WE ARE POTTY TRAINED!!(for the moment)

Yes, I am happy to admit that I can now use the bathroom like a normal person. Ok fine, Emma has been without diapers for over a week now. She has been without them during the day, but now she doesn't even use them at night! She has been doing so well. She is also getting over her fear of public toilets. That has been a problem especially when she needs to use the bathroom at school and wont. Needless to say that we are proud and happy parents and she was well rewarded with an ice cream cone and some bubble tape. We didn't want all the success to go to her head, so we tried to keep it low key.

Erin finished her communications course already. Yes, I am jealous. She just has to wait for her grade to come in. She only has 2 more classes to go before the end of the semester. She'll make it I'm sure. I'm also sure she will pull another 4.0. She is amazing that way. She is also loving her calling as the Relief Society secretary. We have been in primary for so long that this is a welcomed calling for her. She can associate with other women and help them as she can. It's a great calling.

Matthew is talking now. He says Juice, Milk, Down, Up, Thanks, Binky, Mine, Mom, Dad, Hi, Bye and I thought there was another one. I will have to update this if I can ever remember it. We are almost ready to move him to a real bed. We are still working out how that will work since Emma and Matthew share the same room. I'm worried it will turn into a big party.

I am about to dive into one of the longest weeks of my life. I have 4 tests next week, one 6 page book report, a long project for chemistry, and I have to build a wind tunnel out of plexiglass. I also get to see the Doctor again about my broken hand. It has been 8 weeks since I broke it and it still hurts. I saw a regular doctor this week and he said that the x-rays looked like there was still an issue there. I now get to see a specialist. I'm worried that it means they will have to slice it open and pin it together. It should be interesting at least. In other news I am officially at 186 lbs. I have lost almost 30 lbs by just not eating sugar. I was in high school when I weighed this little. I have also found that I have some stupid intolerance to the stuff. When I eat it, it makes me angry. So I have been able to stay off of it for a while. I didn't get a call back for any internships for the summer. I am worried about what happens when I graduate. It is nice to know all that I know, but I would love to put it to some use other then figuring out the thermal dynamic properties of a hamburger patty while I make food at Mc Donalds.

Thanksgiving will find us full this year. We spend the time with my family first. We have Thanksgiving lunch and then we have to go to Erin's family's house for dinner. She has family from out of town that only visit every other year. Since my family gets together every other year also we have to go to both if we want to see everyone. I will take pictures and let you know how it goes.

Halloween

I'm sure everyone has been dying to hear how our Halloween went. Well..actually no one asked, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I started my Halloween at work. It wasn't very much fun. I was then needed to work with a study group at school. This was more fun. We built a wind tunnel using a small CPU fan and a bunch of plastic garbage cans that we found lying around campus. This is just a prototype for our final one that is to be made out of plexiglass. I'm sure you don't want to know about all that. I'll get to the kids because they seem to be the popular ones in this whole holiday thing. Emma was Snow White, and Matthew was a fire fighter. We bought both online and improved them. Erin took the Snow White costume and added a collar and cape. It looked really good!
We took the kids upto Midway to show them off first. After the grandparents took their pictures we visited more family in the area. We ended our trick or treating by visting some houses in our complex in Provo. All in all it was an enjoyable time. Emma loves to Trick or Treat! She has been looking forward to this for the past month. She still talks about having a Halloween party. Matthew couldn't understand why people were giving him food that Mom and Dad wouldn't let him eat.
That night Erin and I put the kids to bed and did homework. Not a terribly exciting evening for us, but we're parents and it's not all about fun and games for us.
I know that you are not interested in my babble. I know your here for the pictures. So I'll stop and you can view them at your leasure. Until next time.

Just the pics

Here are some new family pictures that we took. I hope you like them! There will be more on Halloween!

Back up to date!!

It looks like it is my turn again to write in here. The pattern usually goes that Erin will write once for every 9 of my posts. So I will try to keep up the pace again.

Let me start back in my story about to the point where we moved. As you know our moving was a great surprise to everyone including me. We didn't even know that we were going to move until 3 days before we did. I didn't even see the place until we moved in. Moving went well actually. We only have a couple more boxes to sort out, then we will be moved in.

Provo has been very good to us so far. Compared to Midway, Provo seems like Bath in England during the Jane Austine era. There always are people around, there is always some social event to attend, we always have visitors. It isn't a complaint by any means though. We have enjoyed the attention. Thank you to all of our friends that have made our transition easier.

In the midst of all the fun, this moment in time carries a lot of pressure on our family. We are trying to figure out our new ward, school is harder then it has ever been, and our kids find it fun to scream all the time. It was during one of the most stressful moments that I did something blindingly stupid. I decided to take my frustration out on our bookcase. It is the first and last time I will ever try that because it left me with a memento for the past 3 weeks. In the process of hitting the shelf, I broke the bone in my hand that is directly below the pinkie finger. I wore a cast for the last 3 weeks, and now I am wearing a brace. Every time I look at my hand I am reminded of the incident and vow to take a more relaxed approach to solving issues. So far it has worked perfectly.

School has been a mix of good an bad. I took 3 tests over the past 2 weeks. The first two tests were great! I have never tested so high at BYU. I actually got an A on one! I was excited until I had to take a test in Fluid Mechanics. I pretty much failed that one. It was really sad. The entire class had a hard time with it so I hope that I did better then some of them. We will see when I get my grade back on Monday.

Erin has been doing awesome at her school. She is doing three online classes and she is ahead in all of them. She is also one of the top in her classes. I'm not really sure how she does it. She is really gifted at remembering things. She was having a hard time being alone with the kids though. In Midway we had others to help watch them. In Provo, she is home alone with them until I get home. We have been having to work creatively in finding ways to keep the kids busy. There are no uncles and aunts close by to keep them occupied. We had a shopping spree at Wal-Mart for the kids. We bought new toys and art supplies. They love them.

Emma is talking more and more. She is becoming clearer in what she is saying. She is more and more independent as well. She is in preschool in Provo and she is doing very well. We are impressed with the school and her progress. The nice thing is that they had a lesson on brushing your teeth. She is obsessed with it and we are happy to let her be that way. She brushes like 3-4 times a day.

Matthew is just a cute little kid. He has been having a hard time because we decided to get him off of the binky. We only give it to him at night when he goes to bed. Soon, he won't even get it then. Instead of him being happy with the plug in his mouth he wonders around screaming or crying. This last week has seen quite a bit of improvement though. He is happier. He is also getting his 2 year molars in, so that might also add to his frustration.

As always thank you for listening to my ramblings. Oh, before I forget, Matthew will be a fireman for Halloween, and Emma will be a Snow White. We look forward to pictures!!

Adjusting to Provo

I figured it's been a long time since I bothered to write anything, so I'll give Mike a break and do a post. I usually have so much to say that people start tuning me out after a minute or so, but school is stealing all my excess blab, so I forget to talk sometimes. It makes for strange social situations. :D

Provo has been nice actually, but I miss Midway. That is strange because I didn't miss it the first time I moved out. Moving out the 2nd time (that is so weird) I have actually missed my hometown, and feel homesick. I am adjusting though, and I have to admit it has been awesome to have my own kitchen again!

When we started unpacking, we found all our stuff that we hadn't seen in a year and a half. Mike pulled out his basting brush, patted it lovingly and said, "I've missed you...". It was funny, but exactly how we felt after pulling out our own dishes and cooking utinsels.

The kids are doing a lot better than the first week we moved. They are now having an argument at the table, (Emma nods)"Uh huh!", (Matthew shakes his head)"Mm mmm!", and on and on it goes. Giggle, scream, repeat. I'm glad to see them happy.

School is going a lot smoother than either Mike or I expected. We're both keeping up. Mike has a great study group who is helping him learn everything he needs to know, and he can come home for food and to see the kids whenever he gets time. It's been nice. Nathan has been coming over a lot too and that has been awesome.

Emma takes the bus to school now. I guess all the kids at her school do, even if they live really close like we do. When she found out I was picking her up, she threw a monumental tantrum and bit my arm. I had a bruise for a week! That was probably the worst moment of moving adjustment we've had. I told her she had to earn a sticker every day for no tantruming. She did it for a week, so I signed the bus papers. It's been really nice, I don't have to worry about waking Matthew up to go get her from school.

Matthew got burned as well, which was our second meltdown. He wanted the mac and cheese I was cooking before I was ready to give it to him, and when I turned to dump in the cheese packet, he pulled bowl down. It was so so sad. It wasn't a bad burn, however. He was lucky and it has healed nicely.

More about our crazy life later. Hopefully the adjustment period will pass and life will go on.

Moving and so on

WOW what a busy week! This whole mess started on Thursday. Erin and I had been batting around the idea of moving out of the in-laws house. We even went to look at a couple places on Wednesday. We saw a couple things that we were ok with, but nothing that we liked. There was a cute little house really close to campus that was within our range and we talked to the land lord about the lease. We were going to look at one more place before we decided though. Thursday started my HAZWOPER training so I wasn't able to join Erin on the house hunt. I got a message on my cell phone that pretty much said "HI Honey, I found this really cute place and I know that your going to LOVE it! It's perfect! So I put down the deposit and signed the lease agreement. We move in on Saturday. Love you BYE!". The first time I saw the place was when we moved in. It was a little quick, but it turned out well. I did love the place! Erin was right. It is a little 2 story condo unit with 2 rooms and a 2.5 bath. It has a nice kitchen and is very clean. The kids love it. Emma kept wanting to go to the "new house". We now are part of Provo, very close to BYU. No more canyon driving for me.

Emma seemed to handle it ok, but then things got weird. She wouldn't follow any directions. Well, I should say that when we asked her to do something she almost started doing it then stopped and wouldn't move. She started throwing huge temper tantrums, and she wouldn't sleep at night. It is a big change for her though. She has a new school, and no Grandma and Grandpa to play with. We spent a lot of time unpacking her toys last night with her in an effort to show her that things are ok and somethings didn't change. Her room is completely unpacked. She went to bed normally last night and hasn't given us a lot of grief since. It has been nice today.

Matthew...well...he doesn't seem to care as long as we have an endless supply of binkey's. He is cool with it all.

Erin started school last week and is pushing her way though it again. She hopes to be on the Deans list this next semester. I'm not sure I know what to think about that myself. I need to get some bumper sticker that says "My wife is an honor student at UVU" or something.

I am now HAZWOPER certified! HAZWOPER is Hazardous Material Emergency Response training. I hope I never have to use it. Chemical spills can be very crazy. I also started school this week. It is crazy. I still don't know what homework is due when. All the classes are based around chemistry and math. So the teaching overlaps. That is nice, but I can't remember what I learned in what class. It's crazy.

That is all for this post. I hope it was long enough. I should start charging a dollar for each person to read these posts. Then I would have......two dollars. I could then buy a couple jr whoppers! DATE NIGHT! YEAH!

Timpanogos Hike

Saturday marked our 2nd adventure before school starts again. It is a long standing tradition in Erin's family to hike Timpanogos once a year. We haven't been able to because of the kids. It had been 5 years since we hiked it last with Erin's family.
We started the hike at 4:45 in the morning. Erin's brothers and my friend Shawn came in addition to Erin and I. We took the Aspen Grove trail, the one by Sundance. The hike is supposed to be 8 miles to the top of Timpanogos. so we wanted to get an early start before the sun came up. We met a lot of hikers on the way up that were coming down. I guess a common thing is to start the hike at midnight and watch the sun rise. Those coming down couldn't make it up for one reason or another.
The start of the hike was...well....dark. we couldn't see much since we only had one flash light to split between the five of us. When the sun came up we were exposed to a brilliant view of the mountain side! It is a pretty hike for those willing to do it.
About 7 o'clock found us pretty far up the trail when we noticed that clouds started forming up all around us. Our view was taken and replaced with gray. It was so intense that we couldn't see much more then ten feet in front of us. Yes we knew about the storm that was supposed to come yesterday, but we pressed on.
We took some breaks and filled up our water bottles at the spring. We had a lot of good snacks and a ton of water. It was actually relaxing. Yes I huffed and puffed my up, but it wasn't all bad. The wild flowers were everywhere adding a blanket of color to almost everything we saw.
We made it to the lake at 9:15 ish when we decided to have "lunch". There is a glacier of snow that the wind comes right off of at the lake. We FROZE! We made a quick decision that the top wouldn't be a possibility due to the cold and the fact that we couldn't see anything anyway. So we started down.
No more then 10 min passed when it started to hail and snow. Yes, August 15 and it was snowing. We kept up a good pace and about 10:45 the snow started to melt and turn into rain. The trail turned into mud. We turned into wet messes, but we weren't cold.
We made it down the mountain and to the car by 12:00. We hiked about 14 miles yesterday. I couldn't walk for the rest of the day yesterday. I jarred my legs pretty bad on the way down. Erin was fine. She was saying how energetic she felt and how she was so excited that we still had the whole day left! We all did better then we thought we would. I didn't stop at all coming down and didn't stop a lot going up. Well, I stopped more my first time 5 years ago.
So, I recommend this hike, but watch the weather!