The Houghtalings

After our short time in California, we headed off to Oregon to be with Austin's family. Taggart was in toddler heaven! He'd spent the previous weeks bored, stuck in our apartment as I was busy packing, cleaning, and moving while Austin was at school/work. I have to say that he was a trooper with all of this but still, the little guy deserved to get spoiled. Grandma and Grandpa's is the perfect place for that.

Within minutes of arriving, he dressed himself in one of Kelsie's green and yellow swirl clogs (on the wrong foot, of course), a toy stethoscope, protective earphones, and armed himself with a pull-cart and a toy giraffe. After that, he was set to play in the POURING, cold rain. With the earphones on, he couldn't hear us telling him to look at the camera nor telling him to not follow Grandma's new puppy up the muddy slope. Remember, it was pouring cold rain and none of us wanted to chase after him. Convenient, huh? Well, up he went and down he fell (he still had his hands full with the cart and giraffe), covering himself and his "equipment" with mud.
Even though Grandma and Grandpa's house is full of things to discover, everyday that we were there we visited a park, beach, or lake. He absolutely loved them all and we got a kick out of watching him. He'd run straight toward the water and kept going even though the water was up to his chest and so cold that it was numbing.
While we were there he developed a love/hate relationship with the aforementioned puppy, Oliver. They followed each other everywhere. We love this video of them. (This was going on for about 5 minutes before we got the camera out.)

On day 13 or so, Austin was finished with QUALS and joined us for almost another week there. It was a wonderful trip for all of us. It was great to be with family and see a few of Kelsie's volleyball games while we were there.

As I said in the previous post, Taggart and I did some traveling while Austin was stuck back at home doing school stuff. The first part was a quick trip to Laguna Beach, California. My parents and brother met us there for my cousin, Toby's, wedding on the 23rd (the day after our anniversary). The wedding and festivities surrounding it were absolutely beautiful. The best part for me was having my dad's side of my family all together. I've always wished we got to see each other more often.

We had our fifth anniversary a few weeks ago. However, I can't say we exactly "celebrated" it. Then again, when have we? It's not that we haven't enjoyed being married, it's just that each year something else (something big) is scheduled on that day. Take our first anniversary for example. We'd just moved to Auburn and the students were all checked into our dorm and the new school year was just beginning. The big opening social that all housing staff was required to attend was, you guessed it, on our anniversary. Each year has been pretty similar. This year, Austin picked up the biggest test of his educational career, put Taggart and I on a plane, and settled down to write a 25 page paper (in addition to his 40 hours of work). We didn't see him for over two weeks after that. It's so romantic, it brings a tear to my eye! What else are we to do but laugh?! I have a feeling we're going to have to get more creative if we want to celebrate the best day of our lives.