We're home

Technically we're home from Cancun (yea! ... boo!) We had a blast but it will take a couple of days to really "be home" and get back in the swing of things. You'll get a post soon about our adventures, but here's a sneak peek :)

ABC

I'm not sure what got Cambrie so excited about the alphabet, but she loves letters. We have some foam letters that she pulls out every day so we can play with them. She's got a great memory and remembers almost anything I tell her (scary I know). Just so I remember in the future, here is a list of letters that she can identify about 80% of the time. I figure that's pretty good.

a
b
c-she'll tell you, "C is for Cambrie!"
d-"Is for Ducky!"
e-"Is for elephant!"
i
k
m-"Is for mommy!"
n-she sometimes calls it a tunnel
o
s- "Is for snake!"
y

It's a pretty strange list, but I'm just glad she's excited about it. When she sings her alphabet she stops after P, I'm not really sure why... Jeremy and I decided that the world would be pretty funny without those letters, particularly R, S, and T. "STAR" would read, "A." "TIRED" would just be, "IED." See what I mean. We need to teach her that the last letters of the alphabet are important too. They must be feeling so neglected!

Mindy

My family wanted a dog when we were young,
One that we could play with and have lots of fun.

We bought our sweet puppy Mindy that we could love and adore.
But apparently I was allergic, so I just didn’t sit on the floor.

Her speckled belly was a great one to rub.
And she looked like a drowned rat when fresh out of the tub.

As a little Shit-Tzu she thought she was tough,
And tried to scare away big dogs with her mighty “Ruff!”

The chickens we had were harder to beat,
For the rooster would chase her with his sharp pointy feet.

Whenever I came home we would both sit and howl,
Until our throats and ears told us we were much too loud.

Visitors were greeted in a similar way.
She’d bark, wag her tail and hope on their lap to lay.

The front green couch was her favorite bed,
Where she slept always hoping we’d come scratch her head.

Mindy looked so great in fresh new bandanas.
We didn’t even know she was pregnant with her one puppy, Panda.

She had some strange perks that I can’t help but recall;
Such as scratching the laundry bins at the end of the hall.

To roll over she first had to spin around,
Until she got enough momentum then she’d fall to the ground.

She wasn’t very bright and easy to trick,
And at the call, “Go get it!” would chase an imaginary stick.

But my sneezing and wheezing wouldn’t go away.
In fact it kept getting worse each day.

My dad had to list her on KSL.com,
To hopefully find her a new dad and mom.

A nice couple called to take her away.
Now Mindy has another dog friend to play with each day.

Now all that’s left is to sit here and cry.
Wish her a happy home, and tell her “Good-bye.”

Farewell Picnic

This is a hard time of year because it's time to say good-bye to our friends who are done and moving on! It's bitter-sweet. We're excited to see them pass all of their boards and be done with the clinic work, but it's so sad to see them leave. This summer we are losing the Bohns, Dobsons, Millards, Wehmanns, and Ritters. We wish them the best of luck and hope they know how much we will miss them! Here is one last group picture taken on Saturday at our Farewell Picnic.

Kehler's Gym

Yesterday while the guys went golfing, the ladies decided to take the girls to Kehler’s Gym. They have gymnastics classes for kids, but we went for the Fun Factory. Basically picture a giant McDonald’s Play-place that encourages the parents to crawl around with the kids. I had a blast chasing Cambrie around. There are a couple of ball pits, slides, netting to crawl up and trough, a zip-line, and lots of tunnels. Cambrie had a good time in the tunnels and on the slides, but some of the apparatuses were a little too big and intimidated her. The ball pits made her the most nervous. She couldn’t crawl through them very well without sinking to the bottom, so I held her hand as she crawled through to get to the slide. She loved chasing Hailey, but seeing as Hailey is a year-and-a-half older than her, Cambrie had a hard time keeping up and kept getting left behind. Ask her now what she did at the playground and she’ll tell you, “Follow Hailey!”

Walking across the bridge.

Ashlyn and Cambrie were looking for their friends down below.

She wasn't sure exactly what to do the with giant ball, or how to keep her little feet from slipping through the netting!

She loved crawling under the posts.

The longer we stayed the more crowded it became so we left after we’d been there just under a couple of hours. We had a blast and I’m glad Cambrie lets me play with her!

Discipline

All of you who have ever raised a toddler know what fun it is when they break the rules on purpose just to see what you'll do. We're trying to institute time out for bad choices. This is the conversation I just heard between Jeremy and Cambrie:

J: (to a screaming and non-cooperative daughter) "Cambrie you need to let me put on your jammies. Hold still."
C: "No."
J: "If you don't listen to daddy and hold still I'll have to put you in time out."
C: (stops crying and says excitedly) "Time out!"
J: "Time out is a bad thing. You don't want to go to time out."
C: "I want time out. Please!"

Hmm...something isn't quite getting through to her is it? Maybe we should try a different approach...

Just in Case

In case you have been super bored with the lack of new excitement on our blog, I'm just letting you know that all is well. Cambrie and I have been in Utah for the last week helping my parents get their house ready to put on the market. We have been painting, installing floors, dejunking, and packing up as much as possible. It's been a work trip, but we've still enjoyed seeing our families. We'll be back in Philly on Monday, ready to enjoy the humidity and being home!