Family fun!

Sharing a few photos of our weekend with the family in Iowa. (I had to steal these from my Amy's blog because I didn't take any photos!)

We spent Friday in Fort Dodge visiting Nan and Papa and left Saturday morning to join Amy, Dan, Brett, Claire, Tony, Angie, Emma, Jacob, and Olivia on a camping trip at Blackhawk Lake. The camp ground gets all decorated for Halloween and the kids get to put on their costumes and go trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, we forgot to get Aaron's costume from Nan and Papa's house, so we had to come up with a costume on the fly! He was a 'rock star' - we spiked up his hair (as much as we could), put on his distressed jeans and cool jacket, and had him carry his guitar! It wasn't the best costume ever, but it worked! The trick-or-treating didn't start until about 7, so Aaron was getting tired and was content to be pushed around in a stroller and eat some candy! He didn't want his candy to go in his bag, but right in his hand instead, so he could think about eating it right away!

We had a great time visiting with the family and it was fun to watch Aaron play with his cousins! Can't wait till we can see them all again! We won't have to wait long because Nan and Papa are coming to Chicago to visit us this upcoming weekend! Watch this space for photos. :)

NYC and BIG news......

We had a really fun trip to New York City to visit Tom over the long Labor Day weekend. Sharing some pics of our adventures visiting Tom's office, Central Park, and just hanging out at Tom's place in the East Village. We were so lucky that a friend was able to watch Aaron while we went to West Side Story on Broadway! And we didn't eat Patsy's pizza or Pink Berry at all..... well, maybe just a little!!! :)

One more bit of news from our end- Aaron is going to be a big brother in mid March of 2010! We are very excited to share the news of baby Coenen #2!


These are the views from Tom's office! Glad that he has something nice to look at during those long days!! :)

No more blue house!!!

Our big summer projects have finally come to an end! We recently had all of the doors and windows in our house replaced and had the house painted 2 shades of sage green. We're really happy with the results and thought we'd share some pictures!


New exterior lights, thanks to my Dad, and house numbers, thanks to Tim!

Kiddie Land!

We took a trip this past weekend to Kiddie Land, which is a little kids amusement park out west of the city that is going to close in early October after being open for like 80 years! It's really sad that it's closing because it's perfect for little kids. We went with Kate and Connor and had a great time!

Even though the quality of this picture is pretty terrible, I had to share it! Connor and Aaron like to hold hands while they are walking and it's so cute!

Aaron was pretty excited in the ball pit!

How do we make this thing go??

Faster, faster!

Morning music!

I realized that it's been a LONG time since I've put a video on of Aaron, so I'm going to add a short one here. This isn't the best video, but I wanted to share a look at Aaron dancing to his 'morning music'.

While Aaron stayed with Nan and Papa in Fort Dodge during our trip to Alaska, he and Nan would listen to this cd every morning. The cd is called 'Waking Up Is Hard To Do' by Neil Sadaka. Aaron loves it and dances and claps like a wild man every morning when I turn it on! This morning he was a little more subdued- then he saw me with the camera and just wanted to get ahold of it! I'm finding that it's hard to capture things with the camera these days because he immediately stops the cute things that he's doing and wants desperately to get ahold of the camera!

If you want a cute cd to listen to with your child- this one is a catchy one! Check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Hard-Neil-Sedaka/dp/B001KP2Y94/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1251389393&sr=8-1

As you can hear on the video, I have a hard time not singing along! Please ignore my singing in the background!

We should be ashamed of ourselves!

Nan and Papa came for a visit last weekend and we all headed to Milwaukee for a Brewers game on Saturday. We may have let Aaron mess around with the empty beer bottles after Tim and Papa were done drinking from them, but they did NOT have beer in them!
I felt a little like a hillbilly witnessing this, but these 'toys' let us enjoy much more of the game that we would have otherwise! You've gotta do what you've gotta do!
Tim was showing Aaron how to blow in the bottle and make noise at first, but then the fun turned to attempting to drink from the empty bottles. We'll be so proud of these pictures later in life!!!

Corny....

Just making sure that Aaron really is part Iowan! He definitely had an innate knowledge of how to get after some corn on the cob!!

Fun on the deck!

Happy Friday to everyone! Wanted to share a few photos of Aaron playing in his pool on the deck. He just finished eating his popsicle, which he enjoyed dipping in the water!

A few photos of Alaska.....

So imagine this- you go on a really awesome cruise to Alaska- like a once in a lifetime type of trip- and you forget to bring the charger for your camera battery!!!!! Yep- that's what we did! Thankfully, we went on this trip with our awesome friends, Karen and Steve, and they were not stupid enough to forget their camera charger! So we will eventually be able to get more photos from them, but for now..... here's a few from the first couple of days, before the battery died!

We had an amazing time on our trip! We did a 7 day cruise through Royal Caribbean on a ship called the Serenade of the Seas. We boarded the ship on Saturday afternoon and left Vancouver at 5 pm. We spent that night and the entire next day and night cruising to Alaska.

On Monday we tendered at Icy Straight Point where we took a smaller boat to the dock and spent the morning walking around and exploring the very small town. We watched people jump off the side of a mountain and ride down the worlds longest zip line, walked around the shops, and sat by the shore watching the fish jump out of the water and spotting whales.

The next day (Tuesday) we spent cruising through Tracy Arm Fjord seeing glaciers, icebergs, waterfalls, and whales galore!

On Wednesday, we docked at Skagway and spent the morning walking around the little town enjoying the little shops. That afternoon we went on an excursion that took us on the White Pass and Yukon Railway that was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. The trip was really amazing and we got to see some truly beautiful sights.

On Thursday, we docked in Juneau and spent the day on an excursion that took us on an amazing whale watch and to visit the Mendenhall Glacier. We saw tons of humpback whales feeding in the Alaskan waters and even got to see one breach (jump all the way out of the water)!

Friday was spent cruising and we arrived back in Vancouver on Saturday morning! The trip was absolutely amazing- we saw some of the most beautiful sights that I've ever seen. This was the first time that any of us had been on a cruise and we had a really great experience. There was a lot of fun things to do on board the ship, but the down time also encouraged us all to do some relaxing. We ate tons of amazing food (way too much) and they had really great shows onboard the ship every night.

It was an awesome vacation, with or without a camera with a fully charged battery!!!!





Check it out, Mom and Dad- it's a big Bob Bear!




We saw these icebergs while we were cruising in Tracy Arm Fjord.


Waterfall in Tracy Arm Fjord- the ship got close enough to it that you could feel the water on your face!



Glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord


How's that for a view from your window during lunch??