My dear sister has been requesting a post dedicated all to her. Why? Who knows. But I will oblige her so she'll stop pestering me..JPG)
Man, my baby is SO cute. Stacey's pretty dang cute herself. And she's single! Any takers? :) Love ya, sista!
Our trek home was hard, in many ways. First, it was a whole lot easier doing this pre-baby. The drive was SO much longer this time around, and it's not a great drive to begin with. Second, it was such a fast trip, we didn't have time to visit all of our long-lost friends and show off the babe. We don't have a lot of vacation built up, so with two full days of driving, one day of graduation festivities, and throw in Mother's Day, that was our whole weekend. To all of our friends in the promised land, we are coming home again the beginning of July for an actual vacation. We will be staying a whole lot longer and plan on seeing every single one of you! And finally, being home made us seriously homesick. That, with the awful drive, kind of made us never want to come to where the sagebrush grows again, or just never leave it again, in my opinion. :)
That being said, we are really happy we got to do it, short as it was. There were so many firsts for Evan, and that was a lot of fun for us.
Evan got to meet his Great-Grandma Green, Nate's grandma, and he sure was happy about it. We always have a great visit with Grandma Green. She lives in Ephraim, and even when we lived in Utah, we didn't get to see her a lot. But Evan got a kick out of her belly dancing stories, as we always do.
He got to hang out with Pop (my grandpa), which is always a good time.
And snuggle with his Great-Gram Betty.
Evan FINALLY got to meet Aunt Mandy. She is completing her PhD in Texas, and we were thrilled she was able to get up to my mom's the same time we were. It had been a long time since Nate and I had seen her, and Evan always loves spending time with his aunts, especially when it's one he's never seen before!
Our buddy Trayson was very excited to see Evan and Nate. I'm sure glad those two are on my team, so he'll like me, too. :)
This is as we were pulling into Cache Valley, where Nate and I lived, heading to his graduation. Oh, there is really just no greater feeling than this place for us. Nate and I would live in Logan for the rest of our lives if we could.
After graduation, it was onward and upward to Preston, Idaho to spend time with the Fuller clan. It was a beautiful weekend and perfect for time at the park.
Evan's first swing ride!
As Fuller's love to do, we played a lot of frisbee. It was a blast! My sister-in-law Katie and I had fun playing the favorites while our father-in-law was in charge of 500. Maybe he just felt bad for us up against his two giant sons! :)
These are The Wellsville mountains again in Cache Valley. Only those that live in this valley, then leave for some time and return, can fully comprehend what I mean when I say no words can describe how good it feels to be there again.
This is MY beautiful mountain in North Ogden, Mt. Ben Lomond. That's right, it's mine. This pic was taken from my parents driveway. This is what I grew up with! And I took a whole lot of pictures of it while we were there. Can you tell what we've missed most (aside from family of course)? I've always loved the mountains, but living in the desert sure does make you appreciate them even more. I just kept saying to Nate the whole trip, "Oh, just look at those mountains. I miss my mountains." Why would anyone NOT want to live here?
Aunt Stacey bonding with Evan. I think they were trying to see who could make bigger eyes.
We had an awesome Mother's Day BBQ at my mom's, and Evan got to spend more time with his wonderful Great's.
As Taggart's love to do, there was some good basketball playin'.
Grandma Susan discovered Evan loves to play Peek-A-Boo. Turns out, he just loves to hear the word, Boo! He thinks his Grandma is so funny.
All of the Taggart cousins together for the first time. I loved every minute of it.
Evan got to wear his favorite outfit from Aunt Mandy. Does that look like a giraffe or a zebra to you?
Here is Aunt Stacey is trying to teach Evan why construction signs are so cool. He doesn't seem to get it. Don't worry, little man, one day Trayson will teach you all you need to know.
Me-n-Manda
All us girls with our Mama, celebrating Mother's Day.
Our own family pic on my first Mother's Day.
Me and my beautiful boy. I'm so in love with him.
He makes being a mom pretty dang awesome.
And all too quickly, we went from our lovely deseret to our barren desert that is Ridgecrest. (sigh)
Last weekend, we were able to make an UBER quick trip to Utah (post on that to come later) so that Nate could walk at Utah State University's graduation. I made him do it. That is all. He thought it was pretty silly, since he received his actual degrees last August and has been working in his career for the last 8 months, but I needed closure. I'm pretty sure an engineer's wife should get her own degree. And I really wanted to see the "hooding" for his Master's; I just think that's pretty special. He technically should have walked at December's graduation, but there was a baby complicating life and making that trip impossible to plan. So he gave in, because it meant a trip home. His mom told me this was THE BEST Mother's Day gift ever :)
Somehow we lucked out with a lovely day in Logan, and Nate walking RIGHT next to us.
He was just happy to see Evan, not about walking. Right before this picture he was yawning.
Where's Nate? He's the tall one wearing the black hat, looking up to find his family.
Oh, it'd been much too long since we'd been here...felt so good to be home.
The actual hooding
What a cheeser (apparently this is his graduation pose. I have a picture at my graduation with him doing the EXACT same pose.)
Man, that felt good. I'm pretty sure this meant a whole lot more to me than it did him.
I know I look crazy in this, but I love Evan's little smirk
One of Nate's best friend's, Chris, came all the way from Boston! (Ok, his sister was graduating the next day, but he still sacrificed an afternoon to spend with us, and it was awesome!)
The Fuller's, thoroughly enjoying the ceremony
I did my best to keep the child entertained
Evan loved rubbing Aunt Mandy's jacket all over his face. So easily pleased.
Officially, no more school!!! (Don't you love the trees in the back? That's Logan springtime for ya! ;)
Happy Aggie Family
One day, buddy. You too will carry on the Aggie tradition.
I'm so incredibly proud of Nate. For finishing his Bachelor's and Master's, for doing it quickly so we weren't in school until the end of time, for getting us through it debt free, and for completing with such awesome grades. I really admire him; he sincerely enjoys school. I'm pretty sure he would just keep going to school forever if I would let him. His hard work in school has brought our family so many blessings already. I love having a husband who is constantly learning and expanding his knowledge. What a lucky boy Evan is to have him to look up to. Congratulations, love! Even if it is 8 months later. :)
We were so lucky to have Nate's sister and niece come out and visit us. They came all the way from Virginia to meet little man Evan, and we loved every minute!
We flew kites at the park. (Ridgecrest is the perfect place for kite flying. We basically have two seasons: hot and windy.)
Hannah and I explored the playground
Of course, there was plenty of fish feeding.
And lots and lots of dress up. Cause that's what girls do!
Somehow he got out of toenail painting.
Hannah LOVES to be "fancy".
She put on ALL of my "jewels", over and over and over.
Then we would have to walk around and just be fancy!
For some reason, fancy also meant wearing Uncle Nate's shoes.
In Evan news, our dear friends lent us their Baby Einstein Jumper. (side note: I have been BEGGING Nate to let me buy this. He refused to pay so much money for a toy. I was complaining this to my friend, and she magically pulled one out of her closet! :) Lesson leaned= whine to your friends about baby stuff, they probably have exactly what you need and are willing to lend it until their next child arrives.)
He gets a kick out of this thing! He's a big kicker, so it's awesome for him to make himself jump. And he thinks it's so great when he accidentally presses the buttons that make songs go.
After we took Sara and Hannah to the airport, we were pretty bummed to see them go, so we stopped by the ocean on our way home to cheer ourselves up.
Evan could NOT take his eyes off the water. He was mesmorized.
But I think he liked it!
Our little California boy!
