Monday, December 12, 2011

Happy Birthday Nolan!

Our little man turned one year old on November 28th. With Dave leaving that night to take his second round of boards and considering we had just moved to Oklahoma a couple weeks before and didn't have any friends or family nearby, we just had a simple little party.

Nolan did some modest damage to his cake, but enjoyed every bit of it. 
He was all business and never cracked a smile.


Aly, on the other hand, was all smiles. She could hardly contain her 
excitement all day in anticipation of cupcakes.


It seems impossible that it has been a whole year since we welcomed little Nolan into our lives. He has brought us so much joy with his sweet little personality and those big dimpled smiles he flashes. We feel so blessed to be his parents!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Oklahoma

We've been in Oklahoma for about three weeks now. Our arrival started badly, as the propane company seriously misled us about the cost of heating the beautiful 4-bdrm home we had planned to stay in. We simply couldn't afford it on our student loan budget, so we ended up moving into an apartment closer to where Dave is in clinic. It was an absolute nightmare having to move everything we own twice in 4 days without any help, but we'll laugh about it someday.

We're settling in pretty well now. The town is quite small, but has a Wal-Mart, and Joplin, MO is only a few miles down the road with everything you could want. We miss the mountains of southern Utah and Colorado dearly - outdoor activities around here consist mostly of fishing and hunting. Thankfully, the holiday season gives us plenty of activities to take the kids to on the weekends.

Dave loves the clinical experience he is getting. The clinic is very disease-heavy, and he sees a lot of rare and interesting conditions - he always has several stories to tell when he comes home.

The local ward is very small, but the members are wonderful - they have been so good to us, and have made us feel at home. We got together with a handful of other young families in our ward for Thanksgiving, and have managed to make a few friends already. We got invited over for dinner again at church today, so either the people here are sincerely nice, or they think we're really poor because we're students:) Regardless, the people are nice and we are enjoying experiencing a new part of the country.