Pioneer Day 2017

On pioneer day we had our good friends from the ward, the Lifferths, put together a fun fhe. We enjoyed treats and a water balloon fight. Luckily the sun was starting to go down so it wasn't too hot outside. Then of course spike was played. This is the summer of spike ball for sure. We had a great time and we love the people we have met here.

Enid Lake

The temperatures have been scorching the last couple of weeks and we have been doing everything we can to stay out of the heat. On July 22 we decided to try another lake. We went to a newer bigger lake than Sardis hoping it would be a little cleaner. The beach was really nice and we were surprised that the place wasn't crowded. The water was still murky but not nearly as dirty as Sardis was. The ground under the water was actually sandy and not mushy, thank goodness. We quickly learned why people weren't there. The water was so warm that it was almost uncomfortable to be in. The weather was so hot that even the lake wasn't refreshing. We still had a good time with our friends though. We did more paddle boarding and spike ball. There was a lot of white things floating in the water and we found out that they were mosquito larvae...DISGUSTING! As soon as I found that out I didn't stay in the water long. They were literally everywhere. By far the funniest thing to happen was when Jed and I watched a bunch of kids play with a dead fish. It was about the size of my hand and they were chucking that thing around like it was a frisbee. When their mom finally realized what was going on she yelled at them in her very African American Southern voice "PUT THAT FISH DOWN." So the little girl chucked it to shore, where it skipped across the water like a rock several times. We were laughing so hard. Then the kids sat on the shore poking the fish and then trying to release it back into the water.

5th year anniversary

On July 6th 2017 Jed and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It is incredible to us that five years have already passed since we first got married. What a wonderful five years it has been. I love where we are at in life and I love how we have grown together. We have had our ups and downs with various trials but looking back and reflecting, these moments have only made us stronger together. We have also come to realize that everything happens for a reason and the Lord's timing is the right timing, even if it can be frustrating in the moment. I love Jed more than ever and cannot wait to grow closer together as we start our family of three in just a little more than a month.

This year for our anniversary it came on a day that I had to work 12 hours and Jed was in class/clinic for 12 hours. We still had a wonderful evening celebrating the milestone together. For dinner, Jed made an incredible surf and turf meal. We had steak and shrimp, (with special seasoning made up by Jed, he is so good at that!) potatoes, cucumbers from our garden, and then delicious ice cream. It was a really fun evening. Jed got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a Tanzanite necklace from when he was in Africa. The necklace is beautiful and means so much to me; I will forever cherish it.  It was also apparently our wooden anniversary so we got a fun new wooden sign for our home. It says "Love and laughter live here." I got Jed a Roger Federer hat that he has wanted for ever, and I made our annual year book. This is one of our favorite anniversary traditions. Every year I make a book of our photos on Shutterfly and we look at it together remember the wonderful times we had during the year. It has really helped us document each year.  This year I also added a new book. I made a book of all of our blog posts from 2012-2015. This way we can have a hard copy of our family journal. Jed and I really hope our family will love to look and read these books as they grow up. 

That night we watched a movie that we both really enjoyed called "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" It's a film very similar to Meet the Hollars and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Jed and I both really enjoy movies like that.

4th of July 2017

This year for the 4th of July, Jed and I stayed in the south. We celebrated with both Jed's classmates, and ward members. Jed put together a cookout lunch for his classmates and it ended up being really fun. We had so much fun prepping for it the night before by trying to shop under our budget, prepping all the food, and gathering entertainment. We had the picnic up at Shelby Forest. We had about 30 people show up and everyone seemed to have a really good time. 

That night the Billman's, a family in our ward that have been so kind to us, invited us over for a cookout and fireworks. All our ward friends were there and we had such a fun time partying it up. Halfway through eating dark, dark clouds came toward us. We all started to worry about a potential storm. It came down so hard on us we all had to race to the garage to seek cover. It rained really hard for about a half hour and while it rained we did Karaoke in the garage. It finally stopped and we began doing small fireworks with the kids. Then it started to rain once again so we all ran back into the garage. When it finally stopped we pulled out the big guns. All the families pooled together about $400 worth of fireworks and we had a really fun show. I love the 4th of July so much and it was so much fun to celebrate it with friends.

The city show got cancelled because of the storm and so we get to celebrate 4^th of July part 2 three days later to enjoy the city fireworks. Our dumb dog got scared while we were gone and nearly tore down the garage door trying to find us!

Baby Gear

Jed and I have been truly blessed with the abundance of baby things people have given us. I felt like I needed to document it so we can remember how generous people were, and pay it forward when we are in a position to do so, down the road. My employers are so incredibly generous to Jed and I, they always have been. They gave us their old bug-a-boo stroller, rocker, and have been very helpful in helping us be able to get the essential baby gear we need. The Tonkin's friends gave us a beautiful crib, and a great jogging stroller. We've had friends give us ample of clothes, a diaper bag, and a changing table. Both Jed and I's family has provided us with diaper bags, clothing, and other great things. This little guy is definitely coming to this world feeling the love from those around him and we are extremely grateful to those who have been so kind to us.

Baby Shower- June 29th 2017

My good friends Malorie Lifferth, Brooke Lowry, and Shanna Foote put together the cutest baby shower for me and the little guy. It was so perfect and adorable. I had many friends from the ward and Leah and Izzie Tonkin come. We played a fun little game where I realized I know nothing about children's books, and ate ice cream sundaes. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

Blueberry Picking at Cedar Hill Farms

One Monday when Addie and Izzie, the girls I watch, didn't have any camp, I took them to Cedar Hill Farms to pick fresh blueberries. We had such a fun time and the girls loved it. For $12 we were able to pick a gallon of blueberries. Jed and I were eating blueberries for days. Activities like these make me so excited to have kids of my own. It's going to be so much fun doing activities like this with my family.

Sardis Lake-June 2017

One weekend our good friends Terrance and Kierston invited us to go to Sardis Lake. It's about an hour south of us, toward Oxford Mississippi. It is supposed to be one of the nicer lakes in the area. I don't really trust lakes around here, but this one was supposed to be good. The first adventure happened when we put the dogs in the bed of Terrance's truck. Their dog was perfect, but Zoey had never been in the bed of truck before. She absolutely loved it until we got on the freeway and decided she was hot and didn't like the high winds. That's when things went downhill, quickly. Zoey first was trying to hide under the additional gear in the bed, almost flipping it out. So then we opened the back window and tried to tell her sit down but she saw that as an opportunity to get in the truck with us. It must have been the funniest thing to pass as our dog desperately tried to get in the truck via the tiny back window while Jed and I  pushed her out, we were so angry. She was half in the truck, half out when we finally pulled over. We tied her down and were on our way once again. Apparently we didn't tie her down well enough because then she tried to get to Jed's door.  Yes, the only way to do that is to launch herself from the bed of the truck. Before we could let this happen, we pulled over once again and secured her pretty well in the bed of the truck. I almost thought I was going to watch my dog die right before my eyes. I was so angry and embarrassed with her but now looking back the situation was hilarious. 

The lake was actually really fun. Once i got over the fact that I most likely wasn't going to get bitten by a water moccasin, or get a flesh eating bacteria, we all had a good time. The water was very silty so when we got out, we looked very hairy, and had brown streaks down the back of our swimsuits. I'll let you figure out what that looked like. The Hills brought their paddle boards and we had a lot of fun playing on those. It was so much fun swimming with Zoey and she loved every second of it. She was so tired the next couple of days. 

We had a brat picnic, swam a little bit more and then called it a day. It was so much fun to relax at a lake. 

Another funny story with Zoey was when a group of ladies tried to pet her. She was tied up and got really scared when six ladies started closing in on her. She lunged away from them and started barking her head off. I've never seen a group of ladies scatter so quickly. I was initially embarrassed but it was too funny not to laugh. The funniest part was when an elderly lady of the group came running over in her very Southern/African American accent yelled "That's a dawg! That's a dawg! Whatch you doin' by that dawg!" Luckily everyone was understanding that Zoey just got scared and we all had a good laugh. 

Washington D.C. June 2017

Jed had an optometry conference in Washington DC and we decided to take advantage of the trip and make a family vacation out of it. Through the student chapter of the AOA, just for going to the conference, Jed got a $750 travel grant which significantly helped with the cost. 

We left on a Tuesday and flew o North Carolina and then into DC. We had to take an Uber to our hotel because our flight got in so late, there was no Metro available. On Wednesday we wanted to save money on food so we hit up Target, which was around the corner from our hotel, and got groceries for breakfast and lunch for the week. Once we got situated we made our way to the National Mall and convention center so Jed could check in. We had to figure out the metro system because that was going to be our mode of transportation during the week.

While Jed was in his required meetings, I began to explore. I saw the Library of Congress, the National Art Museum, and beautiful gardens. I spent time with other optometry wives in our ward Dani Johnson, and Madeline McCleary. We had a great time but I underestimated the amount of walking that we would be doing. This was going to be a long week for my 30 week pregnant body. Jed was still in meetings so I went back to the hotel to take a rest. When he came home, we went to a Taco place called District Taco with the McCleary's. It was delicious. 

Thursday was supposed to be our exploring of the monuments day. We got off to a late start because we were both so tired from the day before so we rushed over to see what we could before Jed had to be at another mandatory meeting. We did the ride share bikes; these are bikes you ride around town in 30 minute intervals. You have to turn the bike in at another station within 30 minutes or you have to pay a fee. It is such a great way to see the city because everything is so far from each other and we saved our legs. That morning we saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the war memorials. We looked at the time and it was time to grab bikes and get Jed to the conference center. He HAD to check in at a certain time in order to get the travel grant. We got to the bike station and it wasn't working! This was not good because the walk to the next bike station was almost 20 minutes or a 5 minute bike ride. We did not have time to spare. So we "sprinted," I did my best, to the next bike station and made it in surprisingly good time. At this point we are already hot and sweaty in the DC heat and humidity. At the next station there was only one bike! I told Jed to take it and ride like the wind to the metro station. Meanwhile I sat on a bench in the shade were I thought I was going to die from our little sprint. Baby was not happy with me that day. 

I met up with Jed for lunch at the famous Shake Shack, which was amazing, and I heard the end of journey. I was laughing so hard. So Jed rides the bike to the next station by the metro, but it's full. The wait to put the bike back is about 10 people deep so he can't afford to wait. In his slacks and nice button up, he decides to ride as fast as he can to the convention center. It wasn't too long of a ride but it was through downtown DC, in the heat, in his nice clothes, on a cruiser. Jed finally finds a bike station two blocks away from the convention center and checks the bike in before the 30 minutes are up. Important info: they were really strict about people checking in the day before. If you missed the check in, you didn't get the $750. That's why Jed was killing himself trying to get there on time. The rest of his journey Jed runs/sprints the last two blocks. He gets in to the convention center drenched in sweat, and breathing hard, only to find out there was no check in today, you were just supposed to get in line to get the check. Poor guy. But it made for a hilarious story for us and a couple  of classmates who saw him sprint into the building. 

That night we ordered pizza for dinner. They accidentally made us two pizzas and gave them both to us for the price of one! Sweet deal because we had a fridge and microwave in our room. Free dinner for the next day! 

On Friday, Jed and I toured the Capitol, saw the National Archives, and the Holocaust museum. The national archives were very cool to see. Our nation has such rich history and it was so fun to be somewhere where I could see it all. The documents are very faded but you could still feel the power behind them. The Holocaust museum was very humbling. So many emotions were felt there. I'm so happy I had the experience. That night we went on a bike ride to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Sadly you couldn't ride bikes on the Island but Potomac River was very beautiful. 

Saturday was our last day and it was the only day Jed didn't have to go to any meetings. We packed in more memorials, the Natural History Museum, and the American History Museum. All of these places were so cool to see. I was getting very tired toward the end though and my pregnant legs weren't handling all the walking very well.  That evening we met up with classmates of Jed's for Sushi and dessert. It was fun to spend time with them. Our trip to DC was such a fun get away.

The flight home was once again a story to be told. The flight asked for two volunteers to take another flight in exchange for $500 each. We ran up there so fast because we wanted a free flight to Utah for Christmas. We got situated with the gate attendant and were going to have direct flights to Memphis, putting us home earlier than our original flight. It was a winner deal. When it was time to leave, 15 people had not shown up so we had to get on our original flight without the perks. It was so disappointing!

Hannah and McKay's Wedding

Hannah married Mckay in May 2017 and Jed and I were able to fly to Utah and attend. Before the wedding though I flew down a couple days early to spend time with y family. We made this plan before we saw my family lots because of the funeral but it was still fun to see them again. This time we had a lot more time to relax and hang out. I stayed with Christine and I had a fun time going to lunch with Alison, hanging with the Kidds, running with Christine, and having a little lunch date/shower with Christine, Karolyn, and Shara. It was really sweet of them to put together. We went to City Creek and ate lunch at Johnny Rockets. They got me adorable little baby clothes, and Shara's homemade burp clothes and bibs. It just makes me so excited for little guy to come.

Jed came Friday and went to Tucano's with his brothers and brother-in-laws. That night we helped set up the church gym for the reception. It was so pretty. All of Jed's brothers and sisters and spouses were in town. It was so great to see everyone. The day of the wedding was perfect. You couldn't have asked for prettier weather. Hannah and McKay got sealed in the Logan Temple. We had the luncheon at Maddox's, and then the reception that night. We had such a fun time with family and friends. It was a beautiful day. That evening was also Jed's lifelong best friend, Nathan Larson's, wedding reception. It was good to stop by and congratulate them as well.

Sadly we had to go home the next day, after listening to Cooper give a talk in Sacrament meeting. The flight home was a little bit crazy because our flight was delayed several hours and we almost missed our connecting flight. Luckily it all worked out and we got back to Memphis in time for school and work the next day.

Hagen's come to town, Memorial Day weekend 2017

Over Memorial Day weekend, Josh and Kayla came to visit. It is always such a blast when they come and they are so kind to come and visit us. This weekend was no exception. On Saturday we started the day off with some Memphis brunch. We tried Brother Junipers first but the wait was over two hours. No thank you! Then we went to this little dinky place that normally would have looked run down but the fact that it was 100% packed with the line out the door told us it must be delicious. Though there were lots of people, the lines and food were moving quickly. So, we decided to stick around. The food was amazing and we were so full that we didn't eat again until dinner. 

That evening we went to the 901 fest at Tom Lee Park. It was a perfect evening of food trucks and listening to live music. The night ended with a really great firework show. When we got home that evening, as we were winding down, I noticed an odd whistling/screaming noise outside. I thought it was our neighbors but then it got worse and worse. We looked outside and the wind was roaring outside like I've never seen before. The rain started to come down too but mostly just ridiculous amounts of wind. I was sure the tornado sirens were going to go off but they never did. The next morning we woke up to devastation all over Memphis. Wind picked up to 80-100 mph and trees fell on houses and power lines. Luckily, our house only had a few branches and shingles fall but no bad damage. People lost power, I swear we were the only ones not to, and church was only sacrament meeting so we could help out those in need. For the next week 40,000 people went without power in Memphis. It was such a crazy experience.

Sunday with the Hagen's was a very nice day we played lots of games and that night we had a fire. It was so much fun. Jed tried to make the fire bigger but putting gas on it. He thought the original fire had died down but apparently not. An eruption of flames burst up while we were all still a little too close. It was equally terrifying and hilarious. 

After a fun weekend, the Hagan's left Monday afternoon. We had such a fun time with them and can't wait until we can visit them in Dallas. 

Monday was Memorial Day and Jed and I had a BBQ with our good friends the Lifferths and the Hills. We have such great friends around us and far away. Jed and I have truly been blessed. 

Honoring two great women

April was a very interesting month for my family. Within two weeks of one another my two grandmothers passed away. It was really hard for my family, especially my parents being so far away in Japan. Both my grandma's left incredible legacies and were an example to all of us of being strong women and members of the church.

My Grandma Farnsworth passed away first. This was very unexpected seeing that she seemed in good health and spirits. Amazingly she had just had her 93rd birthday party and a lot of my cousins, aunts and uncles attended. I didn't think I would be able to go to the funeral but it was a blessing that I was able to find an extremely rare cheap flight to Utah. The next day the price had almost tripled. It was truly a blessing. My trip to Utah was brief and Jed had to stay home because of school. I stayed with Rich and Shara. Carolyn stayed there as well. One of the days I got to go up to Brigham and visit with my in-laws. It was so much fun to see them. Caleb, Natalie, and baby Bridger played a little disc golf, we watched soccer games, and had a fun family picnic. I love my family. I got to spend Easter with my siblings which was a really fun treat. Luckily Jed got to go to Nashville and spend the weekend with the Ramsay's, so he wasn't alone. The funeral services were very nice and it was a wonderful tribute to my Grandma. It was also fun to reconnect with family I hadn't seen in a very long time. That night Shara, Rich, Carolyn and I went to a food truck event by the Nelly's house. I really had a great time connecting with my siblings. The trip was short but I'm so glad I was able to go!

The next funeral was in Arkansas. Jed was able to go with me because he had just finished up his 2nd year. My Grandma Nelson passed away after having fallen two weeks earlier and getting very sick. Again, as hard as it was to see her go, I'm so happy that she once again is with my Grandpa. It was nice that we were driving distance from the funeral. My brother and sisters all got a hotel room together and that was so hilarious. Six of us, Cami couldn't come, were crammed in a hotel room. We had a good time. The services were very nice and again a great tribute to my Grandma life. The day of her funeral it rained so hard all of the streets flooded. We had to have to graveside service in a small building because of all the flooding. We are so happy we were able to make it!

Biking the Mississippi River

We have tried really hard to take advantage of all there is to do in Memphis and we finally biked alongside the river and across the bridge. It was so much fun and the day was beautiful. We had a fun time enjoying the scenery. Another time we biked with our friends Terrance and Kierston to Mud Island Park.

32 weeks pregnant

Grilling 2017

Grilling has been a blast this year. We have had so much fun with it. We have hamburger almost once a week with homemade fries. We have also made Hawaiian Kebabs, Cajun Shrimp tin foil meals, and brats. We love the time we get to take grilling together and spending time outdoors. This year I wanted to make it a goal to spend more time on our porch and playing backyard games. We've done a great job this summer.

Intramural Fun

Through SCO Jed has had a lot of fun doing intramural's. Together we were on a volleyball team and that was a lot of fun. Jed also was on a football, softball, and indoor soccer team. It's been fun to watch him in action.

Garden 2017

Our garden this year has been a major hit! We started right on time this year, last year we started too early last year. This year we also tried some pots on the porch. On the porch we have tomatoes, red peppers, banana peppers, and basil. Those have all been extremely successful.  We pickled the banana peppers and they are so good. Our big garden had a really slow start but really took off just recently. We have cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, okra, yellow squash, carrots, and lettuce. This year the peas were a flop which was surprising because they were so successful last year. It has been a really fun hobby for both Jed and I.