Summer has come and gone.................

Carousel in St George, UT

Is anybody else in shock that it is October already?? I really can't believe how quickly summer sailed by.  The desert is deceptive that way.  It still feels like August in our neck of the woods. We are still wearing shorts and flip flops and swimming!!

On July 1st Ryan took ownership of a practice he bought from a retiring Oral Surgeon--Dr Abdelnour.  Since then--Ryan has been up to his eyeballs learning how to run a business/practice. Some things about being in private practice are different/harder then we expected.  To be honest-we aren't even sure what we expected.  We just always have felt like we wanted to run our own practice instead of join a group.  And as we looked around the country at different opportunities--this one always felt like the one. And now that we are here--it feels so right, and we are happy, and a little stressed!

For now, we live in a mid-sized community called Bullhead City, Arizona.  It is right on the Colorado river. It is gorgeous and HOT and I love it. When I say hot--I mean on average 5-6 degrees warmer then Phoenix.  We are in the heart of the Mohave Desert.  I call this place "my desert oasis." Ryan works in Kingman, Arizona too.  It is 35 miles East of Bullhead.  We will probably buy a house there and live there permanently. But that is still all up in the air.  For now, we are moving from one furnished vacation rental to the next while we wait for January to arrive so we can get  a home mortgage.

I wanted to post pictures of our summer.  It has been really fun and therapeutic for our family.  Jace got to spend time with Poppy at The Tool Center using these neat machines

to mill toys out of brass. 

Gracie got several Grammy massages.

Kjersti spent hours and hours riding in her car seat for 100's and 100's of miles and she seriously NEVER complained.  I now call her my angel baby!

We saw Aunt Francesca and her girls Suzannah and Penelope 

and got to hold their pet chickens.

We also went with them to the Salt Lake City Aquarium and got eaten by...............

Megaladon and

pet the sea rays. 

The fourth of July found us in St George, UT at the parade down Flood Street.

It was a little hot and boring.  The kids liked it because they got a lot of candy. 

Kjersti had a special day on Saturday, July 5th.

Ryan gave her a name and a blessing for our church.  He performed this ordinance at my parents home in St George. 

She really is an angel!

Here is our best attempt at a quick family photo. 

This is what my parent's living room looks like--in case you have never seen it. My mom loves to decorate and each room is very elegant.  In case you are wondering--it looked like this when I was growing up.

Family members--waiting for Kjersti's event to start.

Kjersti with her Grandparents Truman and Deloris Blake

Kjersti with her Grandparents Will and Jill Swigert

This is my oldest sister Danielle (next to my Mom) with her 3 daughters and 2 of her granddaughters. 

August made me yet another year older.  Look at all those candles on my cake!

My birthday had been a sad, hard day because we had a death in the family and my brother-in-law's funeral was earlier that day. But it was the first time in many years that I was surrounded by my siblings for my actual birthday.  

Have you ever heard of Oatman, Arizona?  We hadn't either until a few weeks ago.

We decided to take the trip one Sunday after church in August.  Here you see the Oatman road from Bullhead City, AZ to Oatman. 

We stopped to try and catch Gracie a pet lizard.  We didn't have any luck.

Oatman is an old, run down mining town, that is a little tourist trap now. It is fascinating because these wild burros live here.

They're actually quite nice if you feed them! 

These burros belonged to the miners,  when the mining stopped, they set the burros free and moved on.  So now the burros roam the streets.  There were lots of them..

Gracie was thrilled to pet the burros!  We made the trip for her.  She was DYING to go see them. 

I love this picture of Jace checking out this baby burro. 

The look on  Kjersti's face?  Classic.  A burro licking her toes--she did not know what to think!!  

Ok, this post is long enough for now.  I will stop.  It's late and the Dr is still up.  I'm going to go spend some time with him!    Have a good night!