August

Here are some of the highlights from August: 

We were given a gift certificate for a gondola ride in Newport Beach and it made for such a fun double date with the Davis'! 

Travis' 28th birthday was on August 3rd and he just wanted a mellow evening with a few friends.  We had a few of his close guy friends over and they barbecued and sat around the fire pit outside.  Meanwhile,  Hudson and I hung out and made his birthday cake:

Hudson put all the candles in the cake... he was quite proud: 

We also went to event to celebrate the life of our friend, Brandon Pentz who passed away just a year ago.  It was a fundraiser supporting different charities and really was such a fun day.  They had a lady doing face painting for the children and Hudson loved it.  It was his first time getting this done and out of  all the things she could have painted he picked out the pirate.  He is quite obsessed with pirates and the pirates of the caribbean ride.   It is not unusual to often hear him singing, "yo ho yo ho a pirates life for me".

He still talks about when he had a pirate face. 

London was a kitty and they both were loving having their faces painted:

Eating cotton candy with Auntie Britt:

One afternoon Hudson and I met Emily downtown Laguna Beach for a lunch date.  She is one of our favorites ;) 

And as summer weather would have it, we spent more time at the beach:

These are some of our favorite times together:

I was about 31 weeks pregnant in these photos:

Travis always has been such an amazing dad... I love to step back and just watch him with Hudson.  He loves him so deeply:

Our sweet boy:

Then at the end of August we took a camping trip down to San Diego with my dad and step mom.  We were going to rent an RV, but then my dad invited us to just go in his... so it saved us money and really was just so much fun. 

Hudson had to ride in his car seat while we were driving, but while we were waiting to park in our spot he was enjoying the view from the front seat on Travis' lap:

Right away we ran down to the water and he immediately began playing:

We went paddle boarding with Hudson.  At first we did it sitting, but after Hudson got comfortable we were able to stand an paddle board.  So, the 3 of us headed out to the middle of the bay enjoying all of God's creation. 

What is vacation without ice cream?

We also rented wave runners which was one of my favorite things we did.  I grew up boating and riding wave runners, so it was so fun to see the tradition continue with my son.  I have very distinct memories of sitting on a wave runner with my dad :)

And yes, at 7 months pregnant I rode the wave runner, but we went so slow we weren't hitting any waves.  It really was more of a casual ride ;) 

There was a Johnny Cash cover band at the campground we stayed at so after our barbecued dinner we took our chairs and headed down to enjoy the music:

After Hudson warmed up a little bit, we couldn't get him off the dance floor:

What do you do when you are away from your drum set for several days... well, you create one:

Enjoying a morning stroll along the water's edge:

Feeding the ducks pancakes... because ducks love pancakes :)

And lastly, here are 2 pictures of London and Hudson.  We went out to dinner with the Davis' after we took their family pictures.  Hudson and London play so well together and really love each other.  In the last photo, they are doing "cheers" with each other :) 

And here are a few fun videos of Hudson singing "gibberish" one morning (a microphone is still a "doo doo" even though he can say microphone):