more baptism pics

a small collection of group shots from afton's special day.

in her handmade jumpsuit with her father, pre baptism.

with mere mere.

and grandma janna and grandpa mike.

and the wolf pack, of course.

we love our wafty bay!

afton noelle

thank you to everyone who came out saturday to support our sweet afton and to those who had her in your hearts! her baptism was beautiful.

west willow designs

new orleans, day two

we spent the morning of day two riding the famous new orleans streetcars and meandering around downtown. and by "meandering" i mean "hyper-actively wrangling four small, energetic children," but tomatoes, tomahtoes, amiright?

then it was on to the audubon insectarium. another really well done place to explore. we saw and touched and inspected so many creepy bugs that my sweet dreams may never recover.

bonus: we got to eat some bugs, too! or rather, dallin got to eat some bugs. summer, afton, and caleb (and their parents--womp, womp) were not super keen on the bug cookies or the other crunchy, crawly, buggy snacks that were available to try, but little dallin didn't seem to mind them at all, so he ate everyone's treats! yay protein!

next was a stop at the southern candymakers for two pounds of american pralines. the kids opted for giant chocolate-and-sprinkle-covered marshmallows instead. because they're kids. in a candy shop. and who wouldn't? again, dallin wins a prize here for being the only one to actually finish his sugar-coated sugar monstrosity. those bug cookies must have really whet his appetite.

and finally, on our drive out of town, we enjoyed a late lunch in the bywater of new orleans at the crepe place. bryan had a caprese crepe that may have very well been the best crepe i've ever tasted in my life (which is not what is pictured below, but you get the idea). so good.

new orleans, day one

on our way to spending a week at the beach in florida with bryan's family, we stopped for a quick forty-eight hour tour of nola. *such* a cool city. so much to do! and see! and EAT!

leaving seattle and getting off that plane in louisiana, we were overwhelmed by two things right away:

1) the heat. it's legit, ya'll. our kids (and their mom) were melting so much the first day that we ubered distances which have me kind of (and kind of not) ashamed. luckily, the next day it clouded over and rained a bit, and we were much obliged.

2) the friendliness. i love the pacific northwest. LOVE it. but, for better or worse, we do tend to keep to ourselves up here. not in the south. no ma'am and no sir. multiple strangers comment on how much they like your skirt, everyone tells you what beautiful children you have, people ask if you'd like them to take your picture (see below), they share trade secrets and tips and just generally shoot the breeze while you're waiting for a tram or a stoplight or whate'er it may be. 

so basically, the weather is warm and the people are, too.

here's a quick sampling of our stops on day one:

hansen's sno-bliz

this was a little off the beaten path, but well worth the excursion. amazing sno cones (a slightly different style than say, hawaiian shave ice, but super delicious in their own right) and eclectic atmosphere. we went at an off-peak time, so the line was not *too* far out the door, and we bought our sno cones complete with commemorative cups because what is life without commemorative cups?!

the audubon aquarium of the americas

not too many pics from this part of our day, but it is an incredible aquarium! lots of information and animal life to see (and touch!), and very well done. i, personally, could have stared at the alligator exhibit for hours, but we had to move along.

here we are attempting to walk along the river to 

the aquarium; can you see dallin melting?

(this is just a cute pic of afton and dallin while we were waiting for a tram.)

cafe du monde

of course! bright and early we started our day with beignets for breakfast--along with a thousand of our closest friends. worth it.

baptism preview two

editing afton's baptism photos and came across this beauty:

be still my sunshine soul.

afton will be baptized saturday, august 26th.

more details to follow.

in the mean time, "We see baptism as the starting point in our journey of discipleship. Our daily walk with Jesus Christ leads to peace and purpose in this life and profound joy and eternal salvation in the world to come." Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

i see you

jam jamboree

back in mid-july, we headed to harvold farms for our annual raspberry hunt. i forgot sunscreen (!), so we were under a time crunch to get mama's delicate ivory skin out the (beautiful pacific northwest summer!) sun before she burned.

this year's numbers came to eleven pounds of raspberries and twenty pints of jam.

should last us 'bout the week.