Dear Joseph,

Today marks your second birthday. This year was beyond fulfilling for this mama and I hope it was for you too. What an amazing little boy you are! It is astounding seeing all the things you take in each day. You like to smile and people tell me that all the time. They love your sweet smile! You do have moments where you seem inconsolable and you help me learn how to be your mom. I cannot wait to be done with school so I can spend all my days with you again!

You finally learned how to walk and are doing more than that now! Thank goodness for Physical and Occupational Therapy. They really helped you catch up to where you needed to be. You started walking at 18 months, which was boarder line, but it definitely brought new possibilities to a toddler. You are a lot faster and more efficient when it comes to getting to places.

Speaking of places, your favorite places (now, maybe not then) are the park, the zoo, the library, the duck pond, and grandparents’ houses. You always loved the park pre-walking days and I’m so glad it’s warming up so we can take you again! You weren’t too fond of animals until recently, but now you love them! Especially ducks. You love feeding ducks and getting too close to the edge. Lastly, you love playing with toys at the grandparents’ home, but you don’t like sharing too much with your cousins.

You are beginning to play with other children and it’s just so darn cute. I have to thank your “aunt” Crystal for taking you the days I go to school so you can play with Rachel to your heart’s content.  Another one of your favorite buddies is your cousin Hudson. You two are glued at the hip when you are together. I never saw it coming, seeing as Hudson is three years older, but you play so well with him and he thinks you are a doll! You now have been in nursery for six months. Luckily mommy subbed in nursery during the crucial time period: you never had serious separation anxiety! I worked in nursery and know how difficult it can be for everyone. You love snacks (especially fruit snacks), their cars, and bubbles.

Oh, bubbles. That is another recent thing and one of the few things you can say. You can also say baby, ball, bye, bum-bum, Beau (another cousin), daddy, no, car, cartoon, choo-choo (for train of course), nani (you made it up yourself and it means food), one-two-three-go, mama (on rare occasions – you call me daddy most of the time), and a boat-load of animal noises (they represent the animal themselves). You can point to many parts of your body and the only one you have trouble with are your knees. But you can locate your shoulders, hair, cheeks, bum-bum, hands, feet, belly button, teeth, tongue, ears, eyes, and nose. So cute!

You love movies and cartoons. Your first favorite movie was Cars and the cover is super worn. But you’ve taken a liking to Monsters, Inc., Big Hero Six, and PBS cartoons. At first you loved Dinosaur train, then Curious George, but now it’s back to trains with Thomas the Train. You had a fetish for only cars for the longest time and anyone that knows you knows that! But now you love anything that has a motor. Trains, planes, cars, helicopters, motorcycles. You have a noise for each of those, too! You can entertain yourself fine with a couple of cars and your imagination. I would love to see what you do in that little head of yours.

You are pretty small for your age and I don’t know of many kids your age as small as you are. You kind of drown in two-year-old clothes, but you still look cute in them. You are a little bit of a snake eater in that you eat very little for a few days then pig out for one day. Your favorite foods include cuties (oranges), graham crackers, mac-and-cheese, quesadillas, grapes, cereal (Life, preferably), juice, and candy. Not a lot of substantial things, unfortunately. We can sneak some Miralax in your juice so you stay nice and unconstipated. But you can’t have any milk – it clogs you right back up. But at least we found a system that works for us: hurrah!

You are the sweetest little guy and love to give hugs and kisses. Nothing puts a smile on my face than when we are cuddling and all of a sudden I feel your cute little lips on my forehead. You love Mommy and Daddy’s bed, so it makes it a little hard putting you to bed in your own crib, but Daddy finally has a system and can put you down in no time. Mommy has to work harder, perhaps because you have a harder time seeing her leave your room. But you sleep through the night and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

I love you sweet boy. I hope you continue to be your happy self. You have so much potential and I hope that we can give you the resources and love you need to reach it! Here’s to being two!

Love,

Mommy

Portland Trip 2015

Hi Everyone!

Kiley has been doing a wonderful job at keeping our blog updated. I decided that I should probably do a post, since it has been a while. I took Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), which has a total of 3 parts, a month ago, and I just found out that I passed! Woo hoo! That means that I am literally one step closer to becoming a doctor. :)

Between finishing my exam and starting on some research, Kiley and I decided to take a trip to Portland. This may be the last break that we have together until Kiley graduates in December! So, to make it a little less stressful, we decided to have my mom and dad babysit Joey while we went away. It was great fun to have a second honeymoon.

Day 1: Voodoo Doughnuts and the Temple

On the 7th, we left Albuquerque at 6:05am and arrived in Portland a little after noon. We got our rental car, and we headed straight for Voodoo Doughnuts - a fun little doughnut joint with crazy decorations and a fun pink box for all of our goodies. After getting changed at the hotel (and taking a nice nap after having only a few hours of sleep the night before), we went to the Portland temple. It was gorgeous! Here are a few of our pictures.:

And of course, you can't go to the temple without admiring the beautiful flowers:

Day 2: Church and a Scenic Hike

We headed off to church on Sunday, where we were planning on staying just for Sacrament Meeting. There was a wonderful talk by a youth speaker who just happened to not be a member! He was planning on being baptized after he turned 18, since his parents refused to give him permission to be baptized. He had a great spirit about him, and Kiley and I hope that he gets called to serve a mission in Albuquerque, New Mexico! Wouldn't that be spectacular?

While the next speaker was giving her talk, a member of the congregation started having a tonic-clonic seizure. The bishopric and other members of the ward made sure she was safe. The bishop then stood up during a musical number by the choir and stopped them after the first verse of the song they were singing. "I'm sorry, brothers and sisters," he said. "We have an emergency situation, and the paramedics are here and need some room to work. So we are going to dismiss this meeting and ask that you all exit immediately to Sunday School." That was the first time I had sacrament meeting so abruptly dismissed!

After church, we decided to go on a little hike around Forest Park. We realized that we have very few pictures of just the two of us now that Joey is in our lives, so we took the opportunity to get some couple shots. Please excuse the embarrassing kissy-kissy shots and the geeky tinted-glasses look that I am sporting. But look how pretty the scenery is!

This is the Pittock Mansion. It was a little bit of a hike to the top of the hill, but the view was definitely worth it! In order to get the panorama shot below, I actually had to take around 8 different photos and then photo-merge them in Photoshop. It turned out pretty nice, though!

Day 3: Tillamook Cheese Factory and Oregon Coast

Monday morning, we decided to drive out to the coast to check out the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It was pretty awesome! They let you have free, self-guided tours, and there were plenty of free cheese samples. After spending a little time looking around, we bought a couple little souvenirs, tried out some awesome cheese sandwiches for lunch, and bought some fresh-made ice cream (though we still think Cold Stone is better...). Here is a picture of farmer Kiley ready to milk her pet cow Sam.

Since Tillamook is right on the coast, we decided to make a little drive along the coast to see some beautiful scenery. Here we are at Ecola State Park, looking down at the beautiful beach.

Here's my beautiful wifey-wife taking in the scenery!

We couldn't just look at the amazing beach, though. We had to climb down and visit it for ourselves! Little did we know how much climbing we would have to do. We had to climb down a little cliff in order to make it to the beach. Kiley was very brave; she has an intense fear of heights, but she totally rocked the climbing rope!

This may not look like much, but here is my girl jumping across a gap right next to the cliff face! She is so awesome.

The view at the bottom was spectacular. Here is a little creek feeding into the Pacific:

Being my adventurous self, I decided to try to find my way to another part of the beach. See how my clothes are all wet? Well, I rolled up my pant-legs so I could wade into some shallow waters around a big rock. However, I underestimated the incoming tide, which swept completely over me and soaked me from head to foot! Luckily I didn't lose my glasses (something similar happened on my mission, and I lost my glasses.... But that story is for another time).

No amount of water can dampen my spirits, as long as there are little lady bugs to chomp on.

Again, we had to have more couple shots. However, I was still wet and cold.

After our excursion, we stopped by Ikea before going home. It is a pretty awesome store, even though I'm not really into the whole shopping thing. My favorite part, aside from the great souvenirs we found for Joey, was seeing this awesome, HUGE sign hanging in front of the registers advertising their 50¢ hot dog. I was a bit disappointed that they added the disclaimer (in the red box in the picture below), because that otherwise would have been the best 50¢ I'd ever spent.

Day 4: Zoo

There was a special deal at the Oregon Zoo on Tuesday, so we were able to get in for $4 a person. Oh yeah! We had a nice day at the zoo, and I was glad that they had so many animals that we don't have at the Albuquerque Zoo. However, both Kiley and I agree that our zoo in Albuquerque is much more awesome overall. Here are some of the animals we saw:

Who knew polar bears were so big? (sorry about the weird thing going on with my hand; not sure what happened there...)

Joey's two favorite animals (other than dinosaurs): lions and monkeys! We were a bit sad that he couldn't see these awesome guys with us, but we were glad to not have a stroller to push around.

Finally, a cool lizard and my favorite: the mandrill. We definitely don't have one of those in Albuquerque!

Day 5: Lloyd Center and Back to Albuquerque

Our final day in Portland, we decided to go to the mall and enjoy Portland's complete lack of sales tax. It was great! We went to the Lloyd Center Mall, which has this cool ice rink in the middle. We spent a good few hours shopping around and spending even more money. But it was so worth it! :)

Before our trip, we had meticulously planned all of the details, up to where we were going to eat and at what time. We did this in order to have a less stressful trip. But, as trips go, we ended up throwing out most of those plans. We ate at Burger King more than a couple times (there was one across the street from our hotel) instead of at the famed food carts, and we skipped out on many of the activities we had planned. But it was perfect! We also ate at Elmer's Restaurant twice for breakfast, which both Kiley and I would highly recommend.

After 5 wonderful days and gaining 10 pounds each, we flew back to Albuquerque to see our little Joe man. It is nice to be back, but I think Joey misses all of the attention his Grandma Hobbs gives him. :) Too bad! Now, I start my transitions block in a week, and Kiley has 6 weeks left until the end of the semester. Wish us luck!

More Valentine's Day Fun!

Thank you, Kiley, for your post!

It was definitely a fun Love-Day for both of us. So much better than when we had to celebrate Single's Awareness Day. Anyways, here is the beautiful video that Kiley made for me. What wonderful memories! :)

Cupid's Curse 2015

Hello all who come by this,

February is packed packed packed. Last post I mentioned that Sam and I were recruited to play in a quartet Valentine's Weekend. Well, it was a lot of music to learn, which made February busier than it already was. That, and school has gotten really busy for me and Sam takes the boards on Monday- AH! Did I mention that Sam and I got colds one after another? Sweet Joey was willing to be babysat through it all. Here is the advertisement for the show and masquerade ball we played in:

 

   



Post by Cupids Curse Theatrical Masquerade Ball.

Thursday night, opening night was skim, but it was a little to be expected. It was super tiring to play for two hours way into 11:30 at night. We watched the show before playing and it was impressive to see what they put together in three short weeks. The best part was this creepy dude that came in from the back. Our string quartet was sitting in the back so we saw him coming in, but the other people dutifully watched the front waiting for the show to start. The guy really had his role down, complete with a really creepy laugh. The rest of the show was interesting, the special effects were cool, and they even played Dvorak's New World Symphony over and over again!The second night was quite like the first with a little more people. This was a better night because the people were more engaged and one person even told us we were the best part. They brought in "human statues". Here is a picture of Sam and me there:

However, on actual Valentines Day I received a text that the event was cancelled due to poor sales. I was sad but was willing to forgive the rest of the contract that they signed with us. It started getting fishy when the other group members asked for half pay (they could do that because of the contract). Meanwhile Sam went to the venue to grab all our stands we left the night before. Sam noticed that the event was not cancelled as everything was still there and employees still working. So, instead of playing two hours of music after the show, we made a deal to play an hour before the show started for half the price of what we would have gotten. A little sad, but it worked out nicely that we weren't playing so late and the people didn't have to pay us as much. Probably better for the audience as well. Afterward we were fed a couple other stories, including how the bar would not be available after the show, so they were going to cancel the masquerade ball (which was a pretty lame cover-up for trying to cancel the quartet). The more lies they feed us, the more we see the truth that they just didn't want to pay us (for two hours all three nights we were going to be paid $1500 total). Oh well, it was still fun.

That hiccup didn't ruin our Love Day. Sam made blueberry pancakes in the morning. I showed him a video I made for him. We went to Costco where Sam picked out a bouquet of flowers for me. Then he took me out to lunch at Macaroni Grill (one of our top favorite restaurants). It was unclear what the evening would be like because of the drama with the ball, but in the end we watched a movie together with Joey. Here is my lovely bouquet:

I can't wait for the rest of February to be over: no more studying for the boards, my birthday, easier work load, and did I say we are going to Portland, Oregon for Spring Break? Woot!