John is "officially" a lawyer

May 15th, 2010-- John graduated from Duke Law School

July 26-28th 2010-- John flew to CA and took the BAR exam

November 19th, 2010-- John's name appeared on the "Pass List" of the CA BAR EXAM

April 10th, 2011-- John was sworn in (by Judge McNamee) as an official lawyer in US courts

What an exciting day!?! We're so proud of you John Jacob :)

John and Judge McNamee

My handsome husband

The whole group!

Dad & Mom Soelberg, us, Mom Gochnour, Jenica

We walked downtown for lunch to a delicious Mexican place John likes to eat at. It was a lovely day and I am the luckiest lady in the world!

Videos in November

Jack had a friend over for a play date. They found a patch of mud and the rest is history. They were spreading it all over the slide and knew they were being naughty, but how can you get mad at those little boy giggles? They were in heaven. (I took this video behind the screen window without them knowing, but I think Jack spots me towards the end!! Sorry its a little fuzzy.)

Everyday these boys are either playing outside waiting OR standing by the window waiting impatiently for Daddy to come home... and everyday the squeals are getting higher and louder!




Jack is such a good big brother. I LOVE seeing these boys becoming such good friends.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving cooking started Wednesday morning!! We have a tradition that we go over to my Aunt Sharon's house Wed night and eat pies because after all, we're always WAY to full to enjoy them in their entirety after the actual thanksgiving feast. Mom brought apple dumplings and I brought banana cream pie. We had too much fun together in the kitchen.

Me and Mom hard at work in the kitchen

then Ashlyn jumped in the picture to "look" hard at work :)

Yes, she is wearing Indian feathers.

I was thrilled when John walked in the door at 3:15pm done for the weekend. I could really get use to these clerkship hours!!! But, since I know they won't last, I'm enjoying having him around a LOT this year. John came to the rescue just in time!! Jonah won't leave these new phones alone. All of the cordless phones were dying, so we bought new ones... maybe buying a stationary phone (in addition to cordless) wasn't such a great idea.

After we ate all the pie we possibly could (including just a bite of Grandma Ray's minced meat) John and I came home and found ourselves dozing while laying by the boys that night. No time for that, there are turkeys to brine, holes to dig, and cheesecake to take out of the oven to cool over night. It was a wonderful day of prep!!

Thursday November 24th, 2010

Turkey Day

Ashlyn and I decided to do our own turkey trot. After all, who wants to pay $25 for a race I'm not AT ALL in shape for? We wanted to make it as official as possible, so with the permanate marker in hand we wrote what we were jogging for.

Me: for my pumpkin cheesecake ( 223 calories worth)

Ash: the chocolate peanut butter pie (she's vowed to eat only 217 calories)

We ran over 2 miles and met the rest of the family at Gene Autry park for the Adams annual turkey bowl.

I found my boys exactly where I expected. Climbing up jungle gyms, attempting to reach the "oh so high" monkey bars, and getting their nails dirty in the cool AZ sand on this beautiful sunny Thanksgiving morning.
This park is close to the local Falcon Field airport. Jonah was enthralled by all the airplanes passing by!
Jack, Joseph, Spencer
John dominated in the annual Turkey Bowl.

Jonah participated as much as he could, by simply standing there an looking adorable!

After the football game was over the real fight began...

flour wrapped in kleenex aka Flour Bombs!!

Ashlyn and I were put in charge of the appetizers. We did a lovely turkey veggie platter, spinach artichoke dip, several cheese balls...

and of course it was garnished with the ever so labor intensive turkey apples made by my boys a few days ago!!

As we counted place settings, pulled the pies out of the oven and carved the turkey, nieces and nephew of all ages started filling "grandma's house". Before we dug in and had prayer, the teenagers sang a beautiful song composed by my (almost) 16 year old niece Sydney. She put the words to "Come ye thankful people come" to the tune "Cannon in D". It was beautiful!!

Then mom shared a few thoughts with us including a story of my Great Grandma Manoa Andersen. When someone asked her why she was so happy even after having lost her husband at a young age, leaving her to raise 9 kids by herself, being driven out of her house 3 times (all due to flood) and her response was this, "I spend half of my time counting my blessings and the other half thanking the Lord for them. That leaves me no time left to feel sorry for myself". What an amazing woman!! Makes me feel almost ashamed when I find myself complaining about such trivial things.

I concluded my caloric intake by helping myself to this delicious chocolate covered strawberry pie (recipe courtesy of my wonderful friend in NC Allison Ririe) The only change I made to this mouth watering recipe was I made the chocolate goodness twice so I could drizzle it on top as well as line the crust with it...)

Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry Pie

Baked 9" pie shell

1/3 c. semisweet choc chips

1 T. butter

1/4 c. whipping cream

1 t. corn syrup

8 c. strawberries, stemmed (reserve 1-3 esp good-looking berries to dip and decorate the top)

2/3 c. water

2/3 c. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

Melt chocolate and butter in bowl in microwave using short increments and stirring in between. Set aside. In heavy small saucepan stir whipping cream and corn syrup. Bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and cook 2 min. Remove from heat, stir into chocolate mixture. Cool to room temp.

If using whole strawberries for decoration, dip dried berries into chocolate and let dry. Paint remaining chocolate onto baked pie crust (bottom and sides).

In blender or food processor combine 1 c. strawberries and water. Cover and blend until smooth. Add enough water to make just over 1 c. liquid (won't be much, if any).

In another saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Stir in pureed strawberries, cook over med heat till thick and bubbly, stirring constantly. Cook and stir 2 min more. Cool 10 min WITHOUT stirring.

Pour glaze over stemmed and cut (if desired) berries. Chill 1-2 hours before serving.

I experienced the closest thing to a migraine that night. When the light started hurting my eyes and made my brain throb harder, I went to bed only to wake up in a few hours for Black Friday. John and I went at midnight. Quite an experience. Got some good deals and most of our shopping done in one night.

Over all, a fantastic Thanksgiving. It's the first one we've spent in AZ since we've been married. The only other time John and I have been in AZ for Thanksgiving was when we had only known each other for about 3 weeks and John was meeting my family for the first time. (note, I had already been to Burley to meet his family). I still can't believe it's been 6 years ago since we were falling so hard and fast in love. I love this time of year!!

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Shopping decorating, sleeping

when my mom pulled out the decorations, I suddenly got VERY tired. I felt bad going to take a nap while she was hard at work (knowing darn well she had the same if not less sleep than I had gotten). So, to ease my guilt I decided to take a quick nap on the couch instead of going all the way down to my room. Ashlyn covered me with all the pillows she could find and I was snoozing, until my mom sat on me... literally!! She didn't know I was there (my devious plan had worked) and she sat down for a quick break.

I quickly fell back asleep, unaware of what had just happened and Jonah found me not long after that!! He thought mommy was pretty cool playing peek-a-boo.

Grace, Mae, and Jonah helping Grandma with the tree!

Ashlyn, doing her victory dance after completing the lunch clean up!!

That night we played a new game called "golf" that Alan taught to us. It was really fun. Instead of using Rook cards, we used ancestor cards my Aunt and Uncle made. That made it extra fun!!

Saturday, November 27th

That night was the BYU vs. Utah game. It was a great game with a horrible ending... we just wish we could have won by one instead of them!! John invited his friend Kyle Green and his wife and little girl over to watch with us. I made a delicious batch of toffee and mom made turkey noodle soup.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend

Vetrans Day Parade

On November 11th, 2010 (Veterans Day) our entire family got to be in the Veterans Day parade. My mom was honored as AZ's mother of the Year which naturally honored me as awesome daughter of the year (so she says!!)

The boys played football while we waited over an hour for our "float" to go. We were number 69 out of about 120 participants in the parade.

Kennedi and Jack playing in the surrey before the parade started.

The whole gang!!

We all followed behind the horse and surrey on bikes, scooters, or just on foot.

Kenna, Spencer, Joseph, Jack

JaNae and "the honorable" Kirk Adams wrote their tandem bike :)

Jack rarin to go. Streamers and all...

It was pretty hot that day and we were all dying of thirst so thankfully John ran across the street and got frozen lemonade. Jonah wouldn't let it go.

John, Mark, Dad

Yea for government jobs that give John a day off!!!

Besides my legs being horribly sore from my (Legs and Back P90X) workout a few days prior the parade route was perfect. Short and sweet.

Jonah was of course ecstatic when these very loud and very yellow airplanes flew overhead.

Rebecca sporting her awesome shoes.

Cute G&G Ray came to cheer us on in the crowd. The float behind us were all WWII Veterans and after the parade we realized Gpa Ray should have been riding in one of their fancy convertibles. We were all very sad that Gpa Ray wasn't honored in that way since there are only a very few still alive. Oh well, next year.

After the parade they gave all the participants "parade dogs" and Gatorade

Jonah, Jack, Spencer, Parker

My cute mom and dad

It was a very fun morning.

That afternoon John went golfing with a friend he hadn't seen since 3rd grade (Kyle Green) while I drove up and down every single street in Mesa looking for Kirk Adam's signs. Since the election is over we had to make sure no signs were left up. Mark came with me and it took us 4 hours. We only found 3 signs... all with in a 1/4 mile of each other. Obviously someone else was on sign duty before us!! Oh well, Mark and I had a great time listening to music and I got to drive the Nissan pickup truck. I felt like I was in high school again. We came home to delicious Jumbalia and sweet kisses from my boys. It was a fun day!!

Turkeys in the Backyard!!

Happy Thanksgiving Week!!

Last week our neighbor's turkey made its way into our yard... and the boys thought it was pretty awesome. This is the second time he's flown over the fence. I think he's after my mom's beautiful garden. He ate all of her peppers last time!! But this time, he strut his feathers for us...

Isn't he beautiful??

This is what Jack had to say about it. Don't mind my laryngitis...

I have 2 more turkeys in the backyard to tell you about. Although I want to eat them equally as much, these little turkeys are my favorite!

Their balloons got stuck together and Jonah was ticked!! We love having gorgeous weather so they can play outside all the time.

This little turkey LOVES hanging out with the cow.

This was the first time the turkey came over. Jack was very brave... I was freaking out.

This little turkey LOVES to jump on the trampoloine. More so when he's all alone, but he can hold his own among the big boys. He's a tough little cookie.

The only thing he loves more than jumping on the tramp it hearing and looking for airplanes in the sky. He points with all his energy and yells, "Aeee pay-een"

These little turkeys found themselves some breakfast. John leaves for work at 6:30AM and my parents get home from the gym shortly thereafter. Usually I'm awake to kiss John goodbye and get the boys breakfast, but this particular day mommy needed a few extra zzzz's. They decided to help themselves to the midnight snack Mark left on the counter the night before. Jack was proud. Jonah was thrilled. Mommy learned a lesson.

This is our "service turkey". For FHE a few weeks ago the lesson was service. Service the best way to show Heavenly Father how thankful we are for all that he has given to us. After all "When we are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). Anyway, each day until Thanksgiving we've been trying to do at least one act of service a day. If we do, we get to put a feather on the turkey. The boys are putting their well earned feathers on the turkey. Jonah lovingly shared a train with Jack and Jack got me a huge drink of ice water while I was working out.

If any fruit is left on the counter, my boys will find it. I found these little turkeys getting into the carton of strawberries about 1/2 before dinner.

In case you were wondering Jack DID get himself dressed today and YES, he is wearing Jonah's pants :)

Cutest little turkeys I've ever seen!!

Happy Thanksgiving