NYC trip

For spring break we decided to take a quick trip to NYC. It was a whirlwind trip (I think we only spent about 4.5 hours in the city), but still a blast!

The Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry.

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan from the ferry.



Corner of Wall St. and Broadway



Interesting fellow doin' a jig on the corner.



James and Ethan at Times Square



Ethan was afraid of a pigeon in Central Park. He was a little bit jumpy the whole time we were in the city.



We stayed at a KOA in PA.

Afterward, we went to visit the Bradford's in Hershey. We had a great time visiting with them. Ethan loved it there! This picture is at the park we went to for lunch. Ethan loves cantaloupe!

Facial hair and young chef..

James has his board exams on March 17th and 18th, so in order to save time every morning he has not been shaving. Actually he's never grown facial hair so it's just something to do. He's going to shave it off this coming Sunday, but I hope he grows it out again. It's growing on me. Really, I do like it. It looks good on him.




Ethan likes to help us with the dishes... well actually he likes to take the dishes out of the dishwasher and play with them on the floor. Last night he pretended to be cooking. It was fun to watch. Don't worry they went right back in the dishwasher.

We are so grateful that we have been able to go to the park twice this week! Hooray for springtime! And my daffodils are poking out. Hooray for springtime! It's just about time to begin our tomatoes. I'm so excited! I love the springtime!

Some cute pictures...

Ethan is such a ham sometimes and it is so cute!





Ethan loves smoothies... I think James does too...

This is what Ethan does while Mommy cleans...

So, for Christmas James gave me a new camera. This is him wishing he hadn't...

Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! This season is so busy and so wonderful! I love love love Christmastime! This week has been super busy. On Tuesday we had a party at our house. That took some work, but it was worth it to enjoy our friends. Wednesday we went to the Nutcracker. I loved it!! I don't think James loved it exactly, but he went with me anyway.

Tonight we had an enrichment meeting at the church. Some ladies sang a beautiful song. They sounded great! I can't remember the name of the song though. Tomorrow we're going to the see the Wildlights at the Zoo with the youth. Whew! And sometime between now and then we get to pack! Fun times in the Holt household. And on Saturday we get to fly across the country to be with family. That is was I am most excited about! (The being with family part, not necessarily the flying with Ethan:) ) Anyway, have a Merry Christmas!

Football rivalries...

So... the bad news is that BYU lost. boo hooo...


The good news is that OSU won... wahoo!! Although, I must say it was a bone chilling game... okay not so much the game, we pretty much expected them to win... but the weather! It took me a really long time to feel my feet (not just my toes, but my feet) and then I wasn't so sure I wanted to feel them. Anyway... it was pretty cool to see the band do the script ohio. And the hot chocolate I snuck in wasn't too bad either. The game itself was more interesting in the second half... too bad I was too frozen at that point to really care who won or lost... no I am not a die hard fan. If it were just up to me I would have left after the first quarter (they were going to win anyway, right?). I think the best part was warming up the car afterward... don't get me wrong, it is always more fun to be in the stadium and feel the energy and excitement of the crowd. And see the crazy lunatics who wear nothing in the freezing cold just so they can paint their bodies... anyway... it was fun! And now we're off to Thanksgiving for fun with family and super yummy food... yeah!! Oh yeah... Sunday was Ethan's first day in nursery... it was interesting... He cried for awhile after I left, but that is to be expected. I do wonder how long he would have cried though, if my friend, Julia had not stayed with her daughter and comforted Ethan. Anyway... things are great here in OHIO. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Pumpkins and Skunks

A few weeks ago we went to the slightly over-hyped Circleville Pumpkin Show. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Ethan enjoyed some roasted pumpkin seeds...

And this sucker was the largest pumpkin at the show... WOW!

and these are all the seeds from it's insides... okay maybe not. On Monday our family home evening activity was pumpkin carving. Here are the guts. For some reason we didn't take a final picture... hmm...




This week James had some help studying for boards (they're in March, YIKES!)



On Saturday night we went to our ward Trunk or Treat and chili cook-off. It was full of cute kids and yummy chili! I think the little skunk was adorable. And yes, sometimes he is very stinky!



The Critter Control man sure did his job, he caught himself the cutest little skunk in the world.

After the party we went to the OSU vs. Penn State game. On the upside we were able to go with some friends, without a kid and had yummy candy. On the down side OSU lost an uneventful game accompanied by every unintelligent way to express yourself known to mankind (courtesy of our fellow OSU fans). Needless to say there were some sleepy Holts in Sacrament Meeting this morning (not mentioning any names, but his drooling is not due to baby teeth).

Camping and other fun times...

A few weeks ago we had a wind storm(courtesy of Hurricane Ike)... our neighbors trampoline blew across our yard. We're lucky it didn't hit our house... Our power went out that night for about six hours. Some of our friends didn't have power for a few days. The power outage was quite exciting... Two of my friends and I decided to take a girl's night out and go bowling... Julia didn't want to drive, so she had me drive her SUV. Okay, so driving my little car is a little bit different than driving her big car. And she has touchy brakes. So, anywho... even though we had power there were still parts of the city that didn't. Namely, the bowling alley and surrounding area. Naturally, the traffic lights were out. I didn't notice the first one that was out and almost got us killed. Okay so not really almost killed, but it made for a little bit of excitement. Julia, Casey and I had our hearts racing, but we survived it and were able to sort of enjoy some really hot wings at Applebee's.

The day before the exciting un-bowling trip we went camping with the Hovermales. D.J. being the scoutmaster that he is took us on a nice long hike that night. It really was a nice hike, but we ended up setting up camp in the dark. We were "primitive camping" so of course we didn't have any bathrooms. When it was time for bed (about 11 or so) Casey and I decided that rather than use some unsuspecting bush we'd go use the bathrooms at the family campground. We were given directions and set off on our journey that was only supposed to be like 5 min. We found ourselves out in the pitch black "hollar" all by ourselves without cell service. Wahoo. So even though I'd like to say I'm grown up now... really I"m not. Our girly nerves and over active imaginations really did begin to get the best of us. Thankfully we ALWAYS have an atlas (okay two or three) in our car and were able to find our way out to the highway, lights, and a gas station. When we asked the attendant how to get back to the campground she looked at us like we were crazy and asked if we were really going out there at that time (it was probably around midnight)of night by ourselves. I think she thought we were a couple of crazy reckless teen-age girls looking for trouble. The scary part was this weird guy who asked us where we were going. We hi-tailed it out of there as fast as we could hoping the guy wouldn't come after us. Needless to say he didn't and we lived to enjoy a super yummy breakfast and an exciting non-bowling trip.

And after all that excitement...

General Conference this weekend was wonderful. As I listened to the speakers this weekend and last week at the Relief Society meeting I felt the Holy Ghost testify of the love that my Savior has for all of His children. I have a deepened resolve to strengthen my testimony and faith in Jesus Christ and to share it with others.

Oh p.s. Ethan is FINALLY walking.... sorry the video is sideways...oops