What do you call Spring Cleaning in August?

Eric and I have spent the last 2 days de-junking and cleaning our apartment. I'm a big one for straightening and making things look nice, but only once in a while do I deep clean a room. So not surprisingly, this was at Eric's suggestion. Using a laundry basket as a "get rid of" bin, we had emptied 5 laundry baskets worth of junk into the dumpster by the time we were done. That doesn't seem like a lot, but the basket was pretty big and our apartment is pretty small, so it was surprising all the unnecessary stuff we had accumulated in our just 2.5 years of marriage. And that it took 2 full days was a shock as well- we started at about 2:00 Thursday and I thought we'd finish about 8 or 9 that night. Wrong! We worked till about 11 and got up Friday morning to continue, and we finished moping the kitchen last night at about 10:30. Wow, it took a while, but it is soooo worth it, I love being in my newly cleaned home! It feels so nice and organized, and I know where everything is. But I can't imagine doing this in a big house as compared to an apartment, and with several kids worth of stuff to go through instead of just one! But we'll see how long this lasts with a little terror on the loose!

Shout out to the workin' man!

Usually summer is the time to relax and take a break, especially from school. But that's not what Eric has been doing with his summer. First he decided to attend the summer semester at BYU-I so he can graduate on track in April 09. That was fine, although by the end he was pretty burned out. Now we are in the middle of a 7-week break between semesters, but he isn't taking a break now either. He's taking a course to prepare for the MCAT, which he will take either in September or January. This man never quits! We love you sweetie and appreciate all the hard work you do for our family! Although the end is not in sight (1 more year of undergrad, 4 years medical school, 2-4 years residency...) you work so hard and we wanted to say thank you for all you do!!

Summer Adventures

Warning in advance: this will be a long post. I haven't had a chance to update in a while so I have a lot of pictures that I want to share.

Eric says I need to blame the long absence from blogging on this:


I read, like a lot of others, the fourth book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. I won't ruin it for those who haven't read it yet, but I was a little disappointed with it. I was glad it had a happy ending but it took a lot of crazy turns to get there, and I thought it may have been a little far fetched. Now I need something else to read so if you have any suggestions for a good book, let me know!

We've stayed pretty busy over this 7-week break from school. Eric has seen a lot of Idaho because he fishes a lot, but I've never ventured too far from Rexburg so I made him take us out. We went to Mesa Falls which is beautiful but I didn't have the camera with us. We also went on a hike about 20 minutes away from Rexburg with a cool view of the Snake River.


Pretty View

He looks so happy! Maybe thats because he's not doing much of the work...

Eric thought this would be funny :)

We also went bowling with our friends Kristen and Jared and their little boy Kroten. It was way fun and I haven't been in a long time! Just as we were leaving they turned on the black lights, but you can't really tell cause the flash was on the camera. Ethan had fun and was our own cheering squad, he would clap everytime someone went even if we didn't. Pretty cute. Also, we had just got back from Ethan's appointment and found out he weighed a little over 20 lbs, so these balls together weigh as much as he did :)



Ethan's been a busy bugger over the break as well. He reads a lot, whenever he finds a book lying around, and he also figured out that he can climb up on the couch if he has a step stool. He always loves looking out the window, and now he can get up to it all by himself!






Last weekend we made a trip down to Utah to visit family. We stayed at my Grandparents, who built a house in Orem while they were on their mission. They got home in May and it's so good to have them so close!

We went to a family party at Eric's Aunt Cathy's house celebrating 08/08/08. It was fun, and the last time we've seen most of his family was at the 07/07/07 party last year! Here's Ethan's cute cousin Natalie pushing him on the swing-

We also went and visited Eric's Grandma White, she had never met Ethan before and kept raving about how he was the cutest and smartest baby she's ever seen :)

Ethan and his cousin Wyatt

We went out to dinner with the Grandparents and Jenn and Bridger, and of course Bridger told them it was my birthday (even though it wasn't). Avarie had fun with the frosting!



Grandma's lovely drawing on the table at Macaroni Grill


Think he did this on his own?

Example

Yesterday Ethan had a 15 month doctors appointment and I was excited because I thought he wouldn't have to have any more shots until 18 months. I hate watching them give him shots, so if that was the case I was going to bring Eric to stay there with him. But I assumed he wouldn't need any more till the next appointment, so I told Eric to stay home. I was wrong. Not only did he have 2 of his normal shots (which they warned me would swell more than previous shots, and he may have a very swollen leg for a few days) but I forgot we were going to have him tested for a few allergies which meant he had to have blood drawn. He's had blood drawn several other times for tests and I always wish Eric was there to hold him still instead of me, but once again I was there for it. It was over quickly and they gave him a sticker afterwards to calm him down, but he was still crying a little when I went back to the room to get him dressed so we could leave. He didn't want to be set down, but once I got him on the doctors exam table to redress him, he just looked up at me, still sniffling, and folded his arms. So we said a little prayer together and he was fine after that. Such a sweet guy and a great example to me! We've been teaching him to fold his arms for prayers the last little while, but thats the first time he did it without us telling him to. Apparently he knew what would make him feel better, and I'm grateful for his example.

Memories

Ok I have seen this on a few people's blogs and thought it would be fun:

Directions: Leave a comment on my blog about a memory of you and I together (Jessica, Eric, or even Ethan!). It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, just whatever you remember! Then repost this on your blog to see who leaves comments for you!

Ethan's Tricks

Here's the video, as promised. Ignore my dorky voice throughout it, after Eric got several comments about his antics on the video of Ethan crawling, I figured it was my turn to sound like a dork on video. But as always we are proud parents and can't help ourselves :) Its so much fun to see him learning!

Fifteen Months

Can you believe it? Ethan is 15 months old today! Yikes, it doesn't even feel like we've been married that long...
Sorry again for the long time between posts on the blog, I thought I'd get better once summer hit because I would have more time. Ha ha. These last few weeks have been fun and busy-- the fun part was a family reunion we had in McCall, Idaho. It was a gorgeous place and we had gorgeous weather; my family rented a big cabin off Payette lake for 35 people to stay in for a week :) It was a lot of fun, we had some speed boats to go wake boarding and tubing behind, lots of food, fishing, and time together as a family. My grandparents had just gotten back from a mission in San Diego so we hadn't seen them in 2 years, and Eric had never met one of my uncles and his family so it was good to get together again. I hardly took out my camera but my uncle Mark took a lot of pictures which he's sending out to everyone, so I'll post more when I get them. Here are a few cute ones:

Emma trying on Ethan's glasses

Ethan entertaining his cousin, Wyatt

A week after that finals started for Eric and I had to get serious about finishing my internship hours. I finished a final presentation for my final class (Intro to Advertising- but it was an ad campaign competition and I just found out my group won!) and turned in my internship report on Wednesday, so I will officially get my degree now! I am really glad I decided to walk for graduation in April, it was nice to just finish and not have to worry about any of the ceremonials. They're just mailing me the diploma which should get here in 4-6 weeks :)
Eric had a grueling last week of finishing labs, tests, and then final exams. But that got over Friday and now we have a 7 week break till he has to start all over again. Eric has 2 more semesters left, meaning he should graduate with his Bachelors degree in April.
I didn't think it was possible, but Ethan just keeps getting cuter and cuter. And I know every mom thinks this about their baby, but he's so smart! We're teaching him a few words in sign language, and he's gotten "please" down really well. He's starting to say a few words, and now every time he picks up one of our cell phone he puts it to his ear and says "hi dad!" (more like Hi Daa but close enough :) I got some of these cute things on video the other day and wanted to show them off- I'll put it up tomorrow. Stay tuned!