Mission call...

My younger sister got her Mission call today!!Nicole has been called to serve in the Jacksonville, Florida mission for 18 months.  She reports to the Provo MTC on May 16th.  We are so proud of her for choosing to serve the Lord.  Nicole can hardly wait to go.  She decided a year ago that she wanted to serve a mission and has been preparing ever since.  She has two amazing qualities that will help her be an outstanding missionary, and they are: 1) She is the happiest most friendly person you will ever meet.  She will talk to anyone and will be any ones friend no matter their circumstances. 2) She is extremely obedient.  There is no gray area for Nicole.  I am so excited for her--she will be an all-star Sister Missionary!!!

2 weeks ago we got the massive map out and guessed where Nicole was going to go on her mission.  My Dad had a brilliant idea that made it more exciting.  We used the boys dart guns to guess where she was headed.  No one guessed Florida--actually no one was even close.  Most guesses where in the Midwest and East coast.  Nicole is thrilled to serve in Flordia because it's super warm!

This is the pathetic cake I made for the celebration.  I think I could use some cake making skills. 

Although it did taste delicious!

Match Day!!

Friday morning was a very exciting and much anticipated day.  I had envisioned this day many times over the past couple years.  Spencer went to the WWAMI office at ten and picked up his letter with our match results.  The boys and I sat in the car waiting for him to come out so we could go open it in front of our family at the Trolley House.  We quickly drove to the Trolley house where our family was waiting for us.

I thought we were going to order our food and get settled before we opened our letter, but no one could wait.  We had to immediately open it!  Being the cry-baby I tend to be at events like this, I started crying before he opened the letter.  I'm pretty sure I have stressed about this day for the last two years and now there was nothing I could do about it--we were going wherever it said on the letter.

So Spencer opened the letter and instead of smiling brightly--he kept a calm face which made me even more nervous.  He was trying to be suspenseful, I guess it worked.  Then he said we had matched at the MAYO CLINIC!! I was so happy.  Okay, extremely happy!  We have prayed about it for the past couple years and as we were putting our ranking list together I had this warm fuzzy feeling about the Mayo Clinic and everything else seemed cold.  I feel like Rochester will be the perfect place for our family as well as the perfect place for Spencer to get quality training.  We feel so blessed to have this opportunity and look forward to the many people we will meet and the experiences we will have there.  It will be fun to live in the Midwest and experience different cultures and travel to places we have never been.  Nauvoo is less then 6 hours away which is a special place to me.  I can hardly wait to take my family there and have them feel the pioneer spirit I felt when I lived there 8 years ago. 

We spent the remainder of the day looking at houses, making travel plans, and then ending the day with a Pizza party with the rest of our WWAMI friends. The day turned out to be perfect--it almost felt like it was Christmas!

pictures to come later...

We Matched!

We matched at the MAYO CLINIC in Minnesota!! We are so excited.  We were hoping we would go there.  We have been busy celebrating, looking for a place to live, planning our moving trip, and so forth.  More details to come later!! YEA!

Match Day

Tomorrow is Match Day.  That means that tomorrow at 10AM every 4th year medical student gets a white envelope that tells them where they matched for residency.  It's almost like a mission call.  We have been waiting for this day for the past 3.5 years.  We have prayed about it for years and have spent the last year doing our homework researching all the Internal Medicine programs.  Spencer spent a couple months in the Fall traveling and interviewing at all the schools.  We have spent countless hours talking over each program and making our final list for match day.  For those of you who don't know how match day works--you rank your programs and they rank you.  A computer follows an algorithm to decide where you end up.  We really hope to be at one of our top programs.  Our ranking list looks like this:
1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
2. University of Michigan Medical center, Ann Arbor, MI
3. Univ. of Colorado Medical center, Denver, CO
4. Ohio State Medical center, Columbus, OH
5. University of Virginia Medical center, Charlottsville, VA
and so on.....

I have been so stressed about match day this week.  I went to yoga TWICE this week (which has never happen) and also did a step class.  I have been exhausted all week and have been close to dis functional.  Today I was exhausted but couldn't sit down.  I took the boys to school, then went to Walmart, Great harvest, Costco, Target, and then crashed "grandma date" at Red Robin.  I came home and cleaned the house, then went to my parents house, made dinner, and then went to yoga.  Now I'm blogging because I can't just sit.  I'm to anxious.

Oh...did I mention I've had a dance party everyday this week to relieve stress.  Tanner LOVES it!  He's a great dancer.  I even made Spencer join me on Monday night.  It was romantic and fun.

This is me stressed and Tanner looking at his crazy mom!

Grandpa Dunkley's 90th Birthday

My Grandpa Dunkley turned 90 on March 1st.  He's a very young 90 year old.  He still drives, rides his bike, lives in all three of his homes (Boise, Arizona, McCall) goes to the temple once a week, and is totally independent.  He said he's going to go skydiving with any of the grandchildren that want to come with him this summer!  I'll post pictures when he goes.  I sent him a birthday card and just a couple days ago he sent me a Thank you card.  I really liked what he said in the card, so I wanted to post it on my blog.  It said,

12/8/11

"Spencer, Juliann, Reece, Benson, and Tanner. What a great family.  And thanks so very much for the card and all the 9 comments.  It will be nice if I can live up to them.  We had a great Birthday experience.  Sixteen of my family and friends were in the Temple and what made it even better Mark & Karen (my parents) were our witnesses.  It was a large prayer circle.  What a blessing to have all your family worthy to be in the house of the Lord.  Wouldn't it be great if we were present when the Savior visits the earth?  We send our love and thanks to you and those wonderful boys.  -Wmk (Grandpa)

I love you Grandpa.  Thanks for your wonderful example and all the love you constantly give us!

Trip to Heyburn

 We took a quick trip to Heyburn last weekend to visit Natalie, Cob, and the kiddos.  We always have so much fun with them.  The boys love their cousins and Spencer and I thoroughly enjoy our conversations with Nat and Cob.  We doubled scored this trip because we talked them into coming with us to CANCUN in a couple months!! We are celebrating graduating from med school and they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary.  We are going to an all-inclusive resort with no kids.  It's going to be soooo much fun!!!

 Kristi and Natalie were waiting for us to get home so they could take the boys on a bike ride to the dollar store.  They are super awesome aunts!!!

Spencer

Spencer is doing awesome.  Not only does he deserve the best husband and father of the year award, but he's also been named Reece's T-ball coach!  I'll keep you updated on how it goes. 

I'm serious about the best husband award.  I couldn't make a better husband for me.  We have so much fun together and he is always making me into a better person.  I am grateful to be his wife for eternity!

Tanner

 Tanner got his first haircut!! We visited Aunt Natalie and the kiddos in Heyburn last weekend and while we were there she cut his hair.  Tanner had a serious comb over which had to go.  I think he looks so handsome with his hair cut.  I felt bad when we were cutting his hair because he was screaming uncontrollably and after a minute or so of screaming Spencer noticed there was a hair on his eyeball.  The poor guy was in serious pain.  I felt terrible for him.  After we got the hair off he was darling and let us finish his haircut.

Tanner has just figured out he has hands.  It's one of my most favorite stages babies go through.  He puts them in front of his eyes and just plays with them.  Its tender. He's also figured out he loves his daddy.  Whenever Spencer comes home and picks him up he'll start talking and smiling at him.

Reece

Reece has decided he wants to be more independent.  He made an independent chart for the refrigerator so when he does something "independent" he can put an X on it.  Some of his ideas were: help Mom clean up; help brothers; practice piano.

He has been in one of his reading zones.  He read 8 Magic Tree house books within the last week.  On Wednesday he looked terrible and so I asked him if he wanted to stay home from school.  He insisted he needed to be at school that day.  So I sent him to school but knew his teacher would call at some point during the day telling me he didn't feel good.  My guess was correct, she ended up calling a couple hours later.  After talking to her I realized the only reason Reece went to school was to get a library book from the school library.  He wanted another Magic Tree house book to read and would do anything to get it.  I thought it was brave of him so after I picked him up from school I took him to the library and had him pick out 5 Magic tree house books to take home!
                                                      He didn't want me to take a picture of him reading so he pulled
                                                      his alien hat down  and closed his book so I couldn't see him!

He's also been into puzzles lately.  He got a 200 piece puzzle for his birthday which he loves and so on Thursday he's going on a Grandma date to get another one.

I just barely got this off of Spencers phone.  Reece drew this about 6 months ago.  He got a new human body encyclopedia book and after reading about the heart he decided to draw one for us. I remember being very pregnant and sitting on the couch when Reece jumped off the table and came running to the couch to show me his picture.  I was flabbergasted.  He could even explain what everything meant.  Amazing little boy!

Benson

 This kid makes me laugh.  He is so silly all the time.  He has a quick witted personality and is very imaginative. Here are some random things he's been doing lately:

-He likes to call me "Love".  He'll say, "hey Love, I need you".  If I'm sitting on the floor he'll stand behind me, massage my neck, and then comb my hair.  He loves to take care of his mommy.  During Sunday dinner at my parents house Kristi asked him why he's so handsome.  He said, "because my Mom is beautiful".  He melts my heart.
-Randomly during the day you'll hear him sounding works out.  He gets so excited when he gets the words right.  He's also started reading.  He can read 4-5 beginner books.  I've been waiting for him to get the reading bug, and I think it's hit him.  He looks for words he can read in most books and places we go.
-We have a family rule with bubble gum.  You have to be 4 in order to chew gum.  Benson is just a couple weeks shy of turning four and so Reece and I decided he could start chewing gum.  Yesterday was his first day having gum and he loved it!! He was so careful to not swallow it.  He said, "I put the gum on the side of my mouth when I have to swallow".  He was pretty cute about it. Reece said, "we can be bubble brothers now"!! He was excited for his little brother.

HAPPY NEWS: Benson's A1C was 7.7 which is perfect for a toddler.  His blood sugar's have been the best they have ever been.  85% of his number are in the 100's which is a miracle!
SAD NEWS: He's had a lot of problems with drainage in his ears.  After a couple appointments with the ENT and some experimental medicines it's been determined he needs his adnoids taken out and tubes put in his ears.  This is a minor surgery--only lasting 30 minutes.  I am excited for the results of the surgery, but am SUPER nervous about his blood sugars during and after the surgery.  I will be praying for help in that department.  His surgery isn't for a couple more weeks.

-I made Benson a new buddy holder for bedtime. His old ones were getting to small.  Here are pictures of it: