The reception...

The Cake

All of my nieces and nephews, a little hard to get thme all looking and smiling with so many of them!

We enjoyed lots of good food...

...and lots of good dancing.

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This video made my day...very cute if you have a minute to watch! Thanks for the tip Kel.

A true favorite

Has anyone else ever had a moment where you remember how much you really love someone/something? I can't remember when my love for Les Miserables began, but I have loved it forever. I even remember getting tickets for Christmas one year when I was 15 to see it in Salt Lake; all my friends couldn't believe I was that excited for a play. Anyway, it's been a long time since I've seen the play or listened to the music and Jordan and I watched the movie the other day. Suddenly I just remembered how much I really love the story, the music, the book, everything! It really is amazing. So now that I've had the reminder, I have been listening to the soundtrack for days and loving every minute of it. I even thought about starting up the book again, but I have too many other books on my list at the moment so that will have to wait for another day. If you don't know the story or anything about it, it would be well-worth your time to learn. I think everyone could stand to be just a bit more like our hero Jean Valjean...

MICHIGAN

Well we're here! I have been here for just over a week and it's been great. My sister, Erin, came out the same day that I did and spent a few days so that was a lot of fun, and felt a little more like a vacation at that point. We got to spend a lot of time getting to know our soon to be sis-in-law, Marissa and it was a lot of fun. We even got to address and mail all of the wedding invitations with her! Lucky Jonny was working all the time so he didn't "get" to help. That was fine for the most part, but we did have a few addressing mishaps. I got the worst of it though; one of the addresses Jonny had was for a friend of his who lived in California, the city said Gay City. I hesitated thinking there was no way that could be right but Jonny had been very specific about just copying the names and addresses exactly how they were written so I just did it. Come to find out, his friend actually lives in San Francisco and was just being funny, Jonny didn't quite connect the joke; therefore I addressed it that way and out it went. Jonny got a text a few days later wondering if we knew he actually lived in San Fran, and that he'll probably be getting lots of hate mail now. Oh well, what can ya do? We got a pretty good laugh out of it at least.

Before Erin left we walked around Ann Arbor, it was a lot of fun. It's fun to be in another college town that is totally different from Provo, in just about every way. I guess Ann Arbor is a major hippie town, pretty interesting. We stopped at a used bookstore on the way to lunch and got sidetracked for quite awhile. There were so many books, some of them original texts and really neat copies of classics, etc. We spent way too much time/money there!

We ate lunch at Potbelly, good thing Kathleen introduced me to this in Texas!

This is outside one of the buildings across from the main campus.

These two buildings are part of the law school, the architecture is incredible. It has a nice quiet courtyard in the middle of it all and it was beautiful. Lots of wedding pictures were being taken while we were there.

So begins our summer! I really like being out here, it reminds me of my days in Virginia that I miss a lot sometimes. I love the green trees everywhere and all of the old buildings and houses, so different from Utah. I'm still working on knowing my way around, but I've been able to go running a few times and that's helped me quite a bit, not to mention the great scenery. There have also been a lot of restaurants that I've missed from the East. We have already been to Maggiano's (Erin's one request) and Panera Bread. There are many more to try and we are really excited. We're also planning on going to Kirtland Ohio at some point and hopefully hit Mt. Rushmore and Nauvoo on our trip home. Lots of memories in the making, just the way we like it.

It's the little things

This post is a little late, but it's ok. Jordan got me these flowers a few days before Mother's Day and had them sent to my work. I love roses, I'm pretty traditional. Some of you may think it's a little weird that he went out of his way to get me something since I'm not a mother yet, and no I'm not pregnant either! He just wanted to be sweet and I appreciated it so much. You always hear the phrase, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." That is definitely true for me. Jordan only left for Michigan about a week and a half ago but I feel like it's been forever! I can't wait to get out there and feel like I have a husband again. :)

Deep in the Heart of TEXAS!

So everyone loves a good girls night right? Well, when you've got friends as good as the ones I have, one night just won't do, we make it a week! So we have decided to make an annual girls trip, starting with visiting Ambre in NY last year. This year we were off to Texas! Sadly, Ambre is off in Italy serving her mission so she didn't join us on this trip but she will catch us next year! It was just me and Kathryn, and her new little Ellery, off to visit Kathleen and Avree in Texas! Neither Kathryn nor I had ever been to Texas so we were pretty excited to see it, but more excited to just hang out and do whatever we please. This plan worked out perfect for me since Jordan left for Michigan, it was a good way for me to spend less time all alone. I'm so glad I have these girls!

Meet Avree! She was so fun to play with, and she's got a smile that melts your heart. Don't let her tease you though, getting her to laugh with that smile was next to impossible for me!
And cute Ellery. This is my fav pic of her because it sums her up perfectly. She will just chill in her seat and stare at whatever. And I couldn't get enough of those cheeks!

Avree and Ellery are only two months apart in age, but they seemed a lot different! I had so much fun gettting to know a little bit about both of them and helping out where I could-you don't have to twist my arm to hold and play with babies.

Ellery got to try out Avree's bumbo, Kathryn really loved it, so much so that she tried to put her in it to help her wake up and this is how it went...poor girl couldn't keep her eyes open and head up to save her life.

This was my favorite Avree trick, she just sucks on her toes! I know all babies are flexible but this is a whole new level, she sucks on them just like she does her binky!

The weather was really nice for most of the time we were there so we decided to hit up the pool one day, the weather that day was totally perfect. Except that, Kathryn and Kathleen kept getting up to take care of babies and such while I just laid in the sun forever...resulting in a horrible sunburn! I haven't seen the sun in quite awhile, bad idea for me. But at least I got some color! We went that night to get pedicures and I didn't quite think that through with the sunburn...

All of us.

Yeah, not only was I burnt, but it was really splotchy and ugly. This leg was actually not too bad, but it was burned and so was the top of my foot. Let's just say the hot towel treatment and salt scrub were pretty much the most painful thing ever! But Kathryn's girl was making her toes bleed right next to me so I didn't feel too bad. And one of the little asian ladies totally whacked Avree's head on a pole in the middle of all of this so then I really couldn't pity myself too much. Nonetheless, don't ever get a pedi if you have a sunburn!

Eric and Kathleen took us to their favorite restaurant, Uncle Julio's. It was so good! I'm sure it was even better because we were starving by the time we got there. These guys definitely have some good taste in food.

The trip overall was a lot of fun. I didn't get near as many pics as everyone else, but I did my best to remember to take a few. We really just enjoyed ourselves staying up late chatting and sleeping in and napping when the babies did. Eric was such a good sport babysitting too when we wanted to play. While we didn't get to see the tourist-y side of Texas, I loved it! We got to do some great shopping too, which I can never pass up when I have Kathleen by my side. My only regret is that I didn't get to stay longer. The time of course flew by and before I knew it I was back to real life. Vacations always go too quick! It also doesn't help that I don't know when I'll get to see these girls again, good thing we all have cell phones and understanding husbands!
For a while I almost felt like we were still living together in our Raintree apt, except with babies and such...

Love you girls!

Ford Motor Company

So, the Ford Motor Company will be my employer for the summer! I feel pretty lucky that I was able to get an internship given the current economic circumstances. I will be working in the General Auditor’s Office, which is the office that prepares and publishes the financial statements of the company. Publicly traded companies are required by law to present financial information in a standardized way and I will be helping prepare that information.

We will be staying with Jana’s brother; he is doing his medical school residency in Ann Arbor, which is about 30 minutes from where I’ll be working (Dearborn, Michigan). I drive out there next week because my first day is May 18. They will provide me with a computer and a mentor to show me around and help me get acquainted with the system. I don’t know too much about what is going to happen once I get out there, but they do neat things with the interns, like taking them to sporting events and to their test track! It will be nice that we’ll get out of Provo for a bit and get some outside exposure.

We’ll be coming back mid-August, which will leave us about two weeks until the fall semester starts. Jana will be taking some online classes while we’re out there and I will be taking one too (my last GE!).