Two Years

Well, can you believe it? I sure can't.

Luke is TWO.

These two years have flown by, but we've had so much fun with him in our little family.

This boy is so much fun & such a cutie. 

I love this age. It has it's ups & downs, but mostly ups. Yeah he can be a complete terror, get into everything, push every button in our house 100 times a day, climb on things he shouldn't, blow his nose 6 times a day (wasting tissues), wanting to "bash" (wash his hands) & leaving the bathroom sink's hot water running. He may only throw a few temper tantrums a day, and bang his head into something due to his amount of anger he isn't quite sure how to control. Sure he is the pickiest eater alive and some nights goes to bed only having eaten two slices of apples for dinner. Yeah, maybe he is the hardest two hours before bed time, as he is fighting us to get him to sleep, using the excuse that he just wants to "pray" (which is hard to turn down). And then he sneaks into our bedroom at 2am, kicks us in the back, wraps his legs around my neck, smacks us in the face...you get it. Only to return at 4 or 5am and sleep in our bed for a least another hour or two.
Other than a few little "terrible-two" characteristics, he's actually quite pleasant.

 Here's a little about our man Luke.

Ever since we returned home from Utah, he has been the biggest mama's boy. He's always saying, "holsee mom (hold me mom)." He is really quite sweet. His current phrases are, "I miss you," "I lualu (I love you)."

I think this is one of the most fun ages. He loves to color, play with play dough & other activities where he will actually sit still at the table & do something, sometimes for an hour (allowing me to get some great study (or blogging) time in). He is recently obsessed with his "vintage" matchbox cars (aka Matt's cars, when he was little). He zooms them all over the house & up all the walls. As you can see from the first picture, he loves to wear his cute baseball hat, and many other hats. He is also, finally really getting into books! Yay. He will bring me tons of books & we'll read them over and over. He never used to have a long enough attention span to sit through two pages. 

One thing that hasn't changed is the television. Can you couch potato? If we let him, he'd watch it all day. He even knows how to turn it on. His recent, absolute FAVORITE movie is Walle. He loves to dance and sing to the music, and asks for "Waaalleee & Eba" all day long. I asked him, "guess who is coming this weekend?" He replied with hope and excitement in his voice, "Walle?!"

 This morning, after having been cooped up in our apartment all week, Luke was dying to get out!

Even though it was 21 degrees outside, the sun was shining, so we ventured out for a few minutes anyway.

Luke drove his little car around & another favorite thing to say is, "I wanna go to temple." And that is where he was headed apparently.

Luke is growing so fast. He is learning so much everyday. He talks like crazy, in full sentences at time, it blows my mind. Today I had a SFHS sweatshirt on and he pointed to the H and said it! I was so surprised. He used to only know A, B & C. He's such a smarty & has a great, fun & very goofy personality.

Oh, another cute thing he does these day (that I don't want to forget). He's a really good singer for his age. When we sing "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" he knows when to say "beam, him" and he'll finish a few of the other words in the song, like "play." He does the same thing with "I hope they call me on a mission." It's so fun to see all the little things he picks up. 

In this last picture, I told him to point to our house. After a minute he figured out which one it was...they do all look similar don't they?

Well, Happy Two Years to you little Lukey (Duke, Dukey or Gooke, as he calls himself).

We love you so much!!!

Thank you for all the fun & happiness you bring into our lives & our family.

Happy Birthday to you little guy!

My new distraction

The day has finally come, I got the toy I've been asking for almost a year.

A Canon T1I DSLR camera.

I love it!

It has 15 megapixels & takes video in HD!
Did I say that I love it?

Since I just got it on Friday, with Cleveland being the ugly town it is (in the winter time), I haven't had much opportunity to use it other than in our house.

Just for fun here are some cute little pictures of Luke.

I still have a lot to learn. This photography thing is very complex! However, I am loving it.

Welcome 2010!

I know I'm a little late, but now that I'm done blogging about our Utah adventure I just wanted to say WELCOME 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been waiting to say that since 2006 (I know that doesn't seem that long ago, but that's when I knew I'd be marring Matt & be enduring nearly 4 years of med school). We've been saying for the past four years, "we graduate in May 2010." And now that it IS 2010, I just can't believe it!!

January is half way over, but here are the wonderful (and slightly terrifying) things we have to look forward to this year:

• Master Luke (as our African American downstairs neighbors call him) turns TWO on the 31st of this month!
• We can officially submit our rank list as of yesterday....I'll update on that later.
• This is our last Cleveland winter (unless for some really strange reason we end up staying here).
• On March 18th (or something close to that) is MATCH DAY! The day we find out where we will be moving two months later.
• May 16th is GRADUATION!!!!
• Matt's parents will definitely be here, & Dave & Meg too...who else wants to come to celebrate with us???
• May 17th (most likely) we will leave Cleveland...forever (well probably not forever, I'm sure we'll come back someday-to visit that is).
• June or July (depending on where we go) Matt starts residency!-this is the slightly terrifying one. 

So far, we've got a lot planned and that's only the first half of the year. We are really looking forward to it. Even though this is a really depression winter here, we're trying not to wish our time in Cleveland away too quickly, because we know we will miss it when we are gone-or at least Kirtland & all of our great friends & ward members.

A few months ago we were walking around Matt's campus on a beautiful Sunday afternoon while Dave & Meg were visiting (they always are here, we love it!) & they took some cute pictures of us. Here are just a couple.
Notice Luke's face in the first one? He was pretty tired.

Well 2010 here we come!

Utah, Phoenix, Denver

Okay, here is the last (or I guess the first part of) our trip. (My friend let me know how to make the pictures big without going through a very long, complicated process, so I should be posting more often! Let me know if you want in on the secret.)

I went to Utah a week before Matt, so I could house-sit or baby-sit or whatever you want to call it for Matt's parents while they were doing humanitarian work in Loas.

Luke & I visited Jumpin' Jacks a few times with my sisters & their kids. We had so much fun! Cleveland needs places like this for these long, cold winters. Luke loved it.
One day, while we were just home alone, I thought, "Hey, why not go out into Matt's humongous backyard and help out with the leaves." Well, after raking for an hour & making a pile for Luke (he wasn't very interested) I stepped back & realized I hadn't even made a dent! It was still fun anyway.
For FHE we took the girls, Adrienne & Sarah, to Pirate Island. It's a fun little resturant with pirates & an arcade.
Another big event that we were lucky to attend was Oliver's baby blessing (and of course I don't even have a picture of him on here), anyway I just thought this was a cute picture. The kids tend to get a little rowdy & by the end most of the boys were, doing this. It's cute (and annoying) how one starts doing something, all the others have to do it too.
Luke really wanted to give Lydia a hug all night...
We have a video of him chasing her for about two minutes straight saying. "Lyd. Hug!" But she wasn't a big fan of it, by the time he actually caught up with her. Haha. I love the face.
On to Thanksgiving. We drove about 10 hours south to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Rachel, Charlie & McKay. We had a lot of fun. The boys played great together. We ate a delicious meal, played lots of games, took a temple trip with all the adults, went shooting & shopping.

If we end up moving there, I won't be a big fan of all the rocks, but Luke will.
Luke and McKay are only a few months apart. For the first time they actually played together & quite well.
The weather was beautiful. It was weird to see all the Christmas lights up at the temple, with no snow.
Oh, we also went on a hike. It was a lot different than the hikes we're used to. This one wasn't very shady & was full of giant cacti (is that how you spell it?).

Here is a fun picture from our shootin' adventure. We had a lot of fun out there. I love the serious faces.
The week after Phoenix, Matt, Luke & I flew to Denver for two interviews. We stayed with some other doctors that Matt's dad knew. Luke and I did a lot of "window shopping" to kill the time & one of the days we spent a few hours at the Denver Children's Museum. I'm sure if we come here, we'll spend a lot of them there. It was such a fun & cute place, he loved it.
I'm pretty sure the fake computer was his absolute favorite thing. He's our little technology nerd.
I asked him if he wanted to be a doctor & naturally he said, "yes." We'll see, maybe we will have a four-generation of doctors. No pressure though.
It was a very cute city, Denver.
And here is just another random picture from Utah. Matt's family lives close to the foot of the mountain & they get a ton of snow. Here's Luke playing around in it. He's just so cute, I had to post this one.

HAWAII!!!!

Here are all the great pictures we took in Hawaii. I feel like we did way more things, but this is most of what we did. It takes me longer to post these days, because I like to do the big photo size, it's just a bit more complicated.

We had an awesome direct flight out there from SLC. It was a big plane (which I love), big seats & each had it's own tv, with free everything. It was great. Not to mention I didn't have to entertain Luke for six hours. Here is the first thing I saw of Hawaii. Later on our trip we actually hiked into & to the peak of that huge crater, called Diamond Head. GORGEOUS!!!

After we got our rental car & to our hotel, the sun was just setting. We ran across the street from our hotel & watched the sun set on the beach. It was SO nice! We stayed in Waikiki.

Early the next morning we drove to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. The water was pretty darn cold, but thankfully we bought these great swim shirts (highly recommend). (Now, I know this picture below looks a little weird, but I was on the phone while editing it, so I know, it's weird looking).

It was my first time doing "real" snorkeling. I did it once on a cruise, but it was pretty lame. We brought our own snorkel gear, & the only bag we had to lug it down to the bay in was that lovely suitcase. I'm sure we didn't look like tourist at all, with that on the beach.

I wish we had an underwater camera, we saw beautiful fish. It was weird for me & it took me a while to get used to, but it was SO MUCH FUN! Plus, it was not very crowded, & I hear it's always crowded.

I love these flowers they use to make fresh lei. They gave me one at the Laie Temple, so I needed a picture.

After snorkeling, we basically drove all the way from the south side of the island up to the north side & stopped at beaches along the way. It was such a gorgeous day.

After about a 50 minute drive to the other side of the island (it's so small!) we stopped at the Laie Temple. Isn't it SO prettty? I just love it. It's always a good feeling when you see members, churches or temples when you are away on vacation.

We spent two days swimming on the north shore. Since it's winter there, the waves on the north shore can get huge. I mean up to 50 feet. While we were there they had the Big Eddie, a world-wide surfing competition. So, I, being the chicken I am sometimes, didn't dare go out very far in the waves. Matt was having a blast body surfing in though. We also saw huge turtles out there too.


The mountains on Oahu are HUGE. I couldn't believe it. They are so awesome looking. I mean they are just huge, jagged & soooo green. They look really cool.

These are all from the north side.

This is a view of the northern side.

Have you heard of beans & ice cream in your shaved ice? Well, they do it here at Motsumoto's on the northwest side of the island. Matt tried the beans. They were gross. I'm glad I just went with the ice cream & shaved ice. My favorite.

Saturday we drove up the island from the west side of the island, we stopped at the Dole Pineapple Plantation (overrated), got the shaved ice, saw some of Big-Eddie from the road (it was insanely crowded) & then spent the rest of the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We saw skits or whatever you want to call them from each of the villages & did a few fun things, ate dinner there & then saw HA The Breath of Life performance. It was really great. Something everyone should see if they go there. Here's a picture of one of the tribes dancing along the river.

Samoa's skit was the most entertaining.

They make coconut milk, started fire & from out of no where this guy shimmied up a palm tree.



It was pretty warm & humid that day, but so pretty! I love how green it is there.

Sunday we went to church at the Manoa ward in Honolulu. That was a great experience. Their church building was pretty much all outside. It was really cool. And later that day we went to Pearl Harbor. Matt being a history major, loved it.





Instead of buying a souvenir, he wanted to tour this submarine. Trust me, it wasn't very fun in a dress.





But he loved it.



And I mean, loved it.



As a part of the tour they take you out on a fairy over to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. It was really neat to see the ship sunken beneath. It was a beautiful memorial building. You can see parts of the ship sticking out of the water on the left side of the photo.



That night we headed back to the beach to have a picnic & watch the sunset (it goes down at like 5pm).

We played around a little with the camera.



I love this pic (below) with the sail boat & all the surfers out in the water. This is where we surfed at Waikiki. It was SO MUCH FUN! Probably one of the most fun things I have ever done before (besides the part were I got smacked in the forehead by the board). If we move here, I would definitely buy a surf board.



Monday morning we got up really early, drove to Diamond Head & hiked it before the sun came up. Apparently we weren't the only ones with the idea. There were about four bus loads of Asian's also hiking with us. It was so funny, they all had flash lights, it was like watch hundreds of ants going up an ant hill.
I know this picture looks fake, it's kinda funny looking huh. Plus, we were pretty sweaty.

From the top, we had a great view of Honolulu. It's really quite a big city. This is where Matt would work...well somewhere in there. And right along the beach there, by all those big buildings, that's where our hotel was.

This is a picture of all the valleys, or suburbs of Honolulu. Again, IF we move there, we would most likely live in the one on the far left, it's sunken down in a valley a little bit. But, you get the picture of how crammed this island is! I get a little bit of island fever.

Diamond Head was used in WWI & II, there are stairways & bunkers all over it.

One of the very last things we did before we left was stop at Kahuku High School. I know that seems weird, but this is where Matt's dad went to three years of high school. We bought him a Kahuku polo for Christmas. I'm pretty sure it was one of his favorite gifts this year.

A few other things we did were:
-shopping at the swap meet (that was fun).
-eat dinner at Sam's Club a few times (it was the cheapest place!)
-drive through Manoa valley & look at possible neighborhoods.
-obviously, Matt interviewed.
-we had dinner with other OB residents.
-sat on the beach, beach, beach.
-"window shopped" at the ritziest-most expensive mall I've ever seen.
-went to some really high peak (Matt can't remember the name), where you could see a huge chunk of the island.

Overall we had a fabulous time. It was a great opportunity (& excuse) to take a vacation. Matt liked the program. (I'm the one that needs a little more convincing). If Matt could, he'd rank it number 1. It is in our top 3, on our rank list. We'll see what happens.

Another HUUUUUGE THANK YOU to Anne & the girls for watching Luke & to my sister Jenny for watching him. There is no way we could have done all the things we did with him there. We partied non-stop, we were exhausted! Now that we're back to freezing, dark Cleveland, I'm really wishing we were back there.