I can hardly believe that one year ago TODAY our family was welcoming Joshua to the world, but it’s true. My little man is already one year old!

In the past year…

• Joshua has made me laugh more times that I can count.
• His sweet spirit and happy disposition have brought us SO much joy.
• He’s taught us that some babies just come easy (and thank the Lord for that!).
• Joshua has also taught us a new level of energy that we didn’t know existed in babies.
• Josh has developed a unique sense of humor and an incredibly infectious laugh that comes right from the gut. It’s contagious. (Yesterday he started laughing at me while I was feeding him dinner. I had no idea what he was laughing about, but I couldn’t help laughing back at him. We were laughing at each other for about 20 minutes and I still have no idea what we were laughing about!)
• I’ve learned that there’s no limit to the amount of love a parent has for their children, no matter how many you have.
• And I’ve also learned that there’s a special bond between a mommy and her son. I am the center of Joshua’s world. Dad is fun. But Mommy is his world. I know that will all change, so for now I am savoring every moment that Joshua thinks the world revolves around Mommy and him. :)

Joshua, you are a blessing from God and we are so very grateful for you! Love, Mommy

June 2010

June 2011

Over Memorial Day weekend we took the kids to “Viva Vienna.” It’s a small local fair meant to celebrate life and community. It’s was incredibly hot that day (if I remember correctly about 95 degrees- not counting the humidity) but Viva Vienna only comes once a year, so we decided to brave the weather and get out there and have some fun with the kids.

I’m so glad we did. The kids really enjoyed trying new things. And I think we had even more fun introducing the kids to new things. :)

Here is Taylor riding a carousel for the first time…

here she’s really getting into it…

Joshua’s first carousel ride…

Family photo…

A series of pictures of Taylor and Jeff on the biggest slide she’s ever been on :)

It’s summer time at the Hunt’s. How do we know? Because the kiddie pool is back.

That’s right. And this time Joshua is old enough to play in it along side Taylor.

Joshua, welcome to the rest of summer buddy.

Jeff thought he’d try to get Taylor to dip her face into the water if he did it first. Didn’t work. But just goes to show Jeff is a very good Daddy. :)

uh-oh here comes the water…

Josh didn’t want to miss out on the fun…

With smiles like these, looks like we will be spending some quality time in this little pool this summer.

We took the kids to watch Jeff run a 5K in May. They had a great time.

There were pre-race snacks…

then Taylor helped Daddy warm up…

Joshua was just happy to be outside playing in the grass…

Taylor ran over to the starting line to watch the runners take off…

then she ran back with her sign for Daddy…

the sign…

Joshua wanted to hold the sign too…

then he just wanted to eat the sign…

After the race Taylor even got her first face painting.

All in all, it was a great Hunt family outing. Go Team Hunt!

Jeff and I took the kids to see Congressman Ted Poe, my former boss.  We always enjoy visiting with the Congressman.

Keep up the good work, Rep. Poe!

This Easter we started a new tradition. Taylor wore an Easter dress that I wore when I was a little girl. I’ve been wanting to add a post that had a picture of me and Taylor wearing the dress. Now that exams are over I have the time to post it.

Here’s the comparison.

1984

2011

This past week Jeff traveled to Portland for work which meant I was left taking care of the kids on my own for about 5 days. No problem- except that my first law school exam of the semester was scheduled to take place during that same timeframe.  Cue the superhero music: enter Grandma Darlene. Thankfully, my mom was able to come out the same day Jeff left and take care of the kids for me while I studied for and took my exam. The kids had a lot of fun with her, in fact, Taylor walked around the house looking for “ga-ma” after she left. :)

Here are a few pictures of the kids with my mom:

Thanks for the visit Grandma Darlene. We hope you will come back again soon!

Easter is our second most favorite holiday of the year (right after Christmas). Celebrating the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, is a reason to be thankful everyday- but Easter gives us an entire day to remember and reflect on the sacrifice Jesus made for us and that He lives forevermore. It reminds us that we can live our lives with joy, knowing that Christ has overcome sin and death. This Easter was no exception. We took the kids to church in the morning and spent the afternoon playing outside together. Thankfully the weather was perfect for an Easter egg hunt and picnic.

This Easter brought a few new firsts for the family.

• Joshua celebrated his first Easter. (His favorite thing about it was pulling all the plastic grass out of the Easter basket.)

• Taylor wore an Easter dress that I wore when I was a little girl. Starting a new tradition is fun.

• This was also the first year Taylor actually got to hunt for Easter eggs. She picked up on it pretty quickly. We put a single jelly bean in each of the plastic eggs and she insisted on eating them as she found the eggs. As you can imagine, the Easter egg hunt took some time.  :)

Here are a few pictures from our day!

We hope you had a lovely Easter holiday with your families. Happy Resurrection Day!

When I left for Orlando, Josh was barely scooting along. Now I’m back just a few days later and this little guy can perform a respectable army crawl. Good job, little buddy!

(Cue the HP theme song, keep it running in the background as you read through my blog post)

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out in Orlando with one of my dearest college friends, Aubrey Bettencourt. We are both fans of the Harry Potter series and decided we should go check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios which opened last June.

In a word the trip was: AWESOME. :)

This was my first time leaving Jeff and the kids since Taylor was born over two years ago.  So the break was long overdue – and greatly appreciated. (Thanks, honey for taking care of the kiddos for me!)

It was a whirlwind trip. Flew in on Friday, we were at the park all day Saturday and for about 6 hours on Sunday and then flew back home.  We opened the park in the morning and closed the park in the evening.  Just the way a vacation should be spent, right? HA.

Overall: I was VERY impressed with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. When you walk into that section of the park it’s like you really are entering into another world. The designers paid incredible attention to detail and it’s all the details, in my opinion, that make the attraction so impressive- from the magical store fronts, to the train station signs, the crooked chimney tops and the worker’s costumes.

There were several things I loved and other things I thought could have been better. Here’s my list.

LOVED:

1. Butterbeer. So good. You can get it frozen or regular. We asked which was better and they told us frozen. So we got ours frozen. The texture was like a frappuccino. The taste was like drinking a root beer float with hints of caramel and vanilla.

2. The Dragon Challenge double roller coaster. Best roller coasters in the park. Hands down. Fast. Smooth. Comfortable.

3. The Three Broomsticks. Authentic setting and tasty food.

4. The stores and storefronts. Every store front has some magical aspect to it. The clothing shop had a dress the floated in the window. The music store had instruments that played on their own. The plant store had a screeching plant in the window.

5. The performances. There were only a few- and you didn’t really know when they were going to happen. But they were entertaining.

6. There was a soundtrack of Myrtle crying in the women’s restroom. Ha.

7. Hogsmeade Village. Very well done. Complete with crocked chimney tops and owls nesting in the rafters.

8. The Hogwarts Express train and train station.

9. Olivander’s Wand Shop. This is the real deal. The Olivander character gives a 5 minute talk about what he does and then actually asks two people per show (of about 20) to come forward and he suits them with wands that they get to take home for free.

10. The patio behind The Three Broomsticks. If you get a chance to go to see this attraction- make sure to have your dinner or a butterbeer out on the back patio of The Three Broomsticks. It’s quiet, right next to the water, there are views of Hogwarts, and it’s really quite peaceful. And who doesn’t need a little bit of peace after spending the day at a theme park!

11. The sorting hat.

12. Being there at night. It feels more magical. :)

13. Hogwarts Castle. Just looking at it is cool. Even though you can’t go inside, the way that they scaled it and set it up high makes it appear to be HUGE if you were up close. Of course it’s not- but it’s still cool. :)

COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:

1. Tour of Hogwarts Castle. We really wanted to tour inside Hogwarts and see the dormitories, the moving staircases, the great hall- unfortunately that was not a possibility.

2. The main HP ride. I didn’t know what to expect, so the first time riding it was a bit of a letdown. HOWEVER, the second and third time riding it was better.

3. Wish there were more characters roaming the streets and interacting with the visitors.

4. Wish it was bigger. The wizarding world was a good size- but really they should have made it bigger. It’s such a popular attraction and there is more than enough material from the books to work with. Maybe they will expand…

Before we left we overheard one teenage girl scream out loud “I love this place” when she learned that the broomsticks on display in one of the gift shops were actual props from the Harry Potter movies. Ha! I think the magic of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is that somehow- no matter how old you are – it takes you away on an exciting and magical journey.  :) Well done, Universal Studios.

For those of you who are Harry Potter fans, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have made it this far in my long post if you weren’t, here is a 3 minute video I took walking through Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. Enjoy.