Collin's 1st Birthday!

We are the proud parents of a one-year old! We spent Collin's birthday at Danielle and Derek's house in Pennsylvania. Collin had fun playing with his cousins all day and we had his party in the evening. 

Birthday boy

First balloon experience

Love this boy

He ripped the paper a little, but mostly needed help

His train cake

First he ate the marshmallows off the top.

No need to use hands. This is much more efficient.

After

It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since Collin was born, but at the same time it feels like he has been in our family forever. Here are a few things we love about our boy:

• He is ticklish and always laughs when we tickle his neck, tummy, feet, and legs.
• When we are holding him, he'll rest his head on our chest, but only for a few seconds. If he's playing, sometimes he'll crawl up to me, rest his head on me for a few seconds, then quickly get back to playing.
• He loves people and will usually smile for them.
• He giggles when I brush his teeth.
• He loves being chased up the stairs! If the baby gate isn't up, he goes up a step or two and waits for one of us to follow him. As soon as he sees us, he screams and crawls up as fast as he can.
• He dances all the time! Whenever some kind of music comes on, he starts rocking back and forth. 
• He likes to take all our shoes off the shoe rack and does this several times daily. Same with the DVDs.
• If he has a binky in his mouth, and he finds another on the floor, he drops the one from his mouth and takes the new one. Sometimes he'll keep switching.
• He claps his hands all the time and laughs when we clap ours too.
• He likes emptying the kitchen drawers whenever he gets the chance.
• Lately, he shakes his head wildly side to side a lot when he is excited, and while crawling fast.
• Also when he's excited and standing up, he bends his knees and "jumps" them back up over and over.
• He sleeps with his bum in the air sometimes. We've seen him wiggle it up and down while sleeping, and it is the funniest thing in the world.
• He smiles at us when we go to get him from his crib in the morning or after a nap.
• When he's eating, he tries to pick up small foods like cheerios by touching them with his index finger. And usually his fingers are sticky enough that it works.
• Some of his favorite toys include straws, toothbrushes, baby forks, and popsicle sticks.
• When the front door is open, he tries to make a run for it.
• When we put him to bed, he'll usually give a little giggle when we tuck the blanket around him, and then stay quiet when we leave. He goes to sleep so well most of the time.
• He loves bath time and smiles big when we take him out and wrap him in the towel.
• He has the best laugh, and always laughs when he hears other people laughing.

We love this boy! He makes us laugh every day.

Washington, DC!

 We finally made our trip that we've been talking about for years! For this 2-week break, we got to spend time in Washington, DC (where Rob served his mission), Pennsylvania (to visit Danielle and Derek's family), and New York City (for a fun getaway without Collin). We had a blast! We have tons of pictures that we'll have to split into a few blogs. We'll start from the beginning!

Our flight to Pittsburgh wasn't too bad. When we got on the plane, the stewardess asked if we wanted to bring Collin to meet the pilot. We talked to him for a minute and got a cute picture!

We arrived late at night and Derek kindly picked us up and brought us to their home in Indiana, PA. We spent Sunday there then left for Virginia Monday morning. We went straight to the Arlington National Cemetery and met Diana and Vance, who drove up from North Carolina to come to DC with us! Collin and Vance had never met before.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier- my favorite part. We caught the end of the changing of the guard.

JFK and Jackie's graves, with the Eternal Flame.

After that, we headed to Vienna, VA, one of Rob's mission areas, and had Nielsen's Frozen Custard. This was one of his favorite places to eat on his mission and it was delicious.

 We drove through another one of his areas, Herndon, and saw where he used to live. This is the bridge outside his old apartment.

After touring mission areas a little bit, we headed to Diana's friends the Brands' house in Maryland where we spent the nights while there. They were so hospitable and helpful, and it was so nice to not have to pay for a hotel!
On Tuesday, we went into DC. We drove to a parking place at a metro station and went from there each day. We started by checking out all the monuments on "The Mall." It was really rainy that morning, but luckily cleared up after lunch.

Cute Collin on the Metro

Washington Monument

Representing Oregon at the WWII Memorial. The rain was fitting.

The White House!

These boys were troopers in their strollers all day! You can kind of see the Washington Monument in the background.

The Capitol Building

Me and Abe. He is my favorite.

We also went to the International Spy Museum that day. It was so cool! It was Rob's favorite museum that he had been telling me about for a long time.

Later that evening, we went to my Aunt Patsy and Uncle Tim's house to have dinner with them. They took us to a fun children's park in their neighborhood and got some delicious Peruvian chicken for dinner.

Collin enjoyed swinging at the park!

On Wednesday, we went to lots of museums. We started at Ford's Theater where Lincoln was shot. Because of difficulty parking at the metro station, we were too late to get into the actual theater, but we looked around the museum and it was pretty cool and slightly morbid. . . they had the gun that killed Lincoln as well as a bloody pillow that he bled on after he was shot.

Some of you might know why I like this picture.

We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe which was right next door.

Then went to the Holocaust Museum. This one was the most interesting to me. I was glad we could spend some time there, even though it wasn't the most happy place.
We then quickly made our rounds through the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of American History, and the Air and Space Museum. We also went to the National Archives building where we saw the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights!

Natural History

Natural History- the Evolution room was really cool!

Natural History

The Hope Diamond- Natural History

Air and Space Museum

Julia Child's kitchen- American History Museum

We went back to the Brand's house when we were done and they made us a delicious dinner. So nice.
Thursday morning Rob and I woke up super early to go to the temple. The DC temple is special to Rob and he has been telling me for years that he will take me there some day. We were so glad we could go together, and thanks to Diana for watching Collin for us! Even though we left really early, we underestimated the distance/ traffic by about 2 minutes and didn't make the session. We did sealings instead, which turned out to be perfect. We got to take our time walking through the different rooms. One thing that I liked was a big painting of the Founding Fathers appearing to President Woodruff, fitting for a temple in this location. The temple is so beautiful. My favorite Celestial Room so far.

We were heading back to Pennsylvania that day, but we decided to stop at the Zoo on the way, since we had heard it was a really good one. We went through it pretty quickly and some of the cooler animals weren't out at the time, but it was still a fun little stop. Even if we hadn't seen anything else though, Rob got to see the Anaconda, so it was a success.

We stopped by a frog statue to take a picture of Collin and found this on top.

We thought it was garbage so I was about to throw it away. But then inside. . . 

5 bucks! It said it was an "experiment in random acts of kindness."

Look at these precious snuggling monkeys!

Rob loves driving in the city traffic, can you tell?

That's the end of the DC trip! Hopefully the rest of the trip will follow soon.

Our First Race!

Rob and I ran our first race ever last weekend: the Dayton Fiesta Run 10k. It was lots of fun! We were so happy we did it, and I think it is one of my favorite things we have done together.

We have both been running 3 days a week for a while. I have never been a runner and started probably around January hardly being able to run for 5 minutes at a time. I slowly increased my abilities over the last several months. Rob started running in March, and of course, he increased his distance way faster than I did. We decided that we needed to do a race before the season ends, so we found our 10k!

I was super nervous and had to resist the urge to switch to a 5k at the last minute. I had only run 6 miles once before and I wasn't completely confident I could do it again under the pressure of a race! But I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, and knew I would regret chickening out. My main goal was just to do the whole thing without stopping, and try not to compare myself with the super fast runners.

It was a pretty hard run, as it was hot outside and there were 2 pretty big hills. They were super hard to run up, but I somehow kept running. There were lots of people ahead of me who walked up the hills, and even though they finished before me, I was glad that I met my goal of running the whole way.

Rob finished just in time to get the camera from the car and come back to get a picture!

After Pics

I was so happy with how the race went! I truly felt like I did the best I possibly could have done. I pushed myself the whole time and have no regrets. Rob felt like he could improve on his next race, and thought he could have gotten a better time. I don't have any plans for future races, but he is hoping to do a half marathon in October!
I'm so thankful for our bodies and our health. We feel lucky to have healthy hearts, and we're thankful that we can run without knee/back/other pain.
For those who are curious about our times, Rob finished in 58:48, and I finished in 65:19. His average pace was 9:28 and mine was 10:31, which was faster than I thought I could do. All in all, it was a really good first race!

New Skills

Collin learned how to clap his hands. . . 

(This was taken after his first messy spaghetti experience)

And DANCE!!

(The first time we saw him dance was when this song came on. Sometimes he'll dance to other songs, but always this one! haha.)

Some other things our 11-month-old can do:
Drink through a straw
Whistle! (he breathes the air in instead of out, but I think it still counts)
Climb off the bed or couch

We think it's hilarious when he crawls away really fast when we chase him. If he's just sitting there and one of us says "Collin, I'm gonna get you!", he squeals, jumps, freaks out a little, and starts crawling away as fast as he can while cracking up. Or if he's standing against the couch, he screams and flails and laughs. He is so hilarious all the time!!

Watch him freak out when he sees Rob coming. (Don't mind the Cheerio in his mouth)

This video was taken over a month ago, but he still gets a kick out of being chased.

He is always laughing and having fun. We love this boy!

And a few pictures. . .

He looks so cute on his little truck

Cute napping picture from when we were in Salt Lake

My big boy

The traditional "baby eating spaghetti" picture!