Catching Up 2017

I seem to find myself in a state of constant catch up for our family blog instead of just maintaining a steady stream of new posts. But because of our upcoming adventure (soon to be revealed--once I have caught up on everything) I will be better at blogging. So 2017:

January-April: Tim finished his second semester in his Masters program of Linguistics and is still studying Mandarin Chinese. He hurried up and completed almost all of his course work in the first two semesters so he'd be able to just work on his thesis for the last year. That will make the next year nice, but it meant 16 credits of graduate classes this last semester, which really tested him. He branched out into some computational linguistics (programing and such stuff), and cognitive linguistics (brain stuff and artificial intelligence) which stretched him as well. He has figured out his thesis topic (finding out how personal relationships with native speakers of a language impact study abroad students' language learning while overseas) and his thesis committee. He is excited to finally start his research!

I took advanced Biochemistry online through Kansas State from Jan-May. It was a tough class but I was glad for the challenge - mentally and time-wise. One of the biggest challenges during it all was finding time to read, study, watch lectures, take quizzes and tests while my children were asleep. When I went back to school I decided to not do any school work while the kids were awake and instead place them first. It made things interesting (early mornings and late nights) but totally worth it. Tim helped me achieve that goal by staying home with the kids allowing me to me go on campus and do homework a couple days a week. I don't think I could have done so well in the course without his help.

This summer I start my dietetics core and although I am a bit nervous I know I can do it with all the support Tim has given me. So my advice to all you moms or dads that are finishing school and have kids -You can do it! Take one day at a time, and you got this!

In other news:

Maggie turned one! She is crawling but not yet walking. She loves and eats all food in sight. She loves spending time with Dominic and will crawl into his room and destroy anything he is working on - oh the joys of siblings!

Loving her birthday cupcake!

Special little birthday moccasins crocheted by Grandma Hall.

Loves her Papa. 

Dominic turned four and loves being "old". We had a little party at the park and he loved playing with cousins and friends. I made him a construction site cake and it turned out great!

Construction site cake. Dominic wondered why it was all "broken up". Once we explained, he liked it. 

I was worried that it would be a "pinterest-fail", but thankfully it wasn't. When Dom saw the cake he said, "Why are there trucks in my cake. Can you take them out?" I couldn't help but laugh at his request. I don't think he got the idea that the excavators and dump trucks were a part of the cake. All he wanted was to play with them in the dirt, which is did later. Overall, his birthday was so fun!

The cake got almost all eaten - must have tasted good. 

Just before his birthday, Dom filled his "noodle jar" for good behavior and earned a Strider bike. You can see here how excited he was. It took him about 4 months to fill the jar, but he did it by helping out around the house without being asked to, doing extra nice things for his sister, and other behavior we wanted to encourage.

He zooms all over the place now and balances really well. Thanks to my sister-in-law Bita for cluing us in about these bikes!

For Dom's birthday, Tim's sister and her family surprised him by coming to visit from Idaho and he was thrilled! They stayed a day extra in Utah and did some adventuring with us. We went on a local hike in Provo Canyon and later went to Scheels to ride the ferris wheel. Needless to say, Dom was pooped after all the fun. We were too. In fact, we were so partied out that Maggie came down with a nasty stomach bug. She hardly ate for a couple days straight. All she wanted to do was nurse, which made me really glad I have put off weaning her. I just love that special Mama/baby time.

The last couple hundred yards still had snow, and a few of us braved it, including Tim with Maggie in the carrier.

Timp Falls, looking like a trickle because the real glory of the waterfall is hidden by the snow.

Tim (still with Maggie) climbed down between the mountain and the snow field to get right up under the waterfall. This picture doesn't show it, but the falls cascade down a good 20 feet or more under the snow - it was beautiful!

Tim down between the mountain and the snow field. 

Irene on the way down. Maggie was pretty mad at Tim for taking her up the snowfield (though she did calm down when he sledded down several hundred yards of snow on his behind with her strapped to his chest). She needed her Mama, and went right to sleep on me while we hiked down. 

Since February, Tim and I have been training for the Teton Dam marathon in Rexburg, Idaho. Lots of early morning runs, blisters, Gatorade, new shoes, and juggling children. It has been fun training alongside Tim but it has been a bit more challenging with two little kids instead of one. But we did it! This weekend is the marathon. So if we survive, then I'll post about it.

Here are some other pictures of fun we've been having, with their descriptions in the captions. I think that brings us up to date, so I can get ready to post about the big life change coming up for us this fall. Stay tuned for the exciting news and lots of adventures to come!

I got to go to a special one-day conference with my sister-in-law Bita. It was called the Simple Joy conference, and focused on uplifting mothers and giving them tools to bring the power of art, music, storytelling, and joy into their homes. We've implemented some of the things I learned about, and it has been great! In the past couple of weeks Dom has memorized four poems with us which we work on every day in our own little Family Devotional. 

As part of his birthday celebrations, Dom really wanted to ride a train. So we took the FrontRunner to Salt Lake City and had a fun day there. 

I'm growing a garden in the backyard of a kind sister in our ward who lent me a little patch of soil. Stuff is growing! Can't wait for all my zucchinis! Going over there to water each evening is a special calm time that I always look forward to. 

My friend Oyuki and I attempted to make a Mexican sweet bread called Conchas. They came out ok, even though they weren't quite authentic. We still ate them up really fast!