November

Ben left AGAIN for the first 3 weeks in November to start his residency interviews.  He got back just in time for Thanksgiving.  We decided to stay in Richmond this year since Ben has been traveling so much.  We were invited to have Thanksgiving dinner with several friends from our ward and it was delicious.  The best part about it is I DIDN'T COOK!  No surprise because I never cook.  Ben prepared yams and some other side dishes to contribute to the feast.

October

October was all work and very little play...unless you include crafting as play :P

Ben was finally back after 3 weeks in Utah but had a month long rotation in surgical icu.  He might as well have been out of town because between our 2 schedules there wasn't a whole lot of overlap time where we were able to spend time together.  We're so lame we didn't even dress up for Halloween this year.

The bright moment in October was my niece Ellie Marie being born, which puts my twin sister 4 kids ahead of me!  She looks exactly like her brothers and sister!  I was so sad we weren't able to visit until later in the year.  My sister definitely makes cute kids.

September

September...

• brought 17 Kindergartners
• was emotional
• was extremely hard
• rewarded me with a new table made by Ben
• is when Ben and I said good-bye for 3 weeks while he went to Utah
• I relived my childhood by going to the fair!!
• changed my hair color

Back to the days of lesson planning. :/

August

Poor Ben.  He got done in August with some crazy rotations only to start majorly study for the second and harder part of his Step 2 Boards exam.  He took it at the end of August.

 

All of Ben's hard work this year paid off because he got AOA (Alpha Omega Alpha). 

 AOA is kind of like the Honor Society of high school.

 

 I got to the fun part of my summer!  Finally getting to prepare things for my classroom!

 At the end of August Ben and I finally got to go to a BYU game for the first time in 4 years!  BYU was playing in Charlottesville, VA against UVA.

 

The game ended up being delayed for 2 hours due to lightning, we got rained on twice, and we lost by 3 points but we still enjoyed ourselves!

   

End of July

Towards the end of July, I ran in a 5 K race.  I am not a runner so this was perfect for me.  I got to get all colored which from previous events everyone knows I love to do!

Year 2008

Year 2009

Color Vibe - 2013

July

My family came to visit for the 4th of July!  My mom, sister, and niece, and nephews drove up from Florida and my aunt and uncle flew in from Boston.  Ben finally got some time off of school so we had lots of fun showing my family around.

Christopher looks thrilled for the 13 - 14 hour drive to come visit!

Of course we played some disc golf.

These 2 were best buds right away.

We went to the Children's Museum on a rainy day.

 

Ben taught Lexi and Christopher how to bake bread.

We bought passes for bowling so we could go several times while family was here!

We celebrated the 4th of July on July 3rd at Genworth Financial.

My aunt and uncle finally joined the party :)

   We also celebrated the 4th on the 4th at Colonial Downs and watched some horse racing!

 

  

Virginia Aviation Museum

Natural Bridge

Love this guy.  Makes me laugh :)

 

On our last night before everyone headed home we went searching for fireflies!  We don't have them in Florida so the kids were very excited when they saw them.  Don't worry...it was a catch and release activity!