David

There are too few moments like this is life. There are so many emotions you feel leading up to this moment. Mostly, I was just proud. David's whole life led up to those two years service as a missionary, but his decision to be obedient and work hard came second by second in the field. Seeing his growth and accomplishments through his letters, then being able to finally see it personally written on his face... now that is a picturesque moment.

Orange Soda Pop

Kendra was nice enough to burn a disc of everyone's pictures when I was in AZ. So now I'm going to play a little catchup, starting with my family's trip to OH and subsequent drive to PA to pick up David. This is the hotel we stayed in our first night. The boys are getting out a little energy playing "Orange Soda Pop". This game entails attempting to throw everyone else off the bed (and down into the orange soda pop). The kids LOVE IT. Whenever grandpa is around, it is not long before a round begins. Don't ask me where it originated... medieval Europe maybe?

Coversation on the way to church

Sometimes the kids say such funny, random things. I really need to be better about writing them down! On the way to church we had one with Andrew that went like this:

Drew- Oh, no. I forgot to brush my teeth! I'll get a cavity!
Me- That's OK you can do it when we get home if you want.
Drew- Why did Jesus make sugar bugs?
Me- Matt?
Matt- Well they do some good stuff too.
Drew- What good stuff?
Matt- They help kill bad germs in your mouth that can make you sick.
Drew- That's nice of them. Do they use karate on them?

Then tonight as I was telling him to get back in bed and go to sleep he said to me, "Mom what's your big deal?" in a very teenager kind of way. Hilarious.

Jump!Zone

5 min from our house is a really fun place called Jump!Zone. It is a huge area filled with giant inflatable slides and obstacle courses. It is a lot of fun. They have open jumping for 3 hours. We took lunch and spent the whole time running around and bouncing. While drinking his icee during lunch, Matthew proclaimed it his favorite day ever. (That was before he totally plowed a little girl while running at full sprint- but still) Three hours later we left pretty tired and skinned up. FUN!

Mammoth caves

Just 2 hours north of us in Kentucky are the Mammoth caves. There are tons of huge caves you can walk through and lots of great hiking as well. We went up and had lunch and saw some huge caves (think The Host) and did some hiking. I can't wait to go back and see some of the other caves with underground lakes, etc.

On to Franklin

So I'm finally caught up to our life here in Franklin, TN! We had three weeks to come in and get adjusted with no responsibilities. I really felt like it was one of the hightlights of our marriage. We did lots of playing outside, riding bikes, jogging, swimming, reading (Matthew started with the pokemon chapter books then we moved on to Harry Potter), evening walks, touring, and of course unpacking. It was a blast. We all REALLY loved having Matt around. We didn't have the TV or video games hooked up so we just spent time together. It was like Heaven.
My mom arrived the night before Matt started orientation, which made it a much easier transition to having Matt gone all day again. Jeffery surprised us and showed up for a couple days as well (Why didn't I take any pictures with you Jeff? I wish I had one with you and all the boys in your matching shirts you brought for them!) During our time here Matthew has really started to like card games (UNO, Crazy 8s) And he wants to play all day. There were a couple days where all day long he begged us to play UNO with him again (we do play with him a lot!) Anyway, it is a lot of fun. I love that he loves it so much. So, I have one picture of Grandma playing with him. The other picture is of Matt and I on our way to the graduation dinner of the current third year residents. We've had a few social activities at the school already. We really like the other guys in Matt's residency so it has been a blast!

A Cleveland Park

Graduation weekend the kids were really good for all the sit-down stuff but they also got in a little play time. (You decide who I mean by the kids!)