McCall Vaca!!!

Every year the Branch fam packs up

and takes the 8hr drive to Payette Lake in McCall Idaho.

This is by far the best destination spot in the world.

While we are there we do so many fun things:

boating (and everything that comes with it),

biking, tennis, hiking, golfing, Burgdorf hot springs,

and many adventure drives on the boat & scooters.

Below are just a few of the many pictures we took

while we were there,

so take some time and enjoy the slideshow...

our poor little guy!!!

September 9th, 2009

Finn gave us quite the scare last Wednesday night...

We were in the middle of putting in our lawn when Finn woke up from his nap screaming.

He never does this, so I knew something was wrong.

While Brandon made him a bottle, I was holding him and trying to get him to calm down when all of the sudden his entire body went limp, he couldn't even hold up his little head.

He snapped out of it within a few seconds, so we laid him on the couch to give him a bottle and call the Dr. and that's when he stopped breathing.

His eyes went off into a deep stare and he just stopped moving and breathing.

In pure panic, we ran him over to our neighbors (who is a Fireman and his wife is a nurse).

Brandon pounded on the door and then ran to the next house (where another Fireman lives) and pounded on the door.

After no one answered and a few minutes had passed, I just laid Finn on the grass and started giving him mouth to mouth while Brandon called 911 and went for help.

After a minute, our neighbors father came to the door. I saw that he was wearing a "Fire Station" shirt, so I practically through Finn at him expecting him to know what was going on.

Brandon and I were both hysterical, but I guess he could see that Finn was not breathing, so he gave him a few blows on the back and started to talk him back.

I have never loved Finns little cry so much in my life as I did in that moment that I heard him cry.

It took Finn a while to come back to normal, but when the EMT's took his vitals, they told us he was stable enough for us to take him to the hospital.

We drove him up to Primary Childrens Hospital where they checked us in for the night and ran several test on our tough little guy.

Finn was such a trooper and all the nurses fell instantly in love with him.

They were not able to find anything wrong with him, but we are thinking it was a seizure since they run in my family.

That was hands down the scariest thing that has ever happened to us and we pray that that was the worst of what's to come.

We are so happy that Finn is still with us and that he is ok.

We seriously love our little guy :)

a day at Discovery Park!!!

we had such a blast discovering all the JOYS at Discovery Park

Finn discovered the JOY of the baby swing

my mom discovered the JOY of the monkey bars

and we all discovered the JOY of family sliding

Leaps & Bounds!!!

Finn has come such a long way...

our little guy is growing up right before our eyes.

We are just waiting for the day he comes home 

with his ears pierced

and "BURNS" tattooed across his back

(oh the joys of being a parent)

some of the joys we are experiencing now are:

-rolling over

-sleeping on the tummy (kinda scary) 

-sleeping through the night

-scooting and twisting on his back

-holding his own bottle

-wobbly sitting

-putting his own Binky in his mouth

-putting his own toes in his mouth

-just putting everything in his mouth

-lots and lots of smile laughs and jibber jabber :)

-and some sexy modeling on the side

(as you can see from the picture above)

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a fabulous 4th of July...

we started off the holiday with a long beautiful hike 

this is how Finn started the hike

(just chillin)

then Finn moved to this

(loving life)

and this is how Finn ended the hike

(sleepy boy)

after the long hike 

we cooled off in the branch family pool 

and played some pool volleyball :)

we then ended the night with 

root beer floats and fireworks.

It was such a fun 4th of July 

and Finn LOVED the fireworks!!!