I have so much to catch
up on that it's not even funny. Where do I start? My worry is always that I
have too many things to add into one post, but if I create two or more separate
posts then people will just see the latest one and miss the others. Today I'm just going to put it all in one and give you fair warning that this will be a LOOONG post.
I feel like so much has
happened in the last few months!
First, Bryndon graduated from
Medical School!!! Pretty much everyone knows this now, but I want to write it
anyway. His graduation was on May 19th at Kingsbury Hall at the U. It was a
long program and Avery didn't last very long at all, but luckily I could watch
parts of it on a TV outside in the hall and then my awesome sister Grace helped
take care of her when I needed to be in there filming, etc. Bryndon and one of
his classmates got to sing the National Anthem as a duet at the beginning of
the graduation, which was SO amazing! Everyone was so impressed and many of his
classmates told him they had no idea he could sing so well (or sing at all!).
It was really fun to see and hear.
Avery was proud of her daddy!
Happy family
Ever since that day,
he's been on a break until he starts Residency on June 24th! (Actually he has a
few days before then when he has to go in to start his training, but close
enough.) It has been so great to have him home and to be doing fun things
together!! We have a bucket list of what we want to do in this month. Want to
hear what they are? Ok. The highlighted ones are what we have already done and
the bolded ones are what we definitely plan to do and the rest are things we'd
like to do...
Living Planet Aquarium
Hogle Zoo
Lagoon
Camping
Hebgen
Lake (June 2-7) and Yellowstone National Park
Picnics
Hikes up the canyon
Hike Ensign Peak
Walk along the Jordan
River Parkway
Roast hot dogs and
s’mores up the canyon
Holiday Park day trip
Museum
of Natural History
Laser
Quest laser tagging
Park City outlets
Bowling
Swimming
See “The Avengers” in
theaters
See
Kennecott Copper Mine
Gardner Village
Have friends over for
dinner
The picture above and below are when we took Avery swimming at the Holladay Lions Rec Center for her first time ever! She LOVED it-- splashing, kicking and playing in the water! :)
This was us at Kennecott in front of one of their famous tractor wheels.
Here we are on the roof of the Utah Museum of Natural History:
Fun, huh? We've had a
great time so far. My favorite has been our one and only trip up to Hebgen Lake
in Montana. It was definitely shorter than I'd like, but we came back on the
7th because Bryndon had eye surgery that afternoon. It's called PRK, which is
similar to LASIK, and we decided to do that for him as a graduation present.
He's doing well and thankfully hasn't had much pain at all! This time of year
in Montana is still very cold, but we lucked out for the first few days with
great weather. The best time of year up there is in August, when the sun is hot
(although it still gets cold at night) and the water is warmer. But in June,
the water is FREEZING!!! Even with a full-body wet suit on, the water numbs
your limbs and takes your breath away. I only went waterskiing and wakeboarding once each, and Bryndon went skiing twice. I wish the weather had given us time to go a couple more times, but it was still great.
But Bryndon and I had a few little moments to ourselves when Avery was napping or another family member was watching her, which was really great. We took a canoe ride over to Bird Island (a tiny island really close to our beach) and another time we went on a walk down the beach to a private dock that is surrounded by trees where we skipped rocks (Bryndon "rocks" at skipping rocks, by the way) :). We also played some fun beach volleyball games with the cousins, which is always great. Avery didn't go in the water at all (she would have gotten hypothermia) but she had her first experience playing in the sand on the beach. I set her on a towel, but she'd crawl or reach over to the sand to pick it up, examine it closely, then stick it in her mouth if her momma wasn't being vigilant. She loved it!
And here she is in her cute new swimming suit (same one as when we went swimming before):
And here she is in her cute new swimming suit (same one as when we went swimming before):
Avery having a fun time playing in the cabin with her adorable cousin Sadie (even if their faces don't show it).
And of course time with daddy...
Bison right outside our window on the road in Yellowstone (that's Bryndon's arm). It was cool to see them so close! They are huge.
AMAZING views of "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" (nice name, huh?)...
...and the gorgeous Lower Falls, which were our favorite sites in Yellowstone.
Fun with Old Faithful
Twilight over Hebgen... breathtaking!
Sunrise at 6:30am the day we left, with plenty of fog and mists over the lake.
Avery on a bad hair day (and from her scowl, she knows it):
Avery after a bath (with an even more exciting hair-do):
We are determined to use these last 2 weeks (more like week and a half) to spend as much time together having fun as possible! It's not that we won't have any fun after Bryn starts Residency-- it's just that we won't have much time together and when we do he'll probably be tired from long days and hard work. So we're taking advantage of the time we have now and are very grateful to have it!
