Chase walking and talking! (kind of....)

Chase is a super crawler now, and will pull himself up on anything and everything that he can get a hold of.  About two weeks ago we noticed that Chase was really interested in the guitar, mainly because he could push it along the carpet while walking hunched over behind it.  We thought that it was probably a sign that he could use one of those walkers, so I bought one at a good price (only $15!) at Target.  We thought it would take him a little while to get used to it, but he took off right away!  He's so cute when he walks around by himself with the walker, but he often falls because he tries to run with it :)

Chase is starting to be a bit more vocal, and it's nice not to have completely one-sided conversations anymore (yeah, I know it's still a one-sided conversation, but it's nice to get some kind of response from Chase).  He's a cute little talker, and he mostly says "Da-da", "Na-na" (he mostly says this when he's upset), or "Ya-ya" and then screeches :)  Maybe someday he'll say "Ma-ma", but it's fine, I know he loves me regardless.

A Typical February in Memphis

I know this was a whole month ago, but I forget about the pics and videos on my camera until I upload them to the computer (which doesn't happen too frequently).

Since we've been living in Memphis, it seems like we usually experience one or two tornado warnings in the month of February.  We just had one this year, and the storm didn't really do too much damage in our suburb, but it was still pretty exciting!  I feel like I'm always in denial during extreme weather like this, because I'm never really scared.  Usually Buddy has to drag me into the "tornado shelter" (i.e. bathroom :) ).  Maybe one day the weather will teach me a lesson, but it hasn't happened yet, and I hope it never does. Anyway, the video isn't very extreme or anything, it's just a taste of weather in Memphis.  I'll definitely miss all of the storms this summer!  I don't think Cardston has many thunderstorms...or rain, for that matter... :)

This is Chase and I in our tornado shelter watching the weather updates on the computer.  We're lucky our electricity didn't go out!

Just a few minutes later it was raining in torrents, and it made a mini lake of the park near our apartment. Crazy!

Irony?

In May 2009, Buddy and I drove up to Pennsylvania to see my sister before she left for 18 months on a mission for our church.  (For some great information on what our missionaries do and why they do it, see here).  On the way there we drove through a beautiful town in the mountains with cool historic-looking buildings that inspired Buddy to take some pictures.

A year later we chose some sites for Buddy to do his externships based on the quality of the office he'd be working in, and proximity to family.  Two months from today (so soon!) we will be driving up to Alberta, Canada to live with Buddy's parents for the summer while Buddy works at a Indian Hospital across the border in Montana (don't worry, it won't be too long of a drive for him each day).  In September we will come back to Memphis for 4 months so Buddy can do his required externship at the school.  Then that January we will be moving out to Cumberland, MD for his last externship, two and half hours away from my family.  We are familiar with the areas of Buddy's first  and second extern sites (obviously), but we did not know what it would be like to live in Cumberland, so we looked up more information on the city the other night.  It looks like a beautiful, small town, and we are excited to be there.  We did a google search of images of Cumberland, and found this picture:

Looks pretty, right?  And then Buddy was like "those buildings look familiar.."

So we HAVE been there before!  And it's a good sign that we thought it was so pretty driving through.  It will be fun to see what it is like to live there!