New Year

After Christmas, my parents came for a visit! They stayed with us for a couple of days, then went to visit my Grandma in Whidbey Island.  

Danielle and her family made a last minute trip to Yakima for a funeral, so we all took the chance to go there and see them for a day. We didn't really get any pictures of the kids together, but we all went to Kids Castle and the boys had a blast playing in the play structures, ball pits, trampolines, and bouncy slide. We also swam at the hotel pool and went to a buffet for dinner.

T, E. They weren't sure about the ball pit at first.

My dad was in the Savior of the World play and grew a beard for his part. He kept it long enough to get a few Santa pics in with the kids.

We got to stay with the Grimmers while we were there too. We thought it was cute that Collin sat quietly listening to his grandpa read some story about Squanto.

My parents left on the 4th, and the plan was to move a week later on the 11th. Because of delays with school, licensing, and finding housing, we made a last minute decision to change our moving date to a week later. This ended up being perfect, because the whole week after my parents left, Rob and I took turns being too sick to do anything but lie down. We were glad to have an extra week to recover, pack, and do a few final favorite Portland activities! 

Getting ready to move meant lots of empty cupboards and things to get into! (Collin and Elliott)

One last trip to the Zoo. . . and it was the best Zoo day ever! The leopard was pacing right in front of the glass, the hippo was out of the water walking around, the polar bear was doing its trademark "dance",  and best of all: the lion cubs were out and playing! 

Elliott saw the lions and made the "roar" sound!

When I asked Collin what animals he wanted to see at the zoo, he said "a zebra, giraffe, hippo, and lion." I hope he wasn't too disappointed that it wasn't just like a Madagascar movie. . . 

He loves the lions and says "There's Simba! There's Simba's daddy!"

The Sea Lion is always a favorite too! The boys were all mesmerized.

We also had to hit up Salt and Straw one last time! SO good!!!

Our awesome friends had a going away party for us and the Ofisas who moved the same week as us. We miss our Portland friends! I think we will always treasure our time being a student family because of all the wonderful friends we had, many of which were neighbors too. Our 3 children were born there, many of our friends' children were born there, and it was so good to have so many friends in the same stage of life as us. We forgot to get a group photo, but we had a lot of fun with everyone at the party!

Pinata time

We'll miss Portland so much! We are completely different people than when we moved there. Portland is where we became parents, where we became runners, where Rob became a doctor. Where we experienced hard, hard trials, where we witnessed miracles, where our faith grew. We'll always cherish the memories.

Graduation!

This is Rob. I thought I'd write about my last several weeks in the clinic and my graduation from Chiropractic School. This was a pretty momentous time in our lives, since I've been in school since 2007. I have to say that 6 years of school is really not that bad, considering that there are some people who were doing their undergrads before me and still haven't finished them. In those 6 years, I earned a Bachelor degree in Human Biology and a Doctorate degree in Chiropractic. 

Rachel and I after graduation

Collin and his cousins Keanu, Eli and Kalani

All of my boys wanted to congratulate me!

My last few weeks in clinic were interesting. The director of clinics worked closely with me to help me finish up with my clinical requirements. I was slightly behind due to a mixture of bad luck and my home clinic that I was assigned. In my last weeks, I had the opportunity to visit a couple of different clinics with a vast variety of patients. One of the clinics was located in a building dedicated towards aiding homeless people, called the Transitions Project. At the Transitions Clinic, homeless people come in to get out of the cold, get counseling, TB Shots and, of course, Chiropractic Care. It was really different treating this population. Most of them hadn't bathed in weeks, if not months. Many of them had psychosocial disabilities and disorders. In the orientation, I was told that I should assume that all of the men were sex offenders/criminals and that all the patients could potentially have weapons on them. Needless to say, it was an eye opener.

I had to continue working in the school clinic system past graduation and into January. There was a lot of drama getting me finished, while trying to pack for moving. It wasn't much fun, but now we're done and we're past all of that! We were very excited to move to Port Orchard and get into working and treating patients. We were also very excited to be done with school/tests and to never have to worry about that anymore. I desperately hope that I never have to fill out a Scantron sheet ever again.

Aunt Amber reading to the boys before the ceremony

Congratulations, Dr. Grimmer! Way too much frosting, Costco!

We're here in Port Orchard now. We'll have a separate blog post about that. I'm excited to be done with school. I'm also really grateful for the education that I could receive from the University of Western States and Brigham Young University - Idaho. Through it all, I've come to better understand the greatness of God and the perfect order He has put into everything. The body is magnificent and complex. It amazes me how everything works together effectively and efficiently so that we can function in this world.

Anyway, I guess I'm a doctor now.

December

December was busy, but we still filled it with fun Christmas festivities. At the beginning of the month was the UWS Gala, and the theme this year was a Masquerade ball. It was so nice to get out for a fancy dinner and spend time with friends. (I forgot my camera but hopefully with get some pictures soon).

We slowly started packing to move throughout the month and it felt weird knowing it was our last Christmas in our home. 

Here are a few random pictures from the month:

Olive fingers 

Three boys in a tub

Fun at the community center

Elliott is so funny. He likes to slump down and just hang out sometimes.

We had a morning of snow! It was a repeat of last year, when I looked outside to see the snow on the ground, and had to rush everyone to get dressed and ready so we could play in it before it melted. It was really cold though, so we didn't spend much time outside.

Truman didn't care for it very much.

Neither did Elliott.

With 11:00 church, the twins are usually ready for a nap by second hour. In Portland, I was in Primary, so Rob had both boys for most of church and he'd just let them play in the gym where class was held. Some days, they just wanted to sleep though.

Elliott taking a comfy nap

These babies also decided they don't need to sit down to eat. They refuse to sit down in their high chairs, and scream if we try to buckle them in. So instead we just have heart attacks every meal time when they try to get out, or carefully crawl from one high chair to the other, or when we turn around to find them hanging off the side of a high chair holding on tight.

One last library story time trip. It's definitely getting harder to go places with these boys. They only sit still for a few seconds, then try to run in opposite directions, pull books off shelves, locate every electrical outlet, or just scream at the top of their lungs any time I try redirecting them. They're sure cute though!

Also in December was Rob's graduation! It's still surreal that he is done. We've been a student family as long as we've been married so we're excited to be moving on. His parents and sisters came into town for it, and Laurel, Julia and Annika came to the ceremony as well. We're all so proud of this accomplishment!

A few pictures of the boys in their cute Christmas suits!

Truman

Elliott

Collin

At our ward Christmas party, we enjoyed a delicious dinner and the kids got to see Santa.

Collin LOVES Santa!

Truman and Elliott, not so much.

Family Santa pic

One of our Portland traditions has been walking down Peacock Lane at Christmas time. We'll miss this fun little street.

My favorite house is always the Grinch one.

Truman and Daddy

Happy Elliott

Christmas was happy and relaxing. Collin was so excited for everything and it just gets more fun watching him every year. The twins liked all the excitement and treats.

Christmas Eve sugar cookie making with my helper.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day!

Using his candy cane to walk like the old man from Up.

Fun new toys!

Santa brought the twins this wagon, which has been well used since.

Whenever we'd ask Collin what he wanted Santa to bring him, he'd say "A bike! A green one!" He was a happy boy.

My favorite gift for Collin was his own robe with slippers. His favorite thing lately was being wrapped inside my robe with me, and in the mornings he would tell me to put on my robe. He is so cute in his little dinosaur robe and shark slippers.

T, E

Daddy and Truman. One of my favorite gifts for the twins was the egg shaker sets they got in their stockings. They have these at the library story time, and they would both always cry when it was time to put them away. 

Snuggly Elliott