Birthdays

Warning: Picture Overload!

In September we got to celebrate Andy and Eden's birthdays. The day before Andy's birthday was our ward campout. He and Eden decided to go to it (and I opted to stay home). They had a lot of fun.

Eden loved the s'mores!

The only unfortunate part of the trip was the bug bites. Eden got 16 of them- all on her face. She looked like she had the chicken pox and we had to keep reassuring people at church that she wasn't contagious!

Eden turned 4 years old a few days later. We can hardly believe it's been four years since she was born. Andy had the day off and Eden wanted us to take her to the zoo. Andy and I loved watching the new tiger cub.

Eden's favorite part was the butterfly exhibit

Eden got a new scooter for her birthday (along with a lot of other gifts - she sure is loved!) but I think her favorite gift this year was the pillow pet she's been drooling over for months. She got a unicorn pillow pet and named it Uni. It has hardly left her side since.

Eden asked for a princess birthday party with her friends this year. We had a lot of fun planning it and getting decorations. It was fun to watch 6 little princesses dancing around our house.

What we've been doing all summer: Part 1

So, it's been quite a while since I updated our blog. Our camera has not been communicating well with our computer and who wants to read a blog without pictures? Not me. Also we've been busy. And tired. Well, that last one might just be me...


We spent all of June and half of July out and about in the western US. Andy worked in Scottsbluff NE for 3 weeks and then we spent about 3 weeks in Utah with our families. It was really a lot of fun and we wish we could have spent more time there and seen a lot more people. As proof that we've been busy, here's a little photographic tour of what we were doing.


Scottsbluff is on the western edge of Nebraska, about 12 miles west of Chimney Rock. It is really quite a pretty little place. If it weren't in the middle of nowhere, I would recommend visiting it. Here is a view from the bluff.

While in western Nebraska, one must stop to visit Alliance- home to Carhenge.
It's arranged just like Stonehenge but it's made with spraypainted Cadillacs instead of stones. This is what people do for fun in Nebraska. All while wearing these hats:

We also went to the zoo in Scottsbluff and Eden had a lot of fun feeding ducks and smelling the flowers and eating Sno Cones and posing for the camera.

That concludes the first three weeks of our trip. Stay tuned for What we did this summer: Part 2- UTAH. It's still in post-production.

Happy Birthday!

This past week has been busy for us, but also a lot of fun. Andy's parents flew in last Thursday to spend a long weekend with us. Andy's birthday was on the 11th and we had a good time. We spend the weekend playing Beatles Rock Band and looking at animals at the zoo and the wildlife safari. We had an interesting experience with some large dive-bomber bats and some girly screams. We drank Sprechers root beer and ate cotton candy, played games and cheered for the Utes (go UTES!) and we laughed until we cried. A good time was had by all.

Eden's birthday was yesterday and she was all about the princesses this year. She asked for pretty much everything she could see that had a Disney princess on it, and she's so loved (aka spoiled) that she got most of it too. She played at the park with some of her friends in the morning and then opened her gifts after lunch. In the evening we had cake and ice cream and wanted to watch a princess movie she got for her birthday.

Eden shows us how old she is

Belle!

I can't believe my little baby is already 3 years old. How does the time go by so fast? It seems like I was just getting used to her being 2...

March Madness

March is almost over and we're all excited for April to get here. It's been a busy month for all of us and April is looking promising. Andy is doing an internal medicine rotation this month and it has kept him pretty busy. Next month he is going back to the ER where he is happiest so that will be great. We're hoping the weather starts warming up for spring. We haven't had any snow for a while, but the temperature has been pretty cold and last Monday we had the first tornado warning of the season (fortunately, it didn't touch down here). We did get a lot of rain and wind and after the storm blew over, Eden was really excited to go outside and play in her puddle jumpers. She jumped in a "river" in front of our neighbors house and got soaking wet, but loved every minute of it.

We were lucky enough to have good weather a couple Saturdays ago so we went to the zoo. It was a lot of fun. As we were leaving, we asked Eden what her favorite part was and she said she liked the waterfall best, followed by the fish and the ducks. Sometimes I wonder why we take her to the zoo for that...

Eden set her own table all by herself (tablecloth included) the other day and she looked so proud of herself, I had to take a picture. She's done this about 10 times since then.

And for your enjoyment, some more Eden-isms:

Eden made me some juice in her kitchen and told me it was "Lemonaid Molecule Juice"

She put her backpack on and told me she was going to "assembly". I didn't know she knew about assemblies so I asked her where she learned it and and she told me she learned it from "my friends at school". I don't think she has any friends that are in school.

She thinks she can tell time. If we ask her what time it is she looks at the second hand on the clock and says whatever number it is closest to. So it can go from four o'clock to eight o'clock in 20 seconds.

Andy was watchin basketball the other night and she told him she wanted to watch something girls watch, not boys.

This was our conversation Sunday morning:
E: "Mommy, do you want to hear a joke?"
J: "Okay..."
E: "What kind of bunny lives in a cup?"
J: "I don't know"
E: "A carrot bunny" (Lots of laughing) "What do you climb in a tree"
J: "I don't know"
E "Tree stairs" (Lots more laughing)
Now she just needs to come up with some jokes that are funny...

Look out world! Eden is TWO!

Eden had her second birthday on Tuesday and we decided to take her to the zoo for the day. We had heard Omaha has a really really good zoo and we wanted to check it out. It was a lot of fun and we ended up spending more time there than we were expecting to. We were all pretty worn out by the time we got to the car to head home but it was worth the trip. Eden loved all the animals and had a lot of fun. Here are some of the neat things we saw at the zoo.

In the Jungle

If you are interested, you can go to the Omaha Zoo website and find a webcam to watch these penguins play. They were a lot of fun.

The zoo has a lot of different gorillas to look at. Eden liked the "gorilla-la's" a lot but they were moving a lot and I had a hard time getting a picture of one. WE were sitting on a bench resting by an outdoor cage with a gorilla and when we weren't looking, he came right up behind us and startled us. I didn't get a good picture before he left, but you can see how big he is. It was pretty cool. I think he liked Eden. That's the gorilla on the left. :)

Our Flying Ace

This past week has been pretty busy for us. We've been trying to squeeze in a few last things before we move and we've started packing up boxes in preparation for the move. On Saturday we went to the zoo with the Browns and the kids had a really good time. It was pouring rain but they didn't seem to mind much. Eden loved the elephants and the "gorillallas". However, she was equally fascinated with the seagulls and the ducks so I'm not sure why we pay money to take her to the zoo. By the time we left, the rain was really coming down hard and both Eden and Alex were pretty soaked, but still having fun.


We also went to Oshkosh this week to go to the EAA air museum. It was quite interesting as well. Eden loved to run around and tell us the colors on all the planes. They have a kids area with some different activities for kids to enjoy and Eden loved it. She got to sit in the cockpit of an F22 that has lots of lit up buttons and switches and it makes noise. She was just in heaven. She spent so much time pushing buttons and pulling levers and saying "Eight, Nine, Ten, ZOOM!" She asks us all the time if she can drive the car and we say no, but I guess flying airplanes is okay. We could have left her in the cockpit and gone through the rest of the museum and I don't think she would have noticed we were gone. So if you want ideas for her birthday, an F22 would be a good idea. Do you know where we could buy one, Brian?

Weekend Fun

I know, it's been a whole week since my last post, but we've been busy doing things to blog about. We have been living in Wisconsin for almost 4 years now and we had never ventured to the Dells or to Madison so we decided to take a trip this past weekend with our friends the Browns. Our first stop was to Madison to look at the state capitol building and go to the zoo. Eden had a lot of fun looking at the otters and we all got rained on, which Eden also thought was fun.

After that we headed up to the Dells. If you've never heard of Wisconsin Dells, it is the Waterpark Capitol of the World. I'm probably not the only one who finds it strange that this title goes to a city in the middle of Wisconsin, but there you have it. They have probably at least 20 big resort/hotels with indoor and outdoor waterparks and some of them are pretty elaborate. We stayed at the Polynesian and had a good time. It took Eden a while to warm up to the water but she did eventually get in and play and splash. She loved the big toys that had steering wheels.

Andy and Matt had a lot of fun going down the waterslides and seeing how wet they could get the lifeguards. I think they may have regressed about 15 years, but they had a good time too. We put Alex and Eden's pack and plays next to each other at night and they stayed up past 10:00 playing together. Alex would get down low and then jump up and say 'Peek' to Eden and she would laugh and then Eden would hold out her hand and say 'Gimme Five' and Alex would give her five and laugh. It was so fun to see them playing together. They sure are going to miss each other when we move.

We also ate lunch one day at a really good place in the dells called Moosejaw Lodge. They have excellent pizza and homemade root beer. Also, they have lots of antlers.

We finished off the trip with a stop at Circus World, the original winter quarters of the Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey Circus. It was fun to look around at all the circus stuff they have. It would have been fun to go during 'the season' because they do circus performances but we still had a pretty good time. The weather was beautiful and warm. You can see Eden hollering in this picture. This is how Eden acted during most of the time we were at the museum. We were about ready to close the door on her and leave her in there. Well, not really....

Despite the way she looks, we all had a really fun weekend. It was fun to do a last hurrah with the Browns before we go to Omaha and they go to Houston. We're so glad we have them as our friends.