We Do Exist

Despite all indications to the contrary, we are alive and well, although I can't say the same about my sister who hasn't blogged once since her baby was born...in September!!! I'm about to make a threat to not post again until she finally puts something on her blog, but we'll see if I have to take such drastic measures.


So the last time I blogged about the family was for Mark's birthday. As a gift from our friends Brandon and Cari, Cari took some more wonderful pictures of little Mark. As you can see, he wasn't really in the mood to smile or look at the camera, but that might have been because we had just taken him all over the country and he was a bit worn out. Anyway, you can see more pictures of this shoot here.

In March my grandpa, Ted, turned 90! I got to go out to Utah for his big birthday celebration, which was awesome. He's doing great and I hope he makes it to at least 100. While I was there, I couldn't pass up the chance to see some old college friends, Tiff and Kallista. The three kids are all Tiff's, despite what it might look like.

After Utah, we swung over to Colorado for a few days to see my dad who was busy with tax season. He really only got to see Mark for a few minutes at his office, but I saw him some at night. I'm very proud of him. His accounting firm that he started a few years after we moved to Colorado Springs was voted the gold medal in the Best of the Springs awards that the local newspaper puts out. They all deserve it.

A big motivation for my trip to Utah was to avoid another pre-test week with Bryce. He just has to spend a lot of time studying, so it's less fun. Mark still wished him goodluck though. We flew baack the night after he took his test and then headed down for a week in North Carolina with some of Bryce's family. I didn't take any pictures, but we had a good time.

Here's a picture of Mark at the airport in Denver. He was making friends with all sorts of people.

For Easter my friend, Amy, organized a giant Easter egg hunt at our apartment's playground. There were at least 30 kids with 8 eggs each so you can imagine the chaos. Here's Mark waiting at the top of the stairs to head down to find his eggs.

He got bored after only an egg or two and sat down to explore his treasure. I couldn't resist the baseball Easter basket.

We all ate lunch afterwards. Here are a few of his friends. We love having so many little kids to play with.

Mark sometimes thinks he has a pet mouse, although he prefers the wireless one. His new favorite thing is to sit in our laps with his wireless mouse while we play on pbskids.org with the corded one.

On Easter morning Mark was thrilled to find out that his eggs had something in them. He stopped and ate his puffs without finding any more eggs.

Sorry this is so small, but hopefully you get the picture of his attempts at running. This was over a month ago at the Cherry Blossom festival in D.C. He's much more stable now. He was so happy to be out of his stroller. He also loved the pigeons.

We went to D.C. with the Murdocks and the Jacksons. Cari, of course, brought along her camera and took more cute pictures of Mark and Mallory. Here's the post on her photography blog.

More recently, Mark loves to play on the deck. His friend, Caleb, has a box that he likes to sit in so we made him one out of his diaper box. He loves it, despite how this picture may look.

Bryce has finished all of his med school classes and is now just studying for Step 1 of his medical licensing boards. He takes those on June 23rd and then we are off to Utah/Idaho to see family and friends for a few weeks. Things are pretty normal for me: Mark, work, quiet book.