House Hunting in MN

We have officially started to look for houses in MN even though we won't be moving until the end of the summer. We wanted to get a jump on things to see if we might be able to snag something at a ridiculously low price.

We made one of these house hunting expeditions a couple weekends ago. On our way there, we hit snow (we were driving) about 3 hours outside of Minneapolis.



I don't have too many shots but I did capture a funny exchange between Tim and Ryan. Tim was blowing bubbles and Ryan was fascinated.






Ryan would tell Tim to blow a new bubble by sticking out his tongue ...


But he was so confused when the bubble went away. He wanted to know where it went ...


Ryan had Tim belly laughing for about a half hour. He was literally crying ...

Baby is the Belly Button

Besides my 3 San Fran posts, I hadn't posted since February so I have a lot of old content to catch up on. If you don't want to read about it, by all means, move on to your next favorite blog.

When we ask Ryan where Mommy's baby is he always points to her belly button. Then we ask where Ryan's baby is and he points to his belly button. So we are working on the difference.

Here are a few pics from an impromptu photo shoot in the kitchen one night when Sharis was cutting up some frozen strawberries for Ryan. Sharis is about 30 weeks pregnant in the pictures.













And here is one other random pic. My sister Kerry calls this pic "Ryan Gives Girl Advice to his 2 Uncles (Tim and Kyle)" ...


As always, you can click on any of the pics to be taken to the entire set.

Sunday in San Francisco

We went to a farmer's market near Kyle's house in the morning. It was quite a bit cooler than the day before but we still had a good time.



Ryan loved chasing the birds ...


After that, we went to have lunch with Sharis' good friend Missy and then headed to Crissy Field which has great views of the Golden Gate Bridge.


















We had to cut our trip to Crissy Field short to get me to the airport so I could work the next day. Sharis stayed until Wednesday but didn't take any more pictures.

We would like to thank Kyle for all his hospitality. He hung out with us all weekend and it was so good to see him. It was even worth the 4 hour plane ride back and forth with a Little Man.

The Schnellers

Unfortunately, thanks to the time change, Ryan woke up at 3:30 in the morning on Saturday. He was all out of sorts. And this is after I went to bed at 2am (after getting up at 4am the morning before to get on our flight) because we were out on the town with Kyle, Cas and and their friend Dave. I still don't think I have recovered (sleep wise) from that weekend.

We were staying at Kyle's house and he has 3 or 4 roommates. Let me tell you, it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep a 20 month old quiet while everyone else sleeps. We felt really bad for Kyle's roommates but there wasn't much we could do. We ended up leaving the house at about 6:30 to find a Starbucks or something and headed over to the Schnellers at about 8am or so.

They were so gracious in letting us come over so early in the morning. The boys had a blast together and we hadn't seen Missy and Cas in a while so it was good to catch up.

Jackson is growing a ton just like Ryan ...


Jackson was very good about sharing his toys with Ryan and Ryan was in Heaven. He hadn't seen so many toys in his entire life ...




Ryan didn't want to eat anything while we were over there because he didn't want to stop playing. But Jackson did get a few morsels into Ryan's belly ...


Jackson likes to wear other people's shoes around the house and since we have been back from San Fran, Ryan likes to do it too ...


Ryan loved Jackson's motorized four wheeler ...


We didn't measure the boys back to back but I think Jackson is a hair taller. But Jackson can't keep up with Ryan's quicks as you can't even see Jackson in this picture of Ryan taking Jackson to the hole for the jam ...


We took the boys to Golden Gate Park which is a short walk from Missy and Cas' house.










Poor Jackson did not want to stop swinging ...


We had to get home because Cas was making ribs which turned out to be sooo good ...


Their newest addition, Mila, is just adorable and was so good - we barely heard her cry all weekend ...








Thanks for the hospitality Schnellers. We wish you lived closer so Ryan had more toys to play with.

San Francisco

As you have probably gathered, we made a trip out to San Francisco at the beginning of March. Sharis was ELATED to get back to her old stomping grounds and it was very good to see her brother, her cousin and their family, Sharis' friend Missy and our friends The Schnellers and their new baby Mila. Unfortunately there are some people we didn't see and we apologize for that.

Ryan did pretty well on the plane. We had to keep him busy at all times but Sharis had a bunch of surprises for him including wrapping up new books and toys as well as wrapping up some old ones (the kid loves to unwrap presents - he always says "ho, ho, ho" while he is doing it). We tried to watch a DVD for a while but it doesn't hold his interest very long these days. He likes to watch the fish (Nemo) and cars (Pixar's Cars) but not for hours on end. We didn't bring his car seat along because Sharis would come home from this trip by herself so we needed to jettison some things. Sharis thinks he would have fallen asleep on the plane if we had had it.

Southwest Airlines is the best airline on the planet. They always leave on time, they have the best way to board, their people are always nice, and their tickets fairly cheap. There isn't really a point to this rant except they know how to do it right.

We headed out to where Kyle works once we grabbed our luggage and the rental car. Ryan was able to snag a quick 40 minute cat nap on the way up there which was key to the whole rest of the day.

I can't imagine going to work in the kind of environment Kyle does every day. It is so gorgeous ...


This is the building/house he works in nestled in the mountains of California...


Ryan wasn't too excited to meet Yoda ...


But Uncle Kyle sure was glad to see Little Man ...


Kyle gave us a big tour of the grounds ...


This is Ryan and I playing near some horse statue as Kyle and Sharis were off on some other part of the tour ...


We saw some deer (no pictures) and Ryan wouldn't stop talking about them for the rest of the night. He calls them "De." He has a hard time finishing words.

We were going to go to Sharis' cousin's house for dinner but Ryan threw up on the way home from Kyle's work. We didn't think it was a bug but didn't want to spread it around so we stayed home and put Ryan to bed instead. He was exhausted after a long day and was all screwed up by the time change.

He was fine the next morning so we continued our escapade ...