I can't believe that it has been so long since the last time that I wrote! We have definitely had a lot going on. We decided, on not much more than a whim, to leave Provo for the summer and spend our time in Atlanta! So with about four days notice, we packed the things we would need for the next four months and drove across the country to my parents' house. It has been so much fun being home with my sisters again and letting them spend time with Jax. He is growing up so fast... moving all around the house, crawling like a wild man and pulling up on EVERYTHING! We have been encouraging him to take steps, but he's still trying to muster up the courage. In the meantime, he has loved to spend time with my parents' hound dogs who basically let him crawl all over them and try to catch their tales... they are very patient! I am mostly excited to be out here because my brother Chase will be getting home from the Oklahoma Tulsa mission in about 3 weeks, and now I'll be able to be here for his homecoming! I'm ecstatic.
Eli, on the other hand, hasn't had the chance to enjoy our new found freedom from Provo. He has signed up to take the DAT (Dental Admissions Test) again THIS TUESDAY!! and has spent about 6-8 hours every day studying for it. We're keeping our fingers crossed and saying our prayers that he can do well enough to get into Dental School, as it is getting more competitive every year! Any positive thoughts you can send this direction are welcomed! :) In addition to this he is participating in a business internship. He is currently only doing the internship part-time so that he can study, but will move to full-time next week (sometime after he can recover from taking the DAT).
One thing we have both been able to enjoy since we have been home are the huge thunderstorms!! We miss the hail, lightening, and deafening thunder. There's nothing like watching the green clouds roll in during a tornado warning... it has been pretty awesome. It is funny how many of the little things one ends up missing when they are away from home for long enough.
I wish that I had more pictures to post, but for some reason our card drive in our laptop has gone haywire and I'm not able to upload any, so hopefully I'll find another means of getting them posted soon.
We spent the last week up in Tate, GA (which is a small town of about 400 people located just outside of Jasper). This is where Eli grew up. There is something about going up there and literally feeling time slow down a little bit that gives me a glimpse of how life used to be lived, when things weren't quite so busy. It is always relaxing to go up there and walk around their property, skip rocks in their creek and so forth. Eli and his brother Nate were able to go fishing a couple of nights ago, so we had a good ol' Southern "Fish Fry" yesterday afternoon for lunch. It was good! I was a little skeptical at first, but it was much better than I expected. There's just somthing about preparing your own fish sticks that is a little unnerving for me...
...perhaps that is because I had my first real experience with TICKS! I will never be able to listen to Brad Paisley's song "Ticks" the same again. I found one on my neck and another crawling across my blanket after we had spent the day outside. And, to make things worse, I had to call Eli outside TWICE to pick on out of Cosmo's ears... one of those episodes took place in the car earlier this morning. The are absolutely the most horrid things I have experienced, and I am scared to death of them. I can't talk about it any more, I'm getting nauseous.
