Las Vegas

Jaron and I have never been away together overnight since we've had kids.  To celebrate residency graduation, we decided to just go ahead and do a getaway! We hired my college roommate, Kim, to take the kids and she was awesome to take on five kids in addition

to her four for five days.

My first impressions of Vegas were kind of shocking - dirty and poverty and low morals everywhere. We spent a few days walking the strip but were so grateful that we decided to stay at Trump tower.  It was a totally different atmosphere - no smoking, no gambling, and classy people.

We enjoyed exploring the Strip for a few days, especially the huge buffet we splurged on and the outlets, but we cut our trip short when the Strip was just to wearing and we were ready to leave!

The coolest building!  We found it on the way to the outlets. I have no idea what it is.

Our view from our hotel was pretty sweet!

One of the days Jaron's Fitbit tracked us at over 11 miles!

And of course we gambled.  We each spent $1 on the penny/quarter slots.  Jaron got up to almost $5 before losing it all.  I scored $9 on a game and decided to cash in while I was still ahead of the game!

 If my internet here wasn't so miserably slow, I would have had the full chocolate Statue of Liberty and the licorice one.  The internet CRAWLS here and we pay a small fortune for it. :(

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!!