St Louis!

We have had a great summer!  Lots of swimming and the girls and I did lots of traveling.  We were able to visit both Colorado and Utah and see lots of family. We met Mark's fiance, Whitney  She is great and we are so excited to have her in our family.

It was fun to see all of my family except Luke who is on his mission in Brazil, and Jordan wasn't able to come.  We are all getting so OLD!

Lovin Gramie and Papa's pool!

All the 'Louise' name sakes.  I was horrible at taking pictures while we were in Utah!  Please share sisters!!

Swimming at the Bohn's with Aunt Natalie!  Brynlee has become quite the swimmer!  She was so proud that she dived off the diving board and swam all the way to the other end of the pool (quite a distance!).  She loves swimming on her back the most.  Water wings are a thing of the past :)  We loved having Natalie here!

We survived our move thanks to my wonderful parents and siblings and we are now St Louis residents!  I am LOVING our new home and living in the city.   Our townhome is almost three times the size of our last apartment and even has a fenced in area in the back.  I love my kitchen and all my cupboard space and especially all of our storage space in the basement.  It scares me a little to watch the local news because of all of the crime here, but I feel like we live in a pretty safe neighborhood.  Jordan and I took turns going to the temple last Saturday and it only took me 8 minutes to get there!  Thrilled! 

As you might imagine, these girls were quite helpful (I mean destructive) during our move.

On Ellie's birthday, we went to see the famous St Louis Arch.  It's pretty huge!

Jordan has been working out :)

Residency is still residency for Jordan, but I feel like maybe we see hime a little more often...maybe.  So far he hasn't had to be gone more than the last year especially because he doesn't have to go in as often when he is on call. He did spend some time out of town this last month at a military base and I'm glad that is over.  I think he is a little sad about it though since it provided some great surgical experiences (even a total ankle!).

The girls and I have been staying busy exploring the city and playing!  There are so many fun things to do up here and most of them are free. We bought a membership to the children's museum (Magic House) and they love playing there.  They are growing so much!  Ellie turned '1' just after our move.  We had cake with my parents and cousin, Kellie, and her family.  She is walking pretty consistently now.  She loves singing "Popcorn Popping," "Little Bunny Foo Foo," and lots of other primary action songs.  She is saying more words like, "thank you," "amen," "bubbles," "all done," and "ni-night." She loves reading books and playing with Brynlee's tea set.  We  have a few sesame street books, but she saw Elmo on TV for the first time the other day.  She was so excited.  I can't believe how many times she said, "Elmo!"  Now when we see pictures of him anywhere she get so excited.  She's adorable but definitely likes to have things her way.

She looks so thrilled in all of her bday pictures!

How old are you Ellie?

Brynlee is looking forward to turning 4! She is also getting excited for the primary program at church.  She continues to get better at reading and writing.  She completely amazed us a couple nights ago when we let her read during our scripture study.  She did awesome even on some big words.  We were blown away.  She kills me sometimes with the way she speaks too.  The other day in the car she said, "Mom, there sure are a lot of hotels in this area."  The same day a car sped by and she said, "He isn't sustaining the law, is he?"  Yesterday, I sent her to her room upstairs and she said, "If I go up to my room, I'll be all alone and I'm not ok with that situation!"  She really is 3 going on 23.  She is quick to remind everyone though that she is almost 4 years old. 

All in all, life is good.  As much as I hate to move, it has been good to get to know so many great people whereever we live.  We miss so many friends and family!  Keep in touch.... or better yet, come see us!



Happy Father's Day!!!

I really do have the best dad in the whole world! He's an even better Grandpa 'Papa' and my girls adore him as well. Their dad is absolutely amazing too. He is so busy, but is sure to give them all the time he has and they love him for it. There are many screams of joy when daddy comes home, and it is always fun and games when he is here. Ellie is such a daddy's girl that I feel a little envious at times. We are so lucky to have him and appreciate all he does for us. There are many other wonderful men in our lives that are great examples to us and that we love! Thanks for being so great!

We've been staying busy with all sorts of fun things over the last month or so!  Of course our girls keep growing and learning and we love it! A few weeks ago we visited the Cahokia Mounds just across the river from St. Louis in IL. They are the remains of an native american civilization.  We thought it was so amazing and very interesting as we were able to hike the stairs up to the supposed temple and explore the museum.  It was a very hot and muggy day, but it was fun.  Brynlee was such a trooper.

The Saturday before Memorial Day weekend we went to Johnson's Shut In's down here in southeast Missouri with my cousin Kellie and fam.  I'm a loser and didn't take pictures for fear of my camera being broken/stolen/washed down stream. It is a cool place to play in the river.  There are lots of big rocks and a decent current that keeps the water fairly clean.  Brynlee especially had a blast sliding down rocks and catching tadpoles.  It was a beautiful day and lots of fun!

Memorial Day was quite memorable for us this year.  We went to a party at some friends in our ward's home who have an awesome pool.  We've been swimming there many times before and lately Brynlee has felt more than comfortable in the water.  She is still wearing her water wings most of the time but she loves jumping of the diving board, the sides of the pool, and going down the slide.  She is FEARLESS.  She had been doing all of this at the party over and over and over.  She wanted to show her primary teacher how awesome she is so she marched up the ladder of the slide and tells Sister Jensen to watch.  We, completely expecting her to slide down as she has multiple times, watch as she takes a leap off the slide trying to make it into the pool.  I had a complete heart attack as I watched her land on her bottom on the concrete and then bounce into the pool.  I was sure she had some serious injuries.  She was screaming (of course) as we fetched her out of the pool.  I was ready to take her to the ER right then, even nervous about holding her since I thought it likely she had a back injury.  I was very impressed with the way Jordan handled it.  (It probably helped that he didn't see it happen!)  But really, that was the first time I saw him as a physician.  He did great!  Miraculously, 20-30 minutes later she walked into the house to eat, and shortly after that she was back in the pool and going down the slide again.  The next day there was not even a bruise nor was she the slightest bit tender.  We feel so blessed that she landed the way she did and where she did or things could have been much worse.  Even still, I'm sure there must have been an angel that slowed her fall and I am so grateful!!

 This is the slide she jumped off of.  This is on a different day, but you can see she was lucky not to have fallen on the rocks!

Since then we've been swimming on a regular basis at our apartment pool, blowing plenty of bubbles, taking walks, and trying to teach Brynlee to swing a bat.  We love the evenings we get to spend with Jordan.  He is on call for most of the month of June so we feel like we've seen less of him lately which makes that time even more valuable.  The girls and I were able to go pick blueberries at a farm a couple of times.  It is a fun thing to do and we love the berries even more

Last weekend we were able to take a fun trip to Nauvoo and Springfield, IL.  Several of Jordan's extended family members were touring the midwest church history sites and were were able to meet them in Nauvoo.  We were able to be in them temple together on what would have been his grandparents 75th wedding anniversary.  It was an amazing experience.  We enjoyed seeing Carthage jail and the sites around Nauvoo.  We saw some family member's graves and heard stories of their courage and sacrifices.  We are grateful for our rich pioneer heritage.  Brynlee and Ellie's favorite part of the trip was watching BYU's ballroom dance team perform.  They were both dancing and squealing and Brynlee was obsessed with all the sparkily dresses and shoes. It was wonderful to be with family and make memories.

We also had a great time in Springfield, touring some of the Abraham Lincoln sites. Jordan and I have been reading Killing Lincoln which made it that much more interesting. They have an awesome museum and we also went to his tomb. I'm already looking forward to going back and spending more time there.

Ellie is now 10 months and weighed in this week at a whopping 15.6 lbs taking her off the chart into the negatives.  She is such a little peanut.  She already loves pestering her sister and finds it hilarious.  She is walking along furniture but rarely gets brave enough to try on her own.  She says, "Papa, Dada, bye-bye, and yea!"  I'm still waiting to hear "mama!"  She is also signing for 'more,' 'please,' and 'all done.'  Her latest obsession is the bathroom and particularly unrolling the toilet paper.  She also LOVES the bath!

Brynlee is most certainly getting a mind of her own.  I feel like she's 3 going on 13.  She has the 13 Articles of Faith memorized and is getting to be a great reader.  She was so sad to see her cousins go when we were in Nauvoo and is so excited to see them next month.

We did find a place to live in the Creve Couer area and will be moving at the end of July.  We are excited about the short commute for Jordan and feel like we are getting a relatively good deal on the townhome we are renting.  It will be nice to have more options for shopping and more to do, but we will miss the friends we've made here in Farmington.  One year of residency down, two to go!!!!!