October

This month, we celebrated my 28th birthday. We went out to dinner with friends and stopped for Zwahlens on the way home.

The next day, we went apple picking at Linvilla Orchards. It was such a fun place. We came home that night and made apple crisp.

This month, my little brother Chad returned from his mission to Chile. Carter and I flew home to Boise to be there when he arrived. As usual, Carter was an excellent travel buddy.

 It was so great to see him again and for him to be able to meet Carter for the first time.

Before I got there, my family played a special edition of the "face game" (where every person draws one feature of every other person's face) to make a welcome home banner for chad. It actually turned out pretty well, they usually turn out much more disturbing than this.

It was so great to be in Boise again. It was fun to see my parents' new house. Even though I didn't come back to the house I grew up in, it still felt like home. Carter had a great time hanging out with everyone.

He loved following Mickey around everywhere!

We took him to the park a couple of times while we were there. Camel's back park is one of my favorite spots in Boise.

This is me yawning trying to get Carter to smile for the picture (for some reason Carter thinks yawning is hilarious.) Carter looks a little bit ashamed of me in the picture. While I was in Boise, my friends Brooke and I threw another baby shower for my friend Cami. The night before the shower, my girlfriends and I were able to go out to dinner. It was so fun to get to hang out with them

The shower was a lot of fun. I used the "lil pumpkin" theme again. It was too cute not to use again! I think everything turned out really well.

Our trip to Boise was over way too soon and it was sad to say goodbye to everyone. At the end of October we got family pictures done. We had them taken at Valley Forge. It was a gorgeous fall day and we loved how they turned out.

At the end of the month, Carter experienced his first Halloween. He went as a monster this year. 

We took him trick or treating to a couple of houses and then called it a night. Holidays are definitely more fun now that we have Carter. He was the cutest little monster around!

September

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I guess I'm just going to do it by month. In September, I threw a baby shower for my friend Kelsey. We did a "lil pumpkin" theme. I think it turned out really well and a lot of people were able to come. It was really fun to plan, and it got me into the "fall spirit."

 She is the cutest pregnant lady! This month, Carter had a couple of milestones: his first tooth and his first ear infection...at the same time. It was a rough couple of days but he was a good sport.

 This month, we didn't get to see a lot of Jeremy because he was working so hard on all of his business school applications. I was so glad when they were done!

Beach trips

Two weeks ago, Carter and I tagged along on a business trip to Cabo San Lucas with Jeremy. Jeremy was helping the hotel to get Green Globe certified. It was a little bit of a different experience than we thought it would be... The hotel was in the middle of nowhere and operated completely off solar power. There wasn't enough power to use a lot of things like blow dryers...hair straighteners... air conditioning (it was 96 degrees). To make matters worse, there was no shade on the beach and you couldn't really get in the water because the undertow was so strong. The beach was pretty though.

We saw some wild horses on the beach

The whole time I was there, I just really wanted a chocolate milkshake. I asked the bartender to make me one. He acted like he knew what I meant and then made me basically really cold chocolate milk. He thought it looked good, so he made himself one too. I had to get a real milkshake at McDonalds in the airport on the way home. Carter was such a trooper. He was a happy, sweat soaked little guy the whole time

Last weekend, Jeremy's mom came for a visit. Carter loved having his Gram here. We wish we lived closer!

We took Carter to the zoo for the first time and fed the giraffes.

We also drove to Ocean City for the day on Saturday. Carter got to ride on a merry go round for the first time and got to play on the beach again. He seems to really love the beach. I'm shocked he didn't try to eat the sand.

Carter has gotten to be a pretty expert crawler. He's also pretty good at pulling himself up on things and is very proud of himself.

He also likes "helping" with everything. We sure love this little boy!

150th Gettysburg Reenactment

Over the July 4th holiday week, my parents, Jeremy, Carter and I went to the 150th Gettysburg reenactment. This trip had been a long time in the making. We had to book our hotel about a year in advance because there was so much demand. My parents and I drove down on Wednesday morning and we spent the evening in downtown Gettysburg. We looked in some of the shops and got Mr. G's icecream, which was AMAZING. they had free shuttles going all over Gettysburg. On the way back to the hotel, we were sitting by a big, slightly scary looking man with a long beard. Carter was sitting on my lap and managed to give the man's beard a good yank and couple of times. Luckily the man thought that this was hilarious. Jeremy drove down later that evening. Carter was happy to see his daddy.

On Thursday we drove out to the battlefield. We went on a couple of ranger tours, one about the daily life of a soldier, and one about the prisoners of war. At the second tour, we ran into my friends Grant and Jill Ensign from my London study abroad program. It was so random and fun to see them.

On Friday, we went to the first day of the reenactment. In the morning, they reenacted a cavalry battle. It was pretty amazing to see all the horses. The dedication of all of the reenactors is incredible to me. I cannot imagine how hot they must have been in their wool uniforms. I think there were close to 13,000 reenactors there this year.

Carter actually did really well with the guns firing during the battle. He just got a little bit worried when everyone yelled "huzzah" at the end of the battle.

After the battle, we went to a couple of presentations. We went to one by Jeff Shaara and Jeremy was able to get an autographed book. My mom and I went to a presentation on Civil War fashion and the ghosts of Gettysburg. Carter enjoyed the fashion presentation as well!

After the presentations, we went to the generals' tents. It's interesting, they only have one General Lee, General Longstreet, etc. It was pretty funny watching Jeremy and my dad at the generals' tents. It was like watching a kid at Disneyland trying to get pictures with all of their favorite characters. Here we all are with General Pickett.

After meeting the generals, Carter was about done for the day.

 I was so proud of him, it was SO HOT and he was such a good boy. My mom and I left to put Carter to bed and swung by Gettysburg Cupcake Cafe on the way home (their cookie dough cupcake is probably the best cupcake I have ever eaten in my life).Here are a couple of pictures that Jer took of the second battle.

That night, when Jeremy and my dad got back, we didn't want to leave Carter in the hotel room without someone watching the door, so we camped out in the hallway for dinner and had a feast of Chinese food, Wendy's, and cupcakes. I love the look of pure joy on my mom's face in this picture, haha.

The next day we went to a couple more battles and saw presentations on spies during the civil war and on civilian life during the war. Jeremy was also able to meet up with a man that he works with in the reenactor's camp. Even with heat, we had such a great time. I can't think of a better way to spend the fourth of July.