Yeehaw!

March was a stressful, crazy, and exciting month! Had took his second part boards, the match came out (if we match, it tells us where we will be going for residency for the next 3 years), and also found out the results of his boards. He came home from taking the big test, and felt very nervous and afraid. The results finally came back:

PASS

Whew!!!

The night before the match came out: very little sleep, and a few bad dreams.

Morning the match came out: lots of nervousness, excitement, and ignoring our kids.

The match was finally posted, we clicked the link: slight fear (there was nothing that says we matched anywhere!) Then we saw another link to click on. The results:

MATCHED Residency Program:

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Sooo excited to be going to Houston for the next 3 years!!! Well, I am anyway. Hadley doesn't know anything about the program except that it is "supposed to be good". We're banking on that. I'll take sunshine over rain and snow any day! I am so proud of Had!!! He has done so awesome throughout the last 4 years of school. I know that he's gonna be awesome wherever we're at. I am so grateful for him and all the hard work he has put into this. I can't even explain it. He is pretty much amazing.

Well, if we're gonna live in Texas....

the kids gotta have some boots!

After that crazy month, we needed a little fun and laughter. Me and Jete checked out an April Fool's book at the library. It was a cute little book about kids playing pranks on each other at school. So we decided we wanted to play pranks on Daddy. We talked about them and planned a few good ones for him.

When April 1st came, Jeter was sitting up to the table when Had came home from school. He looks up at him and says "Hi Daddy." Then adds nonchalantly, "Hey your shoe is untied."

Had looks down and says "No, I don't think so Jete."

Jete says matter of factly, without one hint of a smile, "Yeah look, your shoe is untied."

Had looks down again, lifts up one pant leg, then the other, and says, "Jete no sir, look. What are you talking about?"

Jete cheeses it at him and yells, "Gotcha! April Fools!!!"

It was pretty good acting for a 3 year old, I must say. Had couldn't stop laughing. There were a couple other tricks that Jete did too, but mainly it was fun to see him get so excited to trick Daddy, and Daddy get nervous waiting for the next trick.

I also played a trick...on everybody.

Had went upstairs to take a nap. The kids actually kept themselves busy for once in their lives, so it was the perfect opportunity to make dinner AND dessert.

DINNER= Mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken nuggets, and veggies

DRINK= Crystal Light

DESSERT= Cupcakes

Or so it seems.....

Mashed potatoes= vanilla ice cream

Gravy= caramel sauce

Peas and carrots= orange and green tootsie rolls

Nuggets= some sort of pineapple apple crisp stuff

Crystal Light= water with food coloring in it

Cupcakes= meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top

Had was suspicious that I was doing some sort of prank for dinner. So when I put his dinner plate in front of him, he just went along with it for the kids. Then he leans over and whispers to me, "I'm so confused. I swear I smelled real food cooking." I just laughed.

Then when they got done eating their "dinner" (which Jete absoloutely LOVED), I brought out the cupcakes. Had looked even more confused, and Jete looked like he had died and gone to heaven. Had started eating one and figured it out fast. Jete took a big bite and looked disgusted. Good ol Jerzi girl just kept eating everything that was put in front of her. HAHA

The real prank for Had was the crystal light. We already had some real crystal light made in a pitcher in the fridge. So I poured that out, and filled the pitcher with water. I used food coloring to match it to the same color as the real stuff. Oh man it was funny to watch him take a drink. Turns out I kinda like April Fool's Day.

February In Idaho

We went to Idaho for the month of February. We enjoyed ourselves...a lot! Hadley had a month off and so we just went and hung out and did things we wanted to do. We didn't have to rush around everywhere, we didn't have to be at any certain place at any certain time. And we were there long enough that our kids actually got use to people, and excited to see them. We got to do a lot of fun stuff, a little work, a lot of play, and also had a lot of time to just hang out and relax and do nothing. It was fabulous!

We were also very lucky to be able to have this cute little house all to ourselves... the whole time we were there, thanks to John and Melissa. They had it all stocked and ready to go for us by the time we got there. Yes, they are amazing, and we are so grateful!

(That may or may not be Had trying to show me a full moon in the window.)

With no tv in the house, we were thinkin we would need to get creative so we wouldn't get bored. Well, we put the kids to bed around 8 or 9, and if you know me and Had, neither of us are creative. So we went to bed early, a lot. It was nice. We got lots of sleep. We also played lots of games on the Itouch, and talked a lot. Jete and Jerzi liked to cuddle up and watch little shows on Had's computer in the mornings.

My sister that lives/lived in Cairo, Egypt got evacuated and came to Idaho about the same time we did. So it worked out quite nicely to get to hang out with her and her kids. :) Also my other sister and her little family came over from Boise to spend some time with all of us too. So what do ya do with a bunch of wild little kids that are hungry and cooped up inside?

Take 'em to Artic Circle and let 'em run wild!

We got to take the kids bowling, with their grandparents and great grandparents. Jete loved it. Jerzi liked it for a little bit, mut mainly wanted to run wild.

I got to go on a tour of the new building they built up at BYU-Idaho. It's ginormous! It was pretty cool to see their indoor track and all those basketball courts. I would have been in heaven if they had this done when I went to school there. The auditorium thing was HUGE too. Wow, that building is cool!

While we were there, it was my dad and three of my nephew's birthdays. So we had a big birthday bash. A couple of real nice sisters decided that they wanted to get a little gift for every grandkid there, so nobody would feel left out. Nice huh? We played games, ate cake, and the kids attacked Uncle Bud with balloons.

We also got the chance to stay in this cute, cozy cabin in Island Park with one of my sister's that lives in Utah and her family. It was so much fun getting to spend time with them and their kids. We had a blast eating, playing hide and seek in the dark with all their kids, talking, laughing, relaxing, and of course the boys got in a little snowmobiling too.

Look how deep the snow was!

Jete thought it was so cool that the snow was taller than he was.

We also happened to be home for the superbowl this year, and so we had the complete party with lots of family, food, and fun. Good times!

We go to a cabin in Island Park every year at Christmas time with Had's mom and John. But we didn't go home for Christmas this year, and they ended up not getting a cabin this year either....

so president's weekend was the perfect time to go so the whole family could come.

We stayed in this beauty!

(I forgot to take a picture of it, so I got this off the internet. Just imagine tons and tons of snow all around it.)

The kids loved sledding while we were there. The whole time we were in Idaho, Jerzi always wanted to be outside. By the time everyone else wanted to come in, she would get all feisty cuz she wanted to stay out longer.

Here's Jeter sportin his new helmet. Him and Jerzi both became obsessed with helmets and snowmobiles while we were there.

For the very first time, we left our kids overnight. We were a little nervous since we've never done it before, but we felt like we needed some time together. This was the perfect opportunity, finally being around family. We went up to the cabin 2 days before everyone else, and Melissa and John watched our kids for us. We were so excited and planned a bunch of things.

Then I got sick.

I felt like crap, my skin hurt, head ached, and I could NOT get warm!

I knew we wouldn't get this chance again for a long time, so I was willing to tough it out so that we could still go do our fun things, but Had said no. He was so sweet to me. He assured me "We'll still go do our fun things, but right now you need to rest." So we basically just cuddled, slept, watched a lot of movies, and drank lots of hot chocolate.

And by the time everyone got up to the cabin, I was feeling much better!

So for some reason, one of the things that we wanted to do and thought would be real fun, was to go x-country skiing. So we put the kids down for a nap and took off.

Super fun. HAHA

Ok, so we mainly just laughed a lot because it wasn't very fun at all.

Had tried to write H+C in the snow, but he ran out of "juice".

He found a little hill that he thought would be fun to ski down, and not have to work.

Turns out, nope.

So the whole time we were skiing, Had kept looking for snowmobilers and yelling out, "HELP" the entire time. When were almost back to the cabin, we saw his mom, John, and Broc on the snowmobiles, so we latched on.

As much as I didn't want to admit, this was way funner than going x-country skiing.

We were able to have so much fun with everyone while we were home. We got to do lots of fun things. But I feel like nothing compares to the little moments like this, because we don't get them often, when we get to spend time with family.