Hello California!!

We made it!  We arrived in California and have a new place to live.  Come visit us anytime!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Turkey Day!

Isla OWNED her first Thanksgiving.  We all very much enjoyed turkey, stuffing and pie, but no one as much as Isla...

Sleeping it off...

8 Months

Isla is 8 months old today!  It's tough work being a baby. (Especially when mom gives you a head cold.)

Craigs on the Move (Again.)

Our short time in DC is coming to a close.  While we're very sad that we have to leave the neighborhood we love, we're VERY excited to start our next chapter in San Diego, CA next month.

Isla plans on having some In n Out Burger really soon!

We will be on the road for a while and staying temporarily with Nikki's dad until we find a new place to live...stay tuned!

Vacation In Myrtle Beach

We continued our vacation in Myrtle Beach SC at our timeshare.  We had a fun week with Grandma and Sipke and of course celebrated Isla's first Halloween!!

Isla loved the pool:

Bubbles

She spent two days on the beach...

And went in the ocean for the first time!

She also enjoyed some snacks in the beach tent.

Happy Halloween from the little pumpkin!

Isla went as the character from her favorite book The Gruffalo! We went as the rest of the characters in the book: Mouse, Fox, Owl and Snake.

Isla went Trick or Treating at Barefoot Landing Shopping Center.

Isla and Michael snuggling in the hotel bed on the way home.

We're On Vacation!

We're taking a little trip south this week! We started off by spending a few days outside of Wilmington, NC to watch our friend Sarah compete in the Beach to Battleship half-iron triathlon.  Michael and Nikki did a relay with our friend Emily as well.  Isla and Grandma and Sipke got to watch and have fun all day!

Our relay team before the start.  Nikki's did a 1.2 mile swim, Emily (left) did a 56 mile bike and Michael did a 13.1 mile run.

Our friend Sarah on the run!

Isla and Grandma cheering on the triathletes at the finish.

Team "Two and a Half Ironmen" after the finish.

Isla, Michael, Nikki, Renee

Fall!

We went to Clark's Farm in Maryland today and Isla picked her very first pumpkin!

Gymboree: Our Favorite!

The mats at Isla's Gymboree class are the perfect softness and stickyness for encouraging her to crawl!  Yesterday she spent a fair amount of time rocking back and forth up on her knees. (And proud of herself about it too!)

Australia Part One: Adelaide

Michael had to attend a conference in Adelaide, Australia, so we took this opportunity to give ourselves a BabyMoon!

 We started with a few days in Newport Beach, CA over the Thanksgiving holiday with Nikki's Dad.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at a hotel, Larry Flynt was a few tables over.  It was weird. (For some reason this is the only picture I have of our time in Newport Beach.)

Next we flew (14 hours) to Sydney, where we had a short layover (and they lost Nikki's bag) before flying to Adelaide, a small city in South Australia.  Michael attended a conference at RAAF Base Edinburgh. 

Our hotel was in downtown, on the River Torrens: 

Adelaide is not a tourist destination, but has some amazing botanical gardens:

And a hospital where whole-body care is clearly a foreign concept:

On one of our last nights in Adelaide, we took the tram out to the suburb of Glenelg, which is on the coast:

 On the beach with Doug, Michael's co-worker:

We also found out the sex of baby Craig!  (You'll have to wait though!)

 These guys were hilarious.  Totally cementing the asian tourist stereotype.

We also visited a german suburb of Adelaide called Hahndorf:

But it really looked like the Baz Lurhman movie "Australia."

Michael ate his first Kangaroo meat.  Nikki helped.

On the way back downtown we took pictures of Adelaide at night from atop Mount Lofty (creative name.)

We went to the Cleland wildlife park and met some dingos, koalas, kangaroo and interesting birds.

Did you know that Koalas smell like eucalyptus (and not a stanky animal) because that is ALL they eat?? So interesting and yummy smelling!

Under Construction...

Yes, the blog is about a year behind. But, we promise, updates are coming soon! And we have lots of big news to share. In no particular order...Ironman, Ironman, Pregnant, Australia, Christmas, Baby!