Welcome New Little Niece!

Eden Hope Renstrom was born June 20th to Dan and Danielle at 12:01 in the morning. 7 lbs, 2oz and looks beautiful! Greta and I won't be back til Sunday and we can't wait to meet her!!

Dear Dad,

HI! I miss you so much! I am having so much fun with my cousins here in Alaska. Mom thought it'd be a good idea for us to show you what we've been up to.

Now, don't get sad, but I got a boo boo on my eye. You know the story by now (about mom getting me out of the car and the door coming back in my face). Anyway, she said she's sorry and I hardly even remember it's there. If you're worried about how I look otherwise, don't worry that's how I look by the end of every night here. Everyone keeps telling me in AK you're SUPPOSED to get dirty.

One of my favorite games is a game that Levi invented. It's called "the blanket game". He dangles my favorite blanky in my face, I grab hold and then he drags me around! As you can tell, Emme loves to help me "practice" walking too. I'm getting so close!

I love my cousin Levi. He makes me laugh.


Keeks is always feeding me left and right. I love it! I am very lucky to have a Kiki who squirts whip cream in my mouth. When I went to bed this night I woke up three times in the middle of the night from all of the sugar and BOY was it worth it!

The other day we went to go visit G-Pop at work. Finn came with us too! G-Pop gave us a ride on a giant bus all around the base and I felt like such a big girl not riding in my carseat.

We saw C-130's and other planes that my great-grandpa Kale used to fly too.

When we got home Keeks filled up the wading pool for us. It was probably in the upper 50's/low 60's so G-Pop filled it up with some warmer water too. I don't mean to brag, but I was kind of a pro and was the first to dive in.

Later that night we put on our fancy dresses from the wedding for a little photo op. We were all in survival mode at the wedding so our moms thought we'd have a better opportunity to do it later.

Well, it turned out that we didn't really want to do it this night either! I think they got some good pictures though. I had ants in my pants and did not want to sit still.

Keeks says she's going to call me 4-wheel drive because I do everything fast and take big risks. Here I am going down the slide head first! Wish you were here to catch me! I miss you and love you very much Daddy!

Love,

Noodle

Berngalina Gets Married

Here's two of the fantastic pictures that Dori took of Bern and Angie's wedding. The wedding was beautiful, a lot of work and a lot of fun too. They flew off to the Bahamas tonight for their honeymoon! Check out Dori's blog for more pics.

Alaskan Anniversary

Yesterday we had a fun evening out just as we had planned. We left Greta with my parents and took off about 3:00 to enjoy our time together.

Before dinner, we stopped at a favorite little Swedish shop that we both like in downtown Anchorage.

We saw a big ferocious bear

This was on our ride to Girdwood for dinner. We stopped along the way for some pics. My cousin Sara cut my hair the day before and my mom and I had gotten some pedicures then too. I was all set for a night on the town!

Can you tell it's a bit breezy? This is a windy pass but to top it off, the high has only been in the 50's since we've been here! I'm taking advantage of the easy breathing of the non-humid air though!

For dinner we went to Double Musky, a favorite of locals for special occasions. I had never been there so I wanted to see what the hype was all about! I got deep fried prawns and Adam got shrimp and sausage jumbalaya. We topped it off with a Double Musky chocolatey dessert. We both agreed everything lived up to the hype!
It's a cajun style restaurant in a ski resort community about an hour outside of Anchorage. Girdwood is just the coolest little ski town complete with a giant hotel and little hippie cabins scattered around. I just love it.

This was our drive home. It never gets old.

You see a lot of this along the drive. I always look for mountain sheep too on the way but didn't see any this time. Jackie, show this to Jay. Maybe it'll be a convincer for you guys to come up with us next time!

Happy Birthday Greta!

One year ago today our sweet little 6 pound 8 ounce baby arrived at 5:06 am. She was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen and just gets sweeter every day. My sweet little bundle bug

Proud mom and dad

Oh, how I love this little girl! My eyes get watery just thinking how blessed we are with her. Happy Birthday Greta! We love love love you!

We're in Alaska now and are having a great time with family and all of Greta's cousins. Tomorrow we plan to celebrate with a moose cake and the works. I'll post some pics as soon as I don't have one of the four babies banging on the keyboard everytime I get on the laptop.

Four!

Happy Wedding Day- June 5th, 2004


Summer in AK- Our humble abode out in the driveway, June 2005

1 year Anniversary- cabin camping spot, Seward, AK, June 2005

2nd year of marriage- Maui, April, 2006

What we were waiting for this time last year- Greta gal, May 2007

And this year marks four years for us! We plan to celebrate with a night out in AK. Fancy dinner, LBR (long boring ride) down the Seward highway, Rascal Flatts pumping up the volume, you get the idea. We're crazy.

Play Group Pool Party

This afternoon, we had our first pool party! When we bought our condo almost two years ago, which is right next to the pool, it was my hope one day to do this. Today, it was so fun to see it in action!We have a mom's play group that gets together monthly from our church and this month we had 11 adults and 13 kids!



These are the "big kids" of the group. Emma- 3.5, Owen-2, Elijah-2.


Greta had the best time taking in the sight of so many friends! She was just so content watching everyone and babbling her secret language to them.

These are the littlest of the bunch most of which will celebrate their first birthday in the fall/winter time.

Hudson and Allison

Greta and Hudson. All the babies were a bit hesitant with the water temp, but it felt so good once you were in!

Some of them took a little longer to warm up. Rubear just wanted to get rid of her float and show her mommy how big girls swim.

Greta floated around the pool like she was the queen of her usual territory.


Nicole and Alanna collected floating leaves in the bucket

Erica brought her sister Jessica who was a huge help and Vivian sported her new ladybug float.

Brook C., Sonja and Abel warming up in the sun before jumping in.This is the newest member of the mom&baby club! It was the first time I was able to meet baby Jackson and he was a little studmuffin. It was great to see the two of them.

Emma thoughtfully watered the thirsty cement.

For lunch everyone brings an item and we had a feast! Pigs in a blanket, taquitos, spinach and artichoke dip, apples and dip, pretzles and hummus, watermelon, cookies, chips, etc.

And we topped it off with ice cream cake! Greta celebrates her one year birthday next week when we're in AK and today was just the perfect excuse to have a mini-celebration with all of her Raleigh buds!

She loved her some ice cream cake! (to be said with a southern accent) And played with her chocolatey spoon and cup for the next 15 minutes...




Vivi kept it cool with her little sunhat

Ben, Alanna and Greta

G was pooped out by the end of the day, but we still had a great time!! Thanks for coming everyone!

More Pool Fun!

The other day we took Greta to a local community pool to switch it up a little bit with some fun water play areas we thought she would like. They have a giant wading pool but it was still too deep for her to crawl in. So we sat on the side for a little bit

And watched the other kids play in it

Then we went over to the splashyard which you can tell she loved. :)

She started to warm up to it a little...

playing with mommy

and warming up with daddy.

We did take her to the adult pool to swim with her there and she loved that more than anything. I bet she'll like the kiddie area better once she starts walking.

Grandparent Lovin'

Last Thursday, Mama and Papa Ward were in Charlotte and we met them, the rest of the out of town family, and Charlotte gang in Greensboro for dinner. It makes a nice meeting point for us to do that now and then where it is an hour drive for us and 1.5 hours for them.

We took advantage of a little photo op since it seemed like forever since we had seen them!

I'm just now noticing how Ad and I match and so did D&D.

A little photo op with the best, cutest, (and only) :) great-granddaughters you could ever want.

Greta giving her Mama Ward some lovin'.

She'll get plenty more of this I'm sure at the beach vacation coming up soon.

Bennett wanting to join in on the love. She's a great hugger.