Ladies and Gentlemen! Girls and boys! May I present, the Amazing Amelie as she performs acrobatic feats atop her ride-on toy!

Here is Amelie is her new coat that Grandma and Grandpa Haymond gave her for Christmas. It’s perfect for the Utah cold. To watch Amelie when we put it on her, you’d think we were putting her in a straight jacket. She stands very still and doesn’t even try to speak. After a few times of wearing the coat, she has now advanced to testing out how well she can bend and move her arms in it.

We were excited to visit the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, one of the most well-known lighthouses in the country. Although we couldn’t climb the 240 plus steps inside the lighthouse (it was closed for the season), we took advantage of the opportunity to take some goofy tourist pictures:


Gotta love it. Amelie had a blast with her cousins while we were at the beach. She’s never had so many playmates before!

So, thanks Austins for such a wonderful Christmas! We had a terrific time.

Christmas morning was a blast with 10 kids in the house! Although she’s still too young to really “get it”, Amelie can appreciate a well-stocked stocking 😉

A baby doll from Grandma Austin was a big hit:

This year, we spent Christmas week at the beach with the Austins. We had a terrific time. We knew it was going to be a great week when we pulled into the driveway of our rental house and saw this:

Although it wasn’t really swimming weather, the beach was lots of fun. This was Amelie’s first trip to the ocean and I think it was a bit overwhelming for her at first.

But she got over it soon enough and apprehension turned to excitement.



It could get pretty windy out there!

It really was a great week.