On Saturday Kyler and and his girlfriend Kara came up to spend a few days with us. As you can see, Karterman was very excited to spend some quality time with them!
We spent Saturday afternoon hanging around at home, and then went into Cannon Falls for an after dinner walk...and of course some Dairy Inn ice cream! On Sunday, we ventured into Hastings and started off our day with a walk down by the waterfall.
After filling up on some delicious Mexican food, we went to a park we hadn't been to before and played 18 holes of disc golf. It wasn't the best marked course and always left us wondering whether or not we were playing the right hole, but it was still a lot of fun to explore this new course. We played couples alternate shot, and Kristoffer and I won pretty handily (it was their first time playing, but Kristoffer had Karter strapped to his back)!
We had THE BEST caddy while we were playing!
Sunday also happened to be Kara's 21st birthday! To celebrate, she got to eat her dinner off of the "special day" plate.
And what birthday is complete without blowing out the candles! Hope you had a great birthday Kara!
Karter and Rascal are best friends. After our recent trips, Karter's face lights up and he lets out the biggest giggle when he sees his puppy again!
Besides chasing Rasc around the house, Karter's favorite thing to do with his puppy is throw a tennis ball at the park.
Sometimes though, Karter gets impatient waiting for Rascal to bring the ball back so he chases it down himself.
Both, Karter and Rascal love their freedom running around at the park.
Karter especially likes it when daddy holds Rasc down and he can attack him.
And of course, we have to take a break from all that playing to wave at people driving by!
Usually Karter is all lovey towards Rascal, but even Rasc knows what this face means...
...WATCH OUT! Whenever you see that face you should know Karter is about to bite you...a habit we are trying very hard to break! On some days, I think Rascal preferred the days when all Karter could do was lay around!
Karter is such a neat freak, he is always wanting to sweep the floor! Actually, he is just always wanting to play with the Swiffer. Whenever he even sees it in the closest, he has to have it and carry it around the house. Last week after he saw me sweeping the floor, he started imitating what I was doing. Does this mean that he is almost old enough to help with the housework!?
He's good, but man does he take a lot a breaks...back to work Karterman!
We spent this past weekend in Indiana, celebrating Kristoffer's brother, Kamaron, getting married. It was a very crazy couple of days, but was worth it to see how happy Kamaron and Anique were.
The wedding took place in one of our favorite towns...Bloomington! We enjoyed the morning before the wedding taking a walk around campus. It was so fun to walk around and see all of the things that have changed in the four years since we've been there. The beautiful walkway above is next to the auditorium, and used to be a muddy road that was always under construction.
Karterman and Daddy enjoyed "playing" the piano next to the auditorium.
Not only is Bloomington where we spent four years getting our degrees, it is also where we fell in love! We met our sophomore year while we both worked at supervisors at the Wright Quad food court.
Kristoffer's version of the story is that we fell in love while flipping burgers at the grill. Totally not true...but I guess he thinks it makes for a pretty good story!
Here is the true story of how our love began...Kristoffer lived in the dorms right across the alley from Wright and he secretly arranged to meet me there after I got off work (at midnight). He offered to walk me back to my dorm, but instead we ended up talking a two hour walk around campus and stopped at the beautiful arboretum to talk until 4am! That is a little more romantic than flipping burgers!
The arboretum has always been a special place for us, and on our walk we took Karter to the exact location that our relationship began!
Karter and Daddy where he spent most of his 4 years of school.
Karter and Mommy where she spent most of her time at school.
Another great thing about visiting Btown, was staying at the Union!. We had a fantastic weekending spending time with our family!
We are trying to teach Karter how to feed himself using a fork and spoon. So far it is going pretty well, and he makes it to his mouth about half of the time!
We had mashed potatoes and gravy the other night for dinner, and it was the perfect time for Karter to practice his skills. He loved the potatoes and would get so proud of himself when he would make it into his mouth. The next step is to teach him how to put it on the spoon himself!
We have so many pictures and memories to share about our vacation, we could probably post on it for the next week....but we won't! We'll spare all our readers and cram all of our random pictures into one, very long, post! Enjoy the rest of our pictures (half are by Terry and half by us) in no particular order!
We couldn't wait to take Karter out to the beach. As soon as the cars were unloaded we went for a family walk.
Karter enjoyed many snacks that are no-no's in our house while on vacation! Aunt Emily introduced him to Twizzlers and boy did he love them!
One of my absolute favorite pictures! I'm not sure what was going on, but I'll venture to guess Grandpa Kim was doing something funny!
He was such a happy boy all week!
Karter trying to work the hose.
Grandma Terry and Karter bonded on vacation!
Grandpa singing to Karter.
Smooches for Grandpa!
One day Kristoffer, Kim, Kyler and Grandpa Bud went deep-sea fishing. Unfortunately, Kristoffer's big catch was 1-inch too short!
While they were fishing, the rest of us went to Beaufort. Karter enjoyed getting to spend time with his Great Grandma Lois.
My boys being silly on the stairs!
It rained our first full day at the beach, so all of us "kids" went to the Aquarium. We were able to use our zoo pass to get in free.
Karter and Mommy at the aquarium.
Karter and Daddy at the aquarium.
Vacation was Karter's first trip on an airplane. He loved to people watch while we were waiting to board our flight.
We eat very well while on vacation, and this is my favorite meal...crab legs!
Speaking of eating...Karter loves junk food! Here is is with a slice of pizza in one hand and a cookie in the other! He is the poster child for healthy eating.
How precious is this....Karter's little trunks hanging on the line!
Karter came home from vacation with a few new tricks. Here he is showing off just how smart he is!
Whenever we get together with our family, we love to play games! Vacation was the perfect opportunity to do just that. After Karter was down for the night, it was time for us to have some fun and get goofy! This year, Kyler brought down his Wii and Emily and Zach brought their Wii Fit. Since we are practically 27, we don't have fun things like that and enjoy playing them whenever possible. However, one night when we were playing, the normally very sweet Kara decided to grab our video camera and record some of our goofiness...talk about embarrassing! Even though it is embarassing, we got a good laugh out of it and decided to share...
Karterman is a beach baby, he absolutely loved our week at the beach!! Before we had Karter, Kristoffer and I preferred to be beach bums, however with a VERY active one year old, our days of laying on the beach all day are long gone! Although, it is a lot of fun watching Karter explore the beach.
After Karter would wake up from his nap, we would get him all lotioned up and then head out to play.
Karter would get so excited when he would see where he was headed!
This boy had NO fear when it came to the ocean. He would run out as far as we would let him. Even when the waves would splash on his face, he would just like his lips and continue on.
He loved the ocean, but I think his favorite thing was the dig in the sand and collect shells. Karter was always covered in sand.
Daddy liked to dig holes with Karter.
How cute is this picture!? My 2 favorite boys!
Sometimes while they were digging a wave would come up and surprise them. Karter wouldn't mind though, he would just start splashing around!
Another thing that Karter loved to do was point at and chase the bird on the beach. Thankfully he never actually caught up to any of the birds, but he loved to watch them.
Karter and Daddy splashing away!
By now you are probably thinking..."wow, she has a lot of pictures today!" Sorry, there are still more to come. This is the problem you run into when you have such a cute babe!
Whenever a wave would hit him, Karter would let out the cutest laughs.
Karter smiling at Grandpa and Grandma while digging in the sand with dad.
Whenever Karter was walking on the beach, he would talk the whole time. He was just SO excited to be at the beach.
Sometimes I think that Karter thinks his life is a parade! While on vacation he started waving at everybody, he made so many new friends on the beach! Now that we are home, he still waves all the time, and most of the time there isn't anyone around!
Karter and Mommy both enjoyed having a week of Daddytime!
Karter also enjoyed spending the week with most of his Gray family. Grandpa Kim and Karter became real buds last week and they loved to sit and let the waves crash on them...and of course wave at the waves!
When playtime was over and the swim diaper came off, Karterman had to be hosed off because his little body was covered in sand!
Thanks for having us Kim & Terry, we loved every minute of it!
Here is a video of Karterman in action on the beach...
On Saturday Kyler and and his girlfriend Kara came up to spend a few days with us. As you can see, Karterman was very excited to spend some quality time with them!
We spent Saturday afternoon hanging around at home, and then went into Cannon Falls for an after dinner walk...and of course some Dairy Inn ice cream! On Sunday, we ventured into Hastings and started off our day with a walk down by the waterfall. 
After filling up on some delicious Mexican food, we went to a park we hadn't been to before and played 18 holes of disc golf. It wasn't the best marked course and always left us wondering whether or not we were playing the right hole, but it was still a lot of fun to explore this new course. We played couples alternate shot, and Kristoffer and I won pretty handily (it was their first time playing, but Kristoffer had Karter strapped to his back)! 
We had THE BEST caddy while we were playing!
Sunday also happened to be Kara's 21st birthday! To celebrate, she got to eat her dinner off of the "special day" plate.
And what birthday is complete without blowing out the candles! Hope you had a great birthday Kara!
