Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Well, another semester down and now we officially have spent more time here than we have left of school!  Woo hoo!  Sometimes I feel like I should update more, because there are a lot of things that we do that go undocumented because I can't remember everything at once! 

In May we just played catch up while Tyler was on a break from school.  I made a list for him, and he completed it in no time.  We planted our first ever garden!  Lyndi and Tyler did anyway, I kept Emerie inside so she didn't eat dirt :)  We will see how it does... haha, My thumb isn't green (my garden time expired at the age of 12) and I think Tyler's is more green, he grew up with more garden time than I did. 

We also went to Valley Forge to see the Historical Site down there and, of course, the one day that we go, they are re-paving the road to drive on!  So with it being a million degrees outside we only walked to one site and then turned around and went to IKEA :)  We also decided, pretty much, that we are going to be living through the LONGEST 9 months of our lives next year.  We are going to be living separately. :(  :(  :( We have thought, prayed, contested, and gone nuts over this decision for about 6 months now and have (mostly) decided that me and the girls will be living with my mom in Greensburg starting in August next year while Tyler travels around for rotations.  I so wish we could have made it work together, but we feel good about where his rotations are and feel good about living with my mom.  So... that decision is pretty much made, but it somehow doesn't relieve the stress that I know is coming in a year!  We just figured that's the place that we'll get to see Tyler the most often, with the exception of the last 3 months.  I guess I'll be praying a lot more in the future for calmed nerves haha. 

In June we had Lyndi's Joy School graduation!  It was so fun, so much good food and entertainment.  It was a good year and a good group of kids and moms.  She said she was just like Uncle Brandan graduating ;)

We went to the beach in June and Lyndi learned how to boogie board!  Boogie board?  I can't remember what it's called, but it's when you go out in the water and right before a wave comes, you jump onto the board and let the water push you to the shore.  She did awesome!  It was FREEZING when we first got there and it was raining and I was sick so I didn't think we'd last all day, but the rain stopped and the sun came out for a bit and it was beautiful the rest of the day!  Emerie.... that girl is hilarious!  She spent a good part of the day literally chasing seagulls down the beach.  Or swimming in the sand.  Or eating.  We went to the boardwalk at the end of the day and got some yummy pizza and Lyndi went on the Ferris Wheel with Tyler and had a blast!  The girls both crashed on the way home on our friend Kylee :)

A lot of our good friends moved away in May and June!  The above picture was at a birthday party right before Lyndi's friend moved away.  That's Emerie's 3rd cupcake. 

July came and went in a flash! The 4th was pretty cold, which was a welcome change from last year's super heat.  It was so fun!  We went to a BBQ with friends from church and lit up some sparklers.  This was Emerie's first time with sparklers, she couldn't stop staring at it haha. 

Lyndi had too much fun playing with friends that she barely came over for even one sparkler!  But she got a pink one, so it was all ok :)

Our good friends took the girls overnight for us while we went down to DC for the first time.  It was so fun!  We got to see most everything except for the White House.  I know right?  The White House of all places.  That was going to be our last stop and we drove over to see it, but there was construction on the road and we were too tired to walk anymore haha.  That was our first getaway other than the 36 hours we had from Lyndi when she was just barely 1. 

We spent a good chunk of time in our little pool in the backyard.

In July, Lyndi also finished her reading lesson book!  We started it in March and she just took off with it!  She's so proud of herself when she reads signs on the side of the road or on the TV.  She's such a big girl already! 

 So she got an ice cream party at the ice cream shop down the street for finishing :)

We went to the Zoo with the Evans' one day and we hadn't been there before and the girls loved it! 

 There was a peacock that wanted part of our lunch, came right up to us!

 Those pink pj's are 4T... Lyndi wore them up until she was 3.5...

 Look at how curly her hair gets out here!  LOVE IT!

 Lyndi loves to read to Emerie

 I wish I could get this girl to smile with her eyes open, I'm postponing family pics until she does haha

 We played the flour cup game and Lyndi got to dig through it with her face to get the coin!  I love this girl and her big heart!

 They discovered a new hiding place in the house, the tub!

 Is it all rubbed in mom?

 This melts my heart.  Emerie is so affectionate!  She will snuggle (well, I think nestle is the better word) right into me and hold my hand :)  And I just now noticed all the pen marks on her leg haha!

 In August, Tyler's parents came to visit, and we saw so many things!  We went to Lancaster and went on a buggy ride with an Amish man.  So fun to see things down there!

 Then we went up the NYC and rode the ferry

 It breaks my heart sometimes to explain to Lyndi that the world isn't the happy bubble she lives in.  She understands things really well for a 4 year old though and she was asking all kinds of questions about the Twin Towers, for days after.  Such a neat place.  Eerie though, watching reflections of the planes before they fly over the new tower!

 LOVE this guy ;)  I didn't get a picture of it, but we got to go see Newsies while we were there.  AWESOME SHOW! 

 Niagara Falls

 Hill Cumorah

 This shirt sums up Emerie's mischief pretty well!

 The girls helping dad clean the car

Emerie giving herself kisses in the mirror



Well, the last big news ;) is that we picked our first tomato and it was delicious and meaty!  And our first corn that was 2" long and Lyndi ate it in about 1 minute.  I'm thinking we'll get a few more tomatoes, and maybe some cucumbers, but that's about it haha.  Good thing we don't have to live off of it!  that's all for now.  Tyler starts his LAST semester of classes tomorrow!  Woo hoo!  So excited!

Rotations

Alright... alright... Here is what we found out this last week.

Tyler's first rotation (Feb-April) is in Horsham, and he found a bus route so we wouldn't have to get another car... yet.  That's about 30 minutes from where we live. 

His second rotation (May-July) is in Trooper, which is... 45 minutes away?  not sure on drive time for that one yet.   But it's PAID (not very much, but still!) and he won a lottery (the other students that applied with Ty for that one had to basically draw straws) for that one :) which is crazy because our luck and life here has not worked out at all the way we thought, so it's good at least something is pulling through for us for rotations. 

His third rotation (Aug-Nov) is at The Eye Institute, which is about 15 minutes from where we live.

His fourth rotation (Dec-Feb) is in West Virginia with FREE HOUSING!  Yay, such good news!  We didn't think there was any chance that he'd get any with free housing, haha, those are all that we applied for.

His last rotation (Feb-May) is in Montana also with FREE HOUSING, and meals I think!  Yay, more good news!

But NOW I feel like I'm almost back to square one with deciding where me and the girls are going to live.  We were planning on taking care of Ty's parents house while they were on a mission, but they might not be gone the whole time we live there, which is hard because we're at the point where we NEED our own space and routine.  I thought there was no way we'd get free housing rotations and any in the area.  But now that he'd be living somewhere else for free, I feel like we can make it here (barely, like we've been doing).  Then I wouldn't have to uproot my kids for 9 months and then do it again when he's done.  And now it's 6 months without him here versus 9 months without him there.  It'd be about the same amount of support either way, our ward = awesome, but a lot of people I count on now will have moved by next fall, but more people will have moved in... Ahh..  decisions, decisions, decisions...

Anyway, just to let the world know, we know our rotation schedule and places :)

It's that time of year again, but with pictures :)

Here are a few pics, mostly of the girls, I'm not a fan of my face on camera, and Tyler's usually gone when I take pictures.

This picture may speak for itself ;)

Playing in the snow, these pictures also speak for themselves ;)

The Please Touch Museum

Maple Days

 Lyndi made a "rainbow" egg for Easter, it turned out pretty well!

 Emerie water colored two eggs, then proceeded to peel and eat them

 Easter girls

This picture perfectly describes the girls.  Lyndi so happy on Easter, Emerie so tired and wondering why she doesn't have a cup full of candy to hold. 

 Our little Obi-Wan ;)

 Lyndi likes to watch tv like this sometimes

 And wear a lot of store clothing while we're shopping

Emerie likes to eat a whole tomato and wear purple boots

 Lyndi was practicing letters, so Emerie wanted to

 They really do love each other!

Their matching aprons from Grandma for Christmas (I have one too).  Making chocolate chip cookies to celebrate Dad's finals being over!

The Joy School kids were making the ABC's with their bodies.  Such a hilarious day at our house!

It's that time again, another year over!

Yes, it's that glorious time of year when I "update" our family blog!  I post a few things every semester (usually rants or fears), but don't actually update, so here's what we've been up to:

First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS to my amazing husband on working so hard and finishing his second year of Optometry school today!  Yay!  He turns into a 3rd year in about a week and a half.  SO PROUD OF HIM!  Lyndi has a special surprise dinner planned for him (he already found out about the steak, it was sitting on the counter thawing, but Lyndi told me not to tell him what else we're having). 

January began cold and windy and our heat went out on one of the coldest days of the month!  Our landlord said the heater had been sounding weird for 15 years, and it finally went out on us!  Luckily it was a quick fix!  Tyler had clinic 3, sometimes 4 days a week, which will happen from here on out I hear.  Wednesdays this semester were our 'girl's days', even though every day was a girl's day at our house.  Since Tyler was gone all day until around 9, us girls baked cookies and ate junk food on Wednesdays :).

February started with that crazy big and long power outage and snow, snow and more snow!   Nothing particularly exciting happened this month though... pretty boring people this month haha.

In March we went to Maple Days at a local farm, it was so fun!  It was so cold!  They showed us how to make maple syrup from trees, and why real maple syrup costs so dang much at the grocery store ;)  They had little kid tractor rides and animals and pet and look at.  They gave us a pancake with syrup and a piece of maple candy to sample, and it was one of the best pancakes I've ever had.  The candy was too sweet for me, but Emerie liked it!  Tyler then took me to get my ears pierced!  I was so nervous!  I pierced them when I was 18 and apparently was allergic to I'm assuming nickel.  I got some better (more expensive) earrings this time and haven't had a problem!  Tyler threw me a party the next night and made me a lemon poppy seed cake (mmmmmmmm).  That happened to be the same week he had Spring Break, so we got some things done around the house and then we went to the Please Touch Museum.  Hands down the most fun indoor kids place I've ever been to!  It's HUGE and they have thought of everything for it.  The first Wednesday of every month from 5-7 the tickets are $2 (compared to $17 normally, even for kids!).  So we decided to go finally and it was well worth the drive downtown.  Emerie's favorite part was collecting ALL the rubber duckies in the water they had and putting them in the same place.  Lyndi's favorite was the store where she got to shop for groceries with her little cart.  SO MUCH FUN!

In April we finally saw the snow melt away and got to go to the park for the first time in AGES!  I felt bad for the girls this semester because we had to take turns with the car, and since it was SO cold for such a LONG time we were housebound for what felt like FOREVER.  Emerie wasn't even sure how to play on the playground :).  But it turns out she could sit in a swing all day if I let her.  She's not much of a fan of the rest of the playground, or the other kids for that matter.  Which brings us to the beginning of Nursery for her!  She turned 18 months this month and got to start nursery.  The first week she was fine, then the next week she was ok, then the third week she was sick and last week poor Hannah had to hold her a lot of the time!  We've never had a problem with either of our girls playing or getting along with other kids, so this is new for us to have a clingy child in Nursery during church.  But it gives Tyler a much needed break ;).  Poor guy has had both of our girls during church from the time they could crawl until they hit nursery age. 

Now it's May and it's beautiful and hasn't heated up so quick like last year!  There's not a hint of humidity yet (knock on wood), not too many bugs yet and everything is finally starting to blossom!  PLUS we're halfway through school!  It's flown by!  24 more months haha.  24 more months.  

Lyndi has started reading lessons and is halfway through her book today!  50 more lessons to go :)  She's amazing and picks up on things pretty quick.  She's been doing Joy School still and loves it and always counts down days until she gets to go again.  She also has been learning how to ride a bike!  She got one from Santa and it's finally nice enough outside to take it out for a spin.

Emerie is nuts ;).  That girl and her food... enough said.  Haha, just kidding, not really, but she does love her food!  We had the missionaries over for dinner a few weeks ago, and they both looked at her and said "Woah, she eats a lot!"  Haha.  She is constantly dragging chairs over to our pantry and climbing to what she wants, then opens the packages and eats whatever she can before I catch her!  She's started talking and is becoming a very "determined" child, to put it kindly.  Lyndi and her play together really well half of the time and it's cute to hear them giggling together!

That's all for now folks!  Sorry we're not more exciting to read about ;)

Someone tell us what to do! :)

This post is all about my stress, worries, and insomnia concerning rotations.  When we first got into school I had no idea that rotations were going to be such a huge decision in our lives!  Maybe I'm just looking into it too much, but I feel it weighing down on me physically and emotionally!  I feel like I can't decide one way or another what would be best for our family, so I'm posting this just to get it all written and get people's opinions if they have any wise advice. If I think about it too much, I start lashing out haha, someone tell us what to do!  (I mean, don't actually tell us what to do, but opinions may help)

Our options, however far-fetched they may be, are:

1) Living here
2) Moving around every 3 months with Tyler for his rotations
3) Living with parents while Tyler moves around

My favorite option is number one.  But here are the pros and cons of living here:

PROS:
- We actually get to live with and see Tyler every day, for all or most of the 18 months
- Lyndi will be in Kindergarten and already knows several of the neighbor kids that would be going to the same school
- We won't have to move (AGAIN!) until he's done with school
- We are already set up here as far as friends and family (meaning the ward)
- Medicaid and things like that are already set up

CONS:
- Finances... Because of the equipment we've had to use our loan budget for every semester, and soon to be used for boards and things, it has been SO TIGHT financially, so I don't know if we could make it work with another car and gas and Lyndi being in school.
- That's the only con I can think of... other than the nasty humidity and mosquitos :)

On to number 2, moving around every 3 months with Tyler for his rotation.

PROS:
-We'd be able to live together, that's the only pro I can think of :)

CONS:
- We'd be moving every 3 months, which would mean:
- Setting up Medicaid, which takes on average a month
- Setting up food stamps, which takes on average a month
- Trying to find short term housing for (potentially) 5 people
- Trying to keep the kids from having nervous breakdowns from moving so much
- Lyndi will be in Kindergarten which would either mean moving her from school to school, or homeschooling
- Not knowing ANYONE or where ANYTHING is everywhere we lived
- How in the world would our mail and medicaid and things keep up with us?!

Now number 3, we have 3 options for living with parents, however, at this point we decided that living with Tyler's parents would be the best option, because we know people and places in Cedar City.

PROS:
- We'd have help from family and friends
- We'd have a yard and a house that the kids are familiar with to live in
- WAY WAY cheaper than living here!  Even if we paid rent and utilities, it would be around a third of what we're paying here, so we could afford for Tyler to live elsewhere and/or fly him home on occasion, or even just start paying off a little interest on our loans!
- Stable environment and school for Lyndi
- We'd be in ONE place for that last year

CONS:
- We wouldn't be able to live with Tyler, so I would probably go crazy and sell or lose one of my kids haha
- We would have to either move all of our stuff and move it all again a year later, or put it all in a storage unit here or there.
- We'd have to move and then move again a year later, which means moving mail (again), and medicaid (again), and the kids (again, they don't do well with change like that).

So our situation as of right now is that Tyler got his first rotation here, which is from the end of January until May, so we are here until at least May of next year, and then after that it's all up in the air.  All these unknowns are stressing me out more than they should (if he's gonna get a job, where he's going to be, where we're going to be, having another baby, no that's not an announcement, finances, etc).  He said that most people have told him that if they get into a drawing with him, they don't want to be "the jerk that takes him away from his family" so they would bow out of the drawing, which makes me feel a lot better, but I still don't know what to do!  Our bishop told us that we could have a ward fast for us to stay here haha, I would feel odd doing that, but I guess if nothing else presents itself to us as far as our decision making goes, we'll consider it!  It feels good to get that all written out, and maybe, possibly get some feedback, even if I don't get any, I'm sure we'll be fine, I'm just a worrier :)

My second family

I don't even know enough words to describe how I feel about things that happened this week.  I don't have enough ways to say "thank you" to the people that helped us so much.  I look back now and I think "people used to do this their whole lives" haha, but they also all had fireplaces in their homes ;) . 

As many of you know, we woke up to a cold house Wednesday morning.  There was a snow storm on Monday and it was pretty heavy snow, and then Tuesday night it rained and then froze on top of the snow, and a lot of trees couldn't handle the weight.  I had to drive Tyler to The Eye Institute for clinic Wednesday afternoon and every direction we tried going we had to turn around because of a fallen tree!  In all my years living through Iowa's ice storms I've never experienced such a storm with so much lost power.  The ironic part is that as dangerous as it is, I've never been more amazed by mother nature's beauty as I have when an ice storm occurs.  It's so beautiful!  Across the street from our house there was half of a tree dangling on the power line, and another one on the roof.  We spent most of Wednesday at home but then it got too cold to keep warm so we went to the Adam's house and let the girls play.  The Palmer's were also there, also out of power, and they called dibs on staying at the Adam's ;) so we went to another house to sleep.  Tyler thought we could tough it out that night at our apartment, but I said no haha.  With small kids involved, it changes the game.  I'm so glad we didn't try to stay because it was 44 degrees inside the next morning when we went to get clean clothes!  The first and second night we stayed with the Butt's from the ward that have two girls the same age as our two girls.  Lyndi kept saying "It's time for a sleepover with Ellie!"  To this day, I'm still not sure she entirely understands the concept of a sleepover haha.  The girls slept remarkably well that first night.  Lyndi's friend Ellie is in Joy School with her and she loves to play with her.  The second night wasn't so great with them, but still, for not being at home, they did great!

The next two nights we spent at the Clark's house.  We felt like two days was pushing it with overstaying our welcome.  I know everyone was so happy to help and they probably didn't feel burdened by us being there until the power came back on, but I felt bad for staying so long.  I felt so helpless!  I couldn't cook anything, do laundry, entertain kids, shower, charge my phone, without the help of someone else and their warm, well-lit home, even changing clothing at our apartment wasn't an option after the first day, so cold!   The girl's again slept pretty well for not being at their own house, and they also experienced a "real" babysitter for the first time ever and they did great!  We usually just swap kids with another couple for babysitting, but we had a Valentine's activity for church Saturday night so we combined kids with a babysitter and they went to bed when they were supposed to, and were pleasant for the sitter! 

I kept checking the power company's website to see if anything had changed.  I kept hearing more and more people get their power back, and I kept thinking "ok, we're next, we're next".  Even people out in the middle of nowhere were getting power back before we were! Wednesday night I checked the website and they estimated Sunday night at 11:00 pm.  Thursday I checked and it estimated Thursday night at 11:00 pm.  Friday I checked and it estimated Friday night at 11:00 pm.  Saturday I checked and it estimated Saturday night at 11:00 pm.  Haha.  I woke up at about 4:30 Sunday morning and the thought ran through my head that our power was back on, and I got too excited I couldn't go back to sleep.  Tyler had church meetings that morning but he forgot his sunday shoes, so he went back to the apartment to get them, and he said "our porch light is on!"  Made. My. Week.  I'm an easily stressed person and fairly analytical, so when things like this happen, I have a week's worth of worry run through my head in an instant, and it just replays over and over.  So I get tired and frustrated and cranky ;).  At one point, we had friends 2 blocks from us on both sides of the apartment with power AND the people living 300 feet across the street from us and we still had none!  I kept thinking, "am I supposed to be learning something from this?"  haha.  We were the second to the last ones to get power back in the ward.  Lyndi was actually disappointed to be ending our sleepover streak, because that night we were going to go to the Palmer's house and have another sleepover when we found out we had power back.  So we scheduled a pajama party with them for another time haha.

Three weeks previous to this the same thing occurred, but it was just our heat that was broken and not our electricity.  We went about 10 hours without heat on one of the coldest days of the season, but at least we had a way to provide heat with space heaters and our oven and stovetop without leaving our home.  So when we woke up cold on Wednesday, I was like "again? really?"  haha, I had no idea at that point just how many hundreds of thousands of people were in the same boat as us.  I read Hurricane Sandy that we experienced right after Emerie was born put almost a million people out of power, we never lost power for that one though, but this storm was a close second with numbers in the 700,000's.  SO CRAZY!  Mother nature, we have had enough snow, and ice for that matter.  Please send some out west where it is very much needed.  But on the bright side, our power bill will be awesomely low this month, and we have made more plans for necessity's in our future house, such as a fireplace ;).

But my main thought when coming home is just how lucky we are to be in this ward with our second family.  We have NEVER experienced a ward that's so close knit.  Don't get me wrong, our past wards have been great, but living where most everyone has no family close by it makes you rely on each other.  I know people still have their issues with each other on occasion, but when the need arises, everyone is there for each other. I can count literally dozens of responses to our time of need this past week.  At one point, it felt like people were saying "pick me! pick me!" haha, because they all wanted so badly to help someone!  Dozens of offers were made for laundry, showers, meals, a place to hang out during the day, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to keep our food from the fridge, a place for my kids to take a bath or to play, giving us food when ours finally went bad in the door of our freezer and fridge, etc.  THIS is the only reason I'm not super worried about Tyler getting a rotation or two somewhere else while us girls live here while he's gone.  Our ward is our second family, they are the BEST!  No thank you's will ever be enough for helping us out this past week.  You know who you are :)