Playing Catch Up...

As many of you may know our computer took a turn for the worst several months ago. As a result I have not been able to keep you all up to date with our busy lives. The last we spoke Gavin had just turned 7 months old. A lot has changed since September.

OCTOBER

October brought Gavin's 8 month birthday. Gavin had some pretty big milestones this month, with the addition of his first two teeth, one right after the other along the bottom. It's amazing how sharp those little suckers are. To our delight he also started crawling. It was more of an army crawl but a crawl none the less. Now he is on the move and I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on this little guy.

Grandma and Grandpa Johnson came to visit us for Halloween. We celebrated Halloween by throwing our 3rd annual Halloween Bash. We had our biggest turn out to date. It was so much fun as you can see by the photos. Ian built an amazing electric chair that was a hit with the ladies due to it's ingenious construction, a wheel of death drinking game that featured 13 glass skulls of mystery liquor, and the stripper pole was again a hit for the third year running. We had some great costumes from Mr. & Mrs. Incredible to Mr. & Mrs. Claus. We had superheroes, pirates, bar maids, farmers, biblical characters, and leather & whips. There was quite a bit of T&P (tits and penis) at this years party too. The music blared into the early morning hours, until the cops arrived and attempted to shut us down. It was a fun night, with the only drama being that of 14 year old (don't worry their parents were there). Lol! It was so much fun we want to thank everyone for coming. We hope to see everyone again next year!

Gavin got all dressed up for his first Halloween.

He was so adorable as a dragon.

He was such a good sport getting all dressed up just to let us parade him through the mall and collect candy he couldn't even eat. I love this little dragon!

NOVEMBER


Vacation time! This month was met with Gavin's 9 month birthday. We celebrated by taking a family vacation to Maui with our besties the Riggs family. I can't begin to tell you how much fun we had. I stressed about packing and flying with Gavin but to my surprise the flight was pretty darn good, even the other passengers were saying how good he did on the 5 hour flight. What a relief. As for the packing, well I definitely over packed for Gavin but I guess better to over than under pack. We shared a condo with the Riggs family in Kaanapali, Maui. It had two pools, hot tubs, and a beautiful view of the ocean from our lanai.

It will probably sound hard to believe but it was a nice, relaxing vacation. You would think eleven days would be too long but we found ways to keep ourselves entertained. We visited babies beach which was great for the kids and snorkeling. It is a very shallow beach with little to no waves. Erin and I did some snorkeling (just remember when snorkeling do not put face back in water after urinating). Gavin and Ian made a cool sand castle, and turned Gavin into a sand mermaid.

We also made a longer trek to McKenna beach. What a beautiful beach. The waves were definitely much larger (trust me I was tossed twice) and a bit intimidating to the kiddies. Gavin especially didn't care for the ocean. He is more of a pool baby. However, he was content playing in and eating the sand. I learned pretty quick not to try and control the sandy mess or amount of sand he was consuming. At Mckenna the snorkeling is supposed to be amazing, with tons of turtles. Unfortunately, Erin and I chickened out and decided to just hang out near the beach. But, while Erin, Caitlyn and I floated on our hot pink rafts we decided to see if the turtles would come to us by singing "turtle, turtle" and to our astonishment a turtle swam right underneath us. WOW! This was for sure a highlight. We made a final beach trip to black rock were we snorkeled with turtles and played in the waves. The guys even climbed and jumped off the rock.

We quickly realized how much work it was to pack up the kids and all our gear just to go to the beach. Thank goodness we had pools, hot tubs, and new friends from Canada to hang out with.
Even though we were on a family vacation, Ian and I did sneak away for a date night at Dukes. What good food. After the kiddies went down to bed Erin and Ashley taught us how to play canasta. I would just like to say we were kicking their ass until the last night. But it is true, they ended up being the Canasta King & Queen of Maui. Dang it!

We had a great friends, great food, and great beaches. All the components of a great vacation.

Back in Seattle we were greeted by snow covered streets. I was probably the only one excited to be coming home to snow, even if only a little. Now it was time to return to work and our everyday lives.

The weekend following Thanksgiving we went to cut down our Christmas tree which is our annual tradition. It was made even more special this year by the addition of Gavin.

From tree trimming to hair cutting.
The before and after pictures are amazing. I cant believe how much older he looks with his hair cut. We wish we had done it sooner. I was just worried it would look like he had no hair.

He looks so adorable now!


I feel like there is so much more to tell, but I think this covers the highlights of the last few months.