Photo blogging

Alright... so I'm not a great blogger. I chalk it up to a full time job and a baby and travel, etc. However, that hasn't stopped the shutter from fluttering! The camera shutter that is. Well, I'm not sure they actually call it shutter anymore since we've entered the digital age. But whatever... here are some cute photos from our last few months. So it's less of a blog and more of a photo journal.

Where did we leave off? Oh right, we had just gotten back from vacation and then bought a house! Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to get the photos of the house from Tyler, so instead - happy 4th of July!

Liam in his 4th of July outfit - Age 5 months. 

Liam having dinner while enjoying the view from our new house's deck.

Following 4th of July and the total craze that was moving into our new house, we had our first visitors. Nasseer and Huda and their son Adam came to visit. Since they were the ones we bought the house from it was especially nice to have them around to point out the ins and outs of the house.

Nasseer, Adam, Huda and the Brandt-Smiths on our new deck. 

Right after Nasseer and Huda left we had a visit from my grad school friend Erica and her son Remy. It was so great to catch up - we hadn't seen them since our wedding!

Erica with baby Liam. 

August flew by. Tyler went to Panama for a few weeks and so Liam and I made the most of our time by mainly going to the beach!

Mommy and Baby "selfie" at Magen's Bay.

It was nice to have Tyler/Daddy back because Liam started to get much more mobile around late Aug/early Sept. In fact, he really perfected his "army crawl".  To our surprise though he started standing and trying to walk before he truly crawled. And so when Tyler left again for another trip Liam began using his new found standing powers to "explore" new places....

Liam using his new standing abilities to reorganize some closet space.

In between two of Tyler's trips we decided to use the two night stay at the Westin St. John that we had won at last year's Reef Fest. We took the ferry over and spent the weekend mainly at the pool.

A little aside... Liam had been having trouble sleeping before that. That's the nice way of saying that he was torturing us (mainly Mommy) for three months by getting up every hour, sometimes every 45 minutes, and needing us (mainly Mommy) to rock him/nurse him back to sleep. The week before going to St. John we moved him into his own new room and instituted "operation sleep training." Regardless of where you fall on the Ferber/Cry-it-out method, within 3 days he was sleeping through the night and what had been a living nightmare turned into family bliss. He cried less during the cry-it-out sessions than during a normal night. So in my book Ferber is a genius.

Anyway... back to St. John. So we went over and had a fabulous time relaxing. And Liam got in some good night sleeps and some very good naps...

After St. John, Tyler was off again but his trip was cut short by the threat of a hurricane. Thankfully it ended up steering clear of us but we did a harvest around our property right before to prevent the threat of fruit missiles. Our new house sits on land with several mango, more than 15 banana, and 4 coconut trees as well as three avocado trees and some roots that we're still not sure what to do with. Here was our harvest (p.s. mango season was over).

Pre-hurricane harvest.

Tyler left again as an invited speaker to a workshop in Israel. He returned the day after Halloween just in time for our annual Halloween party. We did a family costume... one we'd been planning on for a year... and one for which I have no good pictures - whoops! But we were Jareth, Sarah and Toby from the movie Labyrinth. If you haven't seen the movie, it's great. It's actually Jim Henson's last movie and stars David Bowie and a bunch of muppets. Enough said. BUT, I had gotten Liam his own costume for his daycare's Halloween party.

Our little Clownfish on Halloween.

Post-Halloween party. He was quite a party animal.

A few days after Halloween, Tyler's parents (Sharon/Gaga and David/Poppy) arrived for a visit. We got in lots of beach time and they even babysat one night so we could get out for a "date night."  They also helped with some baby-proofing (since our little guy has started truly crawling in earnest and is very close to cruising) and planning for future house upgrades.

Playing with Gaga at the beach.

Liam showing Poppy his favorite paint colors while shopping.

Soon after Gaga and Poppy left, I left for a work trip. My first away from the baby and the first time for Tyler to try single-parenting. He did an excellent job and I returned to a happy and healthy baby and an intact house. Not that I was worried. :-)

The day I left... already naked and getting into trouble.

So that brings us to now. We're enjoying the daily surprises that come with living with an almost-10 month old. He's eating and growing like crazy and just generally being amazingly cute. Here's a shot of him enjoying Daddy's antics in the kitchen.

That's all for now. I won't pretend that I'll be any better about blogging so just in case: Happy Holidays and New Year! Love, the Brandt-Smiths.

Panorama from Casa Brandt-Smith.

Liam's Big Adventure Off the Rock

In his short 5 months on Planet Earth, Liam has had several adventures (hitting up the different beaches of St. Thomas and St. John, taking the car ferry to St. John, going to daycare), but all of these adventures have been in the USVI.  On June 8 he started his first big adventure off the islands. And he started it with a little bit of class... first class to be exact. Because we bought tickets with our airline miles, his very first flight was first class on US Airways.

Liam and Daddy waiting for our flight in St. Thomas.

First class - yay!

The flight was to Charlotte, NC where we spent the night at a hotel and then headed east to Emerald Isle for Liam's first beach vacation with the Smith/Scheetz/McMahon family and the Perrys. The flight and night at hotel went well, but the 5 1/2 hour drive (which ended up being 7 hours) was a little much for the little guy. He took it like a trooper though, and really only protested at the very end. We arrived at the beach house to a fairly hilarious entrance. Everyone was so excited to see Liam that when someone noticed a new car in the driveway they all rushed out the second floor stairway. Meanwhile Tyler, Liam and I had already come in the bottom floor door. We surprised them by sneaking up behind to say hello. A very happy reunion and meeting followed and that night it was my turn to be surprised by a wonderful belated birthday celebration.

My birthday cake at Emerald Isle. 

We spent the rest of the week with the Smith/McMahon/Scheetz/Perry clan beaching it up. Liam got to be held by everyone and was showered with attention by cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends. He loved every minute of it and regaled us with wonderful smiles and laughs every day. He spent time in the waves and in the pool, including his first dunk underwater. One of the days Tyler captained a rented pontoon boat for the B and C generations. Liam and I hung back so that I could catch up on some rest (Liam was not a big fan of sleeping in NC - the excitement of vacation I guess).  It was a great success despite some cloudy weather and they only went aground once (ha ha not really - ok, well talk to Tyler about it).

Liam's first dunk in the waves. He garnered quite the crowd!

Relaxing with Gaga. I think this was probably his favorite part of the beach.

"Reading" his crinkle book on the beach with Gaga and Poppy.

Ten days was not enough, but low and behold we found ourselves back in the car on the way to Charlotte. No first class this time, but it was a short flight to La Guardia and Liam did great once again. We were picked up at the airport by Grandma and Grandpa Brandt. It was a bit of a brutal ride home because Liam made it abundantly clear for about 2 hours that he no longer wanted to be in his carseat. But once we were at the house in Woodstock and he was tucked into the beautiful crib that Grandma and Grandpa Brandt provided, he slept... well... like a baby.

Enjoying his beautiful new crib. If only we could've packed it and brought it back to the island!

NY was a series of more firsts for Liam. Two days after arrival we took him on his first trip to the big city, including his first ride on a train, Metro North, from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central. Then he had his first trip on the NYC Subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we met up with friends Chung, Mike and their 1 and 1/2 year old twins Ernest and Elise. That was his first exposure to high art. I'm not so sure he appreciated it. But he loved the twins and they loved him. Then we took a first stroll through Central Park where he saw his first Peregrine Falcon. All in all, it was an intense and exciting day and he crashed hard that night.

Grand Central!

Enjoying fine art at the Met with Ernest and Elise.

Central Park! (I'm pretty sure Liam was mostly interested in the ice cream cone Ernest was eating at the moment)

The next day we took it easy and then met up with the Norton-Brandts. That was his first trip to Ed and Kelly's and his first introduction to the rest of the Nortons, including John, Ellen and Adam who was up from Orlando with his girlfriend. He was so excited to see them we had to change his outfit when we arrived!

Dinner with the Nor-Brandts on the Hudson!

The next day Liam took his first trip to an outlet mall (ok maybe that's not so exciting, but we spent quality time with Ed and Kell!). The last two days in Woodstock we spent hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa and Ed and Kell and visiting with high school friends Vanessa and Sarah and their families. As with NC, too soon came our departure. But at least we were flying first class back to St. Thomas. All this first class flying and Liam will probably expect a hot towel and glass of champagne on all his flights!

Breakfast with Grandma.

Our newest and greatest adventure...

This last year has been quite eventful. As everyone who reads this blog knows, the population of our island of adventure has expanded to include a little Brandt-Smith. Specifically, William Brandt Smith was born January 29, 2014 at 4:59pm at the St. Thomas hospital. Weighing in at 8 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches, he took his time in the delivery room but finally arrived to the delight of his parents and family.

A freshly delivered William ("Liam") Brandt Smith

Prior to his arrival, Liam was quite the traveler. So much so he technically earned gold status on American Airlines in mom's belly!

We first discovered we were pregnant in May while in Colorado. I was attending a two week statistics workshop and Tyler took vacation to get some writing done. Happily, this allowed us to spend a whole bunch of time with the Smiths, Scheetzes and McMahons.

Ben, Emma, Tyler and Sharon (Mom/Gaga) on a hike during our Colorado stay.

We were very excited and our little growing nugget was hard to keep a secret after that, but we stayed mum until we could confirm the good news. The doctor confirmed his existence once we were back in St. Thomas and soon after that we jetted to Jamaica for a conference. My excuse for not participating in the usual marine science boozing and diving was an "ear problem". The "ear problem" excuse was starting to run thin but after returning from Jamaica we had only a couple of weeks until we finally heard the heartbeat. It was after that appointment that we gleefully spread the news.

After that it was baby-party central. We went on our previously scheduled beach vacation in August with the whole Smith family and family-friend Perrys in North Carolina. A little bump was forming by then, which generated much excitement.

The extended Smith family in North Carolina (photo credit: Lynne Poulton)

North Carolina was followed by the big "appointment" where we found out that our little nugget was a boy. Bring on the blue!  Shortly after that we headed to Massachusetts for our friend Joanna's wedding, followed by a quick trip to Philadelphia to meet Chung and Mike's twins, followed by a long weekend in New York, complete with a beautiful baby shower hosted by Mom Brandt and Kelly and attended by Mom Smith, soon to be Aunts Michele and Mindy, who all made the trip from Colorado. The trip was everything we could have asked for: friends, family, and fun. Not to mention gorgeous fall weather.

Us with the "bump" at our baby shower.

Following the big trip up north, we did a long-weekend "baby-moon" in October in Puerto Rico. We had won a 3 night stay and airfare to San Juan at a silent auction the previous Christmas and so we decided to use it for our last hurrah. We got the trip for such a deal that we thought it would be a shabby hotel. Instead it was wonderful: newly redone with a great pool that we spent a lot of time at. We did visit the rainforest, but mainly we lounged and enjoyed the hotel.

After that, I made one quick trip to Santa Barbara, CA for a workshop at the end of October and then I was officially grounded. Christmas was weird for both of us since we'd never spent it away from family before (let along in the tropics). But we had some friends over and spent a lot of time at the beach.

Not long after that, Mom and Dad Brandt arrived to start the countdown. It didn't take long... only three days after their arrival I went into labor and voila! Our little star was born.

Liam has been an absolute joy since. He's growing fast - I can't believe he's already 4 and 1/2 months! He's been lucky to have already met in person both sets of grandparents as well as his Aunts Mindy, Michele and Kelly and Uncle Ed and cousin Connor. All of whom came to visit and helped out in the first days. We're currently returning the favor and have gotten off the rock for Liam's first trip to the mainland. It's a tour de force, with our first stop in Emerald Isle, North Carolina for a family vacation with the Smiths and Perrys and soon onto New York to visit the Brandts.

I can't say I'll be better about blogging, but I'll try to keep some updates coming at least as a record for Liam. Here's one of his latest and greatest shots, taken by Gaga during bath time here in NC. Let the new adventures begin!