Bay Time

We had a great time at the Chesapeake Bay this year.  Nathan enjoyed Nana and Grandpa Butch's new swim spa, and showed off his swimming skills.

Nathan eagerly picked crabs and consumed tons of crab meat -- look at him go with this hammer!

We even set a crab trap ourselves, and caught one!

Another highlight was going out in the boat.

Nathan even got to drive!  (Look at that concentration!)

 

Fishing wasn't as successful, but Nathan was nonetheless proud of our little catch!

Statue of Liberty

We took a stop in New York on our way from Thomas Land to the Chesapeake Bay.  We have never been to Liberty Island, so we took the ferry (which Nathan thought was really cool).  I couldn't resist taking this picture!

We went up to the pedestal where we had great views of New York City.  I love the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in this picture!

This is our Lady Liberty selfie!

Look at these cuties!

Thomas Land!

This week we spent some time on the East Coast.  Our trip started off in the Boston area, where we visited Thomas Land!  It is an adorable little theme park with all sorts of Thomas-themed rides.

Nathan was able to meet, greet, and fist bump Sir. Topham Hatt at Tidmouth Sheds.

He fought a fire by spraying water at a "burning" building while atop of Fire Fighting Flynn!  Nathan took his "job" very seriously!

Nathan has been talking about wanting to go on a roller coaster for a while.  This was his first chance, and he LOVED it!  We went on the Troublesome Trucks roller coaster ride three times!

We enjoyed a variety of tame and not so tame rides.

And we were even able to take a train ride around the whole park, courtesy of none other than Thomas himself!

 Just look at this happy boy!

 We ended the day fishing for minnows.  We had a blast!

August Layouts

I love making baby boy layouts, and this line is just the cutest.  My first layout is for CSI's August Cold Case.  I used leftover numbers for part of the tile and cut apart cards for a number of the elements on this page.

I had to scrap this darling picture of Nathan at the salon for the first time.  I added a little tree element to this page for Lasting Memories' challenge 457.

Finally, I was inspired by More Than Words' layout sketch.  Just looking at my little boy makes me happy!

First Day of Pre-Kindergarten!

Nathan started pre-k this week!    

He is now in Ms. Lauren's pre-kindergarten class at La Luz Early Childhood, and he loves that the classroom is space themed!

His school had two in service days before the start of the school year, so Jesse took one of those days off with Nathan and they went to the Natural History Museum where they saw a new exhibit -- a moving growling T-Rex replica!

On my day with Nathan, we went to the zoo, where we saw the new penguin exhibit in addition to exploring virtually the entire zoo!  Nathan is growing up fast and sure is a bundle of energy!

Friends

We have had a lot of fun hanging out with friends lately -- look at us being social!  We are lucky to have great old and new friends in our lives.

Summer Fun

It has been a hot summer so we bought a huge shade umbrella for soccer games, and Nathan wanted to take it to the park. I had to take a picture because it is so much bigger than he is!

We have tried a few new things around town.  Nathan's friend had a birthday party at a trampoline park, and he had the best time jumping around for hours!

He is always on the move, zooming around with his toys at home too.

Now that soccer season is over, we spent Saturday morning at Explora and enjoyed a lot of their new hands on exhibits.

Exterior Remodel

We just completed our largest home remodel to date: an update to our entire exterior.  We needed to buy new windows for the house because the old aluminum windows did not keep the cold/heat out, were difficult to open/close, and the seals on the glass were broken on most of the windows.  On a stucco house, window replacement typically requires a new stucco color coat as well, which our house desperately needed anyway.  We also took the opportunity to replace the front door and exterior lights, and to re-paint the exterior trim.  Here is the finished product!

And here is a night shot so you can see our new motion detecting dusk to dawn lights at work.

Although we replaced our windows due to functionality issues, our new windows are different aesthetically as well.  We opted not to include grids in our new windows, and replaced all of the single hung windows with either sliders, casements, or picture windows to eliminate the horizontal bar.  The big windows in the front and back of the house changed the most -- from two single hung windows with grids to a large picture window without grids.  Look how Nathan almost appears to be outside!

Here is a before and after shot so you can see the difference in the stucco, windows, front door, and lights.

Echo Park Hello Baby Boy

I love scrapping baby boy pictures, and Echo Park's Hello Baby Boy's collection is perfect for them.  For this for layout I used pictures from Nathan's first balloon glow, a wood veneer hot air balloon, and I was inspired by the left sided sketch from Scrap our Stash.  

This next layout was inspired by the More Than Words July challenge.  It features Nathan's first trip to the fair (where he discovered farm animals), and my title includes large alphabet letters that are some of the oldest items in my stash.

Nathan's Photography

Nathan has started taking pictures -- on his tablet, on our phones, and on our point and shoot camera.  Here are a couple shots Nathan has taken over the past few months:

Happy 4th

Happy 4th of July!  On our day off, we drove up to Sandia Crest and hiked at the "tippy top" of the mountain, as Nathan likes to say.  

We hiked to the Kiwanis cabin, which was a fun little adventure.  Nathan did a great job during our 1.5 hour hike!

The views from the top were exceptional!

Grandpa Thomas's Summer Visit

Grandpa Thomas came out here last weekend to spend time with us.  He went hiking with Jesse and Nathan -- it was such a lovely day.

In the afternoon, we took Nathan to his first ever movie in the theater -- Toy Story 4 -- on opening day!

He loved the movie, he loved the popcorn, and his new favorite Toy Story character is Forky!

Grandpa Thomas also enjoyed seeing Nathan play soccer.

We had a fun weekend together!