I am finally getting close to real time in my updating! This year in Albuquerque we had quite the mild winter and a really nice Spring. Despite the crazy winds that have started to pick up it has been pretty warm. As a result of the nice whether, we have spent a lot of time at the park. Every day when I ask Brodie what he wants to do, or any time we are driving somewhere he says "Park mom?" Broders LOVES the park, and we visit a park just about every day.

In March, my poor sister Steph got appedicitis. After a painful couple of days she finally went to the ER to find that her appendix had burst, and was sent into emergency surgery to have it removed. In her recovery, the doctor told her that she would not be able to lift anything over 10lbs for about two weeks. Well Steph is the Mother of 4 kids (two of which are twin babies). Poor thing! The only good thing that came of all of this was that my Mom and Dad came down to Albuquerque to come help out, and as a result we also go to spend some time with them also. Steph is such a trooper and is now fully recovered, but it was a crazy turn of events for a while there.

Here are some pictures of our park days as well as a few from when my parents were here:

This year we spent Christmas in Seattle. Brodie and I were in Seattle for about a month, and Troy was there for about two weeks. I know it was quite the long trip, but we had a really great time visiting with everyone and celebrating the holidays. My Dad was so great this year to make a calandar of fun events. We had our first anual polar bear swim. Luckily it was just the guys that did it, and my awesome neice Abby who took the spot of her dad who was sick. The swim took place Christmas Eve morning and was so fun to watch and hopefully  it was just the first of a continual anual tradition. We also had fun shopping for the holidays, bowling, going to the movies, playing games, going to the children's museum and much more. Of course as luck would have it my camera battery died Christmas eve so I need to get pictures from siblings of Christmas day.

While we were in Seattle Brodie figured out how to crawl out of his pack-and-play. It made for long nights and naptimes of lying in bed with Brodie until he fell asleep. Luckily when we got back we lowered his crib mattress to the floor and he stayed in his crib. I was not quite ready to teach 19month old how to sleep in a regular bed, so I was thankful for that.

It was a lot of fun to watch Brodie this year at Christmas. Santa got him a little tricylcle that you can push along. Christmas morning it was set out and he went straight to it and sat on it and just kept ringing the little bell. He also figured out how to open the presents and would get excited with each thing that he opened. Holidays are so with family, and we had such a great time with everyone.

Well my updating is coming along slowly but surely. I am now to Thanksgiving in April. Oh well at least I am updating right? This Thanksgiving we spent in San Diego with Troy's family. Troy and I drove down with Brodie the weekend before Thanksgiving and spent the weekend with Stacey and Jon. It is so fun that they live in California and we get to visit them there. On Monday afternoon we drove down to San Diego to meet the rest of the Browns. We had such a fun week there. The house that we rented was right on the beach and one morning we woke up and there were dolphins jumping out of the water like crazy. Troy happened to be boogie boarding at that time so he pretty much swam with the dolphins.. haha. While we were there we went to Sea World, Lego land, played in the ocean with wetsuits, ate lots of good food (Thanksgiving and more), went on a hayride to see the Christmas lights, and had a great time spending time with family. It was a really memorable trip and like always we had a great time with the Browns!

Happy April Fools! To say that I need to catch up on my blogging is an understatement. Because I am incredibly overwhelmed at how far behind I am, I am just going to start with Cancun back in September and work from there. I am not worried about how long it will take me, I just want to get these memories and pictures on my blog before I get further behind.

Troy and I got to go to Cancun for a whole week by ourselves back in September of 2010. My wonderful inlaws took Brodie for the week and Troy and I left for total relaxation. I feel dumb for saying this, but I did not realize all of the crazy things that were going on in Mexico until after we had booked our trip. After doing our research and looking on Government websites we felt it would be ok to still go to Cancun but just take some safety precuations. Unfortunately with all of the resort kidnappings that have happened since then I don't think we will be returning any time soon.

I was an emotional wreck leaving Brodie, but once we were on the plane and I had a book, magazines, and my ipod, things started looking up. Troy and I had a great time, and actually did not do a whole lot besides RELAX. Seriously, we both read two books by the pool and ocean, worked out everyday for as long as we wanted, enjoyed some nice dinners talking about anything and everything, swimming, and one day, just one day, we went on a snorkling tour which was AWESOME!

When I was looking at the brochure for snorkling and noticing some of the animals we might see, I noticed a barcuda on the pamphlet. I immediately told Troy "Oh I really hope that we do not see one of these". As luck would have it, as soon we jumped into the water, the guide pointed underneath the boat to this 4-5ft. baracuda eerily looking back at us. Luckily we did not get eaten and actually had an incredible tour. It was so nice to get away, but we were ready to get home to the Broders by the end of the week.

Here are the few pictures that I took: