Short Stop in UT

I guess the lack of pictures reflects the shortness of this stop.  We made it to Uncle J's house in time for bed Thursday night, had a long day of playing with the cousins Friday--trampoline, collecting eggs from the chickens, putting on a circus (which I do have videos from, but Blogger isn't letting me put any of them on right now), riding bikes, an early morning run for me, and lots of catching up.  Then, Daddy-o and I snuck off for his MBA reunion.  Can't believe it's been 5 years!  We all got together for dinner and while Daddy-o caught up with his classmates, I got to hang out with the MBASA (Spouse Association) ladies who I did book group and playgroups with.  It was fun to see everyone again, even if it was only for a couple hours.  Saturday morning, we were off, bright and early, for another LONG travel day.  California, here we come!

Congratulations, Graduate!

It's official now--Daddy-o is a 2008 Master of Business Administration (MBA). He's worked so hard these last 2 years--we're really proud of him. The graduation itself was fairly uneventful--minus Bugaboo's head-bonk and a couple bathroom trips, we made it through the 2.25 hours pretty happily, thanks to LOTS of snacks. Daddy-o's parents and 2 brothers made it to the ceremony,along with my mom, and then we were joined by another brother and the wives and kids of the 2 Utah brothers which made for a fun get together at our house afterwards. Grandma got her cousin line-up, except for the two babies who she took seperately. Doesn't this look like a fun group of kids?
And my little man who is learning to be silly with the best of them, and the baby cousin.

More Goodbyes

We had a great last get together with the group from Michigan last night. It's weird to think that we're all going our separate ways in the next few weeks instead of spending the summer together walking around Greenfield Village. We had a huge Mexican feast--chili rellenos, 2 types of chili verde, mexican rice, taco soup, and homemade ice cream. Yum!

And here are the kiddos--no longer babies, and 2 of them are about to get new siblings in the next 2 months.
Wednesday morning we watched Daddy-o play in the foosball semi-finals. Team Style fought hard, but a couple of injuries slowed them down a little.

Service and Other Fun

As our final MBASA activity, we washed the Paratransit buses on Saturday. They do it every year and its one of those activities that the kids absolutely love (and the service is pretty lowkey so it doesn't matter how much they "help"--I'm not sure that the buses are all that clean at the end, but at least the dirt got rinsed off.)
And then Bugaboo got himself ready to go out yesterday afternoon. What more do you need than a diaper and some rainboots?

School Fun

Tuesday night, Daddy-o finished his last class for his MBA. And since he had no finals, that means he is officially done. But school hasn't stopped just because classes are over.
He spent Wednesday at the MBA golf tournament.Notice what spring golfing in Utah is like. They actually had to golf in a driving snow for part of the morning.The cast isn't slowing Daddy-o down. They played best ball and actually used about a third of his drives. He didn't think he'd manage to play the whole round, but he hit every ball, 18 holes :)And then Thursday night was the Cougar Capital closing social. These guys have spent the year working on the student run venture capital/private equity fund (and if you don't know what that means, that's totally understandable--I didn't until last year. Here's wikipedia's explanation.)
Daddy-o was the M.C. for the night and put together some very entertaining awards--we learned a lot about these guys and what they've been doing all year.


This was the last of our multiple dinners for this week and almost the end of "school" for Daddy-o. He still has the fusbol finals--it will be interesting to see how that goes with the cast. Oh, and graduation, of course!

Tulip Festival

The gardens at Thanksgiving Point opened this last weekend, and Monday was the most gorgeous day of the spring--sunny and in the 70's, so we took a little MBASA trip. I've decided that the only way to do the gardens is to make sure there are lots of other kids there to distract Bean from all the walking she does--she was a trouper and only told me she was tired once.

Of course the water was the highlight of the day. At least it was warm enough that the kids didn't mind walking around dripping the rest of the morning.

Bugaboo was fascinated by the ducks--he LOVES animals. And he loves saying, "Gwack, gwack."

A bunch of the kids. The best group shot I got.

Bean and Bugaboo with one of our neighbor friends--we are going to miss living by them when we move.
And finally, a line of kiddos. I don't know what it is, but I love seeing a bunch of kids all lined up watching something.

In typical Utah fashion, it snowed the next day.

We hope we get more days like that soon because we need to go back and see the tulips when there are more in bloom--the cold weather these last couple weeks has slowed things down so the Tulip Festival wasn't much of a festival.

Party Like It's 1999!

In some ways, I'm starting to feel like I'm back in my last week of high school (which wasn't in 1999, BTW, but there is no song about the year I graduated ;))--saying goodbye to friends, having "one last get together" (except we keep planning more and more get togethers), taking pictures of friends every chance we get (because I have realized that I've hardly got any photos of more than just my own two kids from the last 2 years.)

Some things never change

This picture was taken at our wedding, but if I had had a camera with me, I could have gotten a similar shot the other night, minus the tux. And for those of you who were at our reception, or who knew us in our single days, and have been wondering, no, Daddy-o has not forgotten how to dance.

We don't get to dance much these days, other than around the house with the kids (which, as a side point, I've decided is actually a great form of exercise and possibly the only consistant exercise I'm going to get this winter.) But, we were able to go to the MBA Christmas party Wednesday night (thanks again, Matt, for babysitting! You got lucky--it took an hour to get Bugaboo back to sleep after you left, little stinker.) There was a dinner, a show with some great music and very funny acts, and then dessert and dancing.

It was a little bit of an 80's flashback--Madonna, Abba, and yep--Micheal Jackson. I had a lot of people come up to me, shocked by Daddy-o's Michael Jackson impersonation. Now, the spouses being surprised, I can understand. I don't think I've given off any type of vibe that would indicate my husband to be of the crazy dancing variety. But the students should have expected as much. They've watched him dance on a desk in blue pantyhose, pull a hair from his professor's ear, and pretend to wet his pants in front of the class, all in the name of education. So what is a little "Thriller"?

Just one of the many reasons I love this man!