While they were gone...Lucy learned to ride!!

Lucy and I decided it would be cool if she learned to ride a bike with no training wheels while Jeremy and Gracie were gone. It only took a few practices and she had it down. She is so small and the bike she was riding was so small that I could literally just walk by her and hold her arm as she rode. It was awesome. Much easier than when Gracie learned!! I will say, however, that Lucy was not very patient with me. She would get so mad when I'd try to help her or explain how to pedal or anything. So it was good she learned so fast :) She FINALLY got to show Dad and Gracie:

October: Gracie and Jeremy's trip to the Philippines!! Part II

After staying with our friends for the first half of their trip, Jeremy and Gracie got ready and headed to a beach resort called Boracay. It is a very relaxing place and from what I hear they had lots of fun. Gracie ate junk food a lot, they had massages right on the beach, and snorkeled in beautiful water!!

September: Gracie and Jeremy's trip to the Philippines!! Part I

Gracie and Jeremy left for the Philippines the last week of September. They flew into Manila right during the worst typhoon in at least 50 years, maybe longer. Thankfully, they were able to catch a flight to Cebu (a few hours late, but that's okay) and were not in the worst of it from then on out.


Gracie and Jeremy went outside the hotel and stayed in the typhoon rain for a while to see what it was like. Gracie recovered with a nice hot shower and a bottled water.




These are our friends: Tata, Ajie, and J, who Jeremy and Gracie stayed with during the first half of the trip. They are SO nice and Gracie still talks about them every day.


This is a delicacy in the Philippines. Basically, it's a rotten chick in an egg. As you can see, Gracie did not try it.


Fresh coconut milk straight from the coconut

Happy the turtle. Gracie loved it!



The Cebu temple. It will be completed in December




Gracie got to pick what she wanted to do. She wanted to ride a horse. She liked it so much she went back the next day!




Gracie made friends at church

And yet even more September: The zoo and the fair

We made it to the zoo a few times this year. The girls especially love to pet the goats. Except when the goats get too aggressive, are too stinky, or try to eat Daddy's shirt. All of the above happened this time, but we still enjoyed ourselves.







Apparently the goats were also the highlight of the fair. Or maybe that's just when they hold the most still for a picture...





These were just cute picture of the girls at home

More September:

Here is the "gravel pit". I did one post on this before, but these pictures tell how cool it really is! This time Jeremy's family came just for the afternoon. It was great! We have such a great time just playing around on the land and visiting.

Part of September

Brett and Sue were in charge of the Baldwin reunion this year, so they went with a Scottish theme. Our girls wore their real Scottish outfits given to us from the Whites. We were all split into our family "clans" and even had real bagpipers come and perform! Unfortunately, since Jeremy was the photographer, I couldn't find a picture with him in it!








After a few weeks of perfectly beautiful weather, the cold came. It's warmed up a bit, but nothing as nice as before this day. That's right. The white dots you see are not flowers, but snow!