Thanksgiving and Christmas 2017

Brig reading to G&G Heagy

During the months of November and December we moved in with Grandma Haynes so we could house hunt and spend the holidays with her. We arrived in the first snow storm of the year and the boys were up at 5 am to shovel the snow off of Grandma's deck (in the dark no less!). We went sledding almost every day and checked on the last of Papa's cows and then helped shipped them when the big day arrived. Jared was also very busy studying for his National board exam. It was great to have extra help to keep the boys preoccupied. Jared passed his exam with flying colors right after Thanksgiving. We are so proud of him! The boys got in plenty of grandparent and cousin time. It was a lot of fun being around so much family since we hadn't seen them very often in the last few years. Thanksgiving was spent with Jake and Rachel and Duke and Natalie. Us girls even decided to break tradition and go Black Friday shopping on Thanksgiving day, with the condition that we had to deliver a dead coyote to the taxidermist along the way. Well, he wasn't home, so the stinky coyote guarded our newly bought goods while we continued to shop. Haha. Christmas and New Year's we bounced back and forth between FF and Shelby. We cut down a really big tree in Scoutana gulch and Jared went ice fishing a couple of times with his brothers. Brig got to practice driving the 4 wheeler in 2nd gear and Benson was good at finding all the kitties. We also spent a weekend in Frenchtown watching cousins play basketball and zipping down the waterslides at the Wyndham. Jared always had the biggest splash and soaked quite a few unsuspecting onlookers. Christmas morning the boys were excited to see what Santa had brought them. They were very good at making sure everyone got a turn to open presents and were thrilled with every present. We soaked up all the family time but were ready to move into our own place in January.

Halloween and Moving

I've been playing catch up on the blog lately. Expect lots of posts in in the next couple of weeks, however, they will be backdated so they look like they were published around the same time as the pictures.

For Halloween Brig wanted to be a police officer (swat was the closest costume I could find in his size, he thought it was awesome), and Benson wanted to be Captain America. They played for weeks in their costumes before Halloween. And of course went trick or treating several times. New England is great for that, so many fall activities. A couple days after Halloween we locked up our moving trailer, had our vehicles transported and boarded the airplane for Montana to live with Grandma Haynes over the holidays while Jared studied for his national board exam and we ironed out the details for his new job. I am thankful that we got to see the leaves change color before we left. Even better, we left before too many had fallen to the ground so we didn't have to spend days raking the leaves! We really enjoyed our time in New England, and really made the most of it. We had fun visiting every New England state, and really tried to get out and explore every chance we got. We will miss the beaches, the history, the trees, but most of all our wonderful friends that have treated us like family! We are sad to be leaving our our wonderful friends in RI but are excited for our next chapter in our lives.

Brig and his awesome primary teacher, Sister Rehon.

The boys were awesome on the plane!

Graduation

 He did it! You're looking at the newest nurse anesthetist! We are so proud of Jared's hard work these last 2.5 years. Even though he was putting in 80 hours a week of school and studying, he always made us his first priority. The Lord has blessed us greatly during our journey through graduate school. We grew a lot  and had many adventures together. We have a lot to look forward to. Congratulations Jared!

Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island CRNA program class of 2018!

Most of Jared's classmates were married with kids. We are thankful for all of our friends we made!

The fancy graduation dinner/dance was held at the yacht club in Fall River, MA.