The Terrible Twos...

Well, I never really understood what people meant when they talked about the terrible twos. I mean, Zach has had has moments, but the other day, I became educated. When we got home from our long day of work/school, I decided to have a quick run before we went for our bike ride. When I got done, I was pretty sweaty and needed a shower. I should interject here that I may have gotten my nose pierced on Sunday and it has had kind of a tough time healing, but its much better now. At the time, it was bleeding. Zach thought it would be really cool to start flushing Q-tips down the toilet. Funny for a few minutes, but I put them away and thought that would be the end of it. During my shower, Zach came running in and told me something about a carrot. I, being a big dumb, said, "Ok, cool, Carrot..." in my usual questioning voice, sometimes I don't really know what he's talking about and just agree for simplicity's sake. Anyway, I get out of the shower and proceed to find him with a shovel in his hand, his shirt wet, and grinning, saying, "MMMMMM, water!" I shuddered inside, wondering where he found water to drink. Then it all hit me. I RAN into the other bathroom to find him drinking water out of the toilet!!!!! He had a huge self-satisfied grin on his face. Lucky for us, it was his bathroom, which, oddly enough, never gets used because he's not potty trained. Never thought I'd be grateful for that... Anyway, lodged in the toilet was one of his plastic onions. GRRRRRR. I shuffled him out of the bathroom, all the while saying, "I can't believe you did that..." and spend a good 15 minutes trying to dislodge the onion from the toilet, but to no avail. I gave up, and was walking out to the living room, and much to my chagrin, there he was, with a tube of lotion in his hand spreading it all over the carpet, Baby Dumbo, and my camping stuff. Double GRRRRRR! Man, I was pretty upset. Little guy had to go to his room and play for a few minutes while I cooled off, poor Thad called right about then and got an earful. He promptly came over the took the onion out of the toilet and took us for a bike ride to see the horses. It made everyone feel much better, so yet again, Thad is my hero and has saved the day.
I just had to share this story, I am still a little bit in awe at the destructive nature of young children...

Hiking and Biking

Before you get incensed with me for not making him wear the helmet...
Note the helmet NEXT to him. He absolutely REFUSES to wear it, and usually takes it off when I strap it to his head. I decided that since he finally quit getting upset about the trailer, I need to just lay off for a while. We only stay on paved greenbelts with the trailer anyway, no cars around. No tricycles or scooters for him without a helmet though!!!

So, as I said earlier, we've been doing a lot of outside activities. Most notably, tons of biking, but we have gone hiking a time or two. Zach LOVES to throw rocks into the water, and he's recently decided he likes big rocks the best, for understandable reasons. He found a giant rock at the bottom of one of the hills we like to hike and decided that he needed to haul it to the top to throw it in the puddle left from the rain. The whole way he kept panting, tripping, and having a lot of trouble. But, he wouldn't let me carry it and he kept saying, "Almost there mama, we can do it..." Little trooper made it the whole way and had a fantastic time seeing the splash. Totally worth it! He is my hero.

I feel like this picture should become one of those inspiration posters about determination or something.

The one about Grad School...

Well folks, the time has come! I have forgotten my camera, yet again, so this blog is without pictures, but they aren't really necessary. As of late, Zach and I have become "tread heads" and gone biking almost every day. He climbs in his trailer, and as long as there some sort of fruit snacks or my water bottle, he's mostly happy. I'll post more pictures later.

Anyway, Drum roll please! I applied to a Genetic Counseling program at the University of Utah. I actually got an interview, which I was pretty sure would be the end of my journey, try again next year. BUT, I got a call on April 29th and was offered a position in the program! I was dumbfounded and I stumbled out a few sentence fragments and said, "Can I call you back, I have to call my mom?!" My mom really liked that. But, anyway, once I gathered my wits about me, I called back and accepted the position, and now I'm headed off to grad school. I'm really excited, its taken almost 2 years for me to come to this point, with different ideas and job offers along the way, but I'm really happy and very ready for this next adventure. If any of you wonder what in the world a Genetic Counselor does, the link to the program is:

http://medicine.utah.edu/genetics/geneticcounseling/about.htm
So, now you know. We'll have yet another move, another daycare switch, and a myriad of other life changes. Things will be very interesting over the next year. My last day of work is August 14th, my goal is to have Zachy potty trained by the time school starts. As of right now, that seems like shooting for the moon, but we'll keep working on it.
I will post some more pictures soon.