The Bracken's

One thing is for sure, Natalya does not like visiting the doctor's office. She will be just fine until the doctor stands up to do the physical exam and then it's all tears from there on out. Even before he touches her or looks in her ears she's screaming. By the time the shots come around they aren't very sad for me because she has already been crying. I'm sure she can't quite figure out why I let them do that to her. She had 2 shots and also had to get her blood drawn.

At Natalya's 15 month check-up, she weighs 24 lbs 11 oz and is 31" tall. She is in the 75th percentile for both height and weight and is right on track with all other things. Most of the time she is a happy girl, however she does have quite a temper (I try to blame that on Colten but unfortunately I believe that comes from me.) If she has something that she doesn't want taken from her then that's when we see the temper, but on the other hand she does share certain things with us, like food. She is walking, running, and climbing. She LOVES being outside. We have had some beautiful days and she does not want to be in the house. The only bad thing about that is she won't stay just outside our backyard. She wanders off to the neighbors. She will jibber-jabber and say a few things and does a lot of understandable sign language. She loves animals and watching Baby Einsten. She is a very picky eater, but as you can see, not anything to worry about.

She is such a joy and we love her so much!

Last week my younger sister and cousin decided to come out to Minnesota for a visit. We love having visitors and had so much fun being together. At least we did, I don’t know about them. Minnesota is not the place you think of to go on vacation during spring break, but surprisingly it was quite warm. Colten and I found some pretty cheap flights from Las Vegas to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So on Friday we drove down to Cedar Rapids (3 hours) to pick them up. From there we headed a couple hours further south to Carthage, Illinois to tour the church site of Carthage Jail. That night we stayed in Nauvoo, Illinois in a cute little cabin. We went to the Nauvoo temple the following morning while my sister watched Talya. Then we toured the historic part of Nauvoo and finally later that night, drove 5 hours back to Rochester.

The next week was pretty low key, we went to Oxbow Zoo, YMCA and played racquetball a couple of times, toured WFMC (World Famous Mayo Clinic) and downtown Rochester, drove around the city, went to the Apache Mall, went ice skating and even got to see a hockey game. On Saturday we went to the twin cities and went to the Mall of America. In the 4 hours that we were there, we rode 2 rides and walked the entire way around 1 of the 3 floors. Statistics say that Seven Yankee Stadiums would fit inside Mall of America and if you spent 10 minutes in every store it would take you 86 hours to complete your visit! Whoa… From there we headed up to Duluth, MN. We rode an alpine coaster and a 700 foot zip line before taking the girls to the airport.

I started coaching softball that week so it was nice to have a couple built in baby-sitters. Colten struggled the following week after losing his nannies. Haha! Thanks for coming to visit, we were sad to see you go.

Last week we were able to take a nice little trip to Florida. Colten received a scholarship to a medical conference that started Thursday and ended Saturday. It paid for his way so all we had to pay for was my way. We left on a Monday afternoon which gave us a couple of days to go do somethings. We didn't do Disney World or any of the parks because our budget was limited and we felt like Talya is too young to really enjoy them. We were lucky enough to see Grandma and Grandpa Bracken for the first day and a half.

We went to Blue Springs State Park and went on a river tour. We saw 27 different species of birds (yes a lady really did count and write them down!), turtles, alligators, and manatees.








On our way back we stopped by the Orlando Temple and walked the grounds. So beautiful, expect when I was taking a picture and notice a 4 foot black racer snake at my feet. Yes I did scream and run, really fast!








We played a little miniature golf. I won, easy... No contest! :)






We drove to the beach in Clearwater, FL, on the west side of the state and enjoyed seeing the Gulf Coast for the first time. The day we went to the ocean was probably one of the coldest days (maybe 70 degrees instead of 80) and really windy. Getting in the water was not high on our list but we did enjoy sitting on the sand. Natalya didn't like the water at all. She would cling to our necks and didn't want to be put down. We finally got her to stand on the sand for a couple of minutes.








When Colten was at his conference, Talya and I spent a lot of time in the motel room. (The worst part of the whole trip)





One day, Talya and I went to the mall and walked around for several hours. We stopped and played at this play place and a group of girls from Trinidad just loved Talya and kept playing with her and wanting to hold her.


A different day, Natalya and I snuck into the resort where Colten's conference was and went swimming in their toddler pool and heated swimming pool. Talya met another new little friend that also want to hold her.





The last day in Orlando when Colt was finished with his meetings we went and walked through downtown Disney. Talya was not too happy to see Mickey and Minnie Mouse but once she was able to ride the carousel, our day became much better. She loved riding the horse. There is one picture when I tried to get her off and she stiff armed me. She did not want to leave. It was worth the 2 dollars for a minute of pure joy!