A Few Things Before We Left...

Jake's parents stayed for a few days after graduation to watch Aaron and Kristen's kiddos, so we went down to the riverwalk for one last downtown hurrah. We also hit up the zoo another day. Luke had fun hanging out with his cousins and grandparents! I love this picture of him and Lily. She is the boss, and he loves to follow her around. They ran around holding hands a lot of the time. Cutie.
A few from the train/zoo!

Riverwalk/Alamo! We had gone downtown quite a bit when we lived in S.A, but never did a riverboat tour until now. I think the city is prettier from the water!

Goodbye San Antonio!

You've been good to us!

We have so many memories here. I don't know where to start.

I will just make it simple by saying that this is the where our family has grown from two to four, and we have all learned a lot from being here. It's been a good 4 years! I wonder what we'll be doing in 4 more!

Here we come Vegas!

Dental School Graduation!

Saturday was Jake's dental school graduation! Woo hoo! He passed the WREB (western regional board exam) and now has an official DDS diploma. I'm so proud of him! He has worked so hard over the past 4 years, and this day always seemed so far away. Yeah for being finished!! :) My mom and dad, and mom and dad Smith came into town for the graduation, and we've been having fun with them all here.
Yay, Jake!

Our little family and my mom and dad...

Jake and Aaron with Rick and Sherry. Now there are 4 dentists (in a few years 5!) in the family! Also, not many people get to go through dental school with their twin brother. How cool is that!?

Aaron and Kristen and their cute family... we are going to miss having family living around the corner from us! Congrats Aaron! They are off to Maryland for his AEGD soon.

More random graduation pics...

After the graduation, we all headed over to ChaCho's for some TEx-Mex!

Great food. Great day.

OuR LaSt PaRtY HeRe.

Our friends came over on Friday night for one last get together before some of us move away! Luke had been wanting a birthday party for as long as I can remember, so since his little buddies were coming over, we had an early birthday bash for him too. We chowed down on pizza (thanks to everyone that helped cook the pizzas, btw!) and had fun chatting. We were outside and the kids had started whacking the pinata when it started raining... so hard! Everyone had to rush into our little house and the kids finished the pinata in the living room. Crazy!! Haha. There were soo many bodies here! The kids ate their cupcakes in the garage since it was pouring rain outside and there were too many of them to keep track of in the house! (bright frosting on the furniture and carpet wouldn't be fun!) We're going to miss our friends when we move!

Luke wanted a bug party, so we had bug cupcakes and an inchworm cake.

Friends!...

Pinata! Oh, and cute little Kate with a pink frosting face :) I bought that lady bug pinata thinking I was going to paint it all black and make it into a beetle or roach (more boyish...) Anyway, I ran out of time and we ended up using just the girly lady bug. The boys liked hitting it anyway :)

Say Cheese!

Before we went to Arizona, we had Krista take some family pictures! I wanted to have some family pics since we haven't had many since Ella was born (as a family, that is). She got lots of fun shots despite the kiddos being really grumpy most of the time! A few of my favorites...

Ok, well that was more then a few! Once I get posting there's no stopping! I'm off to bed.

Abby and Chris are Married! and other AZ trip stuff.

So, we got back a couple of days ago from AZ! Abby is now Mrs. Hallows... how cute is that!? Happy day. Look how perfect she and Chris look together! This is right after coming out of the temple. I love going to sealings... it's such a great reminder of marriage and temple covenants. Makes me want to re-live my wedding day! Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and so much fun to hang out with our family and friends that made the trip. Fun times!
Awww... so cute.
The Mesa Temple
Hot day! Luke and Ella found a little shade though!...

I'm excited to see how her photographer's pictures turned out! Here are just a couple group pictures at the temple that I got... her colors were so fun. The picture with the nieces and nephews is so funny!

Some reception stuff! Check out her fun blinging cake and the cool flowers! I especially liked her bouquet :)

I love these of Luke and Aunt Abby. He loves her so much! Oh, and I couldn't leave out Ella!

A few more reception goodies... luke was eating his cake on the ground and then a kid ran by and stepped in it. Haha. Kind of made him mad until we got him another piece!

And more. Some of our aunts and uncles and all the grandparents made the trip down to Arizona. I miss them.

Their wedding colors and everything looked great. We came home with sooo many pictures! Oh, and Chris is such a nice guy. We are happy he's in the fam now and excited to get to know him better! Hopefully they will make a trip to Vegas this summer! :)

Some other fun things from our trip...

We found out who gets the cutest fatty in the pool award this summer!!!! (Sorry, it's not you this year.) Ella is my water baby! This girl pretty much jumps out of my arms to get in the bath tub every night, so she was in heaven swimming at grandma and grandpas houses. Too stinking cute in her suit. Luke swam a little, but mostly just sat by the side of the pool this trip.

Luke had a great time with grandmas and grandpas and cousins!

Jake had his 29th Birthday! Melanie and Joe had all of us over for his birthday dinner. Cutie Logan, Seth, and Luke wanted to blow his candles out for him. On his birthday, Jake did some shopping with his mom, then we went to test drive some cars and to lunch while my mom watched the kiddos. Happy 29 Jake! I hope this year is the best so far :)

The day after we test-drove the cars, we bought one. It's a red Toyota Highlander. Yay for having 2 cars!! We made it for 4 years with one. It will be so nice having another around!! Luke, Ella, and I went to Krispy Kreme and then hung out in Rick's truck while Jake was in the dealership signing papers.

I think that's it. Fun trip. I'm excited to move closer to Arizona!

I don't feel like blogging.

BUT, I know I'll regret it later if I get too behind and don't! So, here's a little of what we've been up to this past week or so!

*Jake took the WREB (licensing exam) this past weekend. Woo hoo! He says he rocked it. Let's hope so. :)

*Almost bought a couple of cars... keep changing our minds about what we want, or other people beat us to the deals we find. Anywho, hopefully we'll find a car that we like for a good deal soon! Right now, we're trying to decide between one of these:

and these: *Went with Jake to his group party! It was for the graduating seniors in his group and retiring Dr. Kaiser. We have the big senior gala tomorrow night. Yeah for another fun date! I'm excited to dress up a little bit! Here are the Group 4 Seniors!

Other pictures from the party...

*We've been reading lots of rocket, train, and airplane books. Ella's probably wishing Luke would show her pictures of something else.

*Tormented each other a little bit this week. Ella is old enough now to want stuff that Luke has. I heard her screaching the other day and went into the living room to find Luke teasing her with his M&Ms... he thought it was hilarious making her think she was going to grab one of them and then when she would be close to grabbing one, he'd pop it in his mouth to make her scream. It goes the other way too... if I give Ella something, Luke suddenly thinks it's the greatest toy ever and wants it.

* Got some really cute new scrap stuff! I'm hoping to dig into it tonight!

* We took a trip to the E.R. For me. NOT fun. I really would have rather had the swine flu since they say it's pretty mild. Anyway, they ran a bunch of tests and concluded that it was some sort of virus and I was super dehydrated. After a lot of fluid through an IV and some pain meds I was feeling a lot better! Thanks to Aaron and Kristen for watching the kids for our all night "date" to the hospital!

*Made Ella some new hair accessories! Too bad she started ripping them off her head this week. She would rather chew on them then wear them. :(
*We just got family pictures taken tonight! Woo hoo! It's kinda the first "real" photo session of the 4 of us since Ella was born. Kiddos didn't really feel like getting pictures taken though, so I'm hoping Krista can do some of her magic and they will turn out!


*Wednesday we're off to AZ again for a while! Going to see this cute couple tie the knot. I'm SO excited for them! And, I love weddings cause I get to hang out with extended fam I don't get to see very often! Be back in a couple of weeks!