Holidays bring fun things!

Almost two years ago, Santa brought us this little bundle of joy ---

(Doncha just love Tan's face in this pic?! Oh, the expressions of newborns are so entertaining!)

Next year, a little green leprechaun is going to bring us another cute n' cuddly little person!

See:

YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!! We are super duper excited to keep growing our little family!!!

It's been pretty hard hiding this tummy! I can't believe I'm already the size I was with Tan at 5 months and I'm only 3 months along. Sheesh - people were right when they said you pop out much faster after the first pregnancy! If I keep growing at this rate, I'm going to tip over at 7 months!!

Favorite moments from this pregnancy so far (good and bad!):

• Finding out that we were pregnant the morning after a super fun day at Disneyland!
• My clothes getting tighter RIGHT AWAY. I'm gonna be needing those stretchy band pants much sooner than I thought!
• Tanner saying "Hi Baby!" and kissing my belly all the time. And Tanner pointing to his own belly and saying that there is a baby in there. Ha ha ha!
• Living in the bathroom and throwing up all day and night. You really notice when the toilet needs to be cleaned when you spend so much time with it!
• My hero, Eli, taking over housework and taking care of Tanner while I was a good-for-nothing blob in the house.
• Discovering that Unisom and B6 work miracles! I'm not kidding! Seriously, I took them both for the first time on a Saturday night and was able to sing a solo in church the next day (I was asked DURING relief society to sing a solo in Sacrament meeting a hour later! Yikes!) I was really weak and shaky after not being able to eat anything for days, but at least I was able to do a lot more than lay on the ground in misery! YAY for drugs!!! Now I take 2 Unisoms (sleeping pills) and 2 B6 vitamins a day - one set in the morning, one at night - and I pretty much feel normal. I still have nausea and weakness but I can function and that makes me happy! I just wish I could exercise. Every time I try, my body remembers that it is in a constant state of sickness and isn't happy with me.
• Having lots of people offer me their prescription meds for nausea. I loved the thought but just couldn't bring myself to use their drugs illegally since I am married to a future doctor!
• Packing and moving while being sick - quite the adventure but Eli's sister, Ari, totally helped A LOT!! Oh and being able to fly across the country instead of drive was a total blessing.
  
• Crazy food aversions and cravings - I didn't get much of that (or nausea) with Tanner.
• Daily naps during Tan's naptime (Due to the whole sleeping pill twice a day thing!). Oh and CRAZY CRAZY dreams from taking extra B6. And I can consciously make decisions in my dreams which is super cool!
  
• Seeing the baby on the monitor with it's cute little, few centimeters long, profile. SO cute!

Bring on Baby #2!!!!!! Debuting sometime around March 8!!

Vermonters!

We are here in Vermont!!! And it is BEAUTIFUL!!! Seriously, so green and lush and just really picturesque. See: (click on it to make it bigger)

Eli took this photo of Lake Champlain which is right next to Burlington.

We have loved our first week and a half here. We absolutely LOVE our apartment. It's so spacious and bright and welcoming. (I'll take pics later and post them once we are completely moved in.) There is a playground right out our backdoor which Tanner loves. We also have awesome friends who live next door and across the street - we feel so blessed to have them so close! We already feel at home here and have fallen in love with the city. My drive to the grocery store is like driving through the Rocky Mountains. It's just so green and hilly and untouched. I love it! And the area isn't as small town as I thought it would be. We have pretty much every store we could ever need and there are lots more people than I thought there would be.

Eli's school is in Burlington, which is the biggest city in Vermont. We live in a city 5 miles north of Burlington called Essex Junction. (I love the names of the cities out here like Winooski and Stowe and Waterbury!) I like being out of the "big" city because there is more greenery in our city than in Burlington. The bus picks Eli up right in front of our apartment and drops him off at the door to the medical school. Pretty sweet set up, doncha think?! He'll love that in the winter when he doesn't have to wipe off a buried car and drive in the snow. I'll be the one in my boots and coat getting the car ready to go to the grocery store!
We have played a lot in between unpacking. Here are some of the things we have done so far:

• Meals with friends
• Walks in the forest nearby (or fujist as Tan calls it)
• A visit to a large farm nearby called Shelburne Farms. It is a working farm where you can see how cheese is made, watch cow milking demonstrations, etc. The farmhouse is over a hundred years old and is a beautiful structure. Check out the pictures at the end of the post! We even bought a season pass so that Tan and I can go play at the farm with our friends whenever we want!
• Spent a day in Montreal, Canada. I felt like I was back in Europe! Everyone was speaking French, the signs were in French, and the buildings were in the European style. It was a fun city to explore and we'll be back lots more since the nearest temple is in Montreal. (We have to use a passport to go to the temple! Sa-weet!)
  
• Tan and I walked around Church Street Marketplace which is a downtown pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. Right now there is an art thing going on with cows. There are statues of cows all over and companies decorated them however they wanted. Tanner's favorite thing was touching every single cow. I liked eating my nutella crepe as I people watched. (Vermont isn't stuck in the lastest fashion - it's pretty much just anything goes. I like that because I don't feel like I have to dress well to fit like I felt like in Salt Lake and Provo!)
• BBQ's at the school and by Lake Champlain with Eli's classmates. They all adore Tanner. There is one other LDS family with kids in Eli's year and one family with kids the year above us (both live right by us). There are a couple other kids of students but not many so Tanner was a commodity and all the girls were tickling him and just doting over him. He totally turned on his flirt face around them!
• Eli went through his first week of school which was orientation and today is his second day of actual classes! I'm a proud wifey! He's going to do great!

Enough chit chat, here are some pictures from Shelburne Farms, Montreal, and Church Street Marketplace!

Church Street Marketplace

This picture would look a lot better without the crane in it. If I was all powerful maybe I could have asked them to move. But I'm not so what can ya do?!

Montreal, Canada

Pedestrian street in Montreal

There were horse-drawn carriages all over this part of Montreal and the pink was my favorite! I wonder how that man feels surrounded by so much PINK!

Love love love my boys!

Watching this tractor at work was Tanner's favorite part of the day!

Shelburne Farms

The farmhouse

Authentic Vermont cheddar cheese - yummers!

We walked through those woods to the top of a hill overlooking the lake for a picnic lunch. Again, just gorgeous!

Love this! Ha ha ha!

All my boxes are packed and I'm ready to go!

The apartment is empty...
The truck is completely loaded with Momo attached to the back...

We are headed to VERMONT!!!

We move a lot (This is our 10th move in 4 years!) but it is always with mixed emotions. Tan and I were lucky enough to fly to Denver yesterday and wait while Eli and his sister, Ari, drive to Vermont. Then we get to fly to Vermont - I don't envy them for the long drive but they will have fun together and probably enjoy not having to entertain a one year old! As we flew over the Salt Lake Valley and over the mountains, my heart ached for the memories we've made in Utah over the past 5 years together. We have come and gone and moved all over, but a large chunk of our time has been spent in Utah. I'll miss my friends (it's always awkward saying goodbye because when you are in the middle of packing you are stressed and not really thinking about the fact that you won't see these people again for a long long time.) I'll miss being near almost all of our extended family. I'll miss driving by the Salt Lake temple every day. I'll miss the beautiful Avenues that we spent the last 7 months exploring. I'll miss drives to Utah County to visit aunt Aly in Provo and friends/former students in Payson. I'll miss how cheap everything is in Utah compared to Vermont.

But we are headed to a new adventure and we are very excited! Eli is finally going to be a doctor-in-training (WHAT??!! We've been waiting for this for so long and it boggles my mind that it is actually happening!) We have friends in Vermont already that we are excited to meet! We have an entirely new part of the country to explore. We get to be bona fide North Easterners for the next 4 years. We get to live on loans and continue our frugal lifestyle we have been living since we got married. We get to eat FRESH maple syrup and fresh Ben and Jerry's ice cream. We are living near a beautiful lake with mountains in the distance - that is my paradise (except that we can't really go boating because of the whole poor thing)! We get to live in a place with seasons still (I LOVE seasons and don't know if I could live somewhere without them). We get to experience extreme cold but also extreme fall beauty. Those are just a few of the things I'm excited about!

Anyone and everyone is welcome to come visit! We have an extra bedroom and would love to show you around Vermont. Come in the fall and see how beautiful the "fruit loop mountains" are! The invitation is always open (and you can explore other cool cities like Boston on your trip to the East Coast).

Happy Trails to Eli and Ari as they drive across the country!

P.S. Thanks to all the friends and family who helped us pack, load, and clean! We REALLY REALLY appreciate it!!!

I have so many pictures from our adventures this past summer - it's overwhelming to go through them! Who knows if I'll even get around to posting them since we are moving in two weeks and then Eli starts school and can't spend as much time editting photos (I can do it but I'm not as skilled as he is).

Anyways, I found this picture amongst the thousands and couldn't believe how grown up my little Tan has become. There's something about eating an apple all by yourself that makes you look much older than a baby!! And he really is growing and learning so fast. I utterly adore him! The other night as I peeked at him before I went to bed, his eyes were blinking so I whispered to him, "Can I snuggle with you?" And he whispered back through his binky, "yes." So I grabbed him out of his bed, sat down in the rocking chair, and watched as he snuggled into my body and fell back asleep. My heart swelled to bursting, almost like the Grinch! It was SO SWEET! He is my best little friend!

OK back to doing something productive!

Shout out!

Here's a shout out from San Diego!! We're having a blast!

Whirlwind!

Life has been a whirlwind of activities and trips lately! We have been on-the-go and have packed and unpacked many times in the past month. I inherited a restless spirit from my mom and have rubbed off on Eli. I just like to be busy all the time! Here's what we've been up to for the past month:

Sang in church for mothers day. Eli, Aly, and I sang a beautiful rendition of "Love at Home" and were accompanied by Eli's amazing pianist-of-a cousin, Nichole.

Spend a weekend in St. George for our anniversary (see previous post).

Spent time playing with friends in our neighborhood.Exploring - doing what one year olds do best!

Visited Payson and the site for the new temple (2 blocks from where we used to live!)

Spent a weekend with Eli's brother, Ali, who came to visit from California. And played my brand new piano!!!!! A gift from my lovey for mothers day and our anniversary! I'm SO excited that I can play and sing at my own house now!
Drove to Lake Powell and spent 7 days there! It was the most incredible trip! Oh man, I miss it just thinking about it. I never worried about Tanner (he was afraid of the water) and he slept, played, and ate so well while we were there. Hooray! It was super fun hanging out with my family - I love love love them! (We did miss Andy and Paige though.) We haven't downloaded our pictures from Lake Powell yet because there are SO many. Just Doug and Eli took 2300 pictures combined in a week. Now we get to sort through and delete all the bad ones! We'll post some good ones sometime soon.Drove from Lake Powell to Denver. Dana and I drove in our car with the little boys and listened to 8 hours of the show Caillou from the backseat. It was fun to chat with Dana on the drive! She is one awesome lady!

Spent the next three days celebrating with my friend Christine. She is getting married in a few weeks! I went to her bachelorette party in Downtown Denver, helped Eli do a bridal photoshoot for her, and went to a wedding shower for her.

Spent a week in Colorado with papa and gra-gra. (Wes went back home after a day and Tanner really missed him.) During the week, Tan played with grandma all day while I nannied a couple boys. Tanner just loved being at grandma's house and playing in her yard. She is one awesome gra-gra! Eli spent the week in Atlanta on a business trip.After 10 days in Colorado, our little family drove over the mountains and back home to Salt Lake. We spent a few days playing with Tanner's toys that he missed while he was gone for so long.

This past Thursday, we celebrated Tan's 18 month birthday and played with some new toys. He even blew out a birthday candle! In the afternoon, we drove to the Salt Flats (2 hours from Salt Lake) and had a little photoshoot there. It was a pretty cool place!


On Friday morning, we drove to Goshen to visit Eli's old mission comp/college roommate and his family. (Goshen is a small town southwest of Payson.) We spent the weekend chatting, playing games, eating yummy food, watching Tan play with their 2 kids, and visiting a Lavender farm. We spent two nights there. Well 1 1/2 actually. Tan decided not to sleep one of the nights and so we packed up and drove home at 4:30am early Sunday morning. Crazy kid!

On Sunday we celebrated Fathers Day by going to City Creek canyon, a canyon that is literally 5 minutes from our house (why hadn't anybody told me about this canyon?!?!). We had a picnic next to the river with Lenny and some friends. Tan played in the dirt and with all the bright green caterpillars all over the table and hanging from the trees. We played a super fun game of croquet - dirt style! Dirt croquet was different than grass croquet - it created lots of funny outcomes!

WHEW! I feel like I need to take some deep breaths after reading that! We've done a lot in the past 3 weeks! But we can't unpack just yet - we are going to California this Thursday. We're driving to Vegas and walking around the strip that night. Then we'll finish the drive the next day to San Diego and meet up with Eli's fam - Ari and Christian (the hosts), Risa (mom), and Ali (the brother who lives northeast of LA). We'll spend 10 days there and then Tan and I fly to Denver for more time with my family and for Christine's wedding (I'm a bridesmaid!). Eli will drive home by himself, work for the week, and then fly to Colorado that weekend for the wedding.

After that we can stay put for a little while. A couple weeks after getting home from CO, we're going to a weekend long family reunion in Idaho for Eli's family. And then we pack up the following week and move on Friday the 30th!! Before you know it, we'll be in Vermont! We are all driving to Vermont - me and Tan in our car and Eli in the truck. Tan and I get to stay in Colorado for a few days while Eli drives the truck with our car attached to the back all the way to the upper northeastern part of the country. And then we fly out and meet him! A few days later, he starts medical school and we get settled into our new life in Vermont.

SO, all of you Utah family members who are reading this, I need to see you ALL before we move at the end of July! Our time in Utah is coming to an end because we probably won't come here to visit since my parents live in Colorado. So we need to get together at least one last time before we leave! OK??? OK!

I hope you all are having a fabulous summer!

Check this out: http://embracethis.co.uk/

Go Public Health!

Seriously, who wouldn't want to wear their seatbelt after seeing this?