Ellia's first birthday (take one)

Ellia turned one year old on June 20. We had been in San Francisco for two days, were still adjusting from our respective jet lags, and knew almost no one in the city. However, we were determined not to let this first birthday pass us by. So we celebrated San Francisco-style. Here are a few pictures from Ellia's birthday.

The birthday girl crawling around Alice's place.

Mommy made Ellia her first birthday cake which she happily smeared all over her face.

Our friend Leanne graciously took us to visit the Golden Gate Bridge for Ellia's birthday.

The cake apparently wasn't good enough, so she decided to eat some dirt. So much for taking a cute picture in the flowers.

Mommy, cleaning off the dirt.

Ellia loves to swing. This is at a playground very near the place we first stayed.

Our one-year-old. She's ONE-derful!

Despite two hospital visits during our time in Colorado,
Ellia was still smiling.

Ellia enjoys bath time with her friends Cole and Wyatt.

Ellia plays on the beach in Japan where Mommy taught a women's retreat.

Ellia loved the dolphins at the world's largest aquarium in Okinawa!

We arrived in San Francisco and Ellia handled the jet lag like a champ...
way better than Mommy did.

Stay tuned for a full report on Ellia's birthday!

The return of Ellia (to the blog)

Hi sweet three people who still look at this occasionally. I've (Brett) been out of commission for over a month now. I spent a month--apart from Christina and Ellia--in India with a group of wonderful people from Truett. Life-changing as it was, we'll skip it for now (look for a letter coming your way within the next month or two...sorry, I'm really behind). There was a beautiful reunion between the three of us in the San Francisco airport. I finally had the opportunity to catch up with the lives of my girls for the previous month, which included two and a half weeks in Boulder/Denver and a week and a half in Okinawa, Japan. I'll let these pictures do some talking. I know it's been a while, so we'll try to catch up over the next few posts all the way through (I can't believe it!) Ellia's first birthday. We're in San Francisco for the rest of the summer while I do my mentoring at FBC, SF. Enjoy the pictures.

In Boulder, at the feet of Aunt Juli.

With the moms in Boulder.

Oh, so cute.

With Uncle Clint in Denver. This has become a common face, especially when she sees her new bear, Bill Braski.

Just enjoying life at Noni and Grandaddy's house in Denver.

Visiting Buck and Granmama's

More

Playing catch up

Well, we haven't done a great job updating this thing. But we have not stopped taking pictures. So here are a few from these past couple of weeks. We'll have more coming soon, so check back. It's honestly just hard to pick out a few from the many we have because she looks so good in all of them.

Balls and bath

Ellia is now 10 months old. Here she is doing two of her favorite things: playing in balls and taking a bath.