Merry Christmas!

After the burst of blogging in October, things got pretty hectic around here. The fall flew by in a flash... before we knew it Halloween had come and gone, and then for Veteran's Day weekend, my dear friend, Laurel, and her son, Elliot, came to San Diego for a couple of days. We had a great visit with them, and I will definitely have to post about that very soon. The very next week I started a new part-time job... I now serve as the Varsity Girls Soccer Coach at Calvin Christian School in Escondido. It is about 30 minutes away from our place, so Ryland and I trek up there every weekday afternoon... thankfully a senior girl at the school watches Ry during my practices and games, which has worked out great so far. I am very happy to be coaching again, but it is also keeping us very busy!

Once soccer season had kicked off, we headed up to the Bay Area to spend Thanksgiving with my family, which was terrific, and we also got together with most of the Honnette clan to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday, which was a wonderful day. Once we got into December and adding in all the Christmas preparations, that has made for one fun but hectic holiday season!

Tomorrow we head to Greensboro, North Carolina to spend Christmas with Daniel's entire family... needless to say, we can't wait! Since I probably won't be on the computer very much in the next week, I just wanted to go ahead and say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! And as you can see below, Ryland is excited about his first Christmas too :) Have a fantastic holiday!

Ryland turns 6 months old!

This past Monday, October 10th, Ryland celebrated his "Half-Birthday"... yep, our little guy has turned 6 months old! I still can't believe it. While the first couple of months seemed to take forever... probably because we weren't getting very much sleep at the time... the last couple of months seemed to fly by. Everyone says that children grow up so quickly and now we know firsthand that is true, so we are just trying to enjoy every day and each stage of his development. It really is amazing to watch him learn so many new skills and grow into this adorable little person. We are so blessed to have him in our lives, and we thank God for him every day!

Here are a couple of pictures that I took on Monday... I know I am biased, but he is a total cutie, isn't he?!!!

In the evening, we decided to go to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory to not only celebrate Ryland turning 6 months old but to also celebrate the fact Daniel and I survived half a year of parenthood :) The meal was delicious, but of course we saved room for dessert... we split a piece of Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple cheesecake... and yes, it is as good as it sounds! As you can see, Ryland was pretty interested too, trying to grab my fork and have a bite... I guess he inherited his parents' sweet tooth!

Speaking of Ryland eating "real food," he actually had his first taste of solids the other day, a week before he turned 6 months to be exact. Of course, I took a couple of photos to remember the moment by. I gave him just a bit of rice cereal, and he actually did pretty well with it, eating several spoonfuls. Here he is sitting in his brand new high chair seat, ready to go, and he even flashed me a sweet smile!

Then, he turned and looked at the little bowl like "Wait, you want me to eat that??!"

Afterwards, the look on his face said "Well, that was interesting." And all in all, it wasn't even that messy of an event :)

I just made some homemade carrot baby food yesterday, so we will have to give that a try very soon... and eventually we will work our way up to cheesecake :) As you can see, Ryland is growing up before our very eyes, and we look forward to all the other fun milestones we have ahead! Well, thanks for stopping by and please come back again soon... until then, God bless!

Oktoberfest... San Diego style!

Just wanted to take a minute and share a few pictures from last weekend. After spending almost 3 years in Germany, when we heard the largest Oktoberfest west of the Mississippi occurs in La Mesa, about 30 minutes from here, we knew we wanted to check it out. And since everyone dresses in lederhosen and dirndls when attending the festival back in Munich, we pulled our German garb out of the closet and made our way to La Mesa on Saturday, October 1st.

Once we arrived and started to check out the scene, right away we realized we were the only ones dressed up... of course we got plenty of looks, and Daniel thought it was hilarious to speak to people in German :) It turns out the event is so big because there are a ton of vendors selling anything you can think of, but at least that included some decent bratwurst. No German mustard though... oh well! We eventually made our way to the large beer tent, and yes, we were even allowed to bring Ryland inside... but it was in fact pretty tame. There we finally found some more people dressed up... the band! It was a pretty hot afternoon so after not too long, we decided to head on home but not before we snapped some pics to capture the moment...

I think it is funny how it looks like Ry was checking out the giant pretzel... I don't blame him, it was pretty tasty. If you're wondering why Ryland isn't wearing lederhosen, I actually looked for some but didn't have any luck... I am gonna keep my eyes peeled for the future though! Before we left we each took a photo with the baby and then we got a family shot too. And you'll notice I wore flip flops with my dirndl... that's definitely doing Oktoberfest San Diego style :)

Well, it might not have been as epic as Oktoberfest in Munich and it was definitely a lot hotter, but all in all, the festival in La Mesa was a pretty memorable event. We've heard the Oktoberfest in El Cajon is much more authentic so we will just have to check it out next year! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Day Trip to Julian

During the last half of September, Daniel was able to take 2 weeks off from work since he had a bunch of leave he was about to lose at the end of the fiscal year. Needless to say, we were very happy to spend more family time together, especially since he had been traveling so much the 2 months prior, spending 3 weeks in Virginia for training and almost a month in India for an exercise. Most of the time he was off, we tried to strike a balance between relaxing at home and being productive by doing errands and such. However, we did make one day trip to the town of Julian, which is about an hour and a half east of San Diego. Located in the Cuyamaca mountains, it is known for its apples orchards and thus delicious apples pies as well as a place for southern Californians to get away and experience a little bit of autumn. It often gets quite crowded on fall weekends, so we decided to visit on Tuesday, September 27th, since Daniel was off that week.

With October right around the corner, we were hoping for some nice autumn weather up in the mountains and maybe even some beautiful fall leaves... it ended up we didn't get lucky in either of those categories... it was over 80 degrees up there that day and not a single leaf had turned colors yet. Oh well! Since we arrived a little before noon, our first order of business was to have some lunch. After swinging by a few different cafes, we decided to eat at the Apple Alley Bakery. Lunch was pretty good, but the best part was the piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream that we split at the end... yum! Even Ry was spying the pies in the window afterwards :) Following lunch, we walked up and down Main Street checking out the shops at a leisurely pace.

Traveling with a baby is definitely a new experience, and we are learning to be flexible, that is for sure. In the midst of shopping, we realized Ryland had had an "accident"... which means whether we were done looking around or not, it was time to head back to the car! Once Ry had a new outfit on and a full stomach, we headed out to go apple picking, but not before picking up a famous Julian apple pie to take home.

Soon we found ourselves at the Raven Hill Orchard, where we picked a bunch of Empire, Jonathan, and Gala apples. Even Ryland got in on the picking action... with our help of course :) With our bag full and the afternoon heat getting to us a bit, we decided to hit the road. Once we got home, we noticed that it was much cooler near the coast and even the leaves were starting to turn here too... how ironic. Yet our visit to Julian was a good one, and we took home some nice "souvenirs" too... fresh apples and a scrumptious apple pie, which were so tasty that they were definitely worth the trip!

Ryland's first baseball game

Since I haven't posted anything in about 3 months, I figured it was about time to bring back the blog! Needless to say, Ryland has definitely been keeping us very busy lately, which is why I haven't posted in so long, but I am planning to blog much more often about all the fun things we are doing as a family. Also, it is definitely time to change the name of the blog, especially since we are no longer living in Europe! However, our adventures are still continuing because having Ry in our lives makes everyday an adventure :)

While we were living in Germany, we often wished we could go to a baseball game and experience some good ole Americana. Once we got back to the States, getting to a game was definitely on our agenda, but then Ryland was born right at the beginning of baseball season. With the season winding down, we finally made it to a game about a week ago, on Sunday, October 25th... Padres vs. Dodgers. I became a Padres' fan before we moved to Germany since we had lived in San Diego for 5 years, and Daniel has been a lifelong Dodger fan thanks to his dad's persuasion... so either way one of us would be happy about the outcome! As for Ryland, he was wearing a Padres beanie that they gave us when we checked in our stroller at guest services. Even though it was way too small for him, I made sure he was showing allegiance to the home team :)

It turned out to be a beautiful day at the ball park, even if the Dodgers took an early lead. Ryland did great for the first couple of innings and then started to get tired by the fifth. He actually fell asleep in my lap... shortly after that the Padres hit a home run, and with all the cheering and the loud fog horn they play in celebration, he started to wake up a little bit. Thankfully, I had ordered him some noise-cancellation headphones, which we had brought along. With those on, he was able to get a good half hour of sleep in... and he just looked so darn cute in them too.

By the eighth inning, the Dodgers were winning 6-2, and Ry had his fill of baseball so we headed home a little early. Even though the Padres ended up losing, I am so glad we finally made it to a baseball game... plus after living overseas, it's the simple things like singing the Star Bangled Banner at the start of the game while watching our flag fly proudly that make you very happy to be an American and to be home again. All in all, it was a very fun family outing!

Well, I promise it won't be another 3 months before I put up a post again, so please check back again soon!

North Carolina Baby Shower

After spending almost two months apart, I am so grateful that I had a chance to fly back to the East Coast and see Daniel over President's Day weekend. With winter weather wreaking havoc on many travel plans across the country this year, we added some padding to the agenda, so I flew out on Wednesday, February 16th... plus I was a bit nervous about flying at nearly 7 1/2 months pregnant... but thankfully everything went fine and I landed safely in Norfolk, Virginia, without any issues and very happy to see my husband again!

Since Daniel was attending classes on Thursday and Friday, I kept a low profile those days, but by late Friday afternoon we were on the road looking forward to spending the long weekend with Daniel's parents in McLeansville, NC. After a five hour drive (which included a dinner stop at Cracker Barrel... yum!) we had made it, and not only were we greeted by Allen and Jan but also by Daniel's aunt, Anne, as well. Needless to say, it was fantastic to see them all again!

Before moving to Europe, Daniel had sold his truck, so for the last couple of years we have been a single car couple. However, with our family expanding to three very soon and since we are also living in southern California once again, the need for a second car is imminent. Therefore, we spent some time on Saturday car shopping, and we were able to narrow our choices down to the Honda CR-V. While we looked at and test drove several different ones that day, we weren't quite ready commit but glad we had checked out the options together.

After a three year hiatus, it was great to finally return to Daniel's church in North Carolina, Apples Chapel, and to see many family friends. After the service, Daniel's cousin, Whitney, joined us for lunch, and it was wonderful to see her too. All of this was followed by more excitement... a baby shower thrown by seven very sweet ladies from the church! Held in the church fellowship hall, it was an "open house" format where people could come and go as needed while everyone enjoyed the delicious food and visited with others.

Most of the time, Daniel and I kept quite busy opening the many thoughtful and generous gifts, but thankfully we had a chance to catch up with everyone too.

Before we wrapped up all the fun, we had to get a few more photos to capture the moment, to include one with Daniel's parents, one of the baby bump at 7 1/2 months, one more of Daniel and me, and one of the ladies who threw us the shower... Sandra, Kathy, Nancy, Donna, Pam, and Betty Carol, plus their little helper, Hannah. Unfortunately, Dot is missing from the photo because she was sick that day and couldn't make it to the shower. We truly appreciate all of their hard work and thoughtfulness and we felt so honored... it was a very lovely event!

On Monday, we had to head back to Virginia, but on the way we made a pit stop in Elizabeth City, NC to check out one more car dealership. As it turns out, they had just what we were looking for, so we ended up buying a dark red 2007 CR-V that day! I even got to drive it to Virginia Beach that night :)

During the rest of Daniel's time on the East Coast, he will get to enjoy our "new" car and once it is time to head to California, he will be driving it cross country with his dad with an expected arrival in San Diego at the end of March. Needless to say, I am looking forward to having my husband rejoin me on the West Coast, but in the mean time I have plenty to keep me busy, like moving back into our condo and getting everything prepped and ready for the baby! Hopefully by the time Daniel arrives, things will be in order around here and we can just relax for a few weeks before our little bundle of joy makes his appearance!

As always, thanks for stopping by and please come back again soon as I still have a few of our Europe trips to catch up on. Until then, take care!