Happy Easter!

Our neighbors Mark and Joyce invited Ava and I over for dinner to celebrate Easter, as Emily was working the holiday. Ava enjoyed the afternoon, especially the Easter egg hunt with their grandson Leif. Here are a few pics from this afternoon. . . Thanks again Mark & Joyce!

Nest Cam

This is a live cam on a bald eagle nesting in Decorah, IA . . . and the baby eagles are due any day. Pretty cool!

Ava's New Do

Yesterday afternoon, before our friends Sarah and Anthony stopped by from Chicago for part of the weekend, we took Ava to have her hair cut for the first time . . . and much to our surprise, she did remarkably well. Only a few tears were shed in the beginning "prep-work", but once the cutting began, Ava just fell into her typical flirty self, waving to nearby patrons and hairstylists, as well as saying "Hi" in her most optimistic tone. Will going to the hairstylist be a regular event for Ava? . . . we think not, but we figured 'hey, why not give her a cool do for her first cut'. Ava celebrated by coming home and eating some mid-afternoon snacks, and then taking a great nap before Sarah and Anthony arrived.

"All Done"

While our post-status to the blog has been at best lackluster, plenty has been happening in the life of Ava. Each day seems to make us smile at new developments and little quirks of her personality that are starting to emerge. However, in the midst of all this change, Ava still holds to some stalwart traits such as giving slobbery open-mouth kisses, and muttering "all done", with the conclusion of anything she's tired of doing. Tomorrow we'll be taking Ava for her first hair-cut, and Chris will have camera in-hand. We thought we'd post some recent photos of her as her hair has continued to lighten and lengthen.

1/1000th

I was driving home the other night from work and heard a story on NPR regarding a technique in which people on YouTube were playing popular songs, but stretched to between 1/800th or 1/1000th its normal speed. One of the excerpts was from the Jurassic Park soundtrack, which is great music to fall asleep to when played at this speed. Take a listen.

White Christmas (Eve) Stroll

Well, this morning we were hoping to depart for Chicago to spend Christmas with Chris' family and friends. Nature however, had other plans in store. In the past 24 hours we've had approximately 8 inches of snow, which made traversing the Iowa and Illinois landscape pretty near impossible in our Corolla, especially with Ava. So today we were stuck at home, waiting for the snow to clear, drinking plenty of coffee and hot cocoa mixtures (we had no food in the fridge). While we would have rather been in Chicago to share in the holiday festivities with everyone else, it wasn't all bad being stuck at home for our first major snowfall. The snow was beautiful, and made for some nice photos, as Chris decided to head down to the river for a hike.

We're looking forward to next winter when Ava will be able to play in the snow a little more, right now we're trying to get her to take more than one or two steps on her own without plopping back to the floor, or looking backwards for our guidance. Merry Christmas to everyone who happens to check this blog (all 5 of you), here's to hoping that your travel itineraries worked out better than ours.

"Green" X-Mas Tree

Wrapped with Grandpa

"Christmas Lights"

Of course we're Coldplay fans, duh. . . but this song is definitely one of the better releases in recent memory in the Christmas genre. Not a bad video either.

Ava's hair continues to lighten

Hard to believe at one point that Ava's hair was as dark as Chris' . . . not the case any longer!

Just Shy of 11 Months

Ava Does Thanksgiving

What should I make for Thanksgiving? . . . salad with chocolate syrup . . . that's about all I can reach!

That turkey dinner sure was good, but they never served my special salad!

Sultry Ava

Drool Me A River