Fathers Day, Arranged Marriages, etc

For Father's Day we all went out to Regina and Todd's. It was a blast! 

Here is Roland and Gator eating 

Matthew, Lindsay and Nichole

Here are Regina and Todd

Lindsay and I already have arranged the marriage of Nicholas and Nichole. They seem to be on board so far.

After a visit up to Tina and Fam in Maryland, my parents came back and dropped David off at our place. We had invited him to stay with us for a while, and we had a blast. It was so good to see our families over the last few weeks.

I like to call this their first date. We were all there, but since dating is not allowed until they're 16 they needed chaperons.

Looks like I need to have a talk with my son... before her dad does!

I Got Behind Again!?!

We have been up to a lot lately, and so I'm trying to keep up with the blog, but there is so much that this is going to be a long post. This is from a couple of weeks ago.

After our trip to Utah, Nicholas and I flew back to Florida and Tyler and my little bro David went on a road trip in a rental truck to bring all our stuff out. The baby and I got to stay at Cousin Shelly's and Nicholas especially loved every minute!

He was experimenting in crawling, but the wood floors had him all confused

The kitty was happy we were there too!

Once the boys got into town we had a get together with the whole family and Tyler and the baby got in the not hot hot tub. :)

Then, it was time to head on up to Gainesville so David drove me and the baby. It was great to visit with him a bit.

Then, the unpacking began. We had to get creative to figure out how to keep the baby out of trouble in all of the mess.

Our parents came out too, to help us and Nicholas and his "Grumpa" had a lot of fun playing together. This was at Sonny's BBQ.

I will post pics again once we get everything unpacked, but here is a sneak peak at our new place.

Nicholas decided to be a drummer like his uncle David.

more to come...

Nicholas and Nicholas

When we were deciding on names for our baby, we had a list of 3 or 4 that we were thinking about and it was taking us forever to decide. The whole time though there was a name that wasn't on the list that we both kept thinking about, but neither one of us really talked about it.

Almost exactly a year after we had been married, Tyler's best friend Nicholas Ryan Harrell passed away in a snowmobiling accident up in Island Park, ID. Every time a major event happens in our lives, we think of him and wish he were there with us. He was the best man at our wedding, and the best man in our lives.
So, about a month and a half before we had our baby when Tyler mentioned that the name Nicholas kept coming back to him (even though not on the list) I was so relieved, because I had the same feelings and just wasn't sure what he would think. We had talked before about how we didn't really want to name our kid Nicholas just because he had passed away, but I had always said that I think I would have wanted to name a kid after him even if he were alive. To me, a name means something, and while I don't expect this Nicholas to be just like the other Nicholas, I do expect him to know where his name came from and what an important person he is.

So, today is Nicholas Harrell's 28th birthday, and being in Gainesville we had the chance to go out and wish him a happy birthday, and let him know how much we love and miss him.

What it means to be a Dad

The other day Tyler was doing laundry and said, "So it begins..." 

I said "So what begins?"

He said, "There are Cheerios in my pockets."

Chelley & KL Engagement Pics

Spoiler Alert! J/K but I thought I would post a few of the pictures I took for Chelley & KL's announcements. They are really cute together.

Utah Visit 2010 (part 2: cell phone pics/David's Graduation)

This was right before takeoff on Nicholas's first airplane ride ever. 

Grandma Gwilliam got a carseat so that we didn't have to bring ours out every time we come visit. As you can tell, Nicholas loves it. :) 

It does however give him funny hair when he wakes up!

His first few days of meeting new people really wore him out!

He had lots of fun in the swing that Grandma Johanson got for him! Dad had fun seeing how high he could get him to go in it too.

David's Graduation is what brought us out here, and we were so glad we were able to be there for one of his lifetime achievements. Congrats David on this major milestone. We are so proud of you, and know that this is the beginning of many great things to come for you.

After the ceremony we all went to celebrate at Olive Garden. Isn't he handsome?

 

We also got to be here for our good friend Nathan's birthday. He turned 2! Yay!

Don't go away, we have lots more on the way!