Happy Easter!

It has been another great week for the Dahle family here in Virginia. Claire has had a rough couple of days however. But she has pulled through like a champ.

1) On thursday we were taking some pictures of Claire with one of our friends. She was standing up next to a barn when she lost her balance. Her face got to know the side of barn. She was a little scraped up.



2) Today she was standing up holding onto one of our chairs. Hill told me to watch her closely as she had just a couple days ago fallen over and pulled the chair on top of her. Well, right after telling me to watch her closely, Hill proceeded to talk to me and I was paying attention to her. Sure enough, Claire fell over and pulled the chair down on top of her. She has a mean bruise over her eye.

We promise we are trying to be good parents. I know that Hill takes her injuries a little harder than I do.

We had a great Easter weekend. We just spent time as a family.


Claire was so excited to wake up and see if the Easter Bunny had come. Turns out that only one Easter Bunny came and papa Easter Bunny didn't know that he was supposed to be Easter Bunny to mama Easter Bunny. Not to worry, mama Easter Bunny still loves papa Easter Bunny and papa Easter Bunny know that mama Easter Bunny loves a good Easter present (turns out mom knew that dad would fall through and bought herself a gift).

Here is papa Easter Bunny and his trusty sidekick Claire searching high and low for their Easter presents.

Dad and Claire enjoy the fruits of their Easter hunt. Mama found a great book about Small the fox who was grim and grumpy.

Claire looked so cute for church. We stopped at the grounds at UVa on the way to church for a few pictures(amazingly we were on time).

Our church services were wonderful. We are so grateful to be able to celebrate the Atonement of our Savior as a family. These holidays really make us realize how much we miss our families and how grateful we are for them. We did however have a fabulous Easter dinner with our friends, the Richins. Ham, potato salad, Gourmet mac and cheese, rolls, green salad. mmmmmmmm! And then we topped it off with some Strawberry Shortcake. It was a great Easter weekend.

A tribute to Seth and...

LEEAH!!!!!!

We are so happy to publish to the www and to all of our readers the announcement of Seth and Leeah's engagement. They are getting married on May 27th and we could not be more excited for the two of them. We hear the proposal involved a staged easter egg hunt, a kite, and a magical leprauchan. How he was able to secure the services of the leprauchan is still unknown. How he convinced Leeah to marry him, however, is definitely not a mystery. Seth's best qualities include, but are not limited to - happy, dedicated, expert bracketologist, good speler, generous, good left-handed frisbee thrower (ask Seth to explain to you the greatest thing that happened to his frisbee game), athletic, motivating, a heartless tin-boy, adventurous, giving, fun, harvester of peaches, perservering, 2nd best croquet player in the family, strong, loving, often mistaken, full of energy... in short, just the best brother ever. We love you Seth and we can't wait to get to know some of Leeah's best qualities. We spent some time together with them in December and they are great together. We cannot to get out to Utah to see them and to celebrate their marriage.


Here are Seth and Leeah soon after the proposal. Nice job guys

Love those big smiles!

Not only did Seth recently get engaged, but he was also out in Charlottesville to see us. And boy was he a great house-guest. He loved playing with Claire and Claire just loved him. He is the first one to make Claire laugh uncontrollably. And he does the dishes (Leeah don't let him get out of that. He does a great job).

Seth and Uncle Claire are having a great time on the streets of Richmond. Seriously everyone loves it when they see Claire in her Lamb hat. Of course she didn't do as well in the car as cousin Sam does... as Seth pointed out. That cousin Sam, always one-upping us. One of these days Claire, one of these days.
This is seriously the cutest thing. For the three days that Seth was here, we slept with our door shut, which makes it more difficult to hear Claire. But each morning we heard her right outside our door. Seth would wake up with her every morning and play with her as long as she would, before bringing her to us so she could eat. Claire would last 15 minutes with him before she got upset. Let me tell you how long she lasts with me in the morning. About 15 seconds. Enough time to get her out of bed and get her to mom. Seth and Claire had a great time together and mom and dad really appreciated the extra 15 minutes of sleep. Seth will be a great dad (oh by the way, Claire still doesn't crawl but she does wave and clap and laugh hysterically and mom and dad, and she doesn't have any teeth yet, and she is the sweetest, cutest, funnest little girl ever born. we love her so much)

Good luck Seth and Leeah. We love you guys. We expect you to be starting your own blog soon. See you in May.

VACATION!!!!

Let me start out this weblog with a few random thoughts to mix it up.

1)We got a slip in the mail telling us we had a package at the post office. On the note was written that postal worker was unable to bring it to our door because stairs posed a hazard. I asked Hill to ask the post office when they designated stairs as a risk that prohibited them delivering a package. She wouldn't do that. Isn't that insane that the postal worker would not walk up one flight of stairs? I was blown away.

2)After Hill and I nearly overdosed on sugar on our trip to South Carolina, we decided to take a month vacation from sugar. We are 4 days in and it is going pretty well. Wish us luck.

3)Our friends and neighbors just gave us a wireless router and it has changed our lives. I no longer have to sit on the floor with the computer on a chair right next to the tv because that is how far the cable will reach. My bum is much happier.

And now on to the vacation. We had a great time. Jeff and Jenni Bowman invited us to join them in Myrtle Beach for a week of rest and relaxation. We had a great time and created some great memories. We hope you enjoy the tale. We were nervous about Claire's first major roadtrip. With 400 miles of driving we knew it could get ugly. But,... Claire was a champ. She did great.

Saturday...

We found the best barbeque restaurant in North Carolina. It brought big smiles to everyones face. We wish there was one here in Charlottesville and we wish we could have eaten there again (story to come). We love NC style barbecue with the vinegar base.

Sunday... (no pictures)

We woke up sunday morning and got ready for church. We were running a few minutes late, but the church didn't see too far away. We drove to where the church should be and there was nothing. No sign of anthing that could have been a church. We asked the man at the gas station across the street if he knew what had happened to the church. He said that it had been moved to a new place that was about 25 minutes away. We looked it up in the phonebook and saw the address matched. After driving for another forty minutes we found nothing except... Kingdom Hall. Hosed again by the Witnesses. We then gave up hope and headed back to the condo. Driving home for another 30 minutes, Hill looks over and sure enough, sees the church. Turns out that Highway 17 splits. We took the wrong side. So, we roll into the church just in time for priesthood/relief society after having driven approximately 60 miles and almost two hours. Talking to the members we then found out that the address in the phone book was an old address for the missionaries. Priesthood and Relief Society were great.

Monday...


We made it to the beach and Claire had a pretty good time. Once we let her play on the beach, she of course...ate the sand.

She did great for about an hour or so and then she didn't do so great. Between eating sand, sunscreen in her hair, and all the seagulls, Claire wanted to go home. We did because we always do what Claire wants.
Claire is so stinkin' cute these days. She has a couple great new phrases.... Gia, Haia, and my favorite, Dada. These little piggys went to the ocean. She was not happy.

Listen Jeff and Jenni, this is a family beach. These two were seriously champs when it came to putting up with Claire and her needs. We hope we didn't scare them away from having kids.

Cool hat Claire. 50 Cents at wal-mart huh? Good deal.

Tuesday... Just relaxed

Mom, my diaper rash is flaring up.

I love my sweet little family.

Wednesday...

We continued south about 100 miles south of Myrtle Beach for a day in Charleston. Charleston was a very cool town.
See this bridge... 1/2 Billion dollars to build. Opened in 2005. Very cool. Very expensive.

We took a boat ride out to Fort Sumpter where the first shots of the Civil war were fired.
On April 14, 1861 Major Anderson of the Union Army surrendered Fort Sumpter to the Confederacy.

On April 14, 1865 the confederate army surrendered Fort Sumpter back to the Union in a big ceremony. President Abraham Lincoln was invited.

He turned down the invitation. He had tickets to Ford Theatre that night. Crazy huh.

You may not be able to see this picture well, but I thought it was a pretty cool shot of the city of Charleston. They had alot of very cool houses in the historic downtown that were fun to look at. The crew was running out of steam by that time, but I do regret not getting out for some cools pictures.

The flags over Fort Sumpter. If you look closely, you can see mama and Claire.

Thursday... The Aquarium

The aquarium in Myrtle Beach was awesome. It was the antithesis of the aquarium in Virginia Beach. There were some great fish.
Claire finds out that she has just been put down in front of the pirrhanas (spelling?)

Cool Jellyfish Claire.

If you remember the picture from Virginia Beach Aquarium, there was a picture of Hill pretending to touch the stingrays. This time I can attest to the fact that she did touch the rays.

This is some seriously breath holding.

Those were some funky crabs.

The fish aquariums were awesome. The shark tunnel was amazing. We had such a great time.

Friday... The disappointment of the trip.

We had decided to that thursday would be the aquarium and friday would be the nascar drive park. We checked the weather the week before we came and all the days looked great. The forcast changed and we didn't look it up. Torrential downpore. All day. Nascar park closed. Dad was bummed. He took full blame. But, mom and dad made up for it. Thanks to Jeff and Jenni who decided to babysit for us. We had a nice, quiet dinner out at Bonefish Grill. The shrimp, mahi mahi, and strawberry shortcake were just awesome. We got home and it turns out that Claire didn't stop crying the whole time. We felt bad... but not too bad.

Saturday...

Dad knew he had to do something big if he wanted to get this group home in one piece. He decided to go big with his hair. Unfortunately his hair failed him. He made a bad judgement call. He passed up Smithfields Barbeque in favor of trying out Ralph's (supposedly the best barbeque in NC. We'll never choose Ralph's again. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't Smithfield's. Mama wasn't happy. She was tired of staring Claire in the face and dad made a bad choice. Mama eventually forgave him.

We made it HOME!! No matter how fun a trip is, it is always great to be home. We couldn't decide who had better hair.

Aunt Betsy Comes to Visit

A few months ago, Uncle Eric called Claire up and told her he wanted to surprise Aunt Betsy with a trip to see her just after Valentines day. Well, that trip came and went and Claire wanted to document all the fun she had. Betsy flew in on Wed the 20th and left a week later. We were so grateful that Uncle Eric and Cousin Sam were willing to share her with us for a week. Sam missed his mom so much and called her all the time. We hear by the end of the week, Uncle Eric had an upgraded appreciation for all that Betsy does. She does such a good job taking care of cousin Sam.

The girls had quite a week together - one fun thing after the next. Nate couldn't get Hill and Betsy to stop talking ever. On top of that, the girls kept giving Nate a hard time about not being cool. Can you believe it? Dad had a heart to heart with Claire and deep down she said that she just went along with mom and Betsy to keep things from being awkward (i.e. mom is still the source of nourishment), and she really thinks that dad is the coolest. The trip culminated with a couple days in the nation's capital. I kept hearing over and over how much better trips go when I am not involved.

Here is Claire on the subway. Looking closely you can read the title on the tube of stuff - Beaudreaux's Butt Paste. And boy has Claire been grateful that Beaudreaux took such an interest in butts. Without it, this trip would not have been nearly so successful. If mama would ever take that binky out of Claire's mouth, you would see her smile.

Claire: Hey Kermit! Ever figure out why there are so many songs about rainbows?
Kermit: Nothing ever fully materialized, but it always came back to leperchauns and gold.
Claire: That's too bad. By the way, what ever happened between you and Ms. Piggy?
Kermit: She ran off with a big pig wearing a "Bad to the Bone" t-shirt and driving a Harley.
She begged me to take her back when her world came crashing down.
Claire: Yea, she always did seem a little bossy and annoying. I think you made the right
choice. Have fun sitting here in this glass box. Nice to meet you

Hello Neighbor!!!! Who doesn't miss the good old days of kicking off the shoes, putting on the slippers and heading back to the land of make believe where all your wildest dreams came true? King Friday XIII, Henrietta, Trolly, Lady Elaine Fairechilde... Those were the good old days of wholesome television. Thanks Betsy for your tribute to a man who changed lives. Mr. Rogers Rules!

Claire loved the Aire and Space Museum. She had such a fun time flying with mom!
Betsy! Don't look now, but there is a huge elephant right behind you... No Claire, it is not Grandpa Dahle (She tried that same joke at the zoo)! It is an elephant and he is coming to eat Betsy!

I don't even know where to start with this photo. Yes Hill, I HOPE that the diamond in your ring grows as big as the diamond in that case. I tried to buy that one for you... uh, but it wasn't for sale. It is the one you deserve of course... of course.

Mama and Betsy wore little Claire out. That, or she needs a better angle to see the scary dinosaur.
The busy day comes to an end. What a great trip to Virginia. Love these girls.

Currently we are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on vacation. Stay tuned in the next week for postings about our favorite barbeque, minature golf, and Claire's first trip to the beach. Let's just say that sand was consumed, and it wasn't by Hill or Nate. We love you all.