One good weekend

Cory's sister Danielle and her boyfriend Trevor came to visit us last weekend. I took some time off from work and gave myself a 5-day weekend (nice!) It was so much fun having them here, and getting to show off New York.

First, we went to see all the church historical sites (that's what we do for everyone who visits). This is the frame home the Smiths built (I love fall!)


The temple, framed by fall leaves.

The original rock wall the Smiths built to mark their property line -- it's up on the temple grounds.

The next day, we drove 2.5 hours north to a place called 'The Thousand Islands.' When Cory and I moved out here, we made a list of all the places we wanted to visit while living on the east coast -- and this was the only place left on our list. So now we've seen everything :) The Thousand Islands is actually a group of more than 1800 islands, stretching from northern New York into Canada. Many of the islands are privately owned -- people buy the island then erect these gorgeous houses.


The only way to see the islands is by boat, so we took a 2 hour boat tour around the islands. This is us on the boat.

Haha, this is where Trevor is going to some day live...

This is the smallest of all the islands. All you need to be counted as one of the islands is a tree and some other form of vegetation. Wa-la!

They call this the world's shortest international bridge, cause it passes right over the American/Canadian border. Our tour guide says the guy who owns the islands used to banish his grand kids to another country when they were being bad.

This is Boldt Castle, as seen from the water.

The Boldt Castle pump house.

For a few extra dollars, you can take a tour of the castle, which is exactly what we did. The grounds were gorgeous. And the castle was so cool-looking.



Haha, I was trying so hard to keep a straight face... and failing miserably...

I love this picture of the 4 of us, on the terrace of the castle.

This is a state park called Watkins Glen. It's so pretty, carved out over centuries of time by water. Cory took Danielle & Trevor down to visit (I stayed home, by this time, I was feeling rather sick... too much playing, I'm afraid)

This is a good picture showing how narrow it is.

We'll sure miss all the cool stuff that's in or nearby New York when we move. We've seen some really cool places and it's so fun to show them off. It was nice having visitors, even though I felt crappy for lots of the time. Thanks for coming and seeing us, guys!

Labor Day weekend

We had a very nice Labor Day weekend. We drove down to D.C. to spend time with Em & Brett. Since I'm still not feeling well, we kept it a pretty casual weekend. Given that I spent a lot of time just sitting on their couch, we didn't take a lot of pictures... but here's a few.

Kayaking on the Potomac River

Enjoying ice cream in Georgetown

Cory and Abby playing

It really was a nice weekend. We don't see nearly enough of Em, Brett & Abby, and so it was nice to just spend some time with them and have a relaxing weekend. We certainly wish that we didn't live 7 hours apart!

A picture is worth a thousand words

We are thrilled to share the news that we are expecting!! We couldn't be anymore excited to grow our family of 2 into a family of 3! This was taken at my ultrasound in my 8th week; I'm now in my 11th week. At our ultrasound appointment, we got to hear and see the baby's heartbeat, which was very special to us. They calculated my due date at the end of March.

I've been sicker than I ever thought possible, which explains my lack of blogging (and my lack of doing anything, really). After losing weight and being unable to keep anything down, the doctor's office finally got me some powerful anti-nausea medication. It definitely helps, though I still have good and not-so-good days. We even did a couple of days of an at-home IV treatment, but it seemed to make me feel worse... so we're not doing that anymore. Everyone keeps telling me that I should feel better once I hit my 2nd trimester... and we're certainly crossing our fingers that that's the case.

All in all, it's been pretty good timing, since the nausea hit a couple days after graduation... on the day that our 6 visiting family members left town to go back to Utah. Now that Cory doesn't have classes and homework to worry about, he's been spending his time taking care of me... and doing all the stuff I used to do, like cooking, laundry and cleaning. He's been one humongous support to me, and I couldn't be more grateful. There's no way I'd make it through this without him! He even graciously puts up with my whining :)

Everyone is now asking what our plans are, post-graduation. The current plan is to stay here through December, so I can continue working and earning money. Cory will be teaching a chemistry course, one day a week, starting September 10th. He's also assisting in one of the anatomy labs. He's looking for a job in northern Utah, so we can move home and be closer to family (so if anyone knows of a chiropractor looking for help, let us know :) Now that I'm pregnant, it throws a slight kink into our plans. I've got great insurance through my work at the school, but as soon as I quit and we move home, we join the ranks of the uninsured. Bummer, since my insurance would make the baby free. So we're now looking into our options, like buying out our insurance policy, or a program in Utah that would assist with the cost of giving birth. I know they exist; I have no idea what they are, or how they work. So for anyone who's given birth and used one of these programs - please, email me or call me. We need all the information we can get!

Graduation

Finally, the graduation post. Cory's parents, his brother and brother's wife and my parents all flew out to celebrate this momentous day with us. We did some sight-seeing while they were here - the usual spots, Niagara Falls and the church sites in Palmyra - but since I've put up pictures of those sites like a million times, I'm going to skip to the good stuff.

Cory was nominated by his nutrition class to deliver a speech at graduation, representing the whole nutrition class. He did a great job!

Here he's receiving his Doctor's hood, from Dr. Nicchi, NYCC President.

Receiving his Master's hood, again from Dr. Nicchi.

Doctor of Chiropractic class of August 2009.

YEA!!!!!!

Cory's family - Dennis, Rosann, Cory, Sarah, Nathan, Shar

Our closest NY friends - Jonathan, Jaime (holding Brooke), Carlos, Erica (holding Antonio), Cory, Sarah. Without these friends, we would have never made it (sanely) through the program.

Just the girls -we thought we deserved some kind of degree, too :)

My parents - Dave, Tina, Cory, Sarah (sorry, it's a little blurry)

And just the 2 of us. You can see in this picture that he's wearing both of his hoods - the Doctor's (grey) and Master's (green).

I really can't put into words how proud I am of Cory. To complete a Doctor's level program, a Master's level program, and graduate with honors from both in only 3 1/3 years is beyond amazing. He put so much time and effort into both programs, giving them his all, never giving less than 100% effort. It was very nice that we could have some of our family members here, as they have given us both nothing but support over this whole time. We appreciate all the support that everyone has shown for us through this sometimes arduous road. A BIG congratulations to Dr. Bingham!!

Trip to Utah

Wow, I am really behind on the blogging. It's been an exciting month for us, so in my effort to catch up, I'm going to do 2 different posts.

So for this post -- we flew home to spend the 24th of July weekend with family and we had such a good time seeing everybody and eating good food (which feels like all we did was eat...)

We 2 bbq's with Cory's family and they made him a spine cake to celebrate his graduation.

They also got him some 'bling' (it says #1 Grad)

His brother Nathan got him a pass to do the I-Fly at the new Salamon Center in Ogden. It looked like so much fun! Shawn Bradley happened to be in Cory's same group. Shawn is 7'6". Cory is 5'6". Too funny!

In the wind tunnel

Watch this video -- like I said, it looked so fun!!

And what trip home in July is complete without swimming in his parents' pool? The boys decided they should have a cannon-ball contest...

Ryan

Nathan

Cory

We also spent a morning at Willard Bay, with my family, playing on the water. This is Cory wakeboarding.

And of course, we had to go to Lagoon! My dad got some good pictures of us on the Rattlesnake Rapids Ride. I love the shuffle that goes on to get out of the way of the big waterfall...

Or, in Carly's case, get to the waterfall... it was soooo hot!

And we also went with my extended family to see the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. It was gorgeous inside, I loved the color scheme and all the marble. So pretty!
So there you have it -- the highlights of our trip home. We had a great time and we are grateful for such wonderful family members. Stay tuned for pictures of Cory's graduation... that will be the next post...