Battlefield Errf

Grandma and Grandpa Walker were in town recently. We decided to take a trip to the Manassas battlegrounds. This is what The Google has to say about the area:

"The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces), was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, VA, near the City of Manassas. It was the first major land battle of the American Civil War.

The Second Battle of Bull Run or Second Manassas, as it was called by the Confederacy, was fought August 28–30, 1862, as part of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) fought in 1861 on the same ground."

So it was, on this hallowed ground, that we decided to take some totally hot pics of ourselves tap dancing through history.

General Stonewall Jackson. Apparently he was some sort of southern hot shot tough-guy. All things considered... I could take him.

Wesley has no idea how the confederate soldiers were even able to maintain their attention to the war when there were SOOO many cool flowers and bugs to touch.

Head shot!

One of the Confederate cemeteries in the area.

Turning his cute on, with an eye on grandma's bag of M&Ms.

Wesley completely disrespecting the solemnity of this place

...(see narrative on plaque)

Say hello to Wesley's little friend.

This was a very cool trip. After we got back I discovered that the entire PBS Civil War special is available to stream on Netflix. That's been keeping me busy. There are plenty other Civil War sites to see in this area. Stay tuned.

These United States of America

We recently went downtown and looked at some touristy sites. After experiencing DC on a sunny Saturday afternoon I have observed two important things. 1) Apparently rollerblading is still a thing 2) Segways have a home in the District of Colombia. DC is THE place for Segway riders and rollerbladers of all shapes, of all sizes, and of all lifestyles no matter how alternative.

Here are a few pics from the big event:

There are two things you should know about Wesley's love/hate relationship with Abraham Lincoln. 1) He really doesn't like how historical revisionists have nearly deified a man who tried to wage war in an effort to exert federal dominance over the authority of the individual states. 2) He thinks is beard is hilarious.



Mamma knows her boy's gonna rattle some cages one day up in that capitol building.



Lindsey at the north portico, looking stylish as always. You can't see me in this pic because I'm behind the camera. But I'm screaming at Barack Obama so loud. I can't remember what I was screaming about. It was pretty cold out for being so deceptively sunny. Maybe that was it.


WWII memorial.



We'll go back downtown again probably for the cherry blossom festival. In the meantime it's still freezing cold. It even snowed yesterday. Barack Obama is certainly going to hear from me about that.

Time To Move On. Time To Get Going...

...are not only great lyrics to a Tom Petty song, but apparently our anthem for 2011. We are moving this month. Well I (Brett) am moving in about three weeks. The family will follow soon behind once I find a place to live.

It's time to get down to my real job. Not that I didn't love substitute teaching. In fact, my hipness is razor sharp thanks to the time I've been spending with brain-dead high school kids this last year. OMG high school is sooooo lame, right? So, since we're "so over" that, we're moving to the DC area.

I know that the District of Colombia and its environs can be a scary place for a daisy like me. I hate the thought of moving my family to a place where there could potentially be a threat to my guitars.

At any rate we are all very excited. It's exhilarating to think that all those fat cats in congress might be within earshot of my loud and often extremely violent tirades about The Iraq and Barry Obama's birth certificate.

So there it is! There is a good chance that the next time this blog gets updated, it will include info on how much we love our new lives as sophisticated east coast intellectuals (who own far too many denim shirts and still watch America's Funniest Home Videos regularly).

Here's a small but highly impressive photo collection of 2010's highlights.



I call this one Blues at Sunrise. I spent some of the hottest parts of the summer cutting weeds on the properties that my older brother manages. This pic is of a corn field across the street from a huge lot I was clearing (it's also where I would go to do number 1). I often showed up well before sunrise to avoid working through the hottest parts of the day. Also, Blues at Sunrise is the name of the Stevie Ray Vaughan album I was listening to when I snapped this on my camera phone.

This one is alright, but kinda disappointing in that it doesn't catch the essence of the cowboy boots I'm wearing at the time this photo was taken. I spent much of 2010 playing rock and roll music in some of the skeezier establishments throughout the Valley of the Sun.

This is Wes doing what he does best. Hittin the bottle and mad doggin any stranger, drifter, or pilgrim who gets too close. He started walking at 10 months (easily the worst day of 2010).

Wes and Lindsey at the doctor's office. He has no idea he's about to get a gnarly cocktail of vaccines in a 10 second whirlwind of 4 shots. Mom is good at keeping her baby calm.

Family Photos

This post will be mostly pictures, since I don't have much to update since my last post. But isn't it amazing that I am posting again so soon?! I think so.

A couple of weeks ago we did a "mini session" with the talented Stacie and Geoff Lang. They got some great shots in just 30 minutes. Wes had woken up just before we got there, so he didn't feel like smiling very much, but I still think he looks cute.











We even took one of just us, although Brett is usually opposed to such nonsense.

There were others that we liked, but I just wanted to include a few.

By way of a quick update, Thanksgiving was fun. We had breakfast at Brett's parent's house and then the big feast at my parent's. We ate way too much, but that is just what happens on Thanksgiving, right? Even though sometimes its hard being here because we feel like we're just in limbo, it's nice to be able to spend time with our families around this time of year. My mom and I did the big Black Friday sales on the day after Thanksgiving. We were at Target at about 3:45am waiting in line. It got me wondering how people who live where it snows ever do the Black Friday thing because I was freezing and it really wasn't that cold. We hit 2 Targets, WalMart, Kohls, and JCPenny's before calling it quits. I made sure that my mom got all my Christmas shopping done. :) I can't believe it's almost December and that my baby will be turning one! Time has flown by. I love that little boy more and more every day!

So I'm a holiday behind

I guess when you go private even less people read your blog than before. It could also have to do with the lack of posts... but at any rate, it's no longer private and since I don't really have the excuse of being "too busy" to blog, I figured I would write a quick update.

We're still waiting around for the day that we'll get a phone call saying "you're all clear. Brett can start working so you can be real people again" or something to that effect. This is a sore subject, so we try not to talk or think about it.

Wesley has always been a bit of a clotheshorse. Somehow he was given four showers, each with more cute outfits. But his Halloween costume was one of the only clothing items I bought for him. I decided to go with the warm skeleton outfit.


But Grandma Anderson liked the Tigger outfit he already had (courtesy of Julie Barnes)



So he wore one to my parent's trunk or treat and the other one to Brett's parent's trunk or treat. I thought he was cute either way. I dressed up as Pippi Longstocking and felt silly the whole night because most kids have no idea who Pippi is (those poor little fools) and Brett dressed as this:


Maybe one day I'll get to go to one of those sophisticated Halloween balls, but that day is clearly not today:


We look forward to many more years of exploiting our child's cuteness for candy. I mean look at this kid go! He's pure Halloween candy gold!


Wes is now walking which apparently means bumping his head regularly. We took him to get a flu shot a while back and I was nervous that they were going to think we were beating him or something. The kid just has no fear and is very independent, so I can't just hold him all the time to keep him from getting hurt. Even when he does get hurt, he only lets me comfort him for about a minute and then he's pushing me away to get down. With walking has also come getting in to EVERYTHING. Sometimes he even gets his own snacks.


But we love him all the same. And what's not to love?! Oh wait... OK, so I don't love changing diapers or the fact that he already throws tantrums, but with the bad stuff comes a lot of good, which makes up for all the bad.


I guess those are all the updates for now. Happy Thanksgiving!

Family vacations

While we are still waiting to hear word about Brett's job so that we can move, start making some real money, live like normal people again, etc. For the time being, we are still in Arizona. We knew that we would be here for the summer, which was initially exciting because we wanted to spend some quality time with our families before heading out to that other coast. Now that summer is nearing a close and we have yet to hear about Brett's job, we are starting to be less and less excited about life. But, that's OK. This blog is going to be about the summer fun and not how much we hate this little limbo phase.

The first big family vacation was with my family. We headed to San Diego for the 4th of July. This was our first road trip with Wes and he was actually pretty good except for the drive home when we got stuck in traffic for an extra hour. For the trip, we bought a little pool to stick Wes in at the beach and it turned out to be one of the best ideas ever.


He even got in a pretty good nap at the beach.


We went to the 4th of July parade on Coronado Island, which was fun, but definitely no Gilbert Days ; ) Wes' favorite part seemed to be the bagpipes for some reason.



All-in-all the trip was a success. The weather was a bit on the cold side for me, but Brett loved it. We were only there Friday through Monday, but it was still nice to spend some time with my family.

Here we are in Old Town San Diego


For the 24th of July, we headed up to Utah for the Walker family reunion at Bear Lake. This was my first time flying with my little baby. He did pretty good on the way there, but the way back was a little more difficult just because it was in the evening so he was more cranky and didn't want to hold still. At Bear Lake there was something like 29 adults and 11 kids all in one cabin. It was a really nice, big cabin, but it still felt crowded sometimes... especially when you want to put your baby down for a nice, quiet nap... Wes got to meet his only living great-grandparents and we had a lot of fun with Brett's extended family for a couple of days. The area around where we were staying was beautiful.

I just love these pictures of Brett and Wes. (And yes, Mandy, that's the outfit you gave him)





Here is Wes with his dad, grandpa, and his great-grandparents.


After a couple of days with all the Walkers, we drove down to Sundance to spend about a week with Brett's immediate family. The cabin we stayed in was incredible and again, surrounded by beautiful mountains and greenery.



Look at that. We even took a picture of us.


We had a lot of fun with everyone. We played some games, went on a beautiful hike, and I school everyone in some pool. Now that we've had plenty of family time and survived another summer in Arizona, I think we're pretty much ready to move on. After going through so much school, Brett (understandably)wants to be doing something other than manual labor in the blazing Arizona sun.

Also, this little guy is almost 8 months old!

He's got two bottom teeth, is crawling like crazy, already figured out how to go up the stairs (yikes) and pulls himself up on everything. Now if he could just sleep through the night, everything would be great. Next week we're starting some sleep training of sorts. I've already discovered I don't have it in me to just let him cry it out, but I know there's going to be plenty of crying anyway. Any tips?

Learning as I go

While I'm not sure how many people actually read this, I've had a couple of requests to update, so here we go. It's going to be relatively short, but all anyone probably wants is to see are the pictures of Wes anyway...

Isn't it funny how when you were little you thought that your parents had all the answers and they were invincible...? Then you become a parent and you realize that your parents probably had no idea what they were doing most of the time. They even had scary dreams and made mistakes. Now that I'm a parent, I'm learning all of this. But on the plus side, I'm also learning how much my parents loved/love me. I can't believe how much I love my little Wes. Even though he tortures me sometimes, I can't get enough of the little guy. Here are some of the latest photos...

Here he is swimming for the first time. I know you can't tell in this picture, but he loved it.


Aren't these the cutest slippers?


Cute PJ's courtesy of Connie




Here he is at 4 Months


5 Months


6 Months


At his six-month check up he was 15 pounds and 27 and a fourth inches long. He continues to be long and skinny, but he's starting to pack on some weight now that he's eating solids.


He got some photos done at 3 months, so in closing...