Myrtle Beach Vacation

WELCOME HOME RACHEL!

After serving the past six months in Afghanistan, my sister, Rachel, is home! We celebrated her homecoming with a much needed vacation with the family in Myrtle Beach!

Nate and I decided that we would take our time driving down to South Carolina...a road trip! We left on a Thursday evening and drove from Grand Rapids to Cleveland, OH. Neither of us had ever been to downtown Cleveland and decided to check the city out and an awesome restaurant, Lola. This restaurant is owned by Chef Micheal Simon, who won The Next Iron Chef America reality show last year. Since Nate and I both love The Food Network, we decided to check the place out and it was great! The food was very unique and amazing...we had some bacon ice cream for dessert! If you're ever in the Cleveland area, it's totally worth checking out!

From Cleveland we drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia. Here's a picture of the beautiful scenery we drove through...I think this is somewhere is Pennsylvania. The fall colors were beautiful! We decided to stop in Charlottesville, VA because that's where University of Virginia is and that's where DMB got it's start!

As many of you know, my husband is a huge Dave Matthews fan and has since converted me! Every year we try to see Dave (yes, we're on a first name basis) a few times and Nate really wanted to check out the bar, Miller's, where Dave played before becoming famous. It was a very cool place and we drank a few beers in Dave's honor!

From Charlottesville, VA is was on to our final destination, Myrtle Beach! We spent a week with the family enjoying the sun and the beach, drinking lots of cocktails and playing with our nephew Ethan. We stayed in a beautiful condo right on the beach, Ocean Blue Condos, with two pools, a lazy river, and hot tub! It was very relaxing and great for catching up with everyone. While we were in Myrtle Beach, our nephew, Ethan, got his first haircut (which he didn't like very much) and we spent a lot of time playing in the sand, floating in the lazy river and just having fun. We ate lots of good food, went shopping and just had a great vacation!

Ethan Turns One!

Happy First Birthday Ethan!

Our nephew, Ethan, turned one on August 14, 2009. We can't believe it's been a year already. Ethan recently spent two weeks with Grandma and Grandpa Lambrix in Michigan. He had lots of fun here...playing in the grass, eating strawberries and playing in his kiddie pool. Before Ethan went back home, we had a birthday party for him! The whole family celebrated with him and he had so much fun.

Ethan got lots of toys and gifts...but his favorite part of the day was the birthday cake. Check out the video of him digging in. This was his first experience with cake and frosting. The funniest part of the video is my mom saying that Rachel (who's still in Afghanistan) didn't need to know that he was eating sweets. My sister was worried about him having too much sugar, but what baby can turn one without a cake! He was too cute!

Finally an update!

So it's been awhile (actually a long time) since out last update! Lots of things have happened in the past few months, primarily a wedding in the family. Nate's brother, Neil and his fiance, Melissa got married on May 16, 2009. They had a beautiful wedding in Detroit and we all had a great time.

Melissa was beautiful bride!

One of the most exciting things of the day was our trip to Joe Louis arena between the ceremony and the reception. Neil and Melissa are huge Red Wings fans, so they wanted to get some photos outside the Joe. Well, we got lots of pictures outside and then the limo driver got them inside! They were able to go in (sans the wedding party) and have pictures taken near the ice with all the banners, official Red Wings gear and most exciting...the Zambonie!

En route to Afghanistan

Lt. Rachel Kallenberg is en route to Kabul, Afghanistan.

Rachel completed her combat training at Fort Hood, Texas, last week and is headed to Afghanistan. She will be deployed there for the next six months. Thanks to everyone for all their thoughts, prayers and support!

Go Military Mama! We love you and miss you already!

Finally an update!

Santa's Little Helper: Ethan Zachary 12/08

I finally decided to update our blog...we've been busy and time has slipped away! Things have been going well and we've been able to spend lots of time with family and friends in the last few months. We had a hectic holiday season but were blessed to see our families, especially our little nephew Ethan (and Rachel and Allen).

The week before Christmas Nate and I were honored to be Ethan's godparents at his baptism, along with his Aunt Jane also! He was such a good boy during the baptism and didn't cry at all. He was more interested in sucking his thumb and checking everyone out.

The other news going on is that Rachel, my sister, who is an officer in the Air Force is being deployed to Afghanistan. She has already left for Texas, where she will spend the next few weeks training with the Army at Fort Hood. She will be in Afghanistan around the beginning of April for a 6 month deployment. We're hoping that she's home by the middle of October. In order to see her before she left, I flew down to South Carolina at the beginning of the month along with my parents. Unfortunately, Nate couldn't go and had to stay home but it was a great visit. Here's a pic of Ethan and Rachel chillin' out and watching cartoons on a Saturday morning!

Thanks for keeping Rachel, Allen and Ethan in your thoughts and prayers. We're already counting down the days until October! Hopefully I'll be better about updating the blog before then.