After over two months of non-stop vacation we are finally starting to settle down and get back into a routine. It's been a wild ride. We have moved across the country. We have visited lots of friends and extended family. We have had a great time. Our kids think that Grandma and Grandpa Hazard are part of our immediate family (and they still ask when they are going to "come home.") And now, finally, we are in a place where we can stop and take a few quick breaths of relaxation before we move on to the next step.

For me, this week has been interesting as I have been trying to find my place in my new job. I am officially a dentist in Washington now and I have even treated a few patients so far. And I have to say that it is nice (at least to our bank account) being able to start work a little bit earlier than we had originally anticipated. As good as things are, there are still some parts of my job that come with a bit of stress. Most of these come from my obvious youth and inexperiance in "real world dentistry." I am doing my best to be honest and humble while talking with others while at the same time exerting a confidence and poise that I am not sure I really feel. I do, however, feel like things are going well and that after a few weeks for everyone to get "broken in" I will fit very nicely into the way the practice works.

Rachel is also getting used to the new area and is already starting to find fun things to do with the kids. On Friday she went to a play group thing, and on Saturday she took Evelyn to a parade up in Rathdrum. Our kids are slowly starting to understand that this is their new home and that a routine is being established again that will hopefully be in place for a long time.

Here's Rachel and Evelyn at the parade. Evelyn was very excited about her bag of candy (which has now been in our car for over 24 hours and is pretty much all melted.)

Welcome to Post Falls!

When we moved to Cleveland we did a post about all of the changes that were going on. Well, this week we will do the same. Here is what happened in the last month or so:

I graduated from Dental School

I got my first real job

Rachel finished up her job in Cleveland as an interpreter

We said goodbye to a lot of really good friends in Cleveland

We moved across the country to an area that Rachel had never seen until we drove in with a moving truck.

We are looking for a house to buy

We were homeless for a month as we were waiting to move into our new rental place

We went on a major family vacation to Mexico

We officially became residents of the great state of Idaho

I started work

We found out that we are going to have another baby

What! That's right. We are having another one. We are so excited. Rachel is about 7 weeks along right now. She has been pretty sick with this one, but things are looking better. Evelyn will be turning four around the time they are born so she should be a big help. Addy and Jack will be about two-and-a-half, so they should be able to keep life interesting for us. People wonder if we want a boy or a girl (as if our desires have anything to do with it). Our response: Just one or the other, please. We might end up going crazy if we have twins again!

On a different note, we had a wonderful, crazy week this week. Last Saturday we loaded up our stuff from my parent's house in Rexburg, put everyone in the car, and made the seven hour drive up to Post Falls and our new home. My mom also came with us to help with the move and to hang out with us for the week.

The move itself went very smoothly. Last Sunday we introduced ourselves to our new ward. The next day, 11 guys, 5 trucks, and one 20' trailer magically showed up to help us get our stuff out of storage and into our new place. It took 40 minutes to do the complete move-out and move-in. Amazing.

We spent the next few days playing and exploring our new town when the kids were awake. When they went to sleep we would unpack boxes and clean things up. At this leisurely pace we were able to get the last box unpacked by Thursday morning.

Later on Thursday my dad and Grandma/Grandpa Hazard came up to visit us. We spent Friday and Saturday just hanging out and playing. They will go to Sacrament meeting with us today and then head back to Rexburg. For the first time in about two months, it will be just our family again. I have to say that it has been wonderful to have all of the help and that we have loved getting to spend time with everyone, but I am really looking forward to being just us again.

I have written on here before about how amazing the place is where we are living so I won't go there again. Suffice it to say that we are happy to be here. I think it will be a fun place for our kids to grow up.

Also, on Thursday I started my first day of work! It actually wasn't "work" for me since it was mostly a training day. My license won't come in until next week so I couldn't actually see any patients yet, but it was good to go to the office and become familiar with how everything worked and stuff.

Honestly, I was super nervous to start work. Only part of this came from the fact that I no longer would have the safety-net that the school provided in terms of being able to bail you out of trouble. The biggest thing for me though, was learning to work with a staff. I just graduated from dental school and they have been doing this for years. Yet, when I go into the office I am expected to be "the boss."

After spending time in the office, however, all of my worries were put to ease. The staff is great and I could easily see myself falling right into my role as the doctor. As I was shadowing the other Dr. I actually got really excited about being able to do dentistry again. Things are good. Actually, things are great.

Actually, I don't think things could get any better. Things are perfect. Perfect job, perfect house, perfect location, perfect, perfect, perfect.

...It makes me nervous, but for now we will just revel in the moment .

Last night we went rock climbing. We timed it- the climbing place is exactly 5 minutes from our house. We went at 7:00 and climbed for two hours. I think I am in love with this place.

My dad and Rachel, just enjoying the beautiful weather.

I am proud of this picture that I got of Rachel doing a difficult move. I am a good photographer. Oh- and she is a good climber.

My dad came and belayed the whole time. It was fun to go climbing with my him. He is the one who taught me to love the rock. I have a lot of good memories of climbing with him. And he is the best belayer I have ever had.

Grandpa and Addy on the swing (right after she had fallen off of the swing).

Grandpa Great and Jackson. These two are good friends.

We did the Mudgy-and-Millie trail. This is the statue at the park. I was actually in a lot of pain for this picture. Just before it was taken, Evelyn accidentally jabbed me in the eye with her finger. It was actually enough to send me to the doctor. It turns out she tore my cornea. Thanks Ev. It is now 3 days later and my eye still sort of hurts, but it should be completely healed within the next couple of days.

More pictures of the Mudgy-and-Millie trail. This is a trail that follows a children's story written about Coeur d'Alene. In the story, a Moose and a Mouse play hide-and-seek throughout the down-town area. Bronze statues were erected in each of the places that they went and it provides a nice walking tour of the area.

Here's a video tour of our new house. Also, you can see my new car (a little bit) and our new furniture.

What a crazy few weeks we have had. I know it's been a while since I did a real post, and now I am pretty far behind. Because of this, I am doing this post in the most efficient way possible. Pictures.

But before we look at them, lets put first things first. Before you read any further, you need to click on these links: (Link 1) (Link 2). They are family pictures. My sister, Allison, just opened her own photography business and I must say she does a great job. While we were in Rexburg she took some family pictures for us and we absolutely love them. Thanks Al.

Okay, the next great even was the two-three weeks we spent in Rexburg. Sadly, we don't have too many pictures of this, but we had tons of fun. From racquetball to swimming to shotgun shooting, every day had some sort of activity that we did. Also, I must mention the carousel. Evelyn loved the carousel. That is ALL that she wanted to do. When my dad told her that he had to go to work instead of take her to the carousel she verbalized her complete understanding in this simple sentence: "You will go to work and make money and so when you come home you can pay for me to go on the carousel."

Spoiled little girl. She loves grandma and grandpa!

And then there's Mexico. At this point I'm going to start getting into some pictures.

So these pictures aren't really in any specific order. We went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with Rachel's family and stayed in a resort hotel and did all of the fun Mexico tourist things. It was seriously tons of fun. In these first two pictures we are seeing Rachel learning how to train and command dolphins. Unfortunately she was not allowed to ride on them because she wasn't feeling well that day, but I think she had a lot of fun interacting with them from the little underwater platform.

Oh- also, she got kissed by a seal. Apparently the breath smelled very strongly of raw fish. Go figure. While Rachel and most of her family were playing with marine mammals, Brandon and I decided to pursue a different adventure: Zip-lilning. I don't have any pictures to offer as proof, but we did a zip-line tour of the nearby jungle. The highest one we did was over 900 feet off the ground, and the longest was just over a quarter mile. We did 14 lines in all and ended up at a nice little Mexican restaurant.

Here's a picture that someone took of our private beach that was attached to the resort. Beautiful.

I had to include this picture even though it is a little bit fuzzy. There was this little restaurant on the resort that sold a full menu of crepes at night time. I know, I know, crepes are hardly considered Mexican fare, but they were pretty good, and it didn't take long for it to become a very popular hang-out for our family. I am pretty sure that somebody (or several somebodies) went there every day of our trip.

This is on our boat tour. It was a small group and on the way out we had the whole top-deck to ourselves (this was also probably due to the fact that they had an open-bar downstairs and we were the only ones who didn't drink alcohol). Well, things got pretty crazy up there without any alcohol anyway.

Here we are on that boat again. It took us out to a beautiful area to go snorkeling and we got to spend sufficient time in the water to see a lot of cool marine life. I love the color of the water here- it is turquoise and clear. After the snorkeling we went to a beautiful beach and swam, lounged, and ate pie. Then the boat picked us up again and we had a good fun lunch on the way back.

One of the days we took a city tour. A bus brought us all over Puerto Vallarta and then we ended up at this Mexican place with awesome-yet-over-priced food.

This picture was taken during the city tour, but in the back you can see the place where we went snorkeling on the mini-cruise that we did.

This picture was taken at the large street-market that lies in the middle of downtown Puerto Vallarta. It was fun to look at all the things for sale and to bargain for those that we wanted. I feel like we did pretty good and we got away with some great deals (no Mexican blankets though :)

On a different day, Marissa, Wesley, Rachel, and I caught a taxi back to this place to spend a full afternoon. We ate at a little Mexican place that was delicious and we had fun roaming the streets of the town. Although I have no pictures of this, I actually consider it one of the highlights of our trip.

Here's a picture that someone took from our balcony (which, by-the-way, had a private swimming pool on it). It's all very nice. My only question- why go to a swimming pool when you have a private beach with an ocean just a few steps further? I'm just sayin'...

Ah- the carousel. I don't think Evelyn even knew we were gone (even though she looks sort of freaked-out in this picture I can promise that she was having fun).

I know it's been a while since I posted on here and I am sure that all of my loyal readers are just dying to get their weekly Logan-and-Rachel fix. I know- it's a rough life.

However...

I am currently on a lovely vacation in Mexico.

Keep waiting, dear readers. Keep waiting.

Adios!

Happy Father's Day!

As a father's day present to myself I am not going to spend the time to write our blog this week. After all, what could possibly compare with these pictures?

I am the luckiest dad in the world!

The sun is glimmering on a warm breezy Fourth of July in Simi Valley California. My dad came out with the kite and a full size American flag so that we could 'fly' the red, white, and blue. The four of us very carefully helped Dad attach the flag to our six foot kite, and all of us very carefully spread out the flag to lift it gracefully in the air without letting any part of it touch the ground. I remember watching that flag and thinking about how cool my family was. I also remember all of us running around like crazy people when we brought the kite/flag down. The good news? The flag never touched the ground, and none of the kids had any major collisions.

Why the kite story? Because this week Logan and I took our kids out with my family and our kites. As the story illustrates, my family does not fly kites like normal families. We still have our favorite six foot kite (it is definitely much smaller than I remember) along with 50 foot streamers that we attach to the back. My favorite kite 'toy' is our homemade parachutes. All you need is a paper clip, bandana, heavy string, and a weight (my family always used spare metal nuts because they already have holes and are easy to attach). Find the center of the bandana and attach the paperclip. Then, tie equal lengths of string to each corner of the bandana. Finally, tie the weight where all four strings meet. Then the fun begins.

Our kite has more string than any kite I have ever seen. This is important for this next part. Now, you take the parachute and attach the paper clip to the string (the paperclip needs to be bent to an upside down V so that it can easily detach itself from the string). Then you walk or run the parachute down the string. Run as far as you want. Stop. Let go. Have the kite flier flick the string. Watch and laugh as your three very small children run in circles like crazy people to catch the parachute. I think my parents created parachutes to entertain their children for hours and to provide even better entertainment for themselves.

Also, our kite flying adventures almost always ended with searching frantically to find something we lost. In this case it was the treasured kite. Yes. The kite detached itself from the string and flew off into the neighborhoods beyond our sight. The good news? Brandon, Wesley and Marissa hunted it down and rescued it. That kite still has many more adventures left.

This week started out in Utah with our impromptu vacation extension. Evelyn, Jack and Addy had a lot of much anticipated one-on-one time with Grandma Wendy. Logan and I also had a great double date with Marissa and Wesley. We went bowling and had a fun time. We played 'skittle' bowling where the color you choose corresponds with how you bowl that frame. Then we went to Yogurt Planet to the frozen yogurt bar (I am now addicted to these places!).

On Tuesday morning we packed up our kids and drove to Rexburg. This was the point that I realized how thankful I really am that Grandma and Grandpa Hazard took our three kids on an airplane so that we did not have to drive across the country with them. It would have been a looong trip...

This week we went to the Rexburg splash park. I recognized something that I haven't quite been able to put my finger on. Adalie has absolutely no fear when she is somewhere that she is familiar with (this probably means stitches or broken bones sometime soon), and Jackson is an adventurer in new situations. He took off giggling and bouncing with his arms going crazy as soon as we put him down. Adalie took tiny tip toe steps over to the edge, then she stood there with a very worried expression and her arms flapping like a nervous bird. Completely different than her normal 'no fear' self. It is so important to not label kids (I recognize that this post goes against that logic, but bear with me). I think it is impossible to not recognize eccentricities and personality traits, but it is important to let these labels be flexible so kids have room to grow, develop and change.

Jackson loves dirt. We planted the garden this week at the Hazard home. Jackson loved weeding, digging, moving dirt, stomping in the dirt, and organizing the plants. All of us got into the action and had a great time planting and playing in the dirt.

Logan and I also took the opportunity to go on a date. We went to see Water for Elephants, then we took a 1.5 hour walk around Rexburg together. We ended our walk at Twizlberry (a frozen yogurt bar of course!). It was a pretty perfect date.

Yesterday we had a great end of the week party at the zoo. For the past 3 weeks Evelyn has been praying that we could go to the zoo, and she has been thanking God for the zoo. Hooray for the Boonshoft pass because the Idaho Falls Zoo was free and we had a wonderful time. Thanks for the encouragement Evelyn.

Time goes by so fast. This week we began a trip down memory lane. We have started the process of writing our first edition of The Hazard Chronicles. We are chronicling our dating, engagement, wedding, and first two years of married life. We decided to create a new blog where we could post these stories. We will be updating frequently for those who are interested. Our blog address is http://www.thehazardstory.blogspot.com/

Isn't this boy cute??? Too bad he doesn't EVER sit still long enough to get a good picture. Many people have followed him around and tried. I mentioned this to Logan and he said 'watch,' and this was the first picture he took. I still maintain that it was easier because he was buckled in place!

Evelyn loves the flamingos. This was the highlight of her trip.

These were some pictures of our gardening adventures. All of the kids were great workers. I think Evelyn was trying to grow a rootbeer tree in the last picture!

My birthday was on May 18th and I was on the road with Logan. We decided to celebrate my birthday with the kids. The kids had no idea what day it was anyway! We had a great time, and I got a lot of presents from the kids that make me think of them (a card with a dog on it from Jack that he refused to put down, a container of three balls from Adalie, and a bright pink purse and a pink flamingo from Evelyn).

Jackson got his first haircut at a real salon because the attachment to our clippers has been temporarily misplaced with the move...

As many of you know, we have been using this blog to create a hardbound book every year titled "The Hazard Chronicles." We created this blog in 2007 and we have hardbound copies of 2008, 2009, and 2010. Logan ordered our 2007 book yesterday. Today we have begun the process of creating a book titled "The Hazard Chronicles: Our Story." This one will be a little bit different. We are looking back and writing about ourselves before marriage, when we met, our dates, our wedding, and the first two years of marriage. We have created a new blog for these stories where we will probably update pretty frequently. Here is the new address

www.thehazardstory.blogspot.com