Trip to Moab

At the beginning of the month Alex and I made the long trip to Moab to stay for ten days. Alex did great on the trip over, although his face was stiff from his antics with a sucker by the time we arrived at our destination.

The first weekend included a long drive up to Logan for the Clarkston Pageant. It was so great being with family, even if the acting in the pageant was lacking. Guess we have to look past that and focus on the testimony of Martin Harris instead.

 Lindsay and Kynlee came to spend the week with me at Dad's house. Our first Sunday there was fast Sunday and my dad bore his testimony and said he was grateful that two of his children had come to clean his house. After two days of cleaning it only seemed a little better.

 Alex helping Lindsay clean

Or just getting into Papa's stuff

Even though Alex isn't always careful with little Kynlee, these two were so happy to be back together.

The final weekend of the trip was spent at the cabin with Aunt Valerie and her fun children and Aunt Daryl and the rest of the family. Alex was so happy to have his aunts come to love on him. He wore himself out playing with cousins on the mountain.

 Yes those are my aunts allowing Alex to stand on the table.

 Do you think they had secrets to tell??

Alex and I had so much fun!! Andrew was able to study hard his second week of Med School, but we were eager to get back together again. The drive back home included road construction (think major delay and stop and go traffic), one child saying, "no music" for the last hour, gross milk throw up in the final half hour and a major tantrum as I tried to get Alex into the bathtub while we waited for Andrew to come home from dinner with classmates. It may be a while before I muster up the courage to make the long journey to Moab all by myself with my wild little toddler again. Thanks for the fun time everyone!!

Welcome to Colorful Colorado!

We have started a new adventure in Colorado. It took us a little over a day to travel from Cedar City, Utah to Aurora, Colorado with the slow Budget truck, plus one stop for me to overcome my carsickness. That day spent traveling and then unloading was one of the longest of my life and I am not looking forward to moving ever again, hopefully by the time we are ready for our next move I will have forgotten how bad it was.

 Knowing Andrew would be starting med school I tried to unpack as fast as possible so I could have help.

 The best little helper. Andrew and I were in separate rooms unpacking and we came out to the living room to find this little guy unpacking cases of canned goods and stacking them into a tower. He was so funny, when his unsteady piles would tumble he would turn to us and say, "oops, sorry guys" then he would stack some more.

 On the 27th of July we were able to attend Andrew's white coat ceremony. Andrew had to be there early so while Alex and I were waiting outside I asked him if he wanted to take some pictures. He was so excited and wanted to take them in front of the waterfall. Little model. I sure love that cute  face!!

 Student Doctor Andrew Alton!!!

So glad we have such good friends to share this adventure with!!!! We love you guys!!

 Rocky Vista sold students and family of the new medical school students tickets to the Rockies game following the white coat ceremony. I was worried that Alex would get bored because baseball games can be so long. He loved the whole experience though. You'll notice in all the pictures I took he can't keep his eyes off the game. He liked watching the people around us and listening to the music, he liked the 7th inning stretch when everyone stands up to stretch and then we sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I think his favorite was when a dental chain sent people dressed up as a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and a thing of floss to have a race around the field.  I loved it too, even though the Rockies were losing 6-0 and the rain was coming down hard, we still stuck it out. We saw the Rockies score 4 runs in one inning. By the bottom of the ninth they were down by two and everyone was rallying for the win, and then we watched the field crew pull out the giant tarp that covers the whole infield. It was after 9:00 so we went home. The game ended up being delayed for one hour and 45 minutes, and the Rockies couldn't pull off the win. I'm so glad we went though it was way fun!!!

That is the start of our new life here in Colorado! We are excited to start this new chapter in our lives, even though we miss being so close to family. I am going to try to keep positive and brave and embrace new experiences and friendships here.

Crazy Beautiful Life!

 Here is my re-cap of the last month of our crazy crazy life. On June 29th Alex and I got to go pick up Andrew after his month at officers training. We missed him so so so much!

Alex was so so so excited, can't you tell?

These two were so happy to be to gether again, they are best buds.

 Once Andrew came home we had two and a half weeks before the move so we made the most of our time in Cedar. We hung out with family lots and lots. We also got a new camera so we can take pictures again! YAY!!

Parker participated in a youth rodeo. We have a video of his steer ride but I'm not posting it because... lets just say it ended pretty badly. Parker had a perfect hoof print on his back following the ordeal.

We got rained out so we only stayed for the first two events, but it was a good time.

We attended the annual July Jamboree and car show.

 Alex liked looking at the cars but I think he likes people watching even more.

Alex chose this place to sit throughout the walk up and down main street.

Andrew's whole family got together for a little reunion, plus baby blessing, plus missionary send off.
It was so great to get to spend time with everyone. Some of the highlights were, temple trip with Andrew's oldest nephew Jordan, he loves that kid, Olive Garden, scavenger hunt and pinata for the kids and a day at the Cedar City reservoir for swimming, playing in the mud and a free kayak rental.

It was great being with family and with Andrew's family and my family helping us move our stuff out of our place, not to mention helping to clean the whole house, things went so quickly and were way less stressful than I was planning on. Thanks so much everybody!!!!! I don't know what we would have done without you all!

Our last hoorah in Cedar City was cute little Kynlee's first birthday party! I sure miss that little girl!

Kynlee started out by just wiping frosting on the floor, Alex decided they needed spoons to help them and he fed Kynlee more than he ate himself. Silly boy.

We are now busy settling into our new lives in Colorado, stay tuned for a post on unpacking and a White Coat Ceremony and life for Student Doctor Andrew Alton.

Moon House and trip to Moab

The day that Andrew left for training I hitched a ride down to Moab with Lindsay and Carson so I could spend a week hanging with them and my dad. It was nice to not be alone for a while during the time that Andrew is gone. We picnicked at the park and played in the sandbox and had a good time. For our Saturday activity we headed to some Indian Ruins called Moon House. It was a fun hike and the ruins were way interesting.

 There were dots like the ones behind us all over, they were counting something.

 More dots. This room also has a full moon and a crescent moon within that white stripe, but you can't see them in the picture.

 The doorways had rock decoration above them. A woman's touch?

 Such a cute kid!

 Alex loved running around and looking in the rooms with the flashlights. He was pretty nice the whole day even though we didn't get to go home until later in the evening because we ended up helping a woman find her 74  year old husband who had gotten lost that morning. He ended up hiking almost ten miles just trying to find the trail to get out of the canyon. Carson and his dad and my dad were the heroes of the day cause they found him and helped him get back to his wife. We ended the day with milkshakes. What a fun week at Grandpa's!

Kolob Reservoir

I'm a little behind but last month we went camping with Lindsay and Carson and Kynlee up at Kolob Reservoir.

 My two boys love camping! Alex loves running around and he loves to get dirty. Here he is having his first s'more, usually he just takes a bite out of most of the marshmallows in the bag before ever getting to the real treat.

 Ales showing us his muddy pjs.

 Alex loved playing in the tent, especially Lindsay and Carson's tent, he didn't like the tent when it was time to go to bed. He ended up sleeping way better than I did though.

 The pretty lake. We decided to walk around the whole thing, that ended up being about 5 miles. Alex loves the child carrier that mom and dad took turns carrying him in and he even got to take a little nap while the rest of us got our exercise. The worst part of the the trip were the mosquitos that tried to eat us alive, there were huge swarms of them all around the lake.
I love that camping makes Andrew so happy, sadly he didn't end up in any of the pictures. Last summer we didn't really get to go so we made sure to get some camping trips in before Andrew had to leave for Officers Training.