Friday, November 28, 2008

Alethia is 5 Months Old!

(and Happy Thanksgiving, too!)

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Here's one from Thanksgiving. Alethia is enjoying her Great-Grandpa Nystrom. We have been blessed with such a wonderful family.
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And this one is from this morning. She is getting so big, and wants so badly to be running by now, even though she hasn't even figured out crawling yet. She is so attentive though, and fascinated by everything she sees around her. I wish I knew what she is thinking about...
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Andrew's Visit

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We all enjoyed Andrew's ten day leave very much. Now he is off at combat training, where the last I heard from him was that he was enjoying grenade throwing. But while he was around here, we had a number of opportunities to get together for meals and activities, including a great camping trip to Point Mugu State Park near Malibu (sorry you couldn't make it, Mark and Shelley), a delicious dessert at the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney (Mmmm, double chocolate bread pudding...) and a grand night of lomo saltado and games at Mark and Shelley's. Here are a few pictures from our time together.

This amazing tree was by our campsite at Point Mugu.
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Everyone enjoyed sitting in its branches (even Alethia)
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Alethia had a bit of a meltdown after a couple days of constant stimulation without enough rest or food, but when we figured out what was going on, we got her into the car for some time to quiet down and rest. Other than that, she had a fabulous second camping trip.
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The weather was awesome! It was warm most of the time, and we even got a little rain! In So-Cal! Imagine that!
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Alethia is fascinated by cups. She sees us drinking from them and longs to try it herself. It is hilarious to watch her tremble with excitement when she actually gets her hands on one.
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Um, Andrew... that's the cream for your coffee.
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Alethia with uncle Mark
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What can I say? My wife and daughter are amazing.
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And to close with, here is uncle Andrew with his niece. What a happy family.
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Thank you for the time you spent with us Andrew. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Andrew's USMC Graduation

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Andrew graduated from boot camp on Friday, making him an official Marine. We went down to San Diego to celebrate with him this momentous occasion, and of course, I took some pictures.

I introduce to you Private First Class Nystrom!
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Andrew was the tallest in his platoon (not a big surprise)
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I'm sure he got some extra flack for making his Drill Instructor look up so far to yell at him.
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Here he is marching with his platoon
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And standing in the background while the Color Guard marches past
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The band was good, and apparently knew it
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Lightening up for the first time after 3 months of boot camp
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So there you have it. Andrew is on leave for ten days before heading back for combat training and then on to some job training in Florida. It has been fun to have him back around for a bit. I have some pictures of a camping trip we took over the weekend to Point Mugu, but I haven't had time to process those yet, so I will post them another time.

A Late Halloween Post

Pumpkin Art

We were out of town for Halloween at Andrew's Marine boot camp graduation, but we did get together with Brett and Steph a week early to carve pumpkins and generally spend some time together. We had a great evening, and here are a few pictures from the night.

Torrey complained that I didn't get any pictures of her, but that is in fact her on the right of this image.
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This is a long exposure of the backside of a pumpkin with a candle glowing inside it.
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Torrey chose a challenging pattern for 'us' to work on and then let me have most of the fun with it.
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In closing, here's one more shot of the three pumpkins we carved.
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