California, Lake Tahoe Skiing & Carson Walks!

We FINALLY made it out to California to visit my brother after living on separate coasts for over three years. The trip was everything I’d hoped it would be…quality time with family, a wonderful getaway and great skiing- thanks Mom & Dad for a wonderful vacation! My pictures are linked to the 1st picture (as usual)...click to see Mom's pics & Rob's pics.

We flew into Sacramento and spent a day and a half in Folsom seeing Rob and Kristen’s new house and spending time with our nephew Owen. Unfortunately, Mike had a stomach bug that made his flight out to CA, the drive to the mountains, and the first few days of our vacation not fun at all, but luckily he got better in time to ski and enjoy our the last half of the vacation. Collin and Owen got along great but Owen seemed to feel quite threatened by Carson and didn’t want anything to do with him. Carson was his happy-go-lucky self, but Owen looks quite concerned as you can see. I know they will be good buddy cousins some days being only seven months apart, but not good friends at 13 and 20 months.

Rob & Kristen live about 90 minutes from South Lake Tahoe. We stayed at the Marriott Timerlodge Time Share RIGHT at the bottom of the gondola at Heavenly, one of the most beautiful ski resorts (see picture). We’ve never stayed anywhere that was ski in/ski out and it was quite a treat to be in the heart of everything. Collin went to ski school for two days. He liked the snow and the idea of skiing but it will be another few times before he can ski with us.We got over 18 inches of powder the second night we were there so we had some great skiing! It was quite cold for spring skiing and because of the snow storms we didn’t have the beautiful views of the lake until the last day (our birthday). I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday – skiing with my husband and brother in beautiful sunshine and a great Mongolian BBQ dinner and carrot cake with my whole family.

The night before our birthday – March 22nd Carson began walking for the first time! It was sooo exciting and I was happy that we could share it with my parents and Rob & Kristen! Since he had been practicing so much by holding our finger so tightly (basically walking on his own for several weeks) he didn’t just take a few steps like he had done before or gradually increase how far he could walk. He was OFF! Check out the video…Carson was walking all around the hotel room, turning and practically running back and forth between us. He was so proud of himself for being able to walk independently and loved all our attention.


Collin was excited to watch his brother walk at first but then started to get a little jealous and wanted some attention too. I forgot how exciting it was to watch your child take his first steps and learn to walk. While I had gotten tired of holding his little finger and following him all over the place I started to get sad and sentimental about my little baby growing up. After a great time in Lake Tahoe we headed back to Folsom and enjoyed some warm weather before we had to head out super early Wednesday morning. It was fun to watch the boys run around in Rob & Kristen’s back yard, especially since a few days before Carson wouldn’t even walk by himself. It was a wonderful vacation and so great to see family. It’s sad that we live so far away and who knows when we’ll see their new baby girl due the end of April.

Voegtles visit and Carson’s Haircut

Mike’s parents came down to celebrate Carson’s first birthday the weekend after since that’s when Bill was off work. It was a short trip but we had a good visit with them. I let Doris put Carson to bed for naps and bedtime which went surprisingly smoothly. Perhaps it’s just Doris’ magic baby touch but he went to sleep easily and quickly with just a few wimpers each time.
We didn’t do a whole lot while they were here – church & dinner, a fish fry, Bill took Collin fishing, and birthday cake and presents. Carson enjoyed his cake this time – carrot cake with cream cheese icing!

We decided to make our trip to Snip Its for Carson’s first haircut a major outing. I was holding out on cutting Carson’s hair until he was a year old since I loved it so much, then we decided to wait until Mike’s parents were here so they could see it. I considered taking the boys myself for their haircuts but I am glad I didn’t because Carson’s haircut turned into a four-person operation. Carson screamed through the entire process as you can see from the pictures...Mike videotaped, Doris helped by holding his head still, and I tried to comfort him while Ms. Kim clipped away. As much as I was sad to see his beautiful locks fall to the floor he looks super cute in his new haircut and much more like a boy.

Bathtime and the zoo

Sometimes we forget to take pictures of the everyday activities, like taking a bath. Here are a few pictures of the boys in their monogrammed character towels they got for Christmas and some pictures of the new baby panda (6 months) and Collin and Carson with Cameron and Conner at the zoo. We hadn't been to the zoo in quite a few months, so we enjoyed the outing with our friends on a fair weather Friday in February.

Atlanta Spring Snow

It doesn't snow in Atlanta too often so it’s pretty exciting when it does. We've been lucky to get a nice pretty snow once a year for the last several years. This year it was on March 2nd, last year it was February 14th. March 2nd was a Sunday so we were happy that we had gone to church Saturday night so we could stay home and enjoy playing and watching the beautiful big flakes. Collin especially enjoyed the snow! We ran and slid and "ice-skated" on the back porch. We got out pretty early in the day before much accumulation so we didn't build a snowman. In the afternoon it started raining so Collin was bummed. We went out for dinner and saw so many other snowmen that our neighbors had built so we build a small one on the back porch table in the dark before bed.

Here are pictures looking of the view from our front porch and Collin "skating" on our back porch.