A day at the park

We headed over to the park the other day, to enjoy the beautiful weather.
We had fun playing with our friends.
These were all the pictures I could get before my battery died.

I. LOVE. THIS. BOY. My favorite of the pictures.

This is a very cute park, a good place to take pictures it seems.

What a fun day we had.

Lately...

Here are a couple of things we've been doing lately...

We've been trying to spend lots of time outside, however, it's been quite rainy lately & without the car we don't get out much on a rainy day.

But some of the fun things we've been doing involve our new form of transportation!
Our "new" bike trailer! We got this bad boy at a garage sale for $5! Wooo.

We've taken it out a few times, but I need to get a bike so we can go on family bike rides. Some mornings Matt jogs while I bike. We have a lot of fun with it.

Our little Amish-looking-buggy.

The past two weeks Matt has been doing a rotation at Metro, so he has to take the car. We've been going on lots of walks & stopping around at all the nearby garage sales.

************

This is just funny.
Luke hates to wear hats when I want him to wear them, but if it's anything else, he loves wearing it.
I have a hard time getting pictures of him these days, because he grabs the camera the second he sees it, but here are a few.

He seriously wore the hat & glasses for over an hour the other day. And by the end of the day, this is a common sight to see.
He's always waiting for daddy to get home.

Luke had his first time in nursery today & did great! I was quite relieved. It was nice not having to chase him around. I hope he continues to like it.

So that means our baby boy is now an 18 month old toddler! I can hardly believe it.
He is talking & going faster than ever before. He is constantly running around screaming, yelling & not sitting still for longer than 2 minutes. This boy has a lot of energy!
But he is healthy, is always making us laugh & a very happy little guy.
We love him so much.

Have I gone CRAZY????

I never thought in a MILLION YEARS I would say this....

but today's the day I'll admit it....

I think I want to stay in Cleveland.

(eeeek!)

As we are starting the application process for residency programs, we've been looking a lot into the different programs & the areas we'd be interested in living. From the beginning, everyone heard me say, "There is NO way we're staying here. We're definitely moving back west for residency." And there are a few things I don't love about Cleveland, but the longer & longer we stay, the more & more I love it (that's right I said love!).

I know we don't really get to choose where we go for residency, we decide where our number one choice is & cross our fingers & hope we get it. (I'm NOT speaking for Matt, only for ME & we haven't decided if Cleveland is our number one yet). BUT with Matt being a male going into Ob/Gyn, he's like the "token male," & can pretty much "choose" where we go (at least that is what we're told) because there are so many females going into OB, a lot of programs want males.

Here are MY cons for Cleveland:

• Long, dark, depressing winters (that's a big one)
• So far from home & expensive to travel (that's the biggest one)
• A lot of crime, but where isn't there any crime? Plus we're in a safe neighborhood.
• Kindergarten is all day long, that's what I hear, I'd rather have half day K. Maybe I'll homeschool for K?
  
• I can't go to the awesome-looking Beachwood (the city next to ours) pool, unless we live there & we probably won't. Jk.
• We don't get a ton of visitors, but maybe we'll get more....??? :)
• It's really humid, but I'm getting use to it after three summers.
• Too many skunks. :)
• There is a lot of snow, but not more than Utah gets.
• Jan & Feb are SO COLD, like below freezing.
• I miss a lot of great stores in Utah.
• I miss the mountains too.
  
• Don't love that Cleveland is a "dying" city & has a lot of ghetto parts.
• Temple is so far away (2 1/2 hrs one way), but we still try & go as often as we can.
  

Here are MY pros for Cleveland:

• I love Spring, Summer & Fall here.
  
• Summers are so nice & don't get too hot.
• It's SO green here.
  
• We love being in the Kirtland Stake & so close to the church sites here & in NY.
• It's so fun to travel throughout the East.
  
• I love the countryside here.
• I love the orchards & farms where we pick fresh fruits.
• The library system is so nice, we go there 2-3x a week.
• Lake Erie Beach...haven't actually gone swimming there, but plan to.
• We want to travel down to West Virginia & to Chicago.
• Aldi, our grocery store, is SO inexpensive, we save so much money shopping there. And they just built a new one way closer & in a not so ghetto area. For locals, its on Mayfield rd just after Richmond road, in Lyndhurst! wooo
  
• Great hospitals (Cleveland Clinic, University & Metro).
• I'd get to keep seeing my favorite Ob/Gyn, Dr. Rieder!
• Oooh, we LOVE our ward, even though a lot of our friends would move out before we do, it is still such a great ward.
  
• We'd probably be able to get into a house (which is a big one for me!). The houses are SO charming & each has it's own character & we just love a lot of the homes in this area, where we'd most likely stay. In fact, my absolute FAVORITE house, that I have loved ever since we moved here, that is on our street just went up for sale today...but we looked it up on the Howard Hanna website & after seeing the inside, I don't love it so much. But then we started looking at all these other houses & I was getting so excited, but realized I'm getting ahead of myself. (For my mom & sister's who would like this if you want to see a different house we really like, not so much from the front, but the rest of it, go here. But chances are it wouldn't be for sale in 8 months from now...see there I go, getting ahead of myself again).
  
• We won't have to move far & we're already established & are familiar with this area.
• Ohh & there are really great yard sales too.
  

So, there are a lot of good things & some bad things about Cleveland, but I think that's what we'll get anywhere we go. Who knows where we will end up. We'll find out sometime in March on Match Day...in 8 months...but who's counting?
Maybe we could just convince all of our family to move here?

Just kidding.

Remember this?....

Yikes!!!

Remember how I recovered it with the lovely fabric in the corner of that picture?

Well, go HERE if you want to see the makeover.

Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

A new favorite

On Monday nights Matt & I try to always have family home evening. Lately, with Luke getting older we've decided that before he goes to bed we'll have a little lesson for him & then have our own lesson later, when he's asleep. We're still working on this & on maintaining his very very short attention span.

Before he goes to bed each night we all go in his bedroom & kneel down & say family prayers. He is so good at kneeling & folding his arms, but the closing-your-eyes part is really hard for him, he tries but just ends up scowling at us. It's hard not to start laughing when he does it. Occasionally he'll sit through the prayer, but he usually is running out of the room or hugging & kissing us while we are praying.

It's so fun to watch him learn & grow, especially as we are trying to teach him about Jesus, prayer, Church & the bread & water in the Sacrament.

Last night we read the talk "Sugar Beets & the Worth of a Soul," in this month's Ensign by Pres. Monson. It was such a good talk & one of my new favorites. It went hand-in-hand with the lessons at Church the day before on Charity.
My favorite line in his talk is, "True happiness and lasting joy will come to you and to each one you serve as you take a hand and reach a heart."
Matt & I have made a goal recently to do more service lately & try & reach out to those in need. Before we always had the idea that you had to have money in order to give, but that isn't true at all. You don't need money to give, you can give clothing, feed the hungry, give your service, your friendship, love & kindness. You can magnify your calling & show love & kindness in raising your children.

This talk was a great reminder of how important service is.
"When you are in the service of your fellow man you are only in the service of your God."
Mosiah 2:17

Mmmmmm

Matt makes the best fruit smoothies.

Our big boy got his own this morning.
He didn't spill until right towards the end, right after Matt walked out the door.

Thanks for a yummy breakfast daddy!

Luke's littlest girlfriend

Monday night we met our good friend's, the Kiene's, new baby girl Aurora!
She is SUCH a doll & so little!
It's always weird holding a brand new baby, you forget how tiny they are.
She has so much beautiful brown hair.

It's so fun holding little babies.

And Luke loved her.
He kept giving her kisses on the head.

He LOVES the Kiene's. He is always talking about Marilyn & Jason, so when he gets around Jason sometimes he gets a little crazy. Here he is running around with Jason's glasses on. It was so funny because he kept pushing them up at the nose, so they would stay on.

Luke really didn't want to leave.

Congrats you guys, she's beautiful!

We got CARPET!!!!

I have the best husband.
With his cunning good looks & his finding-things-free skills we got hooked up with some FREE carpet for our living room.
It isn't "installed" or whatever, and it doesn't have padding underneath it so it's just laying on top of our wood floors, BUT I love it.
And so does Luke.
And Matt.We like the hardwood floors, but have them all throughout our house.
Our feet have been suffering (my especially) after walking on hard floors for two & a half years & it's just nice to have a place where we can get down & play with Luke.

On this blog, that I check quite frequently, they did a post where you price your room. Just from this picture I thought I'd price it, just for fun.
*Now, I know it isn't a beautiful room by any means, but with ZERO income, it will do for now.

• Carpet-FREE
• Rug-Bought @ RC Willey, before we got married on clearance w/my bro-in-law's discount (thanks Steve) for $40, originally $240.00. It's weird I remember the original price.
• The lovely (blah) coffee table was given to us from a family moving out, we repainted it, so it probably cost about $10-12.oo for the paint.
• TV stand-FREE
• TV-FREE, thanks to my awesome sister-in-law!
• Speakers & Stereo-FREE, thanks to Santa before I got married.
• Comfy, microfiber couch-FREE, my AWESOME siblings gave it to us brand new as a wedding present.
• Pillows-I made, were probably about $15 for both.
• Roman Shades (can't see in the pic) over the windows $25 ea. x3=$75 minus $50 in wedding gift certificates. Total $25 for all three.
  
• Brown curtains-FREE. Thanks Mom!

Total: $92.00

Well that is not nearly all of that room, but just what is in the picture.
Not bad.

PS. I'm thinking of painting the TV Stand Black. What do you think?
I wish it wasn't missing the front door.
Maybe I'll add one.

Upstate New York

What a weekend!

After Matt finished up Step2 of the Boards on Tuesday, we packed up & left Wednesday to drive to Ithaca, NY where we camped for two nights. Matt is always such a great help, which I really appreciate. Here is our master chef, he cooked us a yummy eggs & pancake breakfast one morning & an egg mcmuffin one the next. Thanks honey!

Here are our fellow campers Meg, Dave & McKelle.

Thursday we just hung out & took it easy at the campsite, there was a lot to do at the park we stayed at, Robert Truman State Park. As you can see it's not the same kind of camping we're used to back home, here it's pretty much like a parking lot in a meadow. We were lucky enough to get two big trees by us.

Luke was always checking up on his little cousin McKelle, he loved looking at her & pointing at her nose, eyes, ears, etc. She was a good little camper too!

Luke was a handful on the trip, but he seemed to have a great time playing in the dirt, running away from us constantly and putting food in his eyes (don't ask). The only thing he wasn't a fan of was driving, but I can't say that I blame him.

During our "veg" day we went swimming in this awesome "pool" they have at the State Park.

This picture is from when Matt & I went two years ago, but it was just a good pic to show the whole pool.

The water was SO COLD!!!! It was 60 degrees. I was happy with just my feet in it.
The guys were loving the diving board.

Above is Dave.
Below is Matt, he was a little bummed that I didn't catch any of his "cool" tricks, but I have plenty of those from the last time we went.

After they jumped off a few times, they convinced Meg to do it. I still had absolutely NO desire to do it, I wasn't even worried they would try & talk me into it. I'm not afraid of the 10 or higher foot board, or getting my hair wet. I was afraid of the freezing cold water!

Shortly after Meg & Dave had jumped, they all convinced me to jump....with the bribe of an ice cream. And I still can't believe I did it. I've never been so cold before. Normally I would never post a picture like this, but I had to prove that I did it. Unfortunately, this was the only picture Dave got of my jump, it definitely is NOT the most flattering picture, but you can tell there is no way I could back out of that.

You can see Matt waiting there to catch me...it was like swimming lessons all over again. It was a good thing he was there, since the water was so cold when your body hits it it's almost like it goes into panic mode. I couldn't breathe because it was so cold. Matt pushed me over to the falls, where the water was a little warmer. Even though I never want to do it again, it was still fun & worth it.

Here we are standing in the falls.

A bit later the guys wanted to swimming around over to the falls again (which worried me just a little since not even an hour before another guy was swimming out in the same area & had to be rescued by one of the life guards).

But they made it.

The next day we broke camp, packed up & headed over to Watkins Glen, where we hiked through this beautiful gorge. This was me & Matts third time hiking it.

This is why I couldn't blame Luke for hating the drive. After about day two we rearranged the car so he was in a window seat, where he seemed much more happy.

After our hike, we drove on a beautiful, scenic drive through Amish country & next to one of the Finger Lakes, which was gorgeous! We stopped at the KOA (=ghetto) to set up our tent & then drove to Palmyra where we got some dinner, yummy ice cream, toured the printing press & then found a place to watch the Hill Cumorah Pageant, or Pageant.

We had been to Pageant two years earlier, but I forgot how awesome it was. They do such an amazing job & have the coolest effects like, rain, water falls, fire, destruction & Christ appearing, floating in the sky & descending down (Christ coming to the Americas). It was really great! I recommend it to everyone!

The next day was quite gloomy, but was a lot better than the hot, humid summer days were used to when we visit the Church sites. We toured the Smith homes & walked through the Sacred Grove. It was sprinkling at first, but started to get a bit harder.

Isn't the background beautiful! I just love the green & that garden behind us. This was taken behind the log cabin.

Here we are in the Sacred Grove, before the massive down pour.

Shortly after we entered the Sacred Grove, it was a HUGE down pour with the loudest thunder & lightening on top of each other. Luke kept saying "Crash, crash, crash!" It was funny. So we hustled through. Our feet were in about 3 inches of water most of the time & me & Meg's legs were coverd in dirt & mud by the end. I had mud up my back too.

It was quite the experience, but it made for a good memory. And at least it was warmer rain & wasn't freezing cold. It was fun.

Next, we drove two hours to Niagara Falls. As many of you know, Matt & I have made this trip four times, but Meg had never been to any of these places & it was so much fun being with them. We didn't spend very much time at Niagara Falls, but it was still just as beautiful & amazing as ever. This is our last time on our Church history/Niagara trip, until our kids are older, we'll bring them back then.

Then we crossed the boarder to Canada (which I REALLY REALLY hate doing). Nothing against Canadians, it's the guards at the boarder that are just complete jerks & to me, it's not even worth all the crap they give you to get through, because nothing on Canadian side is even that great. At least close to the boarder. Western Canada is beautiful, however & can't wait to go back there. I'm sure there are other great places in Eastern Canada, but not in Niagara or Fort Erie, Canada where we stayed in a hotel.

Sunday morning we crossed back over to the U.S. & went to church in Buffalo & then headed home. The Buffalo church was built in the 50's & didn't look anything like an LDS Church from the outside. This is the best group picture we could get.

Here are just some cute pictures of McKelle, who is such a doll.

After we said our good-byes Luke had to give hugs & kisses to McKelle one last time.
These pictures are so sweet.

Thanks for the fun trip Meg & Dave, as always we have a great time with you guys.
Can't wait to see you all again!

The holiday & a little catch up.

June was so nice, we had a lot of little trips out doors to enjoy the nice weather.
Our ward has a play group each week & we've only been once, but Luke loved it.
Here's Luke & one of his good buddies Parker.

He loves being outside & always asks to go outside & go on the "sli" in our backyard.

We got him a tiny pool for our backyard & he loves it. We also put his little slide in it & he loves going down on his belly. As many of you know, but haven't yet seen my new hair cut.
As Luke would say, "ta da!"
Here's the best pic of it so far.

For the 4th of July I was really missing home, as I do every holiday that goes by, but fortunately we are a part of a fabulous ward & still had a great time with friends.

Matt is taking Step 2 of the boards tomorrow, so he was busy studying all day, but took a break for our ward breakfast were we ate some yummy food, watched a little bike parade & visited with some great friends. Here's Luke with his "Aunty" Marilyn, who's going to have a baby any day now & we are SO excited to meet little Aurora!

He LOVES playing with Marilyn & Jason, they are probably his favorite people after his parents.

Our little All-American boy.
Thanks mom for the cute outfit!

Luke running around with Jason.

Later that night, we headed out with our friends Melanie & Aaron Lindsay to watch some fireworks.

At first, Luke was terrified of their dog Max (I can't say that I blame him), but he warmed up after feeding him all his snacks, he thought that was pretty cool.

Here's us trying to get a family picture...it's the best we could do.

It seems like all the firework shows we've seen in Ohio have been awesome! So we had a lot of fun. Luke was scared at first, but then kept pointing, clapping & saying "Whoa, wow!" to every firework. The people around us were getting a kick out of him.

BUT what we really missed was being home with our families, eating delicious barbecued food, playing games all day, having more delicious food & watching my brother set off illegal fireworks at night or being at my grandma's house & watching the Stadium of Fire fireworks. Ah, how we love home.

Hope everyone had a safe & happy 4th of July!
We're so thankful for this free country we live in!