Jonah's Account of His Birth

So Josh and I were explaining to Jonah that I carried him in my belly for nine months, and this was his response:

"I was in your belly and the food dribbled down and I climbed up one of the pipes to get outside. And it was slippery."

McCain the Uniter!

My cats don't usually get along. Most of the time they coexist by keeping their space and staying in different parts of the house. About the only time I'd see them peacably share the same bit of space is when I bring out the wet cat food, put it in two separate bowls, and place the bowls about two feet apart on the kitchen floor; that's when they both come running and will dain to eat side by side. Other than that, if they do happen to be in the same area, the younger cat Callie is usually jumping on Patches, which makes her hiss at the young whippersnapper, which only prompts Callie to continue down her road of tormenting the old gal. However, both cats are very loving when they're around me; in fact, it's sometimes hard to get do whatever I might be doing when I've got a furry body being persistently thrust at me for petting!

Anyway, I thought it completely hysterical when both cats curled up on the loveseat last night during McCain's acceptance speech. I had already decided that McCain is the candidate I'm voting for in November, but this was a sure sign! If he can bring my cats together, surely he can bring our nation together! :)

Fun in Hilton Head

We spent a fun week in Hilton Head prior to Labor Day. Other than a single morning of rain (it was our first morning there) and a couple of night-time showers, we had perfect beach weather: hot and sunny. I've come to discover, however, that I am the sort of person who enjoys the beach for a few days, and then I hit a wall where the application of goopy sunscreen and the accumulation of sand over the entire body starts to become something of a nuisance. But it was fun, and we all got pretty nice tans!

We were staying with a fairly large group (Josh's dad, "step mom" Heather, Josh's little half-brother Nicholas, Josh's full brother Ben and his girlfriend, and Heather's parents). Yeah, the relationships got a little confusing the Jonah and Nicholas (Nicky's grandparents are Jonah's step-great-grandparents, his Daddy is Jonah's Granddad, etc.), but we managed to keep it all straight somehow. Also, given how large the group was, we managed to coexist extremely amicably for the entire week! You never know what to expect when you're vacationing with the in-laws (and I had never done so before this trip other than just a weekend trip to Iowa with Josh's mom and brother for a cousin's wedding) (and I'm sure they feel the same about me!), but this was a fantastic trip! :)

Jonah did a fantastic job on all of our flights to and from Hilton Head. He even managed to nap on a couple of the legs, and the rest of the time he was just having fun flying through the sky!

The house where we stayed was incredible! It was HUGE (it sort of had to be since there were ten of us staying there!), with five bedrooms, an enormous great room, and phenomenal kitchen (note: it was my dream kitchen), a pool, and a hot tub. It also had this great screened-in porch where we usually gathered in the mornings for breakfast and coffee, and from which Heather and her mom actually saw an alligator in the lagoon that borders two sides of the property! Above and Nicky and Jonah playing on the porch with a couple of flashlights.

On one of the afternoons after we'd all left the beach, we came back to the house for some pool time. Jonah decided he just wanted to lounge in a pool chair with a towel over him. Here's a shot of him with his Granddad.

Isn't he cute?! What was truly funny was that sometimes after Jonah was all done with the pool, he would simply take his swim trunks off right there poolside, then proceed to walk his little nudey butt up the steps to the house to get cleaned up! I took a cute picture of this and would post it if I weren't scared of child pornographers getting a hold of it. *Sigh*

Nicky is a great little swimmer. I wish Jonah was as brave as his little uncle when it came to swimming on his own in the pool! Maybe next year....

My one and only beach boy!

It was actually kind of hard to get a picture of the two boys together. They seemed to be on such different schedules during the entire trip, taking naps at different times, sometimes eating meals at different times, etc. However, I did manage to get this picture of them having dinner together on our last night of the trip. They are so cute together!