Birthdays and stuff

Nate and Henry celebrated their 2nd birthday on October 30th! We had cupcakes with chocolate frosting as you can see from Nathan's face below.

The next day was Halloween. H&N didn't go trick-or-treating due to a "case of the ass" (this is Chmielowski slang for crabby), but they were scary wearing fake monster teeth.

And, of course, I have to give the stats from their 2 year well baby doctor visit:

36" tall (90th percentile)

27 lbs (30th percentile)

Happy birthday to Nathan:

Birthday boy Henry:

Scary Nathan:

Scary Henry:

Little Gym

The blog is live again! Since there are too many photos to try to catch up on, we'll just start with current ones. Here are some photos from our first visit to Aurora Kids (aka Little Gym). Joe and I have hopes that H&N will be able to do the iron cross by the end of winter.

Nathan on the parallel bars:

Henry, monkey style:

Henry on the balance beam:

The best part of class: bubbles!

Hiatus

Hi, there. I just want to let H&N fans know that I am taking a short hiatus from blogging while I study for an exam to be a Professional Engineer. It really is as exciting as it sounds! Not. So please check back in late October for some new pictures of H&N!

Cups, cars and cream

H&N playing in the tub outside on one of our rare warm days. Like their farmer's tans? They like to stack and drink out of small potting cups. We have since bought them a larger tub.

N&H 'drive' a car at the Dimond mall:

Nathan has 'sensory time' with shaving cream at the ELC:

Work team builder

My work group had a 'team builder' in mid-August that included panning for gold, riding the train, rafting the Placer River, eating dinner at the 7 Glaciers restaurant and staying overnight at the Alyeska hotel. It was really fun and nice to get out of the office for a day!

Here we are panning for gold:

Note my intensity caused by gold fever:

Goofing around:

Starting the rafting trip near a glacier:

Riding the rapids in massive life jackets and ponchos:

The train dropped us off and picked us up:

Sierra (my intern) and me on the train:

Potter Creek Marsh

I'm just catching up on some photos from July. Here are some from an outing to the Potter Creek Marsh boardwalk. We copied the idea from our friends with twins, Carrie & Brook. We originally were going to walk on the Potter Creek trail hike again, but it was closed due to a bear on a moose kill near the trail. My mom, Cathy, and stepdad, Dennis, were visiting us and are in a couple of the shots.

British Endurance Athlete

Allow me to introduce our friend Brandon. Did I mention that he is a British endurance athlete? Brandon and his wife Ashley are very good friends of ours, and they moved to the UK a couple years ago (Brandon also works for BP). He flew back to Alaska in July for a "vacation" that consisted of cycling 400 miles with 19,000' of elevation gain in 24 hours and 56 minutes. We are very proud of him for completing the race with a great time and qualifing for the RAAM (legendary Race Across AMerica endurance race). Here are some pictures of Brandon at our house the day after the race:

Tennis video

When Henry and Nathan are tennis pros and win gold medals in the Olympics, we'll say: "Yeah. They've been playing tennis since they were one."

Chicken video

Dogs, chickens and horses

H&N love animals! They had to make the rounds and visit the dogs and chickens at my dad's house multiple times per day. The animal sounds they have been practicing while looking at books really came in handy.

Chickens:

Sunshine:
Riley:
Horses (at Cathleen's dad's house):