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!

Our 8th Anniversary

Once again it has been 2 months since I last blogged so I figured I needed to finally get on here and put up a post! Yesterday was my and Daniel's 8th wedding anniversary, so I wanted to share a few pics from our night. Since it was our first anniversary as parents, we decided to bring Ryland with us. We had a nice little dinner at our new favorite sushi place just around the corner from our house. It was a nice evening so we sat outside on the patio, and of course dinner was delicious.

After dinner, we decided to grab some frozen yogurt and then drive down to the beach. By the time we got there, it had cooled off quite a bit so we just enjoyed the view of the crashing waves from the warmth of the car... plus it gave Ryland a chance to take a little nap in the backseat :)

All in all, it was a happy anniversary, and I am blessed to now have been married to Daniel for 8 years, and it was wonderful to share the occasion with Ryland too. Well, as always, thanks for stopping by... I will try to post again soon. Until then, take care!

Introducing Ryland Noah Myers!!!

I know it has been over two months since my last post, but I must say they have been a very busy two months! The time has been filled with moving back into our condo, celebrating my 31st birthday, trying to get settled as well as ready for the baby with the help of my family, refinancing our mortgage, and then Daniel finally arrived in San Diego at the beginning of April. We thought we would have a few weeks to relax before the baby arrived, but much to our surprise, he decided to come 3 1/2 weeks early!!! That's right... we welcomed our son, Ryland Noah Myers, on April 10, 2011 at 4:45am! He weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces and was 21 inches long!

Without further ado, here are some pics of our adorable little guy... the first was taken just a couple hours after he was born and the second on his actual due date, May 4th, so when he was almost a month old.

Making his appearance quite a bit earlier than expected, Ryland definitely came into the world in dramatic fashion. Earlier that day, some friends from church, Tony and Becky G., threw us a lovely baby shower. Here is a photo from it... little did I know this would be the last shot of me pregnant!

Afterwards, we decided to get a few things at Target and Babies 'R Us in order to get the final baby items that we needed, and then it was onto our last stop, the commissary. Much to our shock, just as we were going to park the car, my water broke... not just a little splash like you see on the movies, but more like gushing gallons and gallons... good thing I was still in the car and not in the store yet when it happened! We called Labor and Delivery at the Naval hospital where I'd be giving birth (and thank goodness we had taken the tour just the day before!), and they insisted that I come in immediately, so off we went. After making sure I was all settled in my birthing room, Daniel actually had to run home for my medical record and to grab whatever we would need for the hospital stay... I hadn't even packed a bag yet, but thankfully I had at least made a list for him to use!

Thankfully, Daniel made it back with plenty of time to spare, and all in the all, labor went pretty much like I expected... and then after exactly 12 hours of labor, our beautiful baby boy was born! Here he is being weighed, and then being held by his proud papa and mama, and one showing off his cute little face just minutes after birth. I just have to say that I look pretty scary in this photo, like I have been through a battle or something, but I guess that is what giving birth will do to ya :)

The next couple of days at the hospital were a blur of feedings, diaper changes, and all the fun things new parents must learn from the get-go. Thankfully my mom flew down to San Diego as soon as she heard I was in labor so it was wonderful having her here to help us navigate this foreign territory of parenthood! One tough thing about those first couple of days is that unfortunately Ryland had jaundice so he was under the phototherapy lights for 36 hours straight. He didn't sleep well at all under the lights and he kept knocking off the eye coverings, so we took turns "standing watch" to comfort him as much as we could. Those first few days after his arrival were pretty exhausting between the jaundice issues, learning how to feed the little guy, and just getting used to the idea that we were now parents!

Since Ryland was premature we were required to stay in the hospital 3 days, but by the morning of the 13th we were getting excited to go home. Then things took a turn for the worst when Ryland failed his car seat test, a test all premies must pass to make sure they can maintain adequate oxygen levels while sitting in a car seat. His failure to pass this test meant he had to go to the NICU. So one minute we thought we were going home as a new family of three and the next our baby was going into the NICU... needless to say, that day was a very emotional roller-coaster! Although I was actually discharged from the post-partum unit, we were allowed to stay 2 more nights in an extra hospital room, and then after that we drove back to the hospital twice a day to see Ry. Here are some pictures from those precious NICU visits....

Even though it was incredibly difficult and emotional time when Ryland was in the NICU, we were so grateful that he was primarily there for observation and that it was really just a matter of time till he could come home. We truly appreciated everyone's prayers and support during this time! Then after 6 long days, Ryland's nervous system had developed enough to maintain steady oxygen levels and he finally passed the car seat test! On April 19th, we finally got to bring him home!!!

Needless to say, every day since then Ryland has brought joy and wonder into our lives. He is such a blessing, and we thank God for him each and every day. Before finishing up this post, I just wanted to share a few more pics from our fun little photo shot on May 4th... I just can't help myself since Ry is so darn cute!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and please stay tuned for all the new exciting things that are happening in the Myers family of three!