Connor is 2!!!

Cheese face!

My baby is now 2 years old!  He really is such a joy in our lives.  He loves to be with his older brother and sister and make everyone laugh.  He has been making a lot of progress on his speach, and just in case I haven't mentioned anything before, he was a very slow talker.  at 18 months he would only say a few words and since he has been in speach therapy he has been doing a lot better. 

At his last appointment Connor weighed: 27 pounds and is 34.5 inches tall.  Tall and skinny for his age.  His newest obsession since we have been home from our trip have been horses.  Or Nays to him.  If he sees them he yells at you Nay until you acknowledge the horse that he is trying to show you, not very fun when it is during church. 

Connor is also very polite.  He loves to say thank you.  He says it all the time even if he does something for you then he says "thank you moma" I love it.  The other thing that I love is when we are trying to figure out what he wants, for example in the morning picking out cereal.  I will show him a box at a time and he will say no until I get the one that he wants and he says "yeah!" with his hands up in the air.  It is super cute! 

For Connor's birthday we invited friends over for a BBQ to celebrate.  I wish it was a cooler day, but it was very muggy that day and aweful, but it didn't ruin the fun.  Connor loved to say cheese for the camera.  He loved all of his presents and his cake.   

I had fun decorating for the party.

The Decorations

Our present for Connor was his big boy bed.  We let him sleep in it for the first time that night.  He fell out of it once, but luckily we were still awake to help him back in.  What a big boy!

In his big boy bed

July Happenings

School Started

I didn't get any pictures of Josh's first day of dental school, but I still wanted to document that he started school on July 1st!  It was such an exciting day in our lives.  He didn't have to start the application process again this year, instead he got to start school.  This day has been a long time coming and we are so proud of him for not giving up!  We look forward to moving forward in our lives and spending 4 more years here!

4th of July

We celebrated our usual way with our ward 4th of July breakfast!  The weather didn't cooperate with us so we weren't able to do the bike parade for the kids, so they just rode them around.  Josh was in charge of the BBQ this year being the Elders Quorum President and I made most of the decorations, so it was great to have that day past us. 

County Days

We went up to the annual parade and walked around the booths.  It was a decent day until the sun peered through the clouds and heated it up. 

Utah Trip- BJ's Wedding

The even that we planned our whole trek out West was my little brother, BJ's wedding.  We are grateful that they wanted us there enough to plan their wedding in June so that we could be there.  The day was beautiful, the ceremony was nice and the kids looked good, but Connor... didn't want to smile that day.  Of all days he had to choose the one that hundreds of pictures were taken.  I think he might have felt the pressure to look good and smile, so he was just a grump.

We are so excited to have Tera in our family now.  She looked beautiful that day and I LOVE her shows that she wore.  It was really great to spend time as a family and celebrate BJ & Tera's wedding.

We had a blast decorating their car too.  We had plenty of help from both sides of the family, it was a blast!  This is how we show our love!

Utah Trip- part 3

Father's Day

We got to celebrate Father's Day while in Utah and the kids gave Josh their traditional homemade shirt, made him king for the day and gave him a kiss. 

Grandma

We were also able to visit my Grandma Nordgren while we were there for our last time, since she has past away since we have left.  It was nice to see her and visit with her one last time.

Dinner & Entertainment

We had a couple of memorable dinners while we were there.  We went to Pirate Island (or Pirate Cove, I don't remember) and we were there for karaoke night.  Almost everyone got up and sang.  The kids all got up and sang with Tosha, and Josh got dared $5 to sing "Baby's got Back" and I got paid $5 to go up and dance to it.  So we did it!
We also threw a Luau for my sisters 30th birthday.  I wanted to be there to celebrate her big 3-0 so we celebrated a little early so that I could be there.  Thanks Jess, for turning 30 twice!

Hiking

We went on a couple hikes to see all the beauty that we miss.  We walked around BYU's new trails and had a picnic, then we went and walked around at Bridal Veil Falls and let the kids play in the water.

Utah Trip- part 2- Kelly Side

We spent a day with Nic & Kandis while in Utah.  We went to 7 peaks for the day and had fun in the wave pool and on the slides.  Megan was very brave and tried to do every slide she could.
After 7 peaks we went home to clean up, and on the way we got pulled over by a police man for the only time of the whole trip since Josh forgot to stop at a stop sign.  Lucky for him he let him go without a ticket.
After we cleaned up we went back to Nic & Kandis' home to eat dinner and hang out.  The kids had a lot of fun and Connor loved to hold Vann and chase Betty.

We spent a night with Josh's aunt and uncle, Wayne & Laurie.  It was so fun to see the amazing new home that they had built for their son, Jesse.  The kids had so much fun playing in their little kid room & watching movies with Jesse, and Josh loved playing in their theatre room on their video games.  It was great to see them and catch up on their lives with the little time we had with them.

Utah part 1

I have been super busy and blogging really has been on the back burner.  Plus we did so much in Utah that it was hard to decide where to start.

Hiking the Y

So we will start with our trip on the way through as we were heading to California we stayed a day and we hiked the Y.  The kids were troopers.  Connor didn't want to walk and had to be carried pretty much the whole way.  He walked for just a little bit to give everyone a break which was nice.  Megan and Bryson did a lot of complaining, but they walked every step and made it all by themselves.  They were very proud of themselves once they finished and Grandma & Grandpa got them a shirt to remember their journey to the Y.  On the way down Connor fell asleep on my brother, BJ's shoulders.

Princess Festival

My Mom was so excited when she found out that we were going to be there during the Princess Festival.  So we got the girls all ready and headed up and realized that we showed up a day early.  The girls were bummed, but they were able to get all dressed up as a princess again the next day. 

For the festival we walked around and got to see all sorts of different princesses, getting pictures and watching different shows/ fairy tales, which all ended Happily Ever After. Megan loved every minute of it.

Horseback Riding

We were all excited to have the opportunity to go horseback riding at my new step Uncle's home.  He was so nice to let us come and ride his horses, we are very grateful.  He had Bryson help him take little pony "Too Tall" out and had the kids brush him before they saddled him up.  All of the kids rode the pony, Megan went first and after Uncle Bill taught her how to ride and direct the horse he let her ride on her own inside the corral.  She did a great job but didn't like it when it started to go fast.  Bryson also loved it and did a great job riding it on his own and didn't mind going a little faster.  Connor on the other hand just wanted to watch and screamed when we put him on, so he didn't get a ride.

Hanging out on the ranch!

After all the kids rode the pony us grown ups gotta ride the big horses.  We gotta go for a little ride around the area.  I was a little scared, but it wasn't too bad and luckily my horse minded me.  It really was fun and I'm glad that we got this opportunity.

California

We were excited when we made it to California, 2,230 miles away from home.  I was excited to be able to clean out the van which was the first thing I did once we got there.  We took our time in California to relax and not do too much since we knew that our time in Utah was going to be very busy.  Some of the fun things that we did were, Grandpa taking the kids for a ride on the Four-wheeler.

Josh and Grandpa took the kids fishing while, Linda, Christy & I went to their stamping group.  It was a lot of fun making cards, and getting crafty with them all week.  Thanks to them I have learned to make cake pops and oreo balls. (my friends love you!)

The kids had so much fun fishing with Grandpa.  They went to one spot and was having no luck, so they packed up and headed to a new spot and the fish were biting like crazy.  The kids caught fish after fish coming home with 10 fish. 

We couldn't go to California without visiting Great Grandpa Kelly.  We went a couple days before he got his new chickens, but we still enjoyed hanging out talking to Uncle Ron & Aunt Allison & Grandpa and letting the kids swing, pick cherries and oranges, swim and play with the dogs.

4 Generations of Kellys!

Having fun swinging, eating oranges & watching the fish.

We were so proud of Bryson who was so scared to go down the slide and after Josh "tricked" him to go down by having him go up with him but sending him down the slide before him, he realized that it really wasn't that scary and he wouldn't stop going down the slide.  Megan had so much fun going down the slide, jumping off the diving board and getting thrown up in the air to grab a ball. Connor took awhile to get in to the pool and wouldn't try to go down the slide, but enjoyed just splashing around.  We had a lot of fun at Grandpa's playing around and listening to stories. 

We spent a lot of time hanging out around the pool.  Again Bryson surprised us when the Shumways were over and all the kids were lining up to jump off the diving board and Bryson lined up and didn't even hesitate when it was his turn and just ran and jumped off all by himself.  Connor wasn't as daring and would just keep to the little kid pool.  Megan loved swimming and as usual did awesome.  She was so good playing with the younger kids and helping them around the pool.

We were very excited to catch up with a couple of our friends while we were out there.  I don't know what got into me and I forgot my camera when we went to visit our friends, the Morgans, but we had a great time hanging out with them.  We had sent the kids out back to play with some bubbles and squirt guns and at the end of the day Connor ended up naked from getting soaked, Bryson was half dressed and Megan somehow came out with all her clothes on.  So much fun.

Josh and I also were lucky to go out on a date with our friends, I was treated to a new hairstyle and we just enjoyed our time relaxing, hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, Mike, Christy, Ava & Jack.  Thanks for letting us crash the house for a week we loved hanging out with you guys.

Trek West to Colorado

So blogging to me lately has been very overwhelming.  I have this whole trip out west to write about, and as much as I don't want to forget any of it, life is still moving forward, which seems to be very rapidly.  It's now been a month since we have been home and I am just now getting to writing it down.  Yet, I am sure I won't get it all in today since Connor can only nap for so long, Megan & Bryson's movie will end at a point, and dinner does not make itself (but I wish it did some days) So our long trip will be broken up and spread apart but I will eventually get it all down.

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We left on June 2nd to start our long car ride.  We drove about 11 hours the first day.  The kids were surprisingly good so we were able to make it a little further then we had planned. I just have to write about at one of the rest stops that we stopped at there was a little trail that we walked on for a bit and before we got back into the van the kids were looking at a butterfly and it kept coming close and landing on them and flying away.  Connor started to chase it and it seemed like it was playing tag with him.  We were all laughing so hard.  Our next day drive was only 9 hours until we reached Matt & Stacie's home in Colorado. 

We spent a day there of not driving before we headed off to UT.  We loved seeing Our 3 nephews, & Matt & Stacie.  That one day we were there we took the kids to the park and had a picnic and played some baseball.  Our boys loved it and had so much fun.  After the park we went to the pool to cool off.  Everyone loved it except Connor who wouldn't go into the pool.  I finally made him get in at the end and of course when it was time to leave, he didn't want to get out. 

Josh and Matt remembering their "glory days" of baseball, way too many years ago.

Just for the sake of easiness, I am also writing about our trip once we came back at the end of our trip, on our way home.  On our second visit we planned to spend 3 days with them instead of 1.  We went to Water World and spent a day there playing in the water and staying cool.  Megan & Bryson loved the kids area where they have smaller water slides for them to ride on.  They would have gone on those rides all day if we let them.  We went on a couple of bigger rides that you do with the whole family sitting in a tube.  After the first one that was more like a Disney Land ride that took you inside with the robotic dinosaurs and down little hills, sort of like Splash Mountain, minus the big drop at the end.  Connor kept saying "no, no, no" when we would go to ride another one, he didn't like them.  He did enjoy just playing in the little pool that they had.  He didn't like the lazy river unless he was being held and he would go into he wave pool until the waves started then he would get out.  Josh enjoyed going on all of the rides that he and his brother, Matt could do.  It was a very fun day, we all came home very exhausted from having so much fun in the sun.

The kids all loved playing together, they spent a lot of time playing computer games and watching TV, but loved to play with their cousins.  Megan always wanted to hold Tysen if she could, even though Tysen isn't easy to hold, he likes to wiggle.  Connor was very terrified of their dog (any dog really), Fenway.  We knew he didn't really like dogs going in to the trip and was hoping that he would start to like them more.  On our way out he did not want to be put down when the dog was near by.  He was obsessed with knowing where the dog was at all times tho.  By the time we came back and he had spent some more time with other dogs, he did a lot better and he actually would sit next to Fenway and even pet him.  I really like the bread of dog Fenway is and would love to have one someday. 

It was also fun to be able to see some friend of ours, Brandon & Michelle, that just moved from Kentucky to Colorado.  They were one of our first friends when we moved to Kentucky.  Megan and Rylee enjoyed playing with each other.  And I was looking at the above picture that we took of them and was realizing how much they look alike, crazy.  We had a lot of fun hanging out in Colorado.  Time always goes by fast and we always wish that we could spend more time with family, especially since we don't see family too often.  But thanks Matt & Stacie for letting us crash, twice at your home, sorry about all the missing gumballs that my kids loved getting in to.  We hope that it won't be 4 years before we see you guys again. 

The Sweet Life

Josh & I were privileged to go to Cancun with his parents at the end of May.  We had some wonderful friends, whom the kids love, come and stay with the kids so that we could go.  We left Friday morning after we sent the kids off to school and arrived in Mexico in the early evening.  We found Josh's parents in the long immigration line and after we got through the airport, on our long shuttle ride we arrived to our wonderful hotel, the Aventura Spa Palace.  We were welcomed with a cold wash cloth that smelled really good, but I didn't know what to do with it.  We dabbed our faces and washed our hands and left the towels.  We were then welcomed in the VIP check in as they brought us ladies a flower and all of us the "welcome drink" (which was really good) After we met Enrica who was our personal concierge during our stay who helped scheduled our activities we were taken up to our beautiful Presidential Suite    

The room was wonderful, we had an amazing view of the ocean which was great to wake up to.  Our first morning there we decided to try some room service, but after they didn't show up an hour late we canceled it and decided to do the tour to earn some credit to do some activities.  We didn't luck out with room service too much, not only did they mess up our first day but a couple of other times.  We opted to eating at the restaurants on the mornings that we could.

Speaking of food, everything there was YUMMY!!  All of the restaurants that we ate at were delicious and the part that I liked was coming back to our room at night and having a little plate of treats waiting for us, my favorite was the chocolate covered strawberries.  On top of all the great food we were able to order drinks wherever we went.  We had a lot of Miami Vices while we were there, stopped in to the Smoothie bar a few times too.  On our last night (all together) we had a "romantic" steak and lobster dinner that was wonderful!

Besides all the great food, there was also a lot of great views.  Everywhere you looked it was just beautiful!  All but 3 of the corner pictures were taken at our resort.  The bottom 2 corners were at another hotel that had a beautiful beach.  We had fun collecting sea shells on that beach.  The top left corner was the extra night in Cancun that Josh and I had (which is a later story).  But how could you go wrong seeing this view every day.  AMAZING! 

I don't know if I could pick a favorite thing of the trip since I loved everything, just picking a few pictures was hard and this isn't even 1/2 of them (or maybe 1/3 of them)  But I would say that all the pampering was quite fun.  We frequented the spa.  We were given $1500 credit for each room and we were able to use as much of it as we wanted on spa treatments.  With the package we already received a free manicure & pedicure (which Josh & his Dad did do too) and a 25 min massage.  On top of that, Linda & I did a "Relax Package" which included a body scrub, facial & aromatheriputic massage.  That was so great that I went back and did a hot stone massage (which was very relaxing), then Linda and I did a sea weed wrap, which I just felt disgusted all slimmed up and wrapped, I don't think that I will ever do one of those again.  Then for my final treatment I got a scalp treatment, which really was more of a glorified head massage.  Wouldn't do that again either.  But doing all of these treatments and doing the hydrotherapy before hand were all very relaxing.

We also had great entertainment at the hotel.  Every night there was a different show, we had karaoke, break dancing, fire dancers, magic shows, Michael Jackson show, volleyball in the pool, water exercises, arcade room & even serenades during dinner.

Xcaret

We went to a park called Xcaret (esh-ca-ret) for the WHOLE day.  We left at 8:30am and returned home at 10pm.  At the park we swam in an under ground river, snorkeled in the ocean, saw sea turtles, sharks, fish & dophins.  We rowed on a boat around a river, saw wart hogs, deer, mushrooms, lillies, and of course iguanas.  We saw some old ruins, a cemetary which was really interesting, there were little houses, cars & animals.  We relaxed on their beach, got confused trying to find our way around the park, but the part that I will remember most was meeting a dear lady, Tanya.  She rode over on our bus and once we left our group she started following us around, we didn't know what to think at first.  She is originally from Russia but is now living in Wisconsin near her son.  She had a really hard time understanding the people and so when she saw us she asked if she could hang out with us.  After some confusion and we found out that she didn't want to swim in the underground river that we were going to swim in, we went to find her some help and left her.  We later reconnected and she spent the rest of the day with us.  She made our day there different then it would have been, but we were blessed to have met her.

After our lunch/dinner meal we walked around a little more and headed over to the evening show that they do.  On our way over they had people dressed up and we had a lot of fun taking pictures with them. 

The evening show was very hot, but very entertaining.  I like that we all given a candle when we came in and we all lit them at the begining of the show.  They went through the history of Mexico, they showed the Mayan Ball Game and a fire ball game that is played like hockey.  All the different outfits were very interesting and fun to watch the different dances.  It was a long hot day, it was great to experience but I don't think that we would do it again.

Zipline

Josh and I went on a ziplining tour.  This was my first time zip lining and I was very nervous about it.  It was a lot of fun though. We weren't able to hold our camera so we didn't get to take any pictures so we had to buy their pictures that they took of us.  They allowed us to go upside down 2 times on the course, I never dared to, but Josh tried it.  This is definately something that I would do again it was a lot of fun.

Tulum

Josh & I went to Tulum, it was another hot day, but it was beautiful there.  We had a great tour guide & we learned a lot about the history of the Mayan's, their culture & traditions.  I found it all very interesting, what it would be like back then not having much knowledge about life and why we are here and trying to make sense of everything. 

The view they had there was very beautiful and the sea breeze was very refreshing.

We had a wonderful time in Cancun and weren't excited to get back to the real world, but I was anxious to get back to our kids.  We had our last Miami Vice and stopped for a welcome drink before we checked out.  It was sad when they cut off our braclets taking away all the privelages.  But little did we know, this was not the end of our stay in Mexico.  After sitting at the airport both our flight and Josh's parent's flight were delayed.  Ours due to weather & Josh's parents from mantainace.  We were told that we wouldn't be able to make our connections and that we would either have to stay in Mexico or in our connecting cities.  We opted to stay in the U.S., but as we were waiting longer and longer they ended up canceling our flight since the crew had worked too many hours and couldn't fly.  Which really was a blessing cause then they had to pay for our lodging and food.  So after the hastle of the airport we made it to our second hotel.  E-mailed to get a hold of our babysitter to let them know that we wouldn't be flying in that night and we would be coming in the next evening.  After eating and making sure our kids were taken care of we went to bed early so that we could wake up and go through the airport fun again.  Except this time we were able to fly home, there was one last hiccup.  When we got to Louisville they had left/lost 1/2 of the planes luggage.  So we had to wait another hour to report our luggage, and when it finally showed up it looked like someone tried to rip it open.  We had to take it down to the aiprot again and they were nice enough to replace it with 2 new bags, since he couldn't get the smaller bag out of the bigger bag.  It was great to be home and especially to see our kids.  I don't think Connor knew what to do.  He looked at me and hugged me then he just looked and touched my face as to say "Is it really you?"  He did the same thing with Josh.  Thank you to Josh's parents for the great vacation and we are looking forward to going again (hopefully with everyone!)  

Elders Quorm BBQ

The Annual elders quorom BBQ was last weekend, they are always fun for the family.  The kids LOVE riding the horses.

(I love this picture I think it turned out GREAT!)

I tried to get Connor to ride with Megan but he didn't want anything to do with the horse.  Hopefully 1 of these days he'll want to ride.

We got horse rides out of the way and started eating and the rain came.  So everyone had to crowd under the deck, which still dripped between the boards, but we still had a good time trying to stay dry.

The rain would let up on and off and we were able to give the kids a tractor ride.

 I love Connor's face in this picture!

We had a lot of great food, great company & fun.  Thanks to the Chirstensen's for hosting us and letting our kids walk their dirty wet shoes all over your carpet, we have spot cleaner if you need it!