Clinton City Days

The kids and I went to Clinton City Days with my sister, Amy, my niece, Shyley and my brother, Brian. It was terribly hot outside, but we wanted to get out and do something. I had to laugh at the little carnival rides and some of the carnival workers. They can be so odd sometimes!

They had some of those big blow up toys, like a bounce house and one where both people stand on a platform and try to knock each other off with the big pad thing(not the best description, I can't think of what it's called). Brian and I decided to try our hands and beating each other. The thing was burning hot, and it was so hard just to get up and balance on that platform while holding the pad to hit him down with. We both hit each other off a couple times and then my feet couldn't take the heat anymore so I ran off it. It was fun!

We played a few games and the kids won some prizes, I think that may have been the highlight of the whole experience for them!

Shyley got her face painted and Brynlee seemed to want to get hers done until it was her turn. She was a little unsure of the lady doing the painting, so we just had a little flower painted on her arm. It turned out cute and she loved it!

Shyley got dragonflies painted on her face.

Brynlee's flower.

Cute girls showing off their paintings!

Uncle Brian decided he didn't want to be left out, so he got the spider man painting.

There was a little boat ride we were going to let Brynlee and Gracen ride on, but they were both too afraid to get in the boats. Brynlee's always been afraid of rides and I think her fear is rubbing off on Gracen. He decided it was much more fun to splash the water!

Playing at Grandma and Grandpa's

After our long drive Brynlee and Gracen were ready to play! My niece Shyley was at my mom's house when we got there, and she had her new puggle (a pug/beagle mix), Harley, with her. Brynlee and Gracen shouted for joy as soon as the car stopped!! They were squealing and ready to run!

Gracen loves Harley!! Here he is trying to feed Harley the dog food out of his hand. These two run and play and Gracen just gets so excited to see him! He tends to get a little rough with the puppy, so we have to watch him carefully. There have been a few times I've found Gracen laying on top of him, or trying to pick him up by the hair on his back!

The day after we got there, Grandma went to the store to buy a little pool for the kids to play in. I think they enjoyed the hose a little more...the pool water was freezing cold!

She also got them some squirt guns. Gracen was funny to watch with it, he would point it at his face and squirt it and jump...a little surprised that he got wet. Eventually, he figured it out...

and then he turned on Grandpa!

The LONG drive home...

Nate is currently doing his audition rotations, which is where he travels to different hospitals he would like to apply for residency. He has decided he would like to specialize in Pathology. I am not good at explaining what a pathologist does(not sure I fully know myself), but I am always being asked. My best description is terrible so I am not going to give it on here. The one thing I know about it is that they have great hours, are less often battling ridiculous lawsuits, and they don't have to do an internship year during residency(which I've heard can be pretty rough).

His plan is to be in Akron, Salt Lake City, and Colorado Springs for these rotations. I figured the kids and I might as well take off and spend time with our family out in Utah since he's not going to be around much anyway.

With a 16 hour drive ahead of us, I decided to hit the road early. We left at 4 a.m. a little tired, but ready to get it over with! I had the portable dvd player all set up with movies, toys, food, candy, cd's, anything and everything I could think of that I could pass back to keep Brynlee and Gracen entertained!

We made it to Morgan from Des Moines in almost exactly 16 hours. I was afraid I was going to get too tired to drive, but it really wasn't too bad! We made about 4 stops and one was an hour for lunch. I only went about 5 over the speed limit and hit way more construction than I had hoped to!

Brynlee and Gracen did awesome! They didn't complain much. Gracen found that throwing his snacks and spitting his water was quite entertaining! I just let it go, he was laughing and happy and that was all that mattered!

Wyoming was the worst part of the drive, brown with sage brush everywhere and no trees. I just about got ran off the road twice within 2o minutes just outside of Cheyenne, and the gas station pump stopped, but didn't fill up my car. By the time I noticed it wasn't full, I was already on the freeway, so we had to make one unscheduled stop to fill up again about 2 hours later.

2 1/2 months from now, and we get to do it all again!

Des Moines

DMU wanted all of the 3rd year students that have left to do rotations away from Iowa to go back to Des Moines to do some testing and have a few lectures all together. Our trip to Des Moines was the beginning of our long trip back to Utah. It ended up being a 12 hour trip, we skipped the toll roads and went through Amish country in Indiana. It makes for an hour longer drive, but it seems to go fast having something to look at besides the freeway! Brynlee also got to see a few Amish people riding on a wagon being pulled by a horse!

It was fun being back in Des Moines. I loved the last part of the drive, coming in to the city and the familiarity of it all! I realized pretty quickly how much I loved living there and how much I was missing it! We have some awesome friends who, even though they weren't home, let us stay at their house! Brynlee and Gracen loved their house and their back yard! I don't think Brynlee could walk through their house without stomping, she loved the sound of her feet hitting the wood floors! We didn't have too many plans while we were there. Here are a few things we did:

• Went to church at our old ward. It was fun to see some of our old friends there and catch up with them!

• We decided it would be fun to visit somewhere we hadn't seen, but wanted to, while we lived there, so on Monday we headed up to Ledges National Park. It was beautiful! We could have spent more time, but we didn't pack lunch and the kids were starting to get hungry.

Sitting on the bridge.

The whole place was beautiful! Brynlee thought this bridge was pretty neat!

We hiked up some trails where Nate and Gracen found lots of little frogs. Gracen and Brynlee are checking it out and Gracen is trying to poke it with a stick to make it jump.

Hiking up the trail!

We walked out near some shallow water and there were tadpoles that were just about to become frogs. I've never seen them at this stage before and it was kinda cool.

Throwing rocks into the water with Daddy!

• Went to the ZOO for free with our zoo pass!
  

• We went to a kids movie for a dollar at the Jordan Creek mall and did some clearance shopping at the Children's Place. I really miss having that store close by, so I had to take advantage of it while I was there!

• Went to the school to have LUNCH with Daddy. Brynlee used to love to go eat lunch at Daddy's school when we lived there! We also got to visit with our friend and Nate's school advisor, Sharon!
  

• Had dinner and went SWIMMING with our friend Laima. Most of our friends from Des Moines had either moved away or were out of town, it was fun to see those that were there!

• Went to a park and got ice cream with Nate the night before the kids and I left for Utah.

We loved being there! If it weren't for the distance between Iowa and Utah, I think we could be pretty happy living there! It'll be fun to go back again for graduation!

One last thing! This trip to Des Moines marks the beginning of 4th Year!! I am so excited and can remember thinking it would take FOREVER to make it to 4th year, but we are here and the road hasn't been too bad! WE have some great memories! Can't wait for graduation!!

4th of July

With all of the craziness of getting things ready to go on our long vacation, I have neglected to update our blog. I am going to attempt to catch up, and stay up to date with what we are doing while we are visiting our family here in Utah.

We had a great 4th of July! It has always been one of my favorite holidays! To start the day off, we met up with some friends at East Harbor State Park to swim and play at the beach. Brynlee, Gracen and I ended up being the only ones in the water. Nate and our friends decided they would rather watch! We had lunch and headed home for naps.

Later that evening we had everyone come to our apartment for a bbq. We played cornhole and Nate helped the kids light some sparklers. Then we headed out to watch the Cedar Point fireworks. They were okay, lots of heart shaped fireworks (Brynlee loved that). It made me miss being home and the sound of the fireworks echoing off the mountains!

Helping the kids with sparklers.