Monday, June 20, 2011

Day 1 NATA conference

Day 1 in the Crescent City, was great, mostly. I woke up still tired, my eyes burning, but got on my way. There is a little grocery store next door to the hotel, thats more like a glorified convenient store, over priced and all. Bought some breakfast then jumped on the street trolley to get to the conference center. I didnt really know where I was going, so I ended up getting off too early and walking a bunch. Let me tell you, 10 blocks in heals, not a good idea. By the time I got there, I had wicked blisters on multiple locations on each foot. A couple of bandaids and I was good to go, although they still killed! At least they werent getting worse. Well, needless to say, I walked many, many more blocks today and was much less productive because of it. But, I had a good excuse to try all the vendors products! Found some good new stuff even.
I also ate some dynamite food. Shrimp gumbo for lunch was AMAZING!! So yummy. Then Thai flavored bone-in ribs for dinner. Awwwhhh. My mouth waters just thinking about them. I am having a wonderful time.
Other than the blisters and lots of walking it's been fun. Even when I wondered off on a slower street that smelled like urine and weed, that was still a fun adventure! Well, I learned some stuff, and saw some colleagues. Tomorrow is a BYU alumni reunion and more fun education! I will be purchasing new shoes and walking much less, eating more good food, etc. As for now... SLEEP!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Six weeks ago our BYU married student ward was dissolved and we began attending our new, traditional family ward, which we have been happily avoiding for the past, well almost 6 years. And today, was our last Sunday in the ward. I am going to my conference next week and then we fly to Alaska! Yeah!!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Happy 1st birthday Tolson!!

Yesterday was my little man's 1st birthday! HOOORRAYY!
We had a wonderful, yet long day.
It started off with Azilyn crawling in my bed before 6am only to toss and turn for 20 minutes. Finally she got up and said, very indignantly, "I'm going to my own bed!" 'Yeah' I thought, 'I can go back to sleep!' Well, she made it half way down the hall and came running back in, "Mom, we have to go see the hot air balloons! C'mon, get up." 'Oh, man!' I thought. I was almost in the clear and she remembered. Hot air balloon festival started at 6:30am. And... we went. Azilyn woke up Tolson. (Happy Birthday) He wasnt very happy. Luckily, he's pretty forgiving and was good to go once I picked him up and snuggled him for a minute. Here are a few pictures.

We even rode in a balloon! Good thing it was tethered to the ground, cuz I'm not gunna lie, it kinda freaked me out. I'm a bit scared of heights. The only pictures of us in the balloon, however, are on some other lady's camera. She's suppose to email them to me, but I dont know if that will ever happen.

Anyway, after that we barely escaped an hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway and took an alternate route to Tolson's Dr. appt, still arriving abt 45 minutes late, oops. He is a healthy boy, with only some minor eczema, 29in (25%, his biggest % yet!) and 19.5lbs (only 6% - I blame this one on Danny. So does the doctor). Four shots and a sad boy later, we were off for lunch and naps, which also went well. Three hours later we had happy, hungry kids who got to go swimming and eat specialty cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy. Tolson dove into the box of cupcakes to get the one with the most frosting and then he devoured it! It was great. Here's a video of some of the action.

We got home pretty late and we all hit the pillow snoring! Long days make for good sleep. Good day!

Here's a few things about our little rolley Tolley Tolson:
Thumb sucker (right). Dimples. Cuddly. Mama's boy. My sweet boy. Gorilla crawler. Loves sister. Loves playing and giggling with Azilyn. Open mouth kisses (occasionally). Walks holding hands, both hands. LOVES balls. Throws well. Toy cars. Pots and pans. Blocks. Balloons. Opens/Closes doors. Attempts to say the following regularly - Mama, Azilyn, get up, what's that, that, milk (sign), yes, all done, book, see ya. Points. Waves. Claps. Shakes head. Misses Daddy, Da da da. Towhead. Straight hair. Chill little man.

We love you Tolson!