We found a place...

10 days after we decided this was really going to happen, we found a place. It was actually one of the first places we came across and we just kept coming back to it. As we narrowed our searched, we felt really good about moving forward with this house. Having school-age (and soon to be school-age) kids adds quite a bit of extra research and planning into the moving process. We had to find somewhere to live that had good schools and a good neighborhood. I think we struck the right balance and definitely followed the guidance that has come throughout this whole process.

Tomorrow is the point of no return (as I like to call it). I'm putting in my notice at work and that means we're really committed now. The great thing about this all is that neither of us fell nervous about it. This is what we are supposed to do and we truly believe that everything will work out fine.

Thank you for all of the prayers. They are definitely felt and needed.

Nicknames A-Plenty

As many of you know, we have multiple nicknames for each of our kids. Some have stuck, and some haven't. This tradition has mainly spilled over from Betsy's family, but we have quite a bit of fun with it. I thought for this week's post it would be fun to run through the multiplicity of names we have for the kids.

Alexandria has had several names. Early on it was Twinkie and Scoop. Grandpa Millburn still calls her Doopy. She moved on to Lady, which she has told us doesn't work for her any more. Her requested nickname is now Fire Girl, though I must admit that isn't really working for me. We'll need to find something else soon.

Elizabeth came into the world know as the Littlest Lady, which was then shortened to Littlest. Grandpa Millburn calls her Pompa-Dora. We later started calling her Larry, which stuck, but Betsy doesn't want her to have a complex when she gets older so she is trying to change the nickname. Betsy calls her Rose. Although Larry still slips out here and there, she is now mostly known as Mrs. Nezbit.

Abram has been a tough one. We have called him Son, Little Son, and Gug-a-lug. Grandpa Millburn calls him Wispy. The other day we were trying to figure out what to call him and Fire Girl suggested Albuquerque. What I heard was Albert Cookie, so that's the name of the week. If it sticks, little Albert will be introduced to the crazy nicknames we have in our family.

A Personal Note

I realized (again) after Christmas the toll that a desk job has had on my health. At the beginning of the year my company did their own version of "The Biggest Loser". I decided not to participate. After their 12-week stint, there were some great success stories. Out of curiosity, I went to HR and weighed myself, got my body fat percentage, and BMI. Needless to say, I was rather unhealthy. After nearly nine years of sitting at a desk in front of a computer I had gained almost 40 pounds and my body fat percentage was, shall we say, a bit on the high side.

Fortunately for me, my company decided that "The Biggest Loser" was such a success that they would do another round. This time I had some motivation and decided to bite the bullet and make some lifestyle changes. Since January I have dropped over 20 pounds and reduced my body fat (from my initial shock) 5%, which got me back into the fitness range.

How, you might ask, did I ever do that? I don't care what all of the fad diets say, the tried and true methods are the only way to go. I can pin it down to two changes I made that have made all of the difference:

1. I started exercising after work for about 30 minutes to an hour (mainly because I can't run for an hour straight for fear of death by asphyxiation). I try to alternate between running and strength training.
2. I changed my eating habits. That is I don't eat after 7pm on weekdays and 8pm on weekends. That worked for me because usually after the kids were in bed I was indulging in such wonderful things like nachos, cake, ice cream, and whatever else I decided sounded wonderful. The other portion of this was eating breakfast every day (even if it is just a yogurt). For me that was huge because I've never been a big breakfast eater and just couldn't get myself to eat right after I woke up.
   

I've found that I pay much more attention now to when my body needs food, so I'm not just eating to eat (novel idea). I still eat mostly what I want, but it turns out that I now want more healthy things instead of junk (but I still enjoy a good burger and fries). I won't be doing any Iron Man competitions in the near future, but I am enjoying the extra energy and just feeling all around better. If you were like me and put it off forever, give it shot. You'll be surprised at the change a few months can bring.

Back at it...

So it's been a long time since anything has been posted to the blog. I'm not quite sure where to start with everything that has happened since Thanksgiving of last year. There is so much. So I guess to get everything caught up and back in order this might prove to be a long post.

We spent Christmas in Portland. That was such a treat. Kate was just home from her mission and it had been quite a while since the whole family had been together.

Alexandria posing before the chaos begins.

Elizabeth in the thick of it all

The three kiddies excited for St. Nick

So Christmas was great (aside from the crazy driving weather) and we all had a wonderful time hanging out with Grandma Brenda, Grandpa, Jed, Kate, Luke & Emily, and Gordon.

Betsy survived her first winter in Heber City. I think Alexandria bore the brunt of that burden. She got to be dressed up like Randy (from "A Christmas Story") every day for school.

Alexandria in her get-up and Elizabeth looking on

Living in the mountains has it's advantages (arguably)

Unfortunately we didn't get as much snow as I would have liked, but it was enough to keep things interesting for a few months.

Alexandria and Elizabeth tend to feed off of each other, so they can get pretty wound up. The best part is that they get laughing pretty hard. You know it's serious when Elizabeth starts pulling a certain face...

It's hilarious!

Abram is quite the lady's man. No really. He knows just when and how to turn on the charm and it's always for the ladies.

Get a load of this...who can resist
rice cereal and camouflage?

"I know something you don't know"

Alexandria finished up Kindergarten and loved every minute of it. That had a lot to do with her fantastic teacher, Mrs. Winterrose. She was reading, writing, and doing math at a 1st grade level!

We are sad to announce that Alexandria no longer wants us to call her "Lady". That's a tough habit to kick since we've been calling her that for nearly four years. She has respectfully requested that we now refer to her as her super hero persona "Fire Girl". Don't ask because I have no idea where it came from.

Lady...er...Fire Girl striking a pose

As Fire Girl has stated to us, this summer has been endless fun. In fact, I think we have played our kids to the point of total exhaustion. They got to ease into summer vacation for a couple of weeks and then we were off to Virginia to see Grandma and Grandpa Millburn.

We stopped off at Virginia Beach for some fun in the sun.

Betsy and Abram in their beach bum attire

Busch Gardens turned out to be more fun
than I expected (I was secretly pretty
nervous about this part, but was great fun)

Hanging out at the marina collecting sea shells
(at least 20 pounds worth)

We had quite a crew, everyone was there.

The miraculous part of the whole trip was that we all fit inside the mission home for three whole days. That's quite a feat considering there were around 40 of us. I was great to see the mission home and the mission office. We got to meet the office missionaries and see the missionary work in action. I think everyone got fired up to open our mouths more than we have been. Alexandria particularly caught the vision. She had a large stack of pass along cards and they went with her everywhere. She wasn't afraid to give a card to anyone. I thought she dealt with the rejections quite well...she bounced right back and went to someone else. At Ronald Reagan airport in D.C. she saw a woman in a wheelchair and walked over to her and handed her a pass along card. The woman took the card, told her thank you, and began to cry. Go Alexandria! We are definitely encouraging here missionary spirit.

We ended our trip with Jessica's wedding at the Washington D.C. temple. That was a great end to a wonderful trip. A big thanks to Mark and Maylene for bringing us all together. It was a great time with lots of fond memories.

The D.C. temple is quite a sight

The newlyweds, Jessica and Jeff

Jessica and the nieces

Well Mark and Maylene, 5 down,
2 to go.

James telling his sister Lizzy a secret we'd all like to hear

After our extravaganza back East, we had a family reunion with my parents and my dad's side of the family. It was a fun three days in the mountains. We hiked, sang around the campfire, played games, and ate lots of great food. It was fun to see Grandma Brenda and Grandpa again.

We took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. That was a great experience. They got to get all dressed up and walk through the entire temple. Alexandria particularly enjoyed the baptistry. It was a great teaching experience and the kids loved it.

The Oquirrh Mountain temple in South Jordan, UT
More information at www.mormon.org

For Pioneer Day, July 24, we celebrated our pioneer heritage by going on a family hike. I thought it would be fun to hike to Stuart Falls (Stuart Cascades officially, but nobody calls it that). I hadn't made that hike since before Betsy and I got married. I remembered it to be fairly easy and figured the kids would be alright. Well, it turns out that the hike is 4 miles round trip. The terrain isn't bad until the end when it gets a bit rocky and steep. The kids did great, with a little help (thanks Kate), and we survived. Round trip was less than 2 hours (we even stopped and admired the falls for a while). I realized that I must have some Sherpa blood in me because on the way back I carried Abram (in the Snugli), Elizabeth (on my shoulders), and the backpack full of water, snacks, diapers, the kitchen sink, etc. Needless to say, I got my workout in for the day.

We made it to the falls
(this is prior to my fate as the Werrett Family Sherpa)

That just about catches us up to the present. We do have one announcement though. We are moving to Omaha, Nebraska. The journey to dental school is about to move into full force. Before you send congratulations, there is one catch. I'm not accepted yet. We did, however, feel strongly prompted that we need to pack up and move to Nebraska. I can't imagine why else we would be going there other than for dental school (I'm on the waiting list at Creighton for those who don't know). For me this took some nudging from Betsy and from the Spirit. It meant that I had to uproot my family, walk away from my job, and move 900 miles away with knowing for sure that I was accepted. I am gratefull to Betsy for being such a support. We feel like this is the leap of faith before the blessing. Please keep us in your prayers.

I've decided that I will be more dilligent in updating the blog. I apologize for the rather long delay, but I hope to at least be able to post updates on Sunday afternoons/evenings. Thanks for checking in on us and our sometimes crazy adventures. Until next time...