Cross Country Tour

 So after three short years in Lexington, Kentucky, Christian graduated from UK with his certificate in Orthodontics and his Masters Degree.  We are so proud of his hard work and accomplishments!

Christian's parents were so kind to come up for the celebration.  His professor he worked on with research and the invited speaker are pictured with us here. It was an honor to work with them.

 Christian's parents were incredible and helped us pack our 2400 square foot house into 9 feet of trailer space.  They are tetris geniuses!

 We hit the road the next day ready to camp and play along the way! My Korean neighbor gave me this headband as a goodbye gift.  We had the best neighbors in Kentucky!

 The boys were terrific on the way. We felt very blessed.

 

 Our first night we had trouble finding a place to camp.  Everywhere we looked were just windmills!  Finally, we found a little place that was $5.00 a spot with free firewood.  As it was already dark we  counted our blessings and stayed!

 Our first stop the next day was a little town called Carthage, Illinois.  It was in the local jail here that the prophet, Joseph Smith Jr. was martyred over 100 years ago.  It was a reverent place to be.

 Our next stop was Nauvoo, Illinois.  This was one of the first settlements of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day, Saints.  I was surprised at how beautiful the temple was and how much I wanted to go inside.  I finally decided that even though we were only hoping to stay for a short time, that I would go inside and Christian would watch the boys.  It was such a beautiful and peace-filled experience. 

 While I was in the temple, Christian took the boys to see old-time Nauvoo.  They had a lot of fun!

 That night we were able to stop by and see our dear friends the Riggs.  It was so much fun to see them! We spent a few days with them and just had fun!

 After that, it was back to the car!  The boys were once again Champs!

 Christian obliged me to stop at this restaurant in Nebraska (who knew that Nebraska was a huge wetlands area?)  It was not as good as the online reviews suggested :)

 Finally, we made it to Car Henge.  The weirdest place in Nebraska!!  But the kids had fun and it was free!

 It was made of real cars---the wheels actually moved!

 We kept driving and felt like real tourists when we were taking pictures of the Bison in North Dakota!

 We camped that night in a super sketchy campsite that had free wifi but the password was "rampage" which kind of freaked us out!  Luckily we escaped unscathed!  We had a campfire and watched the stars.  Camping with kids sure is fun! (Although Tyson was terrified we hadn't put the fire out all the way.  That boy and fires!)

 We woke up early and made it to see Mt. Rushmore.  The boys were sort of impressed!

 The fog came rolling in as we were taking pictures.

 Within seconds you couldn't see a thing!

So we kept driving...and made it to Montana late that night!

Winter in Kentucky

Here is a little update on our lives!  Christian was able to go and visit Dan and Katie and Benson in Boston and eat yummy pastries and ride the subway.  He kept saying how big Benson was getting!  He's a little man now!  He was able to present his research (and later pass his Thesis!!)  I was pretty proud of him!  Great job Babe!

The weather was pretty crazy with all the snow so we spent a lot of time coming up with fun things to do!  The boys enjoyed making donuts--I can't tell if there's more donut or sprinkles!

Neal keeps getting bigger all the time!  He's starting to use utensils on his own--which has been an adventure of its own!

With all the cold weather, we had to get creative in our layering for a while!

Austin is here pulling Sophie up the hill!

Christian got to help the boys build snow men! 

We made noodles with our friends the Stephens!

For Valentine's day, Tyson wanted to make all of his classmates flowers.  I am always surprised at just how much he loves to create!  Christian and I got to go with our friends the Lees to the UK basketball game on Valentine's day.  It was awesome! 

We had an undefeated season until the tournament, which was pretty awesome!  The hype around here was unbelievable!

It kept snowing!  People stopped driving their cars and our street was lined with people walking to the grocery store and back.  All our neighbors were out helping to shovel snow.  It was awesome!

The boys got to go sledding for the first time not in our backyard and loved it!  When we got home they thought their sleds were broken because they wouldn't go as fast in the backyard!  I loved seeing them play together so much!  All of the snow days were fun!!

On Austin's first ride down, I went with him, only I was on my hands and knees behind him.  It would have been great until we hit a cement block near the bottom and we lurched forward, me smashing his poor face into the snow!  There were some tears but it was hard not to laugh!  Luckily, he still let me ride down with him after that!  The boys were also introduced to icicles!

The boys helped me make snookie doodles for the first time!  They were a recipe my great-grandma used to always make.  Ver See Gu!  Later, our neighbors came over to teach us how to make snow-cream (ice cream made from the snow!)  It's a huge tradition here and it was yummy!

We have the best neighbors here!  Thank you Chrissy and Fumiko!!

The boys built towers with their blocks!  I was so proud of them.  Every time Neal would destroy it, they just kept building and laughing and playing.  They weren't angry with him even though they had spent a long time building!  This picture of Tyson reminds me of my brother Jake!  I love you!

That's a lot of snow!  Austin has learned to read and I love to see him read to his friends!  I was really surprised and impressed with how well he has figured it out!

And then it finally started to warm up!  Welcome Spring!