Rexburg Roadie

Amy and I just couldn't stand not smooching little Lynlea any longer, so we made a quick road trip up to Rexburg.  It was seriously a 36 hour trip, but it was so fun!

She makes the best faces already!  Just like her daddy!

She loves me!

 

Deeds is a dad...how wild is that?!

 

 We decided to take the kids to Bear World the second day we were there, and it was so awesome!  I definitely need to take James there some day.  Once we got into Bear World, I got Porter out of his car seat and held him so he could see all the animals.  He was only interested in the can of root beer and all the candy in our treat box.  Note to self...leave Porter in his car seat!

 When you start to drive through Bear World, you go through a section that has deer, elk, and buffalo.  Then you go through a big gate into the the bear section.  It was awesome to see the bears up close. Forget trying to see bears in Yellowstone...just go to Bear World!

 

 There is also a little gift shop, a petting zoo, and a few rides for the kids. 

Porter wanted nothing to do with taking this picture and just wanted to touch the bear statue.

 

This deer turned his head really quickly and really startled Jack and Soph!  Their faces!!

This ride nearly made me heave!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They also had a rare albino elk which was awesome to see!

It was such a fun trip!  We all shared a hotel room which we thought could be the worst decision ever, but the kids did great.  It was mostly great to meet Lynlea and spend time with Deeds and Kimmy! We are so excited for them!!

Father's Day and Temple

We had the best time celebrating Father's Day this year.  We got together with Ryan and Kara and grilled out.  James is truly the best dad for our little Porter boy.  He gets down and plays with him, teaches him how to make car noises, gives him the funnest baths, and helps me every step of the way to be the best mom that I can be.  We sure love him!

The following Sunday, we stopped at the Draper Temple to walk around and let Porter spend some time at the temple.  It was a beautiful day!

 

 

Finally a Baby Girl!

After all these boy babies, my brother and his wife added a baby girl to the Cosby clan yesterday!  Lynlea Mae is the cutest little thing!!  Here are a few pictures Deeds sent to us...

 

I can't wait to snuggle her!!

Swimming and Garden

We have already visited the pool several times in the past couple of weeks.  The change from spring to summer has happened overnight.  It is HOT!

 Porter is hilarious in his life vest.  He won't move.  He just stands there with this look on his face...

 It must throw off his balance or something.  It is a great find since usually he is all over the place and into everything.  He may need to wear his vest to church to slow him down...ha!

 Here is also a check in on our garden.  We are so excited with how it is doing!

 We bought a 6-pack of strawberries and after we planted them and they started to grow, one definitely wasn't looking like the others.  Somehow we ended up with a random pea plant in our pack of strawberries.

 Our tomatoes plants are growing like crazy, but there are still no signs of actual tomatoes.  If they do produce, we are going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears!

We sure are loving summer time!

Take This Job and Shove It!

On June 1, I found out that I was being laid off from my job.  From that point on, I hardly worked at all.  I wrapped up a couple of projects, tied up a bunch of loose ends, passed all my work on to colleagues, packed up all my stuff, and shipped it to Chicago.  Yesterday was officially my last day.  It is still very surreal.  I feel like I'm just on vacation and will be going back any day now.  I knew lay offs were coming.  Part of me really wanted to be laid off so that I could get a severance package and James and I could move on to the next chapter of our lives.  Another part of me was terrified to get laid off.  It presents a lot of challenges, worries, trials, and panic (on my part).  It is also hard not to take it personally.  I know it's all business, but it's all I have done for the nearly 12 years.  I've been a reliable, steady, hard-working, and dedicated employee, and this is what I get?  Oh well!  What can you do?!

I definitely won't miss cleaning this up every day!

 I had to take all of our equipment out of the car and get rid of it all.  It took forever and I would have never been able to do it without James' help. 

I definitely won't miss this hunk of junk sitting in front of our house!

It seemed like more people were being laid off than staying, so that made it a little easier to leave.  I won't miss working at all.  It has become pretty stressful with Porter at home.  I will miss all the great people I worked with.  You become pretty close with people after working together for 12 year.  This job was perfect for me in so many way.  I couldn't have asked for better job right out of college.  I loved my job for probably the first 8 years for working.  The last few have become less and less fun, but it paid the bill and wasn't miserable.

Now we will figure out something new, and hopefully we can make it work for me to stay at home with Porter boy full time!

Sure was weird setting my out-of-office on the last day!

Amy and the kids met us at Chick-fil-A for lunch to celebrate my freedom!  Let full time motherhood begin!