Jamaica, here we come...Congrats Ty & Heather!!

No problem, mon, we're in Jamaica!

Jess, happily beating my butt in a game of pool on the beach...

This is a cool little private island with a nice Thai restaurant that Jesse and I tried one of our first nights in Jamaica, on Ty and Heather's resort. We had to take dragon boats to get there...

Dessert at Royal Thai...YUM!

Sitting on the beach waiting for our dragon boat I think...so relaxing

A picture of 10 of the 16 in our group on rehearsal dinner night...I should just say "dinner night" because there was no rehearsing, only three hours of food, drinks, and laughter!

Awww...

The bro and I...

The original Fotiou four-some...

Again, awww...

Wedding day!

Windy but beautiful!

A sweet pic after the mother-son dance...

Modeling the bridesmaids dress, and the bride's "something blue" shoes (Manolos!!)

The view from our balcony...

And a view to the right from our balcony...a cool catamaran boat called the Red Dread in the distance on the choppy waters...

Excited to be heading back home to our baby girl after a nice week away!

And finally, we were on the island for like, 10 minutes, before this happened, and it took me most of the week to catch one of the many planes that flew *right* over our resort. Makes sense, it took us about 3 minutes from the airport, but still, a little startling!

Celebrating Uncle Tyler and Aunt "Fopper"...

I decided to make the cake for Heather's shower back in December and it was really fun...except until everyone sliced into it and ate it right in front of me! It was hard to watch but at least it was yummy!

The soon-to-be (well, at the time) Mrs. "Aunt Fopper" Fotiou...

Tyler was reallllly happy he decided to be at the shower with Heather and open presents...

Katelyn and Bunny....the rematch

Kate's visit with Aunt Fopper's bunny on New Year's Day 2010...still pretty funny!

Happy New Year!!

New Year's Day at Ty & Heather's...the best family photo we could capture.

This is Kate reacting to the dogs coming in the door, and the bunny hopping away frantically, and her being in the middle of all the commotion. It was rather amusing!

Christmas with the Judy's...

Christmas with the Fo's...

Merry Christmas!!

No more cookies or milk!

Yay, treats!

Checkin' out the goods...

Diligent unwrapping...

An artist at work!

Christmas Eve 2009...

Hoping to start some new family traditions in our new home...

Our first dinner together in the new house on Christmas Eve...

Katelyn showing off her new Christmas jammies from Nana (a Fotiou tradition), and some cozy crocs...

And after bedtime, the gifts were set under the tree...

Stockings were hung by the, uh, window with care...cookies and milk on the windowsill for Santa...

And the full display on Christmas morning, complete with Kate's new art easel...

A holiday get-away...

So while Daddy finished moving boxes into the house, Mommy and Kate hit the road for a quick holiday visit with some good buddies. This time though, there were more babies and the "party" ended quite a bit earlier than those of our college days!

If anyone remembers pictures from when our nephew Evan was a baby, you'll recall that Katelyn has decided that this is how every infant is handled, and if you call a little one a "baby" then she is going to treat them as such. Below, she tends to 8-month old (and nearly crawling) Chase and 11-month old (and walking) Keeley as if they were born yesterday. They weren't big fans of being pulled backwards into a lying position and a binky jammed into their mouths, but Kate needed them in her lap at first meeting, so they obliged for a few minutes!

And a quick thanks to Stephanie for Kate's cute little princess back-pack! She loves toting it around and looks like she's ready for school!

Home Sweet Home!

So we closed on the new house on December 18th. Then, on December 19th, 30 inches of snow blessed our new abode! Only a day later we found ourselves shoveling our way to our front door, barely knowing where the path was underneath! All is well, and we are thankful to have some wonderful (and muscle-y!) family and friends to help us move, and we were able to enjoy a quiet, box-filled Christmas morning in our new home as a family. It's been an eventful couple of weeks, and we're just now feeling less cluttered. Kate took to the new house like a champ, announcing "New House!" every time we pull into the driveway, which is really cute. She appreciates the ability to run around, and loves her (very) full playroom. We hope to have many visitors, and many memories to come!

By the way, please keep in mind these pics were taken on moving day, so the place is more full now than these pictures show, so I'll have to take some more "after" photos and post them as well...I'll put that on my lengthy to-do list!

Yes, until this morning, all that was in our living room was our Christmas tree!

Kitchen view from dining area...

Dining area from kitchen...

Back yard from deck, with play set...

Back yard view from deck, with shed...

Downstairs/Basement view from stairs...

Play room (previous owners left shelves/storage unit for us), and connecting guest bedroom to left...

Kate's bedroom (she's hiding! she *hates* the camera these days)...

Spare upstairs bedroom...

Master bedroom...

And our first priority was of course putting up our cute little Christmas tree...twice.