Loving Fall

Our good friends, Jeff & Sarah Nance, drove in Saturday night to stay with us on their way back to Milwaukee. We didn't get to spend a whole lot of time together, but it was still so great to see them!

After church on Sunday we all headed out to Kirtland to see the sites. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, but a tad chilly.

The missionaries there told us that President Monson had made a surprise visit the day before. We were a day late! I bet that was such a great experience for all the missionaries there.

After Historic Kirtland we drove up the road to see the temple.
I'm telling you we haven't had a day this gorgeous in quite a while! They couldn't have come at a better time.

We just love Kirtland.

These are the original colors of the doors & I have always loved them.

Jeff & Sarah

I got some cute little shap shots of Luke playing around.

After that, we said our good byes so they could make the long 7 hr trip home, Luke passed out in the back of the car so Matt & I decided to take a drive. The leaves are at the perfect changing point right now, with their colors so vibrant & beautiful. As we passed this location I told Matt to pull over so I could take a picture. So pretty!!!!

Monday Matt lucked out & got Columbus day off (because he was working at the Veterans Hospital) so we drove out to the zoo. We've taken Luke a few times now & he still doesn't seem to like it very much. He hates getting close to the animals.

This first picture, I just had to post. Since we've been having to put him in his coat, every time we buckle him in his car seat he freezes. He won't move a muscle. It is so funny. He'll stay like this for the whole car ride. It makes him look about 10lbs bigger than he really is.

Monday was not near as nice as Sunday, but at least it didn't rain on us much while we were there. It was darn cold though! (Thank goodness it's free on Monday's).

When we sat Luke down next to this monkey he made that terrified moan-scream, the one he made when he saw the gorilla. If you don't know what I'm talking about go here.
That's why he doesn't look very happy to be sitting next to it, even being on dad's lap.

This was about the only smile we got out of him.

Even though this picture is a tad blurry, it's still so funny. He was starting to smile for the picture & then realized that HUGE fish was swimming towards him (he doesn't understand that there is glass between him & the animals) & I caught this face. Hahah, he's so funny.

What? Oh, yeah I was there too. I'm just always the one taking the pictures, so Matt wanted the pictures of the trees & decided I should be in it too.

This was probably our last time going to the Cleveland Zoo!

Ooooooo babies!

Oh how I love newborn babies!

And I love them even more when they have such ADORABLE names! Ahhhh.

Allow me to introduce the newest addition to the Johnson family (making something like 20ish grand kids), little Oliver David Forsey!

He was born Tuesday, October 6th at 2:51 weighing 7lbs 4oz & 20" long.
Oooooh I just can't wait until Christmas to meet him!

Congratulations to my sister Mandy & bro-in-law Steve.
You guys make cute kiddos!
Love & miss you guys!

Just an update on us

It's been quite some time since I've done a little family (mostly Luke) update.

Well, Luke is growing up into a little boy. He's healthy, smart, developmentally more then on track, happy & as always, very energetic! He is also talking like crazy now. He started saying words here & there in the summer & now he's putting words together, not quite sentences yet, but enough that we usually can understand him. Although, there is still a lot of jibberish going on too, which is cute.

Some of his favorite words are: mommy, daddy, baby, papa, milp (milk), bread, banana, cookie, jump, fall down, broke, fix it, look, car, aweplane, ball, cherp (chair), bluth (blue), whoaw (show), mobiee (movie), up, down, no, don't, stop, mine (must have learned those ones in nursery), come on, byebye, luvlu (love you), kiss, hug, boo, book, susme (excuse me), tanktu (thank you), peees (please) & washie (sorry).

And right now he loves to: read books to us, sing us songs, dance, dance, dance (this kid's got rhythm, he may look just like his dad, but he's got moves like his mom! haha), play with cars, watch movies (we have a little couch potato on our hands), go to the park & library class, see his friends (Parker aka Karker & Sage), say "Noooo, nooo, stop" when he sees mommy & daddy kiss....

This boy is a handful, but so much fun. He has a great little personality & sense of humor. He is quite polite, other than the no, stop & mine phase we are going through. He is now 20 months & is just growing too fast. We love him to bits & don't know what life would be like without him.

Here's another pic of his recent buzz. Doesn't it make him look like a little boy, no more baby Luke....
We love you little boy.

As for me, I am staying extremely busy with, school work, working lots of crafts & projects for my house & for other people, trying to prepare all my Primary stuff before we leave for 2 months, keeping our place in order, getting Luke out daily (most of the time), editing pictures, working on Halloween stuff, helping throw baby showers & looking forward to all the fun activities we have coming up the rest of this month. I'm loving this October! I have definitely been getting in the spirit of Fall, baking up the wazoo & decorating. It's so fun!

Matt has the most exciting things going on right now. He's been doing a geriatrics rotation (boring), which is been awesome for us because he's had a lot of time off...woo!
And, as many of you know, he applied to 20 programs a month ago for residency. Well, we are pleased that he, so far, has 11 interviews. 2 in Cleveland, 2 in Denver (one being our top choice! wahoo), 2 in Houston, Utah, Phoenix, Seattle, Santa Clara California & Hawaii. We are very excited & hope to continue to get some more. And it just so happens with all our plans that I get to go to most likely all of them with him, with us being in Utah for the 2 months, so we'll be doing a lot of traveling before the end of the year, but are looking forward to it!!!
It's exciting getting close to see what the future will hold for us!

Sour Apples

It's that time of year again. There are good things & bad things about it.

The good things are, we are doing one of our favorite things we love to do in Ohio & that is picking some fresh fruits & the Fall time here is b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l. The sad thing is that it means it's the last type of fruit of the season around here & it means it'll be getting much colder soon. Also, this may have been the nicest-last day of the year! AND, the saddest of all is that it's probably our very LAST time picking any sort of fruit in Ohio. Sniff sniff.

Matt was lucky enough to get off before lunch last Friday, so we took advantage of the beautiful day & headed over to Eddy's Orchard. Most of the apples we got, were pretty sour...almost like eating a sour patch kid. I love this pic. You can tell how beautiful the weather was that day!

"Home, home on the range."

Just for fun, this was Luke last year when we picked apples.
What happened???

Luke & "Mommieeeeeeee," as Luke says.

We have so many pictures like this...because it's the only way we can be in one together.

If you haven't noticed, we buzzed little Lukey's head!
He looks way older, but at least he has a great head for a buzz & it's super easy, which is always nice for a wiggly worm.

Glad you're hear Mr. Fall, please stay for a while, we love having you around.

Our crazy, busy trip inside of a trip.

Yes, we are that family.

The kind of family who packs along an electric sandwich maker so we can have hot sandwiches at our hotel. It was quite fun actually. We got a great deal on Priceline to stay at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. I think Luke was the only child there. Everyone there had to have been on a business trip. When we pulled in at 4pm with our stroller loaded with all our baggage that the wheels were squeaking, Luke in pj's (because he barfed on the car ride, of course) & the both of us looking like we just sat in a long car ride for 7+ hours, everyone was sure to notice us!
BUT
Who cares! We had a nice hotel room & a lot of fun. See how yummy those sandwiches were? Mmmmm.

There was even an indoor pool. It was mainly a lap swim pool, but no one went swimming while we were there (probably because of Luke being the only child there), but the two times we went it was a blast! Luke had no fear of jumping into the pool....when we caught him anyway.

Luke even got his own bed!

Well he could have, but we stuck him in a crib...of which he kept climbing out of. Thursday while Matt took his 8 hr test, I ventured out into the city, just me & the boy.
We mainly just shopped all day, without spending money :)
I just had to take a picture of what the inside of this Macy's store looked like.
I know, I'm a nerd. But it was so cool!

Later I walked through this building. It was a cool building, but once I got to the other side the city didn't look so friendly, so I decided to turn around. Then I just happened to see the missionaries! I felt better, but still headed back to the safer looking side of town.

The next day we saw some of the history sites.
Here are a couple we saw.
The liberty bell.

We toured Independence Hall. Matt thought this was pretty cool.

We took a few pictures outside of Independence Hall. It's a beautiful building.

This is us (below) attempting to use the timer with our camera.

Have you ever been to any tourist spot & see a lot of foreign people & they are posing for a picture, all alone & they never smile & sometimes do a peace sign?
Well, we always see that & think it's kind of funny.
So we tried to do it too...you should too sometime, it's hard not to laugh.

Matt was pretty good at it.
I just look ticked.

Luke couldn't keep a straight face.
And he's almost got the peace sign down.

So cute!

We also saw Benjamin Franklin's grave, toured the Mint (where they make coins) & spent a lot of time eating yummy food at the Reading Terminal Market-highly recommended.

After a lot of going, Luke wiped out.

This is where it gets complicated.
A week & a half ago Matt's grandpa Clark died. He was only two months shy of turning 109!
The funeral services were Saturday. So Friday, after touring the sites, we flew out of Philadelphia & got home to Utah just after midnight.

Unfortunately, I only have TWO pictures from while we were there!
Here they are.
This one was when we were playing Kochu (sp?) on their tennis court. Always a fun game.

After fun & games we headed to Salt Lake where the funeral & burial was.
Afterwards we had a delicious luncheon.
Matt took this picture (notice my very bad posture).
I was busy taking pictures with his parent's camera for them, so I didn't catch any on mine. After the funeral, we hung out at Matt's house, played some games, ate some food & just chatted. It was so fun being with everyone.
Then on Sunday morning we visited my parents for an hour & jumped on a plane that took us, eventually, back to Phili. Whew! It was the shortest Utah trip EVER (sadly).

The next morning we slept in at our hotel & hit the road.
On the way back to Cleveland we visited the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Yum.

And you ask how did we spend over 14 hours in the car & over 12 hours on air planes, plus sitting in the airport with 2 out of 4 delayed flights....this is how.

A portable dvd player & Elmo, Luke's favorite.

It was a fast, fun trip & we were glad to be home, but it's nice to be back as well!
We'll be back in Utah in 6 weeks....we are always on the go.