More Pictures

Christmas

We had a great Christmas at the Fremmings. Stephen's brother Scott and his family came from Idaho, and Stephen's sister Kellee and her husband Ken came from Utah. His sister Kim and her family were also there, and us. Eleanor got to be around and meet new cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We had fun playing games, eating yummy food, and visiting with each other. Eleanor got a vibrating bouncer that she loves to lay in.

Life with Eleanor

We love Eleanor! We're glad she is part of our family. Things we love about Eleanor: holding her, giving her baths because she enjoys sitting in the water, looking at her, when she sleeps against your chest, her beautiful face, talking with her, her pout face (so cute), kissing her cheeks and head, seeing her great smiles, dancing with her, her cute hiccups, how she looks like a frog when she kicks, her beautiful hands and feet, feeding her, watching her watch the mobile with awe while she's in her swing, how she truly looks like a piece of heaven, how happy she is to kick around naked when she's getting her diaper changed, watching our family members enjoy and love her, watching her look at things and learn, seeing her smile at our dogs, seeing our dog's interest in her, watching her look at the Christmas tree lights, taking her on walks so she can see beautiful nature, her great bubble blowing, how much she loves staring at the quilt her grandma made, and bringing her home because it feels even more homey with her here.

Pictures

We got these pictures taken at JC Penneys. It turned out to be an exciting experience taking pictures with a baby. Last year we took pictures with our dogs, and when I told my sister Jenny how crazy it was, she said that it sounded like taking pictures with kids. I thought she was just being funny, turns out she wasn't. In the end they got some really nice pictures.

Eleanor

She's here!!! Eleanor Naomi Fremming was born November 2nd at 11:26 am. She weighed 6 lbs 12 oz, and was 20 in. long. She is such a beautiful girl, and we are so grateful to have her in our home and family. We love this little girl! This is my favorite picture of her, it's from her first bath, she liked having the water run over her head.

Eleanor's Birth

On November 1st I woke up at 3:30 am in mild labor. I was scheduled that day to be induced because I was over a week over my due date. We went into the hospital at 6:00 am, but I wasn't dilated or effaced much, so they went ahead and induced me. They gave me pills every four hours that were meant to soften the cervix, and bring on contractions. My contractions that had started early that morning continued, and worsened throughout that day, and into the next. While we waited I walked the halls of the hospital, we played some games, and watched a little bit of a movie. It took a very long time, and I was lucky to have Stephen and Mom there helping me. In the evening the contractions had gotten worse enough that I had them give me some pain medication, then finally at 5:00 am the next morning I was far enough along that they gave me an epidural. After that I was able to get some sleep, and my labor was able to progress. Towards the end the epidural wasn't working on my left side, and I was able to feel the contractions, which helped in me knowing when they were coming, and when to push. Delivery was an amazing experience. They set up a mirror so that I could see, which helped me to know what to do. I loved getting to see her born! Eleanor Naomi Fremming was born at 11:26 am November 2nd. She weighed 6 lbs 12 oz, and was 20 in long. She was beautiful from birth. After she came out, Stephen cut the umbilical cord, they wiped her off, then laid her on my chest. She was calm and just looked around for a long time. I loved just looking at her. Both Stephen and I cried just looking at her, and feeling so blessed to be able to have this baby. She was born pink skinned, and had long dark hair. Stephen's parents came in to see her right after she was born, and my dad came up that night to see her. All of our family were excited for her birth. I am so grateful to have gotten to have the wonderful experience of giving birth to Eleanor. It was had, but extremely worth it. We love her.

Pumpkins

This year we decided to try something different with our pumpkins. Instead of carving, we cut vinyl and used it to decorate the pumpkins. I like how they turned out, it was a lot less messy than carving, and they'll last longer. Stephen says he's going to carve the back of his, but for now here's our fun vinyl decorating.

Baby Room!

One week until our baby's due date on October 24th! Time is getting closer, and we're getting excited. These last couple of months I've been working, with some help, on the baby's/my craft room. Here are the before pictures, we had just been storing things in there for the last 2 years. Also pictures of the pretty much completed room. I cut the decorations on the walls out of vinyl using my cricut, I like how it turned out.

Apple Hill

On Friday we went to Apple Hill. We had a wonderful time. This is our 3rd year going together. The other two years we went on Saturday, this year we found out going on Friday is such a good idea, they were way less crowded. We spent most of our time at the bigger orchards, eating baked goods, drinking apple cider, looking at crafts, and just enjoying the time together. We liked eating all the apple items, we had: apple doughnut, apple turnover (my favorite), apple cider, apple cookie, apple pie, sour cream apple pie (Stephen's favorite), caramel apple, and apples. We were sugared out by the end of the day. It was beautiful up there.

Fantastic Family Coast Trip

Last weekend we took a wonderful trip with our dogs Molly and Honey. It was our first over night trip with them to some place besides our parents house. Stephen had Friday off, so Thursday after work we drove over to the Monterey Coast area. We stayed in Pacific Grove, and that night took them for a nice walk around Asilomar Conference Center Grounds. The next day we took them down to Asilomar beach, and let them run. They had such a wonderful time running up and down the beach, playing in the waves, playing with a couple other dogs, chasing birds, exploring, and just running free. That afternoon we took them into Monterey to Cannery Row where we got some clam chowder, and sat in the beautiful sunshine. We then went over to Carmel, and played on Carmel's beautiful beach, where there were a lot of dogs running around (it's an off leash beach). It was so prefect getting to sit there on that great beach, looking out into the ocean, while our dogs ran around or laid near us. What a wonderful weekend!

Time is getting closer!

We're so excited for the approaching birth of our little girl! Eight weeks to go to my due date, which is October 24th. We feel extremely blessed to have this baby coming into our lives. We have been praying and hoping for a long time, and are grateful for this miracle. Here are some fun pictures. The pregnant picture is me at 31 weeks. The painting was given to us by the Cromar siblings. It is titled "For this child I've prayed." We're so grateful for both of our families prayers and generosity.

Fremming Family Reunion

The Fremming Family Reunion was great! We stayed in the same condos we usually do at Pine Wild in Lake Tahoe. We enjoyed spending time with family, taking a hike around Spooner Lake, a paper airplane contest (Stephen's Spruce Goose dominated), the family talent show, eating delicious food, playing golf at the Bijou golf course, a round of miniature golf at Magic Carpet, enjoying a shake at the Snowcone burger joint, playing down on the beach and in the lake, and playing games. Our family put on a fun baby shower for us down on the beach one night. We played funny games like decide which candy is in the diaper, they gave us some great gifts including some clothes for Eleanor, and a cute diaper bag. On our way home was also stopped and had lunch at Silver Lake. I love spending time in such beautiful nature with family.

Cromar Family Reunion

The Cromar Family Reunion was at Sunset State Beach. Part of the family stayed in a beach house overlooking Sunset Beach, and the rest of the family stayed at the Sunset Beach campgrounds. We had fun spending time with family, playing games, playing on the beach, having a baby shower, and just being together. Jessica, Jennifer, and I were all pregnant, so we had a triple baby shower. We played some fun games, ate treats, gave advice, cried some, and opened gifts. All of my siblings had gone together to get Stephen and I a beautiful painting by Elspeth Young called "For this Child I Prayed." It's a beautiful painting depicting Hannah and Samuel from the Bible. It was a very sweet gift, because we had prayed for a long time for this baby, and so had our families. We had a wonderful reunion, and were glad that all of the siblings were able to come.

Front yard Makeover

When we bought our house, we knew we would have to do a lot of work on the front yard. There were five foot Junipers lining the sidewalk making it so that you couldn't see our house. We also had tall Cypress covering the front of our house. Over two years Stephen with the help of our dads and my brother, tore everything out, put in a new fence, put in sprinklers and a soaker hose system, and planted new plants in the front yard. It turned out great! We also got our house painted, which makes it look even better. Here are the before and after pictures. We planted some beautiful trees that aren't in the pictures, but they look awesome!

Disneyland with the Bass Family

To celebrate our anniversary, and visit with our friends Jared and Aubrey before they moved, we took a trip down south, and went to Disneyland for two days. We spent one day at Disneyland, and the next day at California Adventures. I was about 17 weeks pregnant, so I didn't go on very many rides, but we still had fun, and I got to help watch Jared and Aubrey's baby Adelyn while they went on rides. It worked out well. To celebrate our anniversary we went to the Blue Bayou restaurant and had an amazing (and expensive) dinner. The Blue Bayou is part of the New Orleans part of Disneyland, and you can see it when you are on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. They make it look like you are outside by a river eating dinner. I (Chelsea) got to be a participant in a show we went to earlier on that day. It's the Billy Hill and the Hillbillies show. They picked me out of the crowd, even though I was looking the other way, and I got to play the fiddle with them. Mostly they were just making jokes, and as I walked back to my seat the main guy said "Chelsea, call me." It was very funny, and I laughed really hard the whole time. At California Adventures we really enjoyed the Aladdin Show. It's amazing how many super talented people work at Disneyland.

Hawaii- Maui

We went to an extremely packed church in Lahaina for sacrament meeting. We then came back to Mahina Surf, packed a lunch and began our trek on the road to Hana. It was quite the drive, with jungle thicker than what we had seen on our hike in Oahu. The road was extremely curvy and was narrow enough for one car in some locations. It was beautiful though. We stopped off on three different occasions. The first was to take a small walk through jungle to a beautiful secluded waterfall and pool of water. The second was for lunch at this little park that had roosters, hens, and CATS just hanging out. It was so odd to see them there, like someone had dropped some off and they had kittens and began living in the jungle. At one point a rooster came gliding down out an extremely tall tree. So weird! The third and final stop was in a little community on the rocky violent shores. We had fun watching the waves crash into the lava rock. I found a rock that was close to the action, yet just out of reach of getting wet. It was fun to have the waves crash right before me, like I was directing the waves like a maestro. We then turned around and drove back to Mahina Surf. Mama wasn’t feeling so well and got motion sickness on the return trip. Thankfully after a short time in the restroom, she was back to her perky self. Dad and I used the barbecues down by the pool to cook sirloin steak a grilled vegetables. It was very fun to grill in that environment. We prepared a feast of sirloin steak, grilled vegetables, salad, and garlic bread and ate out on our lanai. It’s been a wonderful trip to Hawaii and one that we will remember forever!

Hawaii- Maui

We had ourselves an early morning snorkeling adventure at Ahihi Kinau reserve in South Maui. It had the best conditions of any of the snorkeling spots in Maui. Even with the winter silt coming from the southern oceans, the shape of the bay limited its impact on visibility, so Dad and I were able to spend a good amount of time snorkeling among the beautiful reefs. Had the sun come out, we would have had perfect snorkel conditions. Even with the cloud cover, we found some excellent locations and saw some amazing stuff! I even got the courage up to do some diving. On one dive, I was trying to get a closer look at an unusual fish, and I surprised an octopus and it came out of hiding. It was a great snorkeling site and one that we definitely need to check out the next time we come back. Summer is the best time, but if we ever go back during winter, Ahihi is the place to go. Dad wanted to explore some more of the area in the car so we took a drive into a very cool area further southeast of Makena and Ahihi reserve to La Perouse Bay. To get there, we had to cross a field of volcanic rock that had erupted from a cinder cone just visible up the hill. I felt like we were driving on the surface of the moon. We came back to Mahina Surf and relaxed for a while in preparation for the Luau at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The Luau was very cool. The food was excellent and we had access to an open bar (non-alcoholic options of course, the fruit punch was killer!). The entertainment was also very good, though about one half of the dances were Tahitian which means it was a bit scandalous when compared to the Polynesian Cultural Center dancing. We ended up sitting next to some very friendly people. One of the couples was visiting from Southern California and the wife guessed correctly that we were LDS. Funny how you can just pick them out sometimes. The same thing happened to Chelsea and I at Pearl Harbor. During the film, we sat behind a family that had “the look”. After chatting with the grandma on the ferry at the close of the tour, she asked if we were LDS because I mentioned Chelsea having participated in a Luau during college. Small Mormon world. Now back to the Hyatt Regency luau, another couple was a newly married couple from South Dakota: Elias and Mara. He is a pulmonary doctor and she has a bachelor’s in English. Both are Middle Eastern, he from Syria and she from Saudi Arabia. They were extremely friendly and funny. After it was over, Elias wanted to take some pictures for us and asked if we would take some for them too. Funny how you can connect with perfect strangers sometimes. He said he will e-mail me the pictures he took; nice guy.

Hawaii- Maui

We had a nice breakfast out on our porch (lanai, as they are called here). We then walked to a Farmer’s Market about a mile from the condo and got some fresh fruits, vegetables, pineapple salsa, and a coconut (for Chelsea, she loves them). We then went to Maalaea Bay and spent a good portion of the day on a whale watching boat. Mom and dad had taken some Dramamine to lessen the chance of getting sea sick and it made them very lethargic. Mom slept most of the way home and was not herself for a full 30 hours (the box said the effects lasted 24 hours.). We all had a great time on the whale watching boat and saw lots of whale activity. The highlight was when a mother and calf came directly toward our boat and passed almost right under it. In those circumstances, boats must turn off their propellers and wait until the whales have moved on to a greater distance. When we returned to the condo, Chelsea and I cooked our tomato squash pasta dish using the vegetables from the farmer’s market. We then played couples Canasta. I think we should probably get rid of Canasta, I really don’t think it’s a good game for anyone’s marriage.

Hawaii- Maui

We took a nice long walk along the highway with my parents the next morning and admired the houses, landscaping, cobwebs, and spiders. The weather was just perfect, not too hot, not too cool, and the humidity was just right. We spent a good portion of the day at Kaanapali beach, or better known as Black Rock. It was a blast! I slipped into my wet suit and spent many hours body surfing, body boarding, and snorkeling. At one point during the day, Chelsea, Dad, and I were about to enter the water near black rock to snorkel and we saw people pointing and motioning and talking about seeing a turtle in the water. We rushed to put on our equipment and got into the water as soon as possible, but the water was so cloudy that the turtle slipped away. Later on in the day while I was body surfing, some more people began pointing excitedly at the water not too far off, so I ran up, got my snorkel equipment on, and booked it for the ocean. After a few minutes of searching, I saw it! I swam with that giant sea turtle for a good five minutes. When I felt too many people were crowding it, I did some more snorkeling near black rock and saw a lot of very cool fish. The snorkeling conditions were actually not that great, but seeing the sea turtle made it all worth it. The surf was definitely up and the waves had some serious power. I had fun trying to mimic a couple locals who crashed into incoming waves with their body boards and would complete full flips from the force of the impact. My collisions lacked some of the finesse that they had mastered. Dad, Chelsea, and I did a fair amount of snorkeling around black rock and I was proud of how long Chelsea snorkeled with us (she is not a fan of being in deeper ocean water). Because of the winter currents from the South, the water was quite cloudy and lacked the clarity and colors that mom and dad had experienced during past visits. The odd thing about the weather that day was that the rain would come and go throughout the day, but the sun always seemed to come back out. Fun Maui weather! We went back to the condo, showered, and went to a great local place for dinner, Aloha Mixed Plate in Lahaina. We sat outside on the patio and ate traditional Hawaiian local food: poi, shrimp, mahi mahi, Kalua Pork, and other good stuff. It was a great time chatting and enjoying the food, tiki torches, and scenery. We walked through Lahaina and did some window shopping, enjoyed some yummy ice cream (vanilla with coconut, macadamia nut, and caramel swirl) and saw the largest Banyan tree in the world. The banyan tree has roots that grow from the limbs downward. We saw many of them during our Florida trip last year, but this giant Banyan tree had been planted and modified by the locals over more than a hundred years to what it is today. Earlier on in the day, we had talked about playing games after going back to the condo. My dad was doing something on the computer and assumed that we would tell him when the game was ready, but when he turned around to check, we were all sound asleep!

Hawaii- Oahu

We got a late start on our planned snorkeling trip back to Hanauma Bay due to the hotel experience of the previous night. The jellyfish had moved on from the bay and we had our first shot at snorkeling in Hawaii. We saw such a variety of fish in the short time we were in the water. The coolest was the giant school of trumpet fish (narrow and long, eel-like fish) and the giant parrot fish. I wanted to stay longer, but we had to get back to the crappy hotel to shower and check out before noon. We did so and left the hotel, very glad to be out of there and on the road again. We once again met up with the Beckham’s and caravanned to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We met Natalie Horrocks at the Dole plantation and Chelsea had a fun time catching up with her friend. We enjoyed some amazing pineapple ice cream and then boarded the Pineapple Express, a train which took us around some of the pineapple fields. We walked around the grounds and bought a pineapple, said goodbye to Natalie, and then headed up to a surfer town just up the road on Natalie’s recommendation for some good “shave ice” (not “shaved ice”, as one might think). Cameron and I walked in and out of no less than seven surf shops while the girls chatted at the shave ice shop. We then said goodbye to the Beckham’s and continued our journey north to check out the 20 foot waves that had been predicted for this day on the north shore. We were not disappointed. We sat on the beach as the lifeguards warned all swimmers not to enter the water beyond the knee as the waves were a 9 out of 10 on the wave scale. Our time on Oahu was coming to a close, so we drove to the Honolulu airport, dropped off our rental car, and shuttled over to our terminal for our inter-island flight to Maui. My parents picked us up, gave us a sea shell lei greeting, and drove us to Mahina Surf, a set of beach condos that my family has been staying at for years. We drove into Mahina Surf and mom and dad took us down to the rocky shore to spot a few sea turtles that they had discovered the day before.