Steve's work

Steve is absolutely loving being a dentist.  And I'm loving being married to someone who only works 4 days a week and loves his job.  Steve worked in this dentist mobile for the past 2 days in the parking lot of the local schools.  We went to go visit him.

We frequently go visit Steve's work at lunch time.  We get into all sorts of things and have fun playing "dentist" in the chair.

Kiera recently started preschool (just a co-op we created with a few friends.  She is loving it and so am I. 

Kiera and Lydia have been working on earning bikes for a while now and finally earned them this week.  Kiera had to read 40 level 2 books, and Lydia had to endure 5 minutes of reading lessons 30 times (stickers for each time).  Kiera earned hers just 2 days before Lydia.  Lydia did about 5 reading lessons in 2 days once she saw Kiera on her bike.  They are loving the bikes.  I frequently find them in the garage doing circles around the car.  And I'm happy as can be that they are doing something besides playing with princesses.

Life is good in Macomb Illinois.

Google +

I've sortof dropped off of the blog and facebook world.  If you want to know what's going on with us, you can find me on google+.  It is a blog and facebook combined... oh and throw email in too.   With even more cool features.  I'm a huge fan.
If you want an invite to google+ just let me know.  Until then, enjoy your facebooking and blogging.

Family pictures!

A friend of mine took family pictures for us before we left California.  She did a great job eh?  

 I was hoping for oranges on the trees, but they picked them just a little while before we took pictures.  Oh, well, the orange groves are still pretty.

Home sweet home

Welcome to the grand tour of our new residence.  This is our living room/kitchen.  I'm not especially fond of the fact that anybody who comes to the door can see my messy kitchen, but oh well. 

New flooring and granite counter tops in the kitchen.  The teal wallpaper at the top doesn't really go, but oh well.  Kitchen window still needs some work.

View from kitchen.  We have just about every color of wood that there is in our kitchen and living room.  Once again, oh well.

view from the front door. New carpet.

Included in this picture is the digital piano that Steve got for a graduation present.  Kiera can already play twinkle twinkle.

New sink  toilet and granite countertops in our puke green bathroom

Kiera and Lydia's room.  Someday we'll buy a bed for Kiera...

Playroom downstairs. and a an attached small dark bedroom.  New carpet to come later.

Master bedroom.  Love our new fans in every bedroom

the stairs down to the playroom.  Considering painting the panneling to lighten it up.

Forgot to take a picutre of the front of the house.  Our landlord recently pulled up our sidewalk and pulled out a huge row of bushes so we've got some gravel for a path to our door and we've got big holes where bushes were.  Oh, and we have ZERO trees (like our last house).  All of the other houses on our street have HUGE trees.  I'm so jelous!

Overall, a very good house and a great place to  live.  Steve did a great job finding it. 

Independence day traditions

I've said it before:  I'm big into holiday traditions.  So here are some of our Independence day traditions:

#1  Flag raising ceremony.  Good reminder about why we celebrate.

 Of course we must wear our patriotic attire.
#2 Breakfast at the church. (doesn't ever ward have a breakfast?)

This year came with outdoor activities.  I was glad I caught this cute moment on camera.

Home made root beer.  Ok, our's wasn't that good (Lydia loved it), but it was FUN to make it

White-chocolate dipped frozen banana (with Heath and sprinkles).  Fun to make and eat.

BBQ hottie

Burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob.  Our little All-American meal

Not pictured:  Sparklers, and the city fireworks. Both a hit.  Oh, and new this year:  chasing fireflies.  

Best July 4th in a long time.  What a great day.

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Hurry up and wait

We now officially have a home. Trouble is, it's not ready yet. There are lots of changes being made and problems being fixed before we can move in but we've been promised we can move in by next monday.
Me and the girls game out to be with Steve. If he has to pay for a hotel room anyway we might as well be together.
Kiera and especially Lydia have been very insecure about all of this. Lydia frequently says "I want to go to Lydia's room!". When we went camping while in Utah we walked into my parents' trailer and she said "This is Illinois!!" We pulled up infront of a museum today and she said "is THIS our new house?" She is terribly confused about what is happening and is very clingy. She has also been sucking her thumb a bit and asking for sippy cups (which we were done with 6 months ago). Kiera displays her frustration by screaming.
But it is not all doom and gloom around here. Since we had to be in a hotel anyway, we decided to go somewhere fun. So we've been in St. Louis for the past 5 days. We've been to the Zoo, children's museum, boating, and swimming almost every day.
But we can't wait to get into our house!!!

Homelessness

Just a little update on our new adventure in life. Steve Starts working as a dentist in Illinois next week. We've had housing lined up there for about 3 months. We had found a house (with much difficulty) and we were set to move in this week. We had utilities set up in our name (with deposits), plane tickets for me and the girls to go out after Steve and his brother Kyle had unpacked a bit for us. We had bought and sold furniture/appliances according to our needs in that house, etc.. But the day before our moving truck came our future landlord called and informed us that after she had moved to her new location, she discovered that the internet was too slow. So she was no longer willing to rent the house to us because she wanted to move back in.
This would not be a huge problem somewhere else (just the $1000+ lost money of various sources). But in middle-of-nowhere Illinois it is a big problem to try to find decent housing. We've been working on it for a week from a distance with no success. Our stuff arrives there on the 13th and steve is leaving tomorrow to seek housing for us (so much for Moab plans). It is very possible that he won't find anything available for a while in which case we girls will stay here in Utah until he does. Far from ideal, but we'll manage. A bump in the road on the road of life.

Steve is Graduated!

May 29, 2011 Steve's Graduation

Steve's important and MORE important awards

Today I attended an awards ceremony for Steve's dental school class.  There were quite a few awards given out for all sorts of different achievements (academics, skills, service, etc.).  Steve got an award from the California Maxiofacial Surgery something-or-other which included $250 which is always good.  Basically, that translates to the fact that he is great at pulling teeth. 
But as I sat through the long and boring ceremony and listened to the awards for hundreds of hours of this or that or perfect GPAs  I thought to myself that Steve did something far greater with his time than all of his classmates:  He was present as a husband and father in our home.  He didn't spend every waking hour studying or trying to make a more impressive resume.  He ate dinner with us every night, was there for bedtime prayers, stories, and singing.  He doesn't get something to hang on his wall, $, cheering from classmates, or to shake hands with someone important for this; but I want to recognize him now for it.
Steve,  we three Nelson girls appreciate the fact that you've been part of our lives for the past 4 years of dental school.  Thanks for prioritizing us over excelling to the max.  You are still an absolutely WONDERFUL dentist.  This is your Husband/Daddy  dentist of the year award.

Some of our final weeks.

Steve has had no class for the past 2 weeks of school (since he finished his clinic work early).  So we've been trying to intermingle fun with packing. We went to see some gardens.  My girls LOVE flowers.

 Toilet paper projects of what my girls want to be when they grow up:  a dentist and a nurse.  (note boxes in the background)

Just cute girls.

At 1 of like 7 graduation meals we've attended thus far.  

On the day we took family pictures.  Good thing it comes off.

Going to Steve's school to say goodbye to everyone.

The beach!  Kiera loved the water so much.  She danced in and sang to the waves for a full 40 minutes.  She is now the princess of the sea.