Events in Idaho

I have spent the last two weeks in Idaho. It is always a wonderful break to go and see family even though I am trying to cram in 4 months of fun into such little time. The main event this time was of course to see our dear little scraggles graduate from High School. I never thought I'd see the day when she would reach this mile stone and seem so grown up.

They had a little slide show of all the graduates. Marianna was so cute and is so beautiful now.

She was Valedictorian of her class and gave a wonderful speech. She just did a little unique highlight of each year from elementary school through high school.

I am so proud of her and enjoyed spending a day of shopping and going to lunch with her while I was there.

We all went to support her. I took Porter to the graduation, but he was so fussy that I ended up taking him to the babysitter that Mary had set up for her kids. The babysitter was also tending Amanda's kids so she ended up watching 5 kids. I was so grateful because if not I wouldn't have been able to see Marianna's speech. That is the reason for no kids in the picture.

That weekend Bret and Tania were traveling through Burley on their way to move to Cincinnati. We all decided to go and meet them there for some fun. We went and visited grandma Zollinger and she was so glad to see all of us.

I have to keep taking pictures of Porter with the animals that he loves because he acts so cute around them. He loved Grandma Clark's cats. Thank goodness there was a tame one that was really pretty nice.

He did eat some cat food before I could stop him.

Porter had his first hair cut. We went to Grandma Clark's beauty parlor. He did good for about 10 seconds while I took the picture. Then he was a wiggle worm and cried a little bit just because he wanted to see what was going on and grab the scissors.

We didn't cut off much, but he looks more like a little boy.

Porter was sick for most of our trip and needed a little distraction sometimes. Grandma Clark thought of some cute things to do. Porter loved to listen to her play the piano and she was coordinated enough to play with him on her lap. She had great patience and would just hold him in one arm all the while doing her regular jobs with the other. She said she used to do it all the time with us when we were young. She said, "that's how I would get my work done."

Thanks to Olivia for the great idea and planning we were able to get a little camping at warm river into our vacation. It wasn't the best weather, but we always seem to make memories and have fun.

On the way home we fed the fish bread and marshmallows. There were a ton of fish and were jumping for the bread like crazy.

New Starts!

Our first new start to report is that Porter is walking. He started last Wednesday, Just 2 weeks after his first birthday. He took a couple of steps on his own during the day and then that night we practiced with him going back and forth between Terry and I. I am sure that his legs felt like noodles by the end of the night. He would hardly even stand and so we decided to call it quits. Since then everyone who played with him thought they were the first to discover his new talent. I am happy to say that I saw it first. I thought for sure that he was going to wait until I was gone to try and walk but he didn't. It has been just so funny to see such a little guy walking around.


Another new start for us is the planting of our little garden. We consider it a garden, but really it is just a few potted plants. We planted tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and zucchini. I planted them a few weeks ago and was very surprised to see that they even grew. They are now about 5 inches tall and growing great! Porter loves to play in the dirt and he eventually will take a taste. He doesn't like it though and will not try it again until another day in which he has forgotten that he already tasted it.

Porter's 1st Birthday Party

We had a little party for Porter to celebrate his 1st birthday. All of Terry's family that lives around here came and enjoyed cake and ice cream with us.

Porter didn't know quite what all the fuss was about during the opening of presents. He doesn't have the art of opening them on his own down yet. I wasn't too worried though. There were many cousins there willing and happy to help :)
He loved this ball I got him! I have to admit though, Katelynn is pretty good at getting him to laugh and smile!
We sang happy birthday to him and put the cake in front of him. He would reach out and just barely touch it and pull back. He certainly didn't demolish it like I thought he would.
We gave him this huge peice of cake and thought for sure that he would just go crazy and eat it, all the while making a huge mess. On the contrary, he didn't even know what to do with it. He just looked at it and lightly touched it. He would have probably ate the whole think if we cut it up into nice little bite size squares.
We then went outside and had a bubble blowing party. Porter loved it. Ilana, Terry's sister, gave him a bubble blowing machine. That was perfect because of course he couldn't blow the bubbles, but loved watching them and trying to touch them.
I bought bubbles for everyone so they all joined in on the fun.

Porter is 1

Happy Birthday Porter!!

Weight- 18 lbs 10 oz Height- 29 1/2 in.
Porter is eating 3 meals a day and drinking from a sippy cup. He takes 2 naps a day. One 3 hour nap in the morning and then an hour nap in the afternoon. He goes to bed between 8-9 at night and wakes up at 7 in the morning. We love to wake up to his little jabbers in the other room.
He is getting his 7th tooth. He has 3 on the bottom and 4 on the top.
One of his favorite things to play with is his stuffed animal "Hop on Pop" from the Dr. Seuss book his Aunt Alida gave it to him. It is so cute to watch him grab it and the first thing he does with it is give it a big hug and just cuddle with it. He also likes toy cars that he pushes around, balls that he is beginning to throw, remotes, phones, and of course anything else that he shouldn't have.
Porter is starting to stand on his own for minutes at a time, but has no desire to take a step. When we practiced with him last week by having him walk between Terry and I , he took 3 steps on his own. I think that he will be walking very soon.

Some of Porter's favorite things to do are taking baths, playing outside, and going for walks in the stroller. He loves music and will dance anytime. He also likes to do the hand actions to the alligator song.

His favorite foods are bananas, macaroni and cheese, cheerios, bread and crackers of all varieties.

My NEW Car

This is a picture of my new car!! You may be saying, "but you've had that for a couple years now." I have, but I am proud to say that it is all mine now. I just wrote a big check to pay it off and can now consider it officially part of one of my possessions. I have been looking forward to getting this paid off and reaching one of my new year's resolutions of being debt free. I have finally achieved it and haven't felt so free and happy in a long time. I love it and it almost feels like a new car. Anyway, just thought I would share my glad news and proud moment.

History Fest

Here I am at the History Fest. I wasn't looking forward to going, but Terry was so excited. I am amazed that every time I go with Terry and do something that I think I won't like, I find something interesting. This time amidst the many booths of guns and old war items there was one booth of lace making. I headed towards the booth thinking that it was a quilting booth and as I got closer it was this guy making lace and teaching lessons on how to make it. I added a line into this lace, it is almost like weaving using the bobbins that are hanging to go over and under and twist them to make a certain pattern. I have never seen how it was done before and was surprised to see how it was made. It is a very detailed process that takes hours and hours for a tiny strip.

Terry of course went to see the different battle reenactments. We saw one from world war II, which I didn't think was any different than watching grown men play cowboys and indians in camouflage. Terry loved it though and rattled off how neat all the different guns and granades were. We also saw a civil war reenactment which you can see in the background of these pictures. It wasn't too exciting, but Terry thought it was cool to see them in uniform and to see the guns and the different war techniques in action.
This picture shows them shooting off some cannons.

Alida and Aaron Bingham's Wedding

We went to Alida's (Terry's sister) wedding on Friday. It was so wonderful! It is the only sealing I have been to besides my own. It was neat to be able to comfortably sit back and enjoy the ceremony. I liked that the sealer encouraged them to look at each other throughout the ceremony rather than him as he talked. I wished we had done that. I think it made it special for them to look into each other's eyes.
All of her brothers and sisters were there outside the temple. They got some memorable pictures. I love that!
It was the perfect day. It was sunny and not too warm. We had to take some pictures by the tulips in full bloom. They are one of my favorite flowers!
Porter loves to be outside and is getting to love the grass, dirt and rocks. He was gentle with the flowers. It was his first encounter so I don't think it will last long. I set him down and thought that he would pull all the petals but he didn't.
We went to the reception that night and helped out with making sure there was always enough food on the refreshment table.
There was a dance after the formal reception part and made the reception so much fun. I don't think that I have ever been to a reception that fun. Everyone was dancing-young and old. It went on for a couple of hours. I am trying to get Terry to take a couples dance class together. After the fun we had he might be more willing to do it.
We had to decorate the car of course. We used oreos and paint. It turned out pretty cute.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

So, I have really been looking forward to getting photoshop to help with scrapbooking. I have been saving up my money for months. I had a birthday in January, but had to use the money I got for bills. So, I have been saving up since telling myself that I still need to get myself a birthday gift. Anyway, I finally went and bought it at Office Depot, brought it home, installed it, loaded a few pictures on it and went to make something. Guess what, not enough memory on my computer. What a disappointment. Guess I'll just have to go buy a new computer to go with my new software. The future does look bright though, because we may be getting a computer from Terry's sister. That's not the only problem I realize now even more than ever how much I want a new camera. Does this story remind you of anything-"If you give a mouse a cookie!!" I've learned a lot and am about to give up and take the photo shop back. Because if I don't I might need to take classes on how to run the program or even a photography class. Wouldn't that be fun!

ABC tag

A-attached or single?: Attached

B-Best Friend?: My wife Bethany

C-cake or pie?: tough choice, i'll go with pie.

D-Day of Choice?: Friday its the start of a couple of days off.

E-Essential Item?: glasses/contacts

F-Favorite Color?: Brown

G-Gummy Bears or worms?: Bear, you can bite the heads off and transplant them to different colored bears.

H-Hometown?: Bedford Indiana

I-Favorite Indulgence?: Movies

J-January or July?: July, Independence Day!

K-Kids? Porter 11months

L-Life isn't complete without?: Bethany and Porter, the gospel is a given

M-Marriage Date?: uhhh??? just kidding July 21st 2006.

N-Number of Brothers and sister?: Brothers-1, sisters-4

O-Oranges or Apples?: Oranges vitamin c is good for you.

P-Phobias or Fears?: Not being able to provide for my family

Q-Quote?: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt

R-Reason to smile?: Life is great!

S-Season of Choice?: Fall, I love the holiday season

T-Tag 3 people: Brad Wynn, Danielle Wynn, Marthea

U-Unknown facts about me: I want to write a book.

V-Vegetable?: Corn, i'm from Indiana what do you expect.

W-Worst habit?: I pick my nose.

X-X-ray or Ultrasound?: Ultrasound, it was an ultrasound that told us we were having a boy.

Y-Your favorite food?: medium rare steak, or ribs smoked in my new smoker.

Z-Zodiac sign?: Libra

ABC Tag

A-Attached or Single? Attached

B-Best Friend? Terry, but that's a given. Porter is a close second.

C-Cake or Pie? Definetley cake.

D-Day of Choice? Saturday

E-Essential Item? It's a tie. Straightener and hair spray.

F-Favorite Color?Yellow

G-Gummy bears or worms? Worms (I would prefer something chocolate though!)

H-Hometown?Ashton-Idaho

I-Favorite Indulgence? Visiting Idaho for at least two weeks at a time!

J-January or JUly? January, It's my birthday!

K-Kids? Porter- 11 months old

L-Life isn't complete without? The gospel!!

M-Marriage date? July 21, 2006

N-Number of brothers and sisters? 3 brothers, 1 sister

O-Oranges or apples? Oranges at christmas time. Apples if there is caramel to dip them in.

P-Phobias or fears? Debt

Q-Quote? I don't know a certain one, but if I could pick a genre it would be those by prophets or church leaders.

R-Reason to smile? It is soooo sunny today! Yeah!!

S-Season of choice? Spring

T-tag 3 people: Terry, Liz and Olivia

U-Unknown facts about me? I don't mind cleaning the bathroom. In fact I would choose that over any job in the house.

V-Vegetable? Broccoli

W-Worst habit? Picking zits :( I know it's gross, but I love to do it!

X-xray or ultrsound? What kind of a question is this?

Y-Your favorite food? Italian! Especially from Johnny Carino's which I haven't gotten to go to in forever!

Z-Zodiac sign? Aquarius

Easter Family Pictures

Porter in his easter outfit. I wish I could have taken a picture by some spring flowers, but we have had nothing but rainy weather here for quite some time. The grass is turning green and the daffodils are coming up though. I am excited for spring. It is my favorite season of the year.

We went to the temple on saturday and had a little family picture. It is always a wonderful experience to go to the temple. We had planned to go to a session, but when we got there it was already full and we even got there early. We had Porter and Kelcy, Terry's niece, was babysitting him. We thought it would be to long to wait to go to the next session, so we did a few sealings. It was good to hear the blessings and covenants given in the temple sealing again and again. I felt a little bad that we weren't doing an endowment session. I just had to remind myself that any part of the work was great and as the temple sealer put it as we left the sealing room, "Thank you for being saviors on Mount Zion for your kindred dead." So simply put, but so inspiring. The best part of all was that it only took like 45 minutes to do sealings and so then Terry and I just went and sat in the celestial room for a half an hour. That was such a treat!! Sometimes I feel like after 2 hours of being in the session you almost feel like you need to enjoy the celestial room, but just don't have the time. This time we had plenty of time to just relax, because Kelcy was thinking we would be gone for 2 hours and we had only been gone for an hour. There was only one other person in there so it was so peaceful! Our temple trip was great!!

Zoo

We decided to go to the Zoo in Indianapolis as one of our spring break adventures. Terry has been so excited and talking about it non-stop. He looked it up on the internet and had all the sites to see mapped out. He was most excited about the exhibit that let you touch real live sharks. It was pretty fun. The weather wasn't cooperating, but it made for active animals to watch. It was overcast and sprinkled rain a little while. We got to see jellyfish, shrimp, seahorses and the highlight of the ocean life was the sharks. We can now add touching live sharks to our list of exceptional life experiences.

We saw the polar bear swim in the water. We got a view from here and one from down below where you can see them underwater through glass windows.

There were elephants, rhinos, kangaroos and zebras. The anticipation of the whole trip was to see how Porter would react to all the different animals. I thought that him being a dog and cat lover he would be so excited the whole time. I'm not sure if he really loved it. The glass windows that you can look through the water made him nervous. I think he thought that he was going to fall in. Either that or the animals were going to get him.

Porter's favorite I would have to say were the plain old ordinary farm animals. He loved the sheep, goats, horses and cows. He was excited about touching them.

My favorite was the dolphin show we went to. We all left wanting to be dolphin trainers. It looked so fun. The dolphins did all kinds of tricks and were so cute.

Easter

Happy Easter!! We had a fun Friday night coloring easter eggs. The easter bunny came Sunday morning. Porter loved the egg hunt. He wished that he could have stuffed the whole egg in his mouth. He loved his peeps too! Sacrament meeting was great! The bishop had picked excellent speakers and I felt the spirit so strong. I enjoyed being able to spend that whole sacrament meeting time just listening to the testimonies of the resurrection. I also know that Christ lives and that we will be resurrected as well. One interesting thing that was brought up was that the resurrection is an ordinance and priesthood holders will perform that. I guess I knew that before, but had never really heard it in such simple terms. We had a ham and potatoes easter dinner with Terry's parents and Sister and niece. It was a fun and relaxing afternoon. It wasn't very warm and sunny outside though. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

So whats Terry up to these days?

Well Bethany has encouraged me more than once to write some entries to the blog which I have only done once now. However, I think it is about time to bore you once again. This year has been crazy for me. I started three new jobs. The first is by far the least favorite. I supervise in-school detention and after school at Bedford North Lawrence High School (which is the high school I went to). I get to deal with the kids that are discipline problems, don't know when to get to class on time or like to skip school. It's not that bad but it's not teaching. There are some great opportunities for being able to teach next year with teachers retiring and I am doing and saying everything I can to be able to get one of the spots. The other two jobs are time consuming but I love doing them. I am the assistant coach for the boys swim team at my high school and the assistant coach for the local Lawrence county swim club, which is basically a feeder program for the high school team. The other guy I coach with is the head coach of both the teams as well. We get along great, work well with each other and have fun. It is much different and better than last years coaching experience (check out the blog entry about our sectional win). I have been coaching solid for almost 7 months and now we have a three week break before the club season starts up in April. I am looking forward to getting home at 4 o'clock rather than 8 o'clock and being able to spend more time with Bethany and Porter and with the weather getting warmer hopefully that time will be outside as much as possible.
Well if you didn't know this by now I am a little over weight. When Bethany and I were married I weighed 220 lbs. from then until now I have ballooned to 257lbs. I know, I know, very unhealthy and very depressing. However, I am going to remedy that problem. The school district I work for has gotten together with one of the gyms in town and have started a contest. They have started a biggest loser challenge, much like the T.V. show. there are over 100 contestants. We get limited memberships to the gym and free diet counseling. In order to be in the contest we had to take a health screening and measurements and all that stuff. Needless to say after I was done with all my pre-contest health tests I was very depressed. I dare not share the details in fear of making you think less of me. Needless to say I need a big health change if I want to enjoy life for years to come.
Along with all this I am the first counselor in the young men's presidency in our ward. We have a good scout program and some great boys. All the guys in the presidency are really good guys that I get along well with and we have a lot of fun. This Saturday is the young men's stake basketball tournament and it has fallen upon me to be coach. This hasn't happened because of my superior basketball skills or knowledge but rather because all the other leaders are busy on Saturday. I think it will be fun and we have a really good shot at winning. Well that's whats going on with me. I know there are no cool pictures or anything, lets face it people only want to see pictures of Porter but if your lucky I will find a picture gem and put it on here some time.

WORK!!!???

I just thought I would write a little update on how my new adventure of starting to work while raising a family was turning out. I hate to admit it but so far it is wonderful!! Only because I get to work in the best place in the hospital. I am going to work on the Mother/baby unit, but these last few days I have been orienting to different areas first. They like to do that just so you can get an idea of what they do in the other areas related to mother/baby. I spent one day in the NICU another day in the nursery and one day on labor and delivery. My favorite was in the nursery. I just held babies all day long. Can you even call that work and get paid for it too??? I think that I might want to transfer there soon!! Anyway, I really liked all the areas. So far I haven't missed out on anything fun and actually had a wonderful blessing come out of it all. My little Porter got sick on Thursday and I was scheduled to work on Friday. I just didn't know what to do. Donna couldn't babysit because she was going to the temple too. I convinced Terry to take a sick day but was still worried about what we were going to do with Porter after school while Terry went to swim practice. I went to work leaving the mess in Terry's hands to figure out what to do, praying all the while that it would all work out. I went to work and at about 11 am looked out the window and it was snowing and blowing and had already snowed about three inches. You've got to remember that we had had 50 degree wheather before this and thought the snow was done for the winter. All it takes is an inch of snow on the ground for school to be cancelled here. I called Terry and sure enough school was cancelled and so they had to cancel all school functions after school too! So Terry was able to stay with Porter all day. He took him into the doctor's office and he had two ear infections. Needless to say I was soooo grateful that it did work out. I know it may sound simple and such a little thing but at the time I felt like it was the biggest blessing ever! I just don't want Porter to get any less than the best because I am working!

Best husband of the week award!!!

You know you are loved when all your husband can think about is you as he goes to the store to buy potatoes. Terry came home so excited with a little surprise in hand. He went pretty late in the evening to the store and saw this lady taking down the Idaho Potato display. He had the nerve to ask the lady what she was going to do with the extra balloons. She said she could give him one if he wanted. Terry thought it was perfect for me. On the balloon it says Grown in IDAHO. I have to admit it describes me well. My roots are firmly planted. He made me give it a big hug when he got home. He is so funny! Gotta love him though. What would life be like without a husband who did random acts of kindness that made you know that he loved you so much! I love you Terry!Porter is enjoying an orange. He has 4 teeth now at 10 months old.