Introducing Emelia Grace Lund!!

Yesterday, I got the privilege to meet a very cute little lady: Emelia Grace Lund.  She is the brand new daughter of my neighbors and good friends, Chris and Kaarin.  She was born on January 1st at 3:34pm, which makes her the second baby born at the hospital on post in 2012 (but the first girl, so she still gets some prestige).  She weight 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 18 1/2 inches long.  She is perfectly healthy and stealing her daddy's heart already!  Congratulations you guys!!

For my Fort Riley friends, Emelia will be famous... the above two pictures are going to be in the Fort Riley newspaper.  The lower two pictures were Kaarin's favorites that I took yesterday.

Florida Vacation 2011

This past March, my mom reserved a house on Cape San Blas for our whole family's Christmas vacation this year.  In March, we thought that we could possibly be in Georgia by Christmas, but things didn't work out exactly how we had planned.  This meant that we would have a long drive by ourselves to Florida.  When we thought that Caleb wouldn't be joining us right at first, we made the decision to ride along with my parents to Florida.  Nothing brings back memories of family vacations more than riding in a car with my parents.  Clara did an AWESOME job in the car for 14 hours.  On the way down, we had to stay overnight (the La Quinta we stopped at was kind of shady).  And, on the way home, we drove straight through!

Leaving my mom and dad's house.

The Florida rental house

 
Finally we got there.  Cape San Blas is a penninsula right across the bay from Port Saint Joe.  The house was two levels but had three flights of stairs because it was on stilts.  We arrived first, so Caleb and I got first pick of bedrooms.  We chose the room with the TV and bathtub (the other rooms had stall showers).  Clara's bedroom was the closet of our room... it needed to be dark.

We were on Cape San Blas.  You will see Port St. Joe across the bay.

Our room

Living room

Kitchen

While we were there, we went to the state park (which was a mile down the road from our house).  We went to the beach there, but it was really windy that day.  We also drove to the end of the park which took us past where we camped one Christmas.  We had a beach view from our house, and public beach access was only three blocks away.  We went to the beach nearest our house many times.  My mom and dad saw dolphins twice, but I was at home trying to get Clara to nap when they did.  We also walked a trail to the bay on the state park.  Caleb sometimes didn't come with us since he hurt his knee at Selection and walking hurt him.

Rachel, Caleb, and James (Rachel's boyfriend)

One of three jellyfish we saw washed up on shore.

It was windy...

with rough seas this day.

Trying to get Clara to take a nap on the go.

Obviously not working.

On the walk to the bay

The bay

Palms... we aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto!

Caleb and I went on a date one night.  We went to Sunset Coastal Grill in Port Saint Joe.  It was FANTASTIC food.  I had the tilefish with blue crab meat on top, wild rice, and sugar snap peas.  I really wish I had it right now!  Mmmmm!!  My mom and dad watched Clara that night.  Apparently, my mom had to fight my dad to wake Clara up at 7pm.  Had my mom not done that, she probably would have kept napping and been awake at night.  So, thanks Mom!

Clara was able to touch and play in the sand for the first time, and she was in the Gulf of Mexico for the time, too.  The water was a little cold, so I don't think she appreciated that too terribly much.  She did, however, LOVE sand!  She wanted to crawl in it and eat it.  She also tried to eat a few shells.  She was SO cute to watch!

Clara's first Christmas Eve and Christmas will be in another post.

We left Florida (and wonderful 60 degree weather) on the day after Christmas.  It was a very fun trip.  Thanks Mom and Dad for renting the house!