It is always really fun for us to see what we’ve done over the year and to see how the kids have changed. Amaia has changed quite a bit. We have had some fun adventures with our friends and family.
We hope you enjoy this as much as we do!!
We have the 2011 montage done! We had a fantastic year and always enjoy remembering the year through our photos. We hope you all enjoy it too!
After some debate, we decided that the Little family event of the year was Scott and Monica’s trip to Mexico earlier this year. We spent 5 days exploring Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. We had a great time eating the food, riding the bus with the locals, and seeing the sites. We hear there are beaches down there, but we didn’t manage to get to one.
While we were in Utah this summer we visited Southern Utah with Monica’s family. We were able to see some fun places around Capital Reef National Park. Luckily our vacation coincided with the opening rounds of the World Cup, so we spent lots of good family time yelling at the TV. Scott & Monica were able to get away for a few days to go backpacking in Guadalupe Mountains National Park this fall. We had a great time and were happy to see some mountains…even if they are far away and not particularly impressive.
Milo has had a great year. He finished first grade and really started to progress as the year ended. He really enjoyed swimming this summer. We spent quite a bit of time at the pool and his tan was fantastic as usual. Milo loves playing with the neighbor kids and has transitioned well with some new kids on the street. He played soccer this fall and had a great time although he preferred practice to the games. Milo is now in second grade and really enjoys his teacher and his class.
Holly is quite the little girl. She is full of energy, life, and crazy ideas. We have spent a majority of the year trying to get her to finish potty training. She doesn’t seem to mind walking around with stinky underwear or diapers for hours, so we are still waging the battle. She is in a preschool group that meets 2 times a week and loves to go play with her friends. She enjoys riding her big wheel and bike when she is outside.
Monica is continually trying to keep up with the family and all that is associated with it. While Holly is at preschool, she does get a few things done and really enjoys getting things done. We also found out that she is expecting Baby Little #3 (due to arrive in June). Monica is managing all of that and is doing well.
Scott is still working at Freescale and enjoying the work…if only there wasn’t so much of it that ended up in his lap. He regularly finds himself way in over his head, but he has managed to avoid drowning so far. In an attempt to honor his father’s legacy, he put in a couple of garden boxes this spring. The garden produced well and the hardy plants continue to produce thanks to the mild Texas weather.
Have a great holiday season!
Scott, Monica, Milo, Holly & the bun
And of course on the web we have included the 2010 Little Family Montage!
Medium sized version
Large version where you can see more detail on the photos (it is rather large @ 8 MB…be patient)
Happy Holidays!
After some debate, we decided that the Little family event of the year was our survival of the Texas summer. What a summer it was! Austin has 11 days of 100+ heat on average, but this year we had 67! We escaped the Texas heat with an extended Utah trip in July. We took the scenic route to Utah stopping in the Bisti Wilderness and Southwestern Colorado. In Utah, enjoyed the mountains, RSL games, and visits with family and friends.
Adding a real job and public school to the family schedule has complicated our ability to get out and see the beautiful landscapes around us, but we did successfully arrange schedules a couple of times this year. Thanks to some extra “vacation”, Scott found himself in Southern Utah for a fantastic week-long adventure with some friends and his boss(!). The weather was a bit colder than is ideal, but the landscape did not disappoint. In November we finally took in some of the beauty of Texas on a trip to Big Bend National Park. It was a fun, relaxing trip. We did some kid appropriate hiking and got a better idea of what Big Bend has to offer.
Milo has made tremendous progress this year. He loves playing outside with the neighbor kids. He took swimming lessons this summer and progressed from being afraid to get in the water to being able to do basic swimming strokes. It was a change for Milo’s water-phobic parents to spend so much time at the pool. Apparently we will all learn a few new things in this strange land of Texas. Milo recently learned to ride a two-wheel bike and loves to ride all around the neighborhood with his friends. Milo is now in first grade. He likes his teacher and going to school to play with his friends. He still claims to like recess best, but his interest in reading has recently taken off.
Holly is our two and a half year old rambunctious toddler. We struggle to keep up with her. She loves to watch movies, read books, and play outside with her friends. She has started a playgroup with some kids her age two times a week and enjoys that most of the time. Holly insists on doing everything herself which makes life even more interesting.
Scott is somewhat miraculously still employed. The rough economy coupled with a strategy to overhaul parts of the company has resulted in the majority of his team members being let go (only he and his boss remain on the previously six member team). He is still learning a lot and struggling to accept the realities of a real job. Monica is continually trying to keep up with the family and all that is associated with it. While Holly is at playgroup, she does get a few things done during the day. She also enjoys going walking on the trail near our house 3 days a week.
Have a great holiday season!
Scott, Monica, Milo, & Holly
And of course as bonus web content we have the 2009 Little Family montage. The photos are in rough chronological order from top left to bottom right.
2009 Little family montage (medium version)
2009 Little family montage (large version…big enough to see good detail on the photos at full size)
For the past few years, we have done a montage of pictures from the previous year. This year has been very different for us, so our montage is a bit different. We hope you all enjoy it. There is a bigger version below for everyone’s viewing enjoyment.
Last year Scott put together a photo montage of his favorite photos taken during the year. He enjoyed the trip down memory lane and decided to do it again this year. Several different sizes are found below for everyone’s viewing enjoyment.
(We figured that we might as well post our Christmas card for this year to the blog for those of you who bother to read it. It should be sent out soon, so here it is on the blog.)
December 11, 2006
Happy Holidays to everyone! The feedback that we got last year was that people enjoyed our photo holiday card. We are going to attempt it again this year. You will want to be sure to check out our online version because we have some bonus content (most notably a photo montage of our year). Be sure to check it out! To view the web version, please see http://www.scomotle.org/christmas06.html.
This year has been quite exciting for our family. It wasn’t hard to decide on the Little family event of the year. It was……..our summer in the Bay Area. Scott accepted a summer internship with a company in Los Altos, CA. Monica and Milo didn’t want to miss out on the fun of watching Scott actually hold down a “real” job, so they went along for the experience. We set a goal to get out and enjoy ourselves as much as possible. We believe we managed to achieve that goal 
We also managed to do a few other noteworthy things during the year. Some of our other adventures here in Utah included trips to Zion National Park and the St. George area, Moab, and of course, our fall trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. We did have season tickets to the Real Salt Lake games, but due to our time in California, we were only able to see a handful of games. We were having so much fun in California that we didn’t even bother to come back for the Real Madrid game. We spent the weekend in Yosemite instead.
Now for a bit more detail on the Little family event of the year, our summer in the Bay Area. On the way to California, we took a couple of extra days and went to Yosemite. It was amazing to see the waterfalls in early summer. We especially enjoyed the Mist Trail. The next weekend we went down to Monterey Bay and took Milo to the Aquarium for his birthday. Milo enjoyed that very much and fell in love with sharks! We also went to Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach.
We spent many of our weekends in San Francisco. It certainly came to be one of our favorite places. We made it to see an Oakland A’s game, Coit Tower, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Marin Headlands, Alcatraz, and many other places in the San Francisco area. The highlight of San Francisco definitely had to be the time we spent on the grass in Crissy Field picnicking, watching the boats go under the Golden Gate Bridge, watching the people go by, and watching the city and bridge light up.
We did spent a few weeks going other places. We went down through Big Sur and witnessed some breathtaking sections of the California coast. We went on another Yosemite trip and saw the Tioga Pass Road, Mono Lake, and Bodie Ghost Town. We went and saw the beach at Santa Cruz as well as several lighthouses along the coast.
On the way home, we decided to take an extra week and go up the Oregon Coast. We had a great time. We saw most of the lighthouses and bridges along the way. We took Milo to the Oregon Bay Aquarium so that he could see the sharks again. After driving the Oregon Coast, we spent a few days exploring the Columbia River Gorge and hanging out with family. The highlights of the trip were definitely the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, our time spent at Crescent Beach, and Fairy Falls. It was a spectacular trip and a fitting way to end our summer adventure.
Milo has been learning so many things that it amazes us. His speech has improved dramatically over the last few months. Most of the time he can form an understandable, grammatically correct (okay, mostly…but it is getting better) sentence. Milo enjoyed being in California as he was able to spend plenty of quality time with his mother at the park and library. His favorite was the “park with water.” He begged to go there almost every day…and went there almost every day Milo enjoys watching movies, singing, and running around. As everyone expects, he enjoys playing games on his computer.
Finally, a few of the boring, requisite details. Scott is still pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Utah. There have been some rumblings that an actual graduation may be planned for sometime in the first half of 2008 although these dates seem to change on a whim. Much to his surprise, Scott really enjoyed his internship. He worked with a great group and was even allowed to do very interesting work. Monica enjoyed her leave of absence from work that she was granted for the summer. It took some time to adjust, but she enjoyed being with Milo. It was another adjustment to come back to work when she got back to Utah. She still continues to process those words in the evenings for a local law firm. We also decided to take the plunge…we are expecting our second child in May. Monica’s time is spent trying to feel good enough to take care of everything as well as keeping track of Scott and Milo. How will she handle another one?
Scott thought it would be fun to put together a montage of pictures from this year. He used a nice little piece of software that came with his new laptop (a Mac of course) which made the job much easier. The pictures flow in a loose chronological from top left to bottom right. Enjoy!
Small
Medium
Full size
Happy Holidays!
Scott, Monica, Milo, & the bun
