Happy as a Hippo

As my brother says in every email/letter he's ever written...a picture is worth a thousand words...Isabelle's face says it all. What can be better than to be in the arms of two very loving Grandma's at the same time? With Grandma Norton far away, this picture is priceless and won't be repeated very often. We love Grandma's!!!!!!!!

October get-away!

Isabelle and I took a trip to California last week (in case you missed my gloating prior posts). We were a caboose to a family vacation-a family of which I've grown to love over the last few years. Of their 9 children, 4 of them are my violin students, and they've cared for Isabelle twice a week (sometimes more) every week since she was 7 months old-so Isabelle has grown fond of them as well! Their mother, Christine, was nice enough to let Isabelle and I come with them to southern california. We had a great time. The 4-row suburban had every seat belt occupied, and we watched way too many DVD's to keep track of. We got our share of In-N-Out burgers, Newport Beach, Sea World, and a very very nice home to stay at-compliments of Christine's oldest "empty nest" brother. Here a few photos from our adventure. Oh ya...and in case you're wondering about Aaron-he had a week off of parenting. He took an overnight fishing trip to Strawberry, rented 5 DVD's of his own, caught up on studying, prepared for his mid-terms, and probably lost some weight from the lack of home-made food. He was so sweet and either kept the house clean the whole time we were gone, or cleaned before we got home-it looked amazing, AND he did the weekly grocery shopping while I was gone, and the laundry, he is seriously the perfect husband!
Here's the whole gang: (L to R) Me, Jacob (1/4 students), Andrew, Eliza (2/4 students), Sarah (3/4 students), Christine, Steve, Isabelle, Amelia (4/4 students), James, and Ben. Isabelle can name them all-including their 2 children that weren't able to come!

Isabelle chatting up a storm on Newport Beach, she had her inital fear of the ocean, but soon enough I couldn't contain her from it. She kept saying "Big One!" as the waves crawled towards her on the sand.

Trying to get Isabelle to look at the camera during the Sea Lion show at Sea World. They had a cute Halloween themed show with the sea lion dancing to "thriller." That blue hooded wheelchair behind me didn't make the best window to watch the show!!!!!!!!!!

Can't get much better than this, we missed you Daddy!

Swimming at the hotel de' Cook in the salt water hottub & pool...so nice!

chicken soup for the soul

There's something amazing that happens to me with a little salty ocean water, smooth sand under my feet, and the california sun above...throw in a burger from in-n-out, and I've had a great day!

to be continued....

Fall Fotos & Features

Ok I'm back...with a lengthy blog...



Last week we said bon voyage to some of our best friends -the Dalton Family-(ok mainly me saying good-bye to amazing Annie). Their son James and Isabelle (9 months apart) are the bestest of friends, and Isabelle always shouts for James every time she sees a car resembling their subaru or drives past their own house. She talks about baby Andrew a ton as well-always saying his name like a question-baby Andrew? As if to suggest we should go visit them-and that we will! They moved to Pennsylvania for a great job opportunity for Jess and we are already planning our vacation to visit them as soon as we can-we love you Daltons! Of course I cried like a baby driving away from seeing them for the last time-wahh! I keep having mommy moments that I want to tell Annie about-she's always willing to listen to me with all my crazy questions and complaints-an indication of a real friend!

I did a surprise GNO for Annie to say good-bye, it was such a blast, I even made her blind fold herself as to not give the surprise away-I'm such a nerd!
yes, the arranged marriage is already being discussed...

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These are a few of our family pictures we had done in August-they are adorable and Isabelle was a champ through it all. We got some precious shots of our ever-growing toddler. Her cute little bob makes her look so old and so non-baby! I can't believe how big she is, as every Mom says, but it's so true! We are meeting with our photographer again this week to do one more attempt at getting a good family photo with a squirmy, squealy toddler, wish us luck!

Back to Blogging...

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. I guess I know what they mean now when they say a "blogging rut." I've attempted, saved drafts, written-cut & pasted postings, but then never published them the last few weeks. We've been getting into the groove of our new schedules-morning & afternoon violin students, Aaron's school schedule & weekend work hours, and of course Isabelle ever-changing needs.

General Conference was nice & lazy for Isabelle and I. We stayed in our pj's for 2 days straight while Aaron had to work the whole weekend. I was able to TIVO most of conference and get it all in during her naps-what would I do w/o my TIVO?

Looking ahead to October...this week is "Fall Break" for my studio as well as Aaron's classes. Back in May if you've followed my blog I had a week where Aaron took Isabelle to Oregon and I had "me time." I'm returning the favor now and Isabelle and I are going away this week to give Aaron some "man time" without us. Hopefully he can get some much needed R & R he needs to finish out this very hard semester of school. As for Isabelle and I, we are going on an adventure with 7 children, their parents, and a very very packed suburban. We are excited to pay Shamu a visit! We'll be sure to blog when we return (if we survive!!!).



Oh yeah and we can't wait for Halloween-I've already baked 4+ dozen batches of sugar cookies-cut out into pumpkins, cats, and ghosts, pumpkin bars, soups galore...we love Halloween!