The Hazard Chronicles

After reading this post make sure you scroll down and read the next two. These last couple of weeks we have been on vacation so we haven’t written much, but today we made up for it in the form of extra posts. Enjoy!

This week has been so much fun! On Monday we made the harrowing journey through three airports back to our home in Cleveland. I started school again on Tuesday and have been falling back into the groove of things. One word about school- It is almost over! As exciting at that thought is, we are also a little nervous because that means that I have to go out and find a real job. Next year at this time I will be a full-fledged dentist. Sort of cool. Sort of scary.

Rachel and I both feel strongly that we should ultimately move to Coeur d’Alene Idaho. The thoughts and feeling leading to this decision are a whole other story that I won’t write about here, but basically, we know that this is where our family will be established. Now the hard part is finding a job that will allow us to follow through with these feelings. We have been looking and have come across a few prospects, but none that are super promising. So, I guess we’ll keep our eyes open and hope to recognize the right opportunity when it comes. In the mean time, I am working hard to get things done at school so I can actually graduate. I am starting to feel the pressure to finish up with requirements and such.

On Saturday I became an old man. I turned 28 years old. I remember when I was on my mission I was doing some math and figured that I would probably get my first real job when I was 28. Well, now it’s here. It’s amazing that it doesn’t seem like that much time has gone by, but then I look at everything that happened between then and now and it seems like a lot.

For my birthday Rachel got me two things. The first was a trolley tour of the city of Cleveland! This is something we have been wanting to do for some time but have never had the time (or money) to go on. Well, we finally did it and it was totally worth it. Cleveland is such a cool place and has a lot of neat history. For example, we saw a church with a secret tunnel that was a final stop along the Underground Railroad. From Cleveland, the escaped slaved would make their way across the lake to Canada for their ultimate freedom. We also saw the site of an old Italian restaurant that was owned by the one and only Chef Boyardee. A lot of other cool things too- but you’ll have to go on the tour to learn about them all.

The second part of my birthday present is a surprise and you’ll have to wait until next week to find out what it is.

As far as the kids go, they are great. I just want to write a little bit about Jack here. That little man deserves some space on this blog. You see, he is sort of a shrimpy kid. He isn’t even on the growth curve, and he frequently crawls out of his pants because he has no hips. For this reason he is sort of picked on. Especially by Addy. She knows how to use her larger stature to get things from Jack, and the poor little guy can’t really do much about it.

Until now. Watch out world. Jack Man has come into his own.

First off, he stunned us all by scaling the play-ground equipment at the Children’s museum. Not even Evelyn could do that without help, and he made it look easy. That boy is a crazy monkey! But the best was earlier today when him and Addy were “playing.” Suddenly we hear a loud wail from our little girl and we look over to see that Jack had taken her bottle and was actually taunting her with it by holding it up above her while at the same time holding her to the floor so she couldn’t get it. This is the first malicious behavior we have seen from him, and I have to say I was a little bit glad to see him able to hold his own.

But then he took it to a whole new level. A while later we heard another unearthly cry from Adalie. We looked over again to see Jack with this maniacal grin on his face as he gouged his fingers into her eyes which she was desperately struggling to protect. The best is that when we noticed he just dug deeper and actually started giggling. He was very pleased with himself to say the least. As for me and Rachel- I think we are in for it. This could be the beginning of a very, very long rivalry.


This is after making "bear" (brownies) with Evelyn and her boyfriend, Josh.
Here we are on the trolley tour. Thank you, Rachel, for a very happy birthday!

Addy and Jack are just happy to be home.