Mom's are wonderful!

My mom came to stay with us for 9 days and it was wonderful!!! For those of you that don't know, my family lives in New Hampshire and we only see them a couple of times a year. Hopefully it won't always be this way. I LOVE having my mom come visit and it's evident that Brady and Anderson love her too! This visit she was constantly working, unpacking, moving boxes and helping with the boys. I could not have survived my first week here with Eric gone if she hadn't been here. We would get ready in the morning, go exploring around Birmingham, come home for naptime and unpack boxes, and then we'd be off again!

This is our house!

Also while she was here, we made meals for my freezer! If you haven't ever gone to one of those meal assembly businesses, it is fantastic! You make a bunch of meals in a few hours and put them all in your freezer to pull out anytime for dinner! It has truly changed my life...no more stressing about what to fix for dinner at the last minute. So, we did it ourselves and saved a lot of money! This picture is after we've finished and it is full. She was so sweet to make up several batches of her famous cookies too! So any of you that want some cookies, there's another reason to come visit us in Birmingham!

Thanks, momma, for everything you did for us while you were here! We loved having Nana here to play and stay with us! Can't wait to see you all again!

Birmingham ZOO!

On Tuesday, July 29th my mom flew to Birmingham for 9 days to help us unpack, and to help me with the boys while Eric went to a conference in Philidelphia for 4 days. Before he left we all went to the Birmingham Zoo! WOW! It is huge! We spent 2 hours there and only saw half it! Brady wasn't very interested in the animals, but we loved them! He just wanted to run around! He did go in with Eric to pet the goats. Anderson slept most of the time, but woke up to have his picture made in his hat with Nana!

We've moved to Birmingham!

We've moved to Birmingham!

On Saturday, July 26th we packed up our Penske truck, cleaned the house and headed out. After driving 2 1/2 hours in the pouring rain, we finally got to our house and were so excited!.......Until we started unpacking our stuff to store in the basement and realized that there were termites everywhere! For those of you who know me (Lindsay) well, you know that I HATE bugs, so I was extremely upset and paranoid about this. Fortunately our landlord is great and they took care of everything immediately, but for 5 days we had to store all of our boxes in the living room. Things are finally starting to look normal.

We had so many wonderful people help us pack, watch the boys, pack the truck and clean that we just have to thank them! To Becky, Steve, Kathy, Tommy & Pa- we cannot thank you all enough for coming to Chattanooga, packing us up, driving with us to Birmingham, unpacking in the rain, weathering the termites, spending the night and unpacking more on Sunday! There is no way we could have done it without you all. We really appreciate it! To Alex, Travis, & Patrick- thanks so much for all your hard work and muscles to move our very heavy furniture! I promise we won't be bringing the TV with us next year! To Benson- thanks so much for your help and for discovering the termites! To Julie for coming over to "play" with Anderson while I packed and to all the other people that offered to help- WE THANK YOU!!! The Lord blessed us with so many wonderful friends in Chattanooga and it was evident by how many came to help.

We'll try to keep our blog updated on how we're doing here in Birmingham.

Our visit to the Creative Discovery Museum! July 15th

On July 15th we all went to the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga for the first time. WOW! We should have gone before now! Brady had a blast playing in the water with the boats, and LOVED climbing up into the playground area. We clearly enjoyed our time too...and we've come to the conclusion that when you have children, you get to be a child all over again! If you are ever in Chattanooga, definitely take the time to go to the museum and the aquarium! They are fantastic!

Our trip to Myrtle Beach- July 2008

We went to Myrtle Beach the second week of July with Eric's parents and grandparents. We had a wonderful time and of course took a ton of pictures! Brady loved the beach last summer, so we thought he would really love it this summer...he wouldn't put his feet down in the sand the first day and he never really got in the ocean. A little disappointing, but he still had fun building sandcastles! Anderson stuck his toes in the ocean and got in the pool one time. I was a little more cautious about him being in the sun than I was Brady at this age. I guess I'm getting older too and realize that I don't need much of a tan or skin cancer! (Mom-I know you'll appreciate that!) We had a great time playing all week, eating at good restaurants, playing dominos until the wee hours of the morning and actually getting to sleep late! (Thanks Becky!)There is nothing better or sweeter in life than a black and white picture of your child at the beach.

Myrtle Beach July 2008

He's finally done!!! Well...almost!

Friday, June 27th was Eric's official graduation from residency! I'm so proud of him and because I am his wife I get to brag on him. (He will kill me for saying this!) He was nominated and elected by his fellow residents to be one of the two chief residents this year. It was a hard job and didn't always make everyone happy (he was in charge of the call schedule), but he really enjoyed it. He was also selected to present at a national sports medicine conference in Albuquerque, NM and was very relieved when it was over! Needless to say he has been very busy the past 3 years!

We've waited so long for this day and it was very bittersweet. We've made so many great friends here and we hate to leave them. Although 2 out of the 6 in Eric's class are moving to Alaska, so they are leaving us! Chattanooga has really grown on us...especially because this is where our boys were born. We will truly miss everyone! Now we're off to Birmingham for a 1 year fellowship in Sports Medicine. THEN we'll be done! This is Eric's mom & dad, aka Mimi and Grandaddy!