June 2014

We have had a great time living in Utah with my parents. My grandma lives right across the street from my parents, so we try to go over and visit when we can, and go on walks with her. Here's Kallie visiting with Great Grandma:

The pool was closed when we tried to go to it one day, so Pappy filled up the hot tub for the kids to play in (yes, Brittany and I count as kids!)

Kallie still has so much fun living here. We go on walks around the neighborhood, she loves playing in the play house, and of course still loves her accessories:

We really miss our Indiana friends, so it was wonderful to see Hollie and Brielle while they were here visiting their family:

The highlight of our month was our trip to California for a Glade Merkley family reunion! Kallie did surprisingly well on the drive! We stopped in Vegas on the way there, and spent the night at Chris and Rachel's, before finishing the drive to Glendora, CA.

Kallie is such a silly girl, we love her goofiness! We sang a lot of songs in the car to keep her entertained! "The Wheels on the Bus" was the most popular

Kallie loved playing in the pool, and putting on anything that she thought was an accessory! She had a blast playing with Shae; they both loved jumping on the trampoline together, and laying on it to get warm again after playing in the pool

Beach day was a hit with Kallie. She had fun playing in the sand, and preferred playing in the water in the big hole that the boys dug. 

Fun at the beach. I'm 24 weeks pregnant in these pictures!

Of course, we had a Mormon Bridge tournament!

We had a lot of fun on our trip. We had something fun going on pretty much every day that we were there. Unfortunately the stomach flu went around pretty much the whole family. So we missed the temple trip, because Mike was throwing up and I was worried Kallie was getting sick (thankfully she did not). I got sick the day that the family went to the Dodgers game. But Mike had a great time, and he was there to witness a no-hitter!

Matt was such a great uncle and would play with the girls a lot! 

After the reunion was over, we spent an extra day in California to go to Knottsberry Farm with some of the family:

Kallie was not a fan of most of the rides, unfortunately. She screamed and cried on most of them. She had fun meeting the Snoopy characters in the morning though. And after a nap in the afternoon, we found the merry-go-round which she loved, and rode it about 10 times!

We had a blast in California with Mike's family. We were excited to get back home because my nephew was born while we were driving back from California! Welcome to the world, baby Brandon--Congrats Cory and Emily! Kallie absolutely adores him and loves holding him when he's around!

Mike's brother, Tim, and his wife Tamera, also had a baby. We were all able to attend little Theo's blessing and got some family pics:

One of Kallie's favorite daily activities is to sing songs with DeeDee. They love to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Patty Cake", and "Trot Trot". It's so fun to live with my parents!

Mike's parents bought a house in Beaver, so we went and visited them for a weekend. Kallie had so much fun playing with Matt and Jess, and swinging on the tire swing outside. We played bolo toss, went to the cheese factory, and just hung out. Kallie also took a nap in a real bed for the first time! 

I had to post this last picture. My mom was going through her old yearbooks for a high school reunion she was planning. So I started flipping through the pages she had marked and was shocked to find myself in her yearbook...only it wasn't me, it's my mom! I've never seen a picture of either of us where we have looked alike; and the resemblance in this picture is just crazy!

May 2014 - Goodbye Indiana, Hello Utah!

April and May were definitely some crazy months! We put our house up for sale at the end of March. It was on the market for only a few hours when we got call for our first showing. The guy who came through it ended up making an offer on our house the next day! There were a few little negotiations, but we basically sold the house in 24 hours (which we absolutely did not expect to sell it that fast!) Thankfully the guy who bought it was totally understanding that we weren't planning on moving out until May, so we set the closing date for a week after graduation.

At the end of April, we still didn't have a job lined up. Mike had some great interviews, and we knew he would be getting some offers soon (he ended up having 2 or 3 job offers for places in Indiana, unfortunately none of them were very close to our house in Greenwood, so I wasn't excited about the idea of leaving my Indiana family/friends). At the end of April, Mike got an interview in Utah for a corporate company. We were trying to decide whether or not he should fly out for it, when we heard that there may be a job opening for our dream job (with Dr. Vogel). So, Mike flew out to Utah to interview for both jobs. (It was the weekend of my birthday, and I told Mike the best birthday present he could get me was a job in Utah, so we could be close to our family again!)

Both interviews went well. Mike wasn't super impressed with the corporate job, so we were glad he had an interview/breakfast meeting lined up with Dr. Vogel. (Dr.Vogel's associate was looking into buying a different practice, so he needed to find a new associate to help out at the office.) Mike absolutely loved working with Dr. Vogel before we went to dental school, so he was ecstatic at the idea of working with him. They talked over breakfast about the goals/ideals/mission statement of the office are, and basically made sure that they were on the same page about how to run the practice. Basically by the end of breakfast Dr. Vogel knew he wanted Mike to come and work for him, but he wasn't sure when his associate would be leaving. (Dr. Vogel got cancel while Mike was in dental school. So Dr. Vogel's associate, Dr. Youngquist, kept the practice going while Dr. Vogel was receiving treatment for his cancer. Dr. Vogel didn't want to force him out, he wanted to let him stay at the practice until Dr. Youngquist was ready to leave.) 

Mike came back to Indiana and we decided that, even though we didn't know how long it would be before Mike would be able to start working, we were going to move to Utah anyway. Mike was excited to be able to work with Dr. Vogel and learn from him; and we both felt that the experience Mike could get from working with this amazing man would be invaluable.

Our house has already sold, and we told the new buyer that we would be out a week after graduation. So that left us about 3 weeks after Mike got back from his Utah trip to finish packing everything up, get a moving truck, etc. We had made the most amazing friends in Indiana, so we tried to spend a lot of time with them before we had to leave. (It was hard to leave these wonderful people behind! We miss them a lot!)

Love love love these girls! We had a fun night doing nails/make-up/all those girly things. And another night we had a "goodbye party" which these sweet girls turned into a surprise baby shower! And of course, we had to take some "awkward family photos"

Kallie made some great friends in Indiana too! These are just a few (The Cutlers, Carlsons, and Westons)

A few pictures of Kallie leading up to the move. I think she will really miss the path that was just outside of our backyard--we took walks there almost daily when it was warm!

We are so glad that we were able to buy a house while we were in Indiana. It was such a wonderful home, and we have so many great memories from 1277 Kenwood Drive. (Bottom right is the day we moved, Kallie laid down on a blanket to rest in our empty house)

Moving day! We got the biggest moving truck there was, and it was a monstrosity! We are so grateful for the men from the ward who came and helped us pack up our truck!

My amazing dad offered to have me take his flight back to Utah (he had come to Indiana for Mike's graduation). So Kallie and I flew back to Utah while my dad drove our moving truck (towing my car) and Mike drove his car. They made it back to Utah so fast, and I am incredibly grateful that I didn't have to make that long drive with a toddler!

With such short notice of our move, we didn't have time to find a place to live. So my amazing parents offered to let us move in with them! Kallie absolutely loves it! There is so much for her to do. She loves playing in the play house, and swinging on the swing in the backyard tree!

Another favorite activity is going to the pool! 

Kallie with her cute friends Lola and Carson

One of the hardest things about living in Indiana was being so far away from family. We are so glad to be back in Utah where we are so close to family, and we can make it to family events! Mike's sister, Melanie, and her husband Rob, moved an hour closer to Utah, so it's only a 2 hour drive for us to see them now! Kallie adores her cousins, and they are so sweet to her! We had a fun time visiting them:

May 2014 - Dental School Graduation!

Be prepared for picture overload! Mike graduated Dental School this month! It was a long, hard, and sometimes a crazy journey, but he made it! He made some great friends and will walk away from school with some fun memories!

Here are a few dental school friends:

Mike and Jenna 

A huge thanks to our wonderful friends, the Weston's, for watching Kallie for us so we could attend Mike's Graduation Party. It was a super fun night, and we had a blast with friends! It started with a cocktail hour, and then we had a yummy dinner. After dinner there was a fun slideshow (Mike was laughing so hard he was crying, but I will spare him by not posting the picture). To end the night, there was dancing, a raffle, a photo booth, pool, ping pong, etc. We had a great time with all of our friends!

We also had a graduation party with our ward friends. We will surely miss all of the amazing friends we made in Indiana! We feel so lucky to have had all of these wonderful people in our lives! It was fun to be able to celebrate with them:

And now for the pictures of the big day:

Mike receiving his hood from Dr. Dixon

Receiving his diploma--he's officially Dr. Michael A. Merkley, D.D.S.

During the ceremony - Kallie had fun with Pappy, Grammie, and FaFa

We are so grateful that Pappy, Grammie, and FaFa were able to come and support us for this momentous occasion! We are so blessed to have had so much support from all of our family during the dental school process! We would not have made it through dental school without our wonderful, loving, and supportive parents.

Mike made so many great friends during school!

We are so proud of Mike. He worked so hard and put in so many hours. There were definitely ups and downs (like when his teacher tried to fail him for missing a test that she told him he could miss and then make-up...), but we are glad that we made it through! Mike is going to be an amazing dentist. He already has had so many patients tell him that he's the best dentist they've ever had. I can't wait to see how much he will accomplish! We are ready to start the next chapter of our lives!

Farewell dental school!

April 2014

April was a fun month! Here are a few of Kallie's updates first:

• Kallie said "Jesus" for the first time on Easter morning
• Participated in a couple of Easter Egg Hunts this year
• Dad was gone for a few days this month, taking his boards for Dental School, and she was SOOO excited to see him when she got home (she missed him a lot)
• Smacks her head with her hand when she's sad
• Shakes her head "no" when mom or dad starts to dance
• Followed mom into the bathroom one day, got some toilet paper and wiped her leg, put the toilet paper in the toiler, then waved 'bye-bye' to the toilet paper when it got flushed, and clapped for herself afterward!

Kallie has started showing interest in playing with other kids, and is getting better at it. I love the pictures on the left (below) of Kallie trying to hug her friend, Peyton, and knocking her over. They are so cute together! We love hanging out with the Carlson's:

Per usual, Kallie loved being outside on sunny days! I think if we would go outside with her all the time, she would never come back inside. She loves walking down the path that's out on the back side of our house, and loves walking by the pond to see the geese. Unfortunately, she is not scared of them, nor are they scared of her. Mike has had to scare the geese away from her multiple times to make sure they don't attack her.

It was so fun to watch Kallie figure out how to do an Easter egg hunt this year. We "practiced" a little bit at home, in the hopes that she would figure it out. At home, she would just collect as many eggs as she could hold, and then she would stop. When we went to the first Easter egg hunt, she collected as many as she could hold; but once I forced her to put the eggs in the basket so she could collect more, she got really excited (and proceeded to gather more than her 10 egg limit....so I just threw the extra eggs out of the basket behind her and watched her collect a bunch more!) She loved it!

Here are some pictures of Kallie on Easter Sunday! It was a gorgeous day outside and she loved running around the church after all of our meetings were over.

Our wonderful friends, the Cutler's, invited us over to their house for Easter dinner and another Easter egg hunt. Kallie collected a full basket full of eggs that day, and loved finding as many eggs as she could!

These are just a few random pictures we took throughout the month. Kallie got this cute vanity set from our friends, the Goff's, and she loves it! She plays with it every day and loves putting as much jewelry on as she can and looks in the mirror at herself! She found some random places to sit, including wrapping herself in the foam wrap I had out while packing.

We found out this month that Mike had passed his final academic boards for dental school!!!!! Hooray! We are so proud of him and are grateful for all of the hard work he's put into his schooling. So we decided to go out and celebrate at Orange Leaf. Kallie obviously enjoyed it! I'm pretty sure she at half of Mike's ice cream (but she was too cute, we couldn't stop her).

I celebrated my 26th birthday this year. I'm so grateful to have such wonderful and beautiful friends to celebrate with! I couldn't have made it through 4 years of dental school without these lovelies!

Mike and Kallie enjoyed creating pillow towers for Kallie to climb up this month (it was a daily occurrence for a while!) She sure loves to climb:

Unfortunately Mike was involved in a hit and run accident this month (just a day or two before he had to take his boards in Louisville). He had just left our house to drive to school, and a guy coming the opposite direction of Mike was not paying attention and started drifting into Mike's lane. Mike pulled over and stopped his car, and started honking at the guy, but he came and scraped down the side of Mike's car. He stopped long enough to see Mike get out of his car, and then took off. Mike (and the lady who was behind him) stopped to give a police report, and then Mike drove around the neighborhoods in our area looking for the car (he scraped down Mike's car enough to lose his side-view mirror, so Mike picked it up off of the road and kept it in case he could find the car). Kallie and I even drove around looking for it for a while that day to, but unfortunately we couldn't find it. So we had to pay a $500 deductible for our insurance.

I called Mike later in the day (after the accident), I called Mike and I could tell from his voice that something was wrong. Mike was in a car accident years ago that has really messed up his neck, and so it seems like this accident re-injured his neck. He said his friend was taking him to the doctor because Mike could hardly stand/walk by himself. They did some scans to make sure everything was okay, and the doctor gave him some medicine for the pain Mike was in. Thankfully he was able to perform his boards without any problems (for which we are very grateful!)

Mike took his final board exam (a practical exam/working on patients) in Louisville this month. He was gone for 3 days, and we sure missed him. (He thinks it went well, but we will find out in a month or so!) He got home just after we got home from church on Sunday, and I absolutely love this moment I caught on camera of Kallie seeing him again:

She sure loves her daddy!