Tahoe!!!

We got the chance to spend a week in North Lake Tahoe just the three of us. Thanks to a friend we stayed at a condo in a beautiful gated community in King's Beach. We loved being right on the lake and having the chance to be away and just relax. Because we were surrounded by such beauty we spent most of our time enjoying the outdoors, whether it was taking walks in the neighborhood, exploring down by the water, or playing on the grass just feet away from the lake.

As always, Lincoln was the best part of the week. He never stops amazing us. He is always learning new things - in fact while in Tahoe he discovered that he has a shadow and so do we. Once he turned away from us and said, "Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!" We were confused until we realized he was talking to our shadows :-).

Lincoln also amazes us with how observant he is. While walking in the neighborhood he started growling at one house... we tried asking questions to find out why only this house and why the growling. After passing by a few times we finally clued in to the fact that there was a bear-shaped doormat which could barely be seen from the sidewalk. He is an observer for sure! He sees the smallest details and we are the slow ones trying to figure it out :-).

He also amazed us that week with his new favorite phrase, "Thank you!" He said thank you for almost everything. Much to their surprise he would thank waitors for bringing more water, or he would thank a nice lady for letting him pet her dog, and he would thank us for every small thing we did for him. When we were leaving he even thanked the lake and I (April) am almost certain he said, "Thank you God!" as we walked to our car to leave.

We are grateful for the chance to go. Life goes by so quickly and it was nice to take a few days to slow down and enjoy the life that God has given us together.

A few pics of the condo and the million dollar view!

Literally stopping to smell the flowers.

Summertime

Since we are miles apart from many of you we wanted to give you a glimpse of what we were up to this summer. We had a busy summer, but were able to spend good time together as well as with our family and friends.

Our sweet boy is 21 months-old! Can't believe time is flying by so fast.

We took advantage of our new backyard and spent lots of time outside.

Question is.... if you water it, will it grow?

Lincoln loves animals and making all sorts of animal sounds.

He has a blast at the SF Zoo and was particularly excited about the gorillas this day.

Lincoln posing as Mr. September for a charity calendar he took part in.

Catching Up

The past 3 months have been quite busy for the Browns. Much of our time was consumed with our recent move... less than a mile away. We are finally feeling settled in our new home even though there is still work to do. Lincoln is loving the extra space to roam and April is loving the washer and dryer! It's amazing how free our weekends feel without doing the marathon 10 loads of laundry.

A few other highlights of our new place are...

We have a backyard with room for Belle to roam around and plenty of room for Lincoln to play. We've been working hard to clean it up... so we'll have to post pictures when we are finished. For now we are enjoying the beautiful weather.

Lincoln loves playing in his new room. We don't have stairs anymore which means that Lincoln can wander down the hall

and play with all his toys whenever he wants. In fact he has the biggest room... which means toys are no longer overtaking our living room. Yay!

Lincoln has also been busy learning and growing. He is 18 months-old now and is full of energy and personality. He's learning new words every day, trying new things, and finally ma

king some progress toward walking.

Over the past 3 months Lincoln has started looking more like a toddler and less like a baby. We even cut his hair for the first time today. We were both sad to see his sweet little curls go, but he looks adorable with his new big boy haircut that will be great for summertime. The before and after pictures definitely show that he lost a few inches.

Needless to say we haven't had much time to blog over the last couple months... so here are a few snapshots of the fun times we've had together. Enjoy!

Get Away

The last couple of months have been pretty busy around the Brown house. In addition to taking two groups of students to two winter camps in the past two months, Jeremy has been busy with school work for an accelerated degree program he's going through. To say that April has been busy would probably be a slight understatement (ok...maybe it's a big understatement). In addition to being a full-time stay at home Mom, she has continued to do contract work for some missionaries as well as some clerical work for a small private school in our area. Sooo...because it's been a while since we got out of town to catch our breath, we decided to just go for it and stay at a bed and breakfast in Half Moon Bay for one night last week.

We had an amazing time and although you might call us crazy for taking a 15 month old to a B&B, Lincoln was great the entire time! He had a particularly great time with Dad jumping on the bed. The view of the ocean from our room was amazing. With the waves crashing on rocks less than 100 feet from our room, we couldn't help but decide that waves are a great sound to go to sleep and wake up to! Needless to say, our short getaway was much needed and much appreciated. We left Half Moon Bay on Friday morning feeling refreshed and headed up the coast 30 minutes to San Francisco where we spent some time at the zoo.

This was Lincoln's first time at the zoo, let alone the first time he had ever seen another kind of animal besides a dog or a cat. From all appearances, he had a ton of fun! Since it was a Friday and kids were still in school, we were able to get lots of close-up looks at some really cool animals. One highlight was the petting zoo where we had some funny encounters with some sheep and goats (fyi - goats always seem to want to get a little closer than you want them to). Another highlight was getting to see two lions up close. Lincoln seemed to take a particular interest in a giraffe who was sticking it's long neck (and really long tongue) over a fence with the hope of getting a nibble of a plant. Maybe Lincoln was so interested in the giraffe because he loves to stick his tongue out too:-)

All in all, it was a great couple of days to just get away as a family for the first time. We enjoyed the sights and sounds of the coast, and it was a lot of fun to watch our little boy take it all in at the zoo. It's so easy to just blast through life at top speed and miss out on making memories that last. Sometimes it's the smallest moments in life that matter the most. We are so thankful that we decided to just go for it and spend some time as "just us." Our quick get away was definitely a memory maker!

Happy

This morning we had a special moment as a family when we realized that today marked an important event in our lives. One year ago today we were finally able to bring Lincoln home from the hospital. I could say a lot and share so much about how our lives have changed since Lincoln's birth. I could tell you how much we love him and how blessed we are to have Lincoln in our lives. I could update you on the new things Lincoln is doing...but instead I just want to share a story with you.





Tonight while we were eating, Lincoln was sitting in his high chair making funny faces at us. He was trying to make us laugh. Sooo...naturally I joined Lincoln in his silly ways and began to make funny faces back at him. The result was a lot of laughing. Lincoln was giggling uncontrollably... it was hilarious! After a few minutes of laughing at and with eachother, April and I looked at eachother and realized that we might regret all of the joking around at the dinner table someday. We wouldn't want to establish some sort of pattern where Lincoln thinks it's ok to goof off at dinner time instead of eating. That's not the point though, because one thing we've learned over the last year or so since Lincoln's premature birth is that life is fragile. Life is too short to get wrapped up in all of the things we so easily get preoccupied with (such as whether or not we are going to let our son goof off at the dinner table). That's exactly the reason that we decided to laugh with him. We got to watch him smile (showing his four little teeth with pride). We had the chance to laugh really hard with him and see the joy and happiness in his eyes.


As we remembered back to the day when we were able to bring Lincoln home from the hospital... we can sum up the last year with one word - Joy. That's what Lincoln is all about and that's what our lives have been full of since Lincoln was born. He's a little boy filled with a huge amount of happiness and joy and I can't imagine life without him. We are so thankful for him that words really can't describe it.