July 2013 - Birhtday Month!

What an awesome month!  We kicked it off with an early 4^th of July celebration at some friends that we knew from Rexburg. They now live in Modesto, so we headed up there to swim and BBQ.  Lynn worked on the 4^th so we didn’t even stay up to see any fireworks.  The 5^th was my birthday!!!  Lynn totally spoiled me.  I found a used Kitchen Aid on craigslist for half the price of a new one!  I have always really wanted and I LOVE it already.  I use all the time, it is so much easier than a hand mixer!  We also went out to dinner at Olive Garden! 

A couple weeks later was our 5^th Anniversary! Holy Cow! Time flys when you are having a good time. We are so amazed looking back on the last five years how good life has been.  There have been trials, but we have met all of the goals we set for ourselves when we got married and look forward reaching some new ones now.   Lynn was working on our actual anniversary so the weekend before we went over to Monterey to stay for the night.  We were planning on spending the day at the beach but it was pretty chilly and overcast so we ended up going to the aquarium.  I am so glad we did because Cooper loved it.  They had these huge cylinders of Minos swimming in circles and Cooper was so amazed watching them.  He also got a big kick out of the penguins.  We knew we wouldn’t be able to take a big vacation this year, so we are taking as many small short trips as we can to visit all of the cool stuff around us!

Since Lynn has work training over Cooper’s actual birthday we celebrated a little early.  It was a baseball theme with just a few friends at the park.  We grilled some hot dogs and let Cooper eat his cake.  He had a blast and got a lot of neat presents.  The day after we had some 1 year photos taken, I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

What an awesome month!  We kicked it off with an early 4^th of July celebration at some friends that we knew from Rexburg. They now live in Modesto, so we headed up there to swim and BBQ.  Lynn worked on the 4^th so we didn’t even stay up to see any fireworks.  The 5^th was my birthday!!!  Lynn totally spoiled me.  I found a used Kitchen Aid on craigslist for half the price of a new one!  I have always really wanted and I LOVE it already.  I use all the time, it is so much easier than a hand mixer!  We also went out to dinner at Olive Garden! 

A couple weeks later was our 5^th Anniversary! Holy Cow! Time flys when you are having a good time. We are so amazed looking back on the last five years how good life has been.  There have been trials, but we have met all of the goals we set for ourselves when we got married and look forward reaching some new ones now.   Lynn was working on our actual anniversary so the weekend before we went over to Monterey to stay for the night.  We were planning on spending the day at the beach but it was pretty chilly and overcast so we ended up going to the aquarium.  I am so glad we did because Cooper loved it.  They had these huge cylinders of Minos swimming in circles and Cooper was so amazed watching them.  He also got a big kick out of the penguins.  We knew we wouldn’t be able to take a big vacation this year, so we are taking as many small short trips as we can to visit all of the cool stuff around us!

Since Lynn has work training over Cooper’s actual birthday we celebrated a little early.  It was a baseball theme with just a few friends at the park.  We grilled some hot dogs and let Cooper eat his cake.  He had a blast and got a lot of neat presents.  The day after we had some 1 year photos taken, I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

June 2013 It's Hot Here!

I can’t believe June is already over!  I’m trying to remember everything we did! We got to take a trip into Oakland to visit the LDS temple.  It was perfect weather and nice to go visit somewhere new.  We got to take turns with Cooper in the visitor’s center there and the Sister Missionaries all fawned over Cooper who flirted with all of them. I also had a race! I did an Olympic Triathlon with a friend.  I started by swimming a mile in lake at Rancho Seco Park just outside of Sacramento.  The relay teams started last with the older athletes, these people were in some serious shape! I really had to step it up and work hard to keep up with them. I finished in 30 minutes, and then my friend biked 24 miles in about an hour and 15 minutes.  Then I ran 6.6 miles in about an hour and 3 minutes!  I was tired but it was a good challenge.  I love doing triathlons; it’s nice to mix it up with something else besides just running.

 My parents stopped through a couple times on their way to and from my sisters in Oregon.  It is nice to live near them again; it’s been about 7 years since I lived this close.  I made my dad run a 9 mile run with me when he was here. J He definitely helped me keep my pace up.  We will be running a half marathon together in about a month! They had one of my nephews with them when they came through and we had some free tickets to the Modesto Nuts game so we took them!  We had a blast watching them play; they farm out for the Colorado Rookies.  We also got to meet my niece for the 1^st time!  She and Cooper are only about 3 months apart; they are going to be besties!

Lynn is working a lot but he seems to be getting a more regular schedule now, which is nice.  He was working about 10 days straight at a time but now he is doing 5 on and 2 off.  Right now his days off are Monday’s and Tuesday’s so our weeks are a little off sometimes.  Oh, and it has been in the 100's! We stay inside in the AC most of the day.

Cooper is growing up too fast.  He is a speed crawler.  Trying to sweep or clean without him getting into my stuff is like a speed test every time.  He has 8 teeth now, is sleep through the night for the most part, and walks along anything he can reach.  He also loves to pull things off shelves or out of drawers.  He especially enjoys pulling all the clothes out the laundry baskets! He talks almost non-stop and always uses his hands to explain.  We have no clue with he is telling us but he sure has a lot to say! We bought him a little swimming pool of his own that he can cool off in and splash around in.  We took him to the city pool and he loved it!

 

May 2013 - The Many Trips!

It has been a busy month; I can’t believe it is already over!  This month we got to go into San Francisco to see the Giants play the Braves.  We were about the only Braves fans around us so we had to be careful how loud we cheered. ;) We went on the best night though since that is the only game of the series that the Braves won.  We stayed the night in the city and got up early Friday to go see some of the sights.  We didn’t have a lot of time and we will be going back soon enough so we just drove along the wharf and went to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We got out there and walked along the bridge for a little while and took some pictures and looked around the gift shop, then headed home.  It was a great short get-way for us and Cooper had a blast! I also took a cake decorating class this past month at the local craft store.  It was so fun to learn some new tricks and nice to have a couple hours to myself to do what I love!

                For Memorial Day we rented an RV with some good friends from college who live north of us.  We went up to Lake Siskiyou near the base of Mt. Shasta.  It was sooo pretty up there!  We were afraid it would be pretty cold but the weather as perfect and sunny.  Saturday morning we each took turns running or biking without the kids, which is a treat.  J Turlock is pretty flat, so it was a nice opportunity to get to run on some good hills.  I also went for a dip in the lake.  Pretty sure everyone around us, including Lynn, thought I was crazy.  The lake is all snow run-off so it was pretty cold, but I wanted to get a chance to swim in open water for my triathlon coming up in a couple weeks.  It was actually pretty warm.  Lynn had four days off in a row, which doesn’t happen very often.  We headed home on Sunday afternoon so he could relax all day Monday before he had to head back to work the following Tuesday.  It was such a fun weekend, we are definitely going to have to try and do it again next year.  Renting the RV wasn’t as cheap as we had hoped it would be and the cabins are actually cheaper if you can make a reservation in time, but the RV was more comfortable than camping in a tent for sure. 

(I don't know why it's cutting them off like that)  :( 

                Cooper also saw our new doctor here!  He was 18.6lbs and 28in long.  So, short and light for his age but doing great!  He stands up on everything, has 7 teeth now, and is getting soooo close to walking.  I’m sure he will be walking around by his 1^st birthday.  He loves mac n’ cheese and peas!  And pretty much anything sweet.  He will eat anything we are eating.  He also loves to read!  He will sit in his toy corner in the living room each day for about a half hour and just flip through books babbling to himself.  It is the cutest thing to watch!

April 2013 - And so it begins...

CONFERENCE!  So excited to have been able to hear from the Prophet of our church and all the other leaders who spoke.  It is such an uplifting weekend and perfect for us to spend time together before Lynn started on the 8^th. We just relaxed at home the whole time.

Lynn started work the next week.  He did 2 weeks of in-class training then a week of shadowing and then started working with the inmates himself.  So far it has been good, nothing real excited has happened.  He has been on day shifts which is nice and had most weekends off, but now he is starting to have to work on Sundays, which stinks.  The 1^st full week of May though he has a couple days off during the week so we will be going over to San Francisco to see the Giants play the Braves and stay for the night.  It should be a fun chance to get away!!

Cooper is mobile now and gets into everything and pulls himself up on everything in sight!  I run around behind him all day catching him as he falls.  He gets the proudest smile on his face when he stands all the way up.  He loves: pudding, fish sticks, any vegetable, bananas (if he can hold it and eat it), anything sweet, and anything mom or dad are eating pretty much.  He hates: guitars (he starts screaming and reaches to be picked up), most fruits, being left alone!  He loves attention though.  At church this last week he was out in the halls playing with some other kids and their moms.  He would push the other babies away so he could crawl up on their mom’s laps!  Such an attention hog. He also bites everything within reach of his mouth and it hurts!  He is doing really well at going to bed on his own though, he just rock him for a few minutes and say prayers with him then lay him down and he usually falls right to sleep without any crying.  I love having his bed time at 7:30! It definitely gives Lynn and me a chance to relax without worrying about him. We love him so much and his laughs when he gets tired is the funniest thing I have ever seen!

The Californian's - March 2013

Well, we made it to California!  The trip went just about as smoothly as it could have and we had a lot of help.  We flew my mom in to Idaho Falls to help me drive with Cooper in one car and Lynn drove the moving truck and towed our other car behind it.  We were really nervous about going through Donner Pass, especially when it snowed on us in Elko the night before.  But we made sure to hit the pass at the warmest part of the day and thankfully it was clear and dry.  While Lynn and a friend unloaded the truck into a storage unit, I went with my mom and a friend to go look at some apartments.  We found a place we liked and had Lynn walk through it so we could put in an application.  It’s a 3 bed 1.5 bath townhome with a 1 car garage.  We are so excited to have all if our stuff back and have more space. 

We’ve had such a fun time here already.  We took Cooper to feed the baby cows one morning and went to visit the beach.  He hates the wind, so he pretty much just gave us grumpy faces the whole time.  He also has 4! Teeth now.  He is cutting a big one on top so he has been a little fussy with that too (understandably).  He isn’t sleeping great so we are ready to get moved in and have his crib back so we can really get a routine down with him. 

We finally got moved into our apartment on the 22^nd of March.  We had a ton of help from our ward here and got everything moved in in about an hour and a half!  By Monday we had the downstairs all unpacked and by Friday we were pretty much done. We also got to go visit some friends up in Redding.  Since moving to Cali, we have already seen so many friends from Rexburg!  The Walkers were blessing their second little boy (so cute!) so we went up to stay the night and see him be blessed.  We left after sacrament so we could make it home in time to see the Haas’ stop by.  It was so fun to visit with old friends and let them meet Cooper. 

Cooper is now sleeping in his own bed the whole night and barely cries when we lay him down.  I think most of the crying stems from not wanting to miss out on all the fun from the day.  He can also sit himself up, which of course he did while we weren’t looking.  He is soooo close to crawling; we are keeping our eyes on him 24/7 so we don’t miss it. He is also clapping all the time, it is so cute. He is adjusting so well being here.  We have often wondered if this is where we really need to be but the Lord has shown us so many tender mercies that there is no denying this is EXACTLY where we need to be.  :)

Here are some pictures of our new place!

It Finally Happened! February 2013

It has been a busy month!  Lynn flew to California for a job interview, Valentine’s day, Cooper got RSV L, Lynn got the job!, we both got sick from Cooper, and we are planning a move!

For Valentine’s Day, we decided to celebrate the day after.  We left Cooper with his grandparents and went to Olive Garden.  We got to eat a whole meal, while it was hot, with both hands (not holding a child) and not be interrupted.  I had forgotten how awesome that is! It was definitely a treat since Cooper came down with a nasty cold that night and ever since then.  We took him into the doctor that next Tuesday to confirm that he had RSV, poor guy.  RSV is just a really bad respiratory infection that cause swelling in the throat and wheezing on babies.  So, now he has been doing breathing treatments every 4 hours during the day and sleeping in our bed at night!  It has been a long week but he seems to be feeling better now.  To top it off, he is cutting his 1^st tooth! He hadn’t been sleeping well for a while so we weren’t too surprised but he is growing up to fast!  We bought his some new jammies for Valentine’s Day and he got a new book and some other things from his grandma and grandpa Spain. 

Lynn got a job! he will star on April 8th with the Federaal Bureau of Prisons.

We also found out that we are moving! Finally.  This has been a long time coming and we are so excited to finally be moving on.  We have loved living in Rexburg but once we finished school, we were ready to get going on Lynn’s career.  We found out we were leaving on the 28^th of February and with the help of family and friends left the next Wednesday!  It was probably the busiest week of our lives.  On top of moving, Lynn is finishing up another semester of his master’s program and Cooper continues to cut new teeth every day! Or so it seems. 

We drove to Elko, NV on a Thursday, Sacramento on a Friday, and then Turlock on Saturday.  Since we don’t know where we will be living, we put everything into storage and headed about another 4 hours south to stay with my parents until we get into something!

January

It has been a busy month!  We had sub-zero temperatures, so cold that our power went out, school and work was cancelled, and it killed our car! The cold ruined our battery and I bought the wrong one to fix it. L So, now we are working on getting it running again but it’s so cold and there isn’t much day light by the time Lynn gets home from work it is a slow process.  Lynn also had a birthday!  He turned 27 on the 6^th of January.  We had lunch with his family and cake with friends. 

I am on a sweets-fast with one of my friends; we are trying to make it till Easter without eating junk food.  It’s not as bad as I thought it would be but I let myself have Sunday’s as a free day.  I have also really gotten back into running.  We can’t use the gym on campus but we can use their indoor track, which I run on about 4 days a week.  I am up to about 15 miles a week! I am also down about 8lbs from the 1^st of the year!  It’s slow but I am glad I am finally seeing results.  I want to run a half marathon soon; I just need to find one to sign up for and the weather to warm up!

Lynn started another semester of his grad program.  He is taking two classes this term so we are pretty much busy with homework every weeknight. L He is set to graduate with his MS in Leadership in June of 2014! Our goal is to be done before Cooper is two and we have any more kids.

Cooper is getting so big! We finally bought him a crib (he has been sleeping in his pack n’ play still).  We can’t wait to get it set up and see how he sleeps in it.  I went through all of his clothes this week to pull out his 6-9 month clothes and put away all his tiny stuff so we can put it in storage.  He is growing out of stuff so fast; there is so much he didn’t even get to wear a lot of it. He is getting good as sitting up and is sooooo! close to crawling.  He also has a new angry face we have been trying to get on camera for days with no luck, so we will keep trying. We took him bowling this month too!  He wasn’t exactly that interested but it was fun.  We will get some pictures of his nursery up soon!