Sam Writes His First Blog Ever!

 We're officially east-coasters! We made the move out to Philadelphia at the beginning of February. A lot has happened since then it seems. The biggest news is that we found out we will have another little dude coming into the family - that's right, IT'S A BOY! We just found out today and everyone couldn't be happier. We were all excited, but LucyMae, although very excited, said, "I knew it was going to be a boy!" She has been telling us this for a while and we are beginning to think that LucyMae is a bit of a psychic when it comes to our family; it was her that predicted Ben would be born on a Tuesday (and he was). She has been pretty adamant that Mommy had a boy in there! Well...she was right and now she is super excited to have 3 boys and 3 girls in our family.

It has been an unusually cold winter and spring out here, although I do have to laugh at this coming from South Dakota. Cold here has been in the 30's and maybe has gotten into the 20's a few times. Don't get me wrong, that is cold (especially with humidity) but it doesn't compare to the below zero spells where we came from. It has been a welcomed change for us. It has started to warm up here though, and spring is definitely in the air. Our flowers are starting to bloom and the children are anxiously waiting to see the groundhog family that is supposedly living under our shed in the back yard - I think they are starting to come out of hibernation.

We have not been able to get out of the house very much yet, but hopefully we will have the chance to take advantage of one of these next few Saturdays to go see Philadelphia. Here are a few pictures of some of the things we have done; we'll start with the trip out to Utah right before the Philadelphia move.

 Who doesn't love kids jumping on hotel beds?! Our kiddos sure do!

 We had a great time swimming with the Brady's and Papa (Kevan) at our hotel in Logan, Utah. This is one of Ben's favorite activities in the swimming pool.

 LucyMae is turning into a little fish. It is so awesome to see her learning to swim. She is getting more and more confident in the water.

 The hot tub is definitely all of the kids favorite spot at any pool that we go to.

 Here's Gandma-great with Chels and Ben. It was good to see Papa and Grandma-great when we stayed in Logan for a day or two. Our kids sure love their Papa!

 They also love their cousins. We headed over to Bear Lake to stay with Grandma Michelle and Grandpa Don for Christmas. The whole crew, minus sister Eyre of course, and Britt's family, was there. It is really fun to see all of the cousins play with each other.

 We also went skiing a few times throughout our Utah trip. This is at 'the Beave.' LucyMae and Samantha did great! We also put Ben on a pair of skis for the first time and the only time he cried was when we told him he had to come inside to get warm. He's a daredevil...after two or three assisted runs down the magic carpet hill, he insisted on doing it all by him self. I had to stop him at the bottom, but other than that he made it down the whole thing on his own - He's not even 2 yrs. old yet.

 Since we did not want to haul all of our Christmas presents from SD to UT, we had an early Christmas and then had the kids open stockings at Bear Lake with all of their cousins.

 After presents on Christmas morning at Bear Lake, we headed over to my family's house in Orem and had a wonderful Christmas evening. It has been a long time since everyone has been together all at once. We really enjoyed it! Here are some of the kids favorite gifts.

 We had a great time sledding with Ryan Brady and his kids on some foothills near Timpanogos. I wish I had the video of the extreme sledding that took place after the kids were done! Ryan, Joe, Brittan, and I all hiked a pretty steep bushy hill and took the liberty of taking first tracks. It started out easy enough, but you seemed to get going faster and faster until there was no way you could even think about stopping yourself until you hit the bottom...and that was the problem - you would most likely end up air-born and eventually hit the bottom where all of the willow bushes were. I have never seen someone eat it so gracefully yet painfully as I did my sister Brit. It was a sight to see! If I get ahold of the video I will definitely post it! You rock Brit!

 My dad got us into the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. I was very impressed with their facility and the kids loved it!

 It was awesome to get to go skiing with Chels and one of my best buds Adam! I miss Sundance Ski Resort! It was a beautiful day of skiing until my tele-binding cable broke - bummer.

 After our Utah trip we headed back home to Rapid City for a few weeks until our move. We enjoyed one last hurah with a lot of our friends. We rented a cabin up at Terry Peak and enjoyed the good company and the skiing. Ben and Samantha are doing pretty well here! LucyMae did a great job as well.

 On one of our last nights in Rapid City, we got together with a lot of our close friends at a Japanese grill. It was a great time and we sure miss everyone out there. We made some very good friends while we lived there. We miss them.

 LuycyMae has mentioned several times in the last couple of months how much she misses her friends in Rapid City. The Baums are definitely one of the families we miss the most.

 We then took our long, long, long journey across the country to Philadelphia. We made several stops along the way, one of which was Nauvoo. We are standing on the mighty Missouri river in this picture. This is right where the saints would launch their ferries to forge the river on their westward journey.

 Here is the headstone and grave of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his family. What an awesome experience to see Nauvoo!

 The Nauvoo temple was a gorgeous temple. I wish we had more time to attend a session. I hope we can make it back some day!

 On our way out of Nauvoo we stopped by Carthage Jail and saw where Joseph Smith was martyred. That was one of the highlights for me.

 After Nauvoo we stopped at Fort Wayne, Indiana to spend some time with Chelsia's sister Brittani and her family. It was fun to see them. Thanks for letting us crash at your place for a couple of nights!

 We finally made it to Philadelphia just in time to celebrate Ben's second birthday! We are actually in a suburb of Philadelphia called Blue Bell.

 One of our favorite things about the house we are renting is our back yard. Our kids love it too - there is tons of space for them to run around and have fun.