We are alive!

Wow….where have the last few months gone? Time has sure gone by fast and a lot has happened. Where to start…..

We moved! We moved into our sixth apartment as a married couple. No, we are not crazy tenants who don’t like to stay in one place very long. In fact, we HATE moving but each move was for a good reason. Here is the list of them all.

Our first apartment: was in Ammon, Idaho. Barton and I were both working in Idaho Falls and we didn’t want to commute from Rexburg. So we lived in Ammon for the summer in a studio apartment. It was fabulous. The apartment was so small that we were always together.

Our second apartment: When our summer jobs came to an end we moved back to Rexburg for education and work purposes.

Our third apartment: Barton did an internship in Moscow, Idaho at the University of Idaho studying the eyes of zebra fish. We put everything in a storage unit, packed up the air mattress and a few essential kitchen utensils and headed north.

Our fourth apartment: Back to Rexburg at the end of Barton’s internship where we continued his education and my employment.

Our fifth apartment: We ventured across country so Bart could become a dentist and moved into a one bedroom apartment that was recommended to us.

Our sixth apartment: Sewer problems led us our latest move, in fact the last move for a long time. It was definitely a blessing in disguise. We went from a one bedroom apartment (that stunk like sewer) to a townhouse.

Next….

I am employed again! I am working as a preschool teacher. I have 20 students and 1 assistant teacher. It is often crazy and I am not a fan of paperwork (I have never done so much in my life) but nothing is better than constantly hearing “I love you Ms. Emily”. It is like I have my own fan club. It is quite different then the psychosocial work I did in Rexburg but I am enjoying the kids.

Next…

We played mom and dad for a few weeks. Our adorable niece Sarai and nephew Jonas came and lived with us for three weeks. We love them and were happy to have them. We thank all you sweet friends again who helped care for them while I was working.

Last but not least….

Merry Christmas! We hope that you all have a great holiday season. For it is the best time of the year!

White Coat Ceremony

We recently attended Barton's White Coat Ceremony. It was cool until I remembered that we still have four years of dental school :) So here is a sneak peak of what is to come in four years...

Some of our new friends. The Mormon Mafia!

It was fun to have family there. The best part was how excited Jonas got. He kept screaming: Yah Barton!

Come One, Come All!

Best week ever! My beautiful little sister came and stayed the week. It was awesome! We played, and played, and played! The week went by way too fast. Here are pictures of some of our adventures....

Picking Rebecca up from the airport. (I bet you can guess who thought of this great sign:)

Look at how sweet my momma is! She snuck this into Rebecca's carry on just for me. A little piece of home!

We are so lucky to have cousins close! My cousin Suseann, her hubby, and kids live in Cincinnati. We spent Sunday evening with them. It was a blast. It was so much fun that we met up again on Tuesday...

Great museum and great company!

One of the many times we got lost in Cincinatti but ended up finding something cool. We kept wondering who dared let us loose on the city by ourselves.

What better way is there to explore Cincinatti then on a "Ride the Ducks" tour? It was fabulous! This water/land craft was designed in WWII to transport things between the land and the ships. Now they use them for awesome tours. And yes, we did go in the water.

Sounding like ducks is a must on one of the tour! And who doesn't want to make a fool of themselves while driving through downtown Cincinatti?!?

Us on the cool Purple People Bridge.

What is Kentucky without the chicken?

Long story short....There is this cool castle on your way to Lexington. Well, I always wondered what it was for. Was it a private residence, was it a mafia house, was a it a museum, etc. What better way to find out then drive up to it, find an unlocked door, and invite yourself in! We didn't feel as mischievous when we finally found out that it was just a bed and breakfast.

My handsome husband gave us a great tour of campus. This is one of the torture facilities.

100, 000 water balloons+over 3, 000 people= A world record

We participated in this huge water fight. The whole purpose of it was to set the world record, and boy howdy did we do it. It was crazy! It actually only lasted a few minutes. We were on the front line, across from the other team. There was so much water that we couldn't even see. We were soaked!

Kentucky is all about horses. This is us at the race tracks.

This is us in front of the Louisville Temple. Very pretty.

This was Barton's highlight....The Louisville Slugger Field. Who knew that Louisville was famous for their bats? Barton was ashamed of us.

Crazy Summer Fun!

We are so lucky to now live close to our nieces Cari and Sarai, and our nephew Jonas. We are even luckier to be able to spend some weekends with them. So far we have had two of these great weekends. Check out some of our fun....

Swimming is always a definite must!

The always popular game of burying each other under all of the blankets, pillows, cushions, etc. (Who needs sleep?)

Dress up....

Cookies....

Jonas helping Uncle Barton get ready for church. (Adorable! Jonas insists on doing what everyone else is doing. Lets just say that he got all the attention from the chicks at church while wearing Uncle Barton's tie.)

Girl time....

School!

Barton started school this last week! So far he loves it. He has been making some great friends and has enjoyed the classes, especially the hands on stuff!

Hello family and friends!

We finally decided to start a blog so we can stay in touch better with you all. We aren't used to blogging so be patient with us! We are excited to stay close even though we are so many miles away!

We love you all
-Bart and Em