Trip installment 1: Movin' Out

Parker and I flew to Vegas, just in time to drive up to Utah, labor day weekend for the final move out of the Alpine house... And labor we did. It was an exhausting weekend full of packing, cleaning, many tears, many laughs, reuniting and goodbyes. I was able to go through my storage boxes in the basement and condense them. Not much condensing actually happened due to my ultimate sentimental outlook on life. I have deflated balloons, labeled from specific birthday parties and first dates, ticket stubs, stacks of journals, and every note I ever received from 6th grade on-- those are classic) Old pictures and journals brought back floods of old memories. Good times. The Shelleys hosted a big goodbye party on Sunday night, where we got to mingle with the ward family. (picture of Jeff, Steph and Ash, 3 of my siblings) It was hard saying goodbye to the house and Alpine for the last time. Just driving through the city, I have a memory that goes with every street corner. Alpine was good to me, and the perfect place to grow up. It was fun to reminisce and let the memories sink in again. I had to stay strong and upbeat for Matt and Ash, who have now started school in Henderson as the 3 of us and Parker drove back to Nevada on Monday night. We had a good time and good talks the whole way there. I love my two youngest siblings. They are such great friends, and are so fun to be with. So... So long, farewell Alpine! Viva Las Vegas.

(I had to make the pics really small to fit them all in, but they all blow up if you click on them)

Eight is Great

Sorry for the lack of posts this month. I just got back from my trip out to see family and help with the big move to Vegas, so I am WAAAAAAY behind on the blog and have lots to blog about, so don't worry... many more posts are on the way. But, first I need to give a shout out to my little Park who turned eight months old today. What?!?! He is such a little joy in our lives. He has the cutest personality EVER, and loves to smile and flirt with everyone. On the airplane, coming back to Maryland, he wanted to walk up and down the isle and smile at each individual person on the plane. He would get mad at me if I walked too fast and passed a row. What a character. His favorite thing to do lately is get his picture taken. If you hold up a camera and count to three, he does the cheesiest little smile, and then likes to look at the picture and smile at himself. He found a new love for boating this month, and absolutely loved watching Chad ski behind the boat. He says "Mamma" now, and I can't get enough of it. Our little social butterfly still is not wanting to crawl, but recently learned he can scoot backwards while on his tummy. Maybe crawling will come next month. Park loved playing with his aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents over the past couple of weeks. He misses you all!!!!!

Henderson or Bust?

So, the rumors are true, and my family (what's left of the Zwick bunch) are moving from Alpine

to Henderson Nevada.

Kind of a crazy time for everyone after 15 years in the bubble that we all love to death. I am flying out to Nevada to be with them for the transition, and hang out at the Alpine house for a little reminiscing. I can't wait to see my great family, and to be with Chad's family at Lake Mead too. Stay tuned for some traveling posts.

Six year anniversary

Yesterday (August 17th) was our six year anniversary! Saturday night the Skinners watched Park (thank you guys!) so that we could go out just the two of us. We had YUMMY steaks at Outback, and a nice time all to ourselves. This has been the best six years of my entire life. I am so grateful for Chad. He is the greatest husband in the world. I am so lucky to have him. He is a perfect dad to little Parker and always shows us and tells us how much he loves us. I love you honey, you are the best! Happy anniversary with many more memories to come!

Seven

Parker turned seven months old today... wow. Where is the time going? He is getting to be such a handsome little guy, and is more and more fun every day. His only word is Dadda, and he thinks he is pretty cool saying it. We are still working on Mamma. I say it to him and he just says Dadda right back. haha. Happy seven months buddy!

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

Last Saturday we went with the Skinners and Austins to pick peaches at Baugers. I can't believe it was our first time there! It was SOOOO much fun and Parker loved every second of it. We rode a tractor out to the picking orchard. Park was in absolute heaven, totally in love with the tractor. It was a beautiful day, the peaches were great, and now I should go make some jam or cobbler or something so that our hard picking work doesn't go to waste. I know everyone is probably sick of these picture slide shows... I am too, but I had too many pictures that I loved, I couldn't decide which ones to post, so here's another slide show. Sorry.

cHoCoLaTe MiLk

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Last weekend, after the fair, the Skinners came over for a chocolate milk tasting competition.
Who knew they all tasted so different? Chad won, as he proved to be the best at distinguishing between organic, nesquik, two different store brands, and homemade (hershey's syrup in milk).

It was a lot of fun. Good idea Jeremy and Hannah! While on the subject, please end the constant debate in our house by answering the poll to the right...

The Howard County Fair

So, typically I don't really like to got to the fair, but yesterday was a beautiful day with nothing to do, so I loaded up the hand sanitizer and we went. We actually had a really, really great time. Parker loved the baby animals, and watching all of the big rides go around and around. Chad and I each took him once down the big super slide. People were a little surprised we would take him down it, but the little dare devil wasn't even phased by it. I think I was more scared than he was. The fair food didn't look too great, so we shared an ice cream to hold us over and stopped at Pei Wei (PF chang's take out) on the way home. YUM!

6 month pictures

Here are a couple of pics taken of Parker a couple weeks ago when he turned 6 months. The mit he is holding usually hangs in his room right above his changing table. It was love at first sight... he adores the thing, so we had to have a picture with it.

We miss Dadda

Chad has been in this crazy 5 week long rotation at the Naval hospital in D.C., and we have literally not seen him for more than 10 minutes every day. He wakes up at 5am, to be in D.C. for morning rounds with the docs on the oncology unit, comes home at around 5pm, gives us each a kiss, and works on stuff for his patients till he goes to bed around midnight or later. So, Parker and I have had a lot of mommy/son time lately. Good news.... the 5 weeks end TODAY!!! We can't wait to have a 3rd member of the family again! Finally we can have a fun weekend together before the next rotation starts... on Monday. We are so proud of you honey! You are so smart, and are such a hard worker. You are doing such a good job. We love you!!!