have been driving myself crazy thinking that I might not be pregnant. Since I don't really have many normal pregnancy symptoms (no morning sickness etc.) I keep having these thoughts like "wait, am I really pregnant or am I just making it up?" Last week I was able to hear the heartbeat and as my midwife said "wow that is a great hearbeat and sounds like a cute kid. Yep I can tell this one is going to be cute." I don't know how much cuteness you can tell from a heartbeat but it sure was nice to know that indeed there is a little baby in there. I am now about 15 or 16 weeks and in a couple more weeks we will have an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby.

#3 Before my job started we had the chance to go camping for a long weekend on the Olympic Penninsula. David, my mom and I went over to the coast and had a hiking filled weekend in the Olympic rainforest and on the beach. We stayed at Mora Campground and took day trips to the nearby national forest and beaches. We lucked out with the weather and I really enjoyed revisiting those places. It has been a long time since we've been there and it brought back many childhood camping memories.

Its time for some news...

2009-08-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

Well I think it is time we made it official online. WE ARE PREGNANT!!! Or rather, I am pregnant. We are looking forward to welcoming a baby into our family sometime around Febrary 18, 2010. We found out 2 weeks before we came home from Honduras which was very exciting because we could share the news with everyone there. Our favorite comment was "Oh how exciting you're going to have a Honduran baby!" Well, not really but they can think what they want. We then came home to the US and were able to surprise all of our family. We are now 13 weeks along and everything is going great. I haven't had really any morning sickness and have been feeling pretty good. We'll keep you posted as time goes on...

Back in the USA

2009-07-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Well I guess we are overdue for an update. I has officially been one month since we spent our last day in Copan. I look back and it feels like our Honduran experience is quickly slipping away into a dream and that our life here in the States has always been this way. Except for the few things we brought back and our folders full of pictures it seems like we never even went away. I had to include this last picture that I mentioned way back around Valentine's day. They dye the chicks different colors and then sell them on the street. After they grow new feathers the only trace of dye left is around their eyes. It's pretty funny to see chickens with green, purple or pink masks on.

So far we have been enjoying some time relaxing, visiting family and friends and have been looking for jobs (which can be a challenge right now).

For the 4th of July we went up to Leavenworth with Daniel and Laura (David's brother and his wife) and we stayed at my grandparents house. We had a fun time walking around town, going to the 4th of July breakfast, playing mini-golf and pretty much sitting around. We drove into Wenatchee to see the fireworks and lucked out on our parking spot and had a perfect view of the show. David and I then stayed an extra 2 days to spend more time with my grandparents and celebrate my grandma's birthday with the rest of my family.
David got a job as a tutor at an education center and is enjoying working one on one with high school students teaching math and reading. For his interview he had to take the SAT and I am proud to say he did very well (we would hope so after getting his college degree). I on the other hand have been taking longer. I went to Colorado for a few days to visit family after my Step-Grandpa passed away. Since then I have been trying to figure out what I am going to do. I just got a Nanny job for the month of August and that will hold me over until I figure out what is next.

Goodbye Copan

2009-06-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well the time has come at last. We are at the end of our adventure here in Honduras and are getting ready to come back to the U.S. The past few days we have been being lazy here in Copan and have been doing all of our ¨lasts.¨Last walk up to school, last trip to Jaqueline´s house to tutor Isaac, last baleada, last trip to the pool, last trek back down to our house in the mud, last laundry by hand in the pila, last night sleeping with the fan on, last time turning on the faucet and hearing the dreadful sound of no water, last time teaching at church etc. There are so many more things that really summarize our trip. We are so sad to leave our friends here but feel really ready to come home and move on to what is next for us.

What is next? Well we are returning to Seattle where we will be staying with my mom for a little while until we get our lives figured out. David is applying for actuarial jobs in the Seattle and Portland areas and we hope to hear back soon about those opportunities. Pretty much the location in which we settle depends on that. For the summer we will be around and would love to see everyone and catch up.

Just a little about our last couple of days in Copan.

Yesterday we went to lunch with a couple of other teachers at Marisol´s house. Her official title at school is secretary but she is so much more than that. She and the director Norma are amazing women and we really enjoy spending time with them. Plus they know about EVERYONE in town and can fill us in on the happenings. We enjoyed a delicious lunch and great company.

Last night we were told by Jaqueline to come by around 5pm for a family night with her and some people from church. We came and it was just her family and David and I until about 6 when a bunch of people from church showed up. We then realized that it was really a going away party for us with a few gifts and all. We felt so loved. It is interesting how you don´t really fully realize the community you have built until you are about to leave it. We felt the same leaving Bellingham and now leaving Copan. We can´t wait until we are once again settled in.

Now this is something David and I have been planning on writing for a long time. At our school there are many students who are on scholarships of various levels that give them a chance to have a private bilingual education. We walk to school some mornings with Daniel who is the most smiley second grader and tries so hard to talk to us in English as we walk up the big hill. He has a scholarship that lets him go to school and he is a great example of a student who tries and really deserves it. Now that the computer lab is up an running he is one of about 10 boys who stay regulary afterschool to play around in kids Encarta. A couple of years ago there was a big scholarship program with sponsorships from the States. Recently sponsors have dropped out and left a lot of students without scholarship. The school didn´t want to send the kids away so has been paying so that many can continue even though the school can´t really afford it. I guess where this is heading is that on behalf of Mayatan we would like to ask if anyone would be interested in sponsoring a student that you consider helping a child at Mayatan. We would be happy to get you more information.

Well this is probably our last e-mail from Honduras. We head out on a bus at 5:15 tomorrow and are planning to arrive in Seattle at night. See you all soon!

Pul-han-pan what?

2009-06-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Zach, David and I went on a quick trip to Lago de Yojoa, the biggest lake in Honduras. We took a few busses and arrived in a small roadside town. We took a minibus up to Cerro Azul (Blue mountain) and stayed there the first night. It was a beautiful national park and we spent the first afternoon hiking more than we anticipated.
Here we are at the viewpoint looking over the lake and surrounding forest. We were going to turn back here but then decided to make the full 7km loop despite the fact that we were tired, starving and hot. So the loop took us down a valley, up another mountain and then down back to the visitor's center of the park. By that point we were famished and cranky and it didn't help to find out that dinner wouldn't be ready for another 45 minutes.
After our stay at Cerro Azul we had an aventure looking for another hotel closer to the lake. We went to two different ones that were pretty run down and seemed to be past their prime. It was as if they were constructed about 30 years ago and then haven't been touched since. We opted for another hotel that had been recommended by some other teachers. When we arrived we found it to also be dissapointing due to the fact that the owners were in the middle of some problems. The wife apparently pressed fake charges on the husband and got him put in jail. Needless to say you could tell that the hotel was undergoing some management changes for the worst.

The highlight of our trip was this amazing waterfall called Pulhapanzak which was 44m high. It was beautiful and the surrounding greenery was breathtaking.David and Zach paid for a guide to take them behind the waterfall to a cave and then cliff jumping. I decided to stay back and take pictures.
Oh and Zach almost fell off the cliff. Well....sort of.
I wanted to add a picture of this vibrant tree that is blooming right now all over Honduras. It is called a Llama del bosque, Flame of the forest, and it truly is flame like. I love it.
Now for a few random pictures of recent events.

Isaac's birthday was last week. I like how he was handed a giant knife and was playing with it while waiting for us to be ready to light the candles.
One morning last week we had a breakfast potluck at Zach's apartment before heading to school for a work day. We had delicious french toast, orange juice and fruit.
After breakfast I decided to document our walk to school. This is the first of many hills up to school. I like how this picture shows cars blocking each other, garbage on the street and people that we pass each morning. It is fun to see the same faces each day. Oh and by the way, the garbage gets swept up. Usually women clean up in front of their houses and then water the street to keep the dust down. I wonder if it actually helps.

Rainforest hike

2009-06-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

David and Zach and some other teachers went on a hike early Saturday in the rainforest just outside of Copan. They have been hiking machines lately making early morning hikes a regular Saturday event. This week they tried out their machetes in the dense rainforest. David has had his machete all year and was just itching to use it sometime. Don't worry, destruction wasn't their goal, they just used them to blaze a trail. Here Zach is forming a trail into the rainforest. Apparently it was difficult to get in.

Last Day of School!

2009-06-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

School is out! We finished up last week and it all went by so fast. I felt like there should be some more closure or something but no, it just ended. I have to say there is something about knowing it is the end of the year that makes the students go crazy. As hard as I tried to capture a good moment with them in the last few, I was disappointed to see that it was full of fighting, yelling, arguing, and name-calling. It is hard to like them when all I do is put out fires. Up until literally the last minute they were pushing their boundaries. But I think back on the year and I know there have been some very good times. They are a cute bunch and have really formed a united group. When I asked them how they wanted to spend the last day they said "just with our class, not the entire 5th grade" I take that as a compliment as I have tried to form a very close group. I asked them to tell me their favorite thing we did this year. By far the winners were: digging holes, going to the bird park and our morning circle.
So we started out last day by cleaning up. Luis is standing on top of the cubbies trying to scrape the double stick foam tape off the wall. That is the only thing that works on the walls here to put up posters. In the afternoon we hiked up behind the school to a place on the hill for our picnic party. Their idea of a party includes popcorn, chips, candy, cookies and Coke.
And there you have it. I will miss seeing these guys but sure don't mind that I don't have to teach them anymore.

Almost Famous

2009-06-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

My class had an exciting opportunity this week. The entire 5th grade was selected to accompany the wives of diplomats who were coming to Honduras to participate in the Organization of American States Convention. I had never heard of this before but it is apparently a big deal. The presidents and other ambassadors from countries in the Americas get together once a year to discuss important issues. This year the theme was non-violence and the convention took place in Honduras. So while the important people were meeting in San Pedro Sula, their wives and people accompaning them came to tour the ruins and have a luncheon in Copan Ruinas which was hosted by the first lady of Honduras.We heard that Hilary Clinton was going to be at the conference so the million dollar question was whether or not she would have someone at the event here in Copan. Turns out Bill didn't make it.

To make a long story short about our place in all of this, they wanted some students to be at the ruins to walk with the ladies and bring them water and talk to them. So they chose our students because they are bilingual and we spent our Tuesday meeting some almost famous people.

Here are the 5th graders all dressed up in their typical clothes. This is in the morning as we are waiting for people to arrive. What is the best thing to give kids at 8am...oh yes Coca Cola. Only in Honduras.
After an hour and a half of waiting we finally got a call that they were almost arriving. My students lined up to welcome the important guests. After they were welcomed we walked through the park to a place where they had a little buffet set up and a typical dance company performing while we all ate. After that we set off on the tour. There were about 15 important ladies there and then about 20 police men, some fire men and then people in white shirts whose job was to make sure the ladies were in the shade and had all they needed. I laughed when I saw this. Our students just had to go along with them. Oh and I almost forgot, lots of tv cameras and newspapers. We later saw ourselves on tv as they broadcast the entire event. After the tour of the ruins Tammi (the other 5th grade teacher), Ada (the Honduran teacher that teaches our kids Spanish and Social Studies) and I were invited to the luncheon. It was beautiful and was decorated better than any event I have ever previously been to in Honduras. I also was impressed at the efficiency of the service in the event. Efficiency is definitely not one of Honduras' strengths. At last, just when we were getting ready to leave, we heard that the first lady was going to arrive. You would think that someone who hosts an event would show up and be there. Well she arrived at the very end and made a grand entrance, gave a short speech and then took some pictures. Here is a picture of the special guests along with some of our students in front and the girls in fancy dresses on the sides. The first lady is in the center with the orange and yellow shirt on. The lady to the let is the mayor of Copan's wife and the mayor is standing right behind the first lady. The lady in front of him in the black hat is apparently the wife of the secretary general of the OAS. My students were so excited to meet the first lady. I guess you could say they felt almost famous too.

Shower in the Rain

2009-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

On Saturday David came down to the living room in our house with the bar of soap from the shower. He turns to me and says "I think I'm going to shower and wash my clothes!" And by that he meant a shower outside in the rain. It is now the rainy season and we can expect a rain late in the day. Lately it has caused the power and water to go out. So after hiking in the morning with me and a few friends David was ready to shower. The lack of water and power didn't stop him because it was beginning to rain hard outside. So way to be resourceful. We each showered outside in our little patio area, David washed some clothes and I did the dishes all with the rain water. Not the most clean but hey this is Honduras.

Speaking of things that happen only in Honduras... Today at school a student brought a BB gun to school to "give" to a friend. They had it out during recess apparently shooting at a bee's nest. In the states this would most likely lead to suspension or even expulsion. Only in Honduras would the kids get off with a warning.

Well, only a few more days left at school. It is getting harder and harder to keep the students' attention. The teachers are starting to check out too as we look forward to the things that come next in our lives. We still don't know yet exactly what we will be doing. So far the plan is to return to Seattle and stay with my mom until we find a place to live and hopefully jobs.

Here are a few pictures from some hikes lately. David has been trying to place some geocaches. Here is one he did a couple of weeks ago at a waterfall. He is hiding the cache and you can see it in the third picture if you look closely.

May

2009-05-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Well we feel like time is flying by. We have less than three weeks of school left and can feel the students (and teachers too) losing focus. We've been hiking on the weekends, watching many bootlegged copies of movies (oh yeah we saw the new X-men movie before it even came out in theaters), eating out at our favorite (cheap) restaurants and playing cards with other teachers. Copan is definitely a small town and we love it but will be ready to have a little variety.

The school had a mother's day celebration the Friday before Mother's day. Each class presented a song or poem or dance for the mothers.
Hard workers setting up for the event. The tent in the background was for the students so they wouldn't have to sit in the sun.
David being a caballero and walking all the mothers to their seat on the pine covered walkway.
Here the moms are watching the program as kids are running wild.
They had many of the home ec. projects on display and then were given to the moms. Here are the frames my students made. They are really cool and they embossed the metal themselves. However they worked on these for about 4 months which in my opinion is WAY too long for a project like this. (I don't teach that class)

And as a tribute to our favorite internet cafe I thought I'd post this picture. Ever, the waiter/cashier/barista made this for us. We had to take a picture. It is nice to know locals and get special treatment.

Rain!!

2009-05-08T14:43:00.001-07:00

Loud thunder, strong lightning and intense rain. The rainy season has begun. Each day now in the afternoon you can year the thunder and feel the sky about to open and dump all the excess that it has. We are happy to be past the dust stage and on to a more refreshing, cool time of year. We now have to plan our afternoon outings so that we can be inside when the rain starts up. The best part however about this kind of rain is that it soon lets up and the nice weather returns. As I write this the rain pounds right outside.

Ahhh. May in Honduras.

Gracias

2009-05-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went on yet another adventure. This time it was to a town called Gracias that is about 4 hours away from Copan. The town got its name from the conquistadors who were hiking through the mountains looking for a place to settle and they came upon this flat land and exclaimed "Gracias a Dios" Thanks to God that we found this land. It was nice to see more of Honduras since usually our trips take us into Guatemala. We left Friday morning and arrived in Gracias around midday. We found a reasonable hotel and dropped off our stuff and then headed out to see the town.
First stop, Choco-Bananos. A must have and for only 10 cents each you can't beat them.
We then went to tour the old military fort. It was beautiful and from there we could see out over the whole town.
From there we went to see the churches in town. Gracias was the first capital of Central America and played a big part in the history of Central America and Honduras as well. For that reason there is a big Spanish influence there.
We took a break for some licuados or "smoothies". I ordered my favorite drink Limonada which usually means cold fresh lemonade. As I took my first sip I noticed the container of CountryTime Lemonade on the shelf. AHHH I was so dissapointed.
On Saturday we took a moto-taxi or Tuk Tuk out to the Aguas Termales or Hot Springs. These hot springs are infinitely better than the ones in Copan and the entrance fee is half the price. We spent the day there enjoying the water. David and Zach perfected their back flipping abilities.

Digging Holes

2009-05-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

I had one of my favorite teaching moments this week. We are reading the book "Holes" by Louis Sachar in my class. I highly recommend the book if you haven't read it or seen the movie. It is about a boy who gets wrongly accused of a crime and has to go to a sort of correction camp where they have to dig 5ft holes every day to "build character." In reality they are helping the warden look for a treasure.

Anyway, we were reading it and I asked my students how long it would take them to dig a hole with a 5ft diameter and 5 ft deep. They commented that it would be easy. Then I had an idea...we would try it out. Back behind the school are trails and barren land. They have exactly 12 shovels at the school and 2 picks which is a perfect number for my 14 students. My plan was to put them in 2 groups and have them try to dig a hole. I expected them to try and then get frustrated and give up after 10 minutes. To my surprise they LOVED it! So instead of spending 1 part of a day digging holes we spent 3 afternoons working out in the sun. I couldn't believe it and was laughing when I could use "hole digging" as leverage for good behavior. They knew I would take it away from them and make them go inside if they weren't working together. They even worked really well together and encouraged everyone. Also, everyone worked which is a change from their group projects in class. I think they learned just as much from that project as from anything I can do in the classroom. Also now they can identify with the book

My favorite question was... "Miss what are we going to do when we finish these holes" And I responded "Dig more holes of course" What I find most surprising is that no one asked my why we were doing it. I would have told them...to build character.
One group making use of the pick. Notice Kency taking control. She was the most skilled at digging in this group.

What we love

2009-04-25T14:54:00.001-07:00

I have been reflecting lately about our experience here in Honduras. We realized we only have two months left of our experience here. School is out in about 6 weeks and then soon after that we will be returning home. We are getting excited about planning what comes next in our lives. I thought I'd take a moment to share what I love about life in Honduras.

We love….

-The pace of life. Simplicity

-No bills. Our electric bill is taped to our gate each month and we are yet to owe any money. (the government subsidizes a portion of it and we don’t even use that much)

-No major responsibilities

-That we get to spend a lot of time together.

-The fact that we can eat out all the time since food is cheap.

-The wad of money David gets to carry in his pocket (They don’t use coins here or Credit cards)

-The fact that you can walk away from Copan in any direction and find yourself on a beautiful hike overlooking green mountains and valleys.

-Walking everywhere.

-The challenge and reward of learning a new language

-When the laundry dries in only a couple of hours

-Our shower (when there is water that is)

-Walking to school in the morning when the sun is just coming up and the town is waking up.

-Eating all sorts of fruit (right now mangoes, watermelon, papayas and oranges)

-Sucking on oranges

-That it gets light at 6am and dark at 6pm all year

-Being able to buy any common food product right down the street. No driving to the store to pick up a last minute item.

-Hammocks

-When our students are just as excited about a lesson as we are (this doesn’t happen very often)

-Walking around town and running into at least a couple of people we know.

What we do not love:

-Dust. Right now since it has not rained in a long time the dust on the roads is about an inch thick in some places. Every time we walk down a hill, which we do all the time, we think about the true meaning of bite the dust as we almost slip and fall.

-When the water or power goes out. Yesterday I was showering at night and as I was going to rinse out my hair the power went out. Darkness and cold water. I guess they give us a reason to have romantic candlelit evenings.

-The heat, sometimes. Our new afternoon activity includes coming home from school and sitting on the couch with our little fan pointed directly at us.

And as a little tribute to the students I love (most of the time) I will post a picture of them.

Sawdust carpets

2009-04-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well we are officially in our last quarter of school. Zach let us know that there are only 34 days left of school. Wow time flies.

Semana Santa here in Copan is a very big deal and members of the Catholic church create rugs that cover the street made out of sawdust. They first put down a layer of natural colored sawdust over the entire street. They then fill it in with colored saw dust using templates. They started at 5pm on Thursday and worked all through the night to finish them. You can look at them all day Friday and then they have a procession that walks on them and destroys them late at night. It was very fun to see them but it was crazy to think that all that hard was destroyed just hours later.

Here is Zach watering the carpets to keep the dust down during the day. This is his second year helping with them.

There were also some carpest made out of pine needles and flowers. This one was complete with watermelon!

We have also been busy this week because a group from our church is here from Arizona. They are a photography group here working on a project. We spent a lot of time helping them and many of our friends were part of it.

This is a very sweet old couple from church. He cuts wood for a living and she is a midwife. They were so excited to be a part of this.

Semana Santa in Belize, Flores and Tikal Guatemala

2009-04-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

We just got back yesterday from our Semana Santa trip. We needed to renew our visas and instead of just letting us cross the Guatemalan border (which is about 20 minutes from Copan) we have to leave the CA-4 which means the four central american countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. So the real reason we traveled to Guatemala and Belize this week was for the visas but we were excited to have an excuse to get to see more of Central America. The highlight of our trip was getting to see the ruins in Tikal, Guatemala but we will start from the beginning....

We started our trip with the other teachers from the school. The school got a bus to take us through Guatemala to a town called Puerto Barrios where we took a boat into Belize. After our 3 days in Belize our group split and we all went different directions. David, Zach, Zach's brother John (who is visiting from the US) and I went up through Belize and over to Guatemala and wen to see the ruins in Tikal.
Here is the sunrise that David saw the first morning we were there.

We weren't too impressed with Belize. We stayed right on the coast in this very sleepy town. Our hotel was sort of a run down house/construction site. We would compare Punta Gorda, Belize to what we imagine the deep south being in the US. We haven't been there to confirm this so we'll let you decide for yourself. They speak English in Belize...well actually a mix of English, Spanish and a Creole language that we can't understand.
We tried to look for good pictures to post of Belize but seriously this is about all we have. There was hardly anything worth remembering in that town. We only visited one city there and know others who have enjoyed other cities in Belize. We won't write it off yet.

We left Punta Gorda on Monday and took a bus to Belmopan and then another bus to the border with Guatemala. We then went through customs which was a surprisingly pleasant experience and then took another bus into Flores, Guatemala. Flores is a small island in the middle of a lake that is in the bigger city of Santa Elena. It is connected to the edge of the lake by a bridge and was an amazing place. We arrived in Santa Elena and then got a minibus ride into Flores. We stayed at this really nice place with a lake view and spent our time there walking down the colonial streets and observing the Semana Santa celebration there.

Here is a view from our balcony to a little beach that we went swimming in.
The sunrise from our balcony. Once again this is David's picture. I was still asleep.
We really liked the food there. One night we enjoyed dinner literally on the lake edge. The warm wind was blowing and we watched the sun go down as we cooled off with iced lemonade. We also had some good tacos in the central park. A couple of the nights we got ice cream and watched a parade of a statue of Jesus be carried around the city and end up at the Catholic church.

Our second day there we got a shuttle at 4:30AM to go to Tikal. Tikal is located about an hour from anything. You can stay in the one or two hotels they have there but it is much more reasonable (and fun) to stay in Flores and get a shuttle there for the day.

We went on a tour of the ruins and walked for about 5 1/2 hours. The thing about tikal is that the ruins are BIG. The actual site is huge and the size of the ruins are what make it famous. We had the choice of going on the English tour with about 30 other people or the Spanish one with 10. We were so excited that we could go on the Spanish tour (Zach translated for his brother) and enjoy a smaller group. Our guide was really funny and we really enjoyed having him give our tour. You can climb up many of the ruins. This may not look that high but believe me it was. At the top I didn't want to take my arm off the wall because I was afraid I would fall off. There is no safety rope keeping you back. Plus our tour guide kept telling us that people have fallen off the ruins and died. Here is David on the top of Temple 5 overlooking Temple 1 which is the most famous of all the Tikal ruins. He is laughing because I keep freaking out that he is going to fall over backwards.
We had great weather for our trip. They kept telling us we should go early in the morning because once it gets hot no one wants to be walking around. This particular day it was cool and perfect for hiking around in the jungle. The ruins are surounded by jungle and from the tops of the temples for as long as you can see are different shades of green tree tops.
Here Zach and David are showing us how these sacrifice altars were used.
This is Temple 1 or the great jaguar temple. You unfortunately cannot climb this one but the one directly across from it you can.
We enjoyed our time in Flores so much that we really wanted to stay the rest of the week. However, seeing as it is Semana Santa (Holy Week) buses are not running on Friday or Saturday. We were hoping to come back on Saturday but since we found out that we wouldn't be able to get a bus, we had to come back yesterday (Thursday). We got up early and took a bus all day long to get home. We traveled for about 10 hours and arrived back in Copan around 5pm. We were just in time to see the beginnings of the building of the sawdust carpets that they make on the street. We will post more about this another day.

Overall we had a very enjoyable trip and our opinion of Guatemala has improved each time we have visited it. Keep in mind that these pictures do not do it justice. It is really hard to capture the size and beauty of these ancient sites.

Utila adventure

2009-03-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

We recently had a visit from my mom and brother Casey. They came to Honduras for 2 weeks and we got to spend a week with them on one of the bay islands and then a week showing them around Copan. Here are some pictures from our adventure on Utila.

My mom rented a house on the beach. This is a picture David took of the sunrise the first morning we were there. He was sitting in the backyard. Out in the water about 50 yards from the short wall was a coral reef. We carefully walked out there on the sand then then snorkeled and saw many beautiful fish.
David and Zach were very excited to go out in the reef and had to try on the gear for size. They also wanted to try and improve their tan since the only tan they get here in Copan is a farmers tan due to the polo shirts we have to wear for uniforms. When we were snorkeling we saw a stingray, brightly colored fish, many parrotfish. We couldn't help but think of finding Nemo as we explored the reef.
The tans however did not work out as planned. This is after applying a lot of sunscreen. Zach's back was the best. He put on sunscreen and then sat on a wooden beach chair waiting for us to be ready. The wooden chair absorbed the sunscreen so he burned in a nice striped pattern.
One of the days in Utila we rented a golf cart and set off on the island. We had a lot of fun testing the limits of the cart. Another day we took a boat trip to a couple different beaches and the keys off of Utila. We had a very strange driver who barely spoke to us about what we were going to do. At one point we found ourselves stranded on an island hoping he was going to come back and pick us up.

On the last day we went to swim and it started raining while we were there. As we were riding bikes back to the house it started to downpour. We later admired the tropical storm from our back porch.

Overall we had a very nice trip. Our only complaint were the sand fleas who despite the amount of bug stuff we applied still seemed to eat us up.

David and Zach went exploring some caves. We were able to eat a nice variety of foods and celebrated many GOLDEN birthdays. Casey turned 21 on March 21st which was while we were on the island. David turned 24 on March 24th which was after we got back to Copan.

For his birthday I got David a GPS which is something he has been wanting. He thinks it is awesome and has been using to track all sorts of things. He informs me now that our walk to school is 1.4 miles. Thank you GPS...now we know how far we walk and our average speed not to mention so much more.

Happy Birthday David!!!

Also, David really likes coconuts. At the house where we stayed there were many coconut trees and David cut a coconut down each day.

2009-03-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

We have had quite an exciting week this week and want to share a little bit before we head out to our next adventure. First, our friend Lissa is visiting. She and her husband Eric have been living in Costa Rica and Nicaragua for the past 6 months. They are now traveling around Central America before they head back to the United States in May. Currently Eric is in El Salvador participating in the election they are having there and Lissa came to visit us for the week. We went to the bird park and got to hold some of the beautiful Macaws.

This is a picture after Lissa tried to pick up one of the bird and he bit her finger. The blue on on the left likes to leave his mark by biting a hole in your shirt. He did that to everyone there that held him.
Friday the fifth grade classes had a field trip to the ruins. They have been studying the Mayans in their Social Studies class and so the Spanish teacher organized a trip. We luckily got to go along and better yet got a day off of teaching classes. We had a very long tour but enjoyed our day. Lissa got to come along.

This is my 5th grade class. There are 14 students and recently I am coming to realize how much I love these students. Lissa came in and taught art classes this week. I think sharing my class with her made me realize how lucky I am to have such great students and how I have a good relationship with all of them.
In David's classes this week they had Mathlympics. What is this...you may ask. Pretty much it is a way fool kids into taking many quizzes. He had a topic for each day and all 4 classes in secondary took the same quizzes. Everyone's scores were tracked and each class had gold, silver and bronze medal winners. On Friday they had the closing ceremony complete with ribbons, pie or cake and a movie. This was all started to celebrate pi day which actually is today (3.14 or March 14). It was a success and many students came by all week to check their standings in the competition.
Medals for the winners made out of....chocolate.
Proud medal winners in 7th grade. They even showed off their medals to other teachers in other classes.Last of all...last weekend we visited a waterfall in a nearby town. We hiked to it and it was in a beautiful spot between some nice rocks.

Well thats about all. We are heading out for Utila, one of the bay islands, tomorrow. My mom is coming to visit and we are taking some time off of school to spend with her on the coast. We are so excited about a vacation!

Fun Day and Field Trips

2009-03-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

The school's anniversary was this month so we had a full week of fun. Each day was a different theme day all week. At the end of the week we had a 'Fun Day' which means a half day of school where the teachers put on a sort of carnival. We had frisbee toss, face painting, food, a water slide, music, a soccer tournament, an eating contest and much more. These are some brothers who are competing in a tortilla on a string eating contest.
Some of the 5th grade boys as they wait for their team's turn in the soccer tournament.
The teachers having "FUN" on Fun Day. Perhaps this is after the kids went home.
A couple of weekends ago we went to Agua Caliente, a natural hot spring, to celebrate another teacher's birthday. The highlight of the trip was getting to ride for an hour in the back of a pick up. We enjoyed standing up as we went bumping down the dirt road enjoying no seat belt laws. It was awesome.

David has been taking a few field trips with his middle school students. For an art class they hiked up to Llanatillos, an aldea (a small village) oustide of town. We visited this place back in the fall. They make pottery up there so the students learned the process and even got to buy clay to make their own pieces. As usual the educational part lasted only a few minutes and then the students spent the rest of the time playing soccer with the little children at the school up there.
This sign is a welcome sign except it should say Bienvenido. We often see signs where people mix up their "v" and "b".
Maria, the woman making the pottery, constructed this beautiful pot in a mere 5 minutes.

A week later, David went again with the secondary students on another field trip. This time it was for PE class and they hiked up to La Pintada. This is the village where they make corn husk dolls and weave cloth.
David may have found a new profession.
They also spent time visiting the small school in La Pintada.
On the way home they stopped at "Los Sapos" which means the frogs and is a small ruin site. After seeing the main ruins in Copan these just look like a bunch of rocks. Supposedly it is a Mayan fertility site.

Well that is a glimse as to what we have been up to lately. Each day the weather changes so we never know what to expect. We hear that this is the coldest Feb/March they have had in a long time and we should have had hot summer weather for a long time by now. The sun is shining today and we hope we've had the last of the cold.

Guatemala Weekend

2009-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

At the last minute we decided we would pack up and go on a weekend getaway to Guatemala. We live about 20 minutes from the border so it is easier to go into Guatemala than to go to other Honduran cities. We went to a city called Esquipulas which is about 2 1/2 hours away by public bus. We had to take 3 different buses to get there but the timing worked out perfectly and we arrived around 5pm on Friday. Esquipulas is famous for the Basilica. This giant church turned 250 this year and is quite a stunning piece of architecture. As you can see from the picture it has a dominating presence in the valley. The thing we really liked about this town is that it has a lot of visitors but hardly any foreign tourists. This made things cheaper for us. We were surprised how it came alive with thousands of Guatemalans making a pilgrimage to see the famous black Christ statue. We spent the weekend touring the church, attending mass several times and going to a park/zoo. It was a perfect place to tour for the weekend, for Valentine's day, and it felt so good to get out of Copan.
Here is a view of the Basilica from a hill looking into Esquipulas. It looks enormous even from far away.
Here is David in front of the Basilica. This park was full during the weekend of people standing in line to see the black Christ statue. The line on Sunday zig zagged back and forth through the park walkways. It took us 45 minutes to get through the line when it was already at the church. We can only imagine how long people waited in the line when it started at the back of the park.
Here it is. This is the statue that brings people from all over to see it.
This is in another section of the church where people lit candles.
One of our favorite pictures from the zoo. We think they try to save money by doubling up on cages. Some of our favorite animals included alligators, lions, ocelots, deer, ostriches, crazy monkeys, anteaters and a variety of birds.
The zoo is in a park that has many picnic areas, hammocks everywhere and sports areas. It also advertises a cave which really is just a mine shaft. We really enjoyed our morning here and spent some time relaxing in the sunshine.