Emmett and Alison's Big Adventure

410 miles, leaving during Phoenix rush hour, driving through the desert alone with a 6 monthold and at night, I might be crazy, but despite it sounding crazy it was really great. Emmett and I went to Los Angeles, CA last weekend to visit good friends of David and mine from high school. It was a ton of fun especially since it wascool, foggy and cloudy which we haven't seen since May.

Emmett and I enjoyed Mary and Jesse's hospitality, taking us

down to the beach, up and down Main St in Santa Monica where we enjoyed excellent cappucino and a stroll through UCLA campus where Jesse is studying to get his PhD. We also enjoyed and amazing dinner at a vegan

restaurant in downtown Santa Monica, I believe it was called Real Food Diner (RFD), it was delicious!!!!

Sunday Mary, Emmett and I went down to the Farmer's Market to enjoy some fresh coffee, fresh food, fresh grass and Courtney's company. And then Mary joined us for the drive back to Phoenix which was a great drive and made for a fun week when she was visiting.

Visitors

David, Emmett, Olive and I have had a very busy October with wonderful visits from family and friends. My parents came for about 10 days and despite everyone getting sick except me during
that time we had a wonderful time visiting, hiking, exploring, enjoying the cooler weather and eating. We went north about 2hrs to Payson, AZ which is a beautiful evergreen forest for miles and miles. We also went hiking in Phoenix on South Mountain which is the largest inner citypark in the United States.

The week after my parents left, Wendy was in Scottsdale, AZ for a conference and we were able to get together for dinner one evening and enjoy a local vegan restaurant, Green, near her hotel.

We are hoping next year when she comes for the conference

her and my brother will visit for the weekend.

We then had a wonderful visit from Mary who now lives in LA with our good friend Jesse who happens to be her husband. Emmett and I went to visit them for the weekend in LA. I know I'm sort of crazy driving 400mi through the desert by myself with a 6mo old but it was a great drive, Emmett did awesome and our weekend there was amazing. For the drive home Mary came with us and spent a couple days in Phoenix and then flew back to LA on Wed. I'll post a separate blog for Emmett and my big adventure to LA.

Right now we feel reguvenated from our visits because we miss everyone so much but we are also enjoying our first slow weekend in weeks; Emmett is loving lounging in his early Christmas present from my parents, while we are thoroughly enjoying the cooler weather and being able to be outside with Emmett and Olive.

Best Laugh Ever

We always find a new game to play

First Bites

I don't believe that everyone thinks about what they put into their bodies on a daily basis but David and I make a point of it. We work hard daily to introduce ourselves to new dishes, try and eat healthy and support companies that promote similar morals and values as ours. This past week we've started to think about food in a new way, because baby Emmett has started eating. Nothing

complex yet, rice cereal and mashed banana but I think that's the point, keep it simple and he is

loving it.

It is such an amazing experience to see him everyday learn about new things. And it has rekindled our love for trying out new things, just the other day I sat down with a couple of our cookbooks and went through the entire thing flagging new recipes to try and each of us making a pack over the next months to cook at least one new dish each every week. This week we tried lavender rice pudding with fresh strawberries, Thai coconut soup and Rice Cakes with Ginger-Peanut Sauce.

We have arrived!!!

Ok so obviously many of you know we arrived in Arizona a couple weeks ago but we have finally got around to finishing our blog on our road trip, we can'tleave people out because the last couple days were just as amazing as the rest of the trip.

We had a wonderful evening in New Orleans and getting to catch up with David's cousin Ian and his wife Brooke have just closed on their first home, congratulations guys!! We were then off to

Austin, TX to have a quiet evening to ourselves. Despite being out of town good friends of my family offered their home to us for the night which was so gracious of them. We enjoyed some quiet family time and collected ourselves before the last leg of our trip while playing some really intense arcade basketball.

Which brought us to El Paso, TX. Right around the corner from all the craziness happening in Juarez, Mexico we visited good friends of ours Vivian and Bodie. Vivian is a good friend of mine from my days in Alaska and is one of those people you have a relationship w

ith that is always fun and amazing even if you don't talk for a number of months at a time. She as always was an amazing host, showing us around the area, feeding us good food and drink, and just having a wonderful time. We were lucky to spend two nights with these guys before we moved on to Arizona and they moved on to Kentucky which they are on their way right now.

And then our last leg from El Paso to Phoenix, AZ was so crazy. The whole day was surreal, knowing our home for the next three years was just around the corner and all the planning and organizing for the last few months has almost come to an end.

We spent our first week in Phoenix with a good friend of my parents, Greg, who was a gracious hosting taking us in with a new baby and a dog, along with my parents who came to help usget settled. We enjoyed his company, his home and his pool while we tried to find our own home, which happened very quickly thankfully.

Road Trip!!!

Hey everyone

We are traveling cross country with Olive and Emmett. Right now we are in Louisiana in the Sheraton overlooking downtown New Orleans. Tonight we will visit a cousins who lives in the city. The last week has been amazing but very busy. Let me give a quick update on our trip so far.

Day 1 we drove 483mi the first

day to Washington DC to visit my brother Pat and have dinner with my cousins and aunt and uncle. The

drive was uneventful thankfully, no traffic, no construction and we arrived mid afternoon which was great, plenty of time to hang out and check out Pat's neighborhood.

Day 2 we were planning on staying at a hotel in Columbus, OH and found out just before leaving DC

that an old friend of our's, Jacey, lives just outside of Columbus. We called her up to see if we could meet for dinner and ended up staying over her place for the evening, meeting her husband Ben, dog Tuck and 6mo old daughter Blakely. Olive and Tuck got along well and wrestled most of the time we were there.

Day 3 and 4 we had a very short drive to Crawfordsville, IN were we stayed with my grandparents and their dog, Birdie, for a couple nights. Olive got along well with Birdie and spent most of her time there wrestling with her. Day 4 we visited my Aunt's house here we met up with my cousins We also got to meet my cousin Dusty's new baby Hadley who is 6mo old. She is so cute and really

loved Emmett.

Day 5 was a beautiful drive from Indiana through Kentucky to Tennessee. We stopped at a

bourbon distillery and saw some amazing old thoroughbred farms. It was beautiful country. We stayed with a friend of mine from way back, Brooklyn. We were able to meet her husband Chris and see their 35acres of land they are building on along with their horses and donkey. Olive loved the space and felt conflicted about the horses, at times trying to herd them.

Day 6 and 7 were a blast, we stayed in Atlanta, Georgia with David's cousins, Michael and Kelli and also seeing cousins Mark, Monica and their kids, Oliver and Lillie. They showed us a great time, bringing us to Piedmont Park for a walk and dip in the fountains, to R Thomas for some amazing food and parrot viewing. It was also so wonderful to actually sit down and hang out because the last couple of times seeing them have been so busy.

Day 8, Pensacola, FL to visit David's aunt Brooke and Uncle Mark. I had never been to the Gulf

Coast of FL or at least I don't remember. The water was beautiful, the beaches with white sand amazing. David and I got to go for a dip while Emmett took a nap and the water temp must

have been atleast 75 degrees. The only down side to the visit was when David got stung by a jellifish, but he has recovered just fine.

And here we are Day 9 in New Orleans. The trip has been amazing so far, Emmett and Olive have done fabulous in the car. I'm getting very good at breastfeeding while David continues driving, I have perfected what friends of ours calll "The Hangover." I will let your imaginations do the work of figuring that move out.

More to come later! We're having a blast. Thanks to all our hosts and all those back home thinking about us!

-Alison and David (and Emmett and Olive)

Play Time!!!

Emmett is learning amazing new things everyday and challenging himself with play to improve his strength, coordination, proprioception, endurance and fine motor skills. It's truly amazing to watch and makes you realize how incredible the human body really is but also how vulnerable you are when you are born. Even at the rate Emmett is learning, he, as you know, still depends on David and I for everything.Working on sitting up, Emmett loves to make faces, babble and wave his arms, and it already appears he is left handed. We aren't positive of course but he loves to wave that left arm around significantly more than his right.

I don't know if you've ever seen a bumbo but it's really great. Emmett can sit up on his own and have enough support to focus on what's going on around him which he thinks is totally awesome, plus it gives mom and dad a couple minutes. It's amazing what you can do in five minutes once you have a babe and don't have two hands all the time.

I personally think Emmett has the most inquisitive eyes, this may be true with all babies at this age because they are trying to absorb so much but Emmett's I vote are the most inquisitive and I could watch them all day long and often do. He is so handsome and I love him so much.

Emmett also has some tummy time after most diaper changes to work on his back and neck muscles but sometimes we are just too tired and just use our rattle as a pillow instead of a toy. He's so cute and loves so relaxed.

And then of course after all this play time, exploring, learning, and strengthening, we are exhausted.

Stupid Iphoto!!!

I just put the last two weeks of photos from the camera onto the computer and iphoto shut down and the pictures were deleted from the camera and never downloaded onto the computer :-( I had awesome video of Emmett and great pictures from the Arboretum and cute photos of my dad and Emmett, all gone!!!! Nooooo! More to come soon.

Emmett's Many Faces

Well Emmett for sure received David's facial expression genes. These are a few of some really great facial expressions Emmett has made over the last month.

I was going to put captions of what I thought he was thinking but I thought it might be more fun for you to put your own captions in. Isn't he just the cutest. Weight update, he was weighed yesterday at 12lb 6.8oz, and is now 22 and 3/4 inches.

Belly Time!!!

I did it!!!

Emmett and My Family