Whew!  It’s been quite a week!

I’ve been away from the blog because we’ve had a lot going on.  Here’s an extensive recap:

Last week my foreigner husband concluded the extensive process of becoming legal.  After almost 25 years living in the United States, he finally decided to become a U.S. citizen.  It has taken almost a year of paper work and interviewing to get to the final swearing-in ceremony.  But he made it, and passed the final interview.  I went with him to record history.

Can you spot the only Austrian in the group?

Two things stood out to me when I was watching the whole procedure.  The first was when the Master of ceremonies, a career government guy, was asked if certain seats were being saved for the translators.  To which he replied:

Translators? Ma’am, this is for your U.S. Citizenship.  There will be no translators at this ceremony.

The other was when this guy, the second-in-command Master of Ceremonies began his patriotic speech with this:

I love this country.  You wanna know why I love this country so much?  Because we don’t take no crap from nobody!

We’re coming to America,

We’re coming to America,

TODAY!

Congratulations Hubby!

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Later that day, for Erik’s birthday, we trekked over to the Discovery Center of Idaho and played with lots of science.

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My sister Jennifer, and her family came out for the weekend to celebrate Erik’s 8th birthday and baptism with us.

It was the perfect way to end our 11 days of Spring Break.

Guess where I took them?

Yep, the same theater.  We caught the premiere of Monsters vs. Aliens for $2.50 a piece!

Both of my sisters are fans of Bakerella.  Do you know her?  She makes incredible desserts, one of which is the cake pop.  After a morning of sweating to The 30 Day Shred followed by the Bar Method, we felt we’d earned a treat so we tried our hand at making cake pops.  Needless to say, they were a little trickier than they sounded and we ended up with 12 finished pops and 2 trays full of cake balls on sticks.  I think I’ll leave the cake pops up to Bakerella from now on.

I’m kind of a little bit obsessed with chicken coops right now.  More about that in my next post.  So I took Jennifer to the hatchery down the road to check out their selection of farm fowl.  They were completely sold out of chicks but they did have these ducks.

Isn’t this little one adorable?

No, we didn’t make any purchases. It’s all part of my research.  Soon enough.  Soon enough…

The kids had the best time hanging out with their cousins.

We can’t wait to see them again in 2 weeks!

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Yesterday was Erik’s baptism.  He looked so handsome in his new suit and tie.  His dad baptised and confirmed him. There was such a strong Spirit during the baptism as well as the confirmation.  These little kids are so sweet and innocent.  The Spirit just emmanates from them.  It was a wonderful day that we won’t soon forget.

Per Eriks request, after his baptism we all went to IHOP for a dinner of french toast, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausages, omelettes, and fried shrimp.  YUM!  We were stuffed and happy.

Better break out those work-out DVDS again tomorrow.

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And in the midst of all the weekend activities, our little sister Ashley gave birth to her first baby.  After a slow and unprogressive day of laboring, she ended up having a c-section.  But he’s here and he’s absolutely adorable.

Welcome to the world Hudson

Born March 27 11:57 pm

9 lb. 4 oz.   20 inches

Congratulations Ashley & Nick

Now I can’t wait to get my hands on him!  There’s nothing like a new baby.

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So, that was last week in a nutshell.  It was jam packed with excitement.  We had a great time with my family and missed my mom who was out helping with the new baby. We made lots of memories and shared some milestones.  Here’s to back to school and a less eventful week.

Happy Monday!!!