Smile!!

It's strange to me how sometimes Jared and Lydia love having their picture taken and other times they want nothing to do with it. Since we have been home they have been on more of a love kick and have even asked me to take their picture. I have always tried to explain to them how the pictures I take are the ones we will look at later on the computer so they should look at me and Smile but it doesn't always sink in. Lately when I take Lydia's picture she says "Smile!" She is cute.  As these pictures show.

First time I curled her hair.

While in Utah Sue curled Lydia's hair a few times and Lydia seemed to like it so yesterday I bought a small curling iron so I could curl it. She was so patient while I worked on it. I already knew I lacked the skills to curl my own hair but thought I would be a little better at doing her hair but I wasn't.  It was still cute because she is so cute. I will have to practice a lot more if she will let me.
Lydia also learned a new "trick" from her Aunt Molly while in Utah.  Molly always keeps her cell phone in her bra pocket so Lydia saw her do this a good amount. A few days after we go home I was sitting on the couch with Lydia and she does this:

Mark and I looked at each other and both said "Who could she have learned that from?"  So funny.  She also really likes her "pockets" and loves trying to put things in them.  Sadly for her some of her clothes don't have pockets so she will often try really hard to put things in her pants.  We have found some goofy things but mostly just tissues.

Lydia has also decided she occasionally prefers to go "commando" at nap time and sometime at bedtime. While we were in Virginia Sue would go to get her up and she would be free as a bird! Jared maybe did this once when he was younger but Lydia does it at least once a week.  She is so silly. When I went to get her from her nap today this is what I saw:

 Her underwear and pants. 

Jared thinks it is pretty hilarious. We do not and are so glad she stays dry as well as she does. 

The other day I went to go wake Jared up from his nap.  When I got to his room he was laying in bed waiting for me like this:  Such a sweetie.

Lydia also lately developed an interest in the princess crown we put on her birthday cake. It has been sitting on her dresser since January and she has never taken it down or asked for it. This all changed last week and both of them enjoy wearing it now.

We are still loving our Blender. We are only 7 smoothies ways from our 100th one since February. Yeah it has a counter. Mark makes us a green smoothie most mornings and I love starting our day with them knowing we are getting in some servings of vegetables and fruit. It is the best way for us to get Jared and Lydia and me to eat them.  Sometimes we make one to go with our dinner too and Jared and Lydia get really excited when the smoothie is not green.  They do like them but a non-green smoothie is like a special treat. Our blender is not really that loud. I mean it is but not as loud as they act like it is.

We had the missionaries over for dinner last week so I decided to try out a new dessert. I love chocolate and peanut butter so I found THIS peanut butter brownie cake and made it.  Sadly one of the Elders couldn't have peanut butter (but enjoyed the brownie part) but other than that it was a huge hit. The cake was huge so I had Mark take it to school the next day. Have I mentioned how much I appreciate having a place to send leftover desserts so I don't eat them all? I really do. Jared was not pleased when Mark took it to school. The teachers really enjoyed it which makes me happy.  It was super rich so I felt a little bad that they did not have any milk to go with it. But they still loved it.

Before I frosted it, it called for so much butter!!!

We have been having lots of Easter fun and are excited for the big day!

Life back in the Springs.

We have been home for just over a week now and are pretty much back to our routine with a few interruptions.  Our dryer broke this week so that has been annoying. Have you ever been asked what your favorite modern day appliance was? A washer and dryer were always pretty high on  my list and I still feel that way.  The day it broke I had a load that needed to be dried so I took Jared and Lydia to a nearby laundromat.  They had fun running around (no one else was there) while we waited for the clothes to dry.  Today Lydia and I went and did 4 loads of laundry.  That is a definite plus of a laundromat. You can do so much at a time. But the cons completely outweigh that plus in my mind.

It was strange to explain to Jared how some people did this each time they needed clean clothes (It cost quite a bit for a family of 4 so that would really add up) Doing our laundry there brought back BYU Idaho memories as 3 of the 4 years I was there I used the apartment facilities. My last year at Carriage House all the apartments had washers and dryers which was so great. The first year Mark and I were married we used them too. I was so happy when we moved to Utah and got our own from Mark's family. I hope it gets fixed before we need to do laundry again.

A Day in DC

Our last day back East was spent walking around DC. We drove to the farthest (From DC) metro stop and rode it in.  It was nice not to worry about traffic or parking but pretty pricey too.  It was so strange to think of people taking the metro to work every day.  Mark and I were dressed casually in jeans and felt out of place.  People our age and younger looked so professional.  There is such a different feel to a place like DC than we experience in our normal lives.  We got off near the Capitol and started our sight seeing with a tour of the Capitol. I spent a few day in DC back in 2003 and Mark went with his family when he was 11 I think so it had been awhile since we had been there. Neither of us had toured the Capitol and it was the thing Mark wanted to do the most.  We got in right away (after sadly throwing away our water bottles and delicious Pink Lady Apples) and enjoyed the tour. We heard lots of fun stories and facts. When we were traveling all over when we lived in Egypt we rarely went on organized tours so it was different for us but we liked it.  I think it worked because it was under an hour so we still had all kinds of time to do what we wanted. We walked up the hallway that the POTUS walks through for the inauguration which was fun. It was cool to imagine how they felt when walking down that hallway. Our tour guide told us how there was actually a vault built in the Capitol for George Washington to be buried in but he was not interested and asked (and got to be) buried in Mount Vernon instead. I love how George Washington was willing to work so much for this country but didn't need all the power or recognition. He did step down (very important at the time) and then was happy at Mount Vernon.  We also walked around the Library of Congress which is a really nice building with so many books!

 "The Hallway"

Library of Congress

After the Capitol we walked over to the statue of Ulysses S Grant in front of the Capitol reflecting pool and noticed lots of cameras and people standing around. Turns out they were filming a scene for a show called "Madame Secretary" and we were kindly asked to please move out of the way.  We totally would have been an extra for them but they didn't want anyone near the scene which seems difficult as it is a public, popular place and it was a beautiful day out.

After that we stated walking down the National Mall. Mark was feeling flustered because he did not have a map and he loves maps! We enjoyed all the fancy architecture of the museums and kept walking towards the Washington monument. I had mentioned the night before that I thought it would be fun to go to Georgetown Cupcakes (Of TLC DC Cupcakes) so we looked at the Metro map to find the closest stop and none were very convenient.  We made a plan to take the Metro but got sidetracked by the quest for a map and seeing some part of the White House. It's so weird how little of it you can see and it's such a pretty building. Next time I am there I want to sign up for a tour. So instead of taking the Metro we just kept walking. 3.9 miles later we made it to the cupcake shop.  That is sort of how it works with Mark, once you start walking you just keep going to till you find what you were looking for! It was close to lunch time when we were about half way to Georgetown so we started to look for a place to eat and weren't finding anything. I finally suggested we go for Chinese and once we decided that we could not find a single Chinese restaurant.  It was so weird. Normally it seems like they are so easy to find.  We had hoped to eat lunch before cupcakes since that seems the reasonable thing to do but we were tired of walking and super hungry so we had dessert first. They did not disappoint.  We went ahead and got a half dozen cupcakes (we really didn't see anywhere we both wanted to eat) and were so hungry. We each got a peanut butter chocolate one, and then we got Key lime, red velvet, a birthday one and a mint one. The Key Lime and Red Velvet were  our favorites.  They were all good and worth the walk.  The crazy thing was after we ate (not all of them in one sitting) and rested a little we walked down a street we had already walked down and found a Chinese restaurant!  Mark and I just looked at each other so confused as to why we didn't see it before. It makes for a good story in person. So much walking!!

After eating luck and cupcakes we felt much better and started walking again. We made it back to the National Mall and walked around the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial before heading over to the Roosevelt, Korean War, MLK and Lincoln Memorials. I sort of feel like when you go to DC you sort of have to choose memorials or museums and we picked Memorials. Next time, museums! We passed by so many upper elementary and middle school groups it was crazy. It would be so cool (and exhausting/stressful) to be able to go on field trips like this. It was fun to think that Mark could be taking kids on tours like this one day soon. As we walked around I wondered if there were more kids who went into History or Politics from that area as they got older since they were so surrounded by it growing up.
 The Jefferson Memorial is so pretty! When we planned our trip I was really excited because I knew the Cherry Blossom Festival was in early April so I hoped the trees would be in bloom but they were about a week away.  That was a bummer because that would be incredible to see. There were daffodils everywhere though which made me happy since they are my favorites. It was interesting because all over Virginia on the Interstates there were these huge patches of daffodils right between the two sides of the streets. It was so happy. It reminded me of the children's book "Miss Rumphius" about the woman who went all over and flowers. hey were just large beautiful patches in such a strange place.

This would be a great picture with the cherry blossoms. 

Lincoln Memorial:

It was a long exhausting day filled with fun History. After the memorials we walked over to the Metro stoop by Arlington National Cemetery and happily sat down till we got to the car parking lot.  We are glad we could spend a day there but were so sore the next few days from all that walking. Our flight left at 6:15 the next morning and we had to return our rental car so we were up bright and early, 4:00 AM to be exact. It was a fun exhausting trip.

Virginia

We flew out to Virginia from Salt Lake City Monday morning. It was a little sad to leave Jared and Lydia but we knew the would have so much fun with all the family in Utah.  The funny thing about our flights was that it was cheaper to fly out of Salt Lake yet we had a layover in Denver.  When we flew back we stopped in Denver again and it was really tempting to call a friend here in the Springs and ask them to pick me up so I didn't have to make the 9 hour drive back on Sunday but of course I didn't. I wouldn't do that to Mark and I wanted to see Jared and Lydia. Once we landed in Denver on our way out we found out that our flight to Virginia was delayed.  We went and got some dinner and then sat down to wait it out. After awhile they made another announcement about our flight and Mark noticed that the people next to us (a mom and her 10 year old daughter) were on our flight. They started talking and it turned out that she was LDS and a native of Virginia. We spent the next hour or so talking to her about different cities and things in Virginia. It was so helpful and fun. I felt it was  sign that we were most likely going to end up moving there (but we will see. ) We finally arrived in Dulles around 10:45.  We got our rental car and headed to our hotel in Manassas.  I think getting there so late made it easier to go to sleep without thing too much about Jared and Lydia. We texted Mark's mom to let us know we arrived and she wrote back that Jared and Lydia were happy as can be and loving all the family togetherness.
We left fairly early the next day to start our Northern tour of the state. And that is basically what we did the next 2 days. Drive around Virginia checking our areas and trying to talk to as many school districts as possible.  We put at least 750 miles on our rental car.
We stopped first in Frederick Maryland and met with a HR lady with the school district. She was super nice and happy to meet with us. I wish we would have taken some time to drive around the town more and see what was there because their school district has IB schools which Mark would like to continue teaching at but we had places to see.  If Mark got a job there we thought we would live in West Virginia in Harpers Ferry or Charles Town so we went to go check them out and decided we would rather pay the higher taxes in Maryland than live there. They are just really little towns like under 10,000 people and not what we are looking for.  Then we drove over to Winchester Virginia and were not very impressed with that town either so I really wish we had seen more of Frederick Maryland. Oh well. At least we got to meet with a HR person.
As we were driving around VA, specifically Northern Virginia like the Leesburg area I was amazed at how different it looks than places out "West".  If it weren't for the nicely paved roads and huge houses it seems like it was the same as it was during the Revolutionary war.  Green rolling hills, trees everywhere.  None of these treeless, wide open spaces like out here. I wish I would have taken a picture of that area specifically. It really felt like we could drive by a man on horseback with a three cornered hat. I loved it. I can't even begin to imagine how amazing it looks in the Fall.  I loved how once you got out of the "city" you were in beautiful "farmland" or rolling hills. Then you drive a little more and are in a city again.

 I can't begin to imagine how amazing this would look in the Fall. 

After Northern Virginia we headed to Harrisonburg in central Virginia.  We were really impressed with Harrisonburg. There are just under 50,000 people there and James Madison University is located there.  We stopped in the visitors center and walked around downtown a bit and just loved it. We also drove all over the city checking out parks and neighborhoods.  One thing we noticed about Virginia (at least where we were) is that the huge housing developments like we are used to with cookie cutter homes and fenced in yards don't really exist there. You had to really look for them. The residents use trees as their fences.  Its so pretty but a big adjustment (not in a bad way it just took some getting used to). It is one of our top three locations. We spent most of the afternoon there then headed back to the hotel.

 The next morning we got up early and headed South. We stopped in Stafford County (We would live in Fredericksburg because Stafford is too close to DC therefore way too expensive) and ran into some truly horrible traffic. We made it to the District office just after 8 and got there before most of the employees.  We asked about the traffic and they said it was really awful that day and not normally like that. There was a big accident on the 95 (I sound so local right) so everybody went to the local streets through Stafford and Stafford happened to be updating their stop light system or something. Anyway, we got there and met with some super nice people.  They were so friendly and helpful.  It was funny because there were people we were not really talking to yet they stayed and listened and chatted with us.  Once we mentioned Mark had IB training (there are 2 IB high schools there) the HR person said she would contact the principals and see if they would meet with Mark. They were just so nice. This one lady just smiled as we were leaving and said she "just wanted to hug us we were so cute." Our stop there was totally worth it. Later that day Mark did get a call from one Principal who wanted to interview Mark! Most schools have not posted their jobs yet so he wasn't sure he would have a Social Studies position but we were so happy he wanted to meet with Mark.  It interfered with our plans to tour Charlottesville that day but we knew we had to go to the interview. The principal was really nice and we are so happy we could meet with him. Mark would be very happy working there.

Before we knew about the interview we had planned on spending the afternoon in Charlottesville like we did the day before with Harrisonburg. Right as we were driving into the city limits we got the phone call about the interview. Stafford and Charlottesville are like an hour and thirty minutes away so we ended up only having like 1 hour to see the city. I was really disappointed because Charlottesville was really high on our list of places to see. Fortunately we did have a chance before the phone call to visit a community called Lake Monticello. Before we went out there we had looked up housing there and found this community 20 minutes from Charlottesville and thought it looked like a good housing option. We tried to go in but it is a gated community (never thought I would live in one of those) so the only way to go in was with a realtor or if someone called you in. Luckily there was a real estate office 3 minutes up the road and this very nice woman took us on a great tour.  There is a lake, numerous playgrounds, a grocery store, Fire and police departments, pharmacies a pool and club house.  The lake is beautiful (they shoot fireworks over it for the 4th of July) and I loved how the houses are all different styles and all the trees! We would be pretty happy living there. We don't know if we would like Charlottesville as we only saw the School district office but at least we know where we would probably live. So after Lake Monticello we headed back to Stafford and met with the Principal there which was great. Even if they don't have a job at that school he could put in a good word for Mark with the other schools.

We also stopped in Hannover County/Ashland but it wasn't too exciting.  They do have IB schools so Mark is still interested. I wish we could have gone into Mechanicsville (North of Richmond) but there just wasn't enough time. Its crazy how much we did see in 2 days.

After that we drove back to Manassas.  We decided we might as well check out a battlefield since there is one in like every city and the Manassas one was pretty much around the corner from our hotel. If I had to pick one battlefield to visit in Virginia it would be this one. It was the first time the two armies met during the Civil War.  We walked around right after the sun set and enjoyed some history.

"There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall" General Bee

He was give his nickname Stonewall Jackson at this battle. 

 It is crazy how much history is right at your fingertips in that area. And fun cities! Philadelphia is 4 hours away, Washington DC is no more than 2 hours away and NYC is 5.5 hours away.  I would so love to live in such a great location with such an amazing (from what I heard and all the trees I saw) Fall.  It was great to meet with as many school districts as we did and get to talk to people locally and drive around these towns. Our trip was very useful and very exhausting. Definitely a "working vacation". We can't wait for jobs to be posted in these school districts and to see if Mark can get a position!

Utah

We drove out to Utah for the first part of Spring break.  It was great to visit with Mark's family there. His sister Cathryn decided last minute to come out to visit too. Jared and Lydia were thrilled to get to play with so many of their cousins. Molly/Steve and Shannon/Kris live there and Susan/Bret were coming out too. It was great to see them all. We had Friday - Monday to spend with them before we left so we played at a park, had a picnic, went swimming in the hot springs, and went down to BYU to get new shirts. It was a fun weekend. We went to church with Sue and Jared made all the primary workers fall in love with him. As we walked him down to the Primary room he repeatedly told us he did not want to go. Mark and I stopped in the Nursery to drop off Lydia so Sue took him down which I think was a better arrangement.  Once they got there he walked right in and sat down with the 4 year old class. After church the music leader saw Jared with us and came over to tell us how much Jared participated and how cute he was. She said while the Bishop was talking Jared raised his hand and when the Bishop called on him Jared asked him "Do you want to know what I want to be when I grow up?" The Bishop said, "There is nothing I want to know more" (Pretty sure this was completely off topic for his message). Jared paused and said..."I just want to be one of those guys who pass the Sacrament." He is so funny. When Mark and I got back from out trip we rode Trax up to Temple Square to walk around and listen to Saturday Morning General Conference and went swimming again.
Jared and Lydia did really well while we were gone. They listened well and loved playing with cousins.  Most mornings Jared would wake up then go to Grandma Sue's room and lay on the bed with her and watch a little show.  Lydia joined them as soon as she woke up. Sue also has a projector and screen so they watched Frozen with the cousins and loved it on the big screen.  Monday night Susan and Bret arrived and after dinner they ended up having an impromptu FHE with Shannon and Cathryn's kids too. Back in December Bret suffered a serious very scary heart attack and we have all been praying for him and his family.  He is doing very well and wanted to tell each of the kids thank you for praying for him.  After he did Jared said "I said your name so many times!" They all thought it was pretty cute.  I know I am terribly biased about my kids but it is really nice to hear people talk about how well behaved they are and how fun they are to be around. It's nice to know people enjoy being with your kids and aren't just watching them because they are family or feel they have to but that they like to. Makes me so happy. Jared found this stuffed animal and when Sue saw him playing with it she told him that it was Mark's when he was little.  He got it at the hospital after the Ultralight accident with his Dad. After that Jared slept with it while we were gone.  It was so great to walk in the door and see Jared and Lydia when we got back. Jared came and sat in my lap and cuddled for quite awhile.  We missed them a lot but knew they were being very well taken care of.  When we saw Lydia she gave us huge hugs and shouted "Back!" For the past few days she will look at Mark and I and say "Gone. Plane. Back!" again and again I think she missed us and was relieved that we made it back.  We sure love them!

 I love this see saw! 

Mark kindly let Jared borrow his glasses since they were looking at the sun. 

 They both LOVED riding Trax.  We did it before in 2012 but Lydia was maybe 3 months old so this was a new experience for her.

 Temple Square is just so pretty in the Spring. 

 Well pretty much any time of year but Spring just may be my favorite. 

I love his hands in his pockets.  Such a cutie. 

When we asked Jared what was his favorite part of Temple Square he said walking on the ledges.  

We got to Temple Square right before 10:00 so we walked around a bit and then asked some Sister Missionaries where they thought was the best place to listen to conference. The ones we talked to suggested The Joseph Smith Memorial building in the Legacy theatre. We walked over and luckily found 2 seats in the theatre. They were end seats a row apart from each other. So Mark and I each sat with a kid on our lap and got to hear President Monson's opening remarks and Elder Holland. It was perfect. I loved that we got to see our Prophet and always look forward to Elder Holland's talks. It was fun to be in the big theatre with such a large screen.  We knew we wouldn't last for it all and were so happy we got to see it there at all. It was perfect.

We enjoyed our time in Utah and loved being with family but are so happy to be back home.