Catch Up!

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in awhile.  I think about it but by the time I remember a lot of time has pasted.  I need to try and be better.  I think that is going to be a new goal of mine.

Well, I guess it is time for an update since July Taylor received all of his clearance(s) to finally get to work.  He loves working down here.  The only thing he doesn't like is the travel time to and from work but he says being at work makes it worth it.  He actually just received his review of his progress and all of his co-workers said that he got an excellent review so that makes us happy, especially him that his hard work is being recognized.  I am often asked if it is hard for me to not know what he does at work, I just have to say I am used to it because my Dad's company has a government contract too, so it doesn't bother me.  Taylor and I have talked about it a few times and he says it is nice because when he is at work it is all about work and then when he comes home he doesn't have to think about anything and it is just his family.  So it is good to know that he gets to enjoy us when he is home.

Lance has gotten very big.  Since July he has learned a lot and the scar on his head looks a lot better.  He celebrated his 2nd birthday in October with some friends of ours that lived here.  We are so glad that our friends were able to come and Lance enjoys playing with their kids.  He received a tent and tunnel from his Nana, Papa, and Uncle Skyler and he loved it.  Since then he has just been a busy little boy.  He loves to test our patience I have decided.  He loves to sit and have books read to him.

For me nothing new has really happened for me.  I am a stay at home mom and for me it is hard because I like to stay busy and I get tired of having to stay busy by cleaning the house all the time.  We found out in August that we were expecting another baby.

In September we found out that we would be able to go back to Idaho for Thanksgiving, we decided that we would not tell my mom and surprise her for her birthday since it was that week.  Surprisingly enough we actually pulled it off and my mom was really shocked to see us.  We were also able to surprise my Grandma June.  The weeks leading up to our trip our families asked us several time, mostly mine, when we would be able to find out what we were having and we told them that we wouldn't be able to get an ultrasound until after Thanksgiving week.  We actually found out the day before we left that we would be expecting a little girl.  We saved this information to surprise everyone else.  They were all excited to find out that we would have a girl.

For Christmas Taylor, Lance, and I celebrated by ourselves.  It was different not having family.  My parents were able to come see us the day after Christmas for a couple days.  Then a few days after my parents left Taylor's parents and Skyler came to visit us.  With Taylor's parents and Skyler we went to Tournament of the Kings, Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, but Skyler wasn't very happy that we were in the bad guys section, he was not going to cheer for the bad guy.

Now with the new year started we are working on potty training Lance.  Hopefully we can get that done before the baby comes in April.  I guess we will see.

Things Since We Have Been In Vegas

Well, the nice thing about where we live is that we have so many things close to use.  I can walk about a block and a half or so and there is a plaza that has Target, Bath & Body Works, Marshall's, Micheal's, Pier 1, PetSmart, Krispy Kreme, a dentist office, a Verizon store, and a few more places.  Then there is another little plaza about the same distance and it has Lowe's, Home Goods, Fed Ex, a Game Stop (Taylor likes that but I am glad that he understands we are on a budget still), there are a few more things in that one too.  Across the street from that plaza is the hospital where we went for Lance's head, and a few check-ups.  That is all within about a 10 minute or so walking distance.  A mile from our house we have a Super Walmart, Home Depot, Ross's, PetCo, Home Consignment Store, Sam's Club, and a few other places in that plaza.  Also within about a mile in a different area we have a Neighborhood WalMart. 

One of Lance's favorite things is to go and play at the parks.  We have one that is in walking distance which is really fun.  Here are some pictures.

We also have another park that is near us that has water shooting from the ground.  It is a little bit further way so we drive to that one.

I will update a little more when I don't have Lance trying to shut off my computer.

Visitors

We are now settled into our new house in Las Vegas and things are slowing down.  Taylor has had his clearance for about six weeks or so.  Now we are waiting for Taylor to get his Access which will allow him to actually start to do what he came here for.  We have really grown to love our new home and we really enjoy the area.

We have had lots of visitors too.  My parents helped us move down and get settled.  Then, I went home for a week for one of best friend's wedding and to be with our families.  Taylor wasn't able to go home because of work.  My sister Nicki and her husband Matt were able to come visit us about three weeks after I got home from visiting Pocatello.  It was nice to have them here so I could have something to do while Taylor was at work.  Our last visitors were about two weeks after Nicki and Matt, it was Taylor's mom, grandma and his sister Raegan.  They cam down for Raegan's birthday present.  Her mom treated her to a show down here.  We were all able to go to Phantom of the Opera, which was amazing, I recommend it to anyone who wants to see a show in Las Vegas.  

Raegan and Tricia also went to Jersey Boys and they said it was a great show, you just have to be prepared for the New Jersey language.  

While Taylor's family was here we went swimming one day and Lance threw his ball through the fence and decided that he wanted it and started running to the gate to try and open it but as he was running he slipped or tripped over his feet and hit the pole that was by the gate and split his head open.  So we had to run to the ER to get his head checked out and get it taken care of.  Lance had to have five stitches in his head.  Now he has a matching scar to his cousin Sheldon.  His new nickname with my family is Scarface II. 

Lance after we were admitted and waiting for the Doctor.  I finally got him calmed down.

This was after the Doctor came and informed me that his cut would have to be stitched up.  Lance doesn't like doctors anymore.  He has been to the children's clinic here a few times and he cries every time.

This is after the doctor and his nurse stitched him up.  The swelling is from the stuff they numbed Lance's head with.

This is Lance's head a day or two after the stitches were taken out.  It looks really good.

 The rest of the visit from Taylor's family was great.  I am so thankful for all of our visitors because it has helped my homesickness.  Thank you everyone and I love you all very much.  Keep visiting.

Long Time

Well I know that it has been awhile since my last post and in that post I mentioned trying to get caught up,  I don't think that I will be doing that since more than 6 months have past.  I am really bad at this blog thing apparently.  I don't know if there is much that I can update on in the past 6 months besides Lance turning 1 and the fact that Taylor got a job for when he graduates in May and we will be moving to Vegas.  I am a little excited about the move but nervous at the same time.  I don't know how I will handle it being away from all of my family and everything I have known for well my whole life.  We have had a few ups and downs getting to this point.  We have both realized that packing up everything in our house is our least favorite activity.  I am so worn out by the time I get home from work that I don't want to do it and well we are both lazy.  Hopefully the unpacking will be a little bit more exciting.  Let's hope.  

Well I decided I will talk a little bit about the things that I haven't shared from the past 6 months.  Lance's 1st birthday was pretty hectic.  We wanted my family and Taylor's family to enjoy the experience but we knew how hard it is to coordinate things and since Lance's birthday is two days after my nephew Luke we decided for my family we would do his birthday and Luke's birthday at the same time with my family.  Knowing how big my brother-in-law's family is we thought it best to do a party in Soda with Taylor's family.  We were lucky enough to have Muga and Papa Lynn (Mitch's parents) there.  We were very excited because Taylor and I don't get to see them very often.  It was a really small party since it only ended up being Taylor's parents, his dad's parents and Skyler, but it was way fun.  Lance of course didn't care much about what he got, but it is a great experience remembering him and the day he arrived to our little family. Maybe I will post these pictures when I get a little bit more time (more like after I get settled into our new place).

Halloween.  Lance was a monkey this year and he made a pretty cute monkey.  He was really excited to find out that People would just give him candy.  He is a Brown through and through, he loves his sweets.  We also spent Halloween with some friends and played games.  It was a very long night if I remember correctly.

Between Halloween and Thanksgiving I believe was the time that we found out that Taylor would be working for JT3 a company down in Vegas area that works with the Air Force.  This job offer also meant that we would have to move.

I guess the next thing would be Thanksgiving.  For Thanksgiving we spent that with Taylor's family at Bear Lake.  It was fun like always.  I love to spend time with them.  My parents decided that they would ditch us for Thanksgiving and go to Disneyland with my sister and her family.  I of course was really jealous of this because that made it twice that I haven't been able to go.  

Next is Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve and morning at Taylor's parents house with all of Taylor's siblings.  We woke up at about 7:00 to open presents.  Lance and his cousin Carter had a lot of fun playing the boxes of the presents.  Lance even enjoyed playing in the popcorn container with the little bit of popcorn that we didn't eat.  We have some pictures of this that I will have to post if I can find them.  Taylor's parents and sister-in-law tried to get the boys to stay in a room so that we could try and do other things but of course if you know Lance he doesn't like TV and he must have figured that we were all doing other things so he of course and to go and find some trouble to get into.  I believe at some point this was the day that he played with Taylor's phone in the toilet.  For some reason no matter how many times we have told Taylor's family you have to make sure that the doors to the bathroom were closed they didn't. 

New Year's Eve.  For New Year's Eve we spend another night playing games with friends again.  We have enjoyed playing games with friends, it is a good thing that we have some friends that are moving to Vegas for work too.  Of course like most times Lance feels the need to be into everything even when it isn't our house.  We were trying to play a game and he kept pulling things off of our friends' pantry shelves and then finally when I was about to tell Taylor that we should go Lance decided to fall asleep.  Thank heavens.

On to February.  I can't really think of much that happened in February.  There was Valentine's Day that we spent with some friends that invited us over to have fish and crab.  I was more excited about the crab, for all those that know me know that I don't like fish too much.  We also celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary (well not quite our anniversary, we have our actual anniversary next year.  What do you expect when you get married on leap day).  This was also probably the saddest month that we have had as a married couple.  We announced to our family the weekend before Valentine's Day that we were expecting our second child.  Come a few weeks after that when I went in for my first appointment with the doctor we found out that there wasn't a heartbeat.  It took Taylor and I a minute to let this sink in and then began the hardest day that we have had.  By the end of the day we had accepted that God wasn't ready for us to have this child yet.

March.  Well this was the actual month that we found out that we had a child that wasn't quite ready for us to have yet.

April.  This is the month that we had our trip to Vegas to find a place to live and for Taylor and his class to go to NAB (big electronic convention,  I like to call it the Nerd Convention).  We looked at a lot of places with our friends who are moving down and Taylor and I couldn't seem to agree on a place until finally we walked into a place and we both said that it was it.  So we signed the papers and sent money for the townhouse that will be our house.  We are excited for this new adventure but nervous at the same time.

Well I think I am all caught up.  I will try to add photos of these things when I can.