Vacation

After a rather long hiatus from blogging, I am now getting back into the blogging scene! So, what better way to begin this new season of Day by day with the Esteps than with our beginning of the summer vacation to Brigantine Beach, New Jersey!
This year we were blessed to be able to take a week-long vacation to end a very busy but exciting year. I began my week with a final pack-up of my classroom for the summer and a summer academy class which completed my 2009-2010 school year. (It was a very challenging first year but I was so blessed to have a great class, the support of an encouraging hubby and family, as well as a helpful team of teachers.)
The days that followed were spent busily packing, shopping, and checking off many to-do lists. After all of that hard work, the three of us and my parents began our venture to the Jersey shore at 3:15 on a hot Saturday afternoon. While we did run into some "beach traffic" on the way, we made it to our destination (Brigantine Beach, New Jersey) in very good time. (Brigantine is a small island just beyond Atlantic City.) Once we were unpacked and pretty well settled in, we made time for an Italian dinner at a local restaurant called Andre's- one of those yummy mom & pop Italian places. Our week was spent playing in the sand, the waves, the pool, and the condo. We also had time to visit the boardwalk at Atlantic City and Ocean City as well as take several walks in the evening. Besides filling extra time with many "I Love Lucy" episodes, we also enjoyed playing different domino and card games when Braeden went to bed. The weather was perfect for a beach vacation and we had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures from our lovely vacation week.

Pics of our condo at the beach

Our condo was the 2nd from the bottom (from the left on the 2nd floor- we had the 2 large sets of windows and the balcony)

Playing one of his favorite indoor games


Braeden enjoying his time at the beach

Views around Brigantine

Braeden and I at Atlantic City--A picture is worth a thousand words...hehe

Our visit to the boardwalk at Ocean City, New Jersey

Time flies

Wow--so I just realized that we haven't posted ANYTHING this year yet! Whoops. Well, let's see...what's new?

Braeden is still growing by leaps and bounds. Praise God--his seizures have stopped for 3 and a half months now and he only holds his breath maybe once a week. We are truly thankful for the work he's doing in our son.

He is learning more and more words every day (like "ghetto" and "interesting"), while one of his favorite words continues to be "TAC-KLE!" as he jumps on top of Heidi or me. He is now drinking more and more from a regular cup (no sippy or top whatsoever). There are still some spills from time to time, but no big deal. We're so proud. And he's just as boisterous and energetic as ever, loving to run laps around the house every night.

Heidi is continuing to stay more than busy at school, as she ponders beginning her master's degree this summer through online learning. Good times! But she is definitely looking forward to a beach vacation in June and her first summer without a job. WOOHOO!

I keep busy with my new job at Aspire Urgent Care and Family Medicine at the front desk. I love it and am excited to see where God leads me down this path. The people are great and the work is very satisfying.

We've also been busy house hunting! With God's help we'll be purchasing a townhome in the very near future. We are very, very excited.

I guess that's it for now. Happy Thursday and watch out for the snow storm tomorrow!

Halloween # 2

Our Halloween festivities began a few days before Halloween. On Tuesday night, we took some time to carve pumpkins (Matt & I carved, Braeden ran circles around us) and the finished product was pretty amazing if I do say so myself. (I'm disappointed to say that I can't find a single picture of our pumpkins! But trust me, they were awesome!) Braeden enjoyed sticking his hand in the pumpkin and saying, "Eww!" when he touched the insides of the pumpkin. Unlike our previous experience in college with making a gingerbread house, we will definitely be carving pumpkins again (props to Target for a very easy-to-follow kit!)

The tradition in our neighborhood is to go trick-or-treating the Thursday before (I think it's before) Halloween. So, we got Braeden all dressed in his pirate costume (he wouldn't keep the bandana(-sp?) on for us but he did look very cute in the rest of his costume) and headed out to go trick-or-treating. He got very good at walking up, taking a piece of candy from the bowls and putting it in his bag (isn't the bag so cute?! I ordered it from a catalog. It has his name stitched on the bottom!)
After we did our 1-block of trick-or-treating (that 1 block took a while!) we came back to hand out candy. Braeden was also great at that! There was one particular princess who came to our door and received at least 3 pieces of candy from our little charmer! He handed her one and kept reaching in and handing her more! It was so cute!



(In the pic of the 3 of us, you'll see part of Matt's pumpkin-it says "Trick or Treat".)

That night, since Adam and Kendra were over, the family helped celebrate Matt's b-day with a yummy Peanut-butter cup ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.


I also had to include these pics of the mountain near Matt's parents' house. It's absolutely gorgeous in the Fall!


The last pictures I had to include were our 4th grade team Halloween pics. We dressed up as crayons for our big Halloween party/parade day at school (I'm the short one in the middle-haha!) Our colors (in print on our right leg)- Hot Magenta, Mango Tango, and Red Salsa.

Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festival

In mid-October, we decided it was time to purchase pumpkins to celebrate our favorite season. So, we headed to the church pumpkin patch to find mommy, daddy, and Braeden-sized pumpkins to carve. Braeden was very proud of his strength as he spent most of his time trying to lift as many pumpkins as possible!

We also got to participate in our church's fall festival, complete with balloon animals, hot chocolate, hayride, s'mores at the bonfire, and a maze! What a great way to begin the Fall!

Fall Fun

Here is an assortment of pictures from the last few weeks as we have been enjoying our first Pennsylvania Fall with Braeden.

Napping on mommy at Great-grandma Pearsall's house in VA.

Braeden and I spent some time with Laura and Kalen one afternoon and this ended up being the fun game of the afternoon- lock Braeden in the dog crate! Nice work, boys!


Braeden has become quite the little jumper...well, almost! He tries really hard! Here's a clip of him one Wednesday night at church after dinner "jumping" with daddy.

Here's a brief movie clip of Braeden's first steps on the beach. He's a little unsteady but still very excited to be there!

Here's our little kicker the night of his 24-hour EEG as happy and carefree as ever!