Intern Initiation

This Friday Sean finished his two weeks of orientation for his new residency position. On Thursday all the families of the new interns were invited to a park for lunch and a special initiation activity. It is as close as the program could come to "hazing." It was a lot of fun to watch them run through all of the funny challenges and obstacle courses they were put through.

The interns before the wipped cream, water balloons, running, slipping, etc.
Sean at the end of the obstacle course (slip-n-slide). Looks fun, huh?

Sean being "knighted" an intern and taking a "sacred oath."

Receiving his white coat.

The interns after the whole sha-bang.

The whole event was a lot of fun and we loved supporting Sean through it all.

We Went Camping

Before Sean started work we tried to shove as many activities in as we could. Camping was one of them. On day one, we traveled up to Logan and saw the temple. After realizing Sean and I hadn't brought jackets, although we did for the kids, we spent an hour driving around trying to find a store with some cheap coats in the summer. Finally we drove up to Bear Lake. It was beautiful and really neat, but it also started raining. No Pouring. We hadn't checked the weather. We headed back to Logan. Realizing it would be miserable to camp with two babies in the rain, we started home and tried to keep positive about our fun day in Logan, although we didn't camp.

As we drove past Ogden, we thought, "What the heck, lets just head up a canyon here and see if we stumble upon some camping areas." Again no luck. We took all the wrong turns. Back to Provo.

The next morning after a cozy sleep at home we still had the camping bug. We hadn't even unpacked the car so we headed up Hobble Creek Canyon. We spent the whole day there. We set up the tent for Gracie to play in, had lunch and dinner, played with fire, and explored the wilderness. Again we decided it was much to cold and wet (we had a little sprinkle again) to stay the night. We headed home. But, we were tired, smelled like smoke, and had played in a tent, just like real camping. Between two days in the mountains, it all worked out. And we got to sleep in our own beds!

Green Thumb

We are so excited to be in our new house with a yard and lawn. I wanted to plant a garden but we moved in too late to start from seeds. I have tons to do (unpacking and a million little projects) so we started small this year and bought already-started plants. Here's how it went.

Before

Sorry about the picture quality

Middle

After

Two tomato plants, zucchini, and strawberries

Gracie had a lot of fun and she made some new friends-

That's right, folks-WORMS. She thought it was fun to find them, hold them, put them in her pockets, name them, and call them her happy family. I've never been really good with keeping plants alive, so I hope our work is fruitful!

G-U-M Yum!

Set the Scene-Sean and Elaine sitting in front room with Kemp, talking

*Enter Gracie with big smile on her face*

Sean: What is in your mouth?

Gracie: (Drooling) Gum-Gum!

Elaine: What?

*Elaine and Sean's eyes pop out as they realize Gracie's mouth is FULL of gum.*

Sean: Where did you get that!

*Parents rush to kitchen and discover Sean's scripture case on the floor with EMPTY pack of gum and 3-4 empty wrappers scattered*

Elaine: Gracie, you need to give us some of your gum so you don't choke on it.

*GULP*

Gracie: I swallowed it!!!!

Some Pictures For You To Enjoy

Kemps camping outfit
My exhausted husband and child

Visiting Temple Square

Camping and adoring nature

Eating toes

There's No Place Like Home

Well, we are into our house! We actually were finally able to move in a little over a week ago. As you can imagine, things have been a little busy, and we just got our computer set up and our phone/internet started. For the next few days I will try to do some catch-up-blogging and tell you all about the adventures in our new home.

You know those moments when things are unusually quiet and you think, "Gracie (insert your child's name) is WAY to quiet right now, something is up." One of those moments happened the other night when we had put Gracie to bed. She wasn't in the mood to settle down so I was suprised when she was so silent in her room after only two or three minutes. She couldn't have fallen to sleep THAT fast. Here is what we found when we checked on her.

What you are looking at is the result of leaving desitin in Gracie's room after changing Kemp's diaper. She always liked to take a little desitin on her finger, spread it on a various body part and say, "I washing myself!" This time she really did get a bath after applying the paste all over her feet, legs, face, and hands. It is designed to be water resistant so we made decent progress and then gave up. The rest rubbed off on her sheets when she slept that night.