Thanksgiving Vacation

Josh and Gracie were both out of school for the entire week so we decided to get out and take advantage of the beautiful and warm Mississippi weather.

There's a fun walking trail that goes around the

River Oaks Hospital and we decided to go for a family jog.

The wind up and the pitch....Josh kept throwing rocks in the swamp trying to make us think there was something in the water. He would throw it and say "it wasn't me".

The ladies

The mafia...
This is some guy that we met along the trail...Ok he's Josh's friend from school.

All these pictures are from the Cypress Swamp nature trail. We decided to get out there are try and spot some alligators...we didn't see any. But we did see a little snake!

PICS FROM MISSISSIPPI

Biloxi, MS

Mississippi State Fair

Heres the crew at the Mississippi State Fair. The only place in MS that has a camal, snake woman and a woman with the body of a spider (Gracie told us that the snake woman was definately fake, but when asked about the lady with the body of a spider, she couldnt figure out which one of the parents could have possibley been the spider.

This is Daisy! We saved her from a local shelter before she was able to be eaten by the locals (thats what they do here)

Life In Mississippi!

So it has been a really long time since my last post, but in all fairness... we have been quite busy. We are now living in Brandon, Mississippi (just 10 minutes outside of Jackson). We moved here the 1st of August for Josh to go to law school. Gracie started 1st grade on Monday the 10th at the school that is just across the street from us, and Josh started his Law School orientation on Tuesday the 11th. Well I will update a little more later!

Easter Egg Hunts!

We had so much fun doing easter egg hunts! First we went to the easter egg hunt at the Hill Air Force Base Museum at 9am. There were soooo many eggs. A guy that works there told me there were over 9,000 eggs! And it wasn't very crowded either. Their easter baskets were completely full! After that we went to the easter egg hunt at the Uintah park. Gracie and Josh got all kinds of cool stuff. And it was pretty fun to see a bunch of familiar faces and friends at the Uintah park!

I'm really sad to tell everyone that he did not get accepted to the U of U law school. He got accepted to a law school in Virginia called Appalachian School of Law. On Monday he got his acceptance to Appalachian and then Tuesday the rejection letter from Utah. So we are pretty sure that we will be moving this summer:( There still are the other law schools that he applied to...so we are not sure which one it will be yet. It will definitely be an adventure!

LAW SCHOOL!

Yay! We are so excited because Josh got accepted to one of the law schools that he applied to. I am so proud of him! He has been working really hard in getting all his applications turned in and he spent many long hours studying for his LSAT. We are excited and nervous about the future! There are probably 10 other schools that he has applied to and we are just waiting to hear back from them to decide where we will go. But the main thing... is that Josh will be going to law school in August, no matter what!
To Aaron and Jannae: Keep an eye out for a good location for "Morriss & Coe Law Offices" (well... maybe you can start looking in 2 years. Also, that's a lame name so you should probably think of a better one, as well)

Bedtime Stories

Last night Josh was at home doing a whole bunch of work on the computer so I decided to take Gracie and Josh to a movie. We went to the cheap theater in Kaysville and saw Bedtime Stories. It was such a cute movie. Gracie loved it, and sat and watched the whole movie. Josh was pretty good throughout the movie, but he did get a little restless towards the end. He had to go to the bathroom twice, not to mention him saying pretty loud that he needed to go poop! It was a fun night for us.
I can't stand spending tons of money on popcorn so I took my big purse and brought capri suns and candy. The tickets were $3, so I spent $9 for the whole night...what a deal!

Cafe Rio Pork Recipe

So I LOVE cafe rio's sweet pork barbacoa. I searched the net and found this recipe for it. Josh and I tried it out and it is SO good! We made some lime cilantro rice (it's just 3 cups of cooked rice combined with 1/2 tsp salt, zest of 1 lime, juice of 2 limes, and 1/2 c. cilantro) and put both on corn tortillas. Yum!

3-4 lbs pork roast or pork loin
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 onion
2 garlic cloves
water, to cover
Sauce
1 (14 ounce) can enchilada sauce
3/4 cup Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper cola
1 cup brown sugar
Directions
1)Cut pork in large chunks. Put in large crock pot and add water just to cover. Add seasonings. Cut onion in 4 large pieces, crush garlic and add to water. Cook pork on low all day or on high for 3 to 4 hours, or until tender and pork pulls apart easily. Drain water and remove onions and garlic. Pull pork and return to crock pot.
2)In a separate container mix enchilada sauce, soda and sugar. Add to pork in the crock pot. Cook 1 hour longer.

Gracie's Birthday!

This is her birthday cake!

It really was a great bath!

Gracie finally turned 6! What a great day it was for her. We had phone calls all day for her wishing her a happy birthday. The best part of the day, she says, was getting to take a bath in my big jetted bath tub.

Here is some info about Gracie

Eyes: brown

Hair: light brown

Favorite food: daddy's homemade chicken nuggets

Favorite song: Love Story by Taylor Swift

Favorite color: blue

Favorite game: disney tinkerbell uno

Favorite movie: Barbie pegasus

Favorite treat: smores

Favorite animal: dogs

Favorite day: "MY BIRTHDAY!"

Draper Temple

Yesterday we went to the open house for the Draper temple. It was so gorgeous and I'm so glad I was able to take my kids to see it. The chandaliers were amazing and the artwork was great too (they said it was all done by local artists). Gracie told me the chandaliers were her favorite part. A few years ago (June 10th, 2006) we took our family to the temple to be sealed. Gracie still remembers it, so it was so fun to show her the sealing room. She loved looking in the mirrors and she says that they go on and on forever and and ever because when we are sealed in the temple our family can be together forever, how cute! What a cute couple!

Josh is such a cutie. I told them to hug, but Gracie REALLY didn't want to...can you tell?

Josh is kind of a nerd. That's Josh's mom in the middle. She took us out to lunch afterward to Chuck-a-rama, our kids favorite restaurant.

So as we were leaving and about to get on the bus to go back to the chuch parking lot a little silver car came down the road and started honking. So we all looked... and some lady probably in her fifties comes driving by with her hand out the window flipping us off! The bus driver told us that she has been terrorizing them by flipping eveybody off and slamming on her breaks when she's in front of the buses. What a psycho-lady! She lives in a gated community by the temple and she goes out every 3 or 4 hours to terrorize people. But, they got her license number and they said hopefully they can get her in trouble before she hurts somebody. But..... I DO recommend that everybody go to the temple before the open house ends on March 14th, especially if you have little kids.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACIE!

Now that Valentine's day is over we can focus on Gracie's birthday. She is finally turning six! A bunch of her friends have already had their birthdays and have been six for a while, so she is really excited. It's a good thing, though, that all of her friends turned six before her.... so they can help her with an easy transition from five to six. They have a lot of advice for her. I picked this background especially for her! (her birthday is February 23rd)

Swapping Secrets

I just added to my blog list 'Swapping Secrets'. I don't know whose blog it is but it looks like it has a lot of good recipes. Check it out!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Happy valentine's day to everyone (a little bit late)! I hope you all enjoyed this great day that seems to brighten me up in the dead of winter. We decided to keep our Valentine's Day a little bit low key by having dinner at our house, then we watched the movie 'Nights in Rodanthe' after the kids went to bed. It's a cute love story but it's definitely not as good as the book (Josh fell asleep, its really not a guy's kind of movie). Earlier on, Josh watched the kids and let me take a little nap. While I was sleeping he and the kids sneaked off to the store and bought cards and flowers. It was so cute!

This is a video of the card that the kids got for me. It's so cute!
And this is the picture on the front of the card Josh got for me. I love it! On the inside it says 'you know you can't get enough of me!'
These are the pretty flowers. They smell so good!

It's a BOY!

Joshua Michael Coe II was born on June 19th 2005. He wasn't fussy, learned to smile really fast, and slept very good. I was so mad because on the birth announcement I forgot to put the roman numerals (II). Oh, well. Its not a big deal now.
Because it was so dang hot in the middle of the summer I would let him hang out in his diaper with just a little blanket around him. Also, when I would hold him it was like holding a little ball of warmth. Not to mention, our apartment had a very inefficient swamp cooler.This picture was taken at the hospital after (not before, ha ha) he was born. He was so beautiful even shortly after birth. He looks kind of chubby, though. He was 8 lbs. 5 oz.! Another big baby!
Gracie was so excited to be a big sister. I made her a special big sister blanket and she was so excited when Josh was born. How sweet! Oh, how the times have changed! Now she tells me she wishes she never had a little brother! I have to inform her that I never had a little brother and I would have loved to have one. Also I tell her that this is what she signed up for when she picked us as parents!

Kids say the cutest things

So we were up in Logan on Saturday and we were having lunch with Josh's parents, a couple of his sisters, and their kids. We had all ordered lunch and little Josh was sitting at the other table by his cousins. All the kids pretty much ordered the same thing, except for Josh. All the kids had plain noodles with butter and he ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with fries. After he got his grilled cheese and found out he was the only one that didn't have noodles he was upset. He said "I don't like grilled cheese". I kind of yelled over to him (not mad, but he was pretty far away) that he DID like grilled cheese and that he has it all the time. He looked around at everybody looking at him and said, "no, I only like the grilled cheese that my mommy makes". It was so cute and it made me feel so special!

Life....

So for those that I haven't known for very long or that I haven't kept up with, I wanted to add on to my last post (considering the fact that my whole life did not consist of having babies and going on vacations).

After Josh and I were married we moved into a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in Aggie Village (the student family housing complex at Utah State). We didn't stay there for very long. We decided to transfer to a 2 bedroom apartment...which was also very tiny. While we lived there Josh was continuing his education and getting closer to graduating. I started going back to school part-time, tuesday and thursday mornings in August of 2003. We then decided we had had enough of the tiny cinder-blocked walled apartment in Aggie Village, and moved to a townhouse on the west side of logan (that was june of 2004).

Cancun!!!

In October of 2004 we went on our first real vacation as a couple. We went to Cancun Mexico and stayed in an all-inclusive resort called the Riu Caribe. It was great! We had 7 days all to ourselves. We left Gracie with a my mom, my sister, Josh's sister. They traded off taking care of her.
We had so much fun. I loved just hanging out on the beach, but Josh really doesn't have the complexion for that as you might be able to tell from his "white tank top".
We decided to try out scuba diving for the first time also. It was so awesome! We had classroom instruction and some practice in the pool. After that they took us out on the boat to the reef. Thanks to our underwater camera (and our dive instructor who was a bit friendly with me...asking me if josh was just my boyfriend) we got this great picture taken.
We also went on this resort called Xel-ha (pronounced 'shell-ha') where we went snorkeling and floated down the river on tubes.