Meeting Captain Kurt

My friend Kurt came to visit last week. He was kind enough to drive 8.5 hours from Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama just to meet Elaina and spend the weekend with us. I especially enjoyed conquering another Durham golf course with him. (actually, "conquering" is a very strong word for what we did there, but we enjoyed it).

Kurt's a Captain in the Air Force JAG Corps but that didn't intimidate Elaina when she met him--she looked him square in the eye and gave a firm handshake.




As if a visit from a friend we hadn't seen in a year and a half weren't enough, Elaina added some more exitement to the weekend by starting to pull up on things... beginning with the bumper in her crib. We had to lower her mattress all the way down and became a little sentimental about how she has grown and changed since we first laid her in the crib almost nine months ago.

This weekend I'm studying for my final exam in Real Estate Finance... a surprisingly interesting and useful course. Naturally, I had a couple of ladies distracting me from my studies, but I didn't mind///' [Right on cue, Elaina just added the inappropriate characters at the end of that last sentence. She's getting fairly mobile with her rolling and half-crawl-lunges and she's a big fan of the keys on my laptop.]



I officially passed the halfway mark in my law school career this summer; as of this Friday I will have completed 18 courses. May 2011 doesn't seem that far away anymore. Then, I'll be joining Kurt in the JAG Corps (he's got a pretty good gig there).

Just kidding, Mom. No need to worry yet.

this and that

I guess it's time for a little update! What we've been up to:

Meeting our nephew Jacoby...Spending time with Elaina's new cousin...Turning 8 months old...Swimming in a big pool for the first time...Having Rust family pictures taken...Hanging out at Grammy and Papaw's...Enjoying a week-long trip to Indiana!

Bye-Bye Mobile

We should have known when we walked in to find this:

...that we would soon walk in to find this:

Needless to say, the mobile is no longer a feature of the crib.

Yessssss!!!!!!!!

She said it!

go, go, go!

This has been the theme of our summer so far. We're taking pictures along the way, but we just don't find a lot of time to post them! In the meantime, Elaina is sitting up like a champ; eating fruits and veggies; saying ma ma (although she has no idea who that is); sleeping on her belly; and almost 8 months old!

Seven months old:

Happy Father's Day: Fun with Gramma and Grampa Rust: Acting silly: Ma Ma:

Baby Dedication

We've had a couple of busy weekends recently. Last weekend was Elaina's dedication at church. My family (minus Jordan- busy with the NBA finals in Orlando) joined us for the celebration. Two other couples from our small group dedicated their daughters as well. We really enjoyed sharing this experience with them. The following is a picture of our small group (minus one).Elaina had a lot of fun playing with her cousins throughout the weekend. They only hurt each other a couple of times. Addison had just accidentally hit Elaina in the face in the following image. (Notice their outfits all match? Thanks, Grammy!)
Matt's family is visiting this weekend on their way to Charleston, SC to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, and we're (of course!) celebrating Father's Day today. More updates (and pictures) to come.

Fun in the Sun

Elaina (and I) took a dip in her swimming pool for the first time this weekend. I think the water was a little cooler than she liked, but she seemed to enjoy the splashing and the floating pink ducky. I'm pretty sure that one of the primary reasons for getting her a pool was so that I had an excuse to sit in a kiddie pool on my deck. It's amazing what you can get away with once you have kids.