End of May, June, July, August, September, and October!

Hi again! We are glad to be back among the blogging after an extremely busy summer and fall. It all started around Pierce's 2nd birthday, back in May. For Pierce's birthday, we went to see Sesame Street Live, in Greensboro. He loved it! Elmo is one of his favorite characters, after Thomas and Percy the tank engines. We spent that weekend in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with some good friends at Family Fest. The next week, we went to Georgia to visit with family and let everyone know that we are expecting another baby in January!

In June, Megan's Dad graduated after 3 1/2 years of working full time and going to school full time! We had a party to celebrate. We are all very proud of him! That same weekend, we had a party to celebrate Pierce's 2nd birthday with family and friends in Georgia. It was train themed, of course, with pizza and cake. What more would a two-year-old want? We all enjoyed getting to see everyone we had been missing!

In July, we had our first family vacation. We went to California! We had talked for a while about visiting with Megan's Aunt Trish and Uncle Graeme in Ventura, and Daniel's cousins, Beth and Charis. Well, we finally did it! We stayed with Aunt Trish and Uncle Graeme and they showed us so much of California. We wouldn't have even known where to look, but they very generously showed us around the most beautiful and exciting places. Pierce really enjoyed their two BIG puppies, Valentine and Bruno. And he REALLY enjoyed Uncle Graeme, who willingly became a playground for Pierce's amusement. Click here to see footage of the Bayless 500!

We also went to the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, which were both amazingly beautiful and gigantic zoos. Daniel and Pierce enjoyed a balloon ride (sans scaredy height fright Megan) and saw the whole park from the air. Megan eventually conceded to an air tram, once her back and legs couldn't take anymore walking!

(We will post more video re-caps soon.)

When we came back from California, it was time to get busy finding a new house, since our lease was coming to a close. Megan's sisters, Maya and Malia came to help with Pierce while we were packing and house hunting. We found a house in the area we wanted, but it needed some cosmetic work, so Daniel got to work tearing the kitchen apart and putting down new tile and Megan and her sister painted every square inch of wall surface! We purchased the house the last week in August and made the move into the new house the last week in September. Pierce likes his new room, complete with a train on the wall, and his toy closet which is in constant use. We are enjoying some rest after the months of looking for a house and all of the work we did to get it ready to live in, once we found it. Daniel finally has a garage to park his car in and he is REALLY loving that. Megan is enjoying having a full master bath again and being able to decorate all she wants!

In the midst of all the house fixing and decorating, two of Pierce's friends had birthdays. Mikey, a friend in North Carolina turned one and Pierce was priviledged to share that in fun with him. In Georgia, Miles turned three and had a cool party at a pumpkin farm where Pierce got to see all his Georgia friends again. We went south to Perry after that and Pierce got to spend some time with his Tutu, Grandpa Charlie, Memaw, and Papa Green.

For Halloween, Pierce dressed up as a fireman. He had some boots that Megan told him were fireman boots. He wore them around the house all day-just them and his whitie tighties on! He was so thrilled to be a fireman that we thought the candy wouldn't be a big deal to him...we were wrong.

We went to some friends' house for dinner and we went door to door in their neighborhood. At first Pierce was timid and was just excited to get the fun of running up people's driveways and knocking on their doors. Then he realized that there was a bucket full of candy behind every door and started saying "I have more?" when the kind people gave him just one piece of candy. Once, a man gave him a snack-size bag of pretzels and he said, "No, I have CHOCOLATE?" Of course we told him that he should just say "thank you" and move on, but we have to admit that we were amused by his enthusiasm, determination, and love for chocolate as well as his ability to communicate that with no shame. One day, he'll be very socially correct and he'll just take what he's given, but for now we have the great honor to get to know exactly what is on his mind. We're thanking God for this time of openess that leads to so much understanding and humor.

Speaking of humor, Pierce has been learning to use his "big boy toilet" and has come through tremendously well. He loves his potty chair, step stools, and Lightening McQueen underwear. He especially loves washing his hands and getting stickers (for #1) and chocolate (for #2) as rewards, in addition to mom and dad being "so proud." (He likes to remind everyone that we are so proud of him).

We've uploaded several new albums of photos, that you can find at the photo page.
We hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!
With love,
The Britts