Fun in McCall

We went up to my parent's cabin in McCall this past weekend. We had a lot of fun!

We went for a hike up to Duck Lake. I had Jessica in the pack and Christopher walked some and was carried by Matt some. There had been a forest fire at one time and you can see the bare trees.

Here is a picture of me with Jessica in the pack.

This is Duck Lake.

Matt sitting by the lake.

A couple of pictures of the trail.

These pictures are of Christopher hanging out at the cabin. He kept putting on my brother's helmet, which made him look kind of like a bobble-head toy. It was pretty funny!

Jessica's 1st Birthday

Jessica turned 1 year old on Wednesday July 16th. I can't believe she is a year old already! Time really flies by! Here are some pictures of her little birthday party.....

Her birthday cake.

Jessica watching me light the candles on the cake.

Mmmmm.....cake.

She was pretty happy about the cake. :)

Christopher was pretty excited about eating cake too. He had been talking about it ALL day!

Christopher helped Jessica open all her presents.

She really likes her pig slippers that Aunt Alli and Uncle Brandon gave her.

She also likes her new sippy cups.

It was a good birthday and she had fun. Christopher continued to play with her new toys for the next several days. We had to keep reminding him that they were Jessica's new toys and to please let her play with them too.

Wahoo! It's done!!

I successfully defended my dissertation yesterday! It went really well. My committee only wanted to make one tiny change (adding 3 words to a sentence in the abstract). I got everything submitted to the grad school yesterday and I'm officially done (other than internship). I start internship on August 18th and I will walk in graduation next May. I'm so excited to done with my dissertation!! I'm still in Oxford right now. I'm hanging out in my hotel room and listening to a fabulous thunderstorm. It's great!

Seng and Amy's visit

Two of my best friends, Amy and Seng, came to visit us this past weekend. They came for my 32nd birthday, which was June 29th. I hadn't seen Amy in almost 2 years and it had been 5 years since the three of us were together. It was fantastic seeing them and hanging out!!

Here are the three of us with the kids.
(From left to right--Christopher, Seng, Amy, Jessica, me)

On Saturday, we went and had a picnic in Julia Davis park. It was a beautiful day!
Christopher did not want his picture taken, though. (Notice the grumpy face)

Jessica, on the other hand, did not mind having her picture taken.

Here are Seng and Amy.

The three of us...

There is a beautiful rose garden in Julia Davis park. I took some cool pictures of some of the roses.

The three of us again....

We went out to dinner (A Girl's Night Out). We went to a great Thai restaurant. It was fun!

Too cute for words...

Here are some cute pictures of the kids from the month of June.....

Jessica has been crawling all over the place the past couple weeks and has started learning to pull herself up to standing. She pulled herself up to standing all by herself in this picture...

All smiles, as always

Jessica and Aunt Alli (my sister)

Jessica just being cute.

Our subdivision has a pool and my sister Alli and I took the kids there the other day. It was Jessica's first time in the pool and she LOVED it! Christopher had tons of fun too!

Alli took a couple pictures of me with the kids.

Christopher likes his water wings and his diving ring. :)

Hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Michael

Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Michael came out from New York for a visit in mid-June. We had so much fun hanging out with them! Here are some pictures from the weekend.....

Jessica and Grandpa

Uncle Michael and Christopher had a blast playing together!

Jessica and Grandma

Jessica and Uncle Michael

"Eagle Fun Days" was happening the weekend of the visit. We got to go to a parade, which was fun!

There were lots of firetrucks spraying water. Christopher thought it was great, as long as they didn't get him wet.

Christopher and Grandpa standing back so they wouldn't get wet.

We also went to a carnival. Christopher loved the rides!

Sick kiddos and other stuff....

Christopher and Jessica both have pneumonia right now. It has been hard seeing them both so sick. Luckily they are both responding well to the antibiotics. Christopher got it first and started his antibiotics on Monday. We're pretty sure he is the one who gave it to Jessica. She started her antibiotics yesterday. Christopher is already back to his normal self (talking non-stop, bouncing off the walls, etc), although he is still coughing. Jessica still feels a little sick today and isn't quite back to her normal self, but she isn't running a fever anymore. I'm sure once she gets another dose of the antibiotics in her she will be back to her normal, smiley, giggling self. Keep your fingers crossed that Matt and I don't get pneumonia too!

And some good news related to my dissertation....After getting the ok from my advisor to set a defense date a couple weeks ago, I was finally able to get all 4 members of my committee to agree on a date and time (an undertaking that proved far more difficult than I had anticipated). I will defending my dissertation on Wed July 9th. Wahoo! I have to fly back to Mississippi for the defense, which will be interesting. I haven't been back to Oxford in over a year. I'll keep everyone posted on how it goes!