the bennett blog

Don't Forget- Our Blog Moved!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:19:00 +0000

Just wanted to remind you to visit our new blog at http://thebennettars.com!

If you subscribed to our updates here and would like to now get them from the new blog, it's easy!

Click here to receive the new updates in your RSS feed reader.

Click here to receive the new updates by email.

Click here to get set up with flickr (easy step-by-step instructions) so you can view our photo albums.

xoxo,
The Bennetts

Our Blog Has Moved!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:14:00 +0000

Check it out! We will no longer be blogging at this URL, but rather you can now find us at:

http://thebennettars.com/

Please click on over and update your bookmark/subscription to stay up-to-date on all the The Bennett Family happenings.

Spontaneous Road Trip: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:32:00 +0000

After Carly & Chase's wedding we decided to drive up to Portland, OR to visit our college friends Dave & Rachael Berry and meet their daughter Pearl. We figured, hey, we'll be halfway there (in Sac) and we're unemployed with time to spare, so why not!

It was a great decision! The drive up there was beautiful- neither of us had driven that far north as adults and seeing I-5 in the spring is a lot greener and nicer than summertime. Gigi noted that there were "wots [lots] of cows."We had a great time touring around Portland with stay-at-home dad Dave (one of David's college roommates and also to be forever remembered as the groomsman at our wedding with 2 left shoes). He helps pastor a church in Portland and took us to tour Skate Church which his co-pastor started over 20 years ago. It was really fun to see Gigi and Pearl play together, too. Pearl turned 1 in December so they are only about 7 months apart.
We went to Powell's Books which is the biggest bookstore I could imagine- an entire city block and multiple levels!! It was awesome! And we also saw the beautiful Multnomah Falls (pictured up above) in the Columbia River Gorge. It was raining, but that didn't stop us from venturing out!
I really loved Oregon, especially how green it is~ and I mean that literally and figuratively.

Enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for the rest of trip's recaps.

"Bless You"

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:18:00 +0000

Our sweet Gianna loves to say Bless You when someone sneezes, coughs or makes some other similar noise. I caught her saying "Bless You, Mommy" after I made some noise and then she proceeded to bless others as well. :)

Shaq-tastic Breakfast!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:36:00 +0000

On Sunday Morning, after Carly & Chase's wedding we had a big family brunch at the Sheraton Grand in Sacramento.

It turns out someone else was there too, staying in town for his team to play the Kings that night!

It's Shaq!!

He was so incredibly tall... At one point he was coming out of the gift shop and Gigi ran over nearby. He commented about her and how he has some of his own little ones at home. :)

Congrats, Carly & Chase!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:22:00 +0000

We had an awesome weekend in Sacramento, celebrating the marriage of David's younger sister Carly and her new husband Chase. It was awesome to see almost all of the Bennett-side of our family and also some friends.David and his 2 sisters and brother.

As usual, the Hunns were our super-hospitable hosts. We love hanging out with them and Gigi does, too. She can't get enough of her friend "Ih-belle" (Isabelle) and always wants to be right next to her (or on top of her head, whatever). She loves the rest of the family too, "Emmy," Dave, and their dog & cat, too.

Emily, Isabelle, Me & Gigi

It was so fun to have the family all together and we really enjoyed the hang-out time before the wedding. Gigi absolutely loved playing with her cousins (and missed Rueben!). I think she's really going to miss them.Riley & Gigi

Peter & Cade

We all (except Tiffany) happened to dress in a similar color!

The wedding was beautiful, as was the bride. Carly really went above-and-beyond with the planning for the kids at her wedding. She planned a special meal for them (complete with a personal ketchup bottle!) and even left each of them a gift bag of goodies for the reception. It was perfect, and so thoughtful.

We're so happy for Carly and Chase-- he makes a great addition to the Bennett family and we can't wait to get to know him better!

View the many pictures here!

Old Video Recently Edited

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:41:00 +0000

Hope you enjoyed that, and I have a few more up my sleeve!!

Legoland

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:10:00 +0000

Since last weekend we've been hanging out with David's sister Stacey and our six-year old nephew Peter. We had a great time with them in Arizona and then this week we all spent a day at Legoland (with Granny, too). It was super fun, especially for Peter who is a Lego Maniac.
View the Photo Album!

Now we're off to Aunt Carly's wedding and most likely more of a road trip north to Oregon afterward!

Arizona: The Land Of Hot Dirt... And Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:27:00 +0000

Last weekend we had a great trip out to Arizona... why, you ask? Visit Round Ball Round Bat for the details, including a link to our photos from the trip {fyi- if you are not our contact on flickr yet you will only be able to see the baseball pictures and not all the other cute shots of Gigi and her cousin}.

Also, here's a cute video I finally edited that will give you a little hint as to why we went to the desert (if you don't already know).

Vote For Al-Buddy Again

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:59:00 +0000

Again my super-talented brother has some t-shirts up for voting.

These are 3 seriously awesome shirts, people. All you have to do is click the links to vote for each shirt.

Shirt #1: Phonograph

Shirt #2: Rewind

Shirt #3: Arizona
Arizona is my favorite. :) I think they are all equally as good or better than all the funny shirts that come from one of our favorite e-tailers, Busted Tees. So please, go register (it's real quick) and vote!!

And speaking of Arizona, we leave Thursday for Spring Training. Next week we'll have a recap over at our baseball blog!

Almanor Crew Meet-Up

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:56:00 +0000

If you saw our February photos you may have noticed we had a little get-together with part of the Almanor crew, aka the families I grew up camping with every summer.

It's always fun when we're all together and this time was no exception. We met up at the Churney's new house (which they've done an amazing job fixing up) in Orange, and a highlight was definitely seeing Gigi get to play with her friend Ryan who's only a month younger than her, and his new baby brother Jayden.

We of course missed the rest of the crew (including this family and this one), but hopefully one of these days we'll all make it up to the lake for a reunion!

Love you guys!!Gigi's first time "holding" a baby!

P.S. Kelly, I owe you pictures, I'll email them soon or your can download them off my flickr account. :)

Published!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:03:00 +0000

So, I'm officially a somewhat-published writer!
I submitted a guest devotional to Christian Surfers for their weekly email devotional, and this week it was printed.
You can read it HERE!

Get Your Baseball Fix

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:42:00 +0000

I think by now everyone knows how much we love baseball in this family. So you probably won't be surprised to hear that we started a new baseball blog!

Please check it out and spread the word to other baseball fans! Click the button below to visit roundballroundbat.com!

February Photos

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:04:00 +0000

February was a snappy-happy month for us- I'll blame it on the new camera. ;) I may have to go back to posting smaller albums up here more frequently, rather than on a monthly basis now!

we love warm weather!

You'll also note that I've changed the privacy of our photos. You'll now need to create a flickr account and add me as a contact to be able to see our photos. As soon as you add me as a contact, I'll get an email and add you as one of my contacts and then you'll be able to view my private photos.

Sorry to inconvenience you all but it's really easy to set-up a free flickr account, and that way people that may access some of my public photos from my other blogs won't be able to see all of our family's personal photos. I'll be keeping some photos public, but most of the family photos will be private.

If some of you reading are friends of friends or something like that, you can still add me as a contact and send me a flickr message telling me you like to read my blog. As long as I see that you're not some psycho I'll you add you as one of my contacts and you'll be able to see my pics. Easy-peasy.

And trust me, it will be worth it because we all know how cute Gigi is- it's definitely worth a few clicks to set-up a quick account so that you can see all our family photos.

Thanks for understanding.

Now, here are February's photos!
Sign up for flickr and then you can click to view Part 1 and Part 2
(more details on some of these to follow)
and, here are the photos from my BlissDom Conference in Nashville.

Happy Birthday to Me!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:46:00 +0000

Despite everything, I had a great birthday weekend. We spend most of it camping at Mission Bay with my parents, and on my actual birthday, David's parents, Alex & Angelina all came to visit and have dinner with us at Anthony's Fish Grotto downtown. I felt so loved by all the calls, texts, emails, & facebook messages (boy, we sure live in a digital age, huh?), so thank you to everyone.

And, I was overwhelmed to be blessed with an amazing birthday gift, too...

A New Camera!! I am so excited, and so thankful to David, my parents, my in-laws and my grandma!! And I'm also proud of David for being such a savvy shopper and getting an amazing deal (yay for Circuit City going out-of-business!).

It takes amazing pictures. Now I just have to learn how to use it-- luckily I have a willing friend/teacher. Here are a few fun ones from the weekend from the new camera, since my brother was bugging me to post a few. :)

Here are a few "artistic" ones just for fun.

Big blog news coming soon- stay tuned!

Family Update

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:52:00 +0000

A handful of you have heard this already... I should have been 13 1/2 weeks pregnant this week but we found out this week that I lost the pregnancy, probably at around 10 weeks. Right now we're just trying to hold on to the fact that God is in control despite everything.

The good news is that David is driving out to California right now as I type and will be here almost for good 2 days earlier than we planned. He has to fly back next week for one more day to wrap things up at work but other than that he's done in Colorado and although jobless in CA, our family will finally be back together tonight. Please pray for safe travels today.

Thanks for all your love, prayers and support.

January Photos and A Message to Bennett Markley

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:17:00 +0000

sI've been meaning to post this link...
Here are all of our January Photos on Flickr.

Gigi's First "Vlog" (Video Blog)

Something Gigi loves is to watch "movies" that our friends post of their kids on their blogs. Today she literally asked me to watch one of her favorites- Bennett Laughing-- Click the link so you can see how cute he is (she likes the dancing one, too), but don't forget to come back here and scroll down!

Here's Gigi smiling away as she watches Bennett...

And in response, she wanted to do a Vlog for Bennett:

Amazing Family Photos

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Our extremely talented friends, Danielle & Jared Zacharias of sidebysidevideo.com took these awesome photos of us at one of our family's favorite beaches, Stone Steps. It's in Encinitas right down the street from David's great-aunt's house.

I'm blown away at how cute some of these are. Capturing Gigi like this "on film" is not an easy feat with how crazy our little toddler is these days! There's no way I can pick out my favorites right now so here are just a couple and then I encourage you to enjoy the slideshow below.

7x7 Prayer For Our Children

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:46:00 +0000

I posted on Gidget Goes Home today on how I plan to pray for Gigi specifically 7 times a day, 7 days a week (or as close to that as possible each day). You can visit there to see my digitally-scrapboooked prayer cards and to read more about!

I hope you have a fun weekend and enjoy the SuperB owl (as Jim Rome and therefore David affectionately refer to it).

Weekend in Sac!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Gigi and I flew up to Sacramento this weekend for a fun time with family and friends. We were so stoked that David was able to come out from Colorado too and we loved spending the weekend with him; it made us even more anxious for when he's finally out here for good!

We stayed with our friends Dave, Emily & Isabelle as we have been wanting to visit them ever since Dave had a bit of a health scare last month. We loved meeting Isabelle and Gigi was so happy to meet another new friend, Ih-belle. Gigi & Izzy got to take a couple of baths together and Gigi got to play with all of Emmy's fun toys that she has from her speech therapy days, and Mommy was happy to eat yummy abalone for dinner- mmm!!

Bath time!

We also went to celebrate with the Bennett side of the fam and Gigi got to go to Aunt Carly's bridal shower and spend time with her and Uncle Chase, Granny and Granpa and even Aunt Stacey, who came all the way from Indiana, surprising her little sister! During the shower, David and his dad got to play golf at the golf course that David worked at in high school with his buddy Taylor and his dad ~ just like the old days.

Surprise!

At Carly's Shower

On Sunday, we also spent time with Kristina & Sarah, another one of Gigi's friends. It was so cute to see the three girls sort of "hanging out" together and observing the different stages each of them is in.

Moms & Daughters, the next generation

Isabelle (~6 mos.), Sarah (~11 mos.), Gianna (~21 mos.)

Speaking of stages, sweet little Gigi Bri has officially entered the Terrible Twos, as of Carly's shower, which she pretty much spent in one constant tantrum (sorry, ladies!). Although, she sort of redeemed & refreshed herself yesterday with two good naps, and a good night's sleep.

Thanks, everyone, for a really fun weekend!

Talking Up a Storm Here...

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Gigi's vocabulary and syntax is booming these days. I swear she's learning new words and phrases every day. Her newest phrases are actually her first sentences: "I'll get it!" "I fixed it!" and "Throw it [the ball]!" are just a few. I still think she doesn't understand all the personal pronouns like I, me and you, but it's so cute to hear her saying them.

I guess it's about time to start recording her funny Gigi-isms as she develops and learns more and more. So here are a couple to start things off.

The other day we went for a walk on a nearby trail. A runner came up behind us and passed by us, wearing just running shorts, and no shirt (it was guy, BTW). Gigi points and says matter-of-factly, "Naked!"

Let me preface this next story by the fact that lately Gigi has learned to stack blocks and knock them over saying, "Timber!" and also we play "Timber" when she's up on my bed and she falls over. So today we were driving home from breakfast with some friends and there was a truck in front of us, packed and stacked like the Beverly Hillbillies. It took me a second to figure out what she was saying, but sure enough, Gigi was looking at the truck and saying "Timber!" I said, "No, baby, that furniture is going to stay stacked, we don't want it to go timber."

Pretty clever, this girl.

Beach Babe

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Swinging in San Clemente

Well, I'm happy to report that Gigi has a new found love-- the beach!! She has had a bit of a hiatus from the beach but now that we're starting to go more often she's loving it. She actually cries when we leave.

She loves to talk about the beach, ocean (sounds like oh sh**!! -pretty funny), birdies, sand, surfers, surfboards & skateboards (she calls them boarders), water, and doggies.

Here's a video (sorry, unedited) of Gigi in Coronado... when we first arrived she would barely walk on the sand, but she was chasing the birds in no time!

My New Project ~ all for SD Moms!

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:43:00 +0000

I've been slacking a little over in these parts... but it's been for good reason! I'm excited to announce the launch of my new website: San Diego Mommy Spot!

If you are a San Diego County mom, you'll definitely want to check it out as I hope it to become the premiere online community for SD families! We have forums, an event calendar and you can even share your photos.

This week we are celebrating our launch with a big giveaway, so head on over to see what you can win!

I still hope to keep the ol' family blog fairly regularly updated, but I'm also hoping to put more energy in the SD Mommy Spot too. Please spread the word if you think about it! :) And special thanks to my dear friends Kelley for the adorable logo and David Dear for all the tech stuff!! They're the best!

Christmas & December Photos

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:15:00 +0000

A delicious date night out at Delicias in Ranch Santa Fe with two sets of Pavones.

We had a really nice Christmas at the Pavones' house this year, complete with the Bennetts spending Christmas day with us, too.

Gigi loves her new pony from Yaya & Papa!!

Gigi and Granny on Christmas.

Here's our December photo album (sort of big!)~ December was a fun month here in CA for us, and we've thoroughly enjoyed David's two weeks off of work!

A very happy Gigi at lunch with the Wingers in La Jolla.

November Recap

noreply@blogger.com (nicole viola) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:39:00 +0000

Sorry it's taken so long, but I'm finally catching you all up on the Bennett happenings last month. We enjoyed our last official weeks in Colorado and then drove out to California for our usual camping trip, this year at San Mateo State Campground.
After Thanksgiving, David flew back to Colorado to continue working until he gets a job out here, where Gigi and I are waiting (im)patiently for him. We were stoked to have my mom, aka Yaya, fly out the week before our move to help us pack to and to accompany Gigi in the back seat on the long drive. This was especially helpful since I was also attempting to write a novel (I know, I'm crazy) at the time.
Now that I'm basically caught up here, I promise to post more frequently! Enjoy the pictures (I even did some captions this time!).

Click for: November Photos

Click for: Thanksgiving Weekend Photos