Watty Piper

This past Friday Brad told me to pack a lunch cause we were going on an "illinois adventure" and that we did. We drove to this place about one hour from us called Starved Rock State Park and this is what we found.

Lots and lots of trees and lots of stairs. (we kind of look green in this photo)
We did about a 3 mile loop and this was one of our destinations. 
Of course Chloe wanted to walk most of the way. Brad was a champ and took the backpack for her to ride but we knew better. She would've wanted to ride if we didn't have the pack though so glad we were prepared.
Ahhh...the fam. And yes, I am sporting my gangsta shorts. Still hestitant to buy much maternity so I am wearing Brad's shorts from when he was "fat".
So, we have been reading lots and lots of new books from the library so Chloe can win this pretty awesome summer reading library prize. Well one of the books was written by Watty Piper and since Chloe wants me to read all the pages of the book I happened to mention that this book was by Watty Piper. For some reason it just stuck and randomly she will shout on Watty Piper in this funny fast voice. It's cute. Try saying it. Also, when we were telling her to smile for the picture I told her to say "whisky" instead of "cheese" and well that kindof stuck as well. Needless to say, we are encouraging on the cute phrases and the other we are hoping she forgets!

Tick count=4

I'll start this entry with a sad story. On Sunday night we heard several fire trucks drive by and Brad said he was going on the porch to "check it out". Well, we stepped out on the porch to see 3 firetrucks and a large crowd and sheets of smoke. 5 houses down there was a house on fire. so we walked down and joined the on lookers. How to describe the lady who lives in this house other than by describing her house. The lawn is ripped up because she has 3 huge poodles and a little dog who bark and run back and forth all day. She has tons of decor on the "lawn" including several trolls and signs with different sayings. When we've walked by she just sits on the porch all day. This was her house that burned. She was out of town but the neighbors were all frantic that she may be in there. She wasn't thankfully, but her 4 dogs and cats and birds were. Sadly, after 20 minutes we saw animal control come and pull the dogs out in blankets. At this point the woman had arrived home and was sitting in a lawn chair, amid the crowd of own lookers, watching her house burn. It was truly tragic...so so sad. We were so fascinated by the firemen and their calmness and kindness and courage. I had never seen a fire that close and hope not to ever ever again. In the picture below the house is right between the trucks. The flames were coming from the back and would die down and then errupt high above the trees.

Me in my pregnancy glory. 20 weeks!  And yes...i have found that stretching yoga pants are my friend.
We took 2 trips to Nauvoo in 2 weeks to see our friends and the temple. It's about 3 hour drive. Chloe fell asleep for literally 1 minute and then we stopped for dinner and made her eat. Needless to say, she never went back to sleep for the rest of the ride. The next day we went to church and this is how she looked on our drive home from church. 1 minute? Nope, not this time. She slept for over an hour at 430.  Sweet thing.
Call them what you like. I heart these dutch babies.
Our new house. I will forever remain consistant with my love of a red accessorized kitchen. This kitchen is itty bitty. I long for a perfect kitchen space where I can entertain and relax and cook and be inspired. 
Baby Ezra B's room. I love that ikea fabric that I made the curtain with. My sewing machine broke so I did the sewing by hand. Thanks mom for inspiring me to use a needle and my hand because I saw you do the same thing 2 years ago when we moved to K-ville. Incidentally, my mom hand emroidered that blanket hanging there. Literally thousands of cross-stitches and hours and hours of love.
I like this room. This is a big room we eat in to the left of the picture there is a big shelf and space for Chloe's toy. Behind the picture and to the right is the door to the kitchen and the back door, you can see the computer (which I love and I love it in the main room) and then you can see our living room/tv area beyond. It's cheerful configuration of space and natural light and mix of color and pictures to remind me and inspire me.
Love these two. 
4th of July. We attended a fun variety show in the community on the 3rd and the 4th was spent in Nauvoo with our friends.

And if you are still reading I will tell you that I found a 4th tick on my bod. I'm quite certain many people rarely ever get one tick. I've had 4 in less than 2 months. I can count on one hand how many mosquito bites i've had in my life. They just done bite me. I'm never concerned about repelent or the pests. So I guess that trade off is ticks. Awesome. One gives a bump which causes some itch and a bump, one causes Lime's disease. Perfect!

A bug in my eye

we went to the park after Brad got back from work last night and had the best time. Brad likes to give Chloe underdogs and this time I decided to get myself an underdog push. I will admit, I was a little afraid. It was like being a little kid on a swing again and I had to tell myself to hold on and reassure my mind that yes, I am an adult and I can handle swinging higher than the rails (remember when that was your goal as a kid, to get the swing higher than the rails/bars?) So, Brad pushed under me and the underdog was complete. Chloe laughed with delight as we were swinging side by side and I couldn't help but laugh as well. We did 3 repeat underdogs. So now it was Brad's turn. But somewhere between me starting to push and him almost achieving the "dog" status he got a bug in his eye. Folks, it was like he was paralyzed. I laughed so hard at seeing him stop and clutch his head like he had been shot. He couldn't manage to say what had happened to him for several minutes until all of a sudden he was right in my face holding his lower eye lid down and pointing to it. Through spasms of laughter and gulps for air, I tried to help him but as soon as I would put my finger toward his eye he would shut it. Try it. Put your finger toward someone's open eye and see if they can actually keep it open while you touch the eyeball. So after about 10 minutes the bug was moving around in there and making permanent residence when Brad decided to go have a look-see in the mirror and get it out himself. The bug moved further back when Brad poked and prodded. 

I'm making this a long story...

I was still kind of chuckling at this point and Chloe was starting to get really concerned. But we were still playing at the park and then all of a sudden Brad gets all quiet and he says, "I have to go home. This bug really hurts me." And this is the guy who's gonna be a doctor! We got home and he recovered. But since then every time Chloe gets close to Brad's face she remembers the "bug in the eye" and asks if she can take it out of Brad's eye. This morning the first thing she did was put her blanket to Brad's eye and say, "daddy, I have to get the bug out." The first thing she said after we got back from our family run this morning was, "daddy, I have to get the bug out of your eye." 

Some finds

Yesterday, I decided Chloe really needed some new sandles. She's been wearing stinking ones and too small ones. So yesterday we happened upon a little store called The Chldren's Place. You may have heard of it. They had great deals and adorable finds. We even managed to get out of the store with some stuff for the little man and not just more colorful skirts for the Chloers. I got 11 things for 48 bones. Nice! Tomorrow I think I finally need to buy some maternity clothes. Grrrr...but yeah at the same time. 

B-rad just found out that he has a saint of a doctor who told him that "the other docs will surely run you ragged these next 2 years so I am just gonna give you Fridays off. So, today is officially Friday and tomorrow starts the weekend. We love it when he's home.

Incase you were wondering...we moved!

So, we moved to Illinois last week. It is safe to say that again, we moved on the hottest and most humid day of the year. Luckily, we left Kvill at 9am and arrived at our new home in the afternoon so we were all unloaded by that night. We had some nice men from the ward come help lift boxes and Brad's parents were there to help as well. This is a picture of us and my cute neighbors. I will really, really miss them, especially the lady on the left (Christine) She loved Starsky like he was her own dog and she just adored little chloe. She was everything a neighbor could be. They brought over gifts boxes for us and a present for the new baby.

After we unpacked for a day and tried to, uh, get used to our new house and it's quirks (to say the least) we headed up to Chicago with Steve and Nancy. We stayed in a super nice hotel, right downtown and just loved seeing the sights of Chicago. Chicago is the coolest city. We really liked it there. I just loved the feeling of it. The first day we just walked around and looked at the huge buildings. Chloe was in awe (as were all of us to be honest) at the sheer size of the buildings. This is Chloe in front of the "bean" at Millenium park. we finally found it after quite a long, picturesque walk. I think Chloe looks so cute in this picture. We were shocked to see the open water of Lake Michigan. Here we are walking on this Lake Shore path where people run and bike and then right off the path (no rail) is this water and people are swimming in it. Brad and I have always looked for the perfect spot to be able to train for an open water swim, have a lifeguard on duty, and be able to get out whenever you want. This is it. I think you can swim from one end to the other end in a mile. It was a cool site but kindof a little scary walking right on the edge. I get this sick feeling in my stomach when I am on the edge of things like I am going to be sucked off.

A must do in Chicago is an Architecture cruise. You take a boat along the Chicago river and they tell you all about the history of the city and it's buildings. Quite a lot of depth to their history considering the whole city burned down in the late 1800's and this is the rebuild. Chloe is at the stage of saying "cheese" for the pictures and this is what we get. She is sassy as ever.

The next picture is us at the famous pizza place Giordanos. We put out name in and found the wait was about an hour but the cool thing is they left you order your pizza while you are outside waiting, so by the time we got in and sat the pizza came right out. I'm told it was very excellent pizza. As typical to Melanie's life I got a really bad cold the day we moved in and bad colds turn into sinus pressure and mess for weeks on end and for extra fun I lose my sense of taste and smell. I am going on the 14th day and still can't taste. Luckily I have a doc appt today. But I decided if my fate is to lose my sense of smell that I would become a totaly texture freak and I so I based my opinion of this on the texture and lusciousness of this pizza and it was pretty good. I gave it a 10 and so did Brad. So there you have it. This was Father's Day!

More of the "bean".

We took a bus ride to the aquarium. Chloe loved both experiences. She thought she was so big sitting in her own seat on the bus. Our last day there we wandered the streets and did some souvenier shopping. We found this famous sign. I became really pregant looking this week. Here I am in all my glory.

Look at Chloe in the above picture. She fell fast asleep, mouth open, at 5pm. It made it nice for us to wander in the stores. She was such a trooper on the trip and the move. She loved having Grandma and Grandpa there to keep her smiling.And we certainly couldn't have managed without them as well. It was so great to see them and we thank them for their gifts to us. When we went to church yesterday she met 5 little girls all her age.

And since we have been back from Chicago we have been unpacking and discovering our new town. There are so many parks and walking trails. This was a park we saw this morning. we turned around and this whole pack of geese were walking across the path. Everything is so magical through a toddler's eyes. Finally today the heat subsided and it's a cool 78 with a breeze. We have all the windows open and eyes toward heaven asking for more of this, atleast until September when it will get cool because it has to.

Speaking of...Chloe has started to say things like "not quite yet" when it's time to go to bed. She'll tell us "that's enough" and somehow she heard the phrase "50 dollars". Doing anything for her is a chore now. She runs away or screams "no". Oh boy. we are in battle mode for the next few months I think.

And Brad...well he has certainly impressed me with all of his "man" skills these past weeks. He's set up lots of furniture, carried heavy boxes in hot heat, set up all the phone and cable and internet stuff that I would just hide my head in the sand from. He even has became quite perceptive. We like to read Where the Wild things are and if any of you know the author of it off the top of your head you get a prize. Well we got a new book that we have now been reading called Mickey and the Goodnight cake. So we are in the middle of reading it and Brad gets up and walks out of the room and comes back in the with Where the Wild things are and says, I thought so. Somehow he perceived the pictures of the two books as being similar and determined the author must be the same. Seriously, Brad. I know you may not be impressed by that story but I am still shocked that he would notice such details. He's a cute, cute guy and the best dad and husband and friend in the whole world.

And...we're having a boy!

Done. Sad. Excited. Relieved.Hot. Anxious. Ready.

Today is our last official day living in Kirksville, MO. We will miss this little town. We have thoroughly enjoyed our experience here and the people we have met. I will miss being able to walk everywhere, having a built in exercise group everyday of the week, free swimming (though ironically the whole month of June was rainy so we only got to go swimming 3 times. We managed to squeeze one more swim time in the day we packed all our stuff in the truck), the library with the kids section complete with train and stuffed horses, the many parks enabling us to choose a "different park mama" if Chloe so pleases, Kirksville 1st ward, the Taco Bell (this one has THE best Nacho Supreme and Big Taste Taco's-our usual), SAA, all the free stuff around town, and more.
This is random, but this is my lamp I took from shabby to lovely in minutes. Finished product.

We are the proud owners of a scooter. I posted on this website here that we were looking for a scooter and Wala...we had two scooter offers within the hour and we had bought this bad boy within the week. Brad loves it and grandma's, don't worry, Chloe doesn't ride it-that often.

And...my Brad. He's officially done with 2nd year of med school. Close those books and turn off the desk lamp, Brad. It's time for him to get out in to the "real medical world" and start doing his "thang!" I am SOOOOO proud of him. He had a successful two years and I just can't say enough about how impressed I am with him. Love that guy.

Oh, and P.S. In the past week I found a tick on my (whisper) bumb, then Brad found one on himself, and then we found one on Chloe the next day. I found another one on myself (another B unmentionable body part)and I am DONE with ticks and ants.

So, we're moving. Glad Chloe said to me..."mama new friends...new friends and new mommies!" We are all very excited to get the show on the road.

Up!

Go see the new Disney movie UP! It was our first movie outing with Chloe and she thought it was very very cool, though she didn't wear the 3D glasses. She ate the popcorn and loved being a big girl at the movies, plus the movie was super cute and such a sweet story. Loved it.
Here is our big girl on her bike. Luckily we have shown her a good example, I guess, with the helmet because when our friends gave us this bike she said she had to "wear helmet" when she rode. Yay! She loves this little bike.
One afternoon, there was all this free stuff set up for the kids, including a helicopter they could go in, a fire truck, a little train that drove us around, and free hotdogs and chips.

The school does a garage sale every year so the outgoing students can get rid of some stuff. The sale had 50 families. The locals came and bought. The sale didn't start till 8 but Brad said most of our stuff was gone by 8 and we were tired of the sale by 930 even though it didn't end til noon. We packe up and were gone by 1030. We sold quite a bit of stuff and made enough cash to buy the new baby a swing and hopefully a glider for me!

B-rad loves LOVES his bike and all things related to bikes. He encourages several of his friends here to buy bikes and has just loved having a little posse' of guys to ride with. He also designed an ATSU jersy for the bike enthusiasts. Here he is with his friend Trenton.

Here I am with my friend who does everything I like to do. I will truly miss her when we move.

Here are some of the great friends Brad has made while he has been here. Brad (moving to Illionis) Tyler (staying in Kirksville) Scott (moving to Arizona) and Trenton (moving to Utah) We are so glad we crossed paths with these guys and their families.