Memorial Day

This year for the first time in a long time, we did something for memorial day. McKay took a practice exam and studied for the CFA exam he has coming up next weekend. fun fun fun. I am ready for him to be done with the cursed test and I am pretty sure he is too. So while McKay was getting ready for his beast of a test, Madelynn and I went with some of my family down to Fairview Utah. My mom's side of the family were some of the original founders and we have tons of family history down in Sanpete county. We initially went to visit my Great Grandma Miner's grave and ended up finding 30+ ancestors in the cemetery. We also found my Grandparents grave site that they have all picked out. They already have their headstone there and everything. It was kind of morbid, but funny to take a picture with my grandparents grave while they are still alive. After we visited the cemetery and left a bunch of flowers and cleaned a couple of graves we went and visited some of the homes that my grandparents, great grandparents and even some aunts and uncles lived in. Then we visited the Museums that are across the street from my Great Grandmas farm house. It was a good little trip and I am glad that we took it. Especially because we read some of our family members biographies on the ride down and back so it made it feel a lot more personal and special when we saw their grave sites. Also, Madelynn learned how to stick her tongue out today, which kept us quite entertained.

 My un-dead Grandparents Grave

 My mom with her polygamist Great (or great great) Grandparents.

 A touching emotional moment between my mom and Jess

 The tongue. The silly silly baby tongue.

Ready to go home after a long day.

Funny Funny Bracelet!

Last night we had our good friend Kaimii over for dinner, dessert and games and she brought an amazing new toy for Madelynn. Her bracelet. It was a big gold bangle that she lovingly refers to as the Nephi bracelet. While Kaimii was holding her, Madelynn really wanted her bracelet and played with it on her wrist a little before Kaimii upped the ante and took it off. I love that we never know what is going to make Madelynn giggle. She is so unpredictable that way, so we had no idea that when Kaimii started spinning her bracelet that Madelynn would find it so funny. After a few minutes of making her laugh we finally had the good sense to go get the camera to catch it on video. So here is the super cute video of Madelynn laughing at a spinning bracelet. Notice that it's not funny until it is done spinning...

We're in trouble... baby is on the move!

Madelynn decided that today would be a good time to start crawling. Her attempts are slow and a little spastic, but she is definitely moving! My mother in law told me she would have to find something that she wanted enough to motivate her to crawl, well she found it. She wanted an audio cord that was coming out of our stereo. She wormed her way off of her play mat and across the floor and got the cord. Then she wiggled her way under her jumper and tried to yank some DVD's off the shelf. We are in trouble now. I am going to have to do some serious baby proofing. That stereo that she was so excited to crawl to is going to need to find a new home and so are the DVD's and books on our lowest shelves. Here are a few pictures and a short video clip.

On Wisconsin!

Last week we visited Madison Wisconsin. It was the MBA preview weekend at the University of Wisconsin Madison and we were invited to fly out for the festivities. When we first arrived we were both a little overwhelmed and a little freaked out by the idea of uprooting our lives and starting over there in Madison. As the weekend progressed and we talked to people about there experiences and got advice our nerves began to calm. The school put on a wonderful event for the prospective students and they fed us really well. I think McKays favorite part was sitting in on the weekly meeting that the Applied Securities Analysis team has to discuss how where the economy is and how their investments are doing. I think that really got McKay excited about going into their program. For me the best part was meeting up with a bunch of the other Mormon families who are also in the MBA program there. We all got together at the Day's house for dinner and dessert. I felt so welcomed and was able to get so much information from them and it put my mind at ease. Thank you Robin and Bethany! Madelynn was an absolute Gem the whole time and most of the people there fell in love with her, how could they not? She was absolutely adorable. We did a couple of other fun things while we were there. We visited the Capitol briefly and went to a specialty cheese shop where we got to try all kinds of Wisconsin cheese. I found out that I am not a fan of super aged cheddar or goat cheese, but monastery style cheese is pretty amazing. We also got to briefly drive around the outside of Madison and see the "country" that McKay remembered and loved from his mission in Wisconsin. Now we get to savor these last 3 months in Utah and then it is On Wisconsin!

Easter 2012, Madelynn's First Easter.

Holidays with a child are so much more fun. Even though Madelynn was only 5 months old it gave me a reason to be excited about Easter. We had 1 party  to dye eggs, 2 Easter dinners and 3 Easter egg hunts. On Saturday we got  together with McKay's sister Sasha's family and some friends to dye Easter eggs. Then on Sunday as soon as church was over we had our own small Easter egg hunt just the 3 of us outside our apartment. Our nosy neighbor lady was very concerned that we were putting our Easter eggs in the grass for Madelynn to pick up because she had seen a dog poop over on our side of the lawn a while ago. She saw the owner pick it up, but nevertheless, there had at one point been something yucky on our side of the lawn. We had our egg hunt anyway.  Madelynn is obviously too little to understand what is going on or what she is supposed to do, but she picked up a couple of the eggs. At the Youngs house Madelynn had another Easter egg hunt with her cousins Benjamin and Joshua, and her eggs were filled with yummy swiss chocolates from Grandma Nicci that McKay and I got to eat. After dinner and a few games with the Youngs we wen't up to my parents house in Pleasant Grove and had another Easter egg hunt, this time money was involved because every one else involved in the hunt besides Madelynn is 15 or older. My parents had our friends the Smalleys over to celebrate as well. We ate more food and then played a couple of games as well. It was a very eventful and really fun Easter. Next year it will be very different on our own in Wisconsin, so it was nice to have a big family filled day. Now enjoy a picture overload.