Happy Anniversary to us!!

August 8th was our 10th anniversary! (Which is not today!) On our actual anniversary, I had intended to post some loving comments about my wonderful husband and gush about the 10 fabulous years that we have had together. However, in typical Becky fashion, I didn't get around to posting it when I should have and now you get to see my too late, sorry attempt at celebrating our time together. I apologize in advance...


We got married on August 8, 1998 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. Out ceremony was at 7:20 in the morning, which meant we had to be there at 6am. It was so early that my plan was to get my hair done the day before and sleep with a hairnet, SITTING UP (good plan, I know), so that my hair would be pretty for all of the pictures. Unfortunately, I got into a car accident that day (just a fender bender) and it made me miss my hair appointment. I was so upset over the accident and the thought of my wedding hair being ugly that I cried all the way up to the Inn on Temple Square, where my family was staying the night before the wedding. Rob spent the better part of that evening consoling me over the phone, and I believe that I threw a little tantrum and refused to go to dinner with my family. (Of course I was mature enough to get married....what were you doing thinking otherwise?) I didn't really sleep that night and woke up around 5am to do my own hair, with my mom's help. It took longer than I thought and I was about 15 minutes late to the temple. Rob, remembering how upset I was, honestly thought that I was ditching him when I didn't show up on time. Oh ye of little faith.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch. The ceremony was amazing and it was wonderful to share it with our family and friends. The rest of the day was a whirlwind, with pictures, luncheon, reception, etc. We were tired, but so happy. We had almost everyone that we loved with us that day and we had each other. It was a great day.

Finally...GUSH ALERT: Turn away if this sickens you. Consider yourself warned.

I just wanted to say what an amazing husband I have. I'm so lucky that I was able to marry my best friend. He is kind, loving, supportive, hilarious (bet some of you didn't know that because he is so quiet), etc, etc. The list goes on and on. He is the best husband and father that anyone could ask for and I'm so blessed that he's mine.

Living the Wild Life

Out here in Illinois we have been able to see a lot of wildlife on our yard. The kids have enjoyed it. We have a squirrel that lives in our backyard and is frequently on our porch. The kids have named him Alvin (squirrels and chipmunks are about the same, right?) We bought him some dried corn and he comes onto the porch and eats it. Here is a picture of him resting on our porch.

We have seen rabbits, frogs, butterflies and fireflies in our yard. The girls love to catch the fireflies and to place them in containers that they call their "lanterns." Also, the other day when I was mowing the lawn a baby deer came running onto our lawn. He went almost up to our house before he got scared and ran off.

We have found a few bugs in our house as well. One was in the laundry and Becky was freaked out when she was folding clothes and it came jumping out of the basket and ran up her front. She was freaking out, jumping and screaming. Ha ha.

Yesterday I went outside to take out the trash and was surprised to see this coming out from under our porch.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, that is a snake. It hid back under the porch when it saw me and so it is still there and we have no idea how to get it out. I know it's not poisonous, but I still had nightmares about Indiana Jones when he is in the pit with the snakes. I will have to go on a snake hunt and will keep you posted on the progress. I went to Farm and Home to see what options there were, but they only sell snake repellant. That doesn't help me now, so I will have to get some of that when he is gone.

We also have some other "wild life" present in our neighborhood. The neighbor on one side of us is a widow, so we never hear much coming from that side. On the other side of us the neighbors seem to have a party every night. They were particularly loud on Friday night. They apparently had a good time as is witnessed by what we found on our side yard on Saturday morning.

At least we aren't bored in our small midwest town!

iFun with iPhone

Cell phones and I don't have a very good track record together. I got my first cell phone in 1998, one of those huge ones that had a flip-down mouthpiece and 75% of it's size was battery pack. I had it for around 1 1/2 years before I accidentally left if on the roof of my car and drove off, leaving it in pieces on 500 W in Provo. I tried again with a Nokia in 2001, when Kaitlin was a baby, because I needed one for "safety reasons". Ironically, it would have never kept me safe because I was incapable of remembering to charge it. My Kyocera flip phone that I have had for the past five years was a good one, but finally died after having too many cups of water, juice and milk spilled on it in my diaper bag. I constantly drive my husband crazy because I never hear my cell phone when it rings. It is never charged when in needs to be, and I am always losing it and having to call it to find it. "Why do you have a cell phone if you can't even answer it?", is a common question in our home.

We had to buy new cell phones when we got to Illinois because they don't have Verizon in our area, and I ended up picking out one that I love!!

I'm not one who is tech-savvy or cares about electronics, but our new phones are so fun! I watch You-Tube on in, listen to my music and even check my email (which is shocking, because those of you who know me know that I check my email a few times a year). I can actually hear my phone to answer it, just because I have it close to play with it. I'm sure that the novelty will wear off soon, and I'll g0 back to my cell phone abusing ways, but for now I am loving it!!

I've been tagged

Sara just tagged me with the Husband Tag. I've never done one of these before. We'll see how it goes....

1. What is your husband's name? Robert
2. How long have you guys been together? Our 10th wedding anniversary is on Aug. 8. (Hopefully a good present will come out of this anniversary. We'll see.)
3. How long did you date for? We dated for exactly 2 weeks before we decided to get married. My mom cried for a week afterwards when she heard. I think that she thought I was too young to be throwing my life away.
4. Who eats more? Duh.
5. Who said "I love you" first? He did. He told it to me a week after we started dating and I said, "thank you".
6. Who is taller? He is 3 inches taller than I am. We are pretty much the same height on Sunday when I wear my high heels.
7. Who sings better? Define better. Neither of us will be winning contests for our singing voices anytime soon.
8. Who is smarter? The obvious choice would be Dr. Rob, though I do have to say that I actually did have higher ACT scores than he did and I was recruited by Harvard, Yale and Oxford. However, that was back in the days before I had kids and before my mind atrophied from disuse.
9. Who does the laundry? Me, but he usually helps me fold.
10. Who does the dishes? He unloads the dishwasher and I load.
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do. I am always actually on his right side in almost everything we do. When we sleep I have to be on his right side or we can't sleep. If we are holding hands I have to be on his right side or it feels really wierd. When we are at a restaurant in a booth, I am always on his right side, but we hate it because i am left-handed and he is right-handed and we are always bumping elbows.
12. Who pays the bills? I do. He really doesn't care where the $ goes as long as all of the bills are paid and we have a little left over.
13. Who mows the lawn? He does. In Springville we had a little tiny square of lawn that he mowed with a weed whacker because our lawn mower broke. Out here in Illinois we had to buy a new lawn mower, but since he hasn't started working yet, we could only afford a push lawnmower instead of a riding lawn mower. First time he mowed our lawn, it took him two days to get it done!
14. Who cooks dinner? I usually do, but he is really good to step in if I am tired or bitter.
15. Who is more stubborn? That is easy. Me for sure. Rob is the most laid-back person I have ever met.
16. Who kissed who first? He kissed me first.
17.Who asked who out first? I'm not sure about that one. We were just friends and hanging out when we decided that we liked each other. There was really no official dating involved.
18. Who proposed? Well, two weeks after we starting dating we were at Rob's brother's house laying on the trampoline and looking at the stars. The subject somehow got around to marriage and we, in our roundabout ways, said how we finally felt and agreed that's what we were going to do. He officially proposed a few weeks later at Venice Beach. We were down at his parent's house for his niece's blessing and we were walking around the beach looking for seashells. He called me over to come look at a shell that he had found and then he flipped if over and my ring was inside.
19. Who is more sensitive? Me, though I try to deny it.
20. Who has more friends? I do, but he is able to keep his friends longer and his care for his friendships better than I can.
21. Who has more siblings? He does. There are four kids in my family and 5 in his.
22. Who wears the pants in the family? I have the dominant personality, but he wears the pants in the family. When he feels strongly about something, I defer to him and he always gets his way. I don't fuss about this system because he is really laid back and really doesn't care how I run things, so even though I always defer to him when he cares about an issue, I get my way 99.9% of the time.

That was fun! I tag Courtney, Katrina and Teresa!

Road Trip!

It took us three days to arrive here in Illinois. We left on Sunday, July 6 around 9 am. I cried my eyes out as we were driving through Spanish Fork canyon because it hit me how much I was going to miss all of my family and friends. It is always so sad to move on, even if moving on is a good thing. I managed to compose myself around Scofield and the rest of the trip went pretty well.

TRIP AS FOLLOWS:
Here we are in No Name, Colorado (yes, that really is it's name) enjoying the beautiful scenery:




We got stuck in traffic right after we took this picture. The two hour trip from No Name to Denver turned into almost five hours! This is the embroidery I was able to finish in ONE day because we were in the car for so freakin' long. (Not bitter, not bitter at all)

Here is Kaitlin lounging in the car as she watches one of the 20 Disney movies that she watched in 3 days. Notice the stinky foot kicking me in the back of the head. :)

Here are Robbie and I enjoying our ride together.

We stayed in Goodland, Kansas our first night, in a hotel that was gross. We were too tired to care much, so it was OK. The next day we drove 5 hrs to Kansas City. Last time we were there, we passed by a hotel that Rob has been obsessed with ever since. He loves water, as we all know, and this hotel has an indoor waterpark. He booked us a "Kid Kamp Suite", which had a part sectioned off for the kids that resembled a cabin with bunk beds. The girls loved it!

The water park was a blast as well. We checked in at 4 and were at the water park until 9. We ate dinner, went to bed and woke up early to go there again before we had to check out. Even water-hater me had fun.

Here we are on day three as we are about to cross the Mississippi.

The girls were obsessed with sunglasses this trip and wore them every chance that they got. If you see the angry clouds in the background you will see that sunglasses were not necessary in either pic, but they sure looked fabulous!!

These are the angry clouds that greeted us as we reached the Mississippi. This is the point where we wondered if this was a bad omen and if we should turn around and drive home as quickly as possible.

Finally, here is the blinding rain that we hit about 15 mile away from our destination. I was a little freaked out because the clouds were moving in so fast and because they were so angry looking. I was right to be worried because later we found out that the tornado sirens had sounded in our new hometown and also that a tornado had actually touched down between our town and a neighboring town. What a welcome!!

2 1/2 Weeks of Fun?! Part Deux

We had the movers come and box up our house on July 2. They showed up at 8:30 in the morning and begin pulling boxes out of our crawl space. I am a notorious pack-rat, so I spent the better part of 2 months going through our crawl space and throwing things out. I think that when all was said and done, we had probably gotten rid of half of what was in our crawlspace. I was so proud of myself and my purging abilities UNTIL I saw them keep pulling box after box after box out of our crawlspace. Watching in horror as half the downstairs was filled even BEFORE the rest of the movers came to pack the stuff that we actually NEEDED. By the end of the day, all we had was a little walkway from the front door to the back. Sad I know, but we really do need our 82 1/2 years of food storage, my punch bowl that I have used twice and the glass beer mugs that someone gave us for our wedding and we have never actually opened. They are COMPLETELY necessary.

The next day another set of movers came and put everything in the truck. They were giving each other high-fives and slaps on the back as they pulled up because they were loading such a small place and they were sure they would be done in a few hours. Imagine their shock when they actually saw the houseful of crap that they had to load. Ha Ha!

In the afternoon I felt bad for the guys because it was 100 degrees out, so I offered to go buy them some gatorade. They would like gatorade, they said, but beer would really hit the spot. One of them even offered for me to come party with them afterwards. SWEET! Tempting, I know, but I was shockingly able to resist.

This is a picture of our poor little empty townhome after they were done. We lived here for 5 years, and we had so many good memories here. We will really miss it and all of our good friends and neighbors. We had a wonderful time while we were in Springville, and we will miss it terribly.





After all of the moving, we were lucky enough to be able to go to the Stadium of Fire. It was a blast!!!

I have lived in Utah Valley almost my whole life, but I have never actually made it to Stadium of Fire until this year. Shockingly, I have never felt the need to commune with Brooks and Dunn or the Osmonds on July 4th. Blasphemy, I know.

It was such a treat to be there and we LOVED Miley and the Blue Man group. My favorite part was the fireworks.

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2 1/2 Weeks of Fun?! Part One

Our lives have been COMPLETELY turned upside down in the past 2 1/2 weeks. We have had a graduation, movers boxing up and emptying our little townhome, a Fourth of July celebration, and a trip halfway across the country to our new home all in 2 1/2 weeks. Not much, I know, but I think that I am just a little bit tired. So, where do I begin?



Rob's graduation went very well. as any proud wife would say. After 11 years of continuous education/suckiness, he is finally done!! His ceremony was a sit-down dinner held at the Alpine Arts center. It was beautiful, but you'll just have to take my word for it because as usual I forgot my camera. Who needs to have record of the culmination of 11 years of hard work anyway? Not me!!



Here is a pic of Rob and his graduating class of residents. (Sidenote: Notice the ghetto use of a camera taking a picture of a picture. We're all about class at this blog!)





Every year, each graduating class takes a "funny" picture that only they and people associated with the residency understands.

EXPLANATION OF FUNNY:

Rob and Mark are wearing sombreros and ponchos because most of their patients were Hispanic. They are slapping babies bums because they each delivered many, many, MANY babies. Har. Darren hunts, Jim golfs, Jen was the ad campaign girl for IHC. The two headstones represent Dan and Jonah who left the residency. It is actually very clever and funny to me, and to anyone who knows these guys, but everyone else is meant to be confused.

Finally......

WARNING: PROUD WIFE ALERT!!!! (If gushing bothers you, please turn away!!)

Every year all of the residents of each class get together and vote on the graduating resident who they thought was the best teacher and mentor to all of the residents. It is such an honor, and they voted on Rob to receive the award!!!

I am so proud of him and all of his hard work. All throughout his schooling and residency, people have told me how amazed they are at how much he knows, how high his test and board scores are, how compassionate he is, etc. He has put everything he has into becoming a good doctor and it makes me so happy that he was recognized for it.

I know that Rob was very happy to work with all of the people that he worked with at IHC. He met many amazing friends and mentors while he was there and I know that he'll miss each one of them. We're sad it is over, but, as usual, life moves on.