The North Pole Express!

Trains  +

Cookies and hot chocolate +

Daddy + 

 Santa =

BEST. DAY. EVER.!!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! We had our own little happy meal this year with Rivers going as a hamburger and Lilly and Heidi going as hot dogs!

We started the night eating a yummy soup dinner next door with our neighbors the MacFarlanes. The kids were about to jump out of their skin to go trick or treating, so we got the dogs into their costumes and we were off! Rivers did so good trick or treating - didn't mind his costume, wasn't scared, went right up and said "tick or teet" and "thank you." 

Our little anxious Heidi was about thrown over the edge with all the kids and attention, so we had to drop her off and kept going with just Lilly :) We went to about 7 or 8 houses before we came back and handed out candy at our house. Our neighborhood is so great - we had tons of trick or treaters and ran out of candy by about 8:30. Rivers ran around with the neighborhood kids in our front yard and ate a lot of candy. He kept coming up to me and saying trick or treat, and he was so darn cute I kept giving him candy out of our own bowl! I really think he loved it and it was so fun to watch him having so much fun!

Claire the bat and Rivers the burger

Me with my spider deviled eggs and Jenny the hillbilly :) The funny thing is that no one here understood her costume - I told her if she was in SC she would fit right in!

The happy meal on the move!

Trick or Treat!

Our family picture. Notice the doll heads beside us - while we were out trick or treating someone put decapitated cabbage patch doll heads on our walkway! Ha! It was so creepy we just left them there for effect!

Three hours later and on a sugar high - he has a bit of chocolate on his cheek if you look carefully!

Our Jack o Lantern!

Video Extravaganza

Since I finally got an iPhone (with an awesome video camera) I've been taking lots of videos. Enjoy!

Days of the Week

My Über-talented mom made Rivers this little starter calendar and gave it to him on their visit a few weeks ago. 

He LOVES it and is so excited to change the cards everyday to match the weather and what we are doing for the day. One of the first times we used it, after talking about what we had scheduled for the week, I started teaching him the days of the week. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: Sunday
R: Sundaaaay
Me: Monday
R: Ma-daaaay
Me: Tuesday
R: Too-daaaay
Me: Wednesday
R: Wez-daaaay
Me: Thursday
R: Ur-daaaay
Me: Friday
R: Fye-daaaay
Me: Saturday
R: TOUCHDOWN!

Ha ha! That boy knows what happens around here on the weekends! Here's a similar video, without the touchdown :)

Kisses All Around

Rivers kisses Heidi...

Rivers kisses Daddy...

Heidi kisses Daddy!

A Day in the Park

Hi friends! Wanted to let you know about two others blogs that I'm working on and will probably update more than this one. They are:

http://365daysinutah.blogspot.com/


and 


http://rockinrivers.blogspot.com/


We're doing great in Utah! We miss everyone but we're having a great time.

Times are a changin'!

Since those lovely pictures of the Dominican Republic below, life has been quite busy! In the past few weeks we have:

1. Transitioned to working part time from home (me - mid-May)

2. Graduated from the Ortho Residency program (June 17)

3. Gotten roasted (Shay) at the annual ortho roast (June 18)

4. Celebrated Father's Day (June 19) at Frankie's Fun Park

5. Moved out of our house and in with Shay's parents (June 22)

6. Celebrated Dr Koch's birthday by biking to TR on the Swamp Rabbit Trail (and of course stopping for ice cream - June 25)

7. Had a 2nd Birthday Party for Rivers (kind of early - June 26)

8. Celebrated my mom's birthday with crab legs at Joe's Crab Shack (June 27, actual birthday June 30)

9. Helped my mom after her surgery (June 29)

10. Closed on our house (yay! - June 29)

11.Studied for boards (Shay again - July 7)

12. Bought one way (!) plane tickets to Salt Lake City (me and Rivers)

13. Investigated the fastest driving routes to Salt Lake and hotels that accept dogs (Shay)

Whew! In the words of Vinny, from My Cousin Vinny, "Is there anything else we can pile on?!?!" :) Next up...my birthday (July 12) , Rivers' real birthday (July 14), and the BIG MOVE! Shay leaves on July 13 and Rivers and I leave on July 17. Hopefully I'll get to post again before we leave!

The D.R.!

We are just back from an incredible trip to the Dominican Republic and we had a blast!!! We went with Jon and Whitney and their friends (and now ours) Claire and Eric. We stayed in a condo on the marina at Cap Cana where we had just about the whole resort to ourselves since it's the off season there. Cap Cana has gorgeous beaches full of coral, white sand, turquoise water, and it was really neat to be by the marina and see all of the big boats. We went to a few local beaches - Juanillo and Bavaro, and went to the very posh Cap Cana beach club. The guys played an amazing golf course near the beach club and we even saw them from our beach chairs on hole 12! We also had very yummy food at neat little local restaurants...I could go on and on, but it was perfect weather, fun fruity drinks, way too much food and the most fantastic company. In short - paradise! An extra special thank you to our parents for keeping our little monkey during our getaway. We truly appreciate it!

Salt Lake City!

Last week Shay and I went with some dear friends to Salt Lake City to see our soon-to-be new town! Shay and some of his fellow residents had a conference there, and some of the wives tagged along. We had a wonderful and successful trip - we found a house!!!

We had been looking at this house online for several weeks, but didn't want to commit until we saw it. As soon as we were in it I fell in love! It is fully furnished - down to the silverware - so we only have to bring clothes, toys and Rivers' crib. That is a huge relief for us as I really didn't want to haul our entire house full of furniture and stuff across the country twice in one year!

the view from a few streets over

The house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (yes, that means a "guest suite" is available for visitors!!) a playroom, and a fenced in backyard. Lilly and Heidi will be making the trip with us, and the backyard is perfect for them. Even better than the house is the neighborhood. The day we visited it was sunny and the quiet streets were FULL of kids! There is a cute little local shopping area with a deli, starbucks, book store, etc that is just a few blocks from our house, and a few more blocks away is Liberty Park. It is an incredible park - huge with a duck pond, playgrounds, and everything. There are also gorgeous mountain views from anywhere in SLC, even from our street!

Other than the house, we went skiing almost all week. We went to Snowbird and Alta (Alta was my favorite). Shay was in heaven, and I think I was a good sport :) I certainly was not the best skier, and the slopes were way steeper than I was used to, but the scenery was unbelievable and the runs were (as promised) much wider and less crowded than the east coast. I'm sure after we're out there for a year I will at least be able to get on the blues. Please note: there are not many pictures of Shay skiing because he skis at places that I would never even consider walking on, let alone skiing on! :)

shay and the boys

meg and me

gorgeous snow!

the whole crew

We had such a great time with great friends, and I am really, truly excited for our adventure out west.