A Year (almost) Gone By

Wowza. What happened to fall? Tomorrow is December 1st. With good memories from a laid-back, yet packed-full Advent season last year, we look forward to this year's time of waiting. Today I went for a walk with the girls while Nate made jars and jars of applesauce with the apples from our trees. While we were walking, I asked Louisa whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas. She answered, "Ahhhhhh," waiting for me to give her a hint. I gave away the answer right away and she immediately said, "oh! we eat cake with Jesus on his birthday?!" Maybe Loubear. Maybe. We'll probably have pie though.

The past two weeks were lovely. Marcia was visiting for a week, followed by a week-long visit by my parents. The three grandparents overlapped for a little over 24 hours to participate in Cora's baptism. During the entire two weeks, Cora was on cloud-nine, always looking happy and entertained and Louisa basked in the attention from her favorite Oma, Papa and Belle.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. My mom and Nate's cooperation in the kitchen was brilliantly choreographed - Nate dirtying every pot, pan and utensil we own as my mom danced behind cleaning up. Occasionally, I came in and put clean dishes away and made apple pie and mashed potatoes. We were sad that my brother Matthew wasn't able to come up from San Diego, but glad to share our meal with Nate's coworker and our friends, Pam and Brian.

On Friday morning after my parents left for the airport, we realized we had the whole day open, so we took off for Monterey to visit the aquarium and the coastline. Louisa is at a perfect age to enjoy an aquarium. We wondered how she would spend her time if given the freedom to wonder without prompts (i.e. okay, let's go see the octopus). A nice scenario was playing through my mind until Nate mentioned the gift shops. So lock the gift shop doors and put a FitBit on that girl! We drove south on highway 1 and watched the sunset on a small, warm beach. What beauty! Here are some of my favorite pictures. Take note of Cora's eye color. I think it's official!