I'm still here:)

Hey Al! Yes...i'm still here. I think i'm officially 3 weeks behind on blogging (and other things) due to the incredibly busy schedule we've had lately. I've been slammed at work, which I guess is a good thing to actually have things to do keep me busy, but man....I'm tired after the last week when I finally finished a set of bathroom renovation drawings I'd been working on for about a week and half.

I'm actually in Dothan this morning, and if you haven't heard, I have to have a my one and only wisdom tooth pulled in about 2.5 hours and i'm super nervous thrilled:) Seriously, it all happened so fast I haven't really even had time to let it sink in....I know it's a small procedure in the big scheme of major surgeries, but let's be honest, you've seen me when it comes to needles...and we all know that it's not pretty:) I will say that I took my first prescribed valium last night and let's just say it took full affect after about 15 minutes. As you might imagine, there were many laughs.

Anywho....I loved seeing pictures of your latest adventures in the last post....I wish it were that easy for us to escape for the weekend to somewhere as beautiful as the places you guys get to go, but then I remember you have 4 feet of snow in the winter and I feel a little better:) I love the picture of the little girl you're babysitting now...she looks really sweet. I'm sure she likes hanging out with you too:)

So this will be random, but I'm just going to do another camera dump on you and let you see some of the things we've been doing lately.....here goes:

We spend the 4th of July in Atlanta with the Browns and this little guy:

Parker is getting so big:) He's 19 months old now and will be a big brother in January!

This is Ellie...she's our little cousin, Sam's Mom's sister's daughter. So cute.

Parker and his little girlfriend Samantha....they are about 1 month apart. And Samantha's mom is expecting another baby at about the same time as Melissa again.

This is my husband....

Celebrating the 4th a night early with some sparklers....I just took pictures, and didn't actually participate. But Mrs. Nancy, Sam's step-Grandma, was singing the "God Bless America." It was really funny....

Jon, Melissa, and Parker

Playing with Parker:

Sometime in July Sam decided he wanted to go pick a lot of blueberries. After driving for about 2 hours around Birmingham, we finally found a blueberry farm that was in fact open. I was a little less than thrilled that we had to drive around that long and then spend 2 more hours picking blueberries...but Sam had a great time.

I helped him for the first half gallon and then quit and sat in the car for three reasons: 1. it was ridiculously hot. 2. I wasn't dressed right, and had a million ant bites from wearing sandals with in the first 15 minutes 3. I was sweating and I hate to sweat.

When we're not picking blueberries....Sam can be found grilling in the backyard. He loves it. It's fast and most of the time an easy dinner. This particular night the rain caught up with him.

He tried to keep grilling but the rain won in the end and we had to bring everything inside and bake the rest.
Did I tell you we kept a friend's two cats for 3 weeks? Oh yes...Snickers is the little one and ironically "Littleman" is the huge one, weighing in at about 17 lbs. They're super sweet cats and provided a good bit of entertainment over the time we had them.

Little man doing his morning meditation:

Playing in the new favorite toy, an old laundry bag with holes in it:

Last week we decided to go for a "walk" at a trail about 6 miles from our house...Sam saids, "Yeah that's a good idea, I'll run over there and then we can walk the trail." hahaha. This is what he looked liked after I met him there:

I've been doing a little of this lately: Studying for my big NCIDQ exam in March of next year. It'll be a beast.
The past few Sunday mornings, I've been able to keep the little babies in the nursery before we got to the service. It makes for long Sundays but holding little guys like this is so worth it.
Sam has been doing a little biking on his trainer at night while watching non other than the Tour de France....I know he wishes he could be there....maybe one day we could be spectator?
And last but not least...you remember our friends Jeff and Kalli? Well they will soon be the proud parents of a boy or a girl...we don't know yet. But here she is at 7 months.

Ok...if you hung in through all that, I'm super proud of you. Hope things go well this weekend. I'll be sure to show you a funny picture of me after the tooth surgery. I'm off to take my next Valium.

Love you,

Whit

A little of everything

I guess I've been a bad blogger lately, and I'm sorry. I liked your last post though! Makes me jealous that Mom and Dad can come to see you so easily. And Rudy and Sadie. I can imagine little kids loved seeing them. They probably acted like I do every time I see a small dog here.

It's been a pretty calm couple of weeks here, but in an attempt to be a better blogger I've been taking pictures of things along the way. So here are some more picture updates...


A little while back Anders, Jenny, and Ludvig moved from Stockholm to Malmo, which has definitely been a little sad since it was fun having them close. We visited them their last day in Stockholm while they were packing up and I got to hold Ludvig while he slept. I wish you all could have met him when you were here!







A few weeks ago they celebrated midsummer here, which is kind of like a giant outdoor party. Everyone goes out and has a picnic then they raise this green leaf covered pole they all dance around. I'm not making it up. It was fun to see though.

The pole...just trust me, there are people dancing around it.

Overall it's been a really pretty summer so far! Sometimes a little cool for me, but I'm pretty sure Dad would be in heaven. We've been enjoying it by taking some nice walks around the city. We saw this really pretty lookout point on an especially pretty day.

And we've been making "summery" foods:)
Annnd, this was dinner the other night...and artichoke heart. I'm getting more adventurous.

This last weekend we went to this beautiful island in the archipelago named Sandhamn. It's a little over 2 hour boat ride to get there, but the ride itself was part of the fun since it was so pretty.

Camilla and Michel came along too!

An old fortress we saw on the way there

Getting into Sandhamn

The water was so cold I didn't dare to get in. Bjorn, Michel, and Camilla were braver than me...

But they got out pretty quickly:)

We ate dinner at at a restaurant near the dock, and the view was beautiful. So I thought you should see.

On our way home. Not a bad day:)

I've started babysitting a little girl here named Naomi. She's 17 months old, and she has an Australian mom and American dad. She's a really, really sweet baby. This is from a few days ago when she was picking flowers.

I thought I would leave you with a few entertaining pictures of my hubby. This is how I found him cooking the other day...

And this I took as proof. I'm the one who's known for loving sweets and I think there's an idea that he might not be as interested in them as me. Well, that would be wrong. He's squinting because he knows he's caught...:)

Ha... I might be in trouble for posting those....

That was maybe picture overload again, but it gives you an idea of things here. I miss y'all though and I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving. I'm definitely going to have to find a way to go to Birmingham to see your house.

Give me an update soon!

Love you,
Allie

yard crashers to the rescue....(i wish)

Hey Al....I know it's been a while, but man this week was busy. We enjoyed having Mom and Dad come visit us last weekend. They are so fun to have around and we always feel treated when they come up, whether it's a nice dinner or the lovely flowers dad likes to put in a vase for all to see and appreciate.

We had a great dinner on Friday night of last week at Zia Rotisserie Grill in Brookwood Village.

Saturday morning we took M & D to this little Farmer's Market not far from our house and had a good time walking around.

Dad immediately became a celebrity holding little Sadie and had many a munchkin wanting to get their hands on her. Dad was happy to oblige them:)

Saturday, we left the parents to fend for themselves and went to Aaron and Angelia's little wedding party for all the people who couldn't make it to Ohio for the wedding in May....Sam was supposed to be a groomsman, but we were at your wedding celebration instead;) You should feel super special:)

Tuesday we had Austin over for dinner and Sam grilled out....Austin is so fun to hang out with. The older he gets the more I fell like he's the older brother I never got to have, but now that he's so much bigger than us, it kind of feels like he's that "bigger" brother.

Wednesday, Callie and David came through Birmingham on their way back to Texas and spent the night with us. We went to Rojo and had a great time with them and their newest addition:

Meet "Sully" short for Sullivan. He's a Wheaton Terrior and literally looks like a walking Teddy Bear. He was so cute to have a around for the night:) We also enjoyed getting to visit with Callie and David.

As you might be wondering from the title of this post, last weekend Sam, Dad and I watched several episodes of "Yard Crashers" and were blown away by what the host of the show, Ahmed Hassan, can do with yards like ours. Our yard looked good when we bought the house, and then we quickly discovered that under all the pine straw was about 75% black tarp, tree roots, and best of all, a cement drainage ditch (?) that puts a huge dent in our "quickly-level-everything- and-re-sod" plan. So, we decided on a whim to make a quick video and Austin ended up being our camera man/director and I would love to show it to you...(please don't make fun, Al.)

Let me know what you think! I found the guy on facebook and sent him a message with our video....who knows...he might make a special trip for us:) haha!

Hope you are celebrating the 4th of July since you are still an American and lived most of your life in this great country (no offense to Sweden). ha.

Love you!

Whiggle