Luke's 5th Birthday

Happy 5th Birthday Luke!

For Luke's birthday we celebrated with a small family party. We had Luke's favorite meal: Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza.

After dinner it was time for presents. Grandma and Grandpa gave Luke Optimus Prime and Bumblebee Transformers. Take a look at how excited Grandpa was for Luke to open these gifts!
We gave Luke a Pirate Lego set and more Star Wars Galactic Hero people.

Aunt Kristen gave Luke Buzz Lightyear wings and arm cuffs that shoot little discs. Luke loves Buzz and you will see more of him as Buzz at Halloween.

Grandma was a big help getting the wings on Luke and helping figure out the Bumblebee Transformer. What would we do without Grandma? We definitely missed Morgan's ability to put things together this year!

After presents, it was time for CAKE!!!

Luke requested a Captain Rex Clone Trooper cake. Here was my attempt to make it happen:

The Birthday Boy

Video of Luke blowing out the candles

Things that I love about Luke:

-He knows that Heavenly Father listens to his prayers. Whenever he loses a toy he will say a prayer and ask for Heavenly Father's help. There have been many times that toys have miraculously been found.

-He enjoys reading from the scriptures and reminds us nightly to do so. Luke really enjoyed the story from the New Testament about Jesus casting the evil spirits from a man. One night when Miriam was throwing a fit, he knelt down in his room and prayed that the bad spirit in Miriam would leave.

-Luke always tells us that he loves us.

-He generally wants to please us.

-He gives great hugs.

-He has a happy disposition and loves to laugh.

-I cannot imagine our lives without him. He is the best big brother and son. We love you Luke!

Pumpkin Fun for FHE

For Morgan's last Monday Night FHE we all went down to the Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch. We split up into 2 teams: Luke, Morgan, Kristen & Tanner versus Shelley, Scott, Kristin & Miriam. There were 2 mazes that we had to navigate our way through and believe it or not, we finished at practically the same time.

Shelley and Morgan after the mazes.

Scott and Shelley both were so helpful in getting Miriam through the mazes. She had the best time of all being carried around. A true princess!
Luke and Miriam eager to find their perfect pumpkins.

I love Morgan's expression in this picture.

"Don't launch the pumpkin at me!"

They found their pumpkins and were ready for the wagon ride back to the weigh station.

After dinner, we set out to carve our pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns. Miriam wanted a silly face and Luke wanted an angry face. Here's the girls' creation:

The boys' masterpiece.

It was a very fun FHE! Now just bring on Halloween!

Leavenworth, WA

On Thursday September 24th, we left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa and headed for Leavenworth, WA. We spent our honeymoon here nearly 8 years ago and wanted to have a small get-away before rotations started.

Here are pictures of the bed and breakfast that we stayed in: The Abendblume

The view from our window

The Jacuzzi in our room

Our fireplace that we didn't need to use since it was about 90 degrees when we were in Leavenworth!

After sleeping in a King sized bed, it made me really want one! So much room for both of us!

Staircase leading to our room

Breakfast room

On Friday morning after breakfast we decided to go for a bike ride. We had always wanted to try the tandem bikes and luckily The Abendblume had one available for its guests. We found out that it was a lot harder than it looked! I am sure that it didn't help that I was pregnant and huge!

After resting from our bike ride, we hit the Bavarian shops in Leavenworth. I am standing in front of the Gingerbread House.

The flowers around the city were just beautiful and so vibrant!

On Friday morning while we were exploring the shops, Morgan finally received his call from Ross University letting him know where he would be able to start clinical rotations. This is him actually on the phone with Ross.

He will be going to New York (St. John's Episcopal hospital) on October 8th to start a surgery rotation. He will be there until the end of December! The kids and I will not be going with him due to the little one getting ready to hatch and the fact that it is just too expensive for a family to live there on student loans. After December Morgan will be in Atlanta, GA for the remainder of his rotations. So after Christmas the kids and I will move to Atlanta so our family can be together again. This was a very difficult decision that we had to make...the hardest yet, in my opinion.

After the phone call, we went for a walk along the river and began talking about everything that needed to happen before Morgan leaves. So much to do now!

We had dinner on Friday night at the Visconte, the Italian restaurant on top of the building behind me.

Morgan's favorite shop was The Cheesemonger. Such delicious cheeses...some that had been buried in the ground for 10 years!

One of my favorite shops was the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. So many yummy choices!

We are so grateful to Morgan's parents for watching the kids while we went away. This trip meant even more to us when we found out that we would be separated temporarily in just a few weeks. I love you Morgan! Thanks for taking me back to one of my favorite places on earth!

Mt. Saint Helen's

Friday afternoon we drove down to Mt. Saint Helen's. It was a sunny and warm day...perfect road trip conditions!

Our first stop was the Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor Center. The kids were a little scared of the elk head but I had to tell them that it wasn't real before they agreed to pose for the picture. (I think that it was real...dead, but real.)

Behind us is St. Helen's. We are about 20 minutes drive from the next stop.
Much closer to St. Helen's! Inside this visitor center we watched a short film on the eruption and destruction of the area. Really intense movie! Luke was telling Maw Maw on the phone tonight about the volcano. He said: "We went to see a volcano. Volcanoes are dangerous. You can get blown up." Great science lesson learned.

Morgan and Miriam examining the glacier that has now formed on St. Helen's.

Mt. St. Helen's after the eruption in 1980.

Petrified trees from the blast.

A little chipmunk we saw on our short hike. Believe it or not, there were signs in the visitor center warning guests of these creatures. They said that they would attack us and to not provoke the chipmunks. Are you serious? Luke and Morgan trying to decipher the compass and our best possible route home...just kidding! We leave all navigating up to our GPS now. Oh, GPS how we love you and we could never live without you!

We had a blast at St. Helen's! ;)


P.S. For those of you that requested to see pregnant belly pictures, enjoy the pics above. Only 6 more weeks!

Morgan's Test

Just wanted to let everyone know that Morgan passed the STEP 1 of the USMLE! He is now anxiously engaged in trying to find a spot for clinical rotations. We hope to know soon where we will be headed next. We'll keep you posted! Thanks to everyone who fasted and prayed for Morgan's success.

Luke's 1st day

Luke began "school" today. He goes twice a week for 2 1/2 hours each day. Luke has been very excited to go to Mrs. Rumel's class ever since our orientation meeting a few weeks ago. As I walked him up the sidewalk, he kept saying good-bye and dismissing me. I guess he was just ready to do this all by himself!

4 year old Luke with his new school clothes and folder

This is how we found the kids when it was time to pick them up. They made American flags and had cupcakes for snack. Sounds like a great first day!

One of the very neat things about Luke attending Mrs. Rumel's preschool is that this is the same preschool Morgan attended 25 years ago! Same teacher and everything! When we called Mrs. Rumel to ask if she had an opening, she said that she always had room for a Fife. We are so happy to have him in her class!

Monday Night FHE

My children love Grandma's house. 2 weeks ago we spent our Family Home Evening in the backyard. Here are some of the things we did:

Luke, Grandma and Miriam relaxed in the hammock...well, sort of. The kids climb on either side of her while she tries to keep the hammock balanced and the kids from falling off. Grandma is getting pretty good at staying balanced on the hammock after a few tumbles earlier this summer. ;)

Miriam loves to pick Grandma's flowers.
Here's my little princess striking a pose. She is such a character!

Miriam likes to also walk on the trails on the side of Grandma's house.

Grandpa was showing Luke his cool paper airplane designs. Grandpa made Luke his very own "Luke Air Force."

Luke loved flying his plane in the yard.

Grandpa and Grandma designing their planes.

Luke and Grandma trying out their planes from the top deck.

We had a great evening just being all together and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.