New Home

Our Zeke is 2 months old already!! I feel like he's going to be a teenager too soon and won't let me cuddle with him and kiss him anymore so I'm doing that every chance I get now.

We had our first official beach day a few weeks ago when our friends Mike and Natalie came out. These two babies are going to be great friends, just like their dads. Since our first day we have been able to enjoy the beach a few other times but Zeke tends to sleep every time. It will be fun when he gets a little bigger and can play in the ocean.

Quality daddy-son time. Zeke helps dad study. He's the perfect ipad holder.

For the next month we will be living on the Big Island with my grandma in her beautiful home. Greg is doing his family medicine rotation here in Kona so Zeke and I decided to tag along to keep him company. My grandmas house is in the mountains here on the Big Island and completely different than the warm tropical Hawaii weather we are used to. It's been such a nice and refreshing change. We even got to break out the sweaters :)

It's hard to show in pictures how beautiful this place is. It's so peaceful. There is so much forest to explore and you can hear the birds and see the stars at night (we haven't seen stars in so long!) Zeke seems to like it too. He enjoys when we walk around and loves to just take everything in. He hasn't seen very many trees in his life so I think he is in awe of all of the big ones here.

This gives a little taste of what it's like here.

Exploring our new home

There's fruit everywhere! We love it!

And at the end of the day we have a beautiful porch where we can enjoy this peaceful place.

We plan on enjoying every day we get to spend at our new home.

Ezekiel Will Atkinson

It has been 3 short weeks since we welcomed Ezekiel to our family and we just love him so much. He is proving to be pretty perfect. He sleeps pretty well during the night and hardly cries. I think he knows that mommy and daddy are new to this whole parenting thing and a little nervous so he is being really easy on us :)

His birth day was amazing. I woke up at 2:30AM on Tuesday with contractions. I wanted to stay at home as long as possible so when we timed the contractions at 7:00AM and they were 4-5 minutes apart we decided that it was time to get ready to head to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 and he was out by 9:00AM. Again, I'm sure Zeke knew his mom couldn't handle a long labor so he made it real quick for me!

Our first family photo

Here he is...all 6 lbs. 8 oz. of him

He loves his dad so much

and this picture because it's one of my favorite!

We had some newborn pictures taken and I'm so glad we did because he is growing so fast. Stay little Zeke!

I love these eyes!

These two together are the best thing ever 

Thank you Ashlee DeCaires Photography for capturing our first week together as a family of three!

Changes

Well we have taken a break from the blog for the past few months but I think it's time to recommit to being more consistent with this. The past few months have been filled with busy days, lots of work for me and lots of school for Greg. Unfortunately there have been so few beach days for us that I am now as pale as I was when we first moved out here. Hoping we can take advantage of the free time we have left before little baby Atkinson joins our family in January!!

That's right. Our family is GROWING! We are excited but nervous for all of the changes coming ahead. If there's one thing I have learned from being pregnant it is that it's harder than I thought it would be (both for the husband and the wife). I try to not be moody but it just happens. I just tell Greg I can't control it and usually he seems to be understanding :) I'm sure everything will be worth it in the end when baby is finally here.

2013 flew by so fast and although it feels like we just started 2014, it's already March! 2013 was full of fun, lots of hard work (mostly for Greg) and a whole lot of running around. We had some really great times as well has really hard times. The beginning of a year always seems to cause me to reflect on life and makes me realize everything I have to be thankful for. If there's one thing I have realized this past year, it's that we are so blessed to have the family and friends that we have. We always talk about how lucky we are and how we would both be in very different places if it weren't for the people in our lives. It makes going through the hard times in life so bearable when you have people who love you. Anyway just needed to start this year off by thanking all of you wonderful people reading this, although there may be just a few of you :)

So here is a quick highlight of our year.

Lots of fun hikes and beach time

We got to attend 2 Schade weddings! DC and Utah.
Unfortunately I have no pictures of the happy brides and grooms.

Got to visit Utah and our family/friends that we love so much!
Hiked Timp for my FIRST time.

The boys were reunited thanks to 2 weddings.
(Both of which I missed but heard were beautiful)

This boy came home from his mission AND visited us on da island for a day. So grateful to have him home.

Our first early morning hike/sunrise

Spent our first Christmas in Hawaii

Now for 2014...

Welcomed the very first Schade nephew/grandchild!! He's perfect.

Had a wonderful Valentines Day dinner prepared by Gregory

Enjoyed my favorite food on my birthday

 We are so excited for what this new year will bring. Hopefully more consistent blogging (although thats not a guarantee).

Anniversary

It's been one year since I married this boy...

How can you not love this guy :)

and it's been an amazing year.

We celebrated by going to Jamba Juice for an afternoon snack. It's our go-to place (went there for our first date, engagement night, wedding day and now anniversary!) After a delicious dinner at Macaroni Grill we got to see the Blue Man Group. It was even better than I was expecting. We loved it!

When I look at all that has happened in our lives since we got married I feel like we should be celebrating our 5th anniversary.  But this year has flown by and I'm looking forward to celebrating many more.

Happy Anniversary Greg!

It's about time to blog about our fun birthday weekend.  Thanks to Greg I had a perfect birthday weekend! He planned the whole day out for us.  We woke up early and went on a hike called Halama Falls. It was so nice to be in nature after being in the city for so long. I forget how calming and relaxing it is to just listen to the birds and be surrounded by green. 

 

The water was too cold for me but Greg went right in

And of course after our hike we went to Pounders. The waves were huge and even though I was nervous about Greg going in I didn't put up a fight. I was fun to watch but I was nervous. I saw quite a few people get pounded pretty good. I think I'll stick to the sand...

We finished the night with a fun dinner with some of our friends. I would say that it was the perfect first birthday in Hawaii. 

And the count down to Utah begins....See you all soon!