Working the track suit

Birthday Party

Today we invited the Lum's over and Anne & Levi to celebrate Emersyn's birthday. Emme loves to play with Lindsey and baby Ella so she was very excited to have everyone at the house. Levi brought his hoops and played games with the kids outside. It was fun afternoon for our little monkey.

2 years old

This picture pretty much sums up our little Emme. She is spunky, silly and a bit of a wild woman. She has Finn's wild side and Kenzie's lovey side. She is an amazing little person and we're loving every minute with her.

Favorite times with Emme: snuggling with her first thing in the morning

Favorite Emme quotes: Mommy rock it (when she wants to go to sleep), I walk, I do!

Crazy things she likes to do: jump off the arms of the couches, take off all of her clothes and diaper and run around naked, color on anything she finds!

Favorite Foods: any type of berries, nuggets, hot dogs

Soccer Star

Today started Finn's first session of soccer kids. I was a little nervous for him because he's so shy around new people. Well Finn had his buddy Joey and he warmed right up to coach Jaimie. He had a great time running the field and doing drills.

Bye Bye Old Friend

Today we said goodbye to our companion of 12 years Durham the dog. He has been with us through just about every milestone in our lives. Marriage, 3 kids, 3 cross country moves and buying our first house. 

We adopted Durham from a shelter in Broward County, FL. The lady at the shelter saw a sucker coming a mile away. She put this little black puppy with a purple tongue and huge paws in my arms and I was in love. I called Jim and told him I had found a Durham for Raleigh. 

first day with our new puppy

It wasn't all perfect, our puppy liked to chew records and books. He had a love of Mexican heather plants and almost made a return visit to the shelter when he ate the ribbons for my work uniform off of the coffee table but left Jim's (which were right next to mine) untouched.  As puppy he had a weakened immune system and battled with mange for the first year of his life. He also had a sensitive system and left us many presents on our rugs over the years which to led to the purchase of his very own spot bot!

Some fun things I would like to remember. Durham gave the best greetings. Anyone that he liked got a special whine and for those he really liked he talked to them and his entire butt would wag. Durham was not a fan of mailmen or people in uniform. He took it personally when people tried to put mail in the mail slot and would try to wrestle it out of their hands. In his younger years we could get Durham so excited that our living room would turn into a race track. He would run the circuit and cruise his paws along the back of the couch. He loved to wrestle and play tug of war. One of his favorite companions for this was Angus the cat. It was quite a sight to watch a cat and dog play and wrestle with each other. 

Durham had a thing for diaper butts. He would go up to them and nose them, usually to the babies dismay. Once he went up to a little boy in the park and started nosing his backpack trying to get him to play. That poor kid looked terrified and Dur just couldn't understand what the problem was!

Our Dur, Durpuppy, Bear cub, Furball, old man will truly be missed.

Carmel by the Sea

riding in the uhaul cross country

Salt Flats of Utah

Christmas with the family

Labor day in the city

Today we enjoyed a day off with the kids by taking them to the city. We decided to check out the Aquarium by the bay and then walked to Ghiradelli to enjoy an ice cream treat.