Now that I'm a professional blogger...

I thought that since I've now been able to successfully create a single post, I will try to update everyone on what our family has been up to since Nicholas has been born. Nicholas was born April 12th of this year...he's now 6 1/2 months old! Right now he's in the midst of learning to crawl, and we think he almost has it down. He's in the bear crawling stage, which is too cute and too hilarious for words! He is also about to cut his first two teeth, we think. We can see both bottom teeth just below the surface, but they seem to just be taking their own sweet time to arrive. This has caused frustration with having a semi-fussy little boy who also just happens to drool all the time, but Nicholas is also just such a happy boy naturally that he is rarely fussy for too long.



Brandon graduated from his Air Force tech school at the end of March (1st in class, I might add!) and was able to make it back to Ohio two weeks before Nicholas was born. Since then he has been working for the Ohio Air National Guard at Rickenbacker ANG base in Columbus, OH. He works in the sheet metal shop there and makes all sorts of repairs to the skin of the KC135's there. Brandon also just returned from a 2 1/2 week deployment to Guam! He loved it! Rebecca was only somewhat jealous...okay, she was really jealous! It was cool that he got to see a lot of the WWII sites where Rebecca's Grandpa Hales had served just after the war ended. Brandon also has had a lot of fun...okay, not necessarily fun...getting back into the swing of things at school. He is studying Organization Leadership at the University of Cincinnati. Yes, that's right, Brandon works in Columbus and lives/goes to school in Cincinnati! He's a busy guy!



Rebecca has had a lot of fun learning how to be a mom these last 6 months. Her little family definitely keeps her busy! But she did have fun back in August going to the rubber stamp convention with her mom, grandma, aunt, and sister-in-law! It was a much needed girls day out! Now she spends much of her time playing with Nicholas, helping Brandon study, working on her card-making skills, attempting to sew various things, reading, meeting up with friends, and other various activities.



We've also enjoyed our various trips this year. We went to Nauvoo in July with Rebecca's brother Scott and his family. We camped for a few days and had a blast! Then we went to Topsail Island, NC for two weeks with Brandon's entire family...another fun trip! At one point we had roughly 25 people in a little 3 bedroom beach house with backed up plumbing (something of a nightmare!), but we had a lot of fun in the process. While Brandon was in Guam, Rebecca and Nicholas headed off to Marylandwith her mom to visit relatives. While there we got to go visit Rebecca's great grandmother and we got a five generation photo taken!

Those opportunities don't often come up, so we jumped at the chance! This past weekend Brandon and Rebecca also went to Pennsylvania and met up her cousin Lori at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house. It was so beautiful there! The fall leaves were just right!



So, that's us in a nutshell. I'll try to keep this updated from now on!