“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds"

  

Two weekends ago we went to a filming site of "The Notebook." (hence quote above, I've only seen it once so I had to Google a good quote) Anyway it was Cypress Gardens and it was on our list of places to see before leaving. It was the epitome of South Carolinian beauty. Apparently it was an old plantation and now it's converted into kind of a natural park. They have a few ponds, that you can canoe on for free (!) and trails surrounding the ponds. With a mid 60 degree day and spring upon us we decided to try out an adventure. It was one of our best days here. The canoe ride was awesome. It made me reminisce about our punting days in Cambridge *sigh* :) This time though we had a baby so Jason was stuck with doing the paddling.

 Notice the progression of Will....doing good, thinking it's cool.

 Starting to get hesitant

 Really not happy with what's going on. Usually I can turn the phone on camera and he sees himself and gets happy. Not this time! 

 And he finally gets what he wants, food! Totally absorbed in the food oblivious to the beauty surrounding him 

 So we fed him to the alligator :) 

"Hitler Would Be Proud"

I've gotten used to people talking to me at the grocery stores, parks, really anywhere in public. It used to annoy me but I couldn't very well go around with a sign that says "I'm an introvert and I hate small talk, yes my baby is cute, thank you" so I've learned to become social when I get out of the house and I quite enjoy seeing people interact with Will. Most of what I get is a *gasp* "What beautiful blue eyes!" This makes me smile and it makes Will smile and it makes them smile so it's all a win win. And often I get the people who are grandparents of a child about the same age as Will and I can see the longing they have but just genuine love for babies and it warms my heart. But there are some conversations that are quite funny. Like the following three.

In the airport on our way to SLC after a really long day. Will was on the floor falling asleep which is what his parents wanted to be doing but a man came up to us and strikes up a conversation.
"Did you know that we are genetically engineered to like big eyes and short limbs? Like puppies, and kitties, and babies. That's why we think babies are so cute and why we don't abandoned them." Alright well I guess I won't be abandoning my baby anytime soon because he has the biggest blue eyes, thanks!

And if you want really good conversation go to the Dollar Tree. A few weeks ago I ran into an older lady who told me her baby was turning 56. And then she turns around and says "of course I had him when I was 12." At which point if I had been drinking something it would have sprayed out all over.  Luckily I wasn't and so I could stop myself from reacting when I realized she was only joking.

And then my favorite at Dollar Tree today, I came in juggling Will and my purse, keys, and stroller cover so a man came rushing over to help me with a cart. And then he sees Will's blonde hair and blue eyes and says "Hitler would be proud!" Um?? I'm not sure what to do with that except call my husband and tell him I got the best comment. ever.

So in commemoration of my blonde hair blue eyed son here's some pics from his 8 month photo shoot today!

 This one's my favorite. This is his "I'm going to be excited in a minute" face and I'm not sure why but he loves to jut his jaw out like that. 

The Christmas Card that Never was

I had really good intentions on getting Christmas cards out last year but sadly they never happened! So... Happy belated Holidays :) 

Happy Holidays!

2014 was a pretty good year for us. It was the first calendar year (or any 12 months for that matter) that we actually lived in the same state since we've been married. Yay for only filing one state tax form! In 2014 Natalie made the decision to not go to graduate school, lasted through her 40 weeks of pregnancy and her biggest accomplishment; birthing Will and keeping him alive and happy after that. Jason's work at Google created the CS First program as a Computer Science after school club and they now have 25,000 participants! 

As you can probably guess our defining moment of 2014 was bringing Will into the world. Turning into parents is the biggest change we've ever gone through and it brought with it everything that change brings; excitement, happiness, pain, confusion, identity crisis, love, strength and joy. Will is the perfect child for us. He is always happy, adorable and we can cart him anywhere we want to go. People constantly ask us if he's always so happy and easy and I usually say yes! It's impossible to have a bad morning with his bright smiley face staring at you and watching him grow and move convinces me that he knows so much. 

Jason's contracted job is ending in June 2015 so we are on the countdown of our time here in Charleston and soon we'll be on to new adventures.  

Happy Holidays!

Jason, Natalie, and Will Hammon

Hello Again

Oh the things we do for our children. I just army crawled out of my son's room after putting him to sleep so he wouldn't see me go out and get mad. That was after 10 minutes of sitting by his crib and singing him hymns. Love him to death but do we have to go through a no sleeping phase? 

**ps I can't believe how long it's been since I've written on this blog! I probably don't have any reader now. Hopefully I can start because I think I'm going insane and need an outlet for thoughts. If only pictures weren't so hard to get from my phone to the blog, hmmm