Family Pictures

My friend Maryanne Miner who is an AMAZING photographer took our family pictures a few months ago, I'm just really late getting them posted

State Fair

The other night we went to the state fair with our friends Rich and Brityn, they're the only other first year medical students in our ward so they have no choice but to be our friends cause they are going to be stuck with us for quite awhile. We saw some bull riding, gigantic rabbits, baby chicks hatching from their eggs, giant pumkins, and interesting people. But the best part of all was that along with Rich, I experienced my first funnel cake- and because of funnel cakes I don't think I will ever miss a state fair again.

Unexpected trip to Utah

Last thursday night my dad called to tell me that my Grandma Stone had passed away, and so they flew me and Beck home on Saturday so that I could go home for the funeral. It was kind of funny that only two months ago we had our big tearful goodbyes and our week long drive across the country and then all the sudden we were back to square one again!!

Even though we had only been gone a couple months it was soooo good to see my family and friends again!! Shelby and Trevor were able to come too, so the only one we were missing was poor Dane who had to stay home cause of school. But even though Dane couldn't be there and we missed him a ton, we still managed to have a blast together eating out, playing games, and just talking. I sure wish they would all move out to Virginia with us!!

The funeral was so nice! My aunt, cousin, and my grandma's sister did a really great job on their talks about my grandma. I didn't expect to be so emotional because my grandma had been sick for a long time, but I wept like a baby through the whole funeral when I was reminded of all the great things that I loved about my grandma. I can't decide if she was just really good at making all of the grandkids feel like they were her favorite or else if me and little Dayne really were her favorites - just kidding. Theres too many things I love about her to mention but one of the best was that she was the funnest grandma in the world! I have great memories of her playing games with us, and laughing and joking around. Once I jokingly told her that some of my older cousins were being rude to me and she jokingly went and personally spanked every one of them that I told her was in on it! And I used to love to pop out and scare her and she would crack up every time, it killed me! I LOVE my grandma!!

While we were there we got to meet up with two of my best friends too. We hung out with Michelle and introduced Beck to SUPER cute baby Britton, and we also got to go to lunch with Stephanie (dang no pics). I had a TON of fun hanging out with both of them and wished that we could have stayed and talked all day!!

One night after Shelby had to leave (or we would have included her) me, my mom, and my grandma (my other grandma), went up to Gardners Village and met my aunt Susan and cousins Lacey and Karissa for a girls night, and cause we want to see Lacey's darling new baby! Girls nights are one of my favorite things!

Me and Beck also got to spend time with my mother-in-law which we loved too! We went to thanksgiving point so he could see the animals. He had his first pony ride, and fed some goats all by himself, he's a lot braver than me already because Myrna tried to give me food to feed the goats and I couldn't do it. Then me and Myrna went and picked out a Halloween costume for him and followed the night up with some PF Changs. I am so lucky that I have the best mother-in-law!

Gosh this post is just full of love isn't it! I can't help it though, I have a lot of people I love and I got to spend all week with most of them!! It was such a fun week and sad to say goodbye again!

9 months

I thought that being a stay-at-home mom would consist of cuddling up with my baby watching Ellen, Reba, and Full House re-runs all day...big surprise I was wrong!

Beck started officially crawling the day we moved in and now he has completely mastered it, I can put him in the living room and literally run to the kitchen to do something and within about 30 seconds his grinning little face will pop around the corner of the kitchen, it is so dang cute! And the best part is is that I feel like I can eat whatever I want all day because I can't imagine how many calories I am burning by chasing him around.

He's also mastered being able to pull himself up on things to stand, I love when I'm in the kitchen cooking (yes I cook now!) and all the sudden I feel a little person climbing up my leg, he just wraps his arms around really tight and likes to stand there attached to me.

The biggest down side to all of this is of course his cute little face is now constantly covered in bruises, because he falls so much even though I really try to watch him close, and me and Dane keep checking his reflexes to make sure he doesn't have brain damage or anything

He is a ton of fun in every way now, if I crack up about anything Beck will crack up too. And all you have to do to get him to laugh uncontrollably is to pop out and scare him, I don't show people too often cause it makes me look like a total idiot but it gets a good reaction from him.

Here he is taking all of the DVD's off the shelf, he is into everything and he can't even walk yet but he is so dang fun!! I love my little buddy

red mustache twins

Virginia Beach

Saturday we went to Virginia Beach with our new friends Jon and Lissa. It was a perfect day, good company, warm sunny weather (till the hurricane hit as we were leaving), clean and non-crowded beach, super cute beach houses everywhere, and Beck was happy because he had a tummy full of sand.

We made it!

It's been a crazy 2 weeks but we finally made it to Virginia and WE LOVE IT HERE!!! Needless to say I miss our family and friends like CRAZY but we love our apartment, we love the area, there are 2 billion things around here to do on the weekends, and we've only been here a week but our ward is full of some of the nicest people I have ever met!! They have made us feel so welcome here. All the girls that live by us have already invited me to all their little activities and get-togethers

We left Utah at the end of July, this is a picture of our last supper with my family at Brick Oven, Brandon doesn't drive a car anymore he can now be spotted riding this little red bike with a milk carton on back around Provo, cute huh??

And of course we couldn't leave before playing a big tetris tournament with my dad...big surprise I was the winner as usual haha

Then the big Church family reunion began...it was a full week of non stop fun. Trent and Lindsay drove to Utah with Kai, Delaney, and Josh and we went to the Alpine slide, 7-peaks, the Bean museum, and the park, and stayed up playing games every night.

Then we all headed for Nebraska (us driving the penske towing our car) to meet up with Ashlee and Joel and their kids.

We spent the first night in Nebraska then headed for a cabin in South Dakota the next day, when we got there we all went to a chuck-wagon dinner and watched some fiddlers.

The cabin we stayed in that night was sweet! It was a huge, with 8 bedrooms, a hot-tub, and a theater. And we played some more games (always entertaining with Dane and Trent together) and hung out in the hot-tub.

The next morning we all rode a train into town and hung out with all the bikers that day who were there for Sturgis....it was nuts all the motorcycles everywhere!!

Then we all went to bear country which was awesome!! We all expected to see a couple bears while driving through...no, I think we saw like 60 bears in 5 minutes...it was crazy!!

Then we went on another alpine slide. I took Beck in the baby backpack and we all thought he'd have a funny reaction...but he went down the entire ride stone faced...no reaction whatsoever.

(my pictures down here are totally out of order)after the slide we went back to the cabin and ate and then we all rode bikes and put Beck in the baby-pack again and that time we got a great reaction, he looked like a baby superman riding on Dane's chest, and he giggled the entire time)

The next day we all went to Mount Rushmore, I don't know really what to say about it other than it was awesome!

Can you tell which face is not really part of the mountain??

Then we all went on paddle boats on one of the prettiest little lakes I've ever seen. And of course everything is turned into a competition when Dane and Trent get together, so there was a little racing too. The next day everybody went home except for us and we got to stay in Nebraska and hang out with Ashlee and Joel for an extra day. Ashlee took us to this huge underground cave which was sweet and then we went to a wooly mammoth museum where they are still uncovering wooly mammoth bones!

From Nebraska our homeless little family got in our penske and drove to Missouri to hang out with Trent and Lindsay for one more day. We went swimming at the YMCA and went to Liberty Jail (so cool to see again), and then we went to eat at Bravo which I LOVED not only was the food great but it was the cutest restaurant in the world.

It was so fun to be all together with the Churchs we wish we could do it way more often!!

We got to Virginia last Friday (after our drive here Beck has now been to 15 different states). We're finally all moved in so now we're just trying to explore the area. Yesterday we headed to Williamsburg we weren't exactly sure what to do when we got there, especially since we didn't want to pay for anything so we just walked around, which I actually loved, it was super cute!

On Thursday Dane had the white coat ceremony which was awesome. It made everything feel offical, and doesn't he look smokin hot in that white coat?!? Beck wasn't too bad but I think he was one of 2 babies in the entire room, we are clearly not in Utah anymore, so every time he made even the slightest noise I felt like everybody was staring at us!!

We are pumped cause we get to paint our apartment, we have already painted the same wall twice in our one week of living here because the burt orange color we were going for looked like a big pumpkin on our wall with the first color we chose, so we re-did it and I like it way better.

We miss all you Utahns but I am totally in love with this place!