Trip to NC

I had to head to NC for some work meetings at Lenovo, so of course I had to bring along my little assistant! We were home for a week and had a great trip. Dylan did great on the cross-country trip. He was a total wiggle worm on the plane, but we never had any melt-downs. Thank goodness!! He also LOVED being at the airport and watching all of the planes. Even when we were mid-air he'd look out the window and see the wing of the plane and get all excited "Air Pane! Air Pane!". He's so darn cute!!

Mom, of course, did her normal parade route in Burlington. She had to show off her #1 grandson to everyone, I mean EVERYONE, in Burlington! Dylan was such a charmer- he totally "hammed it up" for everyone. Dylan loved playing ball with Bentley and chasing Lexi all over the house. Grammy also took Dylan to the park several days and he even got to go to swim practice with her! He even got a new "big boy" hair cut (I think Grammy was tired of his hair being in his eyes)!

Doug, Teri and Erin drove down for the weekend from DC so they could spend some time with Dylan. We had a really nice visit- played with bubbles, sandbox, went swinging, fed the chickens, bounced in the bouncy house, playing with the pigs/bunnies (ginny pigs- Dylan kept changing what he would call them), played with trains... I feel like I'm missing some stuff. Basically, any toy or animal you can thing of, Dad and Barb had out for Dylan. He had a blast! They even threw him and Caitlin and joint birthday party with a fabulous ice-cream cake from the local dairy! Dylan got a new helicopter (hel-cop-ta), balloons, and lots of zoo animals including Dylan's all-time favorite... elephants!

Swing Set

For Dylan's birthday we got him a new swing set! We thought it would be fun to put together ourselves (by "ourselves" I mean Dustin). Little did we know it would come in about 1 million pieces and take a full week to put together! I think I owe Dustin a case of beer for the rest of his life for this one! But it's up now and Dylan LOVES it :) He took his first swing right before bedtime on the day Daddy installed the swings (see pic below). And for the record, Dustin did say that the look on Dylan's face when he went swinging for the first time made it 100% worth it!

Finger Sucking No More!

Ever since Dylan figured our how to get his fingers in his mouth he's been sucking his middle and ring finger with one hand and twirling his ear with the other hand! In fact, we have very few pictures where you can actually see his entire face (like the one below)! I talked to the doctor about it several times and she always said not to worry about it- he'll grow out of it or we will work on getting him to stop when he's older (around 3-4). He was so attached to those fingers I thought he'd never "grow out of it". And then he did! One day he just stopped out of the blue! No more finger sucking! Yea!! Big boy!

Yard

For Valentines Day Dustin surprised me with this beautiful magnolia tree! I've always wanted a magnolia- they remind me of home!

The magnolia tree needed some "friends" so we also bought a new olive tree and several fruit trees and plants for the backyard.

The backyard is starting to look like a "Bradley Yard"- lush and fabulous! I feel so lucky that Dylan has such a great yard to play in! It's pretty nice for Mommy and Daddy too :)

Lake Tahoe Trip (Jan 1-8 2011)

Happy New Year! It's crazy to think that it's already 2011! How did that happen???

To celebrate the new year, and spend a little family time, we took our annual trip up to Lake Tahoe. This year we were also lucky enough to have mom and Erin join us!

The trip started with a 5 hour drive up to Bishop, which is half way to Tahoe, on New Years Eve. Dylan did great in the car. He loved looking at all the trucks and would scream "tra" whenever he saw one, which was A LOT! He also didn't quite understand that you can't watch movies in the car. He kept asking to watch the "elephant" the whole trip. (He's been completely obsessed with the movie "Horton Hears a Who" since Christmas.) So the entire car ride was full of "tra, tra, tra... mommy elephant, elephant ELEPHANT!"

We rolled into the lovely Bishop Comfort Inn (the nicest hotel in town) around 8PM on New Years Eve. I grabbed a pizza and a bottle of champagne for a fancy New Years celebration at our fancy hotel. I also ran into K-mart, the only "superstore" in Bishop, to see if I could buy the "elephant"... no luck. We were exhausted so we didn't even stay up to watch the ball drop. Just stuffed ourselves with pizza and had a glass of a champagne out the little, plastic hotel cups. It's sounds kinda bad... but it was actually kinda a fun family New Years Eve! :)

Day 2: Blizzard! I don't know what it is. How do we always have the biggest snowstorm of the year the day we are driving to Tahoe??? This year was no different. We drove through heavy snow all the way to Reno. Dylan would look out the window and say "snow, snow, SNOW!" (There weren't very many trucks to look at this day.) Despite the snow, we were still able to pick up mom and Erin at the airport on time. So we all rolled up the mountain, without one square inch free in the car. We arrived safe and sound mid-afternoon.

Day 3: The Ritz Carlton. After a long day of traveling we had a great lunch at the Ritz. It was so beautiful and relaxing.

Day 4: Sledding. Dustin wanted to take Dylan sledding so bad, so he found the only place in Tahoe that would allow kids under two to go tubing (doesn't really sound safe does it?). So off we went. Dylan... not a fan. He cried the whole time. He hated putting on his snowsuit. He hated sledding. He hated snow. He hated everything... but the lodge. Luckily Grammy could keep him in the lodge while Erin, Dustin and I had some fun tubing.

Day 5-7: Skiing & Sick Baby. Unfortunately, Dylan got a really bad cold and spent most of the trip at the condo with Grammy. :-( Does it make us bad parents that we kept skiing?? If it helps, we only did 1/2 days of skiing so we could be with him and give Grammy a break. On Thursday Dylan's fever went up to 103. So I called our doctor in San Diego who recommended we go to the E:R so off we went. Not the best way to spend a vacation, but glad to hear it wasn't anything serious. Just a bad virus that we would have to ride out. Poor Dylan.

Day 8: Feeling Better. Dylan started feeling better towards the end of the trip and we all went down to the park at Kings Beach so he could get some fresh air. It was a great day and we got some really nice pictures!

Day 9: Headed Home... in Broken Car. Sometime while we were in Tahoe the Volvo broke. It was still "drivable"... but barely. It felt like we were riding a broken lawnmower the whole time. It especially didn't like hills... or going under 60. We called the Volvo dealership in San Diego and they said to stop driving if the 'Check Engine' light started flashing. It was ok if the light was on, but flashing was very VERY bad. Well... it came on. And then started flashing. Off and on the whole trip. It was nerve wracking! But we finally made it home- drove all 10 hours in 1 day. San Diego has never looked so good. Dylan, the Super Baby, was a champ.

Despite being a bit stressful at times, we had a great trip! :)

Christmas 2010

We hosted Christmas this year at our new house! We went all out with the tree this year- 10 feet of Christmas fabulousness! The house looked great, if I don't say so myself! :) Dustin even cooked an amazing turkey dinner complete with his famous "Peas and Carrots" appetizer! Dylan and Ava had a great time opening presents... and boy did they have a lot to open! The floor of the family room was completed covered, as you can see from the pics! Dylan's favorite gift this year was his new "Cars" tricycle. He's been riding that thing all over the house non-stop ever since! See below for a video (unfortunately the sound broke on the video camera so you can't hear him screaming and laughing).

Silly Dilly Part 2