Back to Phoenix --- Chicago Trip

Well we moved back to Phoenix. We're living in Litchfield with my parents right now. Zane is starting to show some wear from moving around so much. He's been an absolute terror for the past two days. Hopefully he'll calm down while we're living here...then we'll move to Denver in 3 weeks and start the process over again. Zane's having a blast swimming in Mamar's pool and having the undivided attention of his Mamar.

Well the Chicago trip. We went to Chicago from Jun 10th to the 18th for the AMA's annual meeting. We had so much fun. The little slideshow above is all the pictures from that trip. Zane and I were able to go to the Shedd Aquarium, Sear's tower (although we didn't go to the top, it was an hour and a half wait), the Lincoln Park Zoo, a boat tour, and lots of AMA events and great dinners.

The Lincoln Park Zoo was so cool. It's the only free zoo in America. It had gorillas! I had never seen a gorilla in person. It was really eerie. It felt like I was looking at a caged human, their eyes are just way too human. It made me sad, but Zane loved it.

I absolutely loved the boat tour. I got to learn a little about Chicago's architecture and history. Zane thought it was pretty cool at first but he was done the last half hour. I ended up getting the "she must be an abusive mother" look because zane wouldn't stop screaming, "that's not nice mama" at the top of his lungs. I still haven't figured out what I did that wasn't nice, I think it was just the first thing that popped into his head.

The Shedd Aquarium was a little disappointing to me. They had some beluga whales and some dolphins. Zane thought the sharks were cool. He also liked it when the dolphins jumped, but most of the dolphin show was educational and there weren't many big tricks.

As a family, we were able to go to a cubs game at Wrigley field. I even thought it was awesome. It's so different from a diamondbacks game. Everyone, and I mean the whole stadium stayed until the game was over! To top it off, everyone in the stadium stood up at the end and sang this country cubs song together. It was crazy. The stadium was still full 15 minutes after the game. Those are some die hard fans. If I lived in Chicago, maybe i would be, too. Who knows.

We went to a white sox game, too. That was okay, not nearly as fun as the cubs though. We went with a bunch of medical students and all wore matching voice for the uninsured shirts. I felt like I was in 3rd grade on a field trip, but it was for a good cause.

I was supposed to go home on Sunday, without Kendall and woke up sick so we changed my flight to just fly home with Kendall on Wednesday. I'm so glad I was able to stay those few extra days. I was able to go to the inauguration of the new AMA president. That was so cool. Zane actually slept through it so I was able to pay attention. The president, Nancy Neilson, is a great speaker and seems like she has a great plan for where to have the AMA headed over the next year. Kendall's really excited to work with her on the board. It was also great to hear Dr Davis (the president last year) speak. He's a wonderful speaker and once again Zane slept through it so I was able to listen.

Overall, it was a great trip. We had a lot of fun dancing, eating ridiculously expensive dinners and just checking out Chicago. I can't wait to go again. It's definitely on the top of my favorite cities list.

Catchin' Up -- Zane's Birthday

Zane turned 3 on June 5th. It was a fun day. I made him a completely eatible Spongebob cake. He wouldn't eat any cake (he had an unfortunate eposide on kendall's birthday of coming down with the flu right after eating birthday cake), but he really was excited to look at his cake. After we let him play with his presents for a while we headed to Phoenix so kendall could be at an Arizona Medical Association meeting the next day. After that meeting Kendall and I went to a super fancy dinner at the top of the Chase building so Kendall could receive an award for a "Distiguished contribution to Medicine." He was one of three to receive it and the other two were companies. Yeah Kendall. It was a really fun evening and Kendall was really honored to have been nominated and chosen for the award...especially since he isn't even a doctor yet. After that we headed back to Safford for a day to pack for Chicago...to be continued in the next post...

Mama Zane day

Kendall had to be in Tucson on tuesday for lecture, so Zane and I went with him to save on gas, (instead of driving to safford the night before and then kendall driving to tucson the next morning). Zane and I had a few hours to kill so we went to the Internation Wildlife Museum that's over by our old house in Tucson. It seriously is 2 minutes from our old house and we never went there while we lived there, go figure. Anyway. We had a blast. That place kept Zane enthralled for 2 hours! It was so much fun. Zane was able to pet a stuffed lion (like a real taxidermy lion) and a bear rug, a giraffe, and an alligator. They even had poop samples of different animals (thankfully in a glass case) that Zane thought was hilarious. He's such a boy. Here are some pics....

Such as scary roar!

This is an extinct type of elk. It was so huge. The antlers were about 9ft across and it had to have been about 8ft at the shoulder...so huge!

And last but not least...the wooly mammoth.

Happy Birthday to ME!!!!!

It's my "Happy Bir-gay!" Or it was on Saturday. Fist off, I started calling my birthday "my crappy happy birthday." We spent from 5:00am to 4:00pm cleaning out the house and putting the rest of all our crap in storage. You'd think that would be a really crappy birthday right? Well, it wasn't. One of my birthday presants was 70 degree, slightly cloudy and rainy weather while we had to take all those loads to the storage unit. Usually it's at least 100 on my birthday, so if it had been hotter, it would have been a crappy happy birthday, but instead, it was just a happy birthday. Once we were FINALLY finished, my mom made me a filet mignon dinner and got me a cheesecake (my childhood pick) for my birthday cake. Zane sang me his own rendition of Happy Birthday that completely made my day. To top it off, kendall got me the new Zelda for DS!!! He actually thought of it himself. I think it was the first presant he's ever given me that he thought of. I'm so proud, it's only been 6 years. My parents also got me a new makeup brush (super exciting for me, i won't go into details, although it is a sable brush... so i did go into details, whatever). They also got me a new dress, which i accessorised and got two pairs of shoes to go with it. Kendall's parents got me a gift certificate for an awesome mexican restaurant here in Safford that I'm super excited to use. I really brought in the haul. Some reading this may think it's weird that I'm documenting my presants, but that's just me. I did it to Jared everyday while he was on his mission much to his and his companions entertainment. :) (yes i wrote him everyday and even drew pictures of my daily outfits like i said in a previous post...I LOVE CLOTHES). Here's a picture from my big day.

Mini-me

My mom took this video of Zane and sent it to me. Jared actually thought it was me for the first 20 seconds. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I swear my mom has videos of me that are exactly like this.

So we live in Safford...

So we moved. It took freakin' forever. Kendall and I just hadn't had the time to get everything really packed before saturday, so it basically sucked. We almost have everything in storage now, but we gave up and still have a load or two to take this saturday. It's really strange going from 3 people in an open 1800 sq ft house to 5 people in a 1100 sq ft house...we're figuring it out though. Kendall and I finally found places to put all our clothes (the love of both our lives) but we have yet to figure out the shoe situation...me having the necessary 20 pairs and kendall the necessary 10 (we really did weed a lot out and put a HUGE box of shoes in storage). Zane is finally settling down again and getting back to a normal schedule!!! Yea, he's been a mess the past week with all the craziness.

So i went to the grocery store today, in safford, called thrifty. They do have some normal chains, but i went to this one. I actually thought of a quote from Cars, "Help me!!! I'm in hillbilly hell!!!" It's really not that bad, I think I'm going to really like living here but the thought did cross my mind. It's only 6 weeks right? It's going to be fun.

Kendall and I are excited because he doesn't have to be at work until 8 Woohoo! AND, it only takes 3 minutes literally to get to work. That just boggles my mind. (Kendall was on his way out the door this morning when he realized he still had 30 minutes before he needed to leave.) So since kendall gets to go in so late, he's going to run with me every morning!!! Yea! I'm so excited. We haven't worked out together since the first year we were married. I'm going to kick his butt now though because for once I'm in better shape than him...it's going to be great. Hey, maybe we'll push eachother and I'll finally lose that last 10 pounds I've been trying to lose for 6 months. We'll see....

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's Day. It started w/ Zane having a 103.3 fever! Whoohoo! It wasn't too bad though, he was really cuddly and once we got some motrin in him, he was his normal self. Kendall got me a beautiful gardenia corsage to wear to church. Normally, since Zane was sick, I wouldn't have gone to church, but I had to wear my corsage, so we went to sacrament meeting and then went home, no sense infecting all the nursery kids right? Zane was really ticked that he couldn't stay and play with his friends but oh well.

So I got to wear my gardenia for a total of 1 hour, not nearly enough time...so I put it in my hair when we got home. Zane walked in while i was putting it in and said, "Oh Mama, you look like Aunt Kellie!!!" It cracked him up the rest of the day because i had a flower in my hair and looked like aunt kellie.

Hey, i dont mind looking like her, she's beautiful and has great style. Thanks for the compliment zane! My mom came over for dinner and we had a nice afternoon. Overall, it was a great mother's day. Happy Mother's Day to all you other mothers out there.

By the way, why do still look like I'm 15?