Ford Meets his Namesake

Just before heading in to the cabin for the McKell family trip, we had the chance to introduce Ford to his namesake, Grandpa McKell (Ford's middle name is Eldon, named after Grandpa Eldon McKell). We sure hope that Ford grows up to be the kind, hard working man that we know Grandpa McKell to be.

And of course, we loved getting to spend the afternoon with Grammy and Grandpa along with some cousins.  Goodness, we miss those wonderful Sunday Provo dinners full of family!

 ^^Four generations

Our February trip to Utah

At the beginning of February when Eleanor was just shy of 4 weeks we took a trip to Utah!  It was a crazy, exciting idea.  Aaron was going for a PwC recruiting trip that weekend and we thought we would take the opportunity to introduce Eleanor to family and friends in Utah.  My mom offered to fly out early with me and Eleanor for those first few days and boy was it wonderful to have her there with us.   We tackled security together and I nursed Eleanor as the plane took off.  I then handed her off to my mom and took a nice long nap for the whole plane ride. Best plane ride of my life!

We stayed at Audrey's house for the first few days, soaking up time with her kiddos, who were so adorable with Eleanor.  Remy especially loved watching over the baby.  And my dear mom continued to take shifts with Eleanor during the night, giving me glorious, needed rest as I was still recovering.

^^Oliver: "Do I have to kiss her?  Can I just pretend?"

^^ Meeting Uncle Brad!

While there, we took an afternoon trip up to see Grandma Raty, who Eleanor is named after.  Grandma had cooked us a delicious lunch and it was wonderful as always to catch up with her.  And I will cherish these pictures of her and Eleanor forever.

Utah in February is cold and snowy.  We did our best to keep Eleanor warm with these cute bunting outfits my mom found.  She look like an adorable eskimo!

Aaron flew in Friday and Annie and Austin got to meet Eleanor for the first time.  We said goodbyes to Audrey's family and then went to Provo for the weekend.

We first stayed in a hotel, thanks to P-dub (aka PwC) and Eleanor ended up sleeping in a drawer draped with a blanket because they had run out of cribs.  Aaron then snowboarded and recruited while I got my haircut as Aunt Nie Nie babysat Eleanor.  We then spent the afternoon with Ellen and Gregg Karren and learned then that they are expecting their first baby!  We, of course, changed our plans for sushi as a result of cute baby Karren and got a great Mexican lunch instead.

That night we had all of our freshmen guy friends and their wives over for a BYU game at Grammy and Grandpa McKell's.  It was just like old times and I so loved getting to see all of our dear friends again.  I love every person those guys married and consider them to be my close friends too now.  We were also surprised by a visit from Aaron's aunt, uncle and cousins that night and had fun seeing them ooh and aah over Eleanor.  Grammy and Grandpa were kind enough to let us stay with them and were so cute with Eleanor.  We sure miss living close to them!

I think I reached a peak of exhaustion that Saturday night and was so relieved when Eleanor slept a little longer (4 1/2 hour stretch!).  It was like she knew I needed that extra sleep.

We went to church with our old Aspenwood ward on Sunday and had fun seeing those familiar faces.

Then on Sunday night Aaron and I flew home on separate flights because that was all that had been available.  Despite a longer than planned layover and flying solo for the first time with the babes, it turned out all right.  Eleanor thankfully slept through the whole thing and every person we came across offered to help, including our flight's pilot!  Thank goodness for good people.

It was definitely ambitious to take such a trip when Eleanor was so young and I still wasn't totally recovered.  I think I will opt to stay at home for the first 6 weeks for my next babies, but it is just so hard to turn down an opportunity to see family and friends.  We loved seeing you all!

Brad and Laura Nichols' Wedding and a Whirlwind Weekend

This past weekend, the final BYU accounting amigo got married to his lovely bride and we were able to make it out to the wedding.

A little background first...

Brad, Richard and Aaron (the three accounting amigos as I like to call them) got each other through the BYU accounting program.  Don't let all the accounting stuff fool you though, these three spent plenty of time hanging out and having fun when they were together (after all, it does takes hours of practicing to become foosball champions).  They developed quite the bond through it all and even sported matching "Y" rings at graduation. They now act as each other's cheerleaders as they all study for the CPA tests and start their full time accounting jobs.

I, for one, though am completely thrilled by how this friendship has progressed over time.  In the beginning, Richard and Brad would come over to our Wymount apartment for study sessions and I would be the only female around.  I would make goodies, they would break our dining chairs (we like to tease them about this but those chairs were sooo pathetic that it wasn't their fault really), and Aaron and I would quiz them on their dating. Here are some photos that I've never posted on here...

That time we had lunch with L. Tom Perry (who was an accountant himself!)

The gang hanging out at our apartment.  I actually think this was a meeting Brad and Aaron called to discuss how one of Richard's early dates with Emily went...

 And pretending to be doing some hardcore studying...

 This past year, Richard met, dated and married Emily and what a wonderful addition that was to the gang.  Their wedding was an extremely happy day for the accounting friends but especially me. There finally was another girl in the group!

Then Brad started dating Laura and we had to make sure we approved.  So after a while of me hearing about this mysterious La-ooo-ra (as Aaron and Richard like to call her), we all got together for a summer BBQ.  It just took that one night for the rest of us all (Richard, Emily, Aaron and I) to decide that Laura was the one and that Brad better marry her or else he's crazy.  We hung out again and went on a laser tag group date.  Brad and Laura were engaged by the end of summer and then we all left Provo for full time employment (Richard, Emily, Aaron and I to the South Bay area and Brad to Southern California).

So after two months apart, a wedding was a perfect excuse to all get together.

Richard and Aaron got time off on Friday and we started our (loooong 12 hour) drive to Utah at 1 pm.  Aaron and I got in to my sister Audrey's house in Utah around 3:30 am (soooo tired) and then were up bright and early for the wedding the next day.  Brad and Laura were married in the Draper Temple and had a luncheon and a reception in Lindon.  The wedding was beautiful and the weather was ideal (albeit pretty windy).   Brad and Laura looked so good!

^^Just a tad bit windy.^^

We had one day in Utah and we tried to make the most of it.  In between wedding adventures, we got to spend time with Audrey's family, visit Aaron's mission president, catch up with Grammy and Grandpa McKell along with Annie and Austin and their friends, stop by to chat with Matt and Elizabeth Brigham and then hit up Cafe Rio with Spencer Mun.  We wished we could have hung out with everyone we love so much in Utah but we were pretty short on time.  This just means that we will have to come back and visit soon!

Being in Utah sure made me all sentimental.  We have so many memories there!  And Utah is gorgeous in the fall.  The weather was so beautiful that Saturday that it made me think that Utah is the most ideal place to live (granted, when it snowed on Sunday morning I was reminded of Utah's long winters that I won't be missing as much).  So many people of the people that we love live there.  It's crazy how much Utah became home over the course of these past seven years.

After going to church with Audrey's family Sunday morning, we braved the open roads again and headed back to San Jose.  We made a quick stop to take some (very cold) photos along the freeway but plowed ahead from there.

^^Look at that pregnant woman leap! 7 months pregnant and still got it.^^

We got in at 11 pm Sunday night and we. were. tired. but also so grateful we got to go.

We are grateful that Brad found such a great girl that loves him as much as we all do and grateful that Laura rounds out the accounting friendship (complete with awesome wives now for me to talk to when the boys go off about excel spreadsheets and numbers and sports).

Moving Day

We moved out of our Provo apartment on Wednesday, August 28th and really couldn't have done it without the help of our friends.

We got everything boxed up beforehand and even started saran wrapping our big pieces of furniture.

On Wednesday morning, Aaron went to get the first Ubox (like a pod system where you load it up and then Uhaul ships it to your destination for you).  Boy, are those Uboxes small.  We had two of them so Aaron and the guys really had to play tetris to fit everything in them.   Meanwhile, I manned the inside of the apartment and directed the cleaning.  Thank goodness I was only 20 weeks pregnant or else I don't know if I could have done all the on all fours kind of cleaning that I was doing.  And we couldn't have done it without the help of our neighbor Lauren, who stuck it out till the bitter end with us.

We took our traditional, awkward "stand in the middle of the empty apartment one last time" photo.  See our last move here. 

Leaving an apartment always makes you think about the memories that you created there.  We lived in Aspenwood #2 for a year exactly and in that time we experienced many adventures, some of which I've documented here before on the blog:

Holding mini photo sessions where I practiced using our new camera (here and here)
I turned 25 and Aaron turned 25.
Scenes around the house. (here and here)
Where Aaron did most our dishes (sans a dishwasher) and cooked so many of our meals.
Scenes of daily life, including late night planning/grading sessions for me and accounting studying for Aaron (here and here)
Aaron graduating from BYU.
Nerf gun wars.
Making friends with our neighbors and ward.
Training for a half marathon.
Learning we are having our first baby.
Going on walks around the neighborhood.
Celebrating holidays.
Babysitting our nieces and nephews.

This Aspenwood apartment has been good to us and we will miss the friends that we made here.

We drove out of Provo by 3 pm, which we felt was pretty good timing for an all in one day move.  Thankfully, we just drove to St. George that day and then got to spend a relaxing weekend with Aaron's family before driving the whole way California.  That night, Aaron and I both crashed on the bed and fell asleep fully clothed and with the light on.  It was all exhausting but successful.