::fun, food and (fond) farewell::

We had so much fun with Kelly here. Thanks to his wife Lechelle for sharing him. We hadn't seen them since last year, before we left Kansas City. It's been a while, and Max has grown quite a bit. Thank goodness for blogs and stuff that let us share photos and keep each other posted on life.

We ate some really good food with Kelly. After our kite flying fun on the coast we went to a little "crab shack" kind of place in Narraganssett, right by the beach called Iggy's. Kris and I had been there once before and we knew it was tasty.
Kelly got the fish and chips he'd been dreaming of. Kris joined him. Max got a hot dog. My fish sandwich so was big I hardly made a dent in it. It was really good though.





They also have these things called "doughboys" at this place. These are not WW1 soldiers, as you might think, but are like deep fried scones covered in cinnamon sugar. They're strange and quite scrumptious. We also found out while there that there's one of these places really close to our new house. So next visit we'll take you there.

We bar b qued. How do you actually spell that? Anyway, we did it.

We didn't get to eat outside because although it looks really nice and sunny in that photo, sunday was a thunderstormy day.

We got ice cream--this involved a broken credit card machine, a lot of driving around to get cash, and five dollars worth of ATM fees. The ice cream wasn't worth it, but the company was.




One of the best things (as far as I'm concerned) done over the weekend was the bathing of the stinky Sultan. He was SO so so stinky. And the guys all got together and cleaned him up. It was wonderful. And he's much shinier now. And less yucky.

He sure looks hangdog.

He thought I was going to save him from the crazies with the hose, but NO.


Then of course, just before Kelly left we made the Bad Max movie. (as linked to in the post below). Production was quite fun, as you might imagine.

Wardrobe change--bad max to good.

Action shot--you get an idea for some of the production magic that goes into these films.

BAD MAX! Look out, he's scary.

Now we're just trying to remember how to get back into real life--between moving, visits and weird weather it's been a strange month.
Max is also hoping that the sun will remember to come back out. It's been cloudy, rainy and under 60 degrees for the last few days. How are you supposed to use squirt guns under those conditions?

::::

Do you want to see what we were up to yesterday while Kris was at work?
Check it out. It's awesome.



(and for more stuff like this go here)

::happy memorial day::

**we're just hoping the rest of our celebration doesn't include Kris getting called into the hospital again. He had to go in at 3:30 last night, and he's TIRED!

::kites part 2::

Get ready for a bunch more kite flying photos. I had a really hard time deciding which to post, they were all so fun. And Kelly's actually in some of them this time.

Max basically just ran as fast as he could around the field the entire time. And when he realized he could try to run into the other kite and tangle it up in his, he tried for that like crazy.





Kelly looks like some sort of crazy pagan sun worshiper here, but really he was just throwing the kite up to get Max going. At least I think so anyway.

Same here.

Max keeps growing out of his shirts. I love how not only this shirt is too short, but it's also unbuttoned at the bottom. Silly goose.


It was so fun. We're definitely going to do it again. Anybody for a kite party in Newport?

::kites part 1::

We went out to the coast to fly kites with Uncle Kelly today. I don't have all the pictures ready, but I can't help but post a few--they're so fun. So there will be more to come.

We got a couple of super cheap little star wars kites from Benny's. They were pretty flimsy, but perfect for Max.

Max could just run fast and drag the kite behind him and it was light enough to fly if there was a bit of wind.

We had good wind right at first, and then it kind of pooped out and we couldn't get the kites to stay up anymore. Well, at least we thought the wind pooped out until we looked over to our left and saw some big old "real" kites way up in the air flying away. Oh well.

Kris is cute. We all shared the kites around and took turns flying them--and crashing them into the ground. It was fun.

To be continued....

::guess who::

We're lucky enough to have a semi-surprise visit from Kris's brother Kelly this week! He came in today and gets to stay until next week.
It's only too bad his wife Lechelle couldn't come with him. Next time, right Lechelle??

Poor Kris has had kind of an intense week. He's on call right now, and has had to go in and take calls at night the last few days. Some weeks are light and some are heavy, this one's been heavy so far, and it's only been a few days! He's also on a rotation where he goes to the operating room three days a week to learn about administering anesthesia. It's interesting, but he has to get up at about 5:30 those mornings. It ruins him for the evening. He's super tired, and with good reason, poor guy.


Anyway, Kelly got here this afternoon, and he and Max were already having a good old time. Matching. I got them the cutest shirts for christmas. Too bad Max's is pretty much too small already--his little belly sticks out the bottom unless he's wearing something underneath.



And speaking of matching, how about this look?

Just when we were talking about grabbing some after dinner celebratory ice cream Kris's pager went off. It was a big messy case, so Kelly thought he'd go along to observe and keep Kris company. I might not see them for a good long while, but at least they're together. Brothers are great.

::happy april 1st!::

It's chilly here!
Thought it might be fun to celebrate the beginning of this fine hopefully springy month with some old family photos.

We sure do miss our favorite restaurant in Kansas City. Yum enchiladas poblana.



Won't it be nice when it's warm enough for short sleeves again? And wow, the grass in that last photo is super green through the window. Looks so nice.


We won't be seeing any family this month probably, but hopefully soon enough. Kelly and Lechelle might be coming to visit sometime soon, and hopefully Ken will make it out here before our two years is up!

APRIL FOOLS (about the photos--everything else is pretty much true I guess)
One last one:

Oh, wait, this one's real. Ummmmm........

(have you ever been to this site?)

::Events that are getting kind of old now...::

Can you tell I finally have some reliable internet access? It's nice.
It's been a while now, but remember how Kris and I graduated? And we moved? I have pictures from a whole bunch of those events that I'd like to post for all to enjoy. So here we go!
Here's Kelly helping to entertain Max while we packed. It was nice of him because Max isn't always the funnest guy to play with...he kind of makes up his own rules from time to time. Oh, and he quits in the middle of games pretty consistently too.



We're sure going to miss Kelly!

Here are some awesome views of packing the truck:
a couple of Kris's cycling friends from the ward rode their bikes over to help us out. Were they kind of rubbing it in that he was ditching them? Who knows. We were glad they came even if they were wearing their dorky cycling shoes.

We had a lot of help and support from the ward which was nice.

It's weird to see all your stuff out on the lawn, that's for sure.

hard at work!
Kris's Grandpa helped to organize the packing in the truck. He used to work for a moving company back in the day, so he was very helpful.

Here's Ricky with his big muscles carrying some really heavy stuff.

We started packing the truck at about 9:30 and were done by noon. I had a sweet friend from the ward come and help me clean the house. She scrubbed my kitchen like crazy. It was so nice to have that help. It was a relief to have everything packed up so we could move on to more exciting events later in the day....
such as our graduation party! This party was planned to be quite the exciting event, with a lot of people invited. It was happening at our neighborhood park so kids would have someplace to play and was happening in between packing the truck in the morning, and Kris's graduation in the afternoon.
Unfortunately it turned out to be a cold, rainy, overcast day. And it rained. Right during our party!
We still had it though, and some seriously great friends did show up.

one of our delicious party cakes. Yay costco!

max trying to resist sticking all of his fingers in the cake.
Here are a whole bunch of our sweet friends that showed up. I don't have pictures of everybody because it was pretty wet out there so I didn't keep the camera out for long. Somehow Kelly, Lechelle, Kari, Ken and Kathy all eluded my camera. They were there though which was nice!











We have such great friends in Kansas City. We're really going to miss them. A ton!

The kids still played out at the park and seemed to have a great time even though it was wet and cold.





All in all the party turned out well. It was a crazy day with all the packing and partying and graduating. I have kris graduation pictures I'm working on too. I'll post them as soon as I can!