Glad of {Heart}

I had some pretty cute valentines this year.

Grayson is a helpful & curious valentine. He loves putting up hearts around the house, going to preschool & primary and learning to read.My other little valentine loves climbing, trying to feed himself, following big brother, playing with balls and is finally drinking from sippy cups!My {favorite} valentine is becoming a doctor. He studies a lot, takes tests frequently and is obviously missed during the day! Strider spoiled me and I got my nails done with some friends. While I was gone the boys spent some quality time building & painting. They made a plane, firetruck & train.We also celebrated Valentine's Day with friends Hallee & Traci at our ward dance. The boys loved it!Grayson loved the cookies and the car too.Tolman loved dancing or rather Strider and I would call it running around! Here he is with Mckenna, she was one of the boys' favorite dancing partner. We had a fun time and even went swimming at Strider's school gym before, so the boys were exhausted that night.For a Valentine's family night we visited Chick-fil-A. We let Grayson enjoy some ice cream!Tolman was jealous and so Strider shared some of his shake with him.The boys were sad the playplace wasn't open. Poor Tolman was trying to yank on their little handle!The boys on actual valentine's day! Grayson requested showstopper pancakes for breakfast. The also had some love potion #9. :)This girl is blessed to have such sweet valentine's. Love my boys! (Picture by Grayson).

Change

Before our {heart} day celebrations... I thought I'd give a little update. We are moving in June to Texas... San Antonio to be exact. Our next 2 years of medical school will consist of rotations. We hope to have the majority of them in Texas, so we can be closer to Strider, family & have the ability to travel. The first 3 months he will be doing surgery there. The rest of the year Stride will do Pediatrics, OB/GYN, Family Medicine, Pyschiatry and Internal Medicine. It will be hard to leave DC. The boys & I are staying busy & getting out as much as we can to enjoy our last few months.

Monticello

First off Happy Groundhog Day! This post isn't about that, but goes back to MLK Day weekend. We took a little family vacation in Virginia for the 4 day weekend. Strider had a half day Friday so I took the kids to a nearby Bounce house, which resulted in this for the drive to Charlottesville...

 Haha! Don't we wish. They did sleep, but woke up after our hour detour into DC for krispy kreme donuts. The donuts were good, but after making a 2 hr drive a 5 hr one, I soon questioned our quest for donuts that were "just down Connecticut Ave" :)  What's a vacation without a little craziness though, right? We were stuck in traffic for quite sometime getting out of DC, but we had a fun dinner at Chick-fil-A before we reached our hotel.

 Grayson checking out our hotel room. He enjoyed staying there, but was rather confused as to why we would "get a new home". He was sadly disappointed when we had to leave and go back to our old one.

 The reason why we came was to see & learn about this beauty! Monticello- Thomas Jefferson's 5,000 acre plantation home. It was a bit chilly, but overall it was a nice day to get out and take a tour. We started at the main museum and took a bus up the hill to the home. Inside the house & tour was lovely (no pictures allowed). I took a break not even halfway in though to take Tolman out to play... 

 I spent the remainder of the tour chasing this little one on the grounds. Thankfully Stride and I switched off and I was able to go back in to see the rest of the tour.

Here is a picture of Jefferson's "Great Clock" which organized his home & servants. Unfortunately, he discovered that all of the weekly labels couldn't fit in his entrance hall and so this is below in the basement. During the rest of our visit we walked around the grounds and museum, saw a movie about Jefferson's life & accomplishments, his gardens, tomb, the cafe, gift shop and Grayson visited the Griffin Discovery Room, which was a room geared for younger ones to do hands-on Jefferson activities. This was a very fun trip for all of us.

 With a few other roadside stops such as Pres. James Monroe's Ash Lawn-Highland home and the University of Virginia we came back to the hotel and spent time in the warm indoor pool!

On their way :)

The boys playing together in the pool. We had a hard time getting Grayson to leave. It was a memorable vacation and we're glad we did it.