Another First

Elaina's first phone call: 7P7P**7*7*7*7

I don't even know how to dial a letter--how does she?

Baby Gates

I'm currently reading reviews on baby gates. Can anyone guess why? If you have any suggestions for a good gate that will prevent our little booger from toppling down the stairs during her explorations, let me know!

P.S. She's 9 months old now!

Weekend in the Mountains

We enjoyed our last hoorah of the summer spending this past weekend in the mountains with our friends. Friday afternoon we all loaded up and drove to a very spacious cabin in Brevard, NC. We all had to drive separately thanks to the kids three of the four couples had in tow.

The weekend was filled with way too much delicious food, lots of laughs, hiking to a couple of waterfalls, beautiful views, and happy babies.

Yes, we saw a rattlesnake along the trail!

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!