Sunday, March 18, 2012

Connor's 2 year portraits

I was a couple months late getting these scheduled and taken (December, not October like they should have been), but at least it happened! I wish it hadn't been the middle of winter so we could have gotten some candids outside, but I think they turned out very cute. My little boy is getting so big!





Living Planets Aquarium - 2011

Right after Thanksgiving, the Living Planets Aquarium in Sandy had a free admission day. Brenda met us there since it is so close to her house. Connor LOVES animals and so really loved looking at all the fish, turtles, and penguins. It was much smaller than the Aquarium in Long Beach that we used to go to, but we all had fun.






Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving with the Jeppsons this year. As always, we got 2 Thanksgiving dinners - Wednesday night was the Gotberg extended family dinner at the Sandy Rec Center, and Thanksgiving day was the Jeppson extended family dinner at the Jeppson grandparents' house. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures.

Friday-Sunday we hung out with Brad's family. Connor loved reading stories with Grandma Brenda, and all (well, most) of the girls made our annual gingerbread houses while the boys had some male bonding time.


This one I made for our family.

This one I made for Brenda's dad (Brenda was happy to just be the gingerbread and frosting maker this year - not decorater). Grandpa Gotberg always enjoys the homemade gingerbread houses.

We always love spending time with family for the holidays. We had a great (and very delicious) Thanksgiving.

Library Story time

I want to document one of Connor's favorite (and free) things to do at this age.

Library story time every Thursday morning. Connor loves the stories, songs, kids, crafts, toys, and weekly library books. This girl is great at engaging the kids and getting them to listen to and participate in the stories.

This week they played with egg shakers in between stories to get wiggles out. (Sorry it's blurry)

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Our Family Vacation - Nov. 2011

Right after California, I flew to Washington D.C. to meet up with Brad who was there on business (so thanks to Boeing who paid for Brad's half of the trip!). Brad flew out Sunday, Nov. 6, I got there Wednesday, Nov. 9, we flew home together Sunday, Nov. 13. Connor stayed with Grandma Brenda again (thank you Brenda!! You are wonderful!!!).

D.C. was beautiful. It is thick with charm with the New England-style houses and tree-lined streets and highways. We did all the touristy sight-seeing, and visited my cousin Trevor's family that lives in D.C. whom we haven't seen in a long time.


Arlington National Cemetery. I really loved this. Seeing all the grave stones that cover 624 acres hill top to hill top, I felt such gratitude for our service men and women who fight and lose their lives defending our great country.

Amphitheater where they hold the services.

The Tomb of the Unknowns.

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We visited the one in D.C. and the extension of the museum in Chantilly, VA that was right next to our hotel about 50 minutes out of D.C. We spent 5-6 hours of our trip in these buildings - Brad really loves this stuff.

This is an original space suit that has walked on the moon - worn by one of the astronauts in one of the Apollo missions. It still has moon dust on the boots!

I liked the extension of the museum in VA a lot more - they had some awesome planes and others on display:

The Enola Gay that dropped the first A-bomb on Hiroshima.

Several WWII planes.

The SR-71 Blackbird that is in the Transformers 3 movie (this hangar is where they filmed part of the movie).

A bunch of Boeing planes.

The space shuttle Enterprise and a bunch of the pods they used to use to bring the astronauts back to earth.



There was a whole display on applications satellites which is what Brad used to work on in El Segundo, CA. Brad was in heaven. He loves this stuff.


The Capitol Building.

The Library of Congress that houses Thomas Jefferson's personal book collection.


The International Spy Museum. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was really cool.

The White House.


And the Mall - a bunch of the monuments and memorials in the park across from the White House: Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., FDR, Jefferson; Vietnam War, Korean War, etc.




The Holocaust Memorial Museum.


And I can't not document our run-in with the Occupy D.C. protesters. Even though the first picture looks like there were tons of them, there were about 20 people walking for the protest. 20 people had 8 motorcycle escort cops and they shut down the whole left side of the street. Pretty lame.


We had a really great time.

Surprise trip to California - Nov. 2011

Since Ady didn't have her baby while we were visiting California in October, I made a surprise visit to California in November. I just couldn't stand to not see cute Baby Will until Christmas. It was just me (Connor stayed with Brenda for a few days and Brad worked) and I didn't tell anyone I was coming. My friend Christine picked me up from LB airport and I wish I would have snapped a picture of my mom's face when she opened the door and saw me standing on the front step. Fantastic. It is always fun to spend time with my family and I was in heaven holding my sweet nephew for a whole week!

He is SO much bigger now and I'm glad I got to spend that week with him while he was still in the sweet newborn phase. Auntie loves you Will!



Warm, snugly, sweet-smelling ball of goodness.

Halloween 2011

Halloween was so much fun this year now that Connor is old enough to get it. Connor was a cute astronaut (costume courtesy of Grandma Brenda (Brad's mom)). He hated the suit at first, but once he discovered he gets candy if he wears it, no problem. His silver motorcycle/astronaut helmet (love the head-body ratio it creates) and black Ugg/moon boots made the outfit.

We celebrated Halloween for a whole week and did a lot of fun activities.

First was the pumpkin patch on the 24th. Connor had a blast but was terrified of the worker who dressed up like a scare crow with a hollowed out pumpkin on his head (wish I would have gotten a picture of him!). He tried to pick up the biggest pumpkins and we finally found one he was happy with that he could carry everywhere. And he did.



We had a MOMS Club Halloween Party on the 26th. Food, treats, costumes, crafts, and play time with friends. Our ward trunk-or-treat was also that night (it was FREEZING!)



We carved our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch on the 29th. We covered our table with trash bags and went to town. Connor couldn't get enough of the ooey-gooey pumpkin seeds. Later that day was the Halloween story time and craft at the library.



This baby pumpkin is perfect for our gap-toothed 2 year old. :)

Our front door.

Another kid at the library had the same astronaut costume. Thank you Costco.

And finally, trick-or-treating on Halloween! My favorite of the night was how excited he was for the apple given to us by our dentist-neighbor. But when he got his first sucker, the apple was long gone. After trick-or-treating, Connor loved passing out candy at the door. When he heard the knock: *Gasp* "Kids!" and he would grab the bowl and run to the door, giving each kid a toddler-sized handful. Grandma Brenda also came up to spend the night with us.


Happy Halloween!!