OBX!!!

Ever since we moved to Virginia, we have heard about this great place called the Outer Banks, NC. We finally made it out there for a little bit of relaxation. We had a great time with the Evans, the McGlaughlins, and the Mitchells. We rented a massive beach house and settled in for a great week. Unfortunately our first three days were rain and tornado warnings. I didn't know that there were so many tornado warnings out here. But it was a great week of relaxation and fun (a week for mom and Claire and a few days for papa).

The drive down was rough. Rough I say. Claire did not bring her A game. But we love her the same. But after that, Claire did bring it for the rest of the week. We had a great mother's day. All the girls at the house repeatedly chanted, "Nate's in trouble." I convinced them that I had forgotten a mothers day gift. I had not. Luckily Rich was on the ball and organized Salmon Filet, CusCus, Asparagus, Rolls, and Strawberry Shortcake.

As I do have to get to bed now, I will sum up the pictures and hopefully edit the post later. If not, at least you have them.




I woke up a few mornings in hope of a great sunrise. One morning I woke up really early, got in the car, drove up the coast to take a picture of the lighthouse with the sunrise. It was a total waste. I found the lighthouse... about 1/2 mile from the beach in a location that I couldn't get to and definitely couldn't get a picture. I was tired.

Mom and Dad finally gave in and let me play in the cabinet. I love opening up drawers and cabinets and pulling out everything!
We had a great day at the beach! Talk about an all-star cast. Nice job team

In a total of 4 families there were 8 kids (luckily the beach house was three stories so we didn't go too crazy during the rain storms). All 8 were girls. I wanted to get a picture with all of them, but this was as good as it gets.

Claire had loved playing in the sand.

Yes, this is papa in action. Believe me, the ocean was cold. I made a sprint into the ocean and I am happy that Hill was able to document it. This is a shot of me high-stepping over the wave. I pretty much resurrected some of my long-lost high school football skills.

Claire wasn't as excited about the water as she was the sand.


After a very windy excursion to the sand dunes, we stopped for ice cream at Dairy Queen. Just so everyone knows, $5 WalMart kites do not fly. Just bite the bullet and pay the 12 bucks at the kite store to get a kite that flies. Frugality does not always pay.

It's a PicNic

We are coming to you tonight from the state of Virginia where we are under an official tornado warning (we were just upgraded from the watch). We are currently experiencing one of the heaviest rainstorms that I have ever seen. It is really quite amazing. Hopefully the tornados hold off.

I have to say right now that Hill and I are addicted to the TV show Lost. We just finished up another intense episode. If anyone is looking to waste a bunch of time, or really looking for a new TV show to get hooked on, we highly recommend picking up the first few seasons and catching up. If there ever was a show with more twists and turns, I haven't found it. Definitely the most unpredictable show I know of. Anyways, two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I wanted to share this picture that Mandy Caroll took of me and Claire. Typically I am the one taking the pictures so it feels good to be on the other end. Thanks Mandy (her blog address is off to the left).


Yesterday I had the day off prior to working a night shift last night. I came up with a brilliant idea... a picnic at Pleasant Grove park. I had these visions of a leisurely stroll down to the river where we would find a nice grassy knoll and we would all sit down for a feast of pb and j, applesauce, string cheese, and teddy grahams with frosting. Things went well, but not that well.

Being the good parents that we are, we of course forgot both the sunscreen and the sun hat. Brilliant. We kept trying to hold the blanket up over her, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Finally we just had to tie it to her head. She didn't like that either, but we were able to get a good picture out of it. It was a hot, sunny day and it felt great.


This is Claire's reaction when I told her that this was our picnic spot. She laughed uncontrollably and mama wanted nothing to do with it. We weren't familiar with the area and Claire was getting wrestless (actually it was mama). Claire is always up for a good laugh.



This is now one of my new favorite pictures of Claire. She was intent on getting to the river, but of course her efforts were thwarted.


"Did you just see that frog dad? That was cool."



We quickly ended our trip to the river as I was being bit by bugs and Hill really wanted to eat (I am telling you, you don't want to cross Hill when she hasn't eaten). We made it back up to the car and found a nice piece of grass to enjoy our picnic feast. Everyone relaxed a little when there was food moving into their tummies. Funny enough there were actually a few ants crawling around on our blanket. Even funnier was watching Claire trying to catch them.


Just a few pictures of Claire that we wanted to share. She is so stinkin' cute in her overalls.



Hill thinks that she looks so much like me. Poor little girl. Thank you mom and Claire for such a fun family outing. Looking forward to alot more.

Here is a photograph to document a little run in that Claire and I had last night. I was in charge of feeding her and she was not cooperating. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from our picnic and decided that that was her afternoon nap. So by the time dinner time came around, she was done. You will notice food all over her and her high chair. She wont take a bottle. She won't take a sippy. So, in order to get her to drink water, I sometimes use a medicine dropper and squirt it into her mouth. She did well for the first few minutes, but then she stopped cooperating. So, I squirted her in the head. And then I squirted her again. She thought it was pretty funny. Luckily for me I was heading out the door to work right after that. Mom got to take care of the bath. Thanks mom. We love you.

Just so everyone knows, the tornado warning has passed.

We are so excited for the upcoming few weeks. We are off to the Outer Banks on saturday. Stay tuned for some fun pictures from our trip. Unil then....

It's a beautiful life

"Dad!!! What are you thinking not posting in such a long time? You are going to lose your fan base and people will forget about me!!! I offer an apology on behalf of my silly father. I will make sure he gets back to the camera and back to the blog. I love you all." Claire

"Okay dad. It's cool. I'll forgive you this time, but only if you forgive me for eating everything that I can get my hands on. I love you." Claire

I have been wanting to post recently but we just haven't had the chance to take some good pictures. I feel like my blogging fans deserve good pictures. Right now, Hill is sewing pillows and I am updating the blog. We have an exciting life. We actually do have a very exciting month ahead of us so look forward to some good things. We go to the Outer Banks, NC next week and back to SLC for Seth and Leeah's wedding in just over 3 weeks. We couldn't be more excited for both.

Claire continues to develop such a sweet personality. I have to share a funny story. Moms will laugh. Last Saturday I dropped Hillory and April at the Stake Center for Enrichment and took Claire to Wal-Mart for a grocery shopping trip. Since we were near the Super Wal, we decided to buy groceries for the month - since the cost of everything seems to continue to climb. The first ten minutes went well, but after that, not so well. Claire has recently found her scream. She doesn't scream because she's mad or sad - she just screams. So I am just walking the aisles with this little girl screaming. Of course I can't get her to stop, so I pick her up. But then I can't drive the cart because it is completely full. At that moment I decide to just wrap up the trip and finish later when I have Hill's help. So we check out and make our way to the car where my plan is to feed Claire in her carseat while we wait for mom to finish. Claire the starts spitting out her food all over the car and she is still screaming. Dad then had a brilliant idea. I brought the shopping cart back over and plopped Claire down in the seat. I then proceeded to feed the little stinker in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It actually went pretty well. We picked up mom, went to dinner, and finished our shopping. Dad looks forward to further shopping trips with his little girl.

In fact, every evening Dad and Claire go on a dog hunt. We walk around our apartment complex and look for dogs. On a good night we see 2-3 dogs and if we are lucky we can get one to stop so we can pet it. Claire is actually kinda scared of touch new things, so getting her to touch the dog of her own accord is difficult (of note Claire has really struggled with the new shag rug we just purchased - she hates to touch it with her little hands). Dad looks forward to many dog hunts with his little girl.

Hill has so many fun moments with our little girl. This morning Hill woke up to Claire's crying. She went into get her and found her slumped in the corner of the crib, with grown-up tears streaming down her face and all 3, yes 3, of her binkies on the floor. Only a mama could console such a sad face.

Hill loves sea gulls. She wants to frame this picture for our room. Kinda strange.

I can't think of an excuse

I wanted to come up with a good idea why I haven't posted in a couple weeks. I came up with a few. 1- Yesterday was tax day 2- I'm working in the Pediatric ICU 3- Claire has been really boring these last couple weeks... 4- Hill is always on the computer 5- Life is just busy

I settled upon #5 but then I realized that I owe it to my blog readers to fight through the mundane things in life and post. It is to my loyal readers that I dedicate this post.

Reason #3 above is obviously not tru as Claire has been the exact opposite of boring in the last couple weeks. In fact, about a week ago she started crawling FORWARD!!! At first it was a couple of small steps, but now she is getting around everywhere. For months now we have talked about childproofing the house. Well, it's too late, she is everywhere. She could not be more cute these days. She laughs all the time. She smiles at the simplest of things. She clicks her tongue. She has associated dada with me and mama with Hill. She is a great sleeper (11-12 hours at night and 2 2hr naps in the day). She is a great eater. She has the coolest hair. She smiles and waves at strangers. She finally will let dad put her to bed without screaming her head off. She is much better in the car than she used to be. She is so much fun to hug!

Here is Claire in Action! She is still working on picking up speed.

"Listen dad, if you aren't going to ride this thing, I am."

That whole child-proofing thing has been tough as 1000 sq feet of apartment space does not provide spacious amounts of storage and recreation rooms. I set my bike up a couple weeks ago on the trainer to promote my exercise goals. Not only has it not done that, but it has provided Claire with a very dangerous toy to play with. It is being taken down tonight for those of you who are worried.

Claire's mobility has increased the number of "Claire Bear go Bonkers." You probably can't see the bruise above her right eye from when she decided to go head-first into the door hinge. Believe me, it's there. Our goal is to not to have Claire require as many CT scans as her mom. Wish us luck. And just look and her hair!! It reminds me of a character from a Dr. Suess book. Can't wait to see how it will keep growing.

Claire cruised for the first time today (yes this is breaking news - we just finished a piece with cnn to be aired next week). She moved from the chair to the table to the other chair - maybe a total of 2 feet. She is really good on her feet. We are already preparing for her to walk. Also of note Claire is really beginning to appreciate books. She sits still in our laps for all kinds of stories.

For those only interested in Claire (I think there are a few out there), you can stop reading now. In an effort to improve my photography skills, I offered to take some engagement pictures. I made no guarantees, but I think things turned out pretty well. I thought you might like to see some of my work.

Nice job guys!! Hill and I had alot of fun.

More pictures

We just wanted to let you all know that our good friend Mandy Carroll took some more pictures of Claire. She let dad tag along to learn some secrets of the trade. We had a great time and we really appreciate her taking the time to take the pictures and teach dad a thing or two. Check out her new pictures at:

mandycarroll.blogspot.com

Enjoy!!!!

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.