Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving very much this year! The food was great and being with our families was even better!!!

Our Mississippi Girl!!!

Introducing our little Ella:

Born November 17th at 1:26 P.M. She is so cute we can't get enough of her. She weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces and is 20" long. She can't wait to meet her family soon in Utah!!!

October!!!

October has been a very busy month! We started it off with conference weekend! Conference was wonderful! To make it feel more like home we made the traditional Sunday morning breakfast of sausage fondue, fruit, and chocolate milk! Saturday during both sessions we made applesauce! It turned out very pink but it smelled and tasted so good! We got twenty two pints in all and between batches of applesauce we made strawberry and raspberry jam! We got 14 jars of raspberry and 4 of strawberry! It was a lot of work but it is worth it now and in the months to come!





Last weekend we did the vision walk which SCO is one the biggest donors for. They let any of the students that want to do it and one of the teachers offers an incentive for the students to do it. It was a three mile walk which I (Heather) accomplished but was sore from later! It was good to get out, a little chilly but Andrew gets one of his quizzes dropped for doing it so it is all worth it in the end!






As part of the Homecoming weekend at SCO the day after the White Coat Ceremony they have a big barbecue catered by one of the local barbecue restaurants! They have blow up toys, silent auction, bean bags, mini golf, rock wall, and of course the most popular there the all you can drink beer stations which is why most people really came. The food was good (especially our all you can drink water) and the weather was perfect!

White Coat Ceremony

Last Thursday was Andrew's official white coat ceremony where they receive their white coats.He is now officially a student doctor! It is a two hour long ceremony where they give awards and scholarships out to all the students in the school. They also do lifetime achievement awards to past alumni. The President of the school also chooses a couple people from the staff at the school to receive some sort of Employee of the year award (can't remember exactly what it is but something to that effect) and this year the maintenance guy got one of the awards! He was shocked! They then read all the names of the first year students and they have to walk across the stage and shake the presidents hand and get their picture taken, just like a graduation ceremony is what it summed up to be. After your name is read they have to go back to their seat and stand until everyones has been read and they recite the optometric oath. Andrew was 17 of the 124 to be read so he stood pretty much the entire time. The best part of the ceremony was the lady behind me before it started and after Andrew had walked away from me asked if my son or daughter was receiving their white coat! Do I look that old and if I did have a child receiving it I probably wouldn't be pregnant with another!?! The best part was she was dead serious and then she said nothing else after that I think she was a little embarassed! He is still doing great in school and studies very hard!

Shaking the President's Hand



Walking in

Walking out after it was over

Us

Us again I don't remember what was so funny


The day was just to good that something had to go wrong! This is our windsheild now after a lovely rock hit it! We just got a new windsheild in JUNE!!!

Congrats Andrew!!!

Just a little congratulations to my awesome husband who came home last night with his first test in optometry school.....he got 100% and a Mickey Mouse sticker that said #1 on it! Way to go sweetie!!!!

This Summer...

This summer went by so fast! We enjoyed it by spending as much time with family and friends as we could. Some things we did included:

*Packing
*Going to St. George for a friends wedding
*Enjoying the fireworks at Taylorsville Dayzz
*4th of July with both our families
*Packing
*Andrew ran in the 10K on the 24th of July
*Finding out we are having a girl!
*Participating in the Amazing Race with our neighborhood for date night! It was a lot of fun!
*Tons of birthday parties and cake!
*Packing somemore
*Finally being done packing and loading our car and moving 1500 miles away

The highlight of our summer was taking a small vacation on our way to Memphis to see some historical church sites. We left on August 7th but not before we could get some sibling pictures. I couldn't stop crying as usual it had finally hit that we were leaving and not coming back for a long time. We drove to Denver the first day. I-70 through Colorado is a lot of mountains terrains but it was so pretty and green.

The 2nd day we drove to Independence, MO and stayed the night
The 3rd day we went to the Independence Visitors Center and Liberty Jail. They both have such a great spirit in them. We then drove onto Nauvoo.
The 4th day we did a Session in the Nauvoo Temple which was such a cool experience. The rest of the day we toured Nauvoo and ended the night with the Sunset on Mississippi performance by the missionaries and Vocal Point from BYU.
The 5th day we saw all the plays that the missionaries put on and ate at the yummy buffet.
The 6th day was my birthday! We drove to Carthage Jail and did the tour. The spirit there is so strong. We then drove to St. Louis and stopped at the Arch after parking in the scariest part of town! Then we drove on to Memphis! We didn't get in until 1 in the morning it was a long day!
The next day we had to be up early to sign our lease and get to my doctors appt by 10! We were so exhausted! My family and Andrew's mom and Karl stayed until Sunday the 16th. We toured downtown Memphis and rode on the trolley and walked Beale street. It was so humid that day so it wasn't very fun! We also enjoyed eating at Corky's BBQ which is so good. Andrew, his mom and Karl, and my dad went to Graceland and the Hard Rock Cafe while the rest of us went to the outlets! We also showed them the temple here in Memphis! They left on Sunday after sacrament meeting in our new ward. It was hard to say goodbye but we will be back home for a visit in a little bit more then two months!
Pictures before we left don't mind my red puffy eyes from crying so much!

The ghetto where we parked to see the arch

The Arch

Outside Carthage Jail

Games in Nauvoo

Women's Monument in Nauvoo my grandma Pond was on the General Relief Society board when it was dedicated and got to participate in that!

Nauvoo Temple

Above and Below: After our session in the Temple!



The Corn Fields of Kansas!

We aren't dead!

We are still alive it has been a long month but we are finally starting to get settled. We are waiting for the internet to be set up but my nice friend Kate let me come over and borrow hers! We got here on the 12th of August and signed our contract to move in the next day. Our truck ended up not being here when they said so my family was not able to help us unload it but it was fine because we got to play more instead! It finally came the day after they left and we had some ward members come and help us unload. Well about a week later we had complained because the people below us were really loud their TV was on really early in the morning or late at night and it was so loud we knew what they were watching channel and all! So we complained that Friday and they went and told them to turn it down. Well the whole weekend it got worse we added salt to the wound! So on Monday we complained again and things went downhill fast. They sent someone over that morning and then that night we were sitting on the couch when we hear knocking downstairs, they knocked three times before they answered, well they had sent the courtesy officer over to try and talk to them because they weren’t being compliant to the management. Well about ten minutes later we hear the door slam and then the yelling began the guy downstairs became irate and we heard all sorts of things, we were labeled racist crackers and what not we could hear it all. It was scary I was shaking and crying we were both scared for our lives. We finally managed to get out of the house and went and found a hotel to stay at for the night. The next day we went and talked to the management about it and they let us out of our lease and within two hours we had a new place to live! The sad part was the yelling continued everyday when we were there and I could hear a little girl just sobbing I felt so awful. The next day we had the Elders come and help us and some more ward friends and we got most everything out. The only time in life when procrastination has been good was in this situation because we had hardly unpacked anything. Our new place seems better and we have good neighbors. We finally got everything out of the old place on the first because they are evicting the other people and wanted to give them their notice and they were also pressing charges against the guy because apparently the officer heard it all too! They told Andrew that if he needs to come back to get mail or anything after that to come alone and not bring me just to be safe. We really weren’t trying to make problems we just wanted some peace and quiet at 6 in the morning. It has been an adventure but everything has worked out and we are glad about that. Andrew started school on the 31st of August and is enjoying it but has a lot of work to do to keep up!
We will hopefully be able to post more about our summer and our fun trip out here once we get the internet all set up!



The view from our house


The view of our house


Mississippi River Park in Tunica they have rocking chairs to just relax in and watch the river!


Andrew on the first day of school!



Our First Apartments and our moving truck!