Catching Up (Again)

The last few months have been insane. A quick recap? Ben GRADUATED!

 

Ooooooh my goodness, that man is so attractive. Mmmm. Anyway, I couldn't be more proud of Ben. Ben's sister, Syd, her family, and Ben's parents came up for the ceremony. I'll admit that I shed a few tears, especially at the very end when I realized that- holy cow, we're leaving! I thought back on all those years of homework, late night dinners (and by late, I'm talking 11pm and midnight), too-short weekends, stress, living semester-to-semester... and all the absolutely wonderful friends we've made on our journey, the mischief, adventures, secret places and silly things, falling in love, having babies... it all happened in Rexburg. I realized that BYU-I will always be a very dear place to me. It's always hard to say goodbye. So when I went down to go hug and kiss my man after graduation was over, okay yes, I sobbed- but in a good way. 

After graduation was over, we headed back to the apartment and loaded up Ben's mom's horse trailer with all of our stuff. Ugh. Moving is the worst!  By 11pm everything was loaded, and we said bye to Ben's family as they all took off to go home to Utah and Nevada. Ben, the kids, and I all slept cuddled together on the floor with some blankets that were left behind. It wasn't the most comfortable night, but it made for good memories! 

The next day we headed to Spanish Fork, UT. We stayed the night at Ben's sister's house, then left early the next morning for the SLC airport.  We flew into Portland, OR, picked up the rental car and drove to Tillamook, OR. Cra-zy! We were all so tired! 

We spent a week at my sister Stef's house there... it was BEAUTIFUL! I've missed the Oregon coast like mad for the past..ever! Haha! Seriously, I hadn't been back to see it since Ben and I were dating 6 years ago. No joke. 

After Tillamook, we headed to my hometown of Roseburg, Oregon. I hadn't been back there for a good 3.5 years. Such a beautiful area! I miss the GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!! My family was there too!! I loved seeing everyone. It was absolutely wonderful! My brother Erin hadn't even met my two little kids yet. Can you believe it? My boys loved him (not surprising, he's always been great with kids, especially little boys).

[Docks near Charleston, Oregon ]

[Fishermen and crabbers hate harbor seals, but I'd go crabbing just to play with them. How cute are their faces and whiskers???]

[Mom and David at Sunset Bay]

[Me and Calvin on the beach]

[View of the in-coming tides at something-or-other point]

[Ben and Calvin on Sunset Beach]

[My brother, Eric, walking along the beach with Malcom]

[Old high school buddies!!! Sarah, Janna, me, Kala, and Peter] 

(Not sure what's going on with my face here, but at least everyone else looks good!)

I got to catch up with old friends, give a tour of my hometown, play in parks from my childhood, have Christmas in my mom's house.... Seriously, best. Christmas. Ever. (Thank you guys SO MUCH!)

Our trip to Oregon ended far too soon. There was still a million things left to do on my list that I didn't get to! :( I guess I'll have to go back. Darn it. ;) 

We flew back to SLC, drove back up to Rexburg that night, and slept on the floor of our apartment. The next day was clean, clean, clean. I can't express how grateful I am for all those who helped us!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!! We checked out of our apartment at 8pm, then drove all the way back down to Spanish Fork, UT, and stayed the night at Ben's sister Syd's house again. (That's a 5 hour drive, just in case you're curious. We were all sooooo sick of the car- poor Calvin would bust into tears as soon as he saw his car seat. I'm not kidding! I felt the same way.) The next morning we headed to a town house in Provo that we had our eye on... which luckily ended up being a great deal, so we signed out lease and called Ben's mom to bring our stuff over. 

We actually love our new place! There's a lot more room than we used to have in our last apartment. I think the townhouse is about 1300 square feet: three bedrooms (the boys share one room and the other is used as an office/studio), two bathrooms, two massive linen closets, a dining area, a massive pantry, tons of storage, fireplace in the living room, extra shed on the side of the house, a nicely sized, fully fenced backyard, and were at the end of a very quiet cul de sac. It's great! I'll have to mention the stairs and I have a love/hate relationship though. 

Provo is a lot different than I expected. It gives off an old, dingy kind of feel.. and that's from someone who moved here from Rexburg (to be fair, there is a TON of development going on up in Rexburg because of the massive growth of BYU-I).  Our car's clutch decided to go out as soon as we moved in, which won't be fixed until tax returns come... so we've been biking it for the last month.  I was worried about having to bike in the snow, but we haven't had much of it at all. I guess it's been the warmest/driest winter in years, possibly ever. It's not a bicycle-friendly town at all though (which is a total surprise, considering that BYU is here). Maybe it's because we live on the south end of town, but people here are the. worst. drivers. Ben and I have both had close calls with cars at least a dozen times each. It's gotten to the point where I never, ever take the right of way unless I get waved by, because no one ever pays attention. I just stop and wait for there to be no more cars crossing. Seriously, it's that bad. Plus there are only sporadic bike lanes, and sidewalks are often littered with garbage cans, fire hydrants, poles, bushes, and cars that are parked over them. It's a frustrating thing! 

Provo is made up of 10% Hispanic people. That's great. The thing that is funny about it is that we're apparently living on the side of town where all the Hispanic people are living... it's kind of funny. If we go into the McDs around the corner, we're always minorities.Weird! 

What else? Calvin has begun to crawl! He also started saying "mama" in the beginning of January. He has three teeth now and is working on his third! I love this age. This is the age where he's still a cuddly baby but he gains more personality every day. He loves to laugh, smile, and he loves to wrestle with his brother (until it gets to rough). He'll eat anything that we put in front of him! He's a very good little baby boy. We sure love our little Calvin. 

Malcom is definitely turning into a 3 year old, even though we still have 2.5 months until he turns it. That whole "terrible twos" business is WRONG. I'm pretty sure they meant "terrible threes"! All of sudden he's formed a very defiant opinion over everything, even the thins I know he actually wants to do. Tantrums go along with it. I miss my sweet, docile little boy... but he's been better this weekend. I think having one-on-one time with each parent, just doing fun things, has been a huge help. In the past week, Malcom has:

1. Opened and dumped half a 5lbs package of flour all over the living room
2. Opened and dumped TWO GALLONS of milk on the living room floor
3. Dumped a package of croutons on the living room floor
4. Dumped 1.5 bottles of dishwasher soap on the living room floor
5. Dumped a giant-sized box of goldfish crackers down the stairs 
6. Made purple crayon art on the office wall
7. Dumped a bottle of ranch on the coffee table
8. Repeatedly climbed into his brother's crib, and jumped on his mattress, while they were supposed to be sleeping. I had put him back in bed four times, and the last time I just sat in the room until he fell asleep

Really, these things took place in the span of about four days. I kid you not. You can probably imagine how absolutely crazy this child was driving me! We established a few more rules (like not getting into the pantry/fridge without mom or dad), adjusted our discipline, and made extra efforts to have special one-on-one time with him, just goofing around and getting out some of that energy. The second half of the week has gone MUCH smoother! In fact, this weekend he seems to be his happy, lovable, good-boy self again, with maybe a few tantrums.  *sigh of relief*  let's hope we can keep it that way. I can't deal with all of that craziness!  

Malcom has also gained an obsession with band aids, and thinks he always needs to be wearing one. It makes me laugh! He's also getting more personality every day (and not just the defiant-stage stuff). He's hilarious, the kid is turning into such a ham. He still loves to cook and bake with us, and he's still a good little helper when he's in the mood to be (...3 year old stage..). 

Oh! And another thing about Provo- the city library here as this thing called "toddler time"/preschool, that goes for about 20 minutes every day. It's free! They have storytellers, puppet shows, sing silly songs, and learn about a different letter every week. We love it! We've been going ever since we moved here thanks to our friend, Samm, for finding out about it! 

Ben has been really enjoying his internship at Novell. He has a wonderful boss and works with a lot of great people, plus when he's not busy installing operating systems and other stuff for others, he gets to sit as his own little office space and play around with millions of dollars of software and hardware. He's like a kid in a candy shop! He comes home every day and tells me all about what cool things he got to play with.. haha. We don't know if this is going to turn into a full time permanent job yet, but we have good feelings about it. 

I've been busy with the another semester. I have three classes I'm taking online- advanced writing (eng), environmental stewardship (sci), and Book of Mormon part 2 (rel). I'll admit that the science class is the only one I'm even remotely enjoying, which sucks... the religion and english classes has a TON of busy work. And actually, I still feel that english classes passed the ninth grade are completely useless. I swear I haven't learned anything new since then... it's always been rehashing the same old stuff, maybe in a different style.. but still, the same. Ugh. I'm having to spend a lot of extra time in these classes on all of the busy work, and it just drives me up the wall! 

 Photography is going well. We're in the process of designing my webpage... that's a lot harder than I thought it would be! So many decisions!! Ah well, we'll get there. 

Well, it's now 11:30 and I'm going to get ready for bed 'cause I'm zonked.  This is long enough anyway! Love you all!!!! I'll have to post more pictures later. I have so many it's going to take a loooong time to organize them all, and time has been lacking lately. Love to all!