Trip to ND

We headed out to North Dakota on August 11th. Michael had to take his diagnostic tests for the starting of his doctoral program at NDSU (yes, he's finally starting the long process to completing his DMA in choral conducting!). We got as far as Fargo and stayed in a hotel. Eleanor now loves to stay in hotels and thinks the continental breakfast is so cool! On August 12th, Michael had about 4 hours of testing plus meeting with his advisor (and getting his student ID card!) so I had to occupy the girls for quite a while. We stayed in the hotel that morning and tried to swim, but it was a dinky-sized pool and it was cold. We then headed out to West Acres Mall which is a great mall to kill some time in. Michael finally called at about 3 pm and we headed to my parents' place in Bismarck & arrived just in time for dinner.

This is the view at the end of my parents' road. Gorgeous views! ND was absolutely beautiful because they've had a lot of rain and the weather was in the 70s.

The weather was pretty cool for swimming, but Eleanor wanted to try it anyway. My Mom has a little kiddie pool for them.

We let Miriam just swim naked because she had a diaper rash and we thought some good air time would be good for that. Plus, it was just too cute!

We celebrated Eleanor & Michael's September birthdays while we were there. A cake from DQ and presents! Eleanor thought that was pretty cool because she basically now gets 2 parties.

This is outside my Mom & Dad's front door.

Going for an evening walk to enjoy those glorious ND views!

A cute picture of Eleanor & Michael on the trail. This rock was in a neighbor's yard, but she had fun playing on it. Hope they didn't mind!

Another great view at the edge of the road.

The girls with Uncle Joe. Unfortunately, he had to work most of the time we were there. But, he had dinner with us the first night and stopped by before we left. Joe is a nurse and works at Medcenter One Hospital in Bismarck. He just passed his nursing boards this summer and we're very proud of him! He works the night shift from 6 pm to 6 am and so it was fairly easy for him to stop by and see us before we left. We had to leave at 8 am because we had to do the complete drive back in one day. It's a total of 9 hours.

A family shot the night before we left.

Thanks again for everything, Mom & Dad! We love you and so enjoy our time in Bismarck every time we come.

(I'll have a post soon about our trip to the Dakota Zoo!)

Annual Nesheim Dinner

Whenever we go out to Bismarck we try and get together with Paul & Martha Nesheim for dinner. Paul was one of our choral directors at Concordia and we've stayed friends all these years. They have two children, Lute (6) & Linnea (5). I didn't get any pictures of the adults, but some of the kiddos.

Lute & Eleanor in the sandbox. The kids played together really well and Miriam just tried to keep up! You may notice in this picture Eleanor's cut lip. She had an accident at their place where she had a run in with a coffee table!

We hope it's not another year before we see them again, but we're glad that we get to catch up when we get the chance!

Walking - 15 months

These were some of her first real steps alone. She's gotten much faster even in the last week. In this video Eleanor had fallen asleep on the floor and Miriam got a kick out of waking her up!Miriam's Walking (finally)! from Brynn Culloton on Vimeo.

What's Miriam been up to?

OK, folks. I haven't blogged in awhile, so get ready for the posts to come fast & furious! It's been a crazy summer. Trips to NYC, Bismarck, & St. Cloud and in the meantime I got a raging sinus infection that took 2 rounds of antibiotics to clear up - so needless to say blogging was last on my list. But, I have many updates!! First, I have to start with Miriam because she's changing so much these days and I haven't done a post on her in awhile.

The following are just some random pictures that were taken this summer. The big news here is that Miriam is finally walking!! It's been her summer project. She's been crawling, walking along furniture, and standing for quite some time, but she just seemed very hesitant to take the plunge. She finally just a few days ago got the hang of it. I'll post a video later of some of her first solo walking.

Both girls love to take the couch cushions off and play & make forts. Miriam loves it because she can easily crawl on and off the couch with the cushions off.

Silly girl. She's hard to get a picture of lately because she's busy, busy, busy. But, also because she likes to reach for the camera.

When I try and get pictures of both girls Eleanor has a tendency to want grab Miriam. Miriam doesn't like that and then this is what I usually end up getting for a shot.

Spaghetti night!

Miriam's little personality is developing more and more every day. She still doesn't talk much (or at least say much we can understand) but she says Mama, Dada, and likes to point to things and say "this." She also can identify some body parts (her belly button is her favorite) by pointing or blinking (for her eyes). She understands a lot of what we say to her or commands we give. Eleanor was a very early talker and I can't compare because Miriam just has a totally different personality. Plus, Eleanor does all the talking, so why bother!? :)

Miriam's a sweetie-pie and we love her so!

So Big!

So Big! from Brynn Culloton on Vimeo.

July 4th!

COUSINS!

Jordan, Natalie & Baby Seth came to Rochester for the 4th of July weekend - very spontaneously by the way! We hadn't seen Seth for awhile so it was great to see him growing and developing. He loves tummy time and is rolling over like crazy. He's such a happy baby!

It wasn't easy getting that perfect shot!

Eleanor convinced Jordan to play "beauty salon" several times. What a great uncle!

Karen Danielson was nice enough to let us come over and swim in her pool. We have such great friends that allow us to come crash their pools every now & then in the summers! :)

This shot would have been perfect if Miriam wasn't so upset that Eleanor had even touched her. She was a little touchy that afternoon...

We were so thrilled that this impromptu weekend happened for our families! Thanks Jordan & Natalie for making the trip. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we see you again.

Eleanor's vacation

Eleanor left this morning for her first visit to Grandma's house without Michael and I. Karma Karma & Auntie Janis had been visiting since Monday and they left this morning to head home. On their way, they're dropping Eleanor off at Grandma Mari Lee's for three days. It was hard to watch her leave, but she was more than ready! She couldn't wait to go!

We miss you already, Eleanor. Have a blast at Grandma Mari Lee's!

PS My camera lost its battery power right as I was going to take a picture of the whole gang. But, I got some good pictures with Janis's camera.

Storm clean up...it takes a village

Once the ABP was sent out (by Karen Danielson - thanks, Karen!) that Mr. Culloton needed help the phone starting ringing! We're still getting calls and it's all been cleaned up. We have dear friends and neighbors who were so willing to help out. Several Honors Choirs kids & parents came over and Mark, the guy with the chainsaw, is our neighbor. They cut it all up and loaded it into a truck. The guys even drove the branches to the recycling place and said that the even exchange was the firewood that they're going to take. Fine by us!

Thank you Honors Choirs families for stopping by to help us!! Also, thanks to the people who just stopped by to make sure we were OK (Grant!). We feel very lucky to have people we know we can call if needed.

This, of course, is insignificant given the circumstances, but look at my poor geranium!

Also, we should inform you that we had a tree expert stop by (Bill Connelly, our daycare provider's husband) and said that our big tree still has several years left in her. I think we should give her a name now that she survived this storm. Any suggestions?? She is rotting from the inside out, but Bill said that trees can survive for several years like this. He also suggested trimming her (along with the big tree by our garage) and planting some new Maple trees on our boulevard. We lost two pretty big trees a couple of years ago by the city. The city has never replaced them, so I guess it's up to us. Once again, more $$$$$$$$!!