First Day of School

Today is the first day of school. We have a few new things this year.

#1 Kennedy starts Kindergarten! A bit of mixed emotions with that one, for both Mom and Kennedy.
#2 Tori has to get up at 6:45 so we can make it to the bus at 7:30.

#3 Tori and Kennedy will ride the bus home.

The girls are both excited, but it is odd that they can't ride bikes or walk to or from school anymore.
Tori's teacher is Mrs. Hammond, and Kennedy's teacher is Mrs. Swainston.

And yes, the girls are wearing matching outfits. :) Sometimes you would think that I have twins and try to dress them matchy/matchy, but I don't. They just really like to match. I try not to have them do that. Oh well! When I buy them clothes sometimes I will buy matching, not the same, but matching. Then they will always wear those clothes on the same day, on purpose. It is kinda cute. I am just glad that they get along.

Celebrate Youth Party

Every year, the day before school starts, Rexburg has a big party for the kids. So we went to Porter Park with Heather and the kids. The kids all had a blast! The fun part is that it was Kyler's birthday! So we got to have a fun and different kind of celebration with him.
Everything was free, and they had tons of give-aways, including food! It was so fun.

Tori's SMILE...

Just got a bit more holey! She is getting pretty good at going to see the Dentist. In the last two weeks she has gone to the Dentist 3 times and the Orthodontist once.
The first time at the Dentist we found out that all of Tori's permanant teeth coming in were too big for her little mouth. The dentist gave her 3 days to make one tooth out or he would have to pull it. He pulled it!!
During our trip to the Orthodontist we learned that Tori is going to have a total of 10 teeth pulled, just to make room for the new ones growing in.


This is Tori's beautiful smile before the first pulling today.


Dr. Davies and Summer numbing Tori's mouth before her FIVE teeth were pulled.




Her NEW, toothless grin!

Layton is TWO!!

Layton got to celebrate his birthday for about four days straight. by the 4th day he was singing Happy Birthday to himself. It started with Grandpa and Grandma coming to visit a few days early, then Birthday cake and cousins, then his sisters and presents, and ended with Grandpa and Grammy. He loved every minute of it.

Wind Storms...

I am doing a little catch-up, but when we had been in the house for three weeks we had experienced a total of FIVE, yes I said FIVE, major big wind storms. There would be gusts up to 60 MPH, and not just one gust, but one after another. The first one occured the very first night. These wind storms were strong enough to pick up our grill and drop it in another spot, breaking it twice!! I was beginning to wonder if I was going to like living out in the country. It obviously didn't like me.



One day, while driving home from Rexburg after running a few errands, I looked toward our home and the sky was BROWN. Literally BROWN! It had been blowing so hard for so long that the clouds in the sky picked up all the dust and made it brown. It was kind of cool, just because I had never seen anything like that before, but really weird.



As the clouds came over our house, it cast a brown hue over everything.



This is a beautiful sunset that we get the opportunity to see from our kitchen window every night. There are some spectacular sunsets in the Plano area. We really do love living here.

Tee Ball/ Tiger Ball

It was a short, cold baseball season this year, but the girls still had a BLAST!
Kennedy was pretty scared her first game, but after that she was great. They both improved over the year, and were two of the best players on their teams.


Kennedy at bat.


This is Kennedy getting reading to make a great play on third.


Tori at bat. I think she is getting ready to hit one of her grand slams.




And this is how Layton felt during the games.
He actually loved going to the games. We tried to always bring a mitt and ball for him so that he thought he was playing too.

I was so proud of Austin, he won the two awards that were given out that night, the teaching award, which was voted on by all his fellow residents, and the quality project award, which he put a lot of time into. I was so impressed.




The Senior Residents get together and decide which Attending Physicians and Nurses have helped them the most in the the last three years and them award them with a plaque. Austin was able to give this award to the Doctor who has been his greatest mentor during his residency. Austin was so honored to give this to Dr. Dyer. He has been such a great influence in Austin's career.



This is Austin and his certificate of completion.



Austin was so wonderful. At the end of the graduation he presented me with a dozen red roses and told everyone that he would not have been able to get through medical school and residency without me. He said lots of other beautiful things and that made the seven LONG years worth it! And I loved the roses.




These were some of Austin's fellow residents, and some of his best friends these last three years. L-R : Austin, Rachel, Amy Brizzee, Dave Brizzee (resident), Ryan Zimmerman (resident), Rena Nordeng-Zimmerman (resident- married to Ryan)




Austin's mom, Gail, was able to come and see the graduation.


Us with my parents, John and Terry Fennell. They delayed their vacation by a couple of days just so they could be there to support Austin. I am always so grateful they are always so supportive.


Not the greatest picture, but here are the Graduating Residents:
L-R: Ryan Zimmerman, Rena Nordeng, Charles Clair, David Brizzee, Marty Mangum, Austin.

Ross Park

My sister Stacy came to visit from Alabama, which sadly only happens once a year. The kids and I went to my parents home for the first weekend. The kids all had so much fun. It was a bit crazy with all the kids and two dogs, who were not used to being in the house. The next week we were all going to meet in Pocatello as Heather was driving through, but the weather was terrible! So we tried it again the next week, and the weather was perfect! We had so much fun we decided that next year we are going to make it a family reunion kind of thing.



All the kids and their moms.




Evan




Everyone in the Lazy River. Oh so nice! We loved that.





These beauties are my sistas. Aren't they gorgeous?!?

Richland, WA

Austin's sister Tallan moved to Richland two years ago and we finally got out there to visit them in their new place. It is a beautiful area and they have a beautiful home. The girls were so excited. We usually only get to see these cousins at Thanksgiving or Christmas each year. Hailey is Tori's age and Addison is just a little younger than Kennedy. They literally played and played all day and late into the night for 4 days. They loved it!!
Layton and Ella are the same age, and they got along remarkably well. All the other kids that we know his age he just fights with the whole time. We were so happy that they played so well.



We were suprised to see that Richland had a temple. It was only a couple of minutes away from Tallan's house. On Sunday we made a little trip over there and took a couple of pictures.



On Saturday we went to this really fun park that has a kiddy pool. The kids had a blast, but I think that their favorite thing was chasing the seagulls. There were a ton of them and the kids didn't seem to get tired of it. Layton had to be dragged away from the birds.





Chad thought it would be fun for the kids to race so he could see who was fastest. Hailey suprised us by beating everyone, even her big brother, Brenner.

4th of July

We got to spend the 4th of July weekend in Richland WA with our cousins the Schows. The girls had so much fun doing the sparklers and the little popper things. Uncle Chad also lit a couple of the rockets, and these fireworks that screach really loud. All the girls loved it!

Moved in!!!

Just thought I would throw in a little update. We were able to move into our new beautiful house on Friday. Lots of work, but lots of family to help! It is so wonderful, even more wonderful that I thought when we first came through! We love it so much, and just can't believe that it is ours. We have so much room. I can fit every piece of clothing I own in my closet! That has never, ever happened before. I love it!!!
I will upload pictures another time.

Thank you to all of you wonderful people who helped us move, both times this last month!!

New house

Here are a few pictures of our new house. We get to move in the day after Austin graduates from Residency. June 25. We are so excite we can hardly stand it!! The girls are really excited because there is a place that is a big sand box and they love that!
Austin and I are constantly looking at the pictures trying to figure out where everything will go and where to plant trees and the garden and put Howie and on and on.
Austin doesn;t think that he can last the whole month, it is going to be hard!




Do you love that huge fridge? Austin HATES it. He thinks that I will just let all of the food rot in there! Little does he know...