Florida Trip Part 1

I realize it's been 4 months since I last wrote a blog post. Now that Gunnar is walking around everywhere, it's been hard for me to find the time (and energy) to keep up on blogging. I'm promising myself I'll get better going forward. I almost need to think of it like a job and hold myself more accountable :)

Over the coming weeks I'll be sure and post additional pictures I've taken in order to keep everything documented, including Gunnar's first birthday. However, I'm starting this post with the pictures from our trip that were taken with our cell phones. My next post will be the good camera pictures!

We spent May 8-16th in Florida and accomplished a few different goals. Tara and I visited the Magic Kingdom. Chris, Tara, Ramin, Gunnar and I visited Epcot on Mother's Day. We spent a few days with Grandma Ceil in the Tampa Bay area and then I attended a professional training seminar in Orlando for the last few days of the trip while everyone else visited various places like Daytona Beach, Downtown Disney and other things.

The airplane ride to Florida DID NOT go as we had hoped. We took the red-eye direct flight from SLC to ORL in hopes that baby would sleep. Well, because of all the fun new things to see, sleep was the LAST thing on his mind. He was quite entertained and we were lucky to have an entire row to ourselves. The return trip we weren't so lucky but thankfully baby did sleep for half of the 4-hour flight.

Once we arrived in Orlando and got our rental van situation figured out, we had to drive around a lot that day to burn time before we could check in to our condo - I captured Gunnar finally catching up on the sleep he missed the night before.

Around noon that first day we headed over to Downtown Disney for a stroll. We stopped by the Lego store and boy was it a hit with Gunnar :)

We finally checked into the condo and Gunnar passed out BIG TIME!

The next morning Tara and I took off for Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom. We literally stayed at Hollywood Studios for maybe an hour while we rode the Tower of Terror TWICE! I confirmed to myself that it was indeed my favorite ride ever (I'd never been on it before but I knew it was my favorite all this time).

I loved that first ride so much that I bought the picture Disney took of us on the ride. Tara and I are in the middle row

We then headed over to the Magic Kingdom. It was quite crowded but we were able to ride all of the rides we wanted to.

Sunday was Mother's Day and all of us visited Epcot. Baby did surprisingly well and it was nice because they had a Baby Center where we could relax inside and there were great changing tables and an area for babies to play.

We rented a stroller from Disney and the last half of the day we didn't even buckle Gunnar in because he was so fidgety - but he still did great.

On the drive down to Grandma's house Gunnar played with his toy I got for him at the Magic Kingdom - a little drum.

While having dinner with Grandma, we learned that Gunnar likes pickles! Who would have guessed?!?

Grandma played bubbles with him outside and he just loved it!

Grandma says she has breakfast every morning with Gunnar's picture - during our stay she got to actually eat with him in person!

She also played with him and read books

We also took a few walks around the neighborhood

Patty came to visit us too!

On the final day with Grandma, Ramin drove up as well to have dinner with all of us.

Back in Orlando we took an evening and went to the Pirate's Cove min-golf course. Gunnar had fun walking around making mischief

On our final night in Florida we took one last trip to Downtown Disney

I still have lots more pictures of the trip on our bigger camera. It has pictures of Gunnar's first time at the beach as well as some good shots of us with Grandma.

January Picture Update

It's a new year and Gunnar turned 10 months old this month! Time has flown by so quickly when you have time to look back on it :) Here are some of the fun pictures we took this past month!

Around New Years both baby and Ramin woke up with the same hair - bent up in the same spot :P

Gunnar definitely learned how to get into drawers and cabinets and pull out all sorts of fun things!

Aunt Tara and Uncle Chris came over around New Years to give Gunnar their Christmas presents - they had fun watching him open them :)

Just a random picture in the kitchen!

Gunnar finally seemed to notice that we have a fish tank and that there are fish swimming around :P Sometimes I catch him just staring up looking at the tank.

On January 2nd Ramin and I finally had the chance to go and see the Atlanta Hawks play the Utah Jazz here in SLC. We missed the game last year because it was the day my water broke and I went into labor. So this year we were determined to see the game and my wonderful friend Angie was our babysitter for night. We had a great time! And the Hawks beat the Jazz (coincidentally, they are also the best team in the NBA right now too).

We have all kinds of furniture for Gunnar to crawl under - and get stuck!

January 8th we headed back to the Dr. for the flu booster shot. We ended up in our favorite room in the place!

One night, baby was so tired, he fell asleep eating his dinner.

Gunnar just thinks it's hilarious when I line up his toys on the bathtub - I have no idea why :P