Happy 1st Birthday Kiera!

Wow, I can't believe my baby is now a 1-year-old! Kiera, I remember the day you were born I watched you as you slept and my heart physically ached because I loved you so much. I didn't think I could love you any more than I did that day, but it turns out that I love you more and more every day. It's been an amazing year with many challenges and much growth. I love watching who you are becoming and I'm excited for this next year as you transition to being a toddler! You are starting to try and repeat me when I talk which is awesome and I am confident that your crawling and walking skills will catch up with your talking (please...my arms are getting tired)! I've loved watching the first year of your journey and look forward to the amazing plans that God has for your life.

4 hours old























3 months old


















6 months old


















9 months old
















Exactly 1 year old


















Happy birthday Kiera! I love you forever!

Washington Adventure Day 6 + 7

Yesterday, we went grocery shopping and I found a Kiera-sized cart (which said not to put children in it, but she was totally fine)























and they had a HUGE candy section, but I refrained myself and didn't buy any!



































These are some of the huge houses on the coast that we saw the other day. There were some bigger ones, but I couldn't get any proper pictures of them due to bushes, trees, and fences.




















































Then we drove to White Rock, B.C., which is about half an hour away. This is the pier that we walked all the way down to the end


















This is the white rock that was there before the city was built (hence the name)


















White Rock


















A really cool-looking Italian restaurant


















Many houses are on hills, so they make their front yards into beautiful gardens


















Today, we went to Vancouver and met up with my cousin, Kristie, and our 3rd cousin, Carmela, who both live there. I went to high school with both of them and haven't hung out with Carmela since we graduated, so it was a really cool little reunion!























We went to La Casa Gelato where they have 218 flavors of gelati and after trying at least 10 of them and walking around and looking at them all for 20 minutes, I finally decided on strawberry fudge. Amazing! Then, we went to Granville Island where they have lots of shops and a big market. We looked around, ate supper there and walked around outside for a bit.
Lots of boats


















Downtown Vancouver
















Tomorrow we go back home. If I had more family and friends here and a ton of money to buy a house, I think I would move to the west coast in a heartbeat. I just don't want to raise a family in a big city and I don't think this is where we're called to be, at least for now and maybe never. Hopefully we'll have many more opportunities to come visit! Tonight, Art and Jenene threw Kiera a little surprise birthday party (it was a surprise for both me and Kiera) along with my mom and Art's sister, Mary! I will post pictures at a later date. Art bought a chocolate ice cream cake, so Kiera enjoyed the whipping cream and a tiny bit of chocolate. They bought her Corduroy teddy bear along with the book, which I LOVE! I will be doing her birthday post tomorrow on her actual birthday. Right now, I'm going to sleep!

Washington Adventure Day 5

Yesterday, the 5 of us went to Seattle. I've always wanted to go there, so now I can cross that one off my list. This is Kiera getting ready to go


















We took the scenic route (on purpose) down Chuckanut Drive and these were the views

































We went to Deception Pass


















and we walked down it on a pedestrian path and this was the view


















We went to Oak Harbor where Art grew up and then took a ferry from Whidbey Island to Mukilteo


















This was the view from the ferry
















From there we drove to Seattle to Kerry Park where you can see downtown Seattle with the Space Needle and the water on the right is Puget Sound
















The Space Needle























I wasn't going to go up it because I didn't want to pay $16, but then Jenene handed me a $20 bill and said, "This is your birthday present. Use it to go up the Space Needle; the view is worth it!" Thanks Jenene, you're awesome! So, my mom, Kiera (who was free), and I went up the 600-foot Needle and it was definitely worth it! Here were the views from 4 sides:





































































This was the International Fountain close to the Space Needle and there's a rainbow on the right again


















We went to Pike Place Market which is a huge indoor market on the coast that has 3 floors























These guys throw big fish at each other randomly


















and then we went downtown to eat supper at the Cheesecake Factory


















Inside the restaurant


















Kiera was waiting for food...she hasn't been liking baby food anymore and wants everything that we eat, so we are transitioning her to that and we just give her stuff off our plates as long as it's not spicy


















Jenene and I shared an order of hot buffalo wings and we all ordered a different kind of cheesecake...I had white chocolate caramel macadamia nut and it was AMAZING and huge! This is the remainder (it covered almost the whole plate)


















None of us were fans of the copious amounts of whipped cream, so we piled it onto one plate


















I caught a picture of the Space Needle as we were leaving...what a great day we had!


















I've been so busy blogging about trip stuff that I forgot to tell you that Kiera is officially speaking her first English word. :) :) :) She is always saying, "Hi!" and "Hey!" to us and other people she sees out in public!! She mostly only says it without being prompted...it often doesn't work if you try to get her to repeat it. I'm really excited about that! I joked with Jared that she'd be walking and talking by the time we got back, so 1 out of 2 isn't bad! Art's parents are here, so I better get off the internet and start socializing. Ta ta!

Washington Adventure Day 4

Yesterday, Art decided to take the day off of work and all of us drove to Bellingham again and went to Whatcom Falls Park. Everywhere we go the area is totally covered with BEAUTIFUL trees and hills...I love it! God's creation is so amazing!


















The entrance of the park


















We hiked a mile-long trail and the leaves were HUGE as you can see compared to my foot


















The bridge that you could see Whatcom Falls from


















The falls (I love that you can see a little rainbow at the bottom left)


















Posing by the falls




































This is my favorite shot of the day


















I LOVE the color on the water


















After the park, we went to Fairhaven which is an area of Bellingham that has old buildings and some cool shops


















We came back and Art took us inside the Loomis Trail Mansion which is a building at one of Semiahmoo's golf courses


















The view of the golf course from the mansion


















This is the view of Mount Baker from close to the Semiahmoo Resort


















We drove along the coast and looked at huge mansions that were all 4000+ square feet...I've never seen anything like them back home. They have a lot of gated communities with HUMONGOUS houses here where you have to have a special card to open the gate (you have to live in there), so we couldn't go in. I find that strange...it's like "no poor people or middle class people allowed." It's 10 p.m., so I'm going to go get ready for bed. I'm having a really fun time and I'm glad we've gotten to see so many gorgeous sights already and it has been clear and sunny almost the whole time! :)