Saying Goodbye

Well it has been a while since we last posted to our blog. It has taken us a while to get settled and unpacked. Now that we are finally getting pulled together I can start posting to our blog again. We have taken a lot of pictures since August.

On August 11 Patrick rode the 111 mile Utah Lake Century something ride (ULCER) bike race. Patrick was on team road killers along with Catherine, Mike, Dad, Blake Rigby and Alex Knudsen.


He rode the whole race with Catherine. Mom Alex and I gave everybody moral support.

Patrick and I had a few friends over at grandma and grandpa Barnes house to say goodbye before we left for Boston. We said goodbye to friends in the ward, Patrick's missions companion, and friends from Patrick's fraternity.
Here Laura Vernon snuggled with Alex for a little while and shared all her mommy secrets with me.

Cyd Vernon chatted about recovering from pregnancy and was very encouraging. I got great advice from our last third Sunday family gathering before the move.

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Video sent by patriciabarnes

Here Grandma Kohler let me record her singing to ALex. This is a song that she sang to Linda and Linda sang to Patrick. Linda and Grandma taught it to me so that I can sing it to Alex.




Here we had family night at Grandma Pats house. Adi cam up from the Y and the whole family was there. Grandma made family style tacos and we had ice cream for desert. During the meal Carsen killed a bee with a salad fork.


Check out these two babes. We took this gorgeous picture of Adi and Raegan while we were there.

The night before we left we had dinner with Steve Melissa and the kids, Catherine and Mike and Mom and dad. Melissa made the coolest cake with a lobster on it as a symbol of Boston.The cake was incredible it was made with rolled fondant and rice crispy treats. I thought it was awesome. She even made little sea creatures to go with it. There were snails and clams made out of fondant on the cake.

During the party Patrick gave Carsen a book about bugs as a goodbye. It was a very tearful night as I kissed Melissa, Steve Carsen and Raegan goodbye. (I miss them soooo much!)
On Wednesday the 21 of August we pulled out of the driveway and said out goodbyes to our parents. It was really cool that mom made us a yummy breakfast before we hit the road and Catherine and mike came up to join us to eat it. It was really cool that they were there at 5:30 in the morning. We love you guys so much and we miss you alot!

Still two... not yet three

What a fun week! This week was a busy one! Tuesday night Jeremy Hadden came down from Sun Valley Idaho and we went to dinner with him and Peter and Samantha. It had been a while since we saw Jeremy. We ate at hoppers grill.

Later this week Melissa threw a Potty Party for Carsen! We are all excited that he is finally starting to show interest in potty training. We don't even care that he is only interested in using the potty in the backyard. So, Melissa made Carsen a blue lightning Mcqueen cake with wing bammers. We had Mac and cheese and popcorn and cake. Grandpa came during his lunch break from work. I learned that Potty Parties are fun.

Thursday night we went on another bike ride. Mom and Dad took Patrick and I to big Cottonwood Canyon and we rode around the Brighton Loop. We found some wonderful cabins up there for sale. Maybe one day when Patrick and I win the lottery we will get one.

On Friday we went to the Transformers movie with Catherine, Mike, Steve, Melissa and Mom and Dad. I liked the movie so much that I thought about it all night and into the next day. I enjoyed the character of Sam Whitwicky and the detail of the autobots. I especially liked the yellow Camaro (Is this how you spell camero, or is this how you spell camaro?). I have never been into Cameroes but I might be willing to change my mind after the movie.
On Saturday morning Patrick went on a fifty mile bike ride. he rode with my dad and Dave Arrington up to Farmington and back to the house. Afterwards we went to lunch at Ruth's Diner its up immigration canyon, with Linda. While eating we discovered that she and Laura had never been to IKEA! So we picked up Laura and went to Ikea that afternoon. We visited the furniture that we will be getting once we move to Boston. Man were we exhausted Saturday.

Yesterday after watching the tour we went up big cottonwood canyon in our car. We went for a walk and enjoyed the view. We sat on our crash pad and looked out across the mountains to Heber valley and midway. The air was wonderful up there. We accidentally disturbed some wild mint. The air was filled with an overwhelming aroma of fresh mint and wild flowers. It is nice to enjoy a few more quiet evening before the baby comes... nope he is still not here, and our due date is tomorrow. So, we are using this time to enjoy some wonderful moments of life just the two of us.

We've Moved!

Last week Patrick started his training for the 111 mile "Ulcer" bike race. On Monday
Mom and Dad took us to Pearl Izumi in Park City and helped Patrick get bibs, a jersey and shoes for the bike race. Dad is lending him a custom built titanium Schwinn road bike. It is beautiful and it was built for Greg Florez who has a similar build as Patrick.

On Tuesday, Patrick and I went on a family bike ride. It was only ten miles, but it was pretty fun. We went with Catherine, Mike, Mom and Dad and Jacob Francis. We rode out by the airport. Everyone biked so fast and looked so cool on their rode bikes. I wore flip flops and kept up pretty well with my beach bike.

On the fourth of July we decided to help Laura move. She had been in a house which turned out to be a bad situation. The landlord really tried to rip her off. So, Laura found another house to move into, owned by a friend from work, Steve. (NO NOT STEVE EROR) Any way he had been trying to sell his house for a year and it just wasn't happening so he decided that he would take it off the market and let Laura and her roommate Tara rent the place. We moved all her things into a moving van and we got in our car... and we got a phone call. It was Steve. Coincidentally Steve had just sold the house. Laura was welcome to move in for a few weeks but that was all. She had no where to go and it was the fourth of July.

Patrick and I looked at each other and thought... well our lease has technically started in Boston and we currently have two apartments. We were only staying in our current apartment so that we can have the baby here in Salt Lake and then move to Boston in August. Well, we decided that we might as well let Laura live in it now. That way she has a place to live and we will only be renting one apartment at a time. So we moved all of Laura and Tara's things into our apartment and Patrick's cousin Linda let the girls stay with her while we took the rest of the week packing. Laura is letting us put our boxes going to Boston in the corner. Otherwise all of our stuff will be at mom and dad's house.

After a long exciting day we went to watch fireworks with Patrick's parents and aunt and uncle at the Hotel Park City. (see pictures)

We finally packed our last Boston box at 2:00 am on Saturday night with Sterling. Laura has been wonderful. She helped us pack our kitchen for Boston and she has given us time to move. Mom has helped with everything from shampooing carpets to chocolate donut deliveries for me. Dad helped us move our mattress to their house in his brand new pick up truck. (I have to say it is a gorgeous truck.) Anne Linda and my mom helped me with DI runs and helped me move all of our things into mom and dad's basement on Friday. Sterling is a good friend who helped us decided that their is no way the ply wood cabinet is making it to Boston at two o'clock in the morning. Catherine and Mike made the basement ready to live in. They got the nursery, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen ready. Thank you thank you thank you everyone!!!!!
Well, we had a crazy week last week. I really appreciate all the help that we got from everyone.

By the way it is week 39 of the pregnancy and the baby is still not here... and with the move it turned out to be a good thing because we were able to get everything we needed to finished!

Raegan and Ratatouille

This week was so much fun. I got to spend almost every day with Raegan and Carsen, which was fun for me and mom but not so fun for Melissa. (She had her wisdom teeth taken out this week... so I got to help out with the kids.)Mom and I went with Carsen to the pool to watch his swimming lessons. He calls it swimming school.

Tuesday Patrick and I went to the car dealership. The dealership had an owner appreciation dinner. When we came home we watched the Spurs beat the Cavs again. It was not a very interesting game. But, we just had to know how the series was going. So, Patrick and I watched our own TV. This is a very rare occasion for us. We almost never watch TV so I tried to make it a special occasion. We popped popcorn and ate ice cream while we watched the game.

Laura invited us to see the prescreening of "Ratatouille". It is this summer's big Disney movie. It comes out June 29. Patrick and I really enjoyed it. I think everyone should go and see it. Laura gave us some posters from the movie and I gave one to Carsen. It is on the back of the door. He tells me that he wants to go to the movie house to see it. I was really impressed that this movie had such a good plot. Patrick and I ate way too many sour patch kids that night. But, we really enjoyed them at the time!

Patrick went on a long mountain bike ride in the heat of the morning yesterday. The temperature got up to 100 degrees. He rode up to the Bonneville Shoreline trail and he dropped into City Creek Canyon. He got a great elbow tan. We decided to go to the pool and try and cool down a bit. After spending the afternoon at the pool, Patrick and I went to the Venture Outdoors Festival. There we heard a Kalai concert. We love Kalai's music. Patrick has seen him perform before. This was my first time seeing him in a live performance. Wow, he was incredible. It was a perfect night to be at an outdoor concert. We were really excited that some of our friends showed up so we had a whole group of people. The Anderson's and the St.Thomas' are in our ward and it was fun to hang out with them again.

Mendelssohn's Elijah

This week was a long one but it ended in a lot of fun. Patrick stayed home sick from work on Monday and Tuesday. After he started feeling better things picked up again. On Wednesday I got to play with Carsen while Melissa took Raegan to the doctor. When we talked about the baby, Carsen was glad that the baby is a boy. He told me that boys don't pull hair and that boys walk. I am thinking that he may be a little dissapointed to find out that all babies pull hair and can't walk when they are born. It is still very fun to hear Carsen's perspective on the whole thing. This week we watched the Jazz beat the Golden State warriors twice at home. (We also watched them lose in Oakland.) The series is now 2-1 Jazz. Saturday was a beautiful day. The forecast said that the weather got up to ninety degrees. In the morning we went on a bike ride to the U. We soaked our feet in the Tanner fountain outside the library. Then we went to the park and tossed the frisbee around and drank cold country time lemonade. In the evening, we went to see Mendelssohn's Elijah. Bryn Terfel sang the role of Elijah. It was so beautiful. It was also very fun to be in the tabernacle after they had just finished renovating it. Patrick and I had Jeff Edwards take this picture of us on temple square just before the concert began.