Well clearly this is not how blogs are supposed to go. But a whole year has flown by and we haven't posted anything.
Its been a worldwind of a year. 2012 started right after Charles dad, Clark, passed away unexpectantly right before Christmas. Then after we got back from Chicago, three weeks later we moved across town to Kennesaw from Roswell. We have been renting a house in Kennesaw (which is now only 15 min from our jobs- NW from downtown Atlanta) since Jan and trying to check out the community.
That part, moving to Kennesaw, has been great...getting back 2 hours of our lives that we were spending everyday in the car traveling back and forth to work. We have missed our friends and church (where we met) from the Roswell area, but we are slowly meeting new people and have found a church in this area we like. One of the best things about where this rental house is located is that the neighborhood is right across the street from a park. Its been fun taking Addion and Willlow over there to play and in the summer they also had some outdoor movie nights we attended.
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| Addison at Park |
In the Spring Charles sister Julie got married to Chris Fellmann in Chicago. We also visited with his mom, aunt, cousin and sister in Charlotte over Mother's Day weekend.
Then to kick off the summer we went to New York City with my mom, sister and her family along with her brother-in-law's family. It was a fun trip. The highlight was my niece, Allie, singing with her choral group from her high school in Savannah at Carnegie Hall. Since the performance didn't start until 8:30 at night, Charles and Addison unfortunately didn't get to see much since Addison had to be taken out of the auditorium after one song. We also went to the Central park zoo, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge ate a lot and of course walked about a thousand miles. One of the best parts of the trip was getting to go on the carrier that had docked in Central harbor because of Memorial Day and Fleet week. We got to tour the carrier (with the best views of the city) and also go in the helicopters, jeeps, etc that were on it.
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| Brooklyn Bridge |
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| Statue of Liberty |
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| Carousel |
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| Charles, Addison and Carson |
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| Carrier |
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| Carrier |
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| Carnegie Hall |
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| Carnegie Hall |
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| Ferry to State of Liberty |
This summer, we also took a fun 4 day trip to Jekyll Island (an island off the coast of Georgia) with Rod, Andrea and Connor Boothe. Connor is 2 weeks younger than Addison so it was fun taking them to the beach, pool and letting them run wild in the hotel together. On that trip we also hit the water park and went biking.
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| Connor and Addison get ready for bike ride |
Of course, this was all in between the many work trips that I had out of town this year. Charles did great watching Addison but it was not easy. She has grown into a very strong willed toddler and we are so proud to say "one of the most verbal children" in the early preschool class according to the teacher. It was amazing she went from just barely articulating words and now at the end of the year she is speaking in sentences "What doing mommy?" or "What happened?" and tonight informed me "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer has a shiny nose". She counts to ten as well. Of course we think she is BRILLIANT but I account so much of that to Primrose (her preschool) and the things she learns there.
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| Parade of Costumes- Halloween |
In the fall, Charles sister, Beth, came to visit from California for a fun weekend and then we went to visit his family in Chicago for Thanksgiving.
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| Addison's 2 yr bday at pumpkin patch |
In October we began looking at houses around in Kennesaw to buy. After many Saturday mornings spent with our real estate agent, we have just had our bid accepted to purchase a house around here. It is a 4 bedroom, brick house with a fenced-in backyard about 10 minutes from where we are living. If everything goes through we will be moving in mid-February. We are excited and look forward to settling into the neighborhood and area.
We hope this post finds you well and enjoying the holiday season. Here is our Santa picture. Of course Addison being 2 she didn't want to have anything to do with him. I say "of course" but mommy and daddy showed up in tshirts and unbrushed hair. Imagine our surprise when we had to jump in the Santa photo :)
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| Surprise Family Moment |
