A long time coming...

Journaling has never been my strong point. Not when I was a kid (even though mom would make me write every monday) and not now. That being said, I'm going to try to do better. No promises though!

To add to the shame of not being a good journal-er I realize that I'm also not a good scrapbooker/photo organizer. We have taken so many photos over the past few months since I've written--which would make sense because in that time we've gone to France, Belgium, and The Netherlands, we've gone on 3 family camping trips, I took a trip to San Francisco and Orange County, we drove to Fairbanks to visit Ann and Sean, Rob went on several scouting trips AND we've had three separate trips to the hospital due to preterm labor! We've gone to the zoo, we've gone to the Alaska State Fair, we've taken scenic drives. We've seen bears and moose and mating muskrats. We've taken picnics, we've done craft projects, we've celebrated birthdays. We even moved apartments!

So in an attempt to play catch up, here are some photos from our adventures!

                                                                                              We had a very long, very awful layover and I felt no shame sleeping on the airport floor (I blame pregnancy!)

We "locked" our love on a bridge over the Seinne and threw the key away. Literally hundreds of people have done this before us.

Rob climbed on anything he could while we were in Europe.

Although I have hundreds of other pictures from Europe, you will have to facebook stalk Rob in order to see them.

Below is one of the only pictures I seem to have from my trip to California in May. Photo credit goes to my incredibly handsome 16 yr old brother, Michael.

Camping with my in-laws is one of my favorite summer activities. We drive a couple hours out of town and set up camp at a secluded little lake and then we lay around and eat food for a couple of days. It's pretty awesome.

My nephews are rockstars.

Campfires are great, but they lose a little bit of the classic appeal in "The Land of the Midnight Sun"

This is our palatial 3 room tent. Much appreciation goes out to Dad and Mom Higham for the Christmas gift---we will be using it for many years to come!

Bradley had a birthday!! I made a cake!

Our son, Gideon James. I believe the classic *face palm* may have been a reaction to Rob's attempts at humor during the ultrasound. 

Kristy and Rob played a beautiful musical number at church. People literally came up to me crying to tell me how good it was---After which most of them asked me what talent I had that complimented my husband's "there MUST be some talent you have that attracted him to you".  Well folks, I've been asking myself the same question for a long time and the answer is nope. No talent worthy of his beautiful music, but somehow he still fell in love with me (THANK GOODNESS)

Our home living room doubles as Rob's music studio where he teaches violin lessons so this was our collaborative effort to beautify/organize the place.

I bought Rob an inflatable kayak for funsies. Real kayaks are WAY too expensive for us.

Gideon wants to come out and play!! The green line shows contractions, which were coming pretty strong about 2-3 minutes apart for two hours before we even went to the hospital. BTW terbutaline is the worst drug ever.

One day I looked out our apartment window to see this:

Rob's boss Petr is riding a giant unicycle. All in a days work, right?

The Alaska State Fair was way fun but rainy.  Since I'm pregnant and wasn't able to ride any of the rides we pretty much paid the ridiculous entrance fee in order to pay the ridiculous prices for the ridiculously delicious food. Between the two of us we consumed two giant turkey legs, a brick of fries covered in cheese, cotton candy, funnel cakes, a giant cream puff, and cheesecake in a cone. Had any of that food lasted long enough I probably would have taken pictures of it, but we consumed it all in record time.

The sign on the pig pen reads "Hi, I'm Princess I am going to have babies here at the fair :)" We were instant friends.


Even though these 20 pictures don't do the past 5 months even a little bit of justice, I feel proud of myself for even making the attempt. And I'm proud of you for making it to the end of this post.

And because I'm so proud of us for our combined efforts I've decided to upload one bonus picture for your viewing pleasure.



                   Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you LESTER*, the amazing rooster-like thing.

*ok. So I made his name up. and I'm not sure what kind of animal he really is. I guess I could have read the sign that gave me all that information but I was too stunned and mesmerized by Lester's good looks.