From Sea to Shining Sea...well, almost.

 We have done our fair share of driving this summer! We've had 2 oil changes in less than a month, and the last one was 100 miles late. YEAH! But before the road adventures began, we started the fun here at home.

So...get ready...here's a quick whirlwind of an update.

 

Hiking in Northern Iowa, swimming at the Reservoir with friends, and a visit to the City Park mini-theme park with friends (Caleb so brave to go in one of those ferris-wheel-style basket rides...with his dear friend M. Just now he started crying when I told him she had moved away...aww!)

For Father's Day we all gave Justin a dutch oven. On our first camping trip for the summer, he made us breakfast! It was so yummy and it totally looks hard core! The kids loved camping, too!

Then we drove 15 hours to Gatlinburg, TN. LONG drive, short visit, and then LONG drive home. BUT, it was great to see my whole family (this was the Hart family reunion), and to meet my new sister-in-law, Thaciana! She's such a gem and so sweet! She doesn't speak much English, and I don't speak Portuguese, but late night hot tubs parties cross all language barriers! It was so much fun! And the scenery was beautiful! After we made it back home...we continued on to Utah to see Justin's family (18 hours drive time)!

Once in Utah we had fun with the Bountiful Fourth of July Parade and then a visit to Hill Air Force Museum. So impressive, so much fun!

We even got to meet up with some good ol' friends!! I love reunions, friends and family alike! Good to see you folk!

Caleb LOVED his cousins, on both sides.On my side, A is rather rowdy...and Caleb is a shadow. He picked up a few tricks from him. On Justin's side, A (odd that it's the same letter, lol) is also very rowdy...enough to eat dry wall when he was younger. Caleb loved playing with him, but since they are 2 months apart, the squabbles only increased by the minute they were together! 

We were blessed to be able to attend cousin J's baptism, too! Such an exciting time for him! 

We also went shooting (I have decided I really like a .22 revolver...), but I don't have any pictures of it! You can't go to Utah without visiting Temple Square, and it was so pleasant to take Caleb and Mackenzie there. 

After about 10 days of action packed fun in Utah, we started our drive home. That included a slight detour to the Dinosaur Museum...but then we decided to go through Colorado instead of Wyoming (why torture ourselves anymore?), and that also allowed us to go through Manti, where we were sealed. It was lovely to see the Manti temple again!

And the lower right picture, of our car next to...yes, you see it right! it's Mater! A random real Mater somewhere in Southern Utah! And just to spice it up even more...

And that's the condensed update! More adventures to follow, to be sure!

From Baby to Toddler

Mackenzie had her first birthday May 25, 2012. I can't believe she's already one year! I was coping and dealing with the idea at least a week before the celebratory day; I kept crying at the thought that she would no longer be my baby! Thankfully, I kept myself under control during her "party." I just made a simple cake and iced it with blue icing and put rubber duckies on it. Caleb loved being able to help her blow out the candle, too. No matter the size or extravagance, Mackenzie loved digging into all that sweetness!

 

Afterwards we opened presents. She loved the gifts from both sets of Grandparents and Caleb and she still enjoy playing with them together. She was especially thrilled to receive her very own helmet! YAHOO! I love this picture with Caleb and her signing "hat" to each other as if she's saying, "Look! I have one now, too!" She also had her first ride on an animal on the carousel, and she freaked out. 

Grandma Hart gave us numerous cute bows and barrettes and Mackenzie has since decided that they are cool. She loves me to put them in her hair; even if she pulls one out, she'll hand them to me insisting I put it back.

She also had her one year check up appointment recently. She was so brave: 3 shots and a blood sample! Here are her stats:
Head: 46.5 cm; about 85%tile
Length: 30.71 inches; 92%tile
Weight: 21 lbs 9 oz; 58%tile

So she's still pretty tall, but not very heavy. I'm not sure how, since she eats all the time! She took her first steps on Thursday, June 7. She's getting better and better! She loves bikes and loves being outside; she loves bears, especially Care Bears (yes! a girl after my own heart!); She loves balls, too, and Justin found her carrying around my soccer ball last week. We're getting close! She's also cut two more teeth this past week. It's been an eventful few weeks for her!

I love my Mackenzie. She is such a cuddle bug and will just give me hugs; she LOVES Justin and cries when he leaves the room; she gets so excited when he comes home from school!;  she hates me holding books for her but she loves reading books by herself; She loves Caleb and loves playing with him; and she loves putting her feet on the table. She is our darling baby girl...who is now a toddler! I can't believe she's already 1!

Happy Birthday, our precious daughter!

Delayed Post = Frustrated

So, I just spent time working on a post about Mackenzie birthday...and somehow the text didn't save from Picasa to online...LAME! so, that post will have to wait, because I'm too frustrated/annoyed to try and recreate it right now.

Don't you hate it when that happens??

Excitement in May

Is it sad that the whole new blogger interface update was new to me and I'm pretty sure it happened a while ago?


Anyway, May has been great! At the beginning of May, Justin had his white coat ceremony (more pictures to come, I hope). Basically, at Iowa they do it at the end of the first year instead of right when you start because they consider it kind of an "initiation." The students will now be working on actual patients at the clinic...starting today, actually. Yay! Ironically, Justin's first patient canceled. But, he gets to work on me in a couple of weeks! Just a cleaning for starters, so it'll be great.

Part of the celebration included a visit from Grandma and Grandpa A. Caleb LOVED seeing them again and soaked up their attention and love like the best of them. Mackenzie liked Grandpa more than Grandma, but even Grandma grew on her towards the end. All in all, it was a fun visit!

 
May has brought some nice warm weather, too, so we've been enjoying splashing around in the pool. This is in the backyard part of our complex and all the kiddos enjoy the cool water on a nice hot day!

We took a random drive to North eastern Iowa last weekend. It has a surprising amount of hills and trees and rivers and such: not what you imagine Iowa looking like. It was beautiful!! Very rural, but we found a quaint little town, Elkader, Iowa, that had an AWESOME quilting/fabric store.  Plus, we ate fried chicken on the drive!

 
 We had an FHE activity that Caleb was in charge of (of course, I helped a lot). We did The Little Red Hen story, and the copy that we checked out from the library happened to have a cake recipe at the back of it. So, as our activity/treat we made cake. And that involved flour. And that let to a flour fight and flour-covered children and kitchen floor. It was fun! It was a great activity, too.

And last but not least...May has brought a special birthday. Next post on that!

Spring Break...so long ago!

It truly does seem like Spring Break was so long ago...and it was so short! Justin worked the Thursday and Friday of it, and we were all sick at the beginning, so it was not much of a break. But, we tried to have some fun.

In addition to the Niabi Zoo we visited on Saturday that I already posted about, we took a trip to Bass Pro Shops (things are exciting here in Iowa).


It was actually really fun! There was a big aquarium and a race car arcade...and the undersea bowling alley! Super cool! The lanes kind of glowed with fish and obviously our ball return was a shark. Caleb made us laugh because he wouldn't use his little ramp thing and would just sit and push the ball. It went SO slowly but he only scored a couple of points below me! He's go some sort of hidden skill there!

We also had some fun just going on bike rides and playing outside. Mackenzie has such a goofy grin here!

We also went swimming that week and the kids LOVED it! it was sooo fun (indoors). We're looking forward to going again! Spring Break was fun...and we are counting down the weeks until Summer break!