East Coast Trip

 It's been a month, but I'm finally posting pictures from our trip to the east coast in September. We visited Darren's sister Becca in Maryland and had a great time. We spent two days in the city visiting the mall and museums. Darren couldn't believe I wanted to spend an entire day at the mall in D.C. until I explained to him that the mall was not for shopping.





Britton had a blast playing with his cousins Charlotte, Jack, Leo, and Seth. He doted over Charlotte and followed Jack every where. It was pretty cute.

We also made it out to  Chesapeake Bay. Britton loved playing in the water as always.

July in San Fran

At University of Pacific Dental School, they begin working in the clinic and treating patients during the second year. In celebration of this new chapter of dental school, the university holds a White Coat Ceremony at the Palace of Fine Arts to present each dental student with their white coat. Darren's parents attended the ceremony with us as well. Darren enjoys working in the clinic and is beginning to have quite a full schedule of patients. His first major procedure he's working on is an implant retained over-denture. If you want to know more about, you can call Darren and he'll talk your ear off. It's a good thing some people are fascinated by teeth and enjoy looking in other people's mouths.

 The weekend following Darren's White Coat Ceremony, we went biking with our friends on Angel Island. Angel Island is the often referred to as the Ellis Island of the West. We enjoyed a bike ride around the perimeter of the island and stopped for lunch on the beach of  the island.

 If you haven't heard already, Britton needs eyeglasses for farsighted vision and strabismus in his right eye. Isn't he so stinkin' cute in glasses?! I'm not sure if his right eye just looks crossed in the picture because of the angle or if it's really crossing, but it has gotten much better since we began patching his left eye in November. The glasses should only be temporary to correct his vision and the strabismus, but they're a pain to keep on him. Hopefully he'll adjust soon.

 Yesterday we went to California's Great America with our friends. Britton's favorite part was the water park. It wasn't that warm but he didn't mind at all. We had to tear him away from the splash pad and wave pool. He had a blast!

They also had a section of the park with rides for kids and Britton was able to go on four of them by himself and a couple with mom and dad. I think he loved the independence more than anything.

On a related note, Britton started attending nursery at church. He doesn't really interact with the other children but he enjoys watching them, following along, and stealing snacks.

Oregon Trip - Red Woods, Crabbing, and Crater Lake

During Darren's last week of summer break, we drove up highway 1 and 101 along the California and Oregon Coast. We stopped along the way in Fort Bragg, the Red Woods National Forest, Newport, Seaside, and Astoria. Britton did surprising well in the car, but we decided to give him and us a break and left Britton in Newport for some bonding time with Grandma and Grandpa Miller before heading up to Seaside and then Vancouver, Washington for the fireworks.

 In Newport, we always like to go crabbing off the pier. We caught a couple Dungeness crabs. Delicious!





On the way back to California, we visited Crater Lake National Park with my parents. Britton loved playing in the snow and had his first snowball fight. It was a fun trip.

St. George Trip

Darren's first year of dental school ended in June, and we went to St. George for a week to visit family. We had a lot of fun with my siblings and Britton loved spending time with his cousins. The first day, we left him with my sister and her kids, and Darren and I went canyoneering in Orderville Canyon in Zion National Park with my two brothers. The canyon was beautiful and a lot of fun, but the water was freezing cold and we had to do a lot of swimming. I think August or September would be best for our next canyoneering trip in Zion.

                                              

Britton loves water and enjoyed playing down at the Virgin Rive with his cousins. He also loves playing in the sand, dirt, mud, etc.

Catching up on pictures of Britton

Britton's souvenirs from mom and dad's spring trip to Mexico. 

Britton loves to dress up in mom and dad's clothes. We still have him wear his eye patch everyday for one hour to strengthen his right eye. His right eye is getting much stronger and rarely crosses anymore, but he was recently given a prescription for eyeglasses as well to help correct his eye.

I might be biased, but I think Britton is pretty adorable. The picture below is one of my favorites.

 This next picture is Britton kicking back at the dinner table. He loves to slouch back in his high chair and put one foot up on the counter. We have to get after him about his table manners but secretly we think it's pretty cute.

 The last picture below is Britton eating barbeque baby-back pork ribs. If you don't already know, Darren makes the best ribs in the world. He's done a lot of research and experimenting to learn how to make the most perfect fall-off the bones ribs. Britton thought they were pretty good too.

First birthday

Britton turned one on March 9th and it's taken me a month to get around to uploading these photos but here are the photos from his birthday and a couple other just cute photos.

Britton likes to wear my nursing cover as a cape, but his super hero days are over because Britton is weaned! Mom and Britton feel liberated by his new independence :)
As you can see in this photo Britton has become quite the ham. He is still a little shy around strangers but will occassionally perform for others besides mom and dad. His new favorite thing is the shimmy which is quite entertaining. He dances sporadically throughout the day but always without fail while eating.
We gave Britton this dump truck filled with legos for his birthday. We didn't expect much of a reaction but his eyes lit up, his jaw dropped and he crawled at lightening speed to the truck when we wheeled it into the room. I wish I could get the video to upload so you could see his expression - very excited.

11 months

Britton loves climbing through the bar stools. It's always fun to watch him get stuck and then struggle to get out. This is a photo of him successfully climbing all the way through the bar stool. I can't believe he'll be a year in two weeks.

I'm not going to try to catch up on the last couple months but I'll just say that I can't believe my little baby is almost a year. Britton is now 10 1/2 months. He now has four teeth, has graduated from baby food to table food, and received his first hair cut this week. I didn't think I would cut his hair this early but as you can see from the "Before" picture below, he had grown a mullet so a haircut became necessary. Below are the "Before" and "After" pictures. Other fun milestones over the past few months include waving, clapping, playing peek-a-boo, and giving kisses.

Before

After