Trip to Hershey and Baltimore



We had such a grand time visiting our old home a week ago. Going back it really felt like we were coming home, and it was almost like we'd never left. But then everyone's kids were older and a lot of friends weren't there anymore and I was like, yeah I guess it has been a year. It's strange and cool how you lay down roots in so many different places and they each feel like home. Centerville, Logan, Hershey, and University Heights all feel like home to me. I kind of love it.

 

Anyway, so here's what we did.

 

Saturday we rolled in to Hershey at around 5pm. We stayed with our good friends from med school Beth and Aaron Baker. Aaron was in Trey's class in med school and one of his best friends. We sure love those Bakers. We had a cookout and relaxed and then went over to King Kone for some delicious ice cream.

 

Sunday was Easter! We went to the good old Hershey ward and saw lots of our friends. It was so fun to see everyone and catch up. Beth and Aaron cooked us a fabulous Easter feast that we devoured. After we went on a little walk down a country road. I love the open spaces and rolling hills out there. It is starting to get really green and beautiful. That's one thing I miss about PA.

 

Monday we did all our Hershey-related things we wanted to do. In the morning we went to Chocolate World and it did not disappoint. It brought back lots of good memories of going there many a time just me and Luce. They are in the process of remodeling a bunch of it right now but the singing cows ride was the same so we were happy.

 

 After Choc World, we went to Fuddruckers. Trey had been craving some chili cheese fries from there. I think we converted Beth to Fudds.

 After lunch, we headed up to the duck pond by our old apartment. This was a place we frequented when we lived there. The girls had a blast throwing rocks into the pond and watching the silly ducks.

 Then we went on a walk up the trail a little way until we realized Ruby really needed a nap. :)

 This is when she was throwing a fit because she didn't want to leave. We kept walking and she just stood there and cried. It was so cute, we just laughed and I snapped this picture.

 We went back to the Bakers and Rubes napped for a minute and then we headed over to our old apartment at UME and visited with our old neighbors and played on the old playground. I have so many great memories of that place, it was fun to go back. After we picked up some pizzas at Mr. Sorrentos and headed up to the McCallisters for dinner. We sure love those guys.

Tuesday we took it easy and had a nice, lazy morning. It was chilly and rainy. We headed down to Lancaster after lunch to do some thrifting at Salvation Army where we scored some awesome high top Nike's for Lucy for $1.50! They are pretty rockin'.
Beth took us down to downtown Lancaster which was sooo cool. I couldn't believe we never explored down there when we lived in Hershey. They have some really fun vintage shops there that we were all drooling over. We found some cool prints for our house.
Then we met up with Kate! She was working nights so she had just woken up. We even Skyped with Fred while we were there. Then Trey took the girls home and me and Beth explored a few more stores. It was so dreamy shopping kidless. :)
That night we had more pizza from Sorrentos (no complaints here!) and Aaron came! He's a busy man, they are working him like crazy! I feel bad for both of them but hopefully his schedule will improve when he's finished with his intern year.
After dinner, we parted with the Bakers and went to the Voyles house for homemade spudnuts that they busted out in our honor. It was so fun to see them and catch up and see the Hintzes there too. Two wonderful families from our ward with kids a bit older, some on missions and in high school and middle school.

Wednesday we went thrifting in Palmyra to the best Goodwill I've ever been to. It's clean, huge, and they have tons of great stuff! They get a bunch of Target stuff that's brand new so it's always fun to check that stuff out. We found not one, but two of these dog planters so Beth and I both got one. I love our matching dog planters so much. We also found a cool clock and a bunch of clothes for Lucy. Thrifting is the best. I just love getting a good deal.
The rest of the day we just hung around the house while Ruby napped and we enjoyed hanging out with Beth and Murphy. The girls love that dog so much. He would always growl at Ruby because she's a little more rough and in your face than Lucy is. Murphy and Luce have a special bond they've had for a long time now. Total buddies. Someday we'll get these girls a dog...but not anytime soon. :)

Ruby loved Beth's red chair

 Thursday we packed it up and headed down to Baltimore to the Niehoff Residence. Yet another place that feels like home. We always refer to them as our east coast family. They took such good care of us during med school. We sure love that family.
Betsy took Lucy and Ruby on a nature walk and Trey and I stayed at the house and both fell asleep. We had dinner and then Betsy and Trey took the girls on another adventure to look for turtles and beavers down a trail.
Friday we went to IKEA and got a bunch of cheap, fun stuff for the house and then stopped at Andy Nelsons for some amazing barbeque on our way back to Forest Hill.
Saturday we went down to the University of Maryland to see Tess and go to Maryland Day on campus. Then we came back to the house and picked crabs! They were delicious as always.

 

 Lucy even got into it. She loved smashing the claws and getting the meat out. She said it tasted like chicken. Ruby loved banging the mallets on anything she could find. She hung out with Miss Bev and she gave her all the jellybeans she wanted.

On Sunday morning, we packed it up once again and hit the road for home. We stopped in Hershey one more time to say hi to the Flints, some friends from the ward that we didn't get a chance to talk to at church. And then on the way home we stopped in State College to see our other friends the Woods and have lunch. They used to live in the Hershey ward and then moved for a fellowship and then moved to State College for a job. Lucy and Sawyer used to be good buddies. They had fun playing while we chatted.

And that is our trip in a nutshell! We saw lots of friends and ate great food, our 2 goals for the trip. I think it was a success. It was so nice to getaway and have some fun family time too. The girls did great in the car and we had fun playing games and laughing at Ruby being her silly self.

Spring-ish

It finally feels like spring!! Hooray!! The high today was 81! I feel like we went from winter to spring for a few days and then straight to summer, ha ha. Don't worry, it sounds like in 2 days we're going back to winter. No joke, it's supposed to get below freezing on Tuesday and possibly snow. And then it's supposed to turn back into spring. Gotta love this cray cray weather we're having. And yes, I did just say "cray cray". Trey loves it when I use teen slang. He really like "totes" and "adorbs" too, especially when I say them together. :) I usually do it just to get a rise out of him because it's fun.

Alright, let's talk about the week. It was awesome! I started off on a just-after-conference high and then we got to have a special sacrament meeting in the Kirtland Temple which was amazing! See my previous post for more details.

Have I mentioned how cool our neighbors are? Well, in case I haven't, my neighbors are the coolest! Our neighbors across the street, the Northups, gave us their old swing set because they inherited a new one. The girls play on it every day. Ruby would swing in the "airplane swing" all day if I let her. Then the other day our other neighbor Paul dropped off some razor scooters that his boys don't use anymore. Everyone keeps giving us stuff! It's so great! The girls are loving it and so are we for that matter. :)

Tuesday the weather was gorgeous so after dinner Trey got out our outdoor fireholder thing we got for super cheap (thank you Giant Eagle) and built a fire! Me and Rubes went to Target and got some s'more fixins and we s'more'd it up. It felt like summer and it made me so so happy. I'm such a warm weather gal. The winters always get a little depressing for me, especially towards the end. This weather is a dream.

Wednesday we had our other neighbors and bestest friends the Hodges over for pizza. We hadn't seen or talked to them in a while so we had a good time catching up. They just got back from a trip to Mexico (for Carolyn's brother's wedding).

Thursday I took the girls over to Anne Evan's house to see her baby chicks. They were so cute! Lucy held one and Ruby pet one. These girls are ga-ga for any little creatures.

At night, Trey and I sent the kiddos to the Hodges while we went to Kindergarten Information Night for Lucy's new school. Ahhhh!! It was actually really good to go and get a feel for the schools and their leadership and teachers. It made us both feel a whole lot better about sending our precious baby girl to a public school here. I think she'll do just fine, but it still doesn't make it any easier. Hopefully by August I'll feel more okay with sending her to school everyday. Kindergarten is full-day here. Yep, I wish it wasn't but what can ya do?

That little Lucy is so smart. I've been supplementing her preschool with "mommy school" twice a week for 1-2 hours. We basically just go over letters, numbers, spelling, basic addition and subtraction, phonics, and reading. It is so fun for me to see her grow and pick up on things so quickly. Like last week I taught her how to tell time (digitally) and now I ask her all the time to tell me what time it is and she does it correctly. We've been working on how to say all the numbers from 1 to 100 and a few weeks ago we started working on counting to 100. She needed some help the first few times but then tonight she did it all by herself! It was so cute to see how proud she was of herself. Go Luce!

Later that night I went to Cicely Cain's for a much needed GNO. We laughed so hard! As I get older it becomes more and more apparent to me that I really need other women in my life. We keep each other sane. Those ladies are gems, we had such a good time talking about the most random things. But it makes me so sad half of them are leaving in June. :(

Friday we played outside. A lot. The girls swung, rode bikes and scooters, and sidewalk chalked while I worked in the yard. That little Rubester is getting better and faster at the Strider Bike. She is starting to sit on the seat rather than just walking with it in between her legs. She's really good at balancing the bike already. I'm excited to see her really learn to ride that thing. I think having a big sister who loves to zoom around on her big girl bike is a big motivation for her.

I'm getting excited about redoing our landscaping in the front yard. We just need a boat load of dirt and some shrubbery and we'll be all set. :)

Saturday morning me and the ladies went to an Easter egg hunt at a local park. They both made out like little bandits.

They split up areas according to age groups so it was fair. Lucy was on her own while I helped Ruby out in the 1-2-year-old area.

 

 

Ruby was quite serious during the whole thing. I think she had fun though.

 She started getting the hang of putting the eggs in her bucket.

 Success!!

 

It was a perfect day so when we got home we went out on our deck and had a little picnic. The sun felt so good on my skin. Oh how I've missed it. In the afternoon we wandered around Home Depot and bought some stuff we needed for the lawn and house.

Today was a lovely Sunday. Trey made us some delicious Swedish pancakes this morning. Church was great as always. :) My calling always wears me out but I love it. I love those little people. After dinner today we decided to go explore a Metropark because the weather was perfect. We checked out Quarry Rock, which is in the South Chagrin Reservation. Here are some pics I snapped...

 Playing in the water

 Ragamuffin #1

 Ragamuffin #2

 Rubes loved throwing rocks in the water

 We walked across the river to the other side with all the cool rock that looks like little steps.

The girls had so much fun "exploring". We actually walked across the river with them to this cool area of rock. Trey even caught a little sucker fish that was latched on to one of the rocks. Lucy held it and Ruby admired it. The ladies loved walking in the river and it was surprisingly warm. Ruby threw a massive fit when we had to leave. Lucy was definitely in her element. She loves this kind of stuff. She must be Trey's and my daughter. :)

We are getting all excited for our trip to Hershey and Baltimore this weekend, yippee!! And I bought our airplane tickets to Utah!! I heart a good vacation. It will be so fun to see old friends and our old ward this week. I can't wait!

Kirtland Temple special night

I didn't realize how close Cleveland is to Kirtland until we moved out here. It's a quick 30-minute drive! I feel so blessed to live so close to such a special place, truly hallowed ground where so much of the revelation for the D&C was received and so many important events took place in our church history.

We were given an amazing opportunity to go to a special sacrament meeting they held tonight (yes, it's Monday, but it's the Monday after General Conference, which makes more sense) INSIDE the Kirtland Temple. It was a super rainy night so I didn't get to pause too long to look at the outside of it but every time I do I can't help but think of that account of people saying that during the dedication the top of the temple looked like it was on fire, and as they went inside the temple to see what was going on they saw angels. Wow, can you imagine?

“A noise was heard like the sound of a rushing mighty wind, which filled the Temple, and all the congregation simultaneously arose, being moved upon by an invisible power; many began to speak in tongues and prophesy; others saw glorious visions; and I beheld the Temple was filled with angels, which fact I declared to the congregation. The people of the neighborhood came running together (hearing an unusual sound within, and seeing a bright light like a pillar of fire resting upon the Temple), and were astonished at what was taking place. This continued until the meeting closed at eleven P.M.” (History of the Church, 2:428).

There were wonderful talks given by our Stake Patriarch, bishop, and a member of the stake presidency and beautiful music which always invites the most sweet spirit, especially when the choir sang "The Spirit of God". Singing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" at the end really touched my heart too. Brother Anderson talked about the temple itself and Kirtland and what a special place it was. It was the first temple built after the gospel was restored to the earth in this dispensation. It was recorded that Jesus Christ appeared in the temple 8 different times! I never realized that. It was so neat to sit down below and imagine the Prophet Joseph Smith standing at the pulpit and then to think about Jesus Christ showing himself to him and Oliver Cowdery, standing on the pulpit. And also Moses, Elias, and Elijah. (D&C 110)

lds.org

Here is Joseph Smith speaking of his and Oliver Cowdery's experience in the temple on April 3, 1836...

 

"The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us ; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber.

His eyes were as a flame of fire ; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow ; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun ; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah saying:

I am the first and the last ; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain ; I am your advocate with the Father.” (D&C 110:1-4)

I love this section so much. After Christ appears, Moses, Elias, and Elijah appear and restore all the priesthood keys. What a sacred place. It truly touched my heart tonight. I feel a stirring in my soul to go back and visit the sites and to invite others to come too. There is a special and very tangible spirit there. It's hard to quite put it into words.
We have such a short time here, just as the saints did. They were only in Kirtland for 7 years before they were forced to leave. The bishop challenged everyone to take the time that they have here and let it leave an imprint on us. There has been talk about a temple being built in Kirtland, but we still have some work to do before that will happen. I don't know if it will happen while we are here but how neat would that be to see it being built and be apart of the celebration. It just gives me the chills thinking about it.

I hope one day the Church will be able to purchase the original Kirtland Temple from the Community of Christ. It definitely is in need of some repairs. It still is beautiful and stands as a pinnacle on the hill. It makes me heart oh-so-happy when I see it. I just love this gospel. It brings me such peace and joy in a world filled with uncertainty and darkness. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He is my light and I know as I look to him he will light my path and walk with me. Christ's light will always dispel the darkness. ALWAYS.

Hello April!

Hi, me again. Weird, right? I'm kind of proud of myself for being somewhat consistent with this. It will be my Sunday night "thing". And I want to start indexing too! One Friday night when Trey was working and the kids were in bed I felt prompted to get on lds.org and get started indexing. It was fun to learn about and start my first "batch". Indexing is huge in our stake and they have competitions and stuff to see what wards can do the most indexing. I hadn't even heard of it until we moved here.

So that's my plan, every Sunday night after the kids are in bed I'll update the blog and index.

We said goodbye to March (good riddance!) and hello to April this week. I didn't do anything for April Fools this year, maybe next year? Eh, probably not. :) It's been warm and rainy lately, but I'll take it over snowy and cold any day!

Trey pulled out all the old, scraggly shrubbery last week and this week he finished it up and I cleaned it up and leveled the dirt and got out as much of the old roots as I could. We still have some pretty big roots that need to be dug up but we're pretty close to being done. Now we just have to get some more dirt, find some shrubbery we like, find something to line the garden with, and get lots of mulch mulch mulch! Our grass is looking pretty sad after that rough winter. I hope by summer time our yard will be looking much nicer.

Since moving here I found out something about myself that I never really realized, I love yard work! It makes me so so happy to be out digging in the dirt. I'm all about pulling weeds, pruning, raking, etc. I must get it from my dad. I'm really excited to build our garden box and grow some stuff!! It will be fun to teach the kids too. I really hope we can find a way to keep it safe from all the critters we have around here. Rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, opossum, and deer to name a few.

Speaking of, I have a funny story.

We just put up our bird feeder a few weeks ago and at first no birds would eat from it. We figured they just didn't know it was there. So Trey spread a bunch of the seed around on the ground beneath it and the birds slowly started figuring it out. A few mornings ago we noticed that a ton of the bird seed was gone when the night before it was pretty full. We have a squirrel guard on the pole holding the birdfeeder so we were wondering what was getting into the seed. So last night after dinner Trey was in the kitchen cleaning up and he yelled "Hey, come see this!" So we all ran into the kitchen to see this...

What the?! The idea that the deer were eating it never even crossed my mind! Ha ha!

This past Wednesday our friends the Days went out of town and asked us to dog sit for them. Knowing how much the girls would love it, I said yes! So Penny has been here with us for the past 4 days and it's been a blast. She is the sweetest little Austrailian Labradoodle pup ever. If I could clone her in like 5-7 years for when we're ready for a dog I totally would. She is a beautiful copper color with the softest fur. And she doesn't shed! This is huge people!! I really don't like dog hair. She loves to play but also loves to cuddle and be loved. She follows me around everywhere. She must be a momma's girl. She is terrified of Trey. She has finally warmed up to him (kind of) today but they'll be picking her up tomorrow.

I only have pics on my phone of her but this is pretty much what she looks like, coloring and all. Adorable, right?

I have discovered that a dog is a bit of work and we (and when I say "we" I mean "I") are definitely not ready for one yet. It really is like another child. She is potty trained but she had a few accidents in the house. She also got up on the table and ate all the cheese and pepperoni off of 2 pizza slices sitting out on the table. She ate a bunch of a wet diaper (blah!!!) I left out in Lucy's room. And it was rainy which meant it was muddy so every time we had to take her out to go do her business I had to wipe her down. Some days it was super cold so going out with her (she always had to be on a leash) was kind of annoying, especially when she wouldn't do her stuff right away. Whenever we do get a dog, we will make sure we have a fence, that's for sure.

She really is a sweet little thing though, we'll miss her (especially the girls). Lucy loves playing with her and she sleeps on Lucy's bed with her every night. :) Ruby loves to give Penny kisses and get really close to her face and smile and giggle. We'll just have to be their official dog sitter whenever they go out of town. That way we can all get our dog fill every once and awhile.

Okay so we're piling up the list of projects here. We just started on the vanity for the bathroom that we're redoing in a few weeks. Yikes! There's no going back now! We found this dresser at a cool shop in West Cleve. The guy got it from an estate sale and he was trying to get rid of it. It was perfect!! And it comes with a mirror so we'll just use that for the wall. Done and done.

Trey felt bad cutting a big hole in it.

That's where the sink is gonna go.

I love the crystal knobs. They match all our door knobs throughout the house.

We're so not ready and we're going on a vacation the week before. That's kind of the number one thing we need to get done right now. The darn cold weather has kind of set us back. Here is the list of projects:

1. Bathroom - need to pick out floor tile, fixtures, finish vanity, wall paint
2. Yard - landscaping front, around trees, by garage, etc.
3. Build a planter box
4. Sun room - paint and put up new curtains and rods
5. Reupholster and sand and stain dining room chairs
6. Finish trim downstairs
7. Paint kitchen cabinets white and paint fun color on the wall. Possibly a backsplash too.
8. Top floor bathroom - redo floor and move catclaw tub
9. Paint bedrooms and tiny bathroom
10. Make laundry room less scary and organize tools and storage. Get rid of extra doors, etc.
11. Trey build storage lockers
12. Paint front door. Shutters.

I'm sure I've forgotten some but as you can see, we have a lot to do. I said this is our spring/summer for all our projects so we can enjoy them for the next 3 years. :) I'm sure we won't get them all done this summer but I would love to get the first half done. That's the goal. Wish us luck! I'll post more pics of the transformations as they happen. We're trying to decide if we want to restain the dresser or paint and glaze it. Decisions, decisions.

It was also General Conference this weekend. I love GC so much. Talk about being spiritually fed. I always feel so enlightened, uplifted, and inspired after every conference. It makes me want to be better and remember what is important in this life and what isn't. I'm excited to go back and study each talk more. It's a little difficult to give my full attention with 2 youngens wanting my attention, especially the littlest one. What I did hear was awesome. This church is true!!! I love the gospel so much, it gives me hope in such a troubled world. This is Jesus Christ's one true church. I feel so lucky to be apart of it and that I was born into it. I'm so so grateful.

Strangely exciting

Whoa. 2 posts in 2 weeks? Unheard of!!

I'm really trying to get better at this documenting our lives business so I'm going to attempt to start doing this blogging thing again every Sunday night. Wish me luck!

So let's recap this past week. Trey has been working nights on his ED rotation (Emergency Dept.) which totally stunk! We weren't big fans. I'm glad he's back to swings and normal days this week and then he'll be done with this rotation and back to an Anesthesia rotation. He can't wait! He's really excited to be done with ED. This has probably been his least favorite rotation so far.

It snowed. Twice. Yep. I wish spring would stop teasing us and just show up and kick this good-for-nothing winter's booty out of here!! Can you tell I'm fed up? It's just getting ridiculous.

We switched Lucy to the Monday dance class so now she goes Monday afternoons instead of Saturdays. All so we could make it to her final performance before we leave to Utah the next morning. I haven't booked our flights yet because I'm hoping for a killer sale to pop up. Flying is expensive-o! Rubes will be 2 by June so we'll have to pay for her (dang it!). Although I think her having her own seat will be nice. She's quite the busy body these days. I'm usually exhausted by the end of sacrament meeting trying to keep the crazy at bay. :)

I currently have 2 callings in church, assistant nursery leader and visiting teaching supervisor. Trey just got released from teaching Sunday School to the youth and is now a teacher in the Elders Quorum. Being a nursery leader is a busy calling for sure but I kind of love it. I'm definitely tired when I get home from church because I'm running around most of the time helping out all the nurseries and rotating toys, etc.

Trey had Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off after his week long string of nights so on Friday we went to the I-X Indoor Amusement Park (thank you HSSA). It was awesome!!! The place was ginormous!! It had tons of rides and games and carnival food. The girls had a blast. I think Ruby's favorite part was the sheep you could feed and pet. Lucy said her favorite part was the roller coaster and the "squish Daddy" ride.

Then that night we had tickets to Jim Gaffigan at the State Theater (awesome place btw!). I was pretty proud of the seats I scored, right in the middle 10 rows back. I was giddy! And Jim was hilarious. That man has a gift. Trey and I were laughing so hard. It was all new stuff we hadn't heard and it was golden. Oh it was so good. Laughter is definitely good for my soul.

On Saturday we just hung around (because it was freezing outside), Trey removed all the old shrubbery in the front yard, and then it began to rain/snow. Trey found an awesome table and chairs + antique buffet for a screamin' deal so he rented a van and picked it up during the awful snow storm. We have been looking for a cool buffet to go with our dining room and we found this set and decided this table was better than the one we already have so we'll sell that one and keep this. It's beautiful and it's 100 years old!

We're getting ready to redo our upstairs bathroom. We bought an old dresser + mirror and we're going to change it into a vanity to put in the bathroom upstairs. I'm so excited, it should be a fun project. We have so many projects we want to do this spring/summer, I hope we can get them all done before we get too burnt out. It's been super frustrating because we want to get started on all the sanding and painting but it's just too stinkin' cold! We're just waiting for the weather to cooperate so we can start all our projects.

I've started babysitting our friend's little boy Rowan on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's been so great. The girls love him and he is a pretty chill little guy so it really works out well. It's nice to have a little extra $ too. :)

Lucy will be starting soccer in a month. A lady in our ward organized a little soccer league of her own, I guess she's been doing it for years. It's genius! It's 6 weeks long and it's all volunteer-based. We just had to pay for a jersey and a medal for the end. It'll be great just to introduce Lucy to soccer so she can learn how it works without forking out the dough. I'm interested to see if Lucy likes it.

It sounds like my sweet Grandma Darley's health is continuing to decline. It makes me sad that she is slowly slipping away and I'm so far away that I can't be there for her. My mom said she is down to 94 lbs. I hope she'll still be around when we are there in June. The doctor gave her a year at most. She has cancer in her blood, if Trey was here he could tell me the fancy name for it. But it's affecting other parts of her body, as to be expected when they've decided not to fight it (given her age). At this point I kind of hope Heavenly Father decides to take her sooner than later. She's lived a wonderful life. She just celebrated her 90th birthday this past February. She is such a remarkable lady, always so full of life and love for everyone. And so young at heart! I remember her always kissing me on the cheek whenever I would see her and it would always leave a big lipstick mark. :) I really feel honored to call her my grandma. I bet she can't wait to see her dear Archie. Oh the thought of that reunion just makes my heart sing.

Well let's pray that this was the last snowstorm of the season and we can move on to warmer days. It snowed like 7-8 inches here (not kidding) and I would say about half of it melted today. I bet the other half will be gone by tomorrow.

Well I think the tired bug just bit me. Over and out.

Yep we're alive.

Heeey! So it's March! How fast did that happen?! I can't believe we've already lived here for almost a year! I can't believe how big our girls are getting either. Lucy turns 5 and Ruby turns 2 in May! Sheesh, where does the time go.
Well I guess it's time for an update.
It's been a long winter. A very cold, loooong, and snowy winter. Everyone is blaming it on the Polar Vortex, which I'm not sure what that means exactly but sure, why not blame it on that! Dang PV!! I'm very grateful for a warm house and a working heater that has been keeping our little family nice and cozy. I'm so ready for some warmth from the sun though! Good news is the snow is all melted! But it did snow today, just a skiff so it's already melted. Spring is so close I can almost taste it!! I feel like Mother Nature is playing games with us in Cleveland. Just be done with winter already!! All our neighbors are saying they haven't seen a winter this bad in a long time, like 50 years! So I'm hoping we get the worst out of the way first and the rest of the winters we'll be pleasantly surprised with...let us pray.
Anyway, enough about the boring weather, let's talk about the good stuff! Trey is currently on his Emergency Med rotation and is not enjoying it. He does have some pretty good stories though, as you can imagine living in Cleveland. :) It's interesting to think that before he did a ED rotation in med school he was really considering choosing that career path. But after that 2-week rotation, he was like, "Shut it down." He really loves his job and thoroughly enjoys what he does (when he's on the anesthesia rotations of course) and his colleagues. It just further solidifies to us that Trey is where he needs to be and he definitely chose the specialty that is perfect for him and he excels at.
In other news, we're redoing our upstairs bathroom. It's kind of hideous. That was one of my conditions before we moved into this house was we had to redo that bathroom. The flesh colored tile mixed with tan and an ugly yellow just rubs this girl the wrong way. Trey's uncle who lives in Dayton is coming out to do it for us in April. I'm so excited!!
This spring/summer will be the time for all our projects. We're totally taking all of the old plants out and redoing all the front and back landscaping. We're finally going to finish our kitchen table and chairs. We're planning on painting a lot. And I would love to put in a little garden in and see if I can grow anything to eat this year. Lucy is pretty excited to help out.
Speaking of Lucy, the girl is starting Kindergarten in the Fall!!! What the what?! I'm kind of getting anxious about it. I can't believe she will be that old. And here all the schools do all-day Kindergarten. So she's going from school MWF 9:15-11:45am to M-F 8:30am-3:15pm!! I'm sending her off into the world all by herself. I hope by the time September rolls around I'll be more okay with this because now I'm having a rough time.
Ruby is hilarious. That girl just bounces from one thing to the next and always has a big smile on her face. I love to watch her play because everything she does and discovers brings her so much joy it just fills me up. She is also a little sneaky and mischievous, definitely more than her sister ever was. And she doesn't really care if we tell her no. She just smiles and keeps doing whatever she's doing and it drives me nuts because she's so stinking cute it's hard to be mad at her. Little stinker. :)
Lucy is loving her dance class and is super excited for her end of the year performance in June. We were able to swing it so we can make it to one of the performances and then we'll head out to Utah the next morning. Yay for going home!!! I feel like it's been forever but really it's only been a year. I guess a lot has happened in a year though so it feels like longer to me. I miss my family. I miss my old friends out there too. I miss good Mexican food and In-N-Out burgs. And boy do I miss those majestic mountains. I hope we can make it back there someday. If not there, then somewhere closer. Preferably with mountains. It will be fun to see how it all plays out. Trey and I have our plan on how we want our next move to go and how we'll work on paying down our mountain of debt but we all know how often Heavenly Father has something different (and better)in store for us so we'll see where we end up.
I feel like I'm still adjusting. Change is hard. Making new friends is hard. I just want to instantly be bffs with everyone but it doesn't really work that way. It takes time and I can be impatient. I want my house to look like our space but decorating and playing with things takes time. I need to be more patient and easy on myself for sure. Must try to be better at that. :)
We have some fun things planned for the next few months. We haven't really been anywhere since we moved here. I think the farthest we've traveled is Columbus for a temple trip, which was a whopping 2 hours away. :) So in April Trey took a week off so we could venture back to Hershey/Baltimore to visit our friends. Yay! I'm so excited, I miss that place. And the peeps too. Then in June we're heading to Utah for 2 weeks for my family's big reunion which will be in Zions National Park. Which leads to our other planned trip to NY to Trey's family reunion in August. I love vacations. I've missed them dearly.
Okay I've got to get to bed. Here are a few pictures I've taken over the past few days. I don't really drag out our camera much with cameras on our smart phones these days I usually just snap photos that way.

Family pictures and catch up

Holy cow, I have been a huge slacker with the Banbury family bloggito. I apologize to anyone who has been checking this thing. I feel like ever since Instagram has become popular a lot of people have stopped blogging...including myself. I hardly ever check people's blogs anymore. Must try to make a better effort to record happenings along with pictures this next year.
Well, not too much has happened since August. We finally had family pictures taken after 3 years...must remember to be better at that too. :)
Here are some of my favorites...

It was a cold and windy day which is why most of the shots are of us in jackets. Lucy had a really cute top similar to Ruby's but we couldn't get her to take her jacket off. Ah well. At least she smiled in all the pictures, even though some of them were a little goofy. It's perfectly fitting though, she's such a goof ball. Our friend Mary did an awesome job! I'm so sad she's moving this summer.
Since the last post, we finished the basement, we are just dragging our feet on a few finishing touches like trim, etc. It'll get done someday when I feel motivated or it drives me crazy.
We had our first neighborhood block party which we kind of cohosted. It was so fun to actually meet most of the people on our street. I was the official face painter for the few kids that were interested. There was tons of good food, ping pong, badmitton, and other games for the kiddos. I can't wait for the next one. We have really cool neighbors.

To our left are the nicest older couple and to our right and pretty much the coolest family ever. We love the Hodges!!! They have a boy Caleb (3) who adores Lucy (and she loves him too) and a wee babe Ezra (5 mo.). We feel so lucky to have them living next to us. We became really quick friends with them.
We have a few neighborhood strays that the girls love the play with/terrorize. Now when the cats see the girls they run the opposite direction, ha ha! They love animals so much, especially dogs. Don't be surprised if one day we cave and buy a dog. These girls would be in hog heaven! I mean dog heaven, bah ha ha! Gosh I crack myself up. Ahem.

Trey and Kyle built this fun rope swing for the kids. This fulfilled one of my childhood dreams of having a swing hanging from a giant tree in my yard. We just have to beef the rope up a bit to make it suitable for adults to swing on.

This swing got used at least once a day every day in the summer and early fall.

At the end of August Lucy began preschool. Here is the customary first day of school picture. And in true Lucy fashion she is in some pretty funky poses with weird looks on her face.

She also started going to Studio J Dance Studio in September. She's learning ballet, tap, and jazz just like her mummy did many years ago. It totally takes me back when I see her in her cute little leotard and little dance shoes.

 Ha ha, I had to put this one on. She gives this photoshoot a half thumbs up. She was so excited!

We went to the Cleveland zoo for a fieldtrip with Lucy's preschool class. Yay for free Mondays!

We had a freak snowstorm on Oct. 24 and the kids were stoked so we had to find all the winter garb and then proceed to pile it on, which took about 15 minutes. Ruby was unsure about all the cold white stuff but Lucy just jumped right in. We made a cute little snowman and after that Ruby was donesky.

A few days after the snow melted and we were able to enjoy some warmer weather again before it really started to get cold. One of the girls favorite things to do was jump in the leave piles. Holy cow did our leaves produce some leafage. I couldn't be-leaf it. Bah ha ha! There I go again...

 All decked out for Halloween. I love our little house.

We had 2 sets of visitors come out but I only took a few pictures on our digital cam, all the rest are on my phone. Trey's parents and seester and her kids came out in August and my parents came out in October. We had so much fun exploring the Cleve since we really hadn't done much exploring on our own. We did the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, West Side Market, Kirtland, Chagrin Falls, Patterson's Fall Fest, Apple Picking at Edys, Squire's Castle, and Horseshoe Park. We saw Elder Ballard in Kirtland because they were celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the visitor center there. The primary kids sang him a few songs and then everyone got to go shake his hand. Trey and I snuck in real quick since Lucy was feeling a little shy. It was really neat.

 Here's one from the cute town of Chagrin Falls. I will never forget this because as we were sitting by the river feeding the ducks and my mom was walking down the steps to get closer and tripped and ended up falling face first into the water! Luckily she was okay so we had a good laugh about it and tried to dry her off as much as possible.

For Halloween we had a fishy and supergirl. It was a windy, rainy Halloween but the girls still had fun going up and down our street. They made out like bandits! We also enjoyed the ward trunk-or-treat and going to the Boo at the Zoo with HSSA.

Not a whole lot happened in November. We had a yummy Thanksgiving with our friends the Johnsons. We made a thankful tree and added leaves on it every day and wrote what we were thankful for on them. Isn't that little stinker getting too cute for her own good?! She kills me.

December has been fun! Lucy got a haircut! A big one! She originally said she wanted it as short as Daddy's but I put the veto on that and we ended up with a cute shoulder length bob with some sideswept bangs.

Here is the before...

 And after!

 So stinkin' cute! Her daddy about died when I brought her home. He loves it! And she does too.

Trey snapped a few pics of me and the girls decorating the tree. It's so fun now that Ruby can join in on all the traditions this year. Lucy is really getting into it this year, it makes it so magical. We have a countdown Santa beard that we've been gluing cotton balls on to count down the days until Christmas. I can't believe it's almost here already! Time moves waaaay too quickly.

 Ruby likes to rock the no pants look.

And a crazy dress up picture to end on. I love these girls so much. They are all sorts of crazy fun.