Summer Vacation

We just got back from our trip to California and Nevada. We had such a fun time! Our first stop was Huntington Beach to visit my sister Emily and her husband Jeremy. We got there on Thursday night and stayed until Monday morning. What an awesome place to live...there are so many beautiful things to see and the weather is the bomb. Eleanor struggled a little with the 3 hour time zone change. She woke up every morning around 5:45-6:15. Honestly though it could have been a lot worse. In Ohio she wakes up around 7-7:30 so we were lucky she wasn't waking up at 4:30! Yikes! It really wasn't that bad getting up with her because we just went for a walk to the beach. Then she took her morning nap around 8 and I'd just go back to sleep for a little while, too.

Emily took the day off of work on Friday and we headed up to Malibu to do some exploring and go to a more family friendly beach. Eleanor LOVED the beach. She was pretty fearless and just crawled straight into the water, the waves didn't stop her one bit. She even enjoyed eating the sand! I should have known she would, this girl puts everything in her mouth. Here are some pictures Emily took of us at the beach. (And I'm just realizing I don't have any pictures of the people we went on vacation to see! I'm really bad at remembering to take pictures, and actually the majority of the pictures on this blog were not taken by me. I need to work on that!)









Needless to say, Eleanor was in great need of a bath after our fun time at the beach!


On Saturday we went to one of my favorite little sandwich shops in Newport Beach called
Big Belly Deli. Yumm!

After lunch we headed to Balboa Island and walked around and got ourselves some dessert. I gave Eleanor my cupcake to see what she would do with it and she wasn't really sure if she wanted to give up her seat belt strap for it!


For dinner we went to TK Burger and had yummy hamburgers. Like usual, I feel like my vacation revolved around where I was going to eat :) There are so many delicious little places to eat. Luckily Emily and Jeremy have lived there long enough to know some hot spots.

On Sunday my dad drove down from Fresno and went to church with us and spent the day with us.



On Monday morning we flew to Las Vegas to visit Andrew's sister Jessica and her husband Terence. Hotels are so cheap in Vegas that we decided to stay in one rather than crash their one bedroom apartment. It worked out really well because the bathroom of our hotel room was so huge that we were able to put Eleanor's crib in there and she got some really good sleep.

We spent a lot of time at the pool. Actually I spent the most time at the pool because Andrew was kind enough to stay in the room with Eleanor while she took her naps and I got to go down and lay out at the pool. Now that's what I call a vacation! I think Eleanor was born to be a swimmer, she absolutely loves the water!


Here's a random picture of Eleanor in our hotel room watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. (So apparently I take pictures of Eleanor watching TV rather than taking pictures of us with Emily and Jeremy or Jessica and Terence!) But I just had to get a picture of her on this bed because she was loving rolling around on the big king size bed.

Our first night in Vegas we went to Cafe Rio for dinner! We actually went back for lunch our last day in town, too! Yummy!

Jessica and Terence were kind enough to watch Eleanor so Andrew and I could go to the temple. It had definitely been way too long since the last time we had been.

On Wednesday we went to M&M World. It should really just be called M&M store. It is just a big four-story store full of M&M merchandise. I thought it was going to be like a chocolate factory or something, yeah not so much. It was still fun to see all the M&M stuff, and despite her face in this picture, I think Eleanor enjoyed it too.

Later that night we went out for our Anniversary dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. We went to this restaurant in San Diego on our honeymoon, so we were excited to find out they had one in Las Vegas we could go to. We thought Eleanor should celebrate our anniversary too, so we took her along with us. I couldn't get Eleanor to take her thumb out of her mouth for a self family portrait....

So Andrew and I decided we'd suck our thumbs and then we'd have one of all three of us sucking our thumbs, but Eleanor didn't get the memo, and she actually smiled for the camera the one time we weren't! Go figure, right?


We had such an awesome meal and the service was really great. Our server took our picture and then went back and printed it off and put it in a little frame for us.


I can't believe two years ago it was just the two of us...


...And now it's the three of us!


Thank you Emily, Jeremy, Jessica, and Terence for letting us come and visit. We had a really fun time and we're glad we got to spend some time with you. Eleanor really loved having some new faces to play with!

9 Months Old

This little munchkin is 9 months old today!

It's weird to think that now she's been outside of me just as long as she was inside of me :)

9 months pregnant...

9 months old...

Either way we still really love her!

Today she had her 9 month check up. She weighs 19.5 pounds and is 28.5 inches tall (she's just about as tall as He Ping Ping).

She's really slimmed out. When she was born she was in the 99th percentile for weight and the 70th percentile for height. But now she's only in the 50th percentile for weight and has gone up to the 80th percentile in height. We love watching her grow! She sure is fun!

Sleeping Beauty

I thought this was a funny position to find Eleanor during her nap today. For some reason she always crosses her legs while sleeping. What a little lady :) Also, she loves her bunny.

She sure is cute when she's sleeping.

She climbs!

So Eleanor has turned into quite the little climber. She has recently climbed Baby Everest, our staircase. Her first attempt took her about 3 minutes but she is getting pretty quick. I can't believe how big she's getting. It's so fun to see her little personality and watch her learn and grow!

Here's a link to the video. It was too long to put right into the blog.

Video of Eleanor climbing the stairs

Bachelorette Junkie

So I've really gotten into this season of the Bachelorette. Well actually, let's be honest, I guess I get into it every season :) I was so happy to see Jillian finally get rid of Wes a couple of weeks ago. I thought he was totally sleezy and a major jerk for "having a girlfriend" and all that stuff. Well I found this interview with him. It turns out he might not be so bad afterall because ABC peeps did some major editing and also it might actually be Ed with a girlfriend! We'll just have to wait and see how all this drama turns out. This reality Steve guy also suspects that Reid will come back and proclaim his love to Jillian!

Here's a link to Reality Steve's Blog. Scroll way down for the interview with Wes.

Yes I'm Goin' to Carolina in My Mind

So we kind of had a surprise vacation to North Carolina. The company Andrew's working for this summer has an office in Charlotte, NC so they sent him down to meet with some people for the project he's working on. Andrew's parents live about 3 hours from Charlotte in Wilmington so Eleanor and I decided to tag along and make a vacay out of it.

Andrew had to be in the Charlotte office Monday-Friday, so we just hung out in the hotel and at the pool while he was at work. Charlotte isn't really a sightseeing kind of place. It's really nice and clean and pretty, just nothing really touristy to see so I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures from our time in Charlotte :( Actually, I probably only took like 10 pictures our whole trip. Ooops. Luckily Pam took a bunch, so I've stolen some of hers

We spent the weekend before and after in Wilmington with Andrew's parents. We got in on the 4th of July. We went to Taco Bell and then to a fireworks show on the beach. Eleanor loved the fireworks and I was in heaven because they had a snoball stand there. Yumm.

Here's Eleanor on our plane ride there. Luckily she did really well.

Here we are at Pam and Doug's favorite restaurant...Taco Bell!


At the fireworks show. Eleanor was very sleep deprived by this point.


After our week in Charlotte we headed back to Wilmington. Here's Eleanor with Grandma Pam.

On Saturday we did some sightseeing. First, Grandpa Doug wanted to take Eleanor for a walk where he does his running so we went to Greenfield Lake and walked around for a little while.



We even saw an alligator

Then we headed to downtown Wilmington and walked around and looked for a place to have lunch.



Then we went on a boat ride down Cape Fear River. This is an elevator bridge...the whole middle part lifts up like an elevator to let ships through. Cool, huh?

USS North Carolina

Eleanor was so tired she was able to fall asleep on the boat ride.

Grandma Pam standing in front of our boat, Henrietta II

Here's Eleanor before church on Sunday

After church

Returning our rental car...Does this look like a Pontiac G6 or similar?? I don't think so!

Well we were supposed to fly home on Monday night but our flight kept getting delayed until finally it was cancelled so they booked us on a flight Tuesday afternoon. Well when we got to the airport on Tuesday, the flight was overbooked so they were looking for people to get bumped to a later flight. We decided to do it to get some free vouchers so they booked us on a flight for 6:00 PM. That gave us time to go to the beach for about 2 hours. I wish we would have known about all these delays so we could have spent like a whole day at the beach! Well when we got back to the airport our flight was delayed so we didn't end up leaving until like 8 PM. That made us miss our connecting flight in Atlanta by like 15 minutes so they gave us a hotel voucher to stay in Atlanta that night and then we got put on a flight the next morning. So we finally made it home on Wednesday! What a mess!

Here's a video of Eleanor crawling around the airport. She was loving all the space to roam around!

In other news, here's a video of Eleanor pushing her little walker. She's getting pretty good at walking with help. Apparently I walked at 7 months old, so we'll see how much longer it takes Eleanor. I have a feeling the day she learns to walk will also be the day she learns to run!!

Sleeping is no fun

Now that Eleanor is a little more mobile, she just wants to play in her crib rather than sleep. She's figured out how to go from sitting to "crawling" and crawling to sitting. Sometimes when I peek in at her she's just sitting up in her crib talking to the wall. In the last day or so she's starting pulling up on things. Last night after I put her down for bed I thought it was too quiet too soon. I thought maybe she was just really tired and she conked out, but I highly doubted that.

I went in to check on her and I found her standing up just having a grand old time. I sure do love this little girl. She's so fun to have around!

Here's a cute little video of her reaction to seeing me...