Cousins

James met all of his cousins while we were out West.  Here are a few pictures.  I did not get everyone, sorry.

Ben enjoying his food!

Isaac, Gideon, George, Sara, and Claire.

James and Ben playing.

Ethan and his dad at Katie's baptism.

James and Carson playing and watching TV.

James and Aaron.

Provo

We spent a day in the Provo area to visit some of our friends there.  We started with an early breakfast at our bishop's house (the bishop of our married student ward).  He is a food scientist who travels all over the world helping people make their products better.  Needless to say, breakfast was amazing!  We were able to visit for a little while before they had to go to work (his wife works in the Travel Department at the MTC).

Next stop was the Provo Temple.  We went to the back door to visit some of my friends that I worked with there.  It was great to see them all again!  We drove by our old house and it still looks mostly the same on the outside except for a tree missing that was mostly dead when we were there.

Our last stop was BYU campus.  James loved the freedom we let him have of walking around. 

He even decided this looked like a good place to sit. 

How many can say they sat in a bush on the BYU campus?  We visited a few of our professors.  James loved Brother Freeman's office. 

Jon worked with Brother Freeman.  We had lunch at the Cougar Eat, and stopped in to look at the bookstore.  We got James his first football.  He seems to like it.

Lastly, we decided to stop at the Alumni Building.  It was a last minute thing but we felt like we needed to go in there.  Jon had a question from a Doctor in Toledo who had gone to BYU.  The doctor had been a diver at BYU and wanted to donate his Letterman jacket, but whenever he had tried to talk to someone about it, he never got a clear answer.  He asked Jon to see if he could find out what he could do about this.  Jon tried contacting the coach at BYU, but did not have any better luck.  So when we walked into the Alumni Building, we walked up to the Information desk and asked about it.  The director of something (I cannot remember what exactly) just happened to be there, and they just happened to be putting together a display of memorabilia from Alumni.  She was really excited at the prospects of adding this to the display.  She gave us her card and told us to have him contact her.  I guess we were guided there on purpose!

Felt Barbecue

For Jon's dad's 60th birthday, we had a surprise family reunion.  Sadly one of Jon's brothers and his family were unable to make it.  It was fun to see everyone.  We had a barbecue in the yard.  Here are some pictures from the fun.

26 Hours In the Car

Our drive started out a little rocky.  About an hour out of Toledo, a pick-up pulling a camping trailer tried to run us off the road.  He did not even look in his mirrors before he started pulling into our lane.  We drove on the shoulder and honked before he even looked and realized we were there.
Then about a half hour after that, a red car in front of us started to drift to the right a little.  All of the sudden, the car goes left (over corrects) and hits the end of cement median.  Any farther down the road and the car would have been in on coming traffic.  We pulled off to the left side of the road, and Jon was going to go make sure everyone was okay.  There was quite a bit of traffic and someone cut off a motor cycle so he was trying to slow down and get control, but he was headed straight for our car.  Jon hurried and puts the car back in gear and pulls forward enough that the motorcycle was able to get control and pull into the grass on our left side.  He and some other motorcycles stopped father down, probably so he could see if his heart was still beating.  Jon went to check on the other car.  He was able to assess that the driver (and only on in the car) was okay just really shook up.  The police was there shortly after that, and Jon was able to give his assessment.  The policeman was shocked at how thorough Jon was, not knowing he has been a first responder quite a few times.  Then we were able to get back on the road.  I kept James entertained in the car so we would be out of the way.

Our drive out was pretty uneventful after that, thankfully!  Here are some pictures to illustrate our drive.

We saw this car around lunch time the first day of driving.

Crossing over the Mississippi River.

After 14 hours in the car, we stayed the night in a hotel in Kearny, Nebraska.  It was a really short night.

Here is what James did on the drive.  Eating a Fruit Roll-up.

Coloring.

Reading.

Sleeping.

We were in the car 12 hours the second day.  When we pulled up at Jon's parents house in Stansbury Park, Utah, we gave them a call.  They did not know we were coming a week early.  Jon told his dad that James wanted to see them.  This was a normal thing, since we normally SKYPE with them at least once a week.  Jon was passed to his mom since Dad was grading papers on the computer.  We talked Mom into coming out the front door.  She thought it was about the surprise birthday party we were throwing for Dad.  Then she saw we were sitting in the drive way.  It was a good surprise! And great to get out of the car!

Two Month Overview

I guess it is time to work on getting things on the blog.  I have been up since 3:20 and James has decided that he does not want to go back to bed yet.  Seems like the perfect time to blog.

I thought I would just do a "quick" run down of our last few months and then in posts to follow, I will add more detail to the more noteworthy things.  So here is what we have done the last two months, in no particular order.

Driven cross country and back.
Been in all states beginning with "I" (Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa).
Played with lots of cars.
Crazy hair!  Got a hair cut after this picture.

Drove around the University of Iowa, one of the places Jon applied to residency.
Saw all 6 of Jon's siblings and their families.
Jon did a rotation in the Pediatric ER in Denver.
Celebrated Grandpa Felt's 60th Birthday, with a family reunion and a racetrack cake.

Visited the Hogle Zoo.
Saw all 6 of my siblings and their families.
Applied to residency programs.
Slept in the bean bag chair.

Visited Yellowstone Park and got sprayed by Old Faithful.
Ate at many of our favorite restaurants, Plum Loco, Siegfried's, Hong Kong, Canyon Street Grill, Carl's Jr., Panda Express, among others.
Interviewed in Denver.
Went to the baptism of Katie Felt.  James "sang" with his cousins.

Lots of walks and playing in many parks.
Visited as many friends as we could.
Went to the temple where we were married.
Walked around Temple Square.

Made a stop in Provo and walked around BYU campus.
Slept in a nice trailer.
James helped out in the kitchen.
Took extended family pictures on both sides.  James cried both times.  Here is the Felt Family.  I do not have a Brower Family one yet.

James tried lots of new foods, like Tomatoes, Smarties, Ding Dongs, and Potato Chips.  He liked most of them.
James and I flew from Salt Lake City to Denver.
Picked tomatoes.  James even tried a few and did not like them.
James found his belly button.

Played outside with Grandma Felt almost every day.
Played in any water James could find.
Went to a temple I had always wanted to when we lived there, but never made it before.

Cut one of four molars.
Jumped on the trampoline.
Ate lots of Dill Pickle Dip.  YUM!  Too bad you cannot get Nalley's Brand anything in Ohio.

More to come....

Home Again, Home Again!

We are back in Toledo!  I have lots of stuff to post and hopefully will get things up in the next few days.  I wanted to start with our afternoon and evening yesterday.  Our 9 hour drive yesterday turned into a 13 hour drive.  Here is the news story as to why.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/Toll-Road-backed-up-after-crash-103825124.html

The news got a few things wrong from where we were and according to people we talked to working there.  We were in stop and go traffic 30 miles behind the accident and there was a lot more cars behind us.  The news says the traffic was only backed up for 10 miles.  Also, Jon talked to a worker, he said the driver of the semi which ran into the other one died.  The news says he had minor injuries and is doing fine.  Here is our story.

We were on I-80 about 10 miles from Exit 49 in Indiana (2 hours from home) when traffic started to slow down.  We were stopped quite a bit and barely moving when we were moving.  It took about 2 hours to get to the exit.  There were police cars blocking the interstate and everyone had to get off at the exit.  We were about to exit, where the police cars started to let cars through.  We stayed on I-80 thinking it was such a blessing! 

We were about 2 miles from the first South Bend Exit (Exit 72) when traffic started slowing down again, it was still moving, but not very fast.  Jon called his brother to have him look up what was going on.  We were pretty sure it was an accident, but not sure how much longer until we would get there.  We found out that a semi had broken down and was going to exit at Exit 72.  Another semi for some reason did not slow down or move over to pass and ran into the slow moving semi.  There was a fuel leak too.  Jon's brother said that they had closed the interstate, but one lane was open now.  He also told us that it had taken 2 hours for the semi driver to be cut out of the cab of his truck.

We got to where we could see the arrows making the road one lane, when everything stopped.  We could see quite a ways up the road, so we would know when things started moving again, and we were getting low on gas at this point, so we put the car in park and turned it off.  I was able to change James and we walked around for a little while.  We also got to see a really nice Sunset.  Here are some pictures.  How often do you get to take pictures while standing on the interstate?

There was a motor home next to us.  The guy came out and offered his bathrooms to all those stopped around us.  There were cars backed up as far was we could see.  If I had to guess I would say that traffic was backed up to the Illinois border.  Yes, I would not have been surprised if traffic was backed up 70 miles, maybe more.  It was 4 hours that things were stopped. 

Jon went up and talked to the worker sitting in the truck with the arrow on it.  We learned what we had already heard from Jon's brother, but he did have more information.  One lane had been open, but a truck was trying to pull the two semis apart and it was too heavy for the truck.  So that truck had rolled into the ditch on the side of the road.  The road had to be closed again so they could get that truck back up on the road.  The worker also told Jon that the semi driver had died in the accident.

We finally started moving.  The semis were still there when we drove by.  It was really bad!  We were really glad to be moving again.  We stopped at the next plaza for dinner and gas.  It was after 9:00.  Needless to say, we are really glad to finally be home!

Hacked

So someone hacked into my account and sent out an email to all of my contacts.  Then they deleted my contacts so I cannot tell any of you it was a scam.  I am working on getting my contacts back and I have changed all my passwords.  Sorry for all the worries.  We are not in England.