Summer Catch Up

 Its been too long since I've done a blog post. I have new resolve to be better. Here's a mega post on some things we've been up to this summer so far.

 

The middle of July we celebrated Andy's 30th birthday! We had a nice dinner at home and our family favorite - chocolate peanut butter cake for dessert. 

 Later on that week, for Andy's birthday we went to a Frederick Keys game - they're the Farm team for the Baltimore Orioles. The game was kind of boring, but it was the boys first game and we had really close seats.

 

Luckily they had a playground and kids area for when the boys got bored. And after the game they have a really good fireworks show and then they let all the kids run the bases. The boys loved this part. Its hard to see but this is Andy with Tyler and Bryce and my nephew Jimmy on the field after running the bases.

 We've also spent some time at the neighborhood pool. I'm sad it closes this weekend. I wish we had taken advantage of it more. The boys are becoming really good swimmers. Even Bryce will doggy paddle around by himself with just a floaty on. They both stick their head in the water and jump in all by themselves! They love the water.

 One Monday night we were invited by a family in our ward to their family farm about 30 minutes south of here. Its a beautiful spot at the base of Sugar Loaf Mountain (the mountain is behind us in this picture). We had a BBQ, played games, and went for a tractor ride.

 Of course we always have to visit South Mountain Creamery and feed the baby cows. Bryce wasn't at all afraid of the cows and just picked up this cows bottle and started feeding it all by himself!

 Tyler and Bryce on a broken down tractor at South Mountain Creamery. The best part of feeding the baby cows is the really good ice-cream we get afterwards. Almost compares to Four Seas....

 A few weeks ago we also went up to Antietam Battlefield with my parents. We live right in the middle of a lot of Civil War history and I've learned a lot from visiting some of these places. This bridge is the scene of one of the most intense battles of the Battle at Antietam. The big tree behind us is called the Witness tree because it has been there since the time of the battle.

Tyler and Bryce really liked pretending to shoot off these old Civil War Cannons.
I think thats all for this post but I'll add more later.

Cape Cod Trip

 The middle of June we got a nice break from the stress of moving and starting a business to spend a week up in my favorite vacation destination: Cape Cod. My cousin, Merissa was married on June 18th to Ryan Walsh, one of our summer friends from the time we were 12 years old. I was so happy for the two of them and they had the perfect Cape Cod wedding. I'm so glad we got to go. Pictured above was a photo op of the Kippen grandchildren at Long Beach one night.

 The is one of the views from the church they were married in in West Hyannisport. It was a gorgeous day for it.

 My cousin, Lauren, the maid of honor carrying my cousin's little girl, Brooke. She's Bryce's age and an adorable flower girl.

 This was the best picture we had of the new happy couple with my cousin's in-laws family.

 

Their reception was at the Hyannisport golf club. A very nice and exclusive golf club that features such players at the Kennedy's and celebrities. Ryan, my cousin's new husband works there so they got an "in" to have their reception there. This was the view from the dance floor.They served really yummy appetizers, filet minion for dinner and had a chocolate bar for dessert. I had a blast dancing after dinner with all my cousins and aunts. 

 The next few days were really nice beach days. We had some good relaxation time while the boys played in the sand. The water was a little cold for swimming but we got in one day.

 These next few pictures were taken on Squaw Island my favorite place to go to the beach. Its an island just off of a little beach at the end of the street in our neighborhood. You have to wade over to the island at low tide but on the other side you have a perfectly private beautiful beach all to yourself.

 Andy got into a fight with a crab. The crab lost.

 The sand bar at low tide.

 Bryce taking a snooze.

 Andy and my brother-in-law Brandon made these sandcastles before the tide started to come in.

This last picture I found on my camera after Tyler had been playing with it. Why do I see so much of his father in him?

Life In Maryland

The moving van arrived the day after we did and we started to unload it that Saturday. We've been working pretty hard ever since. It was kind of a double move for us because the house we're renting here still had the owners stuff in it. Its kind of an interesting arrangement we have with a friend of my dad's. He's living in Key West and wanted to rent out the house but wasn't coming up until July. We offered to pack up his stuff and store it in the basement in exchange for moving in sooner. The house hasn't been lived in for awhile and the yard needed some attention. So we've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks, packing, cleaning, unpacking, and doing yard work. Here's a few shots of life here in Maryland and our new house.

 Andy on the riding mower mowing our huge lawn. The back yard is really big and surrounded by trees so its very private.

 The first Saturday after we moved in Andy, Lynn Rector, a friend of my parents, and I spent 10 hours trimming back this massive tree in the front yard. Andy had a lot of fun with the power saw. Yes those are all massive branches on the ground around Lynn and Andy in the tree with the power saw.

 The front of our house after the tree trimming. Taking down the branches really opened up the front yard and let more light into the rooms in the front of the house.

 Bryce on a walk in the woods on Mount Etzler with my dad last Thursday.

 My favorite spot in the house. Our screened in porch. We eat all of our meals here. We have a great view of the whole yard.

 Bryce playing in the water table in the backyard. Its been really hot here lately. Bryce loves the water table. He could play here all day.

 View of the back of the house. The kids play outside a lot.

 We filled up our little wading pool last Saturday. Tyler invited over his new friend Kenny from church. Kenny only lives about two blocks away and they play together a lot. Tyler says Kenny is his best friend.

 Tyler relaxing in the shade while everyone else does all the yard work.

 Bryce really enjoyed his bowl of ice cream. He licked it clean.

 Our kitchen. The door on the right goes out to the screened in porch and the window over the sink faces the backyard.

Another view of the kitchen. I'll add more pictures of the house later. I've been meaning to do a post for so long I just wanted to get something up. Things are moving a long here. I've been working on our Business Plan in our spare time here. We've been looking into office spaces and we have a meeting with the bank on Friday. Meanwhile Andy has 9 clients already with LDS Family Services. He had his first appointments today. Things are moving along. I'll try to post more regularly now. Come visit!!

Road Trip

 

After we got back from the Netherlands mid April we had about 2 and half weeks to pack and move to Maryland. Andy's last day at Wasatch was May 4th. The following Sunday afternoon we finally closed the door on the moving van and got in our car to begin our 5 day road trip to Maryland. I have more pictures of this but they're on Andy's phone who's not home right now. (Maybe I'll add them later). The drive ended up not being as bad as we thought thanks to modern conveniences like DVD players. It was actually fairly relaxing and we got to see a lot of the country. We drove through 9 states in total. We decided to do a little best and worst of our trip.

Pictured above is the day we drove through Illinois. I got to have dinner with my friends at Colonial and the kids played at the Cherry Hill park where I grew up. We stayed the night in Naperville and the next morning we had the best meal of our trip. Breakfast at Butterfields in Naperville. I had a date, goat cheese and bacon omelet. I craved it all day after and had to make it again once we got to my mom's in Maryland. Here's the boys with their balloons outside the restaurant.

 This is the receipt for the most expensive pit stop of the trip. Getting gas in Oakbrook, IL. The total bill was $62.67. It cost 80 cents in tolls to get on and off the freeway here too. AND Andy went into the gas station to get some ice and the attendant followed him back out to the car and told him he needed to pay 30 cents for the ice!

 Going to the Lincoln Park Zoo that day with the kids was the highlight of the road trip for me. I loved being there with just our family, walking around being outside on a nice day. The boys and I watched this polar bear swim laps for about 20 min. I got the coolest pictures. Andy was bummed he missed it because he was still taking pictures of some birds at a different exhibit.

We also saw the fanciest overpass in Nebraska. The most amount of nothing in eastern Colorado and Nebraska. The dirtiest rest stop in Iowa. The nicest rest stop in Ohio. The slowest drivers are in Ohio and the fastest were maybe Utah actually. Thanks to GPS we made it safely to Frederick on Thursday, May 12th.The weather was warm and sunny the whole way across the country. We never even hit any rain. Once we arrived the work began! More on that to come...

Catch Up! - Belgium/ Netherlands Trip

 

 Wow so much has happened in the last 2 months. We've been crazy busy. I've been wanting to journal everything on here as much as I can. Although this is a mega post of 16 pictures I feel like this will do our Belgium/ Netherlands trip no justice. We had a great time. I love traveling and it was great to Paula and Loel on their mission there. The boys were a little tough on the plan but did amazingly well traveling and touring around Belgium and the Netherlands thanks to umbrella strollers. So here it goes - our trip in a nut shell:

 

The boys never slept on the plane on the way over - go figure- and fell asleep as we were going through immigration. This is how they met Paula and Loel at the airport in Amsterdam.

 

We immediately got in the car and left for Keukenhof (I probably just slaughtered the spelling). Its like the Disneyland of flower gardens in the Netherlands and it was beautiful! I can't even describe the endless beds of beautiful perfect spring flowers and the smell was divine. 

 

A family shot over one of the small rivers

 

Andy probably has about 20 shots like this of beautiful flowers

 

Of course no trip to Belgium can be complete without at least 3 trips into the local chocolate shops. I loved the chocolates I bought. I only wish I'd bought more. Yes thats Shelly next to me in this picture. We joined them for the last 2 days of their trip. It was really fun being there with them. 

 

And we also had a few Belgium waffles. So good.

 

Tyler even did a little missionary work. Never shy of strangers, Tyler approached this guy in the sandwich shop and asked about his motorcycle. The guy brought him outside to look at it and take a picture. The man asked why we were there and who the missionaries were with us. The missionaries had a chance to talk to him and got his contact information to meet with him at a later time. Even a four year old knows its good to open your mouth and talk to people around you. You never know what may come of it.

 

Of course spending some time with Grandma and Grandpa after a year apart was the best part of all. Bryce hadn't seen them since he was about 10 months. He started calling Paula "Gub Gub" for Grandma. 

 

This was probably Tyler's favorite part of Brugge. (Brugge was probably my favorite city in Belgium by the way). We let him take a ride on this little amusement ride in the center of the city. He rode on a motorcycle on a track. Tyler was very serious the whole time he was riding the motorcycle.  When got off he ran over to us and said "I turned the right way every time!"

 

Another highlight of the trip was sword fighting in front of a real castle. Andy brought along the boys nerf swords because its one of their favorite things to play with Dad. 

 

They were victorious of course. 

 

I wouldn't want to meet this guy on the battle field.

In Brugge we also stopped at this artists stand to look at his paintings. I looked over and saw Tyler painting on the canvas. thinking he was ruining the painting I immediately told him to put the brush down. I then realized the artist was right there and he said "No no its okay.' He let Tyler paint with him a little. He said "Before it was technique. Now it is art." Tyler told him about some of the finger painting he's done too.

 

This is near some old fashioned windmills in the Netherlands. We spent a few days up there too. I loved how people decorated their homes in the Netherlands. They all had beautiful flowers in their windows.

This was probably my favorite meal at a pannekoken house in the Netherlands. Pannekoken is the Dutch version of a crepe. Our dinner crepe had pesto, sundried tomatoes and pine nuts on it. Paula and Loel's was really good too with apples, bacon and cheese on it. It was a wonderful trip and a great break before all of the chaos of moving that followed (that will be in the next blog post).

Your Future is as Bright as Your Faith

I've felt impressed lately that I need to take a risk and be more personal with my blog entries. Although I haven't posted in awhile its not because of lack of significant events, probably more because of them. I thought I would share a little more about whats been going on at our house rather than just the usually funny things the kids say and tell everyone about some lessons I've learned lately too.

As many of you know the first Sunday in March my dad received a much awaited liver transplant. A tumor was found on his liver last fall and it was determined that a transplant would be the best option in preserving his health and his life. We are very fortunate that the surgery went well and he has recuperated very well since then. He's been walking everyday and got the go ahead from the doctor to return to work and running next week sometime. Although hearing the news about my dad's condition last fall was scary for all of us, I  always felt that God had more for my dad to do in this life and he would be okay.

Around the same time as my dad's surgery, Andy was having periodic episodes of pain and numbness in his right arm. We thought originally it was caused from a pinched nerve or carpel tunnel from typing too much. He went to many different doctors and nerve specialists over the past few weeks and months to figure out what was causing the pain. During one doctors visit where the pain was causing him to become dizzy and nauseous they even thought he might be having a stroke and he was immediately rushed to the ER for a thorough evaluation including a CT scan and EKG. Luckily the tests came back negative for anything life threatening But we still didn't have a good answer for what was causing this. After a second ER visit after an episode at work one afternoon, Andy and I went back to the spinal specialist who told us this was much more than a simple pinched nerve and we needed to see the primary care physician. After an hour of explaining everything to the doctor he told Andy that because the tests didn't show anything life threatening - his default explanation was that it was being caused by stress or anxiety. Instead of his body having an emotional response to stress he was having a neurological one. Since that time Andy has taken a pretty in depth look at his life and habits and really taken a proactive approach to reducing some stress in his life. He exercises more, drinks less caffeine, gets more sleep and is attempting to simplify and reduce stress at work. He's realizing that he has to take a more proactive role in his own health. We also found out from a physical therapist that the muscles in his right side have become extremely tight over the past several weeks and months which are causing the pain and numbness in his right side and he's in the process of retraining his body to not tense up so much in response to stress.This is a lengthy explanation but its been a really emotionally draining ordeal for us over the past month. Visiting your husband twice in the ER in one week was not exactly good for my stress or anxiety level either. I feel confident, however, that we're on the right track and that with establishing good habits and a bit of patience he'll be okay.

Along with my dad's transplant and Andy's health problems, we also were having some really positive and good realizations regarding Andy's career path. Its always been his dream to one day open up a private practice of his own. We always said it would happen one day, but not yet. This past month Andy also finally received his LCSW and can now independently practice as a social worker. To make a long story short - everything kind of came together for us and we decided that now is the time to start the private practice. The idea of being his own boss and having the freedom to run a therapy office the way Andy feels it should be done has been very freeing and exciting for Andy. I don't think I've ever seen him this motivated or excited about something. He's been working so hard this past month and seems to have so much extra energy for it. We have also felt strongly that we should move closer to my parents to open the practice. So...beginning about the second week of May we will be moving to Frederick, Maryland. Andy has already put in his notice at work. I feel like posting this here makes it really official.  I must admit I have some fears of the unknown and have had a lot of anxiety over it in the past few weeks. I don't doubt Andy's abilities, in fact I know he's a great therapist. We just have to get people in the door and I know they'll like him. Its just the short term - its going to be a lot of work.
 
I feel like I have come to a better place with this decision this past weekend. I really feel like we have been led to this decision over the past year(s). Things that at the time we saw as set backs were really moving us towards this move, I believe strongly that there is a plan for each of us and if we are open and in tune to it, we'll be guided on the right path. President Thomas S. Monson, president of our Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) once said "Your future is as bright as your faith." I feel like this is my motto right now. I've been repeating it to myself a lot. If I believe this will work out and this is the right thing for my family right now then it will all work out. I know this post will bring mixed emotions from friends and family here in Utah who we will be leaving behind and friends and family in the East who I will see more of in the future. I'll keep you posted!

Tyler turns 4!

Tyler turned 4 on Sunday. He made sure to let everyone at church know it was his birthday. He requested a Tiger cake this year. In my haste to get dinner ready and the cake. I only had time to make orange frosting and wasn't sure what I was going to do for a face. Tyler kept asking if he could decorate the cake. After a few seconds, I handed him the icing pen and said 'Have at it. Its your cake.' Like Andy said. - Tyler will probably remember this birthday cake more than the others since he got to decorate it himself.

Tyler's favorite present this year was his Huffy Rocket bike. Too bad it was raining and dark out when we opened presents. We let him take it for a few spins around the kitchen though. He's been out practicing riding on the driveway every day since.

Bryce, of course, had a hard time understanding why Tyler kept getting presents but he didnt. He was really determined to ride his bike too. In usual second child fashion - Bryce will now inherit Tyler's big wheel. Good thing he's too young to care if everything he gets is a hand me down.