Last Saturday I am sitting on the couch and David is standing at the fridge getting something out of it. He says to me to come and look at something. I asked if he could please just bring it to me. He tells me no and then says you probably shouldn't look anyways it will just gross you out. So of course my curiousity is peaked now. But I am just thinking that it's probably something that got pushed to the back of the fridge and is moldy now. But I get up to look anyways. And there on my brand new raspberries that I had just bought is a caterpillar crawling around. Yep that is pretty gross, so I just tell David to get rid of it and then I go back into the living room. About 15 minutes later I get up to find something to eat. When I walked into the kitchen I happened to glance at the window and I see a raspberry sitting behind the blinds. I figured Dutch must have put it there but I still asked out loud, "Why is there a raspberry in the window." And I am not lying, exaggerating or making this up at all, this is David's response, "The caterpillar was cold so I am just letting him warm up in the sun." WHAT!!! Are you kidding me? That was pretty much my response too. And then I tell David that I don't see the caterpillar anywhere. So he comes over to investigate. He starts looking everywhere for it and can't find it and then he picks up the raspberry and says , "oh he just crawled back inside." I told him, "for being a medical student you aren't always very bright." I then said if you are that attached to the caterpillar and don't want to kill it please let it go outside rather then in the window. So then he released it into the wild. I swear he does some pretty weird things. But this just about topped them all.

David had Monday off of school due to a Jewish holiday. So we took the kids to the MGM hotel to see the lions. We also took them during feeding time. Now in my mind when they say it is time to feed the lions, I am thinking that they are going to drop a huge chuck of meat in there and we can watch them go out it. Nope. Two workers come in to the lion's habitat and they each have a pound of meat in their hands. They get the lions attention and then one lion follows each worker and the guys throw the meat onto the window that we are standing 12 inches away from and we get to watch the lion eat it off of the glass. It was so cool. And they feed some of the meat right out of there hands to the lion, they just lick it off of their hands. Talk about putting a lot of trust into those lions. It was way cool to watch those guys interact with them. Dutch really loved it, it kept his attention the entire time, Maylee not so much. It's definitely worth checking out if ever you are in Vegas. Also there was a huge long line of people waiting for something. So I went to check it out. You can take you picture with the lion cub sitting on your lap. It is so cool. I definitely want to do that before we move. This is literally how close I was. My camera wasn't zoomed at all. I actually had to hold my camera back a little bit.

Maylee lately has become obsessed with blankets. If there is a blanket within her reach she is going to have it wrapped around her no matter how hot it is. She looks super adorable wrapped up in them, trying to walk all over the house. I took the kids to the Museum the other day with a friend and when we got back both the kids had completely zonked in the car. I did not feel like toting them both up the stairs so I let them take a nap on the couch. Dutch has really started to enjoy coloring. Which I think is great and I love hanging his pictures on the fridge. The only real problem is Maylee wants to color with Dutch as well. But Dutch only wants to use markers so therefore so does Maylee. Needless to say it is a good thing a got washable ones but it still stresses me out.

Last Sunday I set a goal for myself to make dinner every single night this week. And I was able to make my goal. WOW! For those of you who know me, know what a big deal this is. In mine and David's five years of marriage I have never once made dinner every single night for seven nights in a row (we haven't eaten dinner yet but I have a roast in the crock pot and it smells delicious). I was so proud of myself. My kids turned their noses up to most of it. Dutch won't try anything new, which is my fault for never offering him anything new and Maylee is just plain ornery she would rather mush things in her hands and then throw it. And the best part of it all was that dinner actually turned out good. My fear of cooking comes from being a particular bad cook, but I proved to myself that I can do it. And it really is so fun to sit together as a family and eat dinner. Dutch loves when we sit down together and eat which has actually been one of my motivators. Dutch loves to strike up a conversation with us, it usually goes like this... "So Dad what you doing today?" David will then say, I went to school, what did you do today?" To which Dutch replies, very enthusiastically waving his hands all over the entire time he is telling it... "The water fall off the water fall and the train fell into the water." We have no idea what it means and there is a lot more mumbling to it than that but it is what he tells us every time we ask what he did today. We know it has something to do with when he took him on a tour of the Dam and he watched some water fall off the bridge but why he still is bringing it up gets us. So now I am motivated to continue making dinner every night and I am excited at doing so.

On Thursday David and I celebrated our 5th year anniversary. I really can't believe that we have already reached our 5 year mile stone. It has gone by so quickly. I remember being young and it seemed to take forward to get to summer break or my next birthday. Now things are flying by so fast sometimes I feel like I can't keep up. To celebrate our anniversary, David went to school all day and I went shopping with the kids and bought me some much needed craft supplies and then spent the rest of the day taking care of the kids. Once David got out of school we went out to dinner as a family. Yep no romance there. I guess that is what living out of state, going to medical school and two kids will get you on your anniversary. We already had to get a babysitters twice this week and I didn't want to ask again. So we headed off to Applebees since that is a more kid tolerant environment. So we spent our dinner trying to keep the kids entertained and trying to keep their voices down. It was a splendid anniversary dinner :) We laughed the entire time about where five years had gotten us. We never imaged us living out of state and with two very energetic kids. When I signed up for kids I had signed up for the quiet, well behaved ones. Someone got my order wrong. But we still managed to enjoy ourselves although I did let David know that I thought on our fifth anniversary we would be on a vacation together, just the two of us, possibly a cruise.

The best part of the week though was that David had Friday off of school. There are big perks to going to a Jewish established school. Even though there is only one Jewish kid in the entire class the school still honors all Jewish holidays and non Jewish Holidays. And come to find out, there are a lot of Jewish Holidays in the Fall. So Davids first Friday off we took the kids to the Park and let Dutch practice riding his bike and then that evening we headed over to the Strip and took Dutch and Maylee on a tram ride. Since Dutch is so into trains right now we figured he would love to ride on a train and he did. Afterwards we ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at the MGM Hotel. The restaurant is cool and the kids loved it but the food is definitely not as good as it costs. Then we wanted to walk through the Lion Habitat but it was closing by the time we got to it. It is just a tunnel that you walk though made of glass and you get to walk right through the Lions home. We missed it being open by a couple of minutes, they already had the Lions put up for the night so we will definitely be heading back for that one day.

On Saturday we headed to the park again and took a picnic lunch. We spent a much needed few hours soaking up the sun and playing together. I haven't gotten the kids to the park much lately and since our backyard sucks here they never go outside. So they needed to get some good Vitamin D in some how. Although I think David and I were the most affected by being outside. By the time we got home from the park we were exhausted. So we spent the afternoon relaxing and then later that evening we headed over to the Airport. They have a parking lot right outside the landing strip where you can just sit and watch the planes land and takeoff. It is so awesome. I think David and I enjoyed it more then Dutch did. It was so fun to just sit on the car and watch the planes land. And I was amazed at how many people came. The parking lot is always more then 2/3rds full. Next time we will get some pizza and bring games and make a family night of it.

Dutch is going through a new phase right now. He screams cheese for the camera, so his mouth is always wide open. Gross I know, no makeup, but its the only picture of the two of us.

At the Airport

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Here are some random pictures since we have been here that I have yet to post but I just think that they are too cute not to share. Maylee was watching cartoons with Dutch and she was just so sleepy. I thought she looked so precious. While I was in Buckeye my Dad and I took the kids to the Children's Museum the day before my pass expired to get one last use out of it. On our way home from wedding dress shopping with Stormy. We were all a little worn out. But she got a beautiful dress.

My mom posted the most adorable slide show on her blog of Dutch and Maylee. Everyone should check it out. And keep in mind if you are needing any family photos (or Christmas Photos) my Mom is the best. Check out the slide show at www.cjcarrollphotographs.blogspot.com

Lightening has been replaced....

That's right Lightening has finally been replaced. Dutch has found a new love. One that David and I don't exactly share with him. He loves Thomas the Train. And while the toys are cute, the movies are SOOO boring. But Dutch loves them. He loves playing with his trains as much, if not more than he use to love playing with his cars. And now he has two train stations. He's so spoiled. Dutch's Grandma was up here last weekend so she took Dutch shopping for his birthday since she won't be here on the actual day. She bought him his very first bike. I was a little afraid that he wouldn't be able to ride it but he can and he does so good. He loves riding it. He looks so grown up and cute when he is riding it.

Yesterday was the first time I have made bread since I have been here. I've really missed homemade bread and never understand why I wait so long to make it sometimes.

I had the opporunity to go to Arizona during David's first exam week. While I was there my mom took some pictures of the kids. They turned out amazing. Which is great considering that Maylee was being a stinker the entire time. She wanted nothing to do with having her picture taken and yet Dutch was just hamming it up.