This first set is shortly after we discovered the leak and before we had to call the professionals to come help us clean up.  The pictures of our basement after things started to dry out will be in the next post (for some reason I can’t figure out how to post pictures, then text, then more pictures…so I’m splitting them between two posts)

We have had a very exciting holiday season so far, full of suprises!  We started our Christmas festivities with Erik’s parents and brother Travis who stopped to visit us on their way down to NC to visit Erik’s other brother.  We had a lot of fun spending time together.  We played some fun games and Erik made us some delicious dinners!  Just before they left we had quite an adventure when one of our pipes burst in our FINISHED basement!  It flooded almost the entire basement, so we spent the day cleaning up and moving furniture!  Eventually we had to call a professional clean up crew who pulled up our carpet and took out all the padding from underneath.  They also had to tear out a few baseboards and some piecesof drywall.  Thank goodness for insurance.  Lucky for us my dad is an excellent plumber, so he fixed the pipes for us.  Then we got to spend a few days with my parents and Rhys had his FIRST visit from Santa!  He got toys, clothes, fruit, and  his own nutcracker (a Nieman tradition started by Erik’s parents!)  Rhys had lots of fun opening his gifts, and he loved playing with the wrapping paper and boxes!

We all enjoyed the visitors, and it was great having Erik’s family there when our basement flooded!  Seriously!  It wasn’t much fun, but 5 pairs of hands is a lot better than 2!  Now we are just waiting for the insurance adjustor to come decided what it will cost to fix everything.  Then, let the fun begin…haha…it is going to take a lot of work to fix our basement   We still have all our carpet ripped up and can’t put any furniture back until things are fixed.

I have plenty of pictures of the festivities and the chaos, and will post them shortly.  Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and a less eventful Holiday week than us

Rhys turned 8 months old on Tuesday, hard to believe it’s been 8 months already!  He is getting closer and closer to crawling, but he just can’t quite get it yet…that is probably a good thing for me!  But I can’t wait to see him able to move around and explore   He got to open his first present of the season on St. Nicholas Day.  He got a doorway jumper…it was a little to big to fit in one of his shoes…but he has had a lot of fun with it!  He really loves the wrapping paper too, everytime I am wrapping presents he is trying to get his little hands on it!  I can’t wait to see how much fun he has on Christmas.

Erik has been very busy back at work, and unfortunately is working long hours right now.  But, hopefully he will get a much needed and deserved break over the holidays.  As for me, I have been sick the past week, but I think I am finally on the mend.  My dad sent me some beautiful flowers yesterday (there are some pictures of them below) they really helped brighten up the dreary winter day!

We are really looking forward to having our family visit this weekend and next week!  It is great to be able to spend the Holidays with family!  I’m sure Rhys is going to enjoy all the extra spoiling that is coming his way too!

We have been staying very busy these days, because of all our travels, our house was a disaster!  So we have put in a lot of hours cleaning and decorating for the Holidays.  I think it is coming along quite nicely, we are finally putting some of the finishing touches on our house (it only took us a year), but it is looking a lot better with some new pictures decorating the bare walls!

Erik had to return to work on Monday, and he has been VERY busy his first few days back!  I have been worried about him overdoing it, but overall things seem to be going well.  His last doctors appointments have gone great, his motion is returning to normal and now he just needs to get his strength built back up.   We are really happy that his surgery has been a success so far! 

Rhys is getting cuter everyday, and now has 2 more teeth, bringing the grand total up to four!  The top two started coming in the other day and he has been biting and chewing on everything in sight   He is learning to babble and he can say mama (although I don’t think he really knows what he’s saying) he also says babababa and loves screaming and laughing too!  We are expanding his repitoire of foods and he seems to love them all, he really likes eating, I can’t wait to try some “real” food on him when he’s big enough.  He has figured out how to roll around all over the place and move in circles on his belly, but still no crawling…he wants to walk and that’s it! 

As for me, I am staying busy around the house….it is amazing how busy a baby will keep you…I can’t imagine what it will be like once he’s mobile

Lots of pictures to come in the next post…I’m going to find that camera cord today!

Shortly after we returned from Pittsburgh we decided to embark on a  last minute trip to Switzerland to visit Erik’s brother.  Lucky for us, he has a lot of frequent flier miles that we were able to use to buy our plane tickets!  Of course, we couldn’t leave Rhys at home, so we had to get him a last minute passport…this meant a trip to Chicago to the passport office!  So, off on another adventure we went!  We had a lot of fun in Chicago as well, Erik has two friends from high school who live there, so it was great to visit with them while we enjoyed the sights in the windy city! 

So, to make the rest of a long story short, we just returned from 8 days in Switzerland on Sunday.  It was a wonderful trip and we were able to see a lot of the country while we were there.  We spent most of our time in Zurich, and a few days in Lausanne as well.  Switzerland is an amazingly beautiful place with an equally amazing culture.  While we were there Rhys got to see his first snowfall and meet his first Swedish babe (she was literally a Swedish babe)

Here are some pictures from our trip to Switzerland!  And as soon as I get my other pics downloaded I will post some from Halloween and Pittsburgh!

Last weekend we took a trip with my parents to the orchard and pumpkin patch here in Georgetown.  There were lots of good apples to be picked and fun animals to look at.  Rhys had fun checking out all the pumpkins and apples, and he loved playing with his Daddy’s crutches…must be something about shiny silver stuff  

We got tons of great apples, and have been putting them all to good use!  I’m thinking another trip is in order before the apple picking season is over!

As you can see from the pictures I posted yesterday, Erik is still recovering from his surgery last week.  He seems to be doing a little better everyday, but he has a long road of rehab ahead.  We went to his first PT appointment last week and he did better than I expected, (I think he has been keeping my expectations low so I will wait on him hand and foot…haha!)  And, we have diligently been doing his exercises together twice a day…I figure I could use the workout too   The next few weeks are going to be filled with rehab and doctors appointments, so I’m sure they will fly by, and hopefully Erik will continue to do better each day!

Also, on most of the pics I have posted on here, if you want to see them larger, you can just click on the picture and a bigger one should pop up.