Chaos

We were supposed to fly to Utah yesterday morning. Now we are snowed into our house. It snowed like 2 feet in 24 hours. They canceled our Saturday flight, rescheduled for Sunday, canceled that one, and after spending two days trying to get a hold of someone at Delta, we finally have a flight on Christmas day. As disappointed as we are, we've been taking advantage of the snow. We've had a lot of fun! Here's Alta getting ready to go outside during the storm:

This was on Saturday morning, it didn't stop snowing until late Saturday night.

Alta really liked the snow. Dan is sporting his East-coast snow pants.

What's a good snowstorm without snowboarding behind a truck? Alta and I watched from inside, it was way too cold by then.

Church was canceled today, but even if it wasn't we wouldn't have been able to get there. Only the main roads have been plowed, and I'm not sure if they'll ever get around to our cul-de-sac. So we'll continue to be stuck in our house for the next day or two until the snow packs down enough for us to get out of our driveway. Too bad I thought we'd be gone so I haven't gone grocery shopping in a week...

What a crazy little adventure we're having!

This and that

Alta's first venture into the world of play dough was a success. It was over 30 minutes of entertainment. That's a miracle with this girl.

The other day we found last year's winter gear and Alta insisted on wearing it even though it is too small:

About a week ago when we were sitting at the table for dinner, Dan handed Alta something and she said, "Tee choo Daddy" (thank you, daddy). I was shocked, I've never heard her put words together like that. She now likes to say it over and over, but she gets the sounds mixed up and it turns into "doo doo, dummy".

Alta also loves to tell me all about her bodily functions. The best is when she farts, says "toot!" and then laughs. I should add that she's been doing this for months. Apparently it never stops being funny to her. I blame it on Dan.

Today was Alta's fourth time in nursery. Still a disaster. I guess it is kinda scary to be thrown in a room with 20 other kids and only 3 or 4 adults who you don't know.

That's all for now, more random posts to come later.

Oh, and by the way...

...now that I'm 15 weeks along, I guess I should make sure everyone knows that I'm pregnant. Kid #2 should arrive in the first week of June.

I want it to be a girl.
Dan wants it to be a boy.
Alta just wants it to be a baby.

Early Christmas

Saturday was a momentous day for us. For one thing, we had our first snow storm of the season, and it was a pretty good one. For Virginia, at least. Alta was fascinated by it and looked out the window all morning saying "snow, snow, snow!".

But Christmas came early to the Browers on Saturday. I got myself a shiny new toy:


It could be the best Christmas present ever (or should I say birthday/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Anniversary present? It's definitely one of those kinds of gifts). I'm so happy to finally be able to play again! Dan's been playing quite a bit as well, and Alta of course loves to pound away on the keys. It's painfully out of tune (and I'm incredibly out of practice), but it's a pretty good piano.

I've been so bad about keeping our blog updated so I broke this into two posts. Thanksgiving is the next post. This is just a few random things we've been up to.

The weather is starting to get colder and it has been raining a lot, so we've been getting a little restless staying inside all the time! The other day Alta and I made a cereal necklace. She thought it was fun for about 15 minutes, mainly because she got to eat sugar cereal:


Outside on a non-rainy but cold day. Alta loves wearing her coat and hat. We were watching Dan clean out the gutters. Alta would stand on the grass below him and hold up her arms, wanting him to pick her up from all the way up on the roof.

Alta is obsessed with strollers so I got her this baby stroller. She likes to push her dolls, her snacks, her sippy cups, and anything else all over the house. In part of this video she has her baby doll's pacifier in her mouth. She thinks it's really funny to suck on it.



On Sunday I made a mini-Thanksgiving meal for just the three of us. I was looking forward to cooking my first Thanksgiving now that we have our house, but we ended up going to Virginia Beach instead. So on Sunday I made a ham instead of turkey (the recipe from my friend Erica is delicious), and sweet potato casserole (practically a dessert, seriously) and I successfully made my mom's dinner rolls. Now I'm not slightly less worried about being able to do the real thing next year!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we took a little trip down to Virginia Beach to spend the holiday with one of Dan's relatives, the Patches. The drive went much better than expected and we had good food and lots of fun. Here's the trip in pictures.

I'm posting this picture for Dan. On the drive there we saw two aircraft carriers at one of the naval bases, they were huge! It was pretty cool. We couldn't get any closer unfortunately.

The Patches live right on the beach. It was so cold and windy! Alta loved it though, she ran up and down the beach and said "awah, awah!" (water).


Walking to a park to swing:

Just down the street from the Patches is a naval (i think) base with two light houses. One is still in use and the other is very old and is now a historical site. The area is also where the Jamestown settler's first landed.

Did I mention it was windy?

Walking down the boardwalk to the beach at the base.

The two lighthouses.

There is also an aquarium nearby that we wanted to check out. We got there and found out it was pretty expensive and we weren't prepared to spend much time there, but luckily there was a big tank in front of the building with a few seals in it. That was good enough for us. Alta was mesmerized by them.

We drove home on Friday afternoon and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at home.

Mexico

Dan and I have been using our american express card for every single purchase (house remodeling included) for the past couple of years and finally decided to use all our points. We went to Playa del Carmen in Mexico this past weekend and it was fabulous.

Lorna flew in all the way from Utah to play with Alta while we were gone (thank you, thank you, thank you!). She came a day before Dan and I left so Alta could warm up to her. It only took Alta about 30 minutes to decided she really liked Grandma (also known as "uh-mah").

I'm pretty sure she didn't miss us at all. She was too busy absorbing all the attention she could get.

So we said goodbye to Alta and flew down to this:



Pictures can't do it justice, it was so beautiful! I've never been to a beach that had perfectly clear, warm water. And no rocks, just sand. We would sit on the beach and read until it got too warm, then jump in the water and swim, then go back to sitting on the beach. We tried snorkeling once but there weren't any fish near us (and I just about hyperventilated anyway). The resort had a hobie cat that we took out twice. This isn't us, I just wanted to take a picture of what it looked like:

Dan's never really sailed before but he figured it out pretty quickly. He claims it's because he's read the Hornblower books.

On one of the days we ventured out to Tulum where there are some Mayan ruins. Taking a taxi or tour bus costs about $35 (one way) so we decided to try the way Dan's brother recommended and used the local bus system. Actually, calling that is a bit generous. There are vans that take people up and down the main highway and if you want to get on, you stand by the side of the road and get picked up. Tulum is kind of far away so I thought it might take a while to get there, but when the speed limit is 80 km/h and the van is going 150, it takes no time at all. We would speed past all the other cars and then when the driver would see someone standing by the road, he'd slam on the brakes and pull over to pick them up. It was crazy. But it also cost us about $3.

Tulum was fun to see, and very beautiful:

We saw these big iguanas everywhere in Tulum. Taking a picture of one was probably the equivalent of taking a picture of a squirrel or a deer in the US, but I thought they were cool.

All in all, a very nice relaxing trip. Now we are back in cloudy Virginia, but it's so good to be back with the little Alta girl again!