Todd in Oregon

I just got back from a trip to Oregon with my 4 brothers. The 5 of us did a "brothers only" trip to the Columbia River Gorge area just outside of Portland. We went from Thurs night to Sun and had a fantastic time. We stayed at a nice lodge in the area, went golfing, went canyoneering (hiking and rappelling down a river and waterfalls), hung out together, bonded as brothers, and just had a great time. Anna was totally awesome and stayed home with the 2 girls while I went and played. She was very supportive of the trip since it was a "brothers" trip and she wanted me to go and have a good time. She is now expecting some serious payback though....

Here are some pictures of us golfing and canyoneering.

The group of us overlooking the Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River


Golfing at Skamania golf course


Rappelling down Punchbowl Falls (this is my brother Dave in the picture).



My brother Chris at Metlako falls. We had about 10-15 feet of rappelling on the rock, then we got to the edge where he is and the next 80 feet are all a free fall on the rope.


A great shot of the full length of the Metlako Falls with one of us on the rope next to it. Very cool experience and incredible to stop halfway down and just look around you. The waterfall is very loud and sprays mist all over you, it is quite amazing


Me sitting on the rocks after rappelling Metlako. The water is very cold and you have to wear long underwear or a wetsuit to stay warm.


Group shot of us hiking back down the river to get out. You can see all of our unique outfits to keep us warm.


Best picture- a group shot with Metlako falls behind us (on the right), with another fall on the left, and just greenery everywhere around us.

Art, 24th Parade, and pigtails

So we haven't update much in the last few days, so we will have to pile it all into one entry. A fun week for us and some events that were unusual.

Art Fair: "The Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is the Original of the now four award winning art fairs which together attract over 500,000 attendees from across the nation". We have never been before, even though they hold it each year. It was huge, quite a bit larger then we expected. It was fun to walk by the booths and see the variety of art/sculptures/etc... Of course it was all very expensive and we didn't buy anything. Fun to walk around though, interesting to see all of the different booths and the people that run them from all over the country.



Addison's first hair do- pig tails! She has always had enough hair to pull it up, but we never have done it before (as compared to Jayda who didn't have enough hair until she was about 6-7 mos old). More important then the hair though, her Utah T-Shirt finally fits her!



Many of our neighbors are LDS and know about the 24th of July as a holiday in Utah. They decided to celebrate it here in Michigan this year. They put together a parade for the kids to ride their bikes, or scooters, or wagons in, then they had a variety of Pioneer crafts and activities for the kids to participate in. We decorated Jayda's bike knowing she would love to ride in the parade. She also loved the activities more then we expected and it made for a fun day for all of us. In the picture you can see the other two older girls that Jayda just loves to follow around and play with. They are very nice and take good care of her too.



Other events of the week:
-Anna tried sushi for the first time and enjoyed it.
-Thurs afternoon the tornado sirens went off and the sky went totally black in a matter of minutes. I was at school with a patient and they told us all to hurry to the basement, Anna was at home with the girls (Addison was sleeping). She was also ready to head to the basement when the darkness went away and the weather channel stated that the tornado danger was over.
-Anna's mararthon training is still going well. She ran 12 miles on Sat (longest she has ever run). She was a little sore and tired, but she had fun and is ready to run more this week. She has several friends who are also training, so they get up early almost everyday and run together.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Lunch farewell

So I hosted a farewell lunch for my friend Talli Poulsen today. Her husband just finished his medical residency program here and they are moving to Fresno, CA this week. We are excited for them though since they have been in graduate school for 8 years and are now finally moving on into "real life". This will be the last of many families we have said good-bye to this year. I have had 6 close friends move out in the last 3 months. Sad to see people leave but encouraging knowing that it will be our turn next year.
The lunch was going to be outside, but it rained today so it was moved into our apartment. We had 13 kids and 6 of my friends here. Amazingly all the kids played well together and nothing was broken. I made Cafe Rio pork salad and everybody pitched in bringing parts of the meal. It was delicious and all went well. Todd is jealous since he didn't get to enjoy the wonderful Cafe Rio meal (just leftovers for dinner).

Crib Invader

So Addison was sleeping peacefully in her crib this morning for her nap. She began to make some noise and was starting to wake up. I was downstairs with Jayda and made a comment like "ok, Addison is waking up, let's go get her Jayda." Jayda then gets all excited and runs up the stairs ahead of me. As I reached the top of the stairs Jayda was already climbing up the side and into Addison's crib. She has never climbed in or out before (even when it was her crib), but she just kept climbing this time and jumped right in with Addison. I grabbed the camera and got it on film.




A few days ago I was also downstairs with Jayda while Addison was sleeping. Addison woke up and started crying and we could hear her on the monitor. I commented on how Addison was awake and we needed to go get her- Jayda then snuck over to the monitor, turned it off, and said "Mom, Addison not awake, stay downstairs" in an attempt to keep playing with me and ignore Addison. Cute stories, and funny how different Jayda can be towards Addison depending on the day or the occasion.

First dentist visit

Jayda had her first trip the the Dentist this week. Of course I have been giving her home ckeck-ups every night when I brush her teeth, but we thought it would be good for her to see a dental office and see what her Dad does everyday when he goes to school. I took her to the Pediatric Clinic at the Dental School and had one of the residents there do an exam and cleaning on her. She did great and let the resident use the mirror in her mouth, and even the rubber cup toothbrush to clean her teeth. Jayda was a little uncertain about it all at first, but no tears or problems and by the end she was very excited to say "I went to the Dentist". No cavities either in case you were wondering!




Speaking of Pediatric Dentists and residency, I just finished all of my applications this weekend for my attempt at specializing in Pediatrics. It is a long process full of paperwork, online applications, school transcripts, letters of recomendations, money, etc.... I submited my application to over 20 programs hoping to at least get interviews at a few of them, and then match into one of those. I applied to programs all over the country, from Washington State to Florida, Texas, Utah, Colorado, and several programs in the mid-west. Now it is just a waiting game- interviews aren't until Oct & Nov, then the day that I find out if I match is not until the end of January. (can only match into a program you interview at, so if no interviews-no match). I have over 6 months of wondering if and where I might get in. We will just wait and see what happens I guess....

6 month old Addison

Addison is 6 months old today, can't you tell how happy she is about it! She is growing up fast and it is amazing to watch. These 6 months have gone by so much faster then they did when Jayda was a baby. I guess having 2 kids just makes you that much busier and time flies. She is a good baby and very happy (most of the time). Her list of tricks now includes rolling over both ways, eating rice cereal and avacados, and almost sitting up by herself. She loves her sister and loves it when Jayda is around to entertain her.

Summer Time Fun

Funny Jayda story- Every night after dinner we go outside and water the flower and the grass while Jayda plays. Todd was watering the other night while Jayda rode her bike back and forth on the sidewalk. Every time Jayda would ride by, Todd sprayed water into the air so some of it landed on Jayda’s head. She kept looking up at the sky trying to figure out where it came from. She saw dad, but he was watering the flowers so it obviously wasn’t him. Anyway, after a few times she finally saw Todd do it and caught on. Then, every time she rode her bike past Todd she would say in the sweetest little voice- “Daddy, don’t water me, okay!”




If she has been a good girl during the day, and if she eats all of her dinner we have been giving her a popsicle at night. For the last 2 nights she hasn’t eaten much, so she didn’t get a popsicle. Finally last night we made Mac & Cheese for her (and of course she ate that no problem) so we gave her a popsicle. She loved it so much she made a huge mess all over her face, hands, dress, sidewalk, chair, etc… Fun to watch her try and eat it though, especially when she started licking her arm to catch the melting drops.




The heat from the west is starting to make its way to us here in Ann Arbor. Todd came home from school today and we decided to go swimming in the 95 degree weather. The girls both loved it and thought it was so fun. We enjoyed cooling off and watching them play. They have twin swimsuits and we thought a picture would be cute.

The girls

So, for those of you who don't know it, we have 2 little girls- Jayda and Addison. Jayda is now 2 1/2 years old, and Addison is 6 months next week.


Addison in her favorite "Bumbo" chair. Addison wakes up every morning with crazy hair, it stays crazy for most of the day even if we try to comb it.


Addison with her first taste of cereal. She actually liked it, but doesn't know how to swallow and just pushes it all back out with her tongue.



Jayda's 1st time for fireworks- she stayed awake long enough to be able to watch us light off some small fireworks, and she got to play with some sparklers too. She was so excited every time a firework went off she would just jump and yell!



Jayda ran a "kids dash" in downtown Ann Arbor on the 4th of July and loved it. Anna ran a 5k earlier so Jayda loved running like her mom did and having a "number" pinned onto her shirt. Jayda also got a bucket and shovel as a prize and now she talks about it everyday.


They are both very good kids and love to play with each other. Jayda is very good with her little sister and enjoys making her smile. Addison is getting bigger each day and rolls around all the time. These pictures are both within the last month, and you will probably see many more of them soon.

Our new blog

So since we just realized that many of our friends have blogs and update them often, I thought we would try one too. It seems like a easy way to update others on your life, and also post some pictures of us and our kids. So, we are going to be posting things on here over the next few days as we learn how to use the blog, check back later for more.....