My daughter the model...

Claire does not really enjoy getting her photos taken and doesn't stay still for a second, but our talented friend Beth captured her well in San Antonio this weekend, for some 18 month photos. If you live in the San Antonio area, I HIGHLY commend her to you! Click HERE to see the preview. Claire was in love with Beth's first born, Carter, who was helping, by entertaining Claire. A perfect little photog assistant! Thank you Beth, Claire will model for you any time!!

Claire's First Birthday

Our talented new friend Kara took photos of Claire's special day, from waking up, partying her heart out, to nap time. Enjoy them!

You can copy and paste this to see them:)
http://karachappell.smugmug.com/Friends/Claires-1st-Birthday/12615368_pnEyk#906445438_L3W3u
Or press HERE

Pregnancy Schizophrenia and Tattoos

When I found out I was pregnant, no one told me not to be attached to my due date. So rather than putting my weight down on June 3 or 5, I even went as far as telling myself Claire was coming in May. Then May ended, and I was bummed. For a pretty superficial reason (I wanted her to be able to bring cupcakes to her classroom and to be sang to on her day), but I was bummed nonetheless.

I'm not sure schizophrenia is the proper term, in fact, it probably isn't; but I have felt like I had a split-personality lately. In week 38 I was positive I wanted to induce 10 days early, as early as the doc would let me:) Then Los and I talked and I took that stance back. It felt a little bit like we were trying to play God to pick her birthdate and force it to be early. "Okay, let's wait to her due date to induce," was plan b... However, when we reached that mark, I had started to lean toward letting Claire stay inside as long as she wanted... After all, what if she's small and needed the extra time to grow? We were hoping for an 8 lb. baby, and she certainly wouldn't have been if we'd taken her out early. That is, if the sonographers were right (she was predicted to be right at 7.5 lbs from her bone measurements).

Now at 41 weeks I don't want to be induced, I am not that uncomfortable and don't mind her hanging out inside a bit longer, but now the OB is saying it's time to get the show on the road. Funny how we've switched places from me asking her and her hesitating to me hesitating at her request:)

This is me at 41 weeks preggo. I never thought I would get to this place, but my due date came and went this past week, and apparently my body and Claire have zero interest in parting ways. Unfortunately for both of them, my doctor does have an interest in us parting ways. So since I have not progressed at all and am almost a week past due, we are going to induce TOMORROW. Woah. I am the highest candidate for a c-section possible, so that is a bummer... Let's hope that my body takes to the stuff it is given and progresses tomorrow night and Tuesday!


So this may be the last post- pre our family expanding... We have had a sweet time together, enjoying all these "extra" days before life as we know it changes... We've slept in, been to movies (UP and The Hangover), we've been out to eat multiple times, I got a pedicure (pink!) and massage, we've organized the crap out of our house (all those projects we were saving for "some day" got done), and we've had fun with Burly at the beach, see below. Also, Los took the first step of his long-time goal of inking himself. He took the monogram Joel designed for our wedding and had it put on his heart. When he first told me about wanting a tattoo, I was super anti, but over the years the idea has grown on me to the point that I was as excited as he was. It looks great and I like how meaningful it is.




Whenever Burly thinks we're leaving somewhere and he has to stay behind, he flops down like this and won't move, it is so funny. Sometimes (if it's on carpet) I literally push him with my feet and he stays flopped over like that.


But he LOVES going to the beach, the water is his favorite thing and he loves to run around like a maniac. We have enjoyed sunsets at the beach a lot lately, knowing that we won't get to do that for a little bit once Claire is here.





So wish us luck, pray for us, and we'll see you on the flip side of parenthood! And p.s. yes, it's legal to park on the beach here, everyone does. And yes, I find that very strange. But there's nowhere else to park!

Our International Christmas

For Christmas, I got Los a new sound system for our house, a tattoo and a PUPPY!  More news on those changes to come...  But first, the food: for our first Christmas starting new traditions, we thought why not shoot for the moon?  We threw out any "traditional ham" idea.  We all assigned each other different countries to make dishes from- the only requirement being that you could not have ever made the dish before.  What could've been a risky disaster turned out amazingly!

Team Evans, 5 months away from expanding!

Team Y'all- 3 months away from becoming Team Yokers!
My food aversions include many proteins, luckily I was assigned India (an easy country for vegetarian dishes).  I made a veggie curry that was spicier than I'd hoped, but good and good for you.
Action shot from our kitchen
We had French Champagne, an amazing Brunello from Italy (thanks Bish!) and cheeses from Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and England...
Burly cleaned up on new treats from Santa...
Kiesha made a Russian Potato and Kielbasa recipe that we gobbled up, huge hit.  I also made a Kiwi Raita yogurt to assuage the spiciness of my dish.  Carlos made the main dish, a French chicken piperade- very good.  Dave made cranberries (we had to have them!) and an awesome Spanish Flan for dessert.  All in all, a great meal.  We had so much fun with team Y'all, who spent 4 nights at our house (although they only live at the beach, 25 minutes away!)  It was so fun to spend the days with them, exchange stockings and go to San Antonio the day after Christmas together.  Saturday we introduced them to Settlers, our fave game, finally we have people to play it with here!  And I made a Spanakopita and Tabbouleh for dinner, to continue our international theme.  Sunday they went to church with us and then they made us a great lunch.  Lots o food and fun and memories with our friends.  
Now we are sleepy, yet grateful for the mini-vacation in our own home.

Santa Fe

You know you're in Santa Fe when you see peppers drying everywhere!

The nation's oldest Christian church
and the nation's oldest house!  You can see straw in the wall, and those doors are so short!
Not a bad view for a pee stop:)
Yet another makeshift bed...

Grand Canyon

We had a good day traveling to the Grand Canyon and back from cute Flagstaff, AZ.  We probably won't go to the canyon again, but it was nice to hike a few miles there and see people from everywhere in the world!

These 20+ Dutch bikers were all wearing clogs!  Awesomeness. 
Wildlife right below us:)
Hot Dog.

London Bridge Is Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down...

Wanna hear a funny story I forgot about til last week?  So, back into the 60s, I think, the London Bridge was falling down.  So somebody put it on the equivalent of eBay, and an oil millionaire idiot in the States bought it for millions of dollars.  They moved it to AZ, and it's now an attraction at Lake Havasu.

The only problem was that when it was assembled, the Americans realized it wasn't London's beautiful and famed Tower Bridge, which we saw this summer.
But instead, a boring looking cement bridge.
Oops.  Our boat tourguide in London got a lot of laughs out of this story, whereas we Americans slumped a little bit lower in our seats:)
Burly wasn't impressed.  This is how he spent much of our drive, out for the count.

Our weekend in FresYES

We had a good time in Fresno with my parents, timing the trip to coincide with my mom's 60th birthday.  We saw a chick flick with her and she puggy-sat while we went to the FSU game the next day.
It was our first tailgate together, Los joining a long-standing tradition in my fam.  Dad made famous tri-tip and there was lots of other good stuff.  Thousands of people tailgate and the band of the week was ( the terrible, one-hit wonder) Smashmouth.
The guys were downing a huge bottle of tequila, I stayed away from that!
At some point my dad had to literally grab the bottle away from my husband, which I captured on film to shame him later (j/k)
It was great to catch up with cousins Jon-Michael and Jo Ann!
Of course the game was fun too, though it got super cold (strange for fall in CA)
We all ended up bundled up


The next day we went to church as a fam and hung out at my dad's with lots of family, as though it was a holiday.  Monday morning we made a pitstop at Jamba Juice and Whole Foods and then hit the road for Arizona.  We'll miss my familia, since we are likely staying in TX (first time away from fam for a holiday) this winter.

Back back to Cali Cali

So my anal need to be chronologically accurate fights with my laziness in blogging amidst all kinds of life change. We are NOW IN TX! I feel crazy about it (highs/lows/disbelief/sadness/hope, crazy) But I'll write about that soon. First, I'd like to highlight some of the fun parts of our week and a half journey that spanned about 3,500 miles.





Our first stop in the homestate was with the beloved Flory's.  They took us wine tasting in the relaxed, beautiful Russian River Valley.  I had zero concept of how huge the wine regions in CA are, and I was really glad we went to some peaceful places like Lynmar, as opposed to the more pretentious and commercial places I've been in Napa in year's past. Leave it to the Flory's to always find the best places:) They also took us to a great restaurant and Burly loved playing with Peet, though you might not believe that from these 3 pictures.



We admire and respect the Flory's for multiple reasons, and always enjoy conversation with them as they are responsible stewards of the lives and gifts God has given them. Plus they are fun, smart, interesting, we hadn't been at their house 5 minutes when we started talking about politics and religion. Gotta love people who cut the crap and wrestle with the hard stuff! Joel wants Los to run for President of the US. What do ya'll think?

They also told us about this great, private first-growth Redwood tree grove that we visited near the ocean.
It was near sunset and majestic, all of those trees hundreds of years old.
I made my husband be a giant tree-hugger, his wingspan is 6'1" and it would've taken 5 of him to go around this tree.
Los trying to toss Burly to the top of the trees...
We heart California, and miss it like crazy. Coming up next, time with my fam.