First encounters= First impressions

Estella Adventures July 4th, Lopez Island

We are so fortunate to have such great friends and family. This epic adventure took place in a little place in the San Juan Islands called Lopez. It is a quaint little town with lots of organic farming, art studios and great seafood. We were invited by Ryan and Heidi Prescott to join them at their cabin placed directly on the water with insane views of the neighboring islands and access to clamming and fishing. The town was so awesome!!! Lots of hippies reside in Lopez and have lots to offer with good natural food and funky music. I just love the small town feel! As we drove to the parade, every car on the road waves and smiles as you drive by. The parade was loaded with people and the show was a treat as it mixed a little redneck with a dash of hippie....a recipe I might have to try a little more of.

We hope to make this a July 4th tradition. With the beginning of our growing family we have found that surrounding ourselves around fantastic people who also have little babies who can grow acquainted with our little girl and become friends later in life with stories of growing up together....it is all pretty much priceless.

Thank you Prescott's for having us at your cabin!!!! We had a great time!!!

It was a great fathers day!

It is so nice to have such quality photos of Estella. We are very lucky to have such talented friends who think Estella is as cute as we do. There are a selection photos on this most recent blog that display two of my very good friends different styles of photography art. The top half are done by Julie Clark Delmissier at http://www.babydreamseattle.com/ and they are all done in a studio with lots of choices for backgrounds, and props. It was a fantastic experience.

The bottom half of the photos and the photo taken in the last blog post with the American flag and guitar case are done by Amaryllis and are more organic and taken outdoors with my personal belongings. Amaryllis' website is listed below. I highly recommend both of these fine ladies to take photos for any occasion you may need. It was an absolute pleasure to work with both of the fantastic artists.

Hippy chicks!

Ive always had a thing for hippy chicks and Estella Rain has become just that in this righteous photo done by Amaryllis Lockhart yesterday. Estella is 5 days old and was a rockstar on her first photo shoot in the yard. Such a rad photo! We had a lot of fun with the little lady. See more of Amaryllis' images @ www.amaryllisimages.com

More to come soon!

Cheers!

ESTELLA RAIN CHESTER

ESTELLA RAIN IS FINALLY HERE!!! Born 5/31/10 @ 1:38am, weighs 6lbs 13oz. and is 20 inches long. She is very healthy!!! Mom is doing great and very proud of her little girl. Unfortunately I uploaded the photos in reverse order on the blog but you can get the gist of our beautiful experience.

Grizman and poppa!

Furry brother checking on her!

Check out Gris peaking in on little Estella!

Little Peanut!!!

Proud new parents!

Puppy kisses are good for little girls!

Grizman's first encounter!

One of our favorite nurses made this aunt Jamima hat for Estella.... what a character!

Grandma Nancy:

Uncle Aaron: Spent 50 hours in the waiting room! You can see the exhostion in Rachaels eyes.Impressive mom and uncle!

The beginning... 8am 5/29/10......lets go have a baby!!!!

And then there were three!!!

Our beautiful little girl was born on 5-31-10 and it was no easy feat! Rachael was quite the trooper and I have an entirely new respect for how tough she is. It is a long story but we spent over 48 hours in labor with no sleep and no food. It was an epic journey!!!

She is perfect! Blues eyes, sandy Blonde hair, 10 toes 10 fingers, 2 arms and 2 legs. My favorite feature is her lips. She is feeding well and enjoying every breath of air. We are truly excited to have such a cute and healthy little baby girl.

No name quite yet but we have lots of beautiful names to choose from and we plan on picking one today so keep posted via our blog.

Thanks for all your support! We are very lucky and proud parents!

Hmmmmm....my water broke?????

At 5:30 this morning Rachael woke me up saying " I think my water just broke"!!! Obviously very exciting news...she was headed to the bathroom and said it felt like the peed her pants. So we called the birthing center and they told us to take our time coming in.....Take a shower, eat, pack your bag...so needless to say this is a morning to take note in my journal of life as one of the oddest days in my life. I never thought Id be this patient and calm. We are going to take our time and head in about 7:30 this morning. We have both been anticipating this moment for a couple weeks now. We are like a couple team mates headed into a tournament....Ive counted about 3 high five's and we are already pumping each others confidence with comments like...."lets go have a baby" and " its a good day to be born". I think we are as ready as we can be, bag packed...check, camera...check, music...check, dog sitter...hmmm? We can figure all the little things out later. Anyhow....here we go!!!! it is time to bring our little girl into this fine world we live in. Wish us luck! I have a feeling that this blog has just turned its first corner and we can officially start speaking baby dialect with a goo goo gaa gaa type of excitement!

God bless!!! Go Cougs!!!!

TC 5/29/2010