Many adventures

My nesting has taken the form of not cleaning, but hurry and visit all the places you've wanted to visit before the baby comes. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

Pick your own apples at Eckert's Farm. Wholesome family fun!

Yum!

Isaac's favorite part was riding to and from the fields on the "cu" = truck = wagon behind a tractor.

There was a fun little fair outside where we got to sit on tractors, ride John Deere trikes, play mini golf, and be jealous of those big kids riding the horses and swings.

Bee Tree park on memorial day
How the first 15 minutes of our hike went
How the rest of our hike went

I want mom to carry me now

We found a half price day for the Meramec Caverns so we braved the hour drive down there. Isaac did really well in the car, both ways, and was in awe of the cave when we got there. He wouldn't let us put him down the whole time. I was just glad we didn't have to worry about him touching things that weren't to be touched. It was a neat cave with lots of awesome stalactites and stuff. There was a little free fair outside and Isaac got to ride a little tractor train twice!

The Great Forest Park Hot Air Balloon Race. Blake and I have attended every year we've lived here.

Isaac loved the "la la"s and would wave "bye bye" to the people inside, who were also waving.

He maybe loved his blonde brownie more than the "la la"s.

Possibly the only pregnant picture of Marie to ever be published.

We'll miss you, Owen

You've been the best little brother in training we could have asked for.

We heart Forest Park

I am too fat to have pictures taken of me. So last Sunday I had fun taking lots of pictures of Isaac and Blake, who are always cute.

Classic lampposts all over our neighborhood

"The "choo" is over there..."

Silly boys

Funny how fun it is to go up and down stairs

Probably my favorite

The excitement of the month is that I finally gave in and bought Isaac some crocs. They were his first shoes last year and he loved them. Owen has some so whenever he comes over and takes them off, Isaac jumps on them and squeezes his feet in them. So we went to the mall a week ago and bought fluorescent yellow crocs and now interspersed between Isaac's random talk about "choo choo"s is "shoe! mall! buy!"

This pregnancy is going by really fast. I forgot how crazy I get--sorry to Blake. I am very sensitive, whereas usually I feel like a have a pretty thick shell. We rented a movie the other night and I ended up bawling, "What if you die and I have to tell Isaac you weren't coming home anymore? He wouldn't understand and would be so sad." This was only slightly related to the plot of the movie we were watching. This is the quilt for baby.

We submitted residency applications! St. Louis, Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago, Iowa City, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, etc.

sooo hot

We head to fountains or a kiddie pool regularly. Isaac loves to swim.

5 years

This week was our five year anniversary! We can remember when we were newly married living in the student village at the U and meeting a couple couples who had been married five years and thinking, "Wow, that's a long time!"

I love being married and I love my husband. Blake is a cute doctor, especially when this week I asked, "Is the doctor in?" and proceeded to tell him how I could not move my outer left toes. He got this excited look on his face and said, "Are you serious? This is exactly what we [neurologists] are consulted on." He proceeded to give me a full neurologic exam and diagnosis. (We decided it was just some more sciatica, which I've been experiencing for a week.)

Anyway, I love you, Blake, and I hope we're married a lot longer. Especially if I have any more neurological problems.

Choo? See?

When Isaac says this it means it's time to go for a walk to see the trains (the metro) and swing ("see") at the hospital playground. I've hit the jackpot on walks! I know that lots of pregnant women can run throughout their pregnancy but I'm a wimp and had to stop two weeks ago. I cried out of sorrow that we couldn't run to Forest Park anymore because we love it there but it's too far. But Isaac likes this even more! Sometimes I get a nice long walk twice a day! The metro security guys are beginning to recognize us.

Isaac is OBSESSED with trains. He's never quite hit anything like this. More than half the words out of his mouth are "choo". If he lines up cars, it's "choo". If he lines up foam letters in the bath, it's "choo". If we color, it's "choo" (and I have to draw one). If we drive close to where the metro is, he points and says "choo". I think I'm going to have to make this little man a train costume for Halloween.

I put a vote on the side--we can't decide where we want to go to residency! We would love to stay here because Washington University has a great program. We'd love to go to Utah and let our kids play with their relatives. And we'd love to go somewhere new to have one last adventure before we settle down for real. What do you think?

Utah

We visited Utah for two weeks at the beginning of June. I've been totally stressing about blogging about this trip because so much happened. So I'm just going to write down a few memories and not worry about the whole thing.

The most exciting is that we got to see all of our siblings and parents and grandparents. Almost all of Blake and my married siblings are pregnant. Isaac will be getting four cousins (plus a brother) in the next six months.

We spent the first week with Blake's family--pushing cars around the block, playing with trains in the play room, drinking crystal lite, going to the park, and going to Bear Lake. Unfortunately Blake's sister didn't come and it rained off and on but we still had fun walking down to the lake and dipping our feet in the freezing cold water.

Playing in Grandma Karen's backyard

Driving at Bear Lake

Cold Bear Lake Beach

The second week we spent with my family down in St. George. Isaac did pretty good with all the traveling we did--planes to and from, car rides to Bear Lake and St. George and Zion's. We felt bad always packing him up. We rented an awesome house with many bedrooms, a carriage house, pool, and tennis court. We mostly went swimming in the best pool ever--it had a 1 1/2 ft depth section that Isaac could have lived in. We also went hiking, went to Iceberg's (I miss those grasshopper shakes), went to Tarzan the play, and went to a couple fun water play parks.

St. George, borrowing cousin's scooter

St. George sculpture park and water play area

I have ten thousand pictures but decided to spare you all. We love our families and miss them!