Our Family & Our Life

Dear Diary, We are driving to NYC on Saturday.... with Isla... Are we crazy travelling 1800 miles with a 13 month old? Probably but for a good reason. Colin has a convention at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan for a couple of days. He has loads of stuff, aka. computers, terminals and even our TV, so we decided to drive and make it a mini-family-vacation. At least I hope its a vacation, we'll have to see about that. Another thing, after the convention Colin has to come back to Denver to meet a client and I'll stay on the east coast. While he is away Isla and I will be staying with Nancy and Bob in Hartford who graciously offered to put up with us for a few days. By way of history, Nancy was Colin's mom's pen-pal for over 50 years - they were like sisters. Colin will fly to Hartford late Tuesday night to meet up with us and then we drive back to Denver and should arrive back home on Saturday at the latest... Phew, nothing in our lives is straight-forward

Dear Diary, Yesterday showed Isla's rare naughty side, the other side of Isla is her cute side. In case you forgot how cute she is..... At this point, the closest to standing unaided so far She can only move backwards!!!! The easiest way to get off And this is the closest to walking on her own Snacktime!

Dear Diary, Even though she isn't walking yet, she still manages to live up to her nickname, "Monkey". It's better illustrated in photos... Under the laptop table and all those tempting cables - check out the grin, silly girl! These two pics represent plant dirt... she ate it, just like her mother used to do. What you don't see is the dirt in her mouth I had to scoop out..... Guess what this is? It's my shoulder, with teeth marks. She bit me on Wednesday when we were practicing standing... I don't think it's the start of a biter, I think it's the result of molars coming through and a short attention span.

Dear Diary, A few weeks we had our family portrait and Isla's first birthday portrait taken. It's a bit shameful but since Isla has been born, we have never had a professional family portrait taken. We figured it was about time now that our life is calming down a bit. We LOVE them, they turned out so well. I was going to wait until we received the CD with the edited photos on it but hey, I'm impatient and couldn't wait to share them with you all. Below is the link to all 201 of them. Isla has a big scratch on her nose but that will be edited out along with other things that we've requested - these are just the proofs. Enjoy - Precious Poses - enter the website - click on Proofing (top right corner) - Password is Isla and that will take you to our photos. We are getting a CD with 20 photos on it. I'll post some of them when we have it, hopefully next week if not earlier.

Dear Diary, My present from Uncle Alan and Auntie Clare arrived today, almost a month since it left Northern Ireland. I think the boat must have got lost. Anyway, the present was nice, but it doesn't taste very good.... 'Til next time, Isla

Dear Diary, As I mentioned in yesterdays post, my furry lovelies have not made it to the blog lately. This leads me to a day in the life of Pearl and Dixie... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7:15 - wake up 7:16 - Where's breakfast? 8:00 - run around and a have a "moment" then beat up my sister. 8:30 - wow, that was alot of running and we're tired, time for a nap. 9:00 - we love the sun, time to work on the tan. 11:30 - stomach is growling, maybe time for a treat, or two, or three, whatever we can get. 12:00 - time for some fresh air, living in an apt. is tough, no grass = no bugs, how boring. 1:00 - yawnnn, been up for hours, no wonder I'm exhausted.... 5:00 - stomach is growling again, where's dinner? finally... 5:25 - I'm thirsty, please turn the tap on... 6:00 - He's home, let's play! 6:10 - catnip, YAY! 7:00 - What a busy day, I can't keep my eyes open, better go to bed - see you in the morning!

Dear Diary, First, thank you for the birthday wishes in the blog comments and on FB. In case you were wondering, I'm officially mid-30's... Also, without sounding too cryptic, we are in the middle of a visa drama. I can't say too much right now but we would grateful if you could pray that we get the visa's we need to stay here and in the alternative if it's not meant to be, He shows the way. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more about this in the near future. We haven't posted too many pics of the little lady since her birthday so here you go, Isla, 12.5 months: Don't worry, she's still adorable and happy. These were taken tonight quickly before she went to bed so nothing too great, just a few updates for her Opa and Oma (and everyone else of course). She was up at 8:30 this morning, really, she was! I'm glad she woke up when she did because we would've been late for church this morning and we had to make a side and main course for t

Dear Diary, Today is Heather's birthday, she is ** today... Do you think I would get home if I told you? Anyway I just wanted to say 'Happy Birthday' dear... It has been a difficult year for us all, but I know through God's grace that we will be sustained through it all.. May ou LORD bless you today and forever in his sight and his covenant. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo 'Til next time, Colin.