If you couldn’t figure out the squirrel picture, look again, there is an actual squirrel sitting on the wall.

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daniel. kate. addison.

Apparently as a baby addison was SUPER HAPPY!  And then as she got older she developed some… attitude.   <3 her.

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daniel. kate. addison.

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daniel.

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daniel. kate.

Since this will undoubtedly be one of many trips across the sea, I figured I would start a travel section to my blog.  Unfortunately I didn’t even think about this until on my way home, so the quality of the content isn’t really up to my own standards… sorry… my bad… I was on vacation… GET OFF MY BACK!  First let me thank dave for taking many of the pictures you will see below, and also kate and sarah for taking some shots with my big clunky cannon.  I would also like to thank the random strangers for taking pictures of the four of us throughout our trip, some of you even made it onto the blog!

Anyways… so we went to Ireland, and it was amazing.  I learned some things while I was there.

Driving in Ireland is crazy, almost all of the roads are about half the width of our roads.  By itself that is a lot to deal with, but add driving on the opposite side of the road, shifting with your left hand, and insane country road speeds and things can get hairy very fast.  Everyone in the car is in a constant state of fear for their lives.  By the end of the trip it didn’t seem nearly as bad.  One thing to note, if you are renting a sweet car like a BMW or similar, you have to be 30.  So yeah, that sucked.  But our diesel Nissan treated us well.

Temple Bar, while fun and full of people, is basically Ireland’s version of a tourist trap, there is no one there that is from Ireland except for the workers.  Go there once, and never return.

Galway, is awesome.  Great town to stay in, and the farmland to the west of it is some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen.  Go here and explore for a while.

Pubs are everywhere.  The key is finding the pubs that are not designed specifically to cater to tourists.  If there is no good food/no food, lots of old men, chances are you are in the right spot.

Old Head - http://goo.gl/maps/ZEpnW - I went to Ireland searching for something, I didn’t know what it was until we went here.  There is a path that goes to the right and the left of the street and each end is a breathtakingly spectacular view.  It is like standing at the edge of the world before it was discovered.  The wind whipping into your face and slightly tugging on you, as if it wanted pull you over the ledge down 300 feet into the stony ocean below.  Go to this spot, and live.  Just make sure you don’t die, I would feel bad.

Ok, so I decided to only post pictures with 1 or more of our group in them, I will put more on Facebook later.  Ladies and gentlemice I give you kate, sarah, dave, and myself…  in IREALND!

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daniel. kate.

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daniel. kate.

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daniel. kate.

jesse, you would make a good photographer.  I mean look at that picture!  stunning.

wedding next!

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daniel.

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daniel. kate.

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daniel. kate.

Epic rehearsal dinners are epic.

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daniel. kate.

So it didn’t take long for me to forget what it was like when she couldn’t crawl.  She is a pro now, and I am loving every second of it.  The first few weeks where she was all wobbly and would fall over were hilarious and adorable.   She still tips herself over sometimes when she gets over excited.  She is pulling herself up onto EVERYTHING, and almost constantly hurting herself as she gets used to toddler life.  Nothing serious yet, just the standard bumps and scrapes as she falls over or slips or pulls down something on top of herself.

I can’t believe how smart this kid is… what have we created?  She now signs for “milk” when she wants some, and she signs for “more” when she wants some more of whatever it is she is eating.  She claps when anyone says yay.  She went from eating nothing to being a ravenous beast who cannot be satisfied and will eat anything… including “man flesh!”  <– little LoTR reference there.  She motions her pointer finger when someone says “come here” and will come to me when I say come here.  She will give you something if you ask for it, just now she crawled across the bedroom with a Milani furball in her hand and placed it into my hand.  If she is already chewing on said object she will spit it into your hand if you ask… ha!  She says “all done”  when she is done breastfeeding.  And probably the coolest of all new things, she CLEARLY says “hello” and uses it appropriately.  If she is not being shy, she will wave to people/cars that she sees and say “hello”.  If she finds a phone she will pick it up and start saying hello.  If she has done something I do not approve of she will look up at me innocently… wave…. and say “hello”.  She is a devious one, this one.

Anyways, the big 1 year is coming up.  And let me just say the stuff I am hoping to put out there into the world wide webs is going to be awesome!

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daniel. kate. addison.

First, a little bit of back story before we jump into this.  There were two ceremonies on this epic day, the first was a small private ceremony at Robin’s parents house in MA.  Greg and Robin wanted to get married in Massachusetts to show their support of the gay and lesbian community, because MA allows gay marriage.

Oh yeah, Greg and Erik(greg’s best man) are pro tri-athletes… that is important for later.

Alright… lets do this.

I just have to say that these people have something that is rare.  The love that pours from these friends and family… is inexplicable.  I didn’t feel like a photographer on this day.  I felt like one of the family…  a member of the wedding party… a guest.  All I can say is thank you to everyone involved for being so awesome.  This was special.

This is going to be one hell of a year.

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daniel. kate.

Addison flies like a pro.  She makes business class look badly behaved.

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daniel. kate. addison.

Flew to Chicago and back.  Shared the house with two other kids.  Started crawling.  Start sign language.  Went swimming.  Got a big kid car seat.  Crawling everywhere!  Down to one nap a day.  Exploring and learning on the regular.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record… FAST!  It is going by so fast… make it stop.  Someone make it stop.  Does anyone know how?  My brain is in a constant state of war.  One side cannot wait to meet the older versions of Addison, while the other side is desperately clinging to her past versions.  It is enough to drive a person to the brink of insanity and back on a daily basis.

As Kate and the little one nap behind me, I consider the fact that Addison might be our only child.  I mean we haven’t made any kind of decision, or even close to one, but it is definitely one of the options on the table.  If so I hope that I am enjoying every second to its fullest.  I hope when she is grown she will look back on her childhood with a rare kind of fondness.  I love you so much Addison.  Keep being awesome, and I will try to do the same!

vote for us… be cool… love your kids/family/friends… that is all.

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daniel. kate. addison.

vote for us… be cool… love your kids/family/friends… that is all.

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daniel. kate. addison.

So there is a ton of things I want to say about how awesome everything has been going, but we are behind on packing for our family trip to Chicago!  This will be addison’s second time in chicago… first time post birthday… 3rd time flying… second time post birthday.  I know, confusing right?  Anyways we need to hurry up and finish packing the plane leaves at 6am!  We love all of you and will see you when we get back home!

Here are her 9 month measurements:

20lb 12oz. 82%
45.5 cm.    87%
28.5 in.       81%

Oh yeah, and I am going to try to post the 5 year anniversary blog while poolside in Chicago.  You ready Dave and Sarah Arel!?  The 5pr46u3s are coming to town!

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daniel. kate. addison.

Visit allaboutheidi.com.au for some sweet kicks.  Thanks Manuka and Jette, all three of us love them!!!

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daniel. kate. addison.

Her first extra-womb mountain experience, shot and edited with #VSCOCAM <3

Now you might be asking yourself where are the pictures from the trip down?  Lets just say, Addison was over mountain climbing not very long after we started our decent.  :)

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daniel. kate. addison.

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daniel. kate.

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Seriously, it is scary how much I am in love with this human being.  This Sith Lord (if you missed it I have decided this is no babyjedi, we certainly have a babysith on our hands).  But anyways, almost every day at some point I see her, I really see her and it hits me… “damn… she is my child… she is part of me.”  It is sobering, incredible, wonderful.

Let me spell out one of these very moments for you.  Picture me, no really, close your eyes and picture me… ok that isn’t going to work, open your eyes or you wont be able to read this!  Picture me, a short hairy boy man child, standing in Addison’s room.  It is night.  Turn off the lights.  I am standing there in the middle of this dark room, like many times before, holding my daughter.  I sway back and forth subtly, sometimes humming… sometimes silent.  The end goal is a sleeping baby.  My arms start to ache.  She is resisting the inevitable.  A slight pang of annoyance begins to seep into the back of my mind.  ”go to sleep baby… i need to get back to *insert meaningless thing here*.”

And that is when it hits me like an asteroid the size of Texas.  What the hell am I thinking!?  I then hold her a little tighter and pray that this moment lasts way longer.  Even though she is starting to act out some small forms of independence, she is still so dependent on Kate and I.  It is the best feeling in the world.  And what scares the crap out of me is that it is not a forever thing.  And in fact, every moment it is minutely less than the last.  So I hold on tight.  I enjoy my aching arms.  I beg the cosmos for more time.

If only I could control space and time I would stay in these moments for an eternity.  Suns would die, collapsing in on themselves while I swayed back and forth in an infinitely blissful state.

She is 8 months old now and I find myself wishing for a time machine so that I could travel back and live it all over again.  Steal back some of the time that I spent ignoring her… time that I took for granted.

And now for more pictures.

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daniel. kate. addison.

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daniel. kate. addison.

I think I am going to like this VSCO CAM thing.  It is much easier to blog about the family using  just the iPhone!

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daniel. kate. addison.

Needless to say, it went well :) Thank you to all that helped make this possible.  Including a huge shout out to VSCO CAM, our new favorite iPhone Camera App!  If you use it, you will look and feel like the boss you are.   All of these photos were shot/edited using VSCO CAM on kate’s iPhone.

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