Our new place in Ammon, Idaho

So the new place we moved into is considerably smaller than where we'd been living in Utah, but we've managed to fit everything in.  It is a nice 3 bedroom townhouse.  The one downside is there aren't really any closets (like a coat closet, linen closet, or pantry, which we were disappointed about) and not a ton of storage space.  Again, we were glad we could leave a lot of our storage at the house in Utah.  There's no way we could have found space for it here.  So here's our new place:

Our kitchen/living room - kind of a small combo, but we're
making it work.

These next 2 show our very messy room before it got unpacked.  

The next 2 pictures are of the same bathroom - it's pretty big
and actually has a bathtub and a separate shower, too.

This will eventually be the room for baby #2, but for now
we're mostly using it as a storage room/a room for things
we don't want Benjamin getting into.

Benjamin's room also ended up being the play room.

By the way, the small town we live in is Ammon, Idaho, but we are about 2 minutes away from the main city, Idaho Falls, so we claim we're from Idaho Falls.  Since moving here we have found a few fun places - the Tautphaus Park/Zoo is great (quite a nice variety of animals) and we found a really nice playground, too.  We've visited them a few times so far so here's some pictures of that:

One thing we love about this playground is it also has a huge
grassy area that Benjamin loves to run around in.

This is probably his favorite part of the whole playground -
he spent a lot of time just turning this wheel.

Moving!

Well, one thing we weren't expecting to do this summer was move.  But, at the beginning of August Dave went and interviewed for a job up in Idaho Falls (working as a full-time cook in the temple cafeteria there). He'd been looking for a full-time job for a little while and this one came up, so even though it would mean a big change, we decided to go for it.  Then on August 9th we found out he'd gotten the job, but would have to start work on August 21st.  That gave us less than 2 weeks to move!  It was a crazy week and a half, but we found a decent place to live, packed everything up, made all the other tons of arrangements that come with making a big move, and left on the 19th after church.  We even fit in an anniversary trip (we got to go away for the weekend while my mom watched Benjamin) since that also fell during this week and a half.  Fortunately we could leave a lot of storage stuff at the house that we wouldn't need, since my parents own the house and my brother & his wife were going to move in there.  We filled up at 20 foot moving truck with all the stuff, though!  We spent all day on the 20th moving in to our new place and then Dave started work the next morning - whew!  It was certainly tough doing this with a toddler and being 7 months pregnant, but made it thanks to lots of help from family & our wards, plus depriving ourselves of sleep.

Just some of the boxes that filled our house!

The morning before we took off - the kitchen is very empty!

Benjamin scoping out his empty room

The poor guy had a tough time with all the change going on.

We'll sure miss this house!

Our full 26 foot moving truck (we were supposed to get a
20 foot, but they were out so we got a little more than we
needed).

Our little 18 month old

In August Benjamin turned 18 months old - where has all the time gone??  He's an amazing kid that makes us smile every day!  He learns so fast and it's all due to his own determination - when he wants to learn something he works and works at it until he's got it down!  He loves talking and has quite a vocabulary (he tells us about everything), knows lots of animals and their noises, knows his colors & shapes (his favorite thing these days is to tell us what color everything is), and is pretty good at doing puzzles and shape sorters on his own, too.  Benjamin also started nursery and is loving it - he didn't even care that we left the first few times - he just jumped right in and started playing or doing whatever they were doing.  Some of his favorite phrases these days are "uh-oh" or "oh-no"(but then usually right after he reassures us and tells us it's "okay"), "a-gon" or "a-dun" when he finishes eating, and "aw-vue" (I love you).  He's gotten pretty good at feeding himself on his own.  Other than when he's eating with a spoon (that still gets somewhat messy) we can finally just give him his food and let him take it from there - he especially loves eating with a fork so he can "poke" his food.  His favorite foods are just about any fruit or veggie (he's rarely picky with those and gobbles them up) and he loves drinking water!  Since getting his cast off he's been able to do so much more with his left hand.  Right hand is still much more dominant, but he can use his left hand to do a lot now.  His favorite thing to do with his left arm, though, is carry his teddy bear around with that, while he plays with his right hand.  We've tried building some excitement about the baby coming soon, but who knows how much he understands - it would be nice to know what he is thinking sometimes!  Benjamin loves his teddy bear, cars (especially motorcycles), and animals - he is such a joy!

As mentioned, he loves drinking water, and for awhile we just
had Dave's camelback set up on the chair and Benjamin
would just go over and get a drink whenever he felt like it.

He loves wearing these glasses (from a Mr. Potatohead set)

Such a happy guy!

So cute when he's sleeping!

It's always fun seeing where his teddy bear ends up when he's
sleeping.

Going to the Zoo

We got to go to the Hogle Zoo at the beginning of August and we were glad we did then, since we moved just 2 weeks later (we had no idea at the time).  Benjamin absolutely loves animals, so we knew he'd get a kick out of seeing the real things!  His favorites were watching the seals swimming around in the water, the polar bear, and the playground! (Also, these pictures aren't the best because I forgot to bring the camera and had to take these pictures on my super not fancy phone.)

That's a monkey hanging there, if you couldn't tell.

That is a seal swimming around - not the best picture, but it was one of
Benjamin's favorite things.

Polar bear!

This polar bear was awesome!  He kept swimming right up to the glass,
stepping up on a rock right there, then jumping backwards into the water.
We could have watched that all day!

They are walking through a mister if you couldn't tell.  Benjamin loved those!

Dave had to help Benjamin get down the slides at this playground because
they were super long & windy (they wound around) and Benjamin got stuck.

He loved the bridge - he kept running back over to it to walk across again!