First beach trip!!

I know these pics don't have a thing to do with the beach. Apparently, this was MY favorite shirt to wear when I was about Hunter's age. Had to get a pic before he out grows it!
Last day on the beach! sniff...sniff

Walked to the market and got some ice cream for our afternoon snack.
Our little Tiger!
Eli has the best personality and we had so much fun hanging out with him. We sure wish we all lived a little closer.
Fun while rolling in the sand.

Well, the Simmons clan just got back from Amelia Island, Florida. We spent a week with Kevin, Noelle, and Eli. The York family has a beautiful oceanfront condo at the the Amelia Island Plantation and Resort. This is the same beautiful place where David and I took our honeymoon. It was a bit colder than we would have liked (actually it was record low temps for the area in recorded history...mid 40's) but we had a blast anyway. Hunter loved playing on the beach. He loved digging in the sand, just lying in the sand, chasing the masses of seagulls, running after the waves, and throwing seashells into the water. David and I can't wait to take him back to the beach when the water is actually warm enough to get in. He wasn't the least bit afraid and we think he will really enjoy the water. Some other fun activities we did included, a trip to Fernandina beach and a nice lunch out, daily trips to the playground, and a few puts on the greens surrounding the condo. All was well until Thursday night when Hunter awoke out of the blue with the croup! It was a rough three days, but now he feels fine and it is his mother who is a little under the weather. I wonder how many times a person can blow their nose in one day! Hunter is fascinated with me blowing my nose and either wants to assist or he tries to blow his own nose. It is so funny, he makes this little noise with his mouth and then just laughs! It is the cutest thing.
Right now we are recovering from our fun filled vacation and trying to get back into our little routine. Isn't it funny how you almost always need a vacation from your vacation! For our Abby and Ibis fans, they stayed at Papa and Gaga's house and had a grand ole time, but they too were glad to return home. Ibis has hurt his foot and has been limping since Monday...so I made an appointment to get him checked out on Friday. I will keep all posted on his progress...

I promise Chloe was having a good time!
Christmas morning and Hunter's present from Santa.
Our home on Christmas Eve.
Hunter's gifts from Santa.
Me being cheesy decorating our gingerbread house.
We had to police Hunter and the candy. All he wanted to do was eat it!
Having fun riding the ottoman in the basement!
Painting....Hunter did not like using his hands.

I thought it would be so easy to keep up with my posts every week but boy was I wrong! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and had fun ringing in the new year. We really enjoyed our first Christmas here in Abingdon. Hunter had a blast over the holidays. David and I both thought he would go crazy ripping open presents, but our calm little soul just preferred to sit on mom's lap and watch as we opened presents together. Then, of course, he only wanted to play with that one thing instead of move on to the next gift! It was great and we all had fun. Papa, Gaga, Jenny and Chloe were all up here for Christmas and David was actually off so we all got to spend lots of time together and just enjoy Christmas. Hunter loved having so many people around and especially enjoyed playing (as always) with cousin Chloe. The following Saturday we had Christmas in PM at Granny's house. Once again Hunter calmly sat and opened presents and really enjoyed eating cookies and ice cream. For New Year's we went to the Blakenships and rang in the new year. Our family has been blessed with so many gifts and a wonderful 2008! I know 2009 will be filled with new surprises, adventures and milestones.
It has been really rainy and/or snowy and cold so Hunter and I are having to be pretty creative when it comes to finding things to do. Right now Hunter loves being outdoors and taking walks in the woods behind our house, playing in the car, drawing, reading, playing with his friends on playdates and at preschool and just hanging out with me! His vocabulary only consists of moma and daddy, but he has NO problem getting his point across. David and I are eager to hear his words because we all get a little fustrated at times trying to figure out exactly what he wants.
We are settling back into our routine now that we survived the holiday madness and I must say although I like the snow, I am ready for spring and some warmer weather!

one more thing......Abby is STILL running with us on the Creeper Trail.

more pictures

Sitting with Granddaddy.
Watching Benji and Toto. They made their first trip to Abingdon and they did surprisingly well.
Reading books and having fun with Granddaddy. They both were sitting still...for a moment.
Our front yard covered in snow.
This snow fell while Hunter and I were in PM so we didn't get to see it. David took pictures. I guess we had around 6 inches. It looked beautiful.

Wow, I apologize it has been such a long time since I posted anything! As you can imagine this household has been full steam ahead as we plunge into the holiday season. I will give you guys an abbreviated version of the last couple of weeks instead of boring you with all the minor details of our adventures! I think most of you out there would rather see lots of pictures than read paragraphs of my text! So here it goes: We had Thanksgiving with the Hunter family the weekend before Thanksgiving and Hunter had a blast. It had been way too long since our last visit to PM. We returned to Abingdon to prepare for Thanksgiving with the Simmons/York-Simmons crew. It was fantastic. Hunter and Eli had so much fun. I really do wish we all lived a little closer together! Somewhere in there it snowed a bunch of days. I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!! Enjoy the pictures! Ok so I have NO idea why this is blue and underlined, so just please ignore it because it is going to take too much time and effort to figure it out! Just enjoy the pics!

Hunter, David and I on a trip to the very small Bristol mall. This was like Disneyland to Hunter. He LOVED it!! We rode up and down the escalators, waved to every stranger in the place, and sat on every ride we could find. This was his favorite. The steering wheel really turned and of course their was a dog!

Hunter helping Daddy give the dogs a bath. He thought this was hilarious and was ready to help clean when the task was done. We have such a thoughtful little boy!
More fantastic rides at the mall.
Helping Daddy move furniture to get ready for the Christmas tree!
Eli have the best time painting his face. He managed to paint both sides!
The Martha decorated for Christmas. We all had lunch in the diner. It is the best little secret!
Eli and Hunter on the Creeper Trail.
How much do I owe you? This is nothing but trouble!
Eli really loved the four wheeler. I think this city boy would really love the country!
Just a really cute picture!
Chloe and Hunter played for about an hour jumping in an enormous pile of leaves at GaGa and PaPa's house.
She is just too cute.
So when I am not paying him enough attention he goes off and tries to feed the dogs by himself. The dogs love it...me not so much.

One spunky puppy

You guys might want to sit down to read this. You are not going to believe what our little old Abby did today! She ran with the rest of the family, Hunter, David, Ibis and myself on the Creeper Trail! The weather has been cooler and there is lots of room for the dogs to exercise around here so I thought, why not just take her and see how it goes. I was skeptical she would make it to the start of the trail, but she kept right up and led the way through the woods to the trail access. For those of you who have seen Abby run, it is a bit of a workout. She has to work twice as hard as Ibis to keep up, but she manages. She was really slow so we let her run at her own pace. She actually listens (Ibis doesn't) so we are comfortable with her running without a leash. This way I am not dragging her down the trail. At times she was only a speck of white in the far distance, but it didn't matter she was with us and she was running! All in all she ran a total of about 5 miles. We were on the trail for about an hour, not all of it running, so Hunter could look at the cows, play in the woods and watch the dogs play in the river. It was a great afternoon. I never thought Abby would be able to run with me on the Creeper Trail. I was so happy and excited to have her running again I could have cried! I know she will not be able to run everyday, and probably not at all in the summer...you have to remember she is lazy, but today was a great start to some more trail running for Abby.

made the paper!

Oops, I almost forgot we all had our picture in the paper for the Mistletoe Market! David and I LOVE the holiday season and so were excited to go to the Mistletoe Market here in town. It is a big indoor market with all different kinds of vendors and lots of holiday decorations. It was so crowded, but we had lots of fun. Hunter loved all the people and seeing all the different things. Anyway, we were photographed and interviewed by the paper. Hunter and David are officially famous locals! They have been on the news and in the paper!

By Earl Neikirk/Bristol Herald Courier

Hunter Simmons reaches for a stuffed toy as his dad, David, and mom, Jaime, laugh while at the Mistletoe Market Friday.

Just David and Hunter made the front page and this was the picture posted in the local section of the paper! How funny!