Graduation and Family Vacation!

We had quite the week and a half at the end of July. First: GRADUATION! (Jennie's, that is)

Scott had a really hard time getting the camera to work, and we either had really blurry pictures, or really unflattering pictures. I prefer the blurry.

My parents drove out from Wisconsin, so we went to St. Anthony on Pioneer Day to spend it with Scott's grandparents (no one in Wisconsin really knows what Pioneer Day is), watching the parade and pot-lucking.


Then, my senior recital! I have yet to go get the DVD of it from the music office, but as soon as I do, I will post more pictures, and hopefully a video of the recital. But for now, it was awesome! It feels SO good to be done and to know what I've accomplished! I love the violin!

THEN, we headed down to Utah the next day (at 5 am) to go to a Gergetz Family Reunion (Jennie's family). We stayed at Castle Valley Outdoors and had a great time, especially on the hikes. We haven't had many chances to do that kind of thing yet this summer, and it felt really good to get out. Our first one was to the San Rafael Swell.

It was raining that day, so we bundled up, but it was even more fun because of it .

Aren't they the cutest? =)

It really was so amazing. I wish we lived closer to these kinds of hikes. No, I wish we didn't have to work or go to school and could just travel all the time to do this kind of thing.


Noah fell asleep for the last twenty minutes of the hike - so funny! He just bobbed along and snoozed =)

Next hike to the petroglyphs! Yay sunglasses!



I wish we would have gotten a better picture of the petroglyphs. I'm also not exactly sure what they were called or where they were. Sorry! There are a lot of them in Utah...

And finally, home! It felt good to get back home and back to a normal routine after seven or eight days of chaos. We'll miss my parents (until next summer!), but it's always nice to get back to normal family life. Especially since school is out! We're going to try to spend our time off of school having fun and getting home stuff done. Hopefully we'll have some fun things to report soon =)

Field Trip and A Make-Over

It was Melaleuca Day at Tautphaus Park in Idaho Falls this past Saturday. It's the local zoo, and while it's nothing amazing, it was a fun day. All Melaleuca employees and their families got in free, so we thought it would be fun to take Noah. He didn't understand a whole lot of it, and the animals weren't very active since it was the hottest part of the day, but we had fun, and he enjoyed being in a new and different place. We'll definitely go again.

On a totally different note, Noah got a make-over! Here's the before shot......


And here's the after shot!


Noah got glasses! He's done really well with them, so far. Mostly, he just gets annoyed when he can't rub his eyes, but it's really funny to watch him getting used to them.


His right eye is crossed, but before they do any surgery to correct it, the doctor wants to try glasses for a couple of months. Occasionally it can correct it enough that surgery isn't needed. It's not a lazy eye, so hopefully, even if we do have to have the surgery, he won't need glasses afterwards. Thanks mom, for the bad eyes! =)

p.s. Sorry they are a little blurry! We have to re-size them so that they will upload. Seriously, blogger is a pain!

More Pictures

We got Noah's portrait taken a few weeks ago, and we thought we would share some of the results. We got an amazing deal, and a whole lot of Noah smiles. Yay for being one!












Also, Noah has FINALLY started crawling! We've been waiting and working with him for months, but this kid just had no desire to crawl, then TA DA! Crawling!

Everyone says that we'll regret being so eager for him to be mobile, but not me. He's been so frustrated for so long, and it's been so hard to have a cranky kid each day, that I'm so happy that he is finally able to get where he wants. He's also figured out how to pull himself up on just about anything. Of course now he's bonking his head on the floor every five minutes, but hey, live and learn, right? =)

Also, does anyone else have the hardest time getting the pictures and the words to line up right on these stupid posts? The post looks nothing like it does when I'm trying to create it. Stupid blogspot.....

Happy One Year, Noah!

Hey everyone! Don't worry, we didn't forget about Noah's birthday. We've just been busy since that weekend, plus, I've had some trouble uploading the pictures. So here they are! Here is the day our little angel turned one! (Well, the day after, but don't tell him that =])

We were able to have quite a few people there, too. Scott's parents came from Utah, plus Craig and Corinne and Greg. Grandma Ostermiller and Grandma and Grandpa Orme came, too.

He did pretty well, tearing paper and pulling ribbons off, but we had to help him a little bit. Noah got some fun toys from mom and dad, some summer clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Ostermiller, and some rocking sunglasses from Uncle Greg

I made a monkey cake for his party. The practice attempt the week before wasn't quite so good, but the second one worked like a charm that morning. Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. It was just a cake mix, and frosting from a can, but it got demolished anyways, so it worked out great.

We wanted to keep with tradition and let Noah loose on his cake, but he didn't care for that plan too much. We stripped him down, and set him on the table (plastic tablecloth) with Scott standing behind him. He didn't really want to touch the cake at all, and when we finally put his hand in the frosting, he made quite the face. Until he tasted it, of course =) But overall, he didn't really like being covered in cake. We ended up sticking his feet in it, and putting him on his hands and knees in it, just for the fun of it, but he didn't like it too much. He did enjoy getting daddy on the face with frosting, though. The bath afterwards sure was a messy one, but overall the party went great!

We were able to go up to Grandma Ostermiller's that night and the next day, for the rest of General Conference. So we had quite the full little apartment, but it worked out really great. It was a great weekend, and we really enjoyed celebrating Noah's first. That first year went so fast, it scares me to think how fast the rest of the years will go! Happy Birthday Noah! We love you!