Visit from Rachel's Parents

So, last week Rachel filled you in on most of the details of Wendy and Kelly's visit. On Monday we went to the Corning glass museum in Corning, NY where we got to see some really cool glass things and even make some of our own stuff to proudly display in our home.

After we created our own glass, we took four and a half hours to go through the museum and see the demonstrations! I never realized how much there could be in a glass museum. My favorate piece of art was a ball about the size of an extra large yoga ball. From the center to the outside it was made up of tiny strings of glass, and we were wondering if it was possible to shine a lazer light from one side to the other without touching any glass. We decided it was not possible. We also saw two demonstrations of glassmaking; using the kiln and using a technique called flameworking.

Here are some pictures of this last week:

First, we see the lovely Rachel (with lovely glasses, I must add) getting hot glass from the kiln... The kiln was 2,400 degrees and the glass had to be placed in the fire about every 45 seconds in order to keep it hot enough to work with.

Next, she forms a flower out of the molten glob of glass. It cools pretty quickly so you've got to pull hard!

Here, we see Rachel while she is "just practicing her swing" at the driving range.

Here's everybody at the Lake Erie where we played frisbee for a while on our way up to New York.

And this is Mama Santa's Pizzeria- a place everyone says is an absolute must. The pizza was all-right, but not worth all the hype. I should explain that I am holding bread in this picture- I don't normally stand like that!

Here's all of us at the Whitney store in Kirtland. After the tour we went and saw "This is Kirtland," a musical put on by our stake that was actually pretty darn good.

Well, that's all for the pictures. We are looking forward to seeing a lot of you guys next week at the Hazard Reunion.

Logan has been doing a fabulous job keeping up with our blog, but I decided to say hi to let everyone know I was still here and loving life!

This week we finally got our camera fixed and that means there will soon be pictures on our blog with us in them! We have taken a lot of pictures this week because my parents are both in town visiting us. We have had a fabulous time showing them around. So far we have visited all of the sites in Kirtland including a fun play our stake is putting on, toured the Lakeview Cemetary (this is a famous historical cemetary that has John D. Rockefeller and President Garfield as two of the many important people buried there), ate at a well renouned pizza place, practiced our swing at the driving range, and saw Harry Potter. Tonight we are driving to New York so we can visit the Corning Museum of Glass. My parents enjoy making stained glass and my dad wants to study and refine his glass blowing skills. Tomorrow we will tour the museum and we are all enrolled in at least one class to make blown glass flowers and/or blown glass ornaments. We will also be visiting the beach on Lake Erie, the Erie Canal and whatever else looks like fun!

Crazy changes happen to every part of your body when you are pregnant! I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant and I didn't feel any symptoms of morning sickness. I thought I had escaped this evil of pregnancy. . . that shows you how much I knew. Two weeks ago I began to feel queasy and sick late at night, and as time passed this sickness came earlier and earlier in the day until it started as early as 9:00 in the morning and ended when I went to bed. I decided to do my research to figure out what was going. That is when I came to the realization that morning sickness generally begins in your seventh or eight week! It has settled down now and comes and goes as it pleases. We are SO excited to start our little Hazard family and it has been completely worth it because I know Wiggle Bean is healthy and well! We have our first appointment with an actual doctor on the seventeenth and hopefully we will be able to see WB and hear the heartbeat.

Logan is getting VERY excited as school approaches. I think he is going to love it and I am very excited for him! I am happy he is doing something he loves so much. I am also getting ready to start my sign language interpreting online courses for Northwestern Colorado University (this is a year long course for interpreters who have been in the field for at least three years). I just sent out a sample of my work and they will do a complete diagnostic to find my strengths and weaknessess to design a curriculum specifically for me!

Interpreting work is really picking up here in Cleveland and I am loving it! I was really nervous about freelance work, but it is going really well.

We absolutely love Ohio and we are excited for another fun week!

A Fun, Busy Week

This week was a fun, busy week. We went to the Lake Erie beach and got some sun while we read to each other. Reading books to each other is a tradition we started even before we were married when we read "The Da Vinchi Code." Ever since then we have always had a book to read aloud whenever we have some spare time together. Currently we are reading Louis L'amoure's "Last of the Breed."

We have also gone on walks every day since we got here. This week, one of the prettiest places we walked was Wade Lagoon, a beautiful park in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art. There, we skipped rocks on the pond, walked the shady paths, and admired the architecture of the area. Below are pictures of some of the highlights. For more information about this area go to http://www.universitycircle.org/content/.

This week Rachel went to a CADA meeting. I'm not sure what CADA means, but it is a school-sponsored club for spouses of dental students. Rachel is now the club secretary and will be involved in planning for fun get-togethers and events.

Also, we had our first doctor's visit this week for Wiggle Bean (this is the name we gave our baby so we don't have to resort to "it") The visit went well and both Rachel and Bean are very healthy.

Other things we did this week: On Monday we went to the Cleveland Zoo. The zoo is free to Cleveland residents every Monday so we thought we would take advantage of it. We spent most of our time watching the monkeys. I like monkeys.

On Wednesday (4th of July) we had a big breakfast social with our ward, and then a BBQ with some of our neighbors that evening. At night, Rachel and I headed out to Lake Erie to see the best firework show ever over the lake. It was pretty spectacular, to say the least.

Basically, we are doing great! We love it here and are continuing to fall in love with the place.

Back to Routine

Finally, after weeks of non-stop excitement and craziness it seems that we are starting to fall back into routine. I say it's about time. Any more excitement and we wouldn't be able to think straight any more. We figured that in the last month we have undergone the majority of life-changing events that could happen to somebody.

Here is a quick recap:

- Rachel graduated from UVSC with a degree in Elementary Education
- Rachel finished her full-time job teaching 4th grade
- Rachel started a new job as a free-lance community interpreter
- I graduated from BYU with a degree in Biology
- I finished up my research at BYU
- I officially enrolled in dental school at Case (and assumed the associated financial debt)
- We moved across the country, from Provo, Utah to Cleveland, Ohio
- We found out that Rachel is pregnant

We are ready for routine again. We have loved this adventure so far and we are looking forward with great anticipation to the future- but for now it is nice to just sit back, enjoy the beautiful Ohio landscape that we live in, and bask in how content we are with life. We truly have much to be thankful for.