Another Busy Post!--Winter/Spring 2011

From January to March was another quarter of full-time school. With a quick Spring Break in March (and me and Bailey's Birthdays!) We went right into Spring Quarter from end of March to June--which included a trip to Greece for Chris and I! In a nutshell (because there is so much to catch up on) here are some highlights of January--June 2011!

February

Our good friend Julia did a photography session with Bailey after the daffodils bloomed--they turned out so beautiful! She's a great photographer and Bailey loved being around all the flowers and changing into different dresses :)














Valentine's Day!! What a fun holiday it was this year. With Bailey in preschool, we made homemade valentine's for everyone in her class out of construction paper, glitter and stickers. She loved making them. She also loved helping me make heart-shaped pink pancakes for breakfast that morning--with sprinkles on top of course:)




March

It was Birthday month for our little family! Bailey turned 3 on March 11. During Spring Break we had a big Princess Party in the Community Center at our complex and one of my friends even came dressed up as Sleeping Beauty. Bailey was SO thrilled about that:) Mom helped me with food and we had activities like wand decorating, bead necklaces and bracelets, face-painting and pin the crown on the princess. Later that weekend we celebrated my own Birthday by going out with my parents and our good friends Jolynn and Casey Mierovitz to a nice local restaurant called "Tuco's" that was SO delicious! It was a fun Birthday weekend!

On Bailey's Birthday, she got to be the special "Star of the Day" at her preschool where she got to lead circle time and be the special teacher's helper for the day. She LOVED it and she showed us her favorite activities to do around the classroom--which tended to be puzzles and number games.



a gift from Shayli:) She loves rockin' out!




Dad and Chris were troopers with all the setting up--and I wish I had gotten better pictures of the food tables with the gorgeous frosted cupcakes mom had piped, the muffins, fruit and fruit dip were all beautifully done and displayed thanks to her!

Hannah was our designated face painter:)



April

April was a fun-filled month! We had Chris' family come down and visit us for a weekend and we all went to Great America theme park in San Jose. I wish I would've gotten some pictures--but I got great one of Nana playing on the front grass with Bailey. They put pom-poms in their pants to make horse tails and were playing horses all afternoon!


Easter weekend my sister CAMILLA came to visit me!!! We had such a nice visit with her! We had an Easter Egg hunt Saturday at the complex and we did lots of bike riding round town, Farmer's Market, etc. I love my little sis so much and it was so good to see her! Austin couldn't come up since he was in the Bahamas doing research (talk about a nice place to do research!) It was really good to spend time with her before they headed out to Africa for the whole summer to do humanitarian work in Tanzania--we've been missing them!





At the end of the month, Bailey had her first Dance recital! She has LOVED taking ballet and she even makes me out on music all the time so she can dance around the living room and "practice" her steps. She knows first, second and third position and "leaping" is her favorite. The theme for the recital was "Under the Big Top" and Bailey's class did a routine dressed as black cats. It was cute!





May

May was probably the most EXCITING month so far this year! Chris had a conference in Greece and I flew out to meet him there! It was out first time ever flying and visiting another country besides Canada and the border of Mexico. It was so neat to experience another country--the food, culture, sights and history! We truly had such a wonderful time. Bailey stayed with my mom and Chris' mom in Medford. I flew out to meet Chris on the Island of Crete and we spent a couple days there, then took a ferry to another Island--Santorini (which was our favorite part of the trip!) and after spending a couple days there we went to mainland Greece and toured Athens and drove to Nafplion. There are WAY too many pictures to post and so I'll put them in another post following this one to show you all our adventures! We were so grateful to have such an opportunity to go. Chris had gotten a travel grant that paid all his expenses and flight and we had gotten our tax return in March so we could save up and pay for my flight and traveling expenses. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm so glad we took!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of our family in May before the trip.


Chris had been growing out his beard to see how long it could get. We discovered that instead of growing long...it grows out and poofs like an afro-beard! He finally shaved it off as a Mother's Day gift to me :)

Mother's Day!

Bailey has grown up so much. She is becoming so independent. One of the things she loves doing the most at home is tracing her name! Now she can write her name all by herself without tracing the letters and can write more than half the letters of the alphabet freehand.

Winter 2010-11

Where to begin? This is a huge catch up, and I'm going to have to leave out lots, but here goes:

December 2010

Things got crazy after David passed away. I came home from the funeral and Thanksgiving to massive homework and finals the next week. It was insane and I was so not ready to get back into "life" but I had to just push through and hold it all in until finals were over. Then the emotions broke loose and I was a train wreck. Needless to say, within a week after finals I wanted nothing more than to go home to Medford and be with family. So we quickly packed up (Bailey and I) and headed up. Chris had to stay back and work up until Christmas Eve, but it was good that I could be with everyone at this hard time. Before we left we had decorated our little potted Christmas Tree in hopes that we could plant it in our garden after Christmas.

Once we were in Medford it was a really hard Christmas. It was good to be around family because we had each other for support, but it was also so hard to be around other people who love and miss him so much, too. His sweet wife, Angie was with us too and we love her so much! She plans on staying in Medford with mom and dad and take some classes at the community college until she can get back up on her feet. Bailey was spoiled with presents galore and we decided that we would put a limit as to how many gifts grandparents and people can buy her from now on... :)

We sang Christmas carols as a family at the gravesite


family trip to a cabin near Crater Lake--we went snowmobiling and had a blast for a couple days!



Hope's 7th Birthday Party at the Roller Rink--Bailey's first time skating:) and I had chopped my hair off and got bangs while in Medford.

Bailey & Papa

After coming home, I started a new quarter and it was back to "real life" again. School keeps me busy and my mind off feeling sad, but sometimes it still "boils over" and I have a hard time. I'm so grateful though for my Savior and the peace He gives me. Even though times can be hard, he always gives me a "break" between the down times where he carries me and I can feel his peace and love and a feeling of hope. I'm so grateful to know that families are forever...but some days I don't want to wait so long until I can see David again. I promise I will feel like blogging more about him and the accident someday soon--just not quite there yet.

Here are some fun pics of activities we have been doing as a family (some were before Christmas in December and some are right after--in January).

Decorating our little potted X-mas tree before we went to Medford. Bailey had so much fun:)




Santa came to Orchard Park in a fire truck!! Bailey likes Santa, but not enough to sit on his lap yet. I didn't post the pic of me trying to show her how:)



making cookies (notice all her princess figurines are in the bowl of flour:) they like to help too.


Ready for school!


After we came back from X-mas break, we started ballet classes! Bailey loves it so much:) She wanted to wear her ballet slippers all the time


We have also been doing a lot of hiking--this trail goes out to an old homestead and follows a pretty creek. When we got to the old homestead Bailey was convinced that it was the dwarves old cottage and we played Snow White for an hour before we hiked back:)




Leela is the newest addition to our family. Chris got her for me after David passed away. Bailey especially loves to hold her and carry her around:) We took her with us to Medford for the break.

November 2010

On Wednesday, November 17, 2010 my brother David passed away along with his flight instructor in a plane crash. He was attending UVU's flight program for his commercial pilot's license. I am not ready to post/blog about it. I just wanted this to be here for the record since this is my family journal.

Fall 2010

***This post was started in October and is just now being posted***

Ok I know I've been the worst blogger ever, but time is something I don't have a lot of these days!

Let's start at the beginning--end of September and the start of fall (did I mention fall is my absolute FAVorite season?) I love the changing leaves, brisk air, and sweaters.

Bailey and I started school! It was so hard for me to see my sweet little Bailey start preschool. Technically her preschool (on campus) is ages 3-4, but they let Bailey start at 2 1/2 since she was potty trained and well on her way to learning letters and numbers. She LOVES it--she has always loved structured activities that we've done together in the past year, such as gymnastics, music makers, playgroups etc. But it was so hard for ME to let her go...not being there beside her every minute and doing fun things TOGETHER! So you could definitely say that it was harder for Chris and I for her to start school than Bailey:) Her teacher's name is Miss Patty with the helper teachers: miss Jenna and miss Jeannie.

(pictured below: she loves to "match" our hair. She also loves to ride her pink bike to school beside my bike since we're right on campus and her preschool is right on campus as well!)





Bailey and Daddy on her first day of school.

I love school as well. I got my Associate's back in 2008 at BYU-I, but this was my first official quarter here at UC Davis. I'm pursuing a BA in Music Performance with piano as my primary instrument. I hope to later get my teaching certification and teach Elementary school music as well as continue teaching private piano lessons from home (Chris promises me my own studio one day--a long time away:) I had 16 credits this fall quarter and it kicked my butt, but I enjoyed my classes so much--especially since they are mostly music classes.

Chris is plugging away with his research and published his first article in a journal called "Human Molecular Genetics". He is already well on his way to finishing his second publication this month or the next. Here is a link to his article:

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/64.full

Grandma Elyce Whitney

My dear sweet Grandma Whitney passed away this past weekend. I had a post last year that had mentioned my Grandpa Whitney passing away and I got to be there with him when he passed. During that weekend I was able to spend lots of time with Grandma and even spend a couple nights sleeping next to her when Grandpa had just passed. She was such a sweet woman and I will always remember her from the times when they lived in Lone Pine, California and we would go to visit every year. They had lived there in the small town and raised there family (and my dad) there. Their property had a creek and small orchard and garden, grapevines, tree forts and rope swings. It was truly a child's paradise. Grandma canned the best peaches, apricots and pears from their trees. She was a master baker and was always in he kitchen baking us yummy things to eat while we played. She was always whistling out her kitchen window to the birds and could imitate so many of their calls and they would sing back to her. She was also always loving and wanted everyone to be happy. In recent years she has struggled with dementia and her arthritis was so bad that she had to be on pain meds most of the time. This past year (after Grandpa passed) she has lived with my Uncle Kim and Aunt Vicky and they have spoiled her and taken great care of her:) All of us will miss her so much, but I know she is in a better place and with the man of her dreams. I'm grateful to know this and to know that there is life after death and that we can be with our loved ones forever and I will be able to see her again.

these are recent pictures taken of her at Uncle Kim's and a picture of Bailey and I with a piano music box that she gave me during one of my last visits while they lived in Lone Pine. I remember I always used to play with it when we visited and I treasure it and the melody it plays. She was a wonderful pianist:)

Summer Fun

I have been terrible about blogging:( I need to be extra good too, because I started working on printing all my posts into a blog book for a family journal--which I'm so excited to have!

It has been a pretty chill summer. Although for Chris, he had some major stress up until mid August. He had his qualifying exams before a panel of research professors where he had to give an oral presentation of his research and they asked him questions. If you pass your oral exam and presentation then they let you continue in their PhD program and your research, if they don't approve then they give you a Master's Degree and send you on your way (in other words, you couldn't cut it out to do a PhD and therefore are thrown out) I wasn't worried about Chris at all, but of course he was super stressed out about it and I didn't see him for a few months while he studied and prepared. But he did pass and is now a bit more relaxed for the summer, although he just submitted his first first-author paper to a journal and is anxiously waiting to hear back. I'm so proud of him and all that he is accomplishing! He truly loves what he's doing and it makes me so happy for him:)

Bailey and I have been chilling together since I didn't take any classes or anything. I'm anxiously awaiting the quarter to start end of Sept. though! I have a bunch of placement exams for theory and keyboard competence classes as well as try-outs for a private piano teacher and the performance track. I'm really excited, but nervous! I've been taking from a local teacher here in Davis who is wonderful and has been whipping me back into shape for the try-outs:)

Bailey has had a ballet class this summer and loved it! It was so cute to see her dancing on her tip-toes and flinging the ribbons around while she danced. She is so much fun and I have LOVED having this special time with just me and her. She is expecially excited to start preschool this fall when I go back full-time. She will have preschool each morning and I pick her up after lunch. We have visited a few times and she absolutely loves all the activites and social atmosphere. She tells everyone about how she gets to go to preschool in Sept while mommy is in school and she gets a "Dora lunchbox". :)

We have done a lot of camping this summer. These pictures are from our fourth camping trip we've taken. We met Chris' family up outside of Redding at the base of Mt. Shasta and had a blast camping for 4 days and 3 nights. The campground was beautiful with waterfalls and hiking trails in walking distance, very private campgrounds that were heavily wooded, and no bathrooms (but they a running water spicket at least) It was a wonderful trip!

Anniversary Getaway to Santa Cruz

Chris and I have been married 5 years July 14th! We went on a getaway to Santa Cruz and Chris' mom and sister Brittany came down to stay with Bailey for the weekend. They had fun going to FairyTale Land, swimming, out to eat, parks, and playing in the garden:) Meanwhile...Chris and I spent 2 days and a night...

cruising the boardwalk (and riding on all the fun rides:)...






playing on the beaches...





having a romantic dinner at a five star oceanfront restaurant...




surfing...



going to the aquarium...






and having the time of our lives.

HAPPY 5 YEARS, my love! I look forward to the eternity we have to spend together:)