San Antonio

We decided to go to San Antonio this past Saturday to visit Jenn and Chad. We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning to make the shuttle at Nate's work to get to the airport. Here are Nate and Mackay waiting. Mackay is a big fan of Jack Johnson. She would hold up the little speaker to her ear to hear the music. Mackay didn't like the airplane as much as she liked the airport. She was very good at coordinating small playgroups in the terminals. We even had a snack swap. The flight was only about 45 minutes, as opposed to a 5 hour drive, which was nice.
Jenn introduced us to a Playstation 3 game called "Eden", also known as "Silkworm", and renamed by Nate as "Tapeworm". Mackay wanted to play, so she got her own control to help them win the game.
Jenn and Chad took us to the Riverwalk, but not before going to some amazing Mexican food, which I am still dreaming about. We may have to make another trip soon just to go to dinner--it was that good. This building looks cool because it just looks like a wall from this viewpoint.

The Alamo. It was really cool, but we didn't go in since it was so busy. They were having a car show right out front, so things were a little bit more crowded than usual.
Mackay and Uncle Chad on the cannon.



Thanks, Jenn and Chad, for a great weekend!

We're settling in, ya'll

It is so humid here in Texas that Mackay and I have adapted the normal walk. I put Mackay in her stroller and we take walks around the house, in the comfort of air conditioning. Sometimes that gets boring, so to get creative we clean while we walk. I pile stuff on Mackay, and then we walk around the house to put it all away. Mackay's really good at bringing everything out of every room into the living room, but she doesn't mind putting it all away again with this method.
Mackay is getting so big, we have now started being able to put pig tails in the back of her head, instead of directly on top. That is a milestone. She also has found a new place to play in the tub, without water. Mackay found her sunglasses from Grandma Linda, and walked all around the house wearing them.
This is how Mackay's hair eventually ends up at the end of the day. After naps and playing hard, it just doesn't look the same.
I walked out of the room for a minute one morning, and when I came back Mackay had pushed her stroller to the front door, climbed up, and was trying to unlock it so she could go outside.
We got Mackay a winter coat at Wal-Mart at the end of the winter for $5. Which is good, because it is incredibly huge, and we probably won't be needing it for a while.
Our new pets: The cockroach. In one day Nate killed 5--in our kitchen--on our counter. I am absolutely disgusted. I guess we're in Texas.

Our Home--Ghetto or Not?

This is our home that we are renting! The newly trimmed square bushes were my doing, and everything else was Nate. We love being in a home, love having a yard, and really enjoy our neighbors--most of whom don't speak English, but those that do are very nice.
We came home from church on Sunday realizing that we are now supporting the arts in our neighborhood. It's great to see the young people really branching out and trying new things.

We found out that the previous tenants had a very profitable business. $15 million dollars of which was seized in Dallas county's largest drug bust in history. Interestingly the managers of the house must not have known, because when Nate asked him, he said it was five months ago down the street, not a couple weeks before we were negotiating the property and in our house. And probably most interesting of all is we love it! We still feel safe, Mackay is making friends with the neighbor children, another neighbor is taking us for "real" Tex-Mex tonight, and the elderly couple across the street gave us a "beautiful" angel as a house warming gift. Anti-Mormon or not, they are very nice.

Everyone keep in touch, and we'll let you know about the latest police chase! (Which we've only had one of, and the guy unfortunately didn't get caught. And don't worry, Mackay and I were safely playing on the grass, not in the street.)

We love you all!

We made it to Texas!

Moving was...awful. I absolutely hate it. Everything starts out good, organizing and packing every box properly, but eventually it gets to the point of everyone throwing anything they can see into a bag and throwing it into the back of a truck. And then unpacking is horrible because you don't have the same closets and space that you are used to. Oh, we have been here almost a month and everything is not unpacked yet, but slowly we are getting there. Or maybe we are just at a complete standstill, I'm not sure.

The silver lining of moving was all the new fun places for Mackay to play. She loved the closet in the kitchen. She pretty much just hung out there the last week we were in Rexburg.

Eventually we got a camping light and some food for her while she lived in the closet.


Other cheap fun we had in Rexburg: Mackay's new swing. Nate put her in a bucket and swung her around the room. She loved it!
See her hair flowing in the wind!
A couple days before we left for Texas, we went on one last camping trip with my family. There was no way Mackay was going to stay clean for long, here she has licorice stained to her face.
The boys decided to try an adventure of floating down the river. Matt and Chad were the testers, to determine if it was safe enough for everyone else to do.
They eventually decided that it was way too cold to play in, and they were the first and the last.
Nate and I went on a tiny hike around the beautiful waterfall.
This was our party van. Mackay fit perfectly in the center seat and kept us company. She did better than we were expecting, but it was such a blessing to have Nate's parents with us to trade off entertaining the princess. Around 25 hours is a very long time to be playing with toys and singing.
In Colorado we saw Nate's grandpa.
Mackay was a little cranky.
This is in our new house! Mackay brought Nate her medicine so she could have some. I love her look, "Come on dad, just do it."


Mackay eating spaghetti like a lady--a 16 month old lady. Mackay on the table like a lady after dinner.

Mackay attempting to attack the camera.
Mackay and I were outside one afternoon , watering the lawn in some dry spots. I was just casually moving the hose back and forth, when I heard a gasp, and looked down and saw this:Poor girl got drenched! The above picture is when we finally got inside, but these next pictures are when I ran to get the camera, but then Mackay was standing in front of the screen door and I couldn't open it, so the pictures had to be taken through the door.

Since it is so unbelievably hot outside here, and Mackay demands to live mainly in the outdoors, we had to get her a little pool to break up some of the heat. I blew up the frog in our living room, got her swimming suit on, and then it started raining, so she had a pool party with her friends in the living room.

Mackay's new thing is to run around with no diaper. She also loves to sit on the toilet. Silly girl, we don't know what to do with her. She has had one accident: she had gone for about an hour with no diaper on, and I was just roaming around the house cleaning up when I heard Mackay start to whine. I tried to find her, but she was walking one way and I was walking another. When I finally found her, she was peeing on the ground holding a diaper. She knew she was about to go, but couldn't find me to have me put a diaper on her in time. What a cutie, and we are wearing diapers more now.

Day after Graduation

For my graduation present from my parents I got a new lens for my camera. I was really excited, as was everyone else in my family. There are lots of pictures posted here, probably more than half of which were not taken by me.

This picture (one that I actually did take) is a picture of my brother, Kyle, and Mackay. We thought this picture would look good as the cheesy picture that is included in a picture frame that you would buy.
This was the last time that Kyle was going to see Mackay since he isn't coming up next weekend to go camping with us. This is why it looks like Mackay is Kyle's child this weekend in all of the pictures.

We hung out most of Saturday at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Idaho Falls. They have a really nice garden, and Mackay enjoyed the fresh peas.
Her other favorite thing was the balls.

Mackay found some inner tube tires, and had a blast playing in and around them.


Mackay and Kyle again.



Sittin' on the stairs. Her favorite thing is to sit on things that are her size. Stairs are a great example.
Mackay and Grandpa Fillmore.


Oh, and thanks for the cute outfit from Grandma Barker! She wore some white capris for most of the day, but when it got time to play in the black inner tube, it was time to take those off. She definitely looks really cute in her new clothes, though!
I didn't take this picture, nor was I hear to witness this. Brittney was trying to put Mackay on the rope swing that goes across the creek. I wonder how that went.
Mackay loves to tilt her plate up and try to catch all the contents on it, which inevitable falls all over the ground. Here she is licking the plate that used to have corn and hamburger on it.
Rabid Chad.
Mackay loves being chased. Here, Brittney is chasing Mackay and it looked like she was having a great time.

Katelyn and Chad rolling in an inner tube.


We had a really fun weekend, though Mackay is still trying to recover from her sleeping schedule being so messed up. It is now 9:43 pm and Nate is trying to get our little angel to go to sleep. She usually goes to sleep effortlessly at 7:00 pm, so this is definitely not very fun.