My Birthday

I had a fun birthday this year. Tucker was able to take the day off school so the night before we drove part of the way to Chicago. We stayed in a hotel in Indiana. Tuck and the kids gave me a nice new camera and the Hunger Games movie. Pretty sweet. Below you can see my practice with my new camera. Its got a sweet zoom.





On our way in we decided to stop and see a little bit of the city. I had never been to Navy Pier before so we went to check it out. The kids and Tuck enjoyed the carousel. We looked around and visited the stain glass museum. Later that night Tucker and I enjoyed a dinner date and movie. The next day we also got to visit Crystal Lake's own beach which was really nice. We all had a great time.

May travels

For some reason Tucker's school gives most of their vacation time in May. I took a vacation from work at that time and we did a little traveling. Mothers Day was right at the start and I had a nice one. Jill answered some questions about me for Mother's day at her preschool.

What is your Mom good at? Sleeping (Thanks Jill)
Why do you love your Mom? Because she loves me

We spend Mother's Day in Crystal Lake and then took off on our cross country trip. The kids did ok but it was still quite a stretch. Our first stop was in Kansas City. We went and admired the new temple they built there. Then the next day Tucker met with the dentist he used to work for there. We are exploring the possibility of an associate position there.

After that we made our way to Utah. It was really nice to see everyone even though hand, foot, and mouth disease was rampant. The kids had a great time getting to know Johnny at Aunt Georgia and Uncle Johns house. They loved hanging out with Simon and baby Carmen. They also got to meet their second cousins Seren, Finley, and Anders. Seren and Jill are kindred spirits. It was very cute to watch. We stayed with them one night and this dog they were dog-sitting chewed up our tooth brushes. Jill was so upset and started crying because "now we are going to get cavities." She has really been paying attention to Tuck's lessons.
We also saw my friend Breanne and her family. They took us to this cool bounce house play place in American Fork. We also stayed with Tuck's friend Keith one night. He has two dogs which Cooper was simultaneously obsessed with and scared of.
Tucker and I loved seeing everyone. It was great to visit our old haunts and eat lots of our favorite foods. We would love it if job opportunity would magically appear there but with Utah opening 2 (yes 2) dental schools things look even bleaker for Utah's dental employment opportunities.
We appreciate everyone that let us stay with them and took the time to hang out with us. It was so fun and we wish we could have spent more time with everyone. We are here by Kirtland for one more year if anyone wants to come visit!

Early May

I have gotten so behind on here. I have a bunch of fun videos of the kids but I cannot get them to go on here. Not sure what the problem is. Also, we have been having constant camera issues so Tuck's ipod is pretty much our camera now. Since I don't really know how to work it and it is always with Tucker it is not very easy to get any pictures to blog with. At long last though I have some.

To back up a ways here is some stuff that happened at the beginning of May. Jill had a dance recital.

Tucker and I took a little trip to Niagara. Thanks to a groupon deal and Martha being generous enough to babysit. We had a falls view which was awesome, ate a fantastic steak dinner that worked miracles on banishing any pregnancy queasiness that night, did the Maid of the Mist boat, and all around had a fun time. Thanks Martha!

Jill finished her first year of preschool at the beginning of May. One of the last days was Wacky Day. She's always a little wacky but here she is fully embracing it. Jill had such a fun year at school!

Vegas Visit!

I have gotten so behind on here... too much other stuff going on. Anyhow, when Tucker was in the Dominican Republic (i have pictures of that too, don't worry) me and the kids went to visit my family. These are just some of the pictures. I will have to break this into a few posts.
The flights were pretty stressful- I had heartburn the whole way there, but it was worth it to see everyone. Next time I hope Tucker can come with and help me out.
The kids, mostly Cooper, had kind of hard time sleeping out of their normal routine. You'll see Cooper being cuddled by Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Brian, etc. in many of these as he was often crying ; ).






The kids loved grandpa's "ears." Jill and Grandpa developed a little routine of cuddling and watching some jill tv right before bed. Jill would often remind Grandpa that he told her they should do that everyday.







Jill noticed pretty quick that Violet had really pretty painted toes. Grandma helped to make Jill feel cool too by giving her a little pedicure.















Meanwhile, Cooper cried/cuddled Grandpa to sleep on the couch.

Cooper was so happy to find Porter who would wrestle with him!

Jill, in her self proclaimed "Mama Bear" dress (from the Bearenstain Bears) with Rosie. They had a lot of fun playing together. Apparently they were playing "boyfriends".. I tried to question her about what that is and she says they just pretended to call their boyfriends... I am not sure she even knows what a boyfriend is.

Cooper and Brian- I really like this picture.

Mom with two of the rowdy tots

Violet and Jill loved their cousin play time

Half Marathon

Last weekend I ran my half marathon. I am so relieved to have it done! I had signed up a long time ago because I knew that paying for it was the only way to make me see it through. Anyhow, as it drew closer I was feeling pretty glum about it and felt like I was not going to meet my goal of running the whole thing. That is why I didn't really tell anyone about it : ).
Luckily, my friend Jenna, who also happens to live on our street, decided to join me with it and that made it WAY easier. We ended up doing better than expected and even surpassed our goal time. I was really happy with how the race went. This is the first goal I have actually met in a really long time. So, its nice to achieve one. I had been feeling a lot of pressure about the race for weeks leading up to it, so I feel a lot better now that it is behind me.
Otherwise our trip to Cincinnati was kind of a flop. We had made big plans of hotel pool fun with Jill and Cooper. We made a pretty big deal out of it on the way trying to get Jill excited. Of course, upon arriving, we discovered the heater to the pool was broken... so it was an ice bath. Also, I really wanted Olive garden the night before, but after driving forever to find one the wait was so long we had to give up and get Arbys. They messed up my race # too so that my name isn't listed anywhere.Oh well, it was still fun.
In the pictures below, you can see some of the fun from the race. The highlight of the trip. The dark one is before the race. Then there are some action shots. I love that you can see Jill cheering in one of them. She would yell "Go Mama, Go!". I was suprised how much that lifted my spirits and actually did make me run faster!

Summer vacation

During Tuck's break we went to visit Hocking Hills in Southeast Ohio. Lots of people at my work had recommended it. It was kind of hard with the kids, but everything is : ). We went to the visitor's center and they pointed us to a few things we could do with our "little helpers" (she described them that way about 50 times). We saw two caves and one waterfall. We also did a death march to a rockbridge. It was the last hike of the day and probably in retrospect not a good idea but we made it!

The drive was Coopers first time riding forward in the car. Both kids were super excited but by the end of the drive that had worn off.

We stayed in a little cabin. Jill seemed kind of worried about the whole thing at first.

This is Tuck with the kids at "Old Man's Cave", it got its name because an actual old man used to live here with his dogs.

Coop loves to point. He doesn't say any words but he shrieks like nobody's business. He also smacks his lips when he wants to eat. In this picture he was very excited about a stuffed deer in the visitors center.

The before mentioned rockbridge.