Summer Olympics

I love the Olympics and I love living on the East Coast so that I can watch the events live every night. Sorry to all of those who live in the West. Unfortunately, Steve is either gone or sleeping so I mainly watch them by myself. Most nights will include me quietly jumping up and down as well as swinging my arm in a windmill motion to make the swimmers go faster. Hopefully, they can feel my encouragement in Beijing.



This past week I had the opportunity to visit my cousin and good friend in Columbus. We decided to put on a Kid Olympics prior to the Opening Ceremony. My cousin took the idea and ran with it. She made me act as the Chinese Welcoming committee because I was the first to throw the idea out, but then she ran the show. She bought matching shirts for all of the families, painted medals, organized the events, and bought the pizza. As part of my job as China, I distributed fortune cookies welcoming the kids to the Olympics as well as made a short speech. The event was a success despite Thomas's emotional breakdown. He had just been on vacation too long and could not bring himself to compete. Like Katie Hoff's melt down four years ago, perhaps Thomas will have a chance to redeem himself in time for London. Overall, it was a great time.



I also am including pictures from some of our other adventures in Detroit. The Woodward Dream Cruise, which just happens to be the largest gathering of antique cars in the world, is going on this weekend. Thanks to everyone who cues me into what being a true Michigander is all about.

Dollar Movies!

Hurray. I just discovered that we have a Dollar Movie Theater about five minutes from my house. I am so excited. Since we haven't seen a movie in the theater for quite sometime every movie showing is new. I am going to take the kids to see Horton hears a Who this morning. Yeah. Detroit has been good to us. We have discovered lots of things to do. We really like the zoo. There is an amazing polar bear, seal, and penguin exhibit. Similiar to the New Jersey Aquarium, you walk through this tunnel and the animals swim all around. Its very entertaining. I love zoos.

We also found this amazing toy store out in Berkley. I have inherited my Mom's love of toys. I love specialty toys that are well made and that encourage creativity and imagination. Playmobil is my favorite brand, but I also love Quircetti. The toy store is having their Christmas in July sale, so everything in the store is 20 percent off. I can spend hours just looking at toys. Thankfully, the store has stations for the kids to play in including a full Thomas the train play area so that I browse to my hearts content.

In other news, the boys are doing great. Donny is continuing to smile and laugh at everything the boys do. Hewitt is finally talking more. And Thomas has found some good friends to play with. Thomas went to Vacation Bible Camp last week and learned many songs and stories about Jesus. I was happy that he could get out of the house for a few hours everyday. Its too bad our church doesn't have a Vacation Book of Mormon camp. That would be sweet.

In Steve news, he absolutely loves his job. Although he has been averaging three hours a night the past three nights, he still has enough adrenaline to get up in the morning and be excited about work. I wonder how long this is going to last. Either he will get burnt out or he will have to cut back. I just can't imagine him keeping this pace. For now, though, all is well.

Moving to Detroit

This past week has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun. With the help of my family, we left Philadelphia last week on our way to Detroit. We finished packing on Father's Day. Here is Steve getting his new tennis racket among boxes. Notice his African pants that he got as a gift from Sophie.


Since we packed up all the beds, we had to sleep on the floor. I took this picture before anyone woke up. Although we started in separate rooms, everyone ended up in the same place by morning.


On our way to Detroit, we had a two day stop in Hershey. We had a great time! Thomas couldn't get enough of the rides. He ran like crazy from ride to ride. Steve even took him on a roller coaster that went upside down. I didn't find out about it until later thank goodness. The park has height restrictions for a reason! Grandma was nice enough to go with Thomas on this ride. With all of the spinning and ups and downs, I would have been sick.


Hewitt was a little afraid of the Hershey kiss at first, but he quickly warmed up.


After Hershey, we stopped in Kirtland, Ohio to visit church history sites. I was so impressed by the tour there. The Newel K Whitney store held a lot of meaning to our family as there are many accounts of Steve's family history here. We also loved to see the Kirtland temple. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the John Johnson farm so that will need to be done another day.



Thomas and Hewitt soon got bored of the tour and I gave them a sucker to stall them a bit longer. Thomas would give Hewitt a lick every now and then.


We celebrated Hewitt's two year old birthday in his very empty room. He loved his presents though. We played with the slip and slide immediately.


After four days and 14 hours of driving, we finally reached our final destination in the outskirts of Detroit. We love our house and the area. Hopefully we can meet some new friends soon.

Thomas Turns Four

Thomas turned four last week. I can't believe how old he is getting. I love that he is his own little person that can tell jokes and have fun. I didn't realize how hard age 2 really is until I got to the miracle of age three and four. Such a difference a year makes! For Thomas's birthday, Steve took him to the Phillies game. We have been promising him for months that he would get to take the trolley and subway to the Phillies game for his birthday. Unfortunately, we didn't plan for Ken Griffy Jr. to be sitting on home run number 599 the day the Phillies played the Reds. This made for the third largest attendance in team history and no way we were going to buy tickets the morning of. I felt bad telling Thomas that he wasn't going to the game, but could still take the subway. He started crying so I told Steve just to bring him down there. They arrived in the middle of the fourth inning and saw a man standing outside. Steve offered to buy a ticket from him and the guy said he wasn't selling, but had an extra ticket.

So Thomas and Steve got to sit six rows back from the Phillies dugout for free. Thomas still says thanks to the nice man who gave him a ticket. It turned out to be a great birthday although he fell asleep a few innings into the game. He couldn't fight off his 6 am wakeup to open presents no matter hard he tried.

Steve Graduates Dental School

After four great years in Philadephia, Steve graduated dental school. Graduation was held at the Academy of Music, which is absolutely beautiful. Thomas even got to walk with him across the stage to get his diploma. Even though that was exciting, Thomas's favorite part of the day was riding the subway. Steve had done this everyday for four years so it was an appropriate end to his schooling. Plus it saved us $25 in parking!!

So that's it. We loved our time here in Philadelphia. We loved going to the Art Museum and Franklin Institute. We loved learning more about Independence Hall and Valley Forge. And we loved being close to everything on the East Coast. Most of all, we are sad to leave such great friends, but thankfully there are things like blogs to keep in touch. We are moving to Detroit for an oral surgery internship and will be there at least one year. We already have a little house to rent and I am excited to see someplace new. We heard great things about the Upper Peninsula in Michigan and Ann Arbor. Plus Detroit has a zoo and that's all I really need.

Joseph's Wedding

My brother Joseph got married in early May to Khia.
The wedding was beautiful although it was hard to get
the boys to smile for this picture.


Donny wasn't fazed by all the wedding festivities.


The day was beautiful and thankfully the pictures
went quickly so we didn't have to hang around too
long. Even Thomas stayed happy.

Outer Banks, NC

Thanks to our good friend Brittany who organized this great graduation vacation to Outer Banks, North Carolina. We rented a house with eight other families and shared meals. Although the weather was windy the first two days, it soon brightened up and we had three great days at the beach. The highlight for Steve was playing Rock Band on XBox until 1 am every morning. I just loved having all of my good friends around all the time plus I love the beach. I just wish Seattle had as nice a beaches as the East Coast. The sand is perfect and the water is warm and perfect for boogie boarding. Happy Graduation to Steve!