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2011 is going to be a rough year for me, packed with milestones that remind just how fast the kids are growing up. Ember graduates from preschool, Camden gets baptized, and Sierra moves on from Primary to the Young Womens program in church. Here’s a scan of Ember’s official graduation photo.
After living in North Carolina for almost four years, we finally made it to the NC Zoo in Asheboro. We had a great time and made it early enough in the day to beat the rush.
I took a whirlwind trip to London for work this week and managed to carve out a few hours to see sights. The express train took me from Heathrow to Paddington, where I grabbed lunch and started my walk to Buckingham Palace through Hyde Park and the Wellington Arch. After a quick look I proceeded on to Westminster Abby and Trafalgar Square before catching the tube to Waterloo and a train out to Bracknell.
This shaky cellphone video is the only footage I have of the adventure.
Like in October, April weekends are busy for us between General Conference and birthdays. Nonna and Nonno stopped by for Ember’s festivities as they passed through town on their way to Florida. Grandma was able to break away from school to visit for Eden’s celebrations.
We had a great time celebrating Christmas with family in CT and PA the past couple weeks. All of both sides of the family were able to congregate at the respective grandparent homes. Joan and Harmony went up from FL, Cordell and Sarah’s crew came out from OR, and Talia and MK came down from VT (hitting a dear while en route).
I forgot the camera at home, so all photos and videos from the trip are from my cell phone (excluding those from the pro photo sessions in both CT and PA). Seeing how this is probably the fastest I’ve managed to get pictures online following an event, the convenience tradeoff may have been worth it.
We had such a fantastic time seeing everyone. It was our first time meeting Briana, Cordell and Sarah’s new daughter. It was amazing to see how well our kids played with the cousins. I’m not sure I’ve seen Ember play with anyone as much she did with Silvia this trip. Eden still mentions Devon and Jeremy (remembering names like this is a real feat for a one-year-old). Sierra is always very excited to see Harmony, the lone cousin near her age.
I really enjoyed taking two weeks off from work. It had been a while since I took a vacation, and this one was especially relaxing. My mom spent a lot of time cooking in advance keeping kitchen duties to a minimum and with both families we rarely ventured out. We mostly just had fun catching up on what everyone has been up to.
I still have many more photos to go through from our OBX trip earlier this summer, but I thought I’d at least try to share some from the first half of the week since the months are rapidly ticking by.
We really enjoyed ourselves on this trip. After living in North Carolina for 3 years, this was our first visit to the beach we had heard so much about. We planned our excursion for early May in order to beat the summer crowd, which ended up working out great for us. The only downside was that the water was too cold for any real ocean activities. We had plenty of fun, however, making sandcastles, spending time at the pool, exploring local restaurants, and seeing the great sights nearby.
Some of the highlights from the first days included seeing the Bodie and Hatteras lighthouses, visiting the Wright Brothers’ First in Flight monument, and scaling the dunes at Jockey Ridge Park. While at the Hatteras lighthouse, we bumped into the family of Brian Schlag, a former missionary I served with in Germany, who also happened to live for a while near my parents outside of Philly.
I’ll try to get the rest of the photos up soon.