Summer Vacation is Almost Here!

One more week until Summer break! Hooray! This last week has been pretty stressful with finals going on. I have spent a lot of early mornings going over test questions and flashcards. Finally, we are at the final countdown of the semester. Thank goodness.

Despite the heavy studying I have been doing, we have still managed to fit some fun into our schedules. Here are some of the things we did this week:

We had a backyard BBQ at Crystal and Tyler's house. They invited us and alot of our other friends-good food, and good fun. The weather here is getting warmer and warmer every day!

We went to the North Coast nature festival. This was a ton of fun- there were booths with information, and there were lots of fun animals. Here, we see Evelyn being introduced to a skunk, Rachel holding a boa constrictor, and a couple of cute owls. There was also a trail that we walked on that took us around a pretty pond. This week has been especially full of animals for Rachel, who went to the Zoo on Monday with her friend, Diane.

For family night we went on a picnic in the park. Like we said, the weather is getting so nice it is hard to stay indoors. This park at Horseshoe Lake was awesome! There was a big spider web thing that you could climb around in, and there were bouldering rocks where we could challenge each other on different moves. In this picture Rachel is demonstrating how to climb without the use of her upper body.

And of course we need to show some pictures of the cutest member of our family. Evelyn is getting very good at bathtime. She hardly cries anymore when you put her in the water, which is a big improvement over her first time at the hospital. Also, we were able to capture her "smile sequence" on film for all to see. So cute!

Update

Here are some pictures and a video. We'll actually update the blog tomorrow. Stay tuned!

...So it took a little longer than expected to update. Anyway, the pictures of Evelyn pretty much speak for themselves- she gets cuter by the day. She is also very talented insofar as a 2 month old baby can be. She can track with her eyes very well at all distances, lift herself up on her hands, jabber, interact, and almost roll over. She has adopted a love for being outside and we take her on walks regularly. Hopefully, this attribute of her personality sticks around.

Evelyn has been all smiles!

I spent the weekend in Columbus at the ODA Leadership Institute. For those who are interested, here are the details...

A while ago the school announced that they were starting a pilot leadership program to help develop leaders in the dental field. One day they announced that the orientation would take place over the lunch break and that food would be provided. I had not brought a lunch to school that day, and I was a little curious, so I thought I might as well see what it was about. That is pretty much how I got sucked in.

Once in, I had a great experience! There were regular meetings where students in the program (about 30 in all) learned leadership skills such as public speaking and how to leave positive and negative feedback. Also, there were guest speakers that were in leadership positions who came and shared there experiences with us and gave us advice on how to avoid some of the pitfalls they had fallen into. There was also a lot of food- not just pizza, but catered meals and outings to nice restaurants.

As a capstone experience, about 15 students in the group went to the Ohio Dental Association Leadership Institute in Columbus, where we got to sit with the leaders of dentistry and see them discuss the issues that are pertinent to the profession. Going down there helped me to realize that we don't have to just sit around and let others make decisions for us, but that through effective leadership we can bring about change for the better.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun- They are planning on doing the program again next year and I would highly reccomend it to those who have the opportunity to participate.

Every once in a while we are driving down the road and we see a tree in full bloom that just takes our breath away. Well, at the local cemetary (Lakeview- actually a historic cemetary) nearly every tree is of this type. They also plant tons of flowers in the spring time, and have an event known ad Daffodil Sunday. Here we are on this day- lots of beautiful trees and a hillside with over 100,000 daffodils. Spring time has definately come to Cleveland. It is so beautiful!

Smiles and Giggles

We've had a great week with a lot of activity. Unfortunately, Evelyn's week has not been so spectacular. She had a doctor's appointment yesterday and we found out that she has three different kinds of skin rashes, constipation, and a respiratory virus. Poor baby! It was also time for four different immunizations. She doesn't seem to let these things get her down though and is still all smiles and giggles between her coughing, sneezing, and straining. I guess she is the glass-half-full kind of person, and since this is the stage when personality starts showing we have high hopes that this laid back attitude is here to stay.


So, without any further ado, we'll get to the pictures:

This picture is to demonstrate the beautiful weather we've been having. We go on walks regularly, and they finally put the nets up at the tennis courts on our block. We even used some of our gift card money (from the baby shower) to buy a small, portable stroller which stays in the car, making it easier than ever to take Evelyn with us.

Here is the car we drove for the better part of this week because somebody backed into ours and it was in the shop getting fixed. We were grateful that they left their name and insurance information. Hooray for honest peopel! It was nice to get our own car back again- this car used as much gas in three days as our car does in a week and a half!

Let the grilling season begin! We are loving our little portable grill- we can take it anywhere, or we can have a good back-yard barbecue as seen in the picture.

On Saturday we went to the Geauga county maple festival after a pancake breakfast at IHOP. They had a parade and a fairgrounds with rides and booths. Here's Rachel eating some delicious apple dumplings with pure maple syrup. Yum!

About two months ago I had purchased a new (used) bike because the other one was stolen. Well, this week that new bike was stolen too- out of our garage. I guess I am learning the hard way that in Cleveland you either lock it or lose it. Let this be a warning to anyone who lives in the area. Anyway, it gave me a good excuse to get another new (used) bike- this time a Trek. We decided that the gas money we save by having me ride is worth the expense. It's a nice bike and I'm excited about it.

Of course we need to include pictures of Evelyn. I think these are the best we have this week. In the top one she is in the middle of one of her cute little squeals. She is growing so fast that it surprised the doctor- twelve and a half pounds now! She is a very happy baby, which makes for two very happy parents. She has quickly worked her way into our hearts and is the joy of our lives.

Our Spring Break

This week has been full of activity since it was my Spring Break. We decided that instead of doing something big (like a road trip) we would stick around and do a lot of little things close by. We figured that with summer just around the corner the big things could wait until it was a little warmer.

So, we started out the week by going to the Zoo on Monday. We saw a lot of animals (go figure), including polar bears, tigers, lions, and seals. Or favorites were the tigers and polar bears. The bears were very active and roaring at each other, and we got some good pictures, but unfortunately we lost our camera.

This was sort of a good thing, because we have needed a new camera for some time now, and losing our other one actually got us to go out and buy a much nicer camera. We found one that can take hours of high quality video besides still shots, which will make it that much easier to document our lives.

On Tuesday I did a pretty good job of convincing Rachel that our car had been stolen for April Fool's Day. It was made even better by the fact that our neighborhood is trying yo start up a neighborhood watch because of burglaries in the area.

This week we also went to Quail Hollow State Park and grilled hamburgers and went hiking. That night they had a bluegrass/country music gathering that was fun to go to. It was sort of like a big jam session for local musicians, and some of them were pretty talented. You could tell that they were having fun, and that in turn made it fun for everyone who was listening.

On Friday we went to the NASA museum here in Cleveland. We each got a turn trying to land a space ship. Rachel did great- she could be an astronaut. I, on the other hand, should never be allowed to go near a functional space craft. It was also cool to see some of the technological advances we can expect in the near future. Our favorite was the new airplane that can take off vertically without any propellers. The name of the plane is STOVL that stands for short take off vertical landing (the footage of the aircraft showed a vertical take off as well as a short take off). Here's a link to a video demonstrating this airplane (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIsIzjVi7j4). NASA is also working on airplanes that are practically silent. That will be a wonderful advance for people that live near airports. That afternoon we went to the Aurora outlets. Rachel and I really enjoy walking around the outlets and 'browsing.'

Rachel started to work again this week. She had two jobs and her calendar is filling up. She has a wonderful job that does not take a lot of time, but she loves doing. Her job allows her to get out and do something she really enjoys without taking a lot of time away from her favorite job... being a mom.

Here are pictures of the week:





Evelyn started giving us some real smiles this week. She has two different kinds- her Big Sesame Street Grin and her Imp Smile. Sometimes she will also give us a big "Ah-Goo" with her smiles. We where excited for this to happen, but I don't think either of us realized how much it could melt our hearts.

These were taken at the NASA museum. The top one is me standing next to a real space entry pod thing. On the bottom, we see Rachel as she skillfully lands a space shuttle on the moon.

Here we are at Quail Hollow. I look like I am in an advertisement for home-grilled hamburgers.

This is our first attempt at putting a video on here. Rachel took this of me and Evelyn while we were at Quail Hollow.