April May June 2009
Zoeyanne and Riley are the best of friends. Zoeyanne looks forward to picking up Riley from school and from there they spend the afternoon in a land of make believe. It’s as if they are making up scenes for a play, they dress up in costume and run around the house. They both spend much of their time doing art. Riley calls this “arting.” The longer the days together, the more hysterical fits and blood curdling screams you may hear coming from our house. Summer should be interesting.
Nathaniel received his first haircut on Easter. Yes his long locks are adorable but he could no longer see and we were mistaking him for my mom’s shaggy dog old english sheep dog. He is still adorable. 
In May Laura, Zoeyanne and Nathaniel flew to Vegas to visit with Laura’s parents and to attend friends Avery and Steve’s wedding. 
Laura’s mom and Dad spent a whole special day with just Zoeyanne
Dan participated in Reno’s Run-a-muck, running a 2 mile relay race through the mud carrying a bar of soap passed to him by team mate Kurt von dem Bussche.
The next day he ran the Moms on the Run 5k along side Laura while pushing the kids in strollers.
We recently got a new tag-along for Riley and a bike trailer for Zoeyanne and Nathaniel. We’re hoping to spend much of our summer out biking. We’ve already done the Truckee River up by North Shore and had a blast!
Nicole, Laura’s 15 year old niece came to visit with a friend in June. What an educational experience it is to have two teenagers in the house for a week! 
for more of our April May and June pictures please click here.
A little late but better then never! … 
Zoeyanne turned 3 on January 5. We celebrated with a family evening at *gasp* Chuck E Cheese. Andy and friend Kamal came up for a snow boarding weekend in January, even though we were a little low on snow. 
We hosted a huge birthday party weekend at the end of January and had a great time visiting with Tylan, Kristy & Dylan, Liz and Joe, and Ian with a total of eight kids. 
Vegas friends Avery and Steve with Tyler and Nick came up for a weekend of skiing and playing in the snow. In March we headed south for a week in Newport where we visited Laura’s old neighborhood, the Tully’s house, 
Disneyland, 
a Russian submarine, the Queen Mary and biked in a 9 person surrey with Lisa Tully and boyfriend Ray. Zoey is in gymnastics and swim, and Riley takes art after school. We pulled Zoey from preschool because she continued to bring home illnesses and has been on and off the nebulizer for wheezing. Nathaniel was sick off and on all winter, but even with sleepless nights of coughing he’s still a big lovable teddy bear of a baby. 
We didn’t get as much snow as last year but more then our first year. It’ll be interesting when we get 100% of our snow pack for the season. 
October started out with our first big trip as a party of five. (anyone remember that show? Party of Five? that was like my favorite!) We flew to St. Louis, visited the Arch, drove to Branson and spent a day at Silver Dollar City and stayed at a hotel with an indoor water park (not quite as cool as i had hoped). The Arch was awesome, and required going in a tiny pod that we took to the top. We watched a cow being milked at Silver Dollar City (an amusement park). Zoey was too small for most of the rides, but Riley was okay for a few of them.
The kids had a good Halloween. Dan’s parents were able to share the fun of “trunk or treating” at the park. Games and activities put on by a local church, with candy in the trunks of cars. We let Riley have as much as he wanted that night, and then it would be put away (for daddy). We were sitting at the table when we realized Riley was laying on the floor in the kitchen. He said he didn’t feel too good and decided to only give out candy next year. The next day he changed his mind and said that maybe he just won’t eat as much.
Zoeyanne is in choanies (underwear) full time as of October. She still wears pull ups at night but we are very proud. In November she ditched the “fise” (pacifier) after the dentist told her it was messing up her teeth. It was a tough week but she got threw it (we barely did) and received a baby crib for her dolls.
His birthday party was at a bowling alley with our own party room. We had it a week early to make sure we didnt have to cancel it due to an early arrival. Riley’s favorite present was his requested rolls of toilet paper and tape so he could make balls (???) Nene, Papa, Uncle Tim, Aunt Lisa and Ralston joined him to celebrate on his birthday.
To read his birth story go to the previous post or click here: 
Riley and Zoey both help out by entertaining him when he’s upset. Dan took the first two weeks off from work and we had a wonderful family baby moon. Laura’s parents arrived two weeks before he was born and stayed till he was a couple days old. Dan’s parents came at the beginning of August. Dan and his dad built us a wonderful shade pergola in our backyard. Our good friends the Zigenis’ welcomed their 3rd into the world 10 days after Nathaniel was born. 
It’s like we planned out our families together so everyone has a playmate. We had a day visit with Grandma Durrer, Melinda and Aunt Judy in August.
At the end of September a couple good friends of ours, Dave Jonas and Erin Smetana were married in Vegas so we all drove down and were able to visit old friends and drive by our old houses.