Long Time No See

Ok, so we have been AWOL for months, but with good reason. I got our BLOG set up only to realize that our camera had major issues (no flash) and a blog without pictures is no fun. Fortunately Santa saw a need and brought a new camera. Here are some old pictures to try to catch up. Sorry for the ones that were dark, again, no flash.

Anneliese Grows Curly Hair....Lots of it!

We get asked all of the time where she gets her curly hair and if it is naturally curly. Well folks, as you can see we spend hours each day curling her hair. I think I will just get it permed (hey it worked for me in the 80's!)

Dallin Starts Kindergarten

Dallin now attends school at Lexington Elementary School. He loves recess and lunch (who doesn't?) and all of his related arts classes (PE, Art, Computer, etc)

This is Dallin with his Zuckertute or Schultute (Treat/School bag). It is a German tradition that children get a cone shaped bag of goodies on the first day of school. A big thanks to Oma (Barbara) for helping keep the tradition alive.

Blaine and Chris start Crossfitting

(AKA working out)

This is me push-jerking 135lbs at the end of a serious shoulder workout. This is one of my favorite lifts to do now!

This is Blaine getting his first muscle-up. It is one of the most difficult and complicated moves to learn to do. Blaine worked hard at it and picked it up really quickly.

As you can see, we've been busy. I hope to start posting more regularly from now on. Stay tuned!

Labor Day Weekend

We had planned a nice relaxing "staycation" at home for the Labor Day weekend this year, but of course our plans changed at the last minute, as they always seem to do. We got word on the Thursday before that Blaine's brother Casey was returning from Iraq on Friday. This was a surprise because he wasn't expected for 4-5 more weeks, but we are so happy that he made it home and was safe the entire time that he was there.

His return meant an impromptu trip to Charleston to spend the holiday and we are all so glad that we went. This was one of the best trips back that we have had since we moved. Having an extra day off made all the difference in the amount of time we spent as a family and the fact that we were able to relax instead of rushing around to do things. We had a relaxing day on Saturday and got a lot of things done around Ronda's house. Blaine and Dallin worked on the car and enjoyed some "man" time. Saturday night we had a rare opportunity to get all of the adults together for dinner. Usually when we try to go out with the family Ronda ends up staying behind to babysit, but we hired a sitter and both she and "Big Blaine" (Blaine's dad) joined us. we had Chip and Jenny, Casey and Laura, Ronda and Big Blaine, and of course us (Blaine and Chris). We went to the Mustard Seed (FYI they moved--who knew?) and the food was yummy and the company good.

Sunday was also a fairly leisurely day with a nice walk (see the pics, gotta learn how to add those better) and we got to enjoy having Kathy over which hasn't happened in a while. Monday was the best part because we went to Splashzone as a family, joined by Kathy, Becca, Hunter, Haleigh, and the Bakers too. The weather was pretty nice, if you don't mind rain, but hey, we were wet anyway! Once the clouds cleared out it was perfect, not too hot, not to sunny. All in all it was a blast. We also got to see Grandma (Mary Beth) for a few minutes, who was just back from a whirlwind trip to Wisconsin. We even made it home in time to get the kids to bed at a decent hour. All in all, a terrific trip! We are so lucky to have such a great family and we really miss having them close by.

So it begins.......

It appears that we are finally joining the rest of you in the 21st century. First we get a digital home phone line, then Chris finally gets a cell phone, and now we are starting this blogging thing! What next?

We are excited to share all that goes on in our madhouse with the rest of the world. Especially our friends and family who are spread across the US and Europe. We just hope that Chris can figure out how this all works.