Before Adam Was Born

Benjamin has been doing rotations all over the country for his fourth year of medical school.  He was only required to do 11 months of training, so he took the month of May off to play, spend time together as a family, graduate, and move to our new place in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Here is a breakdown of some of what we did when he finished his last rotation:

     -April 26-27th:  Our family drove through Yellowstone with Benjamin's parents and spent the night in a hotel.  We saw tons of animals and enjoyed a little time with the Grandparents to ourselves.

     -April 28th:  Benjamin and I spoke in Sacrament meeting

     -April 29th-May 2nd:  Benjamin and I went on our first getaway without the kids to Jackson, WY.  It was off season, but we loved how slow paced it was.  It was exactly what I (Laura) needed. We went to Teton National Park, went on two hikes, out to eat, and enjoyed time with just the two of us.  It was fun to hold hands.  :)

     -May 3rd-8th:  The whole family packed up and drove to Boise, Idaho to visit my sister Jilana, her husband Eric, and two kids Josh and Emmalee.  We went to Emmalee's softball game, Josh's basketball game (the picture of the girls "winking" is in the stands at the basketball game!), to the park where we fed geese (there were baby geese and the daddy was attacking any others that got too close to his babies), and had lots of fun.  We spent one night by the fire pit eating s'mores and making giant bubbles after building our own giant bubble wand.  Benjamin is the master.  We went to the Boise Zoo with our Idaho Falls Zoo pass (all of us for FREE!) and tired out the girls.  :)

         -May 10-11th:  We packed up yet again and went camping overnight at McTucker Ponds by Blackfoot with Jake, Kristy, Logan, Carter, Tucker and Abby.  They got scraped up, dirty, and generally had a great time, even when it got pretty hot!  The one porta-potty was at the other end of the camp area so Haley got very accustomed to stoping wherever she was and peeing in the woods.  Makes her Daddy proud!

     -May 12th:  Mother's Day!  Benjamin and the girls gave me a card, a new fern (because I will have a place to keep it soon!) and the first "new" star trek movie with a digital copy attached.  They made dinner and generally took great care of me.  It was a really great day.  :)

     -May 14th:  Back to Yellowstone, this time with Jake's family and Cathy again.  We focused more on the geo-thermals this time and had a great day.

     -May 15th:  Alaina's second birthday!  She has been able to speak so well and is so smart that she has felt like a two year old for a while.  But now it is official!  We had breakfast, painted toe nails (Alaina's we painted her favorite color:  BLUE and Haley chose purple), opened presents including those snazzy new sandals, a disney princess flashlight, tinkerbell headlamp, a snow white inspired apron, and the movie Wreck-It Ralph, then went to the zoo.  She had a Wreck-It Ralph cake which has its own story!

     -May 16th:  We went camping again, but this time decided this month was already super full and we needed a break.  So we went camping in the back yard after s'mores.  These pictures are of the girls using their matching headlamps to look in Daddy's mouth before bed in our tent.

We took down the tent on May 17th and had no idea how quickly our plans were going to be changed.  The rest of the month was SUPPOSED to involve packing, taking the girls to Jilana's house and Benjamin, Terry, Cathy and I making our way to Des Moines, Iowa for graduation and bringing back our stuff to Salt Lake City.  We were supposed to move into our new townhome in Holladay on May 27th.  We are still in Idaho Falls.  But now our family has grown and that is ok too.  Now to tell the birth story...