Pool Play and New Camera

Ian bought a new camera a few weeks ago and I am considering getting the same one as a graduation present. It is waterproof, so I figured I would put that to the test with his camera before I got mine. It works great! I threw this clip together in iMovie and thought I would share. The kids love playing in the pool and their new slide.

The Big Move

A cross country move is a bit of a challenge. Add a nursing baby, a toddler and a 12 year old van with no a/c and broken windows and you have an adventure!


Our Navigator


The Happy Traveler

We made quite a few stops along the way. Here are just a few of them.


Starved Rock State Park
Utica, Illinois


Historic Nauvoo
Nauvoo, Illinois


The Big Tree House
Marshalltown, Iowa


Union Pacific Railroad Classification Station
North Platte, Nebraska


Ames Brothers Pyramid
Buford, Wyoming


Temple Square (and A LOT more with our week long stay in Utah...more on that later)
Salt Lake City, Utah


And finally we arrived in Duarte, CA. The bear came out to help us unload our pod at the end. What a great help.

SOLD

It's official! We just signed the closing papers and no longer own our home. We put the house on the market the day that Ethan was born (which was 3 months ago tomorrow). We got the offer over a month ago, but it has been a long process of bank stuff going on to get to the closing. It was a little bit crazy trying to take care of a toddler, a baby, and have the house ready for show, but we managed. We are just very happy that it sold before moving on.

Speaking of moving...

With the help of the missionaries and friends we got all of our possessions loaded into the pod to be sent out to California.

Brielle has been excited about the big white box sitting in our driveway. It was a great dance studio before we started getting it filled with boxes.

Our road trip starts tomorrow. Goodbye Michigan. We'll miss you...especially the nice green sunny beautiful days. Maybe not so much the icky icy freezing cold days.

Last Minute Adventures

We are busy trying to sell things, pack and get ready to go. However, we are not too busy to enjoy Michigan and have been trying to get out to do at least one fun thing each day before we go. Here are a few of the things we've been up to this month:


The attempt at getting studio pictures for Brielle's 2 year and Ethan's 2 month marks. Obviously we weren't getting any smiles out of either of the kids that day.

MSU Children's Garden

an impromptu dinner picnic at the MSU Children's Garden

The enormous marble ball that spins on top of the water. James' favorite spot on the MSU campus.

the garden has a green bridge that Brielle loved to go up and down and back and forth, the only thing that got her away from the park was the promise of ice-cream at Cold Stone.

Leo's Lodge

A fun night out to dinner with friends. This is Ellie with Jim and Paiton.

Hawk Island Park

Enjoying the splash pad

Taggart's Playground

A rainy day trip out to the indoor playground where Ellie spent most of here time in the fire truck

and on the roller coaster. We'll have to take her to a REAL roller coaster sometime.

Ethan's Blessing

This handsome little boy is 2 months old already!
With family in town for James' graduation we were also able to have them participate in blessing Ethan. James blessed Ethan (and yes, he did remember his real name blessing him Ethan Bradly Finlay and not 'Ephim's Noisy' or 'Scrunt'). Also in the circle were both of Ethan's Grandpas (Brad Finlay and Roger Christensen), Uncles Ian and Evan, and good friend Chris Christensen.

Ethan's grandmas smothering him with kisses while they were here.

James and Ethan just happened to be wearing the same color of green. We didn't plan it that way, but they looked really good together.

Ethan's 2-month-old stats:
Height--24 1/4 inches (90%)
Weight--14 lbs (90%)
HC--40.2 cm (50%)

Dr. Finlay

James made it through 4 years of busy and intense studying and is now officially a Veterinarian.

The hooding ceremony. James was interested to learn that you don't actually have to wear the hood on your head.

We had a large group that came to show their support. All of James' family, both sets of grandparents, Aunt Helen, and Megan's parents. Thank you to everyone that made the trip!

Congratulations to James for all the hard work that he has done to fulfill a life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian. Now we are looking forward to further adventures as a family as we move to Southern California for the residency and PhD program for specializing in Lab Animal Medicine.

Look Who's TWO!

Brielle turned 2 on Monday. She wasn't quite sure what a birthday meant, but seemed to know she should be excited for it. For her birthday we had a play day doing whatever she wanted to do. That consisted of chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, going to the Library, going to McDonalds for lunch and taking it to the park for a picnic, sidewalk chalk, frisbee, playing in the sand, going for a stroller ride and going to the park again. It was a fun, full day and she was exhausted and ready for bed by the end.

We celebrated with Cake, Ice Cream and Presents on Sunday so that James could be home. James actually made the cake (from scratch!) and frosted it.

Ellie has LOVED the I SPY books for the past 8-9 months. She started with the board books, but quickly memorized where everything was, so we get the "grade-school" I SPY books from the library each week. I keep trying other books, but she wants to have James 'read' (as in ask her to find things) from and I SPY Book every night before bed.

I put a candy on the cake and a matching one on the tin-foil around the cake. We showed her what to look for and then she would find it on the cake. That actually lasted longer than I thought it would before she discovered that she could EAT it!

She was slightly cleaner with more table manners than last year's birthday. It was good though that we didn't have a lot of people over though, because apparently 1 cake is not enough for more than 3 people.

2-year-old stats:
Height--36 inches (94%)
Weight--26 lbs 2.5 oz (45%)
HC--47 cm (40%)