Well, if you didn't know, I went to Iowa for a week and abandoned Ethan while he took his I.C.E. Exams. Iowa was great. My favorite thing was going to go see houses and talking with the private bankers. It helped me put together a plan of what we need to do over the next year to get into a house!!!! It looks like we are going to be able to afford a new construction ranch home with an unfinished basement. I showed Ethan the pictures of the style of homes being built and here are a couple of the ones we liked.

Other things I did . . . oh, we went to the country club and did water aerobics! It was so funny. Karen's friends are hillarious. I think the funniest thing was we got noodles and sat on them and paddled on them a little bit. The instructor called it riding your horsey... ride your horsey down the length of the pool and back!

Of course we saw movies and went shopping. Ann Taylor Loft has a ginormous sale and I got some really beautiful clothes. I did also get my hair cut, but didn't take any pictures of it, so I'll have to post that later, but it's really cute!!! What else, oh, Grandma Zmoos had a bunch of pictures of Ethan when he was little and put it together in a quick scrapbook. Nothing too fancy, but Ethan really liked it. I got one to put our wedding pictures in, so I'll have a project to work on. One of the other cool things we did, was Karen and I went to a fancy pants resturant. I had duck for the first time, it was pretty good, it was cool to see and eat off one of the pretty plates you see on TV or in the movies. Here's a picture of my duck!

Oh, and I saw this sign, you know you're in Iowa when ...

But, while I loved Iowa, I did miss Ethan. Apparently during his week long study session, he didn't eat a real meal and just snacked and he lost weight! Not healthy I know, but still! So I think he should publish a weightloss book... snack yourself thin!

Oh, I did miss my kitties and Lola. Karen bought Lola a toy so here she is playing with it. It took her all of about 2 min to rip it open and start destuffing it. She hasn't destroyed it completely yet, but she sure loves doing it!

Love you all.

Hi family and friends!

Well the baby totals have increased!!! Walter and Rachel had their beautiful little Girl Rebecca Elizabeth Olsen, on Sunday morning (3 mons to the day after Rex!). Rachel is doing well. She is crazy, she made it through almost 40 hours of labor, 2 hours of pushing, and NO epidural. She my be my hero. Well, when we finally have a kid, I don't think I'll be able to make it with out an epidural! Here's a couple of pics I took, she has cuter ones on her website.

Well, sad news, our Disneyland passes expired!!! Sigh, we had to say goodbye to the Happiest Place on Earth!!!! Here are some pics. We got to go on the new Nemo ride. It was cool. It was a good day, we went on all of our favorites, ate our last Disney breakfast, saythe golden horse shoe review, and Rex kept us entertained during waits in line. Since we had a baby with us, we got to do the baby pass thing, which is AWESOME. You ride the ride while one person stays behind with the baby, then after your group goes through, one person gets to cut line with whoever stayed behind with the baby and rides the ride again right away! I got to ride my favorite ride, Space Mountian, 2 times in a row!!! The only thing was it was sure hot, but in California Adventure Eth found a place to cool off. Disney is great!

As summer keeps chugging along, I'm about to be on my way to Iowa to visit Eth's family. I'm sad Eth can't come but he has ICE exams next week. These mimic the National Board Exams he has to take later on in the year so that he can prepare. It's important that he does well, or else they could hold him back at school. So I get a week of playing and he gets a week of studying, that seems fair, right!?

Oh, since I've been talking about all of my friends to other people and telling stories, I thought I'd post everyones blog addresses, so you can learn more about the friends I know and talk about. If you know of anyone elses blog, send it to me!!!

Catherine Hatch - http://www.catherinehatch.typepad.com/

Rachel Olsen - http://mrsolsen.blogspot.com/

Dianna Crest - http://thecrests.blogspot.com/

Kendra Mauger - http://www.maugerfamily.blogspot.com/

Tyler Johnson - http://johnsonblogbandwagon.blogspot.com/

Jenn Savage - http://the-savage-family.blogspot.com/

Spencer Fullmer - http://www.brittneyfullmer.blogspot.com/

Love you guys!

Hello again family and friends. Well, it looks like another month has flown by!

School ended for me on the 21st. I got the lovely duty of collecting sweaty, stinky caps and gowns from the graduates and putting them in boxes, it was a "lovely" two and a half hours in a non-airconditioned room!

I decided not to do summer school for my own personal sanity. I did however sign up to be a sub. I have subbed 4 times for the same math teacher. I've been with his classes more than he has this summer! One of his classes were really bad, I mean, terrors!!! They would not stop talking. I had to tell them to physically close their mouths so we could have quiet in the class room. They were so bad for the last 40 min of class one day I had them sit in silence and do work out of biology books, by the way, it's a math class!!! Freshmen!

I've been keeping myself busy by going back to the gym, doing projects around the house, reading books, and preparing for next year. Hopefully my last year of teaching next year will be a good one. The school asked me to teach a 6/5 schedule, so I teach 6 classes and don't have a prep period. After taxes it's about a $1000 extra dollars a month. Eth and I talked about it, and I decided not to take it. While some of you may think I'm crazy . . . those prep periods are so valuable if I didn't have it, I would have to do all my copying, preparing, and lab setup before and after school and with AP biology that is a lot of work. So once again for my sanity, we decided not to do it.

School is going pretty well for Eth. It seems like every week he has a test or a quiz, he's a busy boy. But he's still liking it. He's actually studying right now, apparently he's a little annoyed at the weird names of his x-ray deformities (which are named after patients) like Lanois Deformity the fibular deviation of the toes.

Well, other news . . . more and more of my friends are having babies, I've literally lost count. I think I know of about 15 people who have had babies and I know of at least 5 more babies on the way. Man, there must be something in the water! ALSO.... Eth's little brother Zach is now in the MTC studying away to head out to the Denver South Mission. We are very proud of him.

Fun things. . . recently Eth and I got to see Dave and Dianna, and Melissa in San Diego, but not at the same time. So in 1 week we drove to San Diego twice. We did get to see some fun stuff and it was good to spend time with family. We went to the Zoo (I fed a giraffe!), saw the navy ships, went to Coronado (got awfully sunburned), saw a Dr. Seuess museum, fireworks, etc. Pretty eventful. Here are some pics.

Oh, and some people have asked about Lola. She is doing well here's a pic.

Well, we love you all and hope all is well. Keep us posted on your lives!