Residency Graduation

Well it finally happened.  The light at the end of the tunnel became just the light.  Jaron finished residency and completed his training to become a medical doctor.  Even now, 4 months into Jaron's job, it seems pretty surreal.  

Jaron's parents drove to and from Boise in one day to support him at graduation.  The Wittwer's graciously agreed to watch our kids for us so we could go.  The program was SO LONG (3+ hours!! And sadly, the focus for much of it was more on other resident years than it was even on the graduating year) so I was grateful we didn't have the kids with us.

At one point they had a video from people's patients, thanking them for their care.  This man was all choked up, thanking Jaron for his care.  It made me tear up too!

Not a great picture of either of us, but it'll have to do! :D

The Hiatts were our residency family.  They're who we had over for dinner and games, whose kids we always had over and whose house our kids always went to.  They're who we called when I went into labor.  They're who brought over chocolates and dinner when my kids were all sick and my husband was out of town. In summary, they're the BEST.  We miss them SO much.

Jennifer Gardner, the Twin Falls Site Coordinator, Jaron, Dave Schmidt, the Program Director, and Jared Hiatt, who MC'd the graduation and did a fantastic job.

Jaron's family drove to and from Boise in one day to be there!

The FMRI graduating class of 2016!

Picture Odds and Ends

With the move and all our travel, we did not dedicate ourselves to "summer school" as much as we have in the past.  But we still managed to get a few fun activities in.  This is lego volcanoes.

 The curse of being so far behind on the blog is that I can't remember how we got free Orange Leaf coupons.  :( But we did. And we put them to good use.

 This beautiful, amazing girl.  Love her muchly!

 More creative, toyless play in the days leading up to our move.

Circus!

We scored free kid tickets to the circus so, even though it was over 100 degrees that day, we loaded up Soli and went to see the greatest show on earth!

And it didn't disappoint. Those performers were amazing!  I could not believe how not-afraid of heights they are.  The animals were fun to see. The kids' favorite was the finale - the motorcyclists making death-defying jumps on their bikes at the end!

Snake River Canyon

The Snake River Canyon is such an amazing recreation opportunity.  We are blessed to have lived near it!  While we were in Twin we got to hike it, picnic by the river, swim the river, and hike and bike the canyon rim trail and across Perrine Bridge.

Our last bike across the bridge was on a SUPER windy day! So fun!

Summer Fun

With preparing to move and travel, this summer flew by.

As we packed up our toys for the move, play got creative and it was fun to see.

And of course we soaked up as many last chances to play with the Hiatts as we possibly could!  

We miss them SO!

 And a snapshot of me and my littles.  I don't take near enough pics with my cute kiddos!!

Siblings

I am so grateful my kids have siblings.  

There are so many challenging things about having a big family but there are so many awesome things too.  I think that by having siblings close in age, my kids are learning things they couldn't learn any other way.  It's so fun to see the way they play together and the way the "bigs" and the "littles" interact.

It makes my heart SO happy to catch them all playing together!!

Exploring the Magic Valley

We've gotten to live in so many amazing places.  And it never fails, we never explore them until we're about to move away and it's the last possible opportunity. :D

We took a day to go explore the Hagerman Fossil Beds and 1000 Springs Hot Springs.

We never actually got to the fossil beds.  While exploring the fantastic visitor's center, the guide persuaded us that it wouldn't hold the attention of young kids and that we should check out a nearby waterfall instead.  

1000 Springs hot spring was expensive but warm and fun.  The Carnley family joined us, which made it more fun.

Odds 'n Ends!

All four kids collaborated on this project - a firehouse for the Rescue Bots. There was red paint EVERYWHERE in our house but it was so neat seeing them all work together.

This shall be known as the Sunday Reed refused to wear anything but flip flops to church.  At first I tried to protest but his obstinate defiance was just too cute.  He ended up wearing flip flops to church for most of the summer.

This girl! :D

I get my hair cut approximately once or twice a year.  I love it, it feels amazing, and I love my hair for two days afterward. I should do it more often.

Cookies 'n Milk

"More cookies, please."

This kid has my heart!

Phone Odds 'n Ends

Gracen came home with this paper from church one week. "I know that Jesnsu loves me when I see..." and Gracen wrote "my Grandpa's orchard." Oh I love it! :) 

 All Eli wants to do these days is play strategy games.  He particularly has an interest in games that take 4+ hours like Monopoly and Risk.  Let's just say he's not able to find someone who is willing to play as often as he wishes.

I try to take at least one picture of each house that we live in.  It usually happens somewhere around moving week. :D  Good bye, Twin Falls house!  So many hard things happened while we lived here but lots of good things too.  Of course we always miss the people when we move on.

Addie and Reed and their love for green smoothies! Love it!

It seems like Addie had more than her share of sickness during her first 18 months of life.

Sick babies are hard to me.  Besides the lack of sleep and extra laundry it creates, I struggle to slow down and put other things on hold for their sakes. When I snapped this picture, I was taking time to comfort her.  Believe it or not, the house didn't (completely) fall apart and the other kids were still fed.  And I learned that there is something very near heaven about nursing one of these sweet innocents in their time of need. Thankful for learning moments like this one.

Adelyn has started insisting on things like sitting up to the table and using utensils.  My sweet baby is getting bigger!

One of the first pictures of summer.  We sure miss Soli and Niko!

End of the Year Carnival

The end of school carnival was so fun.  We took Soli and Niko, our neighbor kids that we just love, and met up with the Hiatts when we got there.

Bouncy houses, yummy inexpensive treats, a mini train, balloon animals,

so much fun.