Change of Plans, We're Heading South!

We were finally able to work it out for Justin to go to Virginia to scope out housing for us; we had it narrowed down but just didn't feel like we could choose without seeing the places and the the area of town first. So Justin left Tuesday night and drove to Salt Lake, then flew out early Wednesday morning to Virginia. While en route he received a phone call....from Texas Tech....offering him a small scholarship which would qualify us for in-state tuition...the school that Justin liked the most....that gives us almost $10,000 more to live off of each year...in a city that is an awesome family community...with a faculty that actually takes into consideration the fact that a family is different than a single student......you can see where this is going. We are very excited that we got a spot at Texas Tech and I think it is really going to be wonderful for our family. The timing could have been a little better-but it could have been worse. And I am a little sad that I won't get to live in Virginia again, but like I said before, I know that Texas will be better for my family.
So Justin changed his flight and his flying home tonight since there was no point in him sitting around in Virginia since he doesn't need to check on housing anymore. Now we are back to square one, with only 4 weeks before we drive off to the unknown land of Texas, where we will discover if bigger really is better! Wish us luck that we will find housing, since we will not be getting to go choose in person, and the clock is ticking! The school is in Lubbock, TX for anybody who was wondering.

And he's off!

Koyle has been sooo close to crawling for a while now but he just wouldn't do it. Apparantly he decided it was time because this weekend he took off. It is super cute to watch him crawl in his rudementary, beginners way. He is also pulling himself up on things and thinks he is the coolest thing ever when he gets standing up. Let the games begin; I am so excited!

New Suit

It was time to get Matthew some new church clothes so one evening I took Matthew to the store, just him and I, to get some new clothes. Matthew wasn't exactly cooperative and it wasn't the picturesque outing I had imagined, but we survived. There wasn't a large selection in his size, but I let Matthew pick out which one he liked. He of course liked the suit. Turns out it was going to be the same price to buy the whole suit as it would have been to buy the plain black pants and a belt since they were too big. He is soooo cute and so grown-up in his new suit. My boys are adorable!!

Train Cake

Things were getting a little crazy around here so we pulled out an old Land of Obey chart that my mom had, because luckily it was a train chart. Our target behaviors were getting yourself dressed, laying down for nap, reading scriptres/saying prayer at night without crying, and going to bed at night. So he could potentially earn 4 spaces a day. I took him to D.I. and let him pick out a couple of incentives. He chose a bowling pins set and this train thing that goes around the track and dings when you push the button. It took him a VERY LONG time to earn his pieces, but he finally made it to the top and earned his train cake. My aunt found this awesome train mold pan when she was cleaning out her kitchen and gave it to us. I want to use it for Matthew's birthday so I used this as my trial run to see what it would come out like so I would know how to decorate it. Matthew had a ton of fun with it and as you can see, really enjoyed eating it too!

Fuller Park

There is a park near my house that we love to visit. It has some fun playground equipment, but we especially love the duck pond. One day we walked down to the park, fished, ate lunch, played on the toys, and enjoyed all the baby ducks and geese. The first time we went the mama geese were super protective of their babies and didn't want you getting close but today we couldn't keep them away and they would come right up to get the food. There was one goose that was making me a little nervous because she would hiss at me and get really close if I didn't give her a piece of bread.
I was fascinated by the baby ducks. I could have sat and watched them all day. There was one duck that was being really mean and kept chasing one of the mommy ducks away. It made me angry/sad, I even yelled at the duck to be nice.

Homecoming

My cousin Christopher came home from his mission in New York the week of mother's day. We were all pretty excited.


The family came in town and it was a fun weekend full of food, games, and visiting with Christopher. We got to be present when he was released because the stake leader just came to the house and did it and had Jon and Kristy and Chris share some thoughts and testimony. I had never been around for any of that cool missionary stuff and it was a neat experience. There was a sweet spirit present especially as they all bore testimony that they knew that Chris had served a faithful mission and that they all knew it was where he was supposed to be, even when Chandler died. Missions are great things!
We have also had the missionaries over for dinner a couple of times which has been really fun for Matthew. He really loves the missionaries and it is a good example and I love seeing him get excited about going on a mission.

Road Race

 My mom has been running for a couple years now and so I told her that I wanted to run a race with her this summer; I was hoping it would motivate me to get into shape. As life goes, I only went running about twice before hand to get ready for the race-oh well. All my sisters ended up doing it with us (except Jacque who got stuck at work last minute). We ran the Race for the Cure 5k in Boise and it was a lot of fun. Right as we started I realized I should have gone to the bathroom before I started, and then lo and behold, there were some port a potty's. So after stopping for a short potty break we were off again. I kept up with my mom the whole way and she was really pushing me. We had to stop right before the finish line at a light while the policemen let cars go by. Seriously-right before the finish line. I was somewhat annoyed but secretly grateful for a little breather because I wanted to push it hard to the end with my mom but I was getting pretty tired. We never saw our official time but by my watch we were right about 30 minutes. Not too bad for not having trained. It was invigorating and I think I could get into doing road races. And hey, I don't even have to train for them! : ) So much for it being motivating!!







I will spare you the pictures of me running-it was not a pretty shot. I ran into my friend Kelli Pease from high school and it was great to see her and catch up.