Ohio Wedding

     Last weekend, I was able to fly to Columbus, Ohio for Reuben and Dana's wedding.  After my slightly stressful flying experience with Collin the previous week, I made a last-minute decision to leave him at home with Rob for the 4 days. The thought of two 8-hour travel days with him did not sound desirable. We had great friends offer to watch him while Rob was at school.
     All 5 of my sisters were there, along with my parents. This was the first time my immediate family has been able to all get together in about 5 or 6 years (minus all of our spouses and kids).
     The evening before the wedding, we all arrived at our hotel, went out to dinner, then walked around to the river where they had "Fire on the Water" or something like that. It was cool and I really liked Columbus. Along the river, there were benches you could sit on and also porch swings.

Little bonfires out in the water

Katie, Laurel, Mom, Danielle

Little splash park

     The sealing took place in the Columbus Temple and it was beautiful. Reuben and Dana both looked so happy.

We dressed in shades of purple for the wedding colors

All the siblings, oldest to youngest

     After the reception that night, we stayed at Dana's aunt and uncle's house they own on Lake Erie. The next day, we went to Kirtland and toured the church history sites. We went through a tour at the N.K. Whitney store area and stopped by the Kirtland Temple.

Katie and Me at the Kirtland Temple

Lake Erie view

     After Kirtland, everyone except Laurel and me went to Danielle's house in Pennsylvania to spend the week touring the area. Laurel and I went back to the lake house for another night until our late afternoon flight the next day.
     What should have been a relaxing evening turned a little stressful when Rob started giving me details of how sick Collin had gotten back at home. He had some sort of stomach flu, and was throwing up everything he ate and acting very lethargic. Rob ended up staying home from school to take care of him Monday, and my niece Julia watched him while Rob went to take a test.
     I felt bad enough that I had left him for 4 whole days, so I was really aching to be with him when he was so sick. The day went by really slowly, then our 2nd flight was delayed. I was so happy when I finally made it home! I was still really glad I didn't bring him - it would have made everything so much more difficult, especially if he ended up getting sick during the travelling - but it was hard to be away from him for the first time. I'm just glad that on our vacation next month, we will all be travelling together!

Summer Catch-up

We meant to blog about the 2nd week of our break, and never got around to it. . . and now we have a lot more to blog about! When we don't write things down, it's hard to remember details, so we're mostly going off of pictures. So, for the 2nd week of break, we were able to relax, go to parks, get together with friends, and just enjoy having freedom to do whatever we felt like. We took a trip to Cannon Beach with our friends the Ottos and their baby who was only 5 weeks old at the time. 

 For the 4th of July, some of our friends set off some fireworks for the kids. Collin was mesmerized. Afterwards, we had some friends over for dessert. It was the first year we haven't gone somewhere to watch the big public fireworks, but I was definitely okay with that. We enjoyed the relaxing evening.

Patriotic boy

July flew by and near the end of the month, Collin and I went to Salt Lake to visit my family for the Pioneer Day festivities. We drove to Seattle to fly with my Grandma and my cousin Teghan. Collin did pretty well on the flight, but it was still a little stressful to travel with a baby. He cried for the last 20 minutes on the flight there. On the flight home, he had a blowout right before the plane was about to take off. I asked the flight attendants where I could change his diaper, and they said the only place was the toilet! They gave me a blanket to lay over it, and Collin just screamed as I tried to change him with his head hanging over the side of the toilet seat.
Anyway. . . we had fun in Salt Lake. Liz, Danielle, and Lindsey came with their families as well. We went to the Pioneer Day parade, spent a day at a waterpark, did some shopping, some of us went to Katie's graduation in Rexburg (she also got engaged on the morning of her graduation!), had a graduation/engagement party for Katie, went to a movie, set off lots of fireworks, and spent an afternoon at BYU.
Collin loved all the excitement going on and loved having lots of cousins to play with. The kids called him "Baby Tollin" or "Baby Coll-On." I was glad I was able to make this trip with Collin. Another fun Salt Lake trip!

First plane ride

Aunt Katie

 

It was funny to listen to
Ethan and Kyson's conversations.

 

Dilly

Collin and Bryce

A bunch of cousins

Silver Lake

Collin and Grandpa

Aunt Lindsey

All the boys had shark shirts
that Spencer helped make

Grandma Ness with great-grandchildren

Me and Grandma

With Gma and Gpa

Great-grandma Ness

First week of break

Summer break is here! After a grueling finals week, during which Rob was miserably sick and spent all his time studying/test-taking, coughing, medicating, and trying to sleep, we were so ready for a break! He is a quarter of the way finished with school already. 

The Sunday after finals was Rob's first Father's Day! He really is the best dad and takes good care of Collin. Whenever Rob is about to walk in the room, I say "daddy?" and Collin's face lights up and he starts looking around the room, and when he finds him, he gives the biggest smile. He loves his daddy.

Look at these handsome guys!

 Dan and Kim came to visit for a few days from Alaska. It was so much fun to hang out with them! Wish we took more pictures.

Kim was bouncing Collin and he was totally loving it, but for some reason he just had this look on his face the whole time.

Later in the week, we took a trip to an indoor water park. We brought my niece Annika and her friend. We had fun on the water slides, wave pool, and rock climbing wall. Collin sat with us in the water and even went in the wave pool with us where he floated in the waves expressionlessly until we brought him out and he fell asleep in his life jacket. He woke up after a while, though, and then started to really love splashing and being in the water.

Nap time.

Ready for the rock wall

Rob at the top

Best buds

Check out that hair! That's how it dried during his nap.

We spent Saturday picnicking downtown and then wandering around the city and the flea market.

 Collin had his first haircut today! I was really attached to his long, soft baby hair even though it was getting a little crazy. Wasn't ready for a big boy haircut, but knew it was getting too long. After I cut it, I was sad until I saw THIS before picture. . . Yikes! It was definitely time, Collin.

BEFORE: Crazy morning hair.

AFTER

Thankfully he is still the cutest baby ever. Whew.

Side view

Our Cute Boy

Collin is 9 months old now! He weighs 20 pounds. He is crawling everywhere, pulling himself up to cruise along furniture, and as happy and energetic as ever. We love seeing him learn new things. He mimics sounds we make and loves to hit his toy drums and jump up and down.  He has been trying lots of new foods and eats everything we give him; he hasn't really disliked any food so far, and gets especially excited when he sees the animal cracker box. Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the last month.

Hanging out in the toy bucket

He loves swinging!

Collin and Daddy at the park

Look what Collin can do all by himself. Baby gate time!

Big smiles!

Three teeth.

Meatless May

A month ago, Rachel and I were talking about me going to Chiropractic school and how it's a semi-homeopathic profession.  UWS has been working on bringing in other degree programs besides the DC program.  One of them that I'm interested in is a Masters in Nutrition and Functional Medicine.  Being in a healthcare profession, I felt like I should know something about different types of diets.  We decided that we should try a vegetarian diet, to see how it would affect our health.

So! Rachel became a vegetarian mastermind overnight and planned a month of meals. Some were super awesome, others flopped, but for the most part it was a success!  We didn't miss meat at all, and ate tons of veggies that we don't normally eat. We plan to try eating meat more sparingly in the future. Some of our favorite meals included: Quinoa Corn Chowder, Black Bean Tortilla Casserole, and Vegetarian Chili. We loved trying so many new recipes and got in better habits for planning meals in advance. 

We felt healthy throughout the month.  We also focused on some other health goals such as drinking more water.  Rachel and I have been running a lot lately too, so that may have contributed towards the feeling.  Rachel has been doing great.  She runs 5k's frequently and I have upped my running to 7 miles.  I recently ran a 5k barefoot.  We're in good health now.  It's pretty awesome.

Ask if you'd like any of the recipes, or any ideas about vegetarian meals!  We really enjoyed it!