River of Lights

We had a date night with our same friends that we went to Monticello Box with. We have really enjoyed doing things with them. We had dinner here at our place and then went to Albuquerque's River of Lights. It was really neat and we enjoyed seeing all of the lights! They had it at the Botanical Gardens here. The different areas were themed after the plants that are normally growing in that area.

I LOVE sunflowers, so we had to get a picture with this one!

Here is the African area:

And they had a farming area with a John Deere tractor!

These lights were neat, it made it look like it was snowing.

And a few random creatures:

In the middle of the park there is a lake and so they had a bunch of sea creatures on the land near it along with this awesome pirate ship!

We are so glad we went!

Thanksgiving in Idaho

We took a week around Thanksgiving to head up to Idaho. It was such a wonderful trip all around. It is always so good to spend time with family and we made some wonderful memories this year.

We arrived on Tuesday, a day before the rest, and enjoyed just playing with Mom and Dad.

Stan and Dad were laying on the couches talking and Scott crawled over there to join the boys!

Scott loved riding the horse. He wasn't super steady but loved that it bounced up and down

Everyone else came on Wednesday and we had fun having all the cousins together. It was fun to see Scott interact with the others. You could tell that he picked up little tricks from them. He became very proficient at crawling and even learned how to climb the stairs!

We had a great time just hanging out with everyone.  (I don't know how I don't have any pictures of Laura and Avery, but they were around too. Scott loved playing with Laura and she was super good with him)

Kevin and Stan, probably talking about some project :)

These two were especially fun to watch interact. There are four months in between them.

Scott all ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

Hanging out with Grandma

Stan was throwing Scott up in the air...

And Ashley thought it was the funniest/coolest thing ever.

Of course on Thanksgiving we had our annual shoot.

My glasses were extra stylish

And Stan taught me everything I know.

Josie gave Scott these adorable pajamas.

We convinced Mom and Dad to join us for sushi the Monday after Thanksgiving (everyone else was long gone). We were glad to have so much time with them. They were troopers to put up with sushi :)

We headed home on Tuesday. It was so much fun and we can't wait to go back!

Scott was super helpful when packing up to go home.

Return to Monticello Box

About a week before Thanksgiving we went with some friends to drive an area we have visited often. We headed up Mount Withington (the same mountain we got stuck on our first winter here) and went down a road we had never been down. We had a picnic at the top of the mountain, but it was so cold! So we had to eat quickly :)

Cute Scott

After we drove down the mountain, we ended up at the Monticello box where river meets road.

Our handsome driver!

I got out to get an action shot of Stan roaring through the water. There were times that the water completely covered our windshield. Stan may or may not have really enjoyed gunning it through the water parts.

 And an action shot of our friend coming up the river:

That's our friend in front of us. The colors were just at their tail end. The yellow of fall is one of my favorite things.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a blue heron. We were SOOOOOO close to it.

It was truly a beautiful day for a drive!

Trip to the east

We went to Raleigh, North Carolina this past week for the Gaseous Electronics Conference. This is the same conference that we went to in New Jersey last year. Stan presented again and we decided to make a family trip out of it. It was quite the adventure!

We left on Sunday late morning. Scott was a pretty good boy on the plane.

We had a layover in Dallas before we headed on to North Carolina. Luckily, Scott was still a good boy on the second flight.

Scott was so tired after a long day of travel. He promptly feel asleep on the comfortable bed. We moved him into his crib though :)

Monday was the start of the conference. Stan was gone all day. Scott and I went for walks around downtown Raleigh and while Scott slept, I rested and read, and hung out. It wasn't the most most fun to hang out in a dark hotel room, but it was so fun to be able to be with Stan during the week. I loved when he would come up for his breaks and spend time with us during lunch!

We were super excited that they had a swimming pool, so Monday night, we got all ready and headed down.

Scott LOVES swimming!

Living the life, hanging out on the pool chairs.

Turns out, the pool was FREEZING!! I didn't get it. But Scott had a fun time with Stan. We couldn't get an unblurry picture, but he has a huge smile on his face!

Scott's new thing is to chew on my chin. He attacks it...

And then gnaws on it

The next few pictures are in no particular order. The rest of the week was full of conferencing for Stan, and walks through downtown for me. Scott got less and less able to sleep well in the hotel which meant lots of walking. In the early morning, while Stan was trying to finish sleep before another long day of the conference, Scott and I hung out in the hotel lobby. Everywhere we went, everyone oohed and aahed over the boy, which, of course, we agree with everything they say. Despite his sleep antics, he is one cute boy!

He LOVES to chew on apples.

We found a Looney Tunes cartoon cd at Walmart before we went. Scott liked watching it on our bed with us.

This trip, he has really branched out with his moving. He was in every corner he could find. He LOVES seeing himself in the mirror.

On Wednesday, I rented a car and met Dave, Nikki, Hallie, Annie, Ethan, Janae, Nate, and Aubrey in Richmond. I was so glad to able to see them! They are so nice to meet me down there. Just wish Steve could have joined them :)

The colors on the drive down there were beautiful. I love the fall!

We met up at a mall and the kids checked out a few books at Barnes and Noble first. It was fun to have all six of them together. We struggled to get a picture of them actually all looking at us.

We then walked over to a little play area they had in the mall.

Nikki and Scott. He loved playing with everyone. Again, the kid is blurry because he is so busy jumping!

He liked the wavy mirror.

All the kids got on the floor to crawl with Scott.

He had lots of smiles for Uncle Dave

Our last destination before we had to part ways was a park.

Nate, Scott, and Hallie. This was his first interaction with sand and he didn't quite know what to do about it, but he sat there and ran his fingers through it some.

It was so fun to see them all play together!

I'm so grateful for such a happy boy. It would have been impossible to drive there if he had been grumpy!

Scott swung in a swing for the first time and he LOVED it too.

We struggled with the looking (and for Nate, smiling) at the camera, but we were all happy to be together!

Aubrey and Scott

I'm sure grateful for these two, and cute Ethan. I have such a wonderfully supportive family!

We had great cuisine all the time we were there! We went to a sushi place twice because it was so good. Here's a picture from our southern eating at The Pit. It was super delicious!

A tired Scott ready to go home!

We had such a great time but were so grateful to get home :)