Fall 2012

So I've been horrible at writing here lately, but our fall has been nice and now that November is here, it's finally cooling down! Gorgeous weather and Christian finishing finals coincided perfectly leaving us with a two and a half week break starting last Wednesday. Dental school so far has been awesome and we love our life in Arizona. Some highlights since the summer:

• Both sets of grandparents plus Samuel and Porter made visits to Arizona in October.
• Claire is now talking all the time although we only understand a small portion of it. Her sentences go something like, "Mommy (mumble mumble) Da-tee (mumble) siiide" [meaning outside]. Or asking every ten minutes "Wha puppy?" (Where's puppy) "memo" (Elmo) or pointing to the TV and saying "show". Those are some of her favorite topics but her vocab is ever-expanding.
• Claire still has some favorite signs (real or made-up) she prefers instead of enunciating certain words including: fishie, all-done, I want to color a picture, more, and milk.
• She has recently started stringing more words together including sentences like "Thank you mommy" and "buh-bye guck" (duck)
• Baby Clark (about 99% sure that will be his name) is growing, healthy, and very active. I watch my belly morph with his crazy movements daily.
• I have felt wonderful and have stayed more active than I did with Claire (because I have more time, motivation, and nicer morning fall temps than in Utah.) I've stayed leader of my ward running group with a couple short/easy runs a week and walking one or two days beyond that.
• 29 weeks with two and a half months to go!!

27 weeks, 5 days. I'm biased but I think he is so cute!!!!

                     Above: furrowing his brow. I forget they make those little newborn faces right now!

                                                           A ladybug, butterfly, and butterfly catcher

New Family Pics

In July at the Johnson Family reunion (my mom's side) we took group pics and then individual family shots.  They turned out so great! My families' friend Jocelin took them. Here are ours:

And last but not least, our soon-to-be new addition, 

little boy Bennion:

Last weeks of summer vacation

Now that Christian is back into the routine of school and Claire and I are too, looking back we can't believe how long and fun our summer break was! Lake Powell was August's highlight. We camped and boated with friends and thankfully Claire was relatively wonderfully behaved!

Before we left, we realized Claire isn't too big for the sink!

Claire loved rolling in the sand and thus ended up with a sandbox on her scalp.

Bocce ball on the beach

Some of our wonderful friends and their family that made the trip down.

Sadly I have no pictures of time on the boat, but that's where we spent 85% of our daytime. The boat's canopy and the breeze made the 95 degree weather bearable and the water was perfect! Tubing, boogie boarding and wake-boarding were so fun - even for a pregnant lady! We had such a wonderful summer but we're ready for fall now - bring it on!

It's a.....

Boy! We think. Give us another month and another ultrasound and we'll let you know with more certainty. Oh and to back up, in case you didn't know we're pregnant! Due Jan. 23rd, this baby - whether boy or girl - will be almost exactly two years younger than little Claire. I have felt great (morning sickness started to get better at 9 weeks - amazing!) and even trained a little through the first trimester as I prepared for a 10k which I ran at almost 14 weeks. It's all still sinking in but we're getting more excited by the week.


In other news, we just returned from a whirlwind five week vacation to L.A., St. George, Provo-area/Salt Lake, and Island Park, ID/Yellowstone. It was so fun and filled with family, friends and events that it flew by. Since this blog is my family scrapbook, here are pictures for posterity's sake:

 Loungin' on the Marriott's lawn for Fourth of July

Recognize those stairs? Maybe Claire will walk up them someday as she goes to study on the fourth floor. I love my alma mater.

I took Claire to my college residence - Monticello. Maybe she'll carry on the tradition someday. Her Aunt Laura and Grandma and Grandpa Bennion lived there too. And Claire and Aunt Sam had lots of fun making faces on her phone. She loves her Aunties.

We loved getting to spend so much time with John, Ida, Jonah and baby Mae! 

The cabin we got to stay at in Island Park.  

 Yep, that's Old Faithful in the background...and Oreo on Claire's face.

Gettin ready for family pics 

 My Grandma's Wedding dress. They had their 50th Wedding Anniversary. 

We turned around after the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days parade and saw Claire and Jonah cooperatively eating a sucker. He'd take a lick and then feed it to Claire. Those two are little buddies. It was so fun to see them play and to hear Jonah cry excitedly when he saw her, "Hi Cairrre!"

Grandma, after much persuasion, got Claire to sit on her lap. Love you Grandma and Grandpa Furse!!!

Such a wonderful vacation but glad to be back in our home - and happy to have Christian home with us another few weeks until school starts again. He had the whole summer off (only time that will happen probably ever) after he took the boards in June which he passed! We had to wait the whole vacation for the scores because it came in the mail the day we left but so happy to know he did well.