Happy Halloween

Fall Festivities

We were lucky enough to have my brother Spencer in town with his wife Erin and baby girl Mabel. While they were here, we only visited places beginning with the word new. New Jersey, specifically Newark, New York City and New Haven, CT. In typical Dan and Anne fashion, we forgot our camera for NJ and New Haven so we will only have pictures from the Statue of Liberty. Here she is...


Spencer and Erin admired the majestic beauty and symbolism of the statue while Anne commented that it looked dirty. We also got a shot from the boat and one from Liberty Island.

We thought we should include these pictures for Grammy. Beckett found the boots you sent for him and gave us a pantsless fashion show. The only problem was they were still attached to each other. As you can tell, this did not keep Beckett from enjoying his new boots.

End of Summer Update

I'd like to say that it has been an extremely busy summer and that we have been traveling around New England visiting museums, going antiquing, buying maple syrup by the barrelful from Vermont and waiting anxiously for the leaves to change colors. We have not been so lucky but we were able to take a quick trip to Boston with Anne's mom Judy.

Here is a shot of Annie and Beckett in the new(ish) park they built above the Big Dig.

And, the highlight of the trip, crunchy ricotta cheese gold at the end of the Freedom Trail. That's right, cannolis from Mike's.

A few more pictures.

I have a confession

I am NOT a good blogger. I'm sure most of you are not surprised by this, as you already knew by the lack of regular postings. The real confession is I don't even like to blog. My lack of blog posts does not stem from a lack of time, but a lack of actually wanting to do it. I've been receiving a lot of criticism for our blog and how we have not updated since July so I figured it was about time. On a positive note some of the things I do like about blogging:
1. Comments (who doesn't get a little pride that their blog is getting comments, I especially like it when we get into the double digits.)
2. I like to look at others blogs. (A LOT, so keep blogging please)
3. I feel like we are still near by when I can see what others are doing and I especially like to find blogs of people that I haven't' seen for a while.

So while our blog is still the same set up as it was when we set it up over 2 years ago I am satisfied by being a slacker of a blogger. (translation - this isn't some confession that I'm going to be working on fixing)

Update on the fam: Beckett and I spent a week in Utah in July for 2 baby blessings. below is the group shot. We also spent a week in Denver right after! Both weeks were a blast and Beckett loved his cousins!

Loving them a lot:

Loving them too much:

Beckett is now in Nursery. We've been taking him in since July (16.5 months instead of 18) but he seems to like it a lot. We've also found out he is the most active kid in there and by active I mean the kid running around the whole time throwing stuff at other kids. He also likes to take whatever they have just to take, not to play with it. We working on it...

And finally, Like father like son:

(and yes he did "go")

Beach Pictures

Here are a few pictures of Beckett at the beach in Westport.

He was not very interested with the sand and water but his rake and shovel captivated him. Maybe that comes from his desire to dig holes like his dad.

Here is Beckett pondering deep mysteries of life.

Can you guess what this is?

So the color probably gives it away. I guess my real question should have been why is this piece of banana chewed up and sitting on the desk chair next to me instead of in the kitchen on the table where I left it. Answer - Beckett can reach about a foot in on the top of the table from the edge so breakfast banana that I had been breaking apart and feeding to him was easily accessible to those dirty little hands. Unfortunately The kid has not figured out how to peel a banana (even though it was obviously started for him) and instead decided to bite through it to get the goods inside. Whatever works right?

We call him monkey for a reason now. The kid has been climbing for months and uses whatever he can to get himself where he wants to be (even if that involves stepping on another small child to get there). Lucky for mom and dad he is not at an expert level yet. The kid also enjoys climbing into weird spaces, like our end table.

Dad has been forced to share his toys with Beckett. It started out as a gig to get a cute picture but apparently Beckett thought it was for real and "took turns" with dad for a few minutes. When dad finally took the Ipod away happy times were over. We thought we would spare you from those pictures.

And finally a family picture taken 2 months ago in Provo before we left. We are so proud of Dan! Way to go Daddy!

A note to all you private bloggin' people. Sometimes you leave comments on here and I so desperately want to respond but when I try to go to your blog I am denied entrance! Please be so kind as to add me if you check my blog... it's only fair! annemgrange@gmail.com

Connecticut

Some people we know have been requesting pictures of our lovely garage apartment here in Connecticut. Here's a picture of the house with our apartment on the right side.


And another picture, close up to our side with Beckett and I. Also, a view from the backyard.




Everything here is going well. Anne is busy painting the apartment and making it pretty. I would post pictures of her work but she made me wait until she is finished. Our new ward has been great so far. Everyone has been extremely friendly and there seems to be quite a few young couples with children, which is good news for us. My job is also great. I am out on the job sites each day with my crew getting some experience and a sweet farmer's tan. My Spanish still stinks but is getting better each day. That's enough writing. Here are more pictures from our trip to New Jersey last Saturday. We ate at a Brazilian hamburger place in Newark and spent some time in Hoboken, across from Manhattan.


I think this is more impressive in person. The skyline is just so incredibly long.