Haircuts, Borders, & Boards

So it has been awhile since we last posted. We are just busy I guess, or nothing exciting has really happened. Fall is in the air and we are enjoying our September. The weather has been absolutely wonderful and we can't complain at all. If only it would stay like this for the next 6 months....
Speaking of 6 months.... in just over 6 months from now (mid-April) Todd will be done with dental school!!! Clinic ends the middle of April and graduation is May 2nd. We aren't really counting down the days, but as we look at the calendar we realize it is approaching rather quickly. Where will we go? we don't know.....

The girls are both doing very well. Addison is getting bigger everyday and is now pushing herself from laying to sitting. She crawls backwards, and gets very frustrated that she can't go forward. Her favorite thing to do now- take off her socks and eat them!


Both girls got haircuts from the Anna Salon of beauty. Addison can now see again, and Jayda doesn't look so raggedy!




Every year the Borders book store here in Ann Arbor has a huge tent sale. They put out all of their discounted, or returned items. They have thousands of books, and also thousands of kids toys. We went this weekend and scored big time on deals! We were there at the start of the sale and it felt like the day after Thanksgiving! People running, diving, yelling, fighting, etc.... Very protective of the items that they grabbed first, and one lady even tried to accuse us of stealing one of our books after we had already paid for it! Overall it was actually fun to go and we got tons of things for very cheap (most are about $1 or $2, when they were originally $20). It works out great because now we are done with our Christmas shopping for the girls (or at least close to being done). Best deal of the day: 4 packages of finger puppets (16 puppets total) and a puppet theatre that normally sell all together for $100- we got it all for $8. Many other deals too, you can see in the picture just some of what we got.



Todd took the first part of his regional dental board exam yesterday. The whole exam is broken up into three parts.
1) a clinical part that he does on a manikin head on plastic teeth- (what he did yesterday)
2) a 6 hour written exam that can be taken anytime between Sept and March.
3) a 3 part patient exam with fillings and deep cleanings that takes place in March.
Yesterday he did the manikin portion at school. There was a fake head that was mounted to the dental chair with teeth in it that he had to to 2 root canals on, and then also prepare 3 other teeth for crowns. All went well, and he feels pretty good about it. He doesn't get the results for a few weeks so we won't know until then what happened. We hope he passed because it costs $850 to retake it!

Marathon blues & Grandma's visit

So bad news on the St George marathon scene. Anna is out. Due to an overuse injury of her IT band (the fibers on the outside of your leg from your hip to your knee), she can't run for a few weeks. She went to see a doctor about a month ago and he referred her to a physical therapist. She worked with the therapist for a few weeks, but the pain while running was unbearable and she couldn't even run a mile without lots of pain! How would she do 26.2 you ask?- she won't be this year. She made the difficult decision to withdraw from the marathon with just 4 weeks left of training. Very sad for her and hard to withdraw, but she knows it is the right thing for her body and she needs to take care of the problem before it becomes a chronic issue. So good luck to you runners that are in the St George marathon, you won't be blessed with Anna's presence this year.....



I (Todd) was gone last week to a small town in northern Michigan called Oscoda. I was there working at a dental clinic for a week as part of my last year of school. While I was gone, Anna's mom came to visit for the week and helped her with the kids. They were very busy doing fun things (riding in a Model-T car at Henry Ford Museum, shopping at the outlet mall....) and then they spent the evening doing crafts! (good week to be gone huh!!!). They made halloween costumes for the girls, made halloween calendars, made more crafts, made messes, made more crafts,....you get the idea. They had a good time though and it worked out very well that her mom could come visit (Thanks Jane!) Here is a picture of them in the Model-T.


Other then the above things- life is good here in Michigan. We finally won a football game (Go Blue!). The Utes won an even better game against UCLA, and BYU lost! The perfect weekend for college football if you ask me. Jayda and Addison are doing well. Addison is almost crawling, sort of. She pulls up on all fours and then looks at you like "what do I do next". She is very cute, except for waking up 2-3 times a night to play. She isn't hungry, or wet, or anything else, she just wants to play at 1am, and 3 am, and then 6am again. She wakes up and sings, then it becomes a cry, then a scream. We are putting an end to it tonight though, if we are lucky.

We had our neighbor (professional photographer) take some pictures of the girls a few months ago. We finally got copies of them and thought we would share one. They are the cutest.

Jayda goes to school...

So Jayda started "pre-school" this week. It isn't really school, but more like a structured play group that gets together 2 days a week. It has 4 kids in it, all close to her age. She got to put on her backpack and walk over to the neighbors house and thought it was pretty exciting. She looked pretty cute. She was a little upset that she didn't get to ride the yellow bus that comes to pick up the big kids, but she still thinks it if fun to "go to school" and play with the others.
Each of the parents (the Mom's) takes turns each week to plan a lesson and have the kids over at their house. Our turn is in a few weeks, we will see how fun it is after that...

Strange infections

What is it with me (Todd) and getting strange infections? Back in April of this year I had to submit some proof of immunity to a dental clinic, I realized while filling out the paperwork that I had never had the Chickenpox as a kid. I ended up having to get an immunization to the Chickenpox at age 31 since I had never had it before. Two weeks after the first shot, I woke up with red bumps all over my body. It wasn't a bad case, and they say it is rare but possible to get the chickenpox from the shot, so of course I got them and had to deal with that for a week or so.


So now I wake up on the morning of Labor Day with a red and itchy eye. I assumed just tired, or irritated from the sun. As the day goes on it just gets worse, and when I wake up this morning I can barely open it. Turns out I have "pink eye"- what a pain. Now I have to put anitbiotic drops and cream in my eye for a week. What is it with me and strange infections?

Family visit

Anna's sister Marcy is here visiting us with her huband Taylor and her 2 girls Megan and Mya. Megan flew here last week to help with Jayda and Addison while I was away working at a Dental clinic in another part of the state for the week. It was nice for Anna to have Megan here to help her and to spend some quality time together. They went to the zoo in Toledo one day, picked raspberries one day, went swimming, etc....




Marcy, Taylor, & Mya arrived on Friday afternoon and we have been enjoying our weekend together so far. A BBQ on Friday night, then the Michigan football game for Todd, Taylor & Marcy. Even though Michigan lost, it was a fun game for them to come to and always fun to spend some time in the Michigan Stadium (today's crowd was over 109,000 people). Dinner tonight, then a trip to our favorite ice cream spot.