Surprise!

This picture is actually a baby at about 20 weeks along, but I thought it was close enough. We can't wait to have baby number two join our family! I'm 17 weeks and things are going along just like they did with Ethan, so I'm thinking boy, but Steve and the Dr. are both voting girl. Steve was right last time and I was not, so maybe that is saying something... maybe not. And even though we enjoyed surprising you with this news, we don't like being surprised, so the gender news will be coming along in a couple of weeks.

Tour de Idaho

So we got everything set up for us to spend the second week of Steve's break doing interviews all through Idaho. We left Sunday after church so that we could be in Boise Monday morning for Steve's first two interviews. He met with a Dr. in Meridian and a Dr. in Nampa. Both interviews went quite well and we spent that evening driving to Twin Falls. Poor Ethan was not a fan of being in the car for so long, so we managed to find a hotel with a swimming pool and spent that night splashing in the water. Ethan loved the pool, but he found the hot tub even more cool because of the bubbles. Tuesday Steve had two interviews in Twin Falls. While he was doing that Ethan and I went to their town park and their library and we got ice cream. Their library, by the way, was really great and I might move there solely on the merit of the library. The whole basement of the three story building was dedicated to children's books and had rooms filled with board books and puzzles and places to do puppet shows and story time. It was a winner. Steve really liked the first Dr. that he met with there. The second interview went well also, but Steve wasn't as interested in the opportunity. We also drove out to see the falls, which, despite our Oregon spoiledness when it comes to falls, were still pretty impressive. Sadly I didn't take a single picture our whole trip, so you'll just have to google Shoshone falls and picture us near them. That evening we drove to Idaho Falls, and spent the night walking the river walk, chasing the ducks, enjoying the view of the temple all lit up and swimming in the pool. Wednesday was his interview there and it went very well, he is very interested in this opportunity and I really like the Idaho Falls area. It is of course a plus that I have relatives that live there who I think are the greatest. Then, because Steve had an interview on Monday in Brigham City, we packed up and went to Utah for the weekend. In good ole PG we spent the afternoon swimming in the AF pool. I ran into one of my High school friends. That night we went to a Real game with my mom and dad. Boy was it an interesting game! and the fireworks show was neat too. There I ran into one of my old roommates. PS Jeanette, sorry I didn't get to say good bye because of the crowd. It was awesome to talk to you and I'll send you an email when I'm done posting. Then we spent the fourth bowling, and a picnic up the canyon and having a BBQ with the family and lighting off fireworks. Ethan really enjoyed the fireworks and wanted to touch them, but sat and watched nicely for the most part. Then we went down to Salem and had a party up at the ranch, swam in the pond and saw all the friends and family. We played games that night and went to church on Sunday and played more games on Sunday. We left that night to spend the night at PG and then left there at 5:30 to be to in Brigham City on time for the interview. We stopped for breakfast at McDonald's and mine came up again right there in front of all the people trying to eat. Apparently my sister passed her weird Mexico disease on to me. I spent the interview trying to entertain Ethan while trying not to vomit. When Steve was done we loaded up and drove all the way back home. What a long trip! and consequently a long post. But now you're all up to date. I am feeling a bit better now, and Ethan is glad to be able to roam wild, although he really enjoyed having large yards to run around in, and misses all of the company. It was nice to be in Utah, but good to be home again, and back to the daily grind.

June

In June we celebrated my birthday with some dinner and a movie; a very nice break from being mommy 24/7. Another fun thing that we did was meet up with my freshman roomie in Portland. We met them at Powell's so that I could get a book I've been hankering for, then we grabbed a bite to eat (after much wandering around downtown). It was so great to catch up! The book that we got was for Ethan called Cars Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scary... he LOVES it. He calls it the bug book, and I have some very cute video footage of him finding Gold bug on every page.
Ethan graduated to nursery, a momentous occasion for us because it means that we don't have to coordinate our teaching schedules for YM/YW. It also means that we have become regular attenders of Sunday School again... I didn't realize how much one could miss Sunday school :) He does pretty well in nursery except that he is the leader of all the screams that you might hear walking by the room. He also had his checkup and is still a tall boy for his age, and just the right weight, with an itty-bitty head. We had a YW garage sale and I made a few more purchases for Ethan, we got a huge tub of blocks, which he enjoys dumping out, and I am trying to teach him how to put them back in when it is cleanup time. We also got him a basketball hoop, which has been a huge success. He still doesn't throw the ball through the net, he just does the slam dunk thing, but since it is on the deck, and I don't want to go find missing balls all day long, I consider it a good thing. We celebrated father's day, which was fairly uneventful. Ethan and I got Steve a new bat bag in hopes that he might play a little more softball this year. We also had a nice dinner. However, we did celebrate in a much larger fashion, Steve's graduation from WSCC. He is the graduating class of September 08 but the ceremony was held with the June class. So while he is not entirely done, it was so wonderful to celebrate his almost doneness. Steve's family flew in to celebrate with us. They played with Ethan while I went to a little bit of Youth Conference and then the next day we did the graduation thing and then went out to eat. And to Steve: I am so proud of you, I know how hard you have worked for this degree and even though it was hard, I look forward to watching you enjoy the fruits of your labors :) and I know that everyone is going to want you for their Chiropractor!

Steve looked very handsome in his garb, but I have to say that I think Ethan looked more adorable in the hat. It was so nice to have Steve's family here with us, but it was unfortunate that most of my weekend ended up being spent planning my lesson for Sunday and my talk for Sunday. I did manage to con them into playing mexican dominoes with me though, perhaps to the detriment of my talk and lesson, but it was worth it. Steve's family flew out early Sunday morning. My talk went ok, my lesson went not so ok, but that was all over and we spent most of Sunday preparing Steve to leave early Monday morning on High Adventure with the scouts. They went up to a lake somewhere and had a wonderful time. I made Steve come home a day early so that I could leave to go on a retreat to the beach with the YW. We had a wonderful time at the beach despite sunburning my feet. We climbed to the top of a very steep sand dune and we went to the tilamook cheese factory, and explored some tide pools. I got home Saturday evening and spent the rest of the night getting ready for our next adventure... we left Sunday after church for our Tour de Idaho.

The Rest of May

So I've taken a sabbatical from blogging because life has been a little crazy of late. I thought I'd update you month by month because it's just too much to fit into one post. So the rest of May then... Ethan turned 17 months. The next big thing was mother's day, which was wonderful as far as I remember. Steve and Ethan surprised me with a bike (Steve got one for his birthday and we got Ethan a seat for Christmas) so we were finally able to go on some family bike rides. Ethan really loves the bikes and he goes and finds his helmet anytime he wants to go on the bikes. We've been all over, but really love the springwater trail because it isn't as hilly as where we live. Sadly I don't have any pictures of us on the bikes, but I'm sure there will be one because we aren't done with the bikes yet. The next event was Steve going to Utah for his mom's big birthday bash, this picture is Steve with a poster board Michael. He loved being able to be home for the big party. The rest of may I think was pretty uneventful, and I told you my life was crazy.... oops :)