A Visit from Nana and Grandpa

October and November have been busy with lots of action, travel and visiting galore! Some naps were required though, even during all that. I, Bryan, did not like my naps to start with, when Nana and Grandpa arrived, but I got used to having to take them if I was going to be any good at having fun.. and there was lots of fun to be had!

Nana and Grandpa came out to take care of me while Mommy did her field work season. We went to Greenville, NC and also to Charleston, SC. Grandpa took me all over the hotel grounds in my red car while Nana showered and geared up for my entertainment.
Sometimes we went in the stroller too, and he let me wear his fuzzy hat!

Then there was lots of goofy playing with Nana..
Nana and Grandpa also introduced me to the thrills of riding the coin rides at the mall!But at the end of each day, I got to see my Mommy and get some more spoiling!

And of course it was always great to see Daddy at the end of the week!
I also had my first birthday party to squeeze in there. I had a knight's party... but I was the only knight other than Daddy!

Mainly all the fair maidens came to my party, so that was good too.

There was so much that we did! No room to write the whole story, but we did have a great time!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We're back in town!

We had such a good time and I think we saw just about all of the English portion of our family.. and friends too! And Mum, thanks so much for mailing my cell phone back to me! I'm looking forward to it's arrival.

Bryan's Great Uncle Don

Bryan's second cousins Tracey, Katie and Sandra

Bryan's great uncle Jon

Paul's long-time friend Robert

Bryan's second cousins Chris and Trish

Bryan's second cousin Steven and Steven's daughter Grace

Marjorie's friend Joan

Marjorie's friend Rosemary

Marjorie's friend Joy

Marjorie's friend Monica

The Birmingham clan: Auntie Alison, Uncle Barry, Cousins Craig, Adam and Sam

Friends Jools and Ian

Great Auntie Sheila

Second Cousin Colin

Great Uncle Michael and Auntie Andrea

Great Uncle Jim and Auntie Pat.

Bye for now! xoxox

I'm Back!!

Hi Everyone,

I don't know where the last three months of life have gone! Just a few short weeks after I last posted on the blog, Paul and I found out I am....
We kept it rather quiet for the first trimester. In the meantime, I celebrated my 35th birthday and Paul made me my favorite cake served on Bella and Edward plates! I have been reading him the Twilight Saga books - my favorite tied with Pride and Prejudice. He had to know what I was obsessing about so I insisted he listen every night while I read a chapter or two. He's gotten out of a few nights here and there. We are now almost at the end of the last book are all in anticipation of the release of Eclipse - the movie of the third book. Notice how Paul served me my slice of cake on Bella's face so I had Edward staring at me while I ate.

During the months of February and March, most of the weekends were spent collecting rocks from vacant lots to build this dry-stone wall garden bed for our veggie garden.

Almost all of April and May I was traveling back to back each week on various field projects for work. I told work I could finish up the spring field season but would be out of commission for the rest of my pregnancy after that. Thank goodness! Because my feet are starting to swell along with my belly and field work was getting awkward towards the end. May 20th we left for San Francisco to visit my sister and her boyfriend in Mariposa.
Then we drove down to So. Cal with Heather to visit with the rest of the family and attend our cousin Kaitlyn's wedding.

On the 24th Paul and I headed to Maui for our 5-year-later belated honeymoon! We had such a great time. We rented a beachfront condo for the 6 days. What a view!

We did plenty of snorkeling. That's Paul by the way.

We did some adventure hiking using a guidebook that we had to consult at every turn...
That led us to pools that we had to swim across to get to the next waterfall. We left our clothes stashed in the bushes and had our swimsuits on underneath. Good thing we planned ahead and brought waterproof bags for our camera and guidebook..

We did some less adventurous hikes to some very scenic beaches..

and of course made an effort to see the sunset every day!

It's dinner time, so I will go for now. Bye till next time!

Family Visit from the UK

Yea! The long-awaited visit from Paul's Mum and Alison had arrived! They came out on November 12th and stayed through Thanksgiving till the end of the month. We had a lot of fun in the two-and-a-half weeks that they were here. I was gone in the field for one of the weeks, so I missed the trip to Charleston, but we did plenty of fun things on the weekend so I could join in.

We went on a lot of fun walks in the woods- some cold days we bundled up...

...and other days were a bit warmer. We had quite a bit of weather variety while they were out.

We took a trip to the mountains near Asheville to the Biltmore Estate to catch the fall colors and have high tea.

The Biltmore tea event is always a nice treat!

The house (and gate house pictured here) was all decked out for Christmas. Paul and I hadn't gone during Christmas time before, so it was neat to see decorated trees and garland in all the rooms.

We spent some time relaxing at home. One of Alison's highlights of each day was getting the mail from our mailbox. She loves that we each have our own mailbox in front of the house.
Thanksgiving was a load of fun too with a nearly full table of English and Southern dishes. Tracy and Elizabeth joined us with some of their favorite traditionally southern Thanksgiving dishes and we did our traditionally English kajillion veggies- what a feast! Notice the hazy look to the picture? The Yorkshire Pudding oil boiled over in the oven filling the house with smoke, setting off the smoke detectors. We had to open all the windows and doors in the middle of a very cold wintry day. By the time this picture was taken, we no longer needed the parkas.

Ah the Renaissance festival! You can't miss this fine event every year. Paul was a good sport on stage as a prop for the Washer Women Show. He was one of two men in the small audience of six (it was raining and very cold -and many people cleared out) so he got pulled up on stage.

Clementine hardly glanced at Alison, if she walked by her, and would go back to preening. But despite Mum's persistence in growing the relationship, Clementine puffed out her feathers and behaved very rudely every time Mum walked by her to the laundry room or garage. We originally thought it was because Mum was always wearing purple, Clementine's least favorite color, but even when Mum switched to brown, it didn't make a difference. By the end of the visit, Clementine hadn't improved her manners towards Grandma. How embarrassing!