Amendment

Well I have to amend that last post. Ian got the crazy vomit virus too. He's over it now though. It was a rough day...

11 months

Mary is 11 months old now. I will probably say this a million times this month but I just can't believe that I've had a kid for almost a year. She's so old! I know time will fly with her. She's awesome at crawling now. Sometimes she goes into 'hyper-mode' as we like to call it. We'll run around her then out of the room and she'll start crawling really fast to catch us, it's SO funny. And in the mornings I put her by her toys in the living room to play while I get her bottle, then once I walk in the room with it she like chases me over to the couch to eat. It's so cute.
She also likes to walk when you're holding her hand, but I think it's still going to be a while before she gets there on her own. She's pretty wobbly, and she's so good at crawling, what's the use in walking??
Our family has been doing pretty well lately. Except for Sunday night. I got this stomach bug and was up from 7:30 to 1:30 in the morning puking my guts out. At one point I literally thought my stomach was going to come flying out of my mouth. Then yesterday was not the greatest either, but I was just feeling weak...not throwing up. I think Ian and Mary are in the clear because neither have shown signs that they caught it, but we'll see. The good thing about it being summer is that Ian hung out with Mary all day yesterday! I got to lay around and sleep:)

Mary's face in the family picture is so funny. haha

The hills of hocking pt 3

Having Kristen come with us was one of the best ideas. Our last day there Ian and I got to go to Ash Cave and Conkle's Hollow together without Mary. It was nice to just have the two of us and to be reminded that we're the foundation of the family. We also went out to dinner that night. Here are some pictures of our day together:

The hills of hocking pt. 2 and the half blood prince

There's a reason it's almost 2am and I'm still awake: I JUST SAW HARRY POTTER! It was awesome so I'm still pumped about it.

Anyway, the first full day we spent in hocking hills we went to see old man's cave. Apparently an old man lived in this cave for a long time a long time ago so that's how it got it's name. It was a cool hike because there were some tunnels and the cave is pretty sweet. Here are some pictures from the hike:

The hills of hocking pt. 1

This will have to be done in multiple posts because I have a lot of pictures from our trip to Hocking Hills this week! We stayed at a nice little cabin right inside the park! Cost a little more, but it was way worth it when you have a kid who takes two naps a day. One of our friends (Kristen) came with us to help with Mary and watch her sometimes so Ian and I could go see the sights without Mare bear. This place had no cell phone service...it made me wonder what people who live there do all day:) But it was good to be away from everything, without a way to even contact people! One day Kristen and I went to the office (of the people who own the cabins) and played on the computers for a while because we hadn't been online in like 48 hours, crazy I know. Anyway, shamefully we ended up reading about Harry Potter on IMDB for like an hour. They have so much info on there!

The first few pictures are at the cabin. We suspect Mary is getting her next tooth so she was a bit crabby most of the time. Here she is standing on the porch:

And here she is when she fell on her bottom:

Sad face:

Daddy comforting her after her spill:

Kristen trying to get service and read her messages, and Mary and Ian having a blast:

New York

Last week (older) Mary and I decided we wanted to go visit Amber after talking with her on the phone. For those of you who don't know, Amber and Mary are two of my closest friends. Amber is in New York for the summer working at Camp of the Woods. Anyway, I made some arrangements and Friday morning Mary and I set out to find Amber! We got there about 11 hours later and searched for Amber for a while. We couldn't find her and our attempts at texting her pictures were failing. We thought that if we took pictures around the camp and sent them to her she would come find us. Well it turns out she was working when we got there, but as soon as her shift ended she looked at the texts we had sent of images from around the camp. She said that the staff was getting ready to pray together at the end of the shift but she said, "I gotta go!!!" and just bolted. She came running into the lobby of her building (where we had plopped down and started reading our books because we got tired of looking!). It was so awesome...couldn't have planned a better surprise!
I love that picture of me and Amber (taken on my cell phone because I ALWAYS forget my camera) because we look so happy. And that's what I was all weekend! It was SO good to see Amber, and the rides there and back were good too because Mary and I got to talk the whole time. Amber I will miss you every day until I see you again!!!! I'm sure the same goes for Mary too :)