Saturday, June 2, 2012

Seeing the fam in Ohio :) Day 1.

At the end of April, we got the chance to see Austin’s brother Ryan and his wife Tiffini and their 4 kids Brightyn, Hayden, McKinlee, and Jaxson.  We left on a Wednesday and drove back home on Sunday.  It was so much fun to see where they lived and to just see family (which I am missing a lot of these days). 

Wednesday night we stayed at a hotel in Kirtland.  The next morning the Mills clan met up with us and we went to see the Visitors Center and a few of the church sites.  I really loved it here.  It was so awesome to see the Newel K. Whitney store and to see the house that the Whitneys lived in (they really had a nice place).

 

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The Whitney home (I love the color of this house).

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Me and my sweetie pie.

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All the kidos

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Inside the store.

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Cute little Jaxson.

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Beautiful McKinlee.

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The saw mill.

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The ashery.

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After visiting the church sites, we went over to get a tour of the Kirtland Temple.  The inside was so beautiful.  It’s unlike any temple I have ever been in.  It looked more like a chapel inside.  What a beautiful building. 

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My kids love chalk

One of  Kylie and Sierra’s favorite things to do is play with chalk.  Sierra enjoys eating it too :)  Anyway, here are a few cute pictures of them one day in April.

Yes, that is chalk drool from one of her chalk eating episodes.

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Kylie and her beautiful creation :)

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Sistas

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Boston 04.05.12

Boston, Boston, Boston….  My goodness, we did not get along did we now :)  That trip was kind of rough for me.  Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty fun, but there were so many things that ticked me off about that trip.  I must have been PMSing.  For one thing, it was really cold that day.  Then there was the fact that the street signs and google maps did not coincide with each other most of the time.  So we were constantly taking the wrong roads or exits and it just seemed to take forever to get anywhere.  Plus I think I tried to cram too much all in one day that I got kind of disappointed when I didn’t see everything that I wanted.  But alas, it is only 2 hours away, so I told Austin we HAVE to go again.  Anyhoo, here are some pics from our day.

The ever famous Fenway Park.  I would LOVE to catch a game there sometime.

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Here we are at the Boston Public Gardens.  Has anyone read the book, “Make Way for Duckling,” by Robert McCloskey?  Austin got it for Kylie several years ago when he came on a business trip to Boston.  It’s this cute little story about a duck’s family that makes its home in the Boston Public Gardens.  Apparently its a very famous book and many people go here just to see where the ducks made their home.  Here are some statues of the ducklings that all the kids just have to sit on :)  Here’s Kylie popping a squat on one. 

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That little island is where the ducks make their home.

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“Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name..”  Here is the bar that inspired the show.

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One of the more fun parts of our day was taking a duck boat tour.  You get in this amphibious boat that takes you around the city and then down into the Charles River.  It was really fun.  I'm not sure why we didn’t take a picture, but here is one I got off the internet and it looks just like the one we were one.

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While on the tour, we got to hear a lot about the history of the town and we saw some really interesting buildings.  After taking pics of many of the buildings, Austin said, “You are never going to remember the names of these.”  I said, “You want to bet?”  Yeah, well, he was right.  I have no idea what this building is, but it was pretty :)

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Here is the State House.

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“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”

Did anyone else have to memorize that poem in high school? Well I did.  Man was it awesome to see the place that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow so eloquently wrote about in his poem.  Here is Paul Revere with the North church in the background.  There was such a wonderful spirit here and I must say, this was my favorite spot.

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Another picture of North Church

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Boston at night.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Our Visit to Utah

March went by warp speed for me.  After spending two weeks with my family, I was home for 4 or 5 days and then we left for Utah!  I have to say, it was hard driving down the freeway and seeing the mountains and knowing this wasn’t home anymore.  I had finally gotten over my depression of leaving and I was so scared all those feelings would come flooding back again.  But after a few days, it got better and once again I was reassured that Heavenly Father had different plans for us at this time in our life and Connecticut was where we needed to be.  It was so great to see Austin’s family and to see all my friends and their kids.  Kylie was sooo excited to see her little buddies :)  She misses them everyday.  Our trip really needed to be a month long.  Seriously.  Can’t wait to go back!

I had a couple of days that I got to see all my buds.  Here Kylie is with Nico at the park. 

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Love this picture of Kylie and Nico.  Sierra would not look at the camera the little booger.  I guess it didn’t help that Kylie was putting pine needles  in her hair.

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Kylie hanging out with James.

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James’s sister Christine :)

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Kylie and her BFF Hailey. 

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Roni and her adorable little boy Bode :)

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Sierra and her cousin Carter.  They are only 3 weeks apart.  I wish we lived closer so they could play together :(

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Sierra getting ready to stuff her face at our little picnic we had in the park.

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Kylie and her Grandma :)

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Kylie and her great grandma.  Love this picture!

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Kylie and her faces….

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Sierra chillin with Grandpa

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My brother’s little boy Andy.  He is known for putting Harry Potter spells on people.  He is so stinkin cute.  He has his little chopstick wand and he was putting hexes on everyone.  It was awesome.  If I can figure out how to put the video on here that I took of him in action I will. 

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Watch out, he’s getting ready….

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Look at that face.  I’m pretty sure he just did the Avada Kedavra curse on me…. Lol. 

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This is one of many attempts to get Sierra to sit still and look.at.the.camera.  Sigh….

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Ain’t gonna happen…

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Well at least these two will sit and look cute :)

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Me and my brudder Damian.

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My Grandma Farber

I got a phone call the last week of February from my mom saying that my Grandma only had a few more weeks to live.  I cannot even tell you how devastated I was to hear this.  My grandma had lung cancer and last year she had her cancerous lung removed.  She never really recovered from that surgery, and to top it all off, the cancer had spread to other parts of her body.  We quickly booked a flight out to Illinois to see her.

I wish there was a way to describe how much you love someone.  For my whole life, my Grandma has been a part of my life.  Up until I had moved away to go to college 12 years ago, I saw my grandma at least once a week.  I loved that woman with all my heart.  When I walked into her house the day we flew in, I was heart broken to see how bad she had gotten.  But I will always remember the look on her face when she saw us.  She had no idea we were coming.  She was so excited to see Kylie and Sierra.  She loved my girls so much.  I am so glad they were able to see her one last time.  Below is one of the sweetest pictures of Kylie and my grandma.  I will cherish it forever.  I got in on a Sunday and she died that Friday.  The night that she died, we were all at the house visiting and it was getting really late.  I hated leaving every night because I didn't know if I would see her again the next day.  My mom said that her and her sisters were all gathered around grandma and as soon as the last grandchild had left to go home, my grandma opened her eyes one last time and then past away. How grateful I am that I was able to visit with her.  How grateful I am that I was able to stay for the funeral.  It was a beautiful service and I was able to see so many family members that i don't get to see that often.  I am so blessed to have the family that I have and to have had such a wonderful grandmother.  I will miss her dearly.

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My beautiful sister Brenna with Sierra and my brother Brandon.

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My cousin Bridget

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My beautiful Grandma with Kylie

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Love these two pictures. 

 

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Brenna did a lot of reading while we were there :)

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My Grandpa Howard.  He's quite the character :)  Here we are at my other Grandma’s gravesite.  She died almost 6 years ago.  I miss her so much.

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Sierra loves her Uncle Dylan :)