The Nielsen Nest: January 2010

This past weekend Erik had a nice day off from school. So, we took advantage of it (and the gorgeous weather) and headed down to South West Oklahoma to go on a little hike in the Wichita Mountains. Okay, they aren't quite like the Rockies or anything, we're talking about the highest peak being about 2,500 feet. Hey, we'll take it! Anyway, we heard about this restaurant that is down there called the Meers Restaurant and is supposedly home of the world famous Meersburger. The history of the restaurant is interesting. It's actually a fun place to go if you're ever driving through...hey we saw people there from Holland (no,not my mom) who had obviously heard of it. Apparently it should be on your bucket list, so you better get on it!

Here is the world famous Meersburger! only about 1/2 lb. of beef! We actually had the Seismic burger which is 1 lb of beef! But, split b/w my parent's, Erik and I it was manageable.

You drive literally in the middle of no-where without passing a soul on the road, but when you pull in the parking lot...it's packed!

Wichita Mountains. It was a perfect day to get out!

Blake sure is ready to go...what a life

I guess he was done with his little video...chewing on the foot was more fun.

We had such an AMAZING time spending the holidays with Erik's parent's (Mimi and Grandpa-T) along with his Sister's family who drove all the way from Utah...okay, it's not that far but the weather is always questionable this time of year! Erik got a three week break from the books (which by the way is going great,he loves every minute of dental school) so we took advantage of his time off and flew to Southern California. Time sure went by fast while we were there but we enjoyed every minute we had.
Blake is growing like a weed, even in the three weeks we were there we all saw tons of changes. He was such a trooper being lugged around everywhere. Even the plane rides were fine (except the 10 minutes he screamed bloody murder on the way home b/c his exhaustion finally caught up to him...hey, 10 minutes of a screaming baby never hurt anyone on a flight!)
So, here is a peek of our trip...

Blake had his first experience with sand. He wasn't quite sure at first, but it didn't take long for it to go in the mouth!

I even caught him in the act!

As you can imagine the weather was beautiful! We were not missing the record snowfall that Oklahoma received while we were relaxing on the beach!

The water was a little too freezing to swim. Blake was dying to go in, he loves water and he sure made a B-line for it whenever he had a chance.

All the cousins

We had to make a stop at the La Jolla Cove and see the seals...yes,those are seals in the upper left below the wall.

Beautiful San Diego

Erik just barely missed being stuck on that rock...high tide was coming in faster than he thought.

We had to get a picture of the boys in the cute vests Mimi made

Vivi and Blake couldn't get enough of each other

We went to Balboa Park one day to walk around and go to some museums.

We had so much fun riding our bikes around Mission Bay. Erik and his dad zip tied milk crates to the front of two of the bikes so Vivi and Dillon enjoyed an easy ride. Blake of course had a great ride too on the back of Erik in his very own backpack.

He had a blast in the backpack..(especially tugging at Erik's ear and hat the whole time)

Our DVD player full of Baby Einstein videos was a life saver since we were in the car a lot

Christmas morning

He was sure inching toward the presents...who are we kidding?he could care less about the presents, he wanted the paper and boxes!

One of my favorite pictures! Blake is officially ready to go shooting with dad

We had to stop by the San Diego temple so Blake could see this beautiful place! Okay, he didn't have a clue, but we wanted to stop...after all we were married here

Christmas in San Diego isn't complete without a Christmas tree on the beach