Hultz's First Friend's Birthday

Hultz has a cute friend named Olive. They make quite the pair. They love playing outside, feeding ducks, swinging, and especially getting into mischief. On Sunday, Olive was getting tickled by her Dad. Hultz sat next to us and was laughing as Olive laughed. This went on for several minutes until all parents had to step in and make this behavior stop during Sacrament meeting.

Olive turned 2 last Saturday and had a party. Hultz was invited. Hultz & I picked out a cute present, wore nice clothes & I kept telling myself to relax and enjoy it. I tried but Hultz is just too good at being an almost-2-year-old boy...

Olive's mom, Jen, took lots of pictures & was kind enough to share them. It was nice because I'm usually the one taking pictures so here are a few that actually include me.
After snacks, cake & presents we went up to Build-a-Bear store. This is not an experience that just anyone should take on. It's quite the work-out to keep a group of 2-year-olds happy and still want their stuffed animal by the end of the experience.
Hultz loves his Dog.
Most of the kids after the party. Hultz was super tired but had a really great time. I'm convinced that a party in the back yard is what Hultz will have to ring in his 3rd year of life...

For Fun...

So this is what we do after dinner...for fun...

Great Finds...

So Jon & I are poor. We haven't reached the po' stage of life but they don't give medical students much money to live on. So we're poor. We're really careful on what we spend our money on. Increasing our wardrobes isn't high on the list. But I like our family to look nice so I've learned to look at the clearance rack at Target first, etc.

Anyway, there are a few thrift-store-savvy moms in my ward who have been talking about Savers. I've checked the place out a few times but always left empty-handed. Last month they moved locations and it was supposed to be much nicer. I still had my doubts but thought I would check it out anyway.

Well, today was my day. I found a collection of Dick & Jane stories (I have the same book saved in my Amazon cart), the game Outburst, some winter pajamas for Hultz next year and then the best finds:

I don't really need another skirt...
But it gets better-the yellow around Savers ment that today it was half off!!And then I found this shirt for Jon. He needs nice shirts for his rotations this summer- more than the white shirts he wears to church every week. And the price was perfect & the shirt was brand new!! So I haven't written off the thrift stores, though Target will always be my first love.

Jon's Award

Jon went to California to present his research & a poster at the Experimental Biology Conference. Last week he presented his poster again in a competition at UAMS. There were a few awards given out and Jon received one. He was given the Traveling Award which will pay for him to attend another conference. That's pretty exciting! There's an MD/PhD conference in Colorado this summer but he's not sure how that will fit in to everything else he'll have going on.

Anyway- Good job Jon!!

The Very Special Truck

Since Hultz has been about one year old he has had a 'toy of the week.' This is a toy that becomes his favorite. The feeling of affection only lasts about a week and then another toy is more interesting, the first toy being thrown to find its life confined to the depths of the toy box. The toys vary- a plastic dinosaur, a fluffy duck, a blue car, and most recently the Elmo doll... Elmo was replaced with a special truck that Aunt Kristen made for him.
As soon as I stopped kissing and hugging Hultz after we landed in Tulsa, I gave him the truck from Kristen. He wouldn't put it down after that. We had to pry it from his hands to get buckled in the car seat. He would hold his blanket & truck in one hand and try to eat with the other. He wouldn't let go of it at bed time Monday so he fell asleep with the truck. He had a hold of it the whole ride home. It's gone to church with us Wednesday night for meetings. It's been driven all over our floors. It's sat on the kitchen table during meals. He's given small toys rides in it across the living room. Today he insisted on having some snacks in the truck instead of a bowl. It's pretty neat to see him love something so much. I've reminded him almost every day that his sweet Aunt Kristen made it for him.

A Funeral

Jon's Grandma Hubbard passed away after the Sunday morning session of General Conference. It was expected and actually a blessing as she was in a tremendous amount of pain. She led an incredible life and left a large posterity. Her husband died in October of 2006 and since then she has missed him terribly. All of these things brought great comfort to us at the funeral.

All of Jon's Dad's siblings were able to make it up to Grace, Idaho for the funeral. Not all of the cousins came, but there were still several there. Jon played his violin at Grandpa's funeral 18 months ago. Afterwards, Grandma asked him to play at hers. We had to rearrange our flight plans, ask my parents to watch Hultz 2 extra days and pay a lot of money, but we were able to get to the funeral. Jon & his sisters Jaynan & Kristen played Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, one of Grandma's favorite hymns.

We were able to enjoy visiting with family, though they were all extremely disappointed that Hultz didn't come with us. We were so grateful we could be there with the Hubbard family.

Jon, his two brothers, Dan & Sam, and other cousins were pallbearers.
Jon's Dad and his 7 siblings.
The Hubbards that could make it...a large group even though we're missing a brother-in-law, 2 sons, a daughter and a sister-in-law.
(Jaynan with Naomi (her husband Jason is in school & couldn't come), Dan, Sam, Mom, Dad, Kristen, Anna, me & Jon. Luke, just younger than Jon and his wife Meagan couldn't come because of school & music competitions. Joe & Katie are on missions in Chile & California so I guess they're excused too.)
Some of the Grandsons.
Some of the Granddaughters.
I love this picture of Kristen & Sam.

A Week in California

This is a long post...

Jon presented his research at the Experimental Biology conference in San Diego last week. The conference lasted 4 days & his boss said that I could come along. How exciting! We'd never been to California & it was on the list of places we wanted to visit. I started planning the trip, trying to make the most of our time together. Jon was able to reschedule his experiments in the lab & we decided to make the trip a little longer by spending some time in San Francisco as well. My parents were more than willing to watch Hultz so we could enjoy an early anniversary trip.

We got to San Diego late on Saturday & stayed in the fancy Omni Hotel (because the lab was paying…). It was right in the Gaslamp district, by the Padres stadium, and had a view of the bay.
Day 1-Sunday: San Diego
Jon had lots of seminars to attend on Sunday. While he was gone I enjoyed the peace & quiet by reading by the pool all day & taking a nap. I took advantage of being without a toddler and had a great leisurely day. We also watched the Solemn Assembly from Saturday General Conference during our dinner in the hotel.

Convention Center, where the Conference was held:

Day 2-Monday: San Diego
Jon presented his research & poster at the Conference. I had most of the day to myself. I took a cab over to Balboa Park for the day. It’s a beautiful area filled with gardens & museums- both of my favorites! I saw many things, but my favorite garden was the Olive Tree and my favorite museum was Natural History (which isn’t usually) but there was an incredible exhibit about Pompeii. That night there was a street party for everyone involved in the EB Conference. We skipped some of it to enjoy a very delicious dinner of lamb & steak.

Entrance to Balboa Park:
Large Olive Tree:

Museum of Natural History:
That evening we got a phone call saying that Jon’s Grandma Hubbard passed away right after the Sunday morning session of General Conference. Jon had promised his grandmother at his grandfather’s funeral that he would play the violin at hers. He spent some time on the phone with airlines trying to figure out how we could get from San Francisco up to Idaho for the funeral so he could keep his promise.

Day 3-Tuesday: San Diego
Jon did a few more seminars that morning. Afterwards we both went back to Balboa Park and did the Art Museum & the History of Man Museum, both of which were excellent. We went back to the area of town where our hotel was & walked along the beach. We flew from San Diego to San Francisco that evening. Jon’s best friend Leremy lives there while attending Stanford. He met us at the airport & took us to get some extra yummy pizza & dark chocolate gelato and we chatted the night away.

Right behind the Hotel was the park along the beach: Day 4-Wednesday: San Francisco

We had early tickets to ride out to Alcatraz. We weren't counting on there being a ton of protesters for the Olympics that caused all of the streets to close down and for police to be everywhere. That made our trains be behind schedule and eventually we were all told it would be quicker to just walk to wherever we were headed. We just flagged a cab and he got us to the pier just in time. Our tour included an audio tour and we learned a lot about the island.

After getting back to SF we did a little walking around and decided to take another ferry over to Sausalito, across the bay, for a nice lunch. It was a sweet little town with lots of personality. We had a delicious lunch and a lovely walk. We then took a long walk along the bay to Ghirardelli Square and enjoyed a yummy ice cream sundae. The trains were still closed due to the protesters and the Olympic torch being somewhere in the area (they had to detour it quite a few times so no one really knew where it was) so we climbed aboard a bus that was going along one of the trains' routes. It was tricky to stand up while we went up and down the very steep streets of that part of SF, but it was really fun to see the city. We met up with Leremy for dinner at Nova and then went to the Giants game. It was a rather dull game but we enjoyed each other's company.

Approaching Alcatraz from our ferry:

The view from Alcatraz:
Protesters (this was only a fraction of them. They lined both sides of the streets for several blocks. The Chinese on one side, the protesters on the other):


Lunch at Horizon with a cute boy in Sausalito:

A correctly titled photo:
In Sausalito, right before boarding our boat back to SF:

Yumm:

Dinner right before the Giants game:
Day 5-Thursday: San Francisco

Every vacation I ever went on as a child, my family went to the temple. This continued through my teenage years too. It made a great impression on me. Jon & I have continued this in our travels as well. We used Leremy's car and went to the Oakland temple. It was a beautiful temple and we really enjoyed doing a session. We drove up to Pleasenton to have lunch with Jon's Unlce Ted. This was the last of 28 Aunts and Uncles for me to meet in Jon's family. From there we drove downtown. We took a nice walk around, admiring the beautiful buildings. We then went to the SF Symphony. Charles Dutoit was conducting Don Quixote and it was an amazing performance.

Outside the Oakland Temple:

Driving the Bay Bridge:
On the balcony of the Symphony Center, right before it started.
Day 6-Friday: San Francisco

Luckily, Leremy is almost done with his PhD so he had a free morning to go to Muir Woods with us. It was breathtaking to see the beautiful tall redwoods. We took a long hike through and then a drive down Hwy. 1 along the coast. We had lunch in the Golden Gate Bridge Park. We went to de Young Museum and then up to the Legion of Honor to see their Dead Sea Scroll exhibit. It was fascinating! We went down the hill and had a very nice dinner at The Cliff House (our anniversary present from Mom & Dad Smith-thank you!!). It was right along the coast of the Pacific.

The tired hikers (can you tell that I've been eating out alot?)
The view of the coast from Hwy. 1:
Driving the GGB:
The Legion of Honor:

The Thinker by Rodin in the Legion of Honor:

It's all about deserts for me. This was ours at The Cliff House:

The view from our seat at dinner:

Right outside The Cliff House, the Pacific is behind us:

Tornados

Last night started with severe thunderstorms. Thankfully Hultz can sleep through anything because we live near a firetruck station, an ambulance entrance to the hospital & the landing pad for the hospital helicopter.

Last night, however, there was an additional noise to our 'night life'...the tornado sirens went off. I panic easily and Jon is always calm and rational, but even he was concerned as we watched the weather men explain what was going on. We were hoping they would be at least partially correct in all of their predictions.

It was incredible to watch the storm tracking on television. We saw it cross I-30, come up I-630, and heard the areas in Little Rock the tornado had touched down. Around 10pm the weather men told the people in our area of town to seek shelter, so we obeyed. Our house was built 75 years ago, as was our whole neighborhood. It was not the safest place to hide-out during a tornado.

So we woke Hultz, said a family prayer, and headed up to Jon's research building right across the street. We met up with our good friends, the Dixons who were also seeking shelter. We all hung out in a state-of-the-art research center basement with our wireless computers & weather radios while our kids thought it was the best play-place ever. The husbands were calm. The wives were nervous and trying to keep the kids from breaking anything. :)

Up until now, I've been grateful for where we live in Little Rock. We've been blessed with a nice home that we can afford. We have a safe neighborhood, a nice backyard, and it's right across the street from campus. There are times though, I wish we had moved to another neighborhood because we could have a much nicer home for the same price as our home.

All of that changed last night. If we had lived in the neighborhood that I sometimes covet, we would have been in the direct path of the tornado. Right now, they have no electricity, gas leaks, and 1/2 the homes are gone. We were blessed to be able to walk across the street and stay in one of the safest parts of town.

The tornado didn't come to our area of town. It did hit near our church building and other parts of the city. Our friend Dylan had a tree fall onto his house (Jon is there helping now). It's path turned and we were safe. We broke up the kids' party around 11:15pm to head home.

Here are a few pictures from the local television stations for last nights' storm.

Tornado spotted about 10 miles from our house:
Hail from the storm:

An airplane at the North Little Rock airport overturned:

Count your blessings, name them one by one...