...just call me Iron Chef Lizzy

Heeeey ladies! Hope everyone is having a fabulous summer. Stephanie and I took off work last Thursday and went to Six Flags in San Antonio, where we had this charicature done. I've always loved these things. We had a fun time...


Last week Doug and I had our own Iron Chef America competition. I'm so mad that I didn't get pictures. It was freaking hilarious!! We each had to make a 3-course meal... in 80 minutes. His brother, Derek, chose the 'secret ingredient' which he unveiled just moments before our timers were set. It turned out to be pineapple, which I was pretty excited about. Derek and his wife, Emily... along with our 2 missionaries were the judges. They said they'd never had a dinner like that before. Of course, I won. It was so cute how Doug thought he even had a chance.


Last week I also found out that I got into this leadership program at the VA. It starts next month and runs until June 2008. I'm most excited about the trips we get to take. My first trip is to St. Louis at the end of Sept. I'll be managing my current work load, plus working on all the projects for this program... so it might be a little crazy - but it should be fun. At least it'll keep me busy, busy while Doug finishes this Masters program. (I'm so ready for this to be done - I miss my Douglas!)


Anyway, I have been meaning to post these pictures of my doggies for Brooke. She asked for them like a month ago... Here are my babies, Seua and Frankie :)

San Diego or BUST

Hello ALL!!! It's the Smiths again. Ryan and had the pleasure of taking a mini vacation down to San Diego last weekend for Carla Kopotic's (my first roommate here in St. G) wedding to David S? I can't spell his last name...it's polish or something?!? Any who, while we were there we got to spend the afternoon together with the Aird family...little Easton is adorable! I think he really liked hanging out with his Aunt Brooke:-) It was so nice to catch up with Katie and Rob too!!! After Carla's reception Saturday night we drove back to LV and then the next morning we drove all the way up to SLC to see Ryan's family for a couple days. Ryan just turned 30 last Monday on the 23rd. It was long trip but it was nice to have some vacation time together. We are doing great, working hard but having fun at the same time. It seems like we have been either very lucky or very un-lucky lately...here are some of the things we have faced...

Bad Luck- Ryan's truck broke down

Good Luck - It cost $5000.00 to fix, which was covered under some weird warrant, we didn't even have to pay the deductable

Bad Luck - My Jeep quick working

Good Luck - Ryan got the battery re-placed for free and did the labor him self

Bad Luck - Ryan and Huggy have been fishing the AVA bass fishing tournament and the boat caught on fire...

Good Luck - no one got hurt, and the damage was minimal, it took a couple days to do some of the electrical work and once again Ry did it all...after all he thinks it was his fault the boat started on fire....oops! :-)

Bad Luck - Our washing machine quit working

Good Luck - Ryan's mom happened to have a spare washing and drying machine in their garage (another reason we went up to salt lake city over the last weekend)

(Bad Luck - I now have to start doing laundry again!!!)

Bad Luck - My credit card number was stolen and I bought $500 dollars worth of Prescription drugs in NYC

Good Luck - My c/c company froze the account and I don't have to pay for the prescriptions

Bad Luck - Ryan's nice big screen TV stopped working...

Good luck - (for me anyway) the TV is in our bed room so now Ry doesn't keep me up late while he is watching TV...maybe I should tell him to plug it back in?!? Just kidding

Now, I understand that bad things happen to good people, and typically one would be able to handle anyone of these things that have been mentioned...the problem I have is that this all happened in about a 48 hour time period (except for Ry truck, we have been dealing with that for a couple weeks).

Other then that we have been doing pretty good. My sister Calli, Matt and baby Dixon just moved to Philly to go to Dental School. I miss them tremendously!!! I added the last picture I had with Dixon as they were getting ready to pack up their apartment!

I miss you guys and LOVE you all! Love, Brooke and Ryan Smith

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Well we had a fun and eventful week in Rexburg. Here's some pics of our niece and nephew twins at the splash park in Rexburg and their slightly bigger "swimming buddies". The little baby is our newest nephew Logan, and that's my sister-in-law Amber, and Steve's Dad.

I am also including some pictures of Steve's graduation. His graduation went great and it was so fun to hear his name said and to see him walk across the stage. I had to force him to walk but after spending all this time trying to get his "4yr" degree I just had to see him walk. He looked so handsome in his cap and gown though that maybe I can convince him that this walking thing isn't so bad!

We also had a baby shower for me on Friday that was really fun. My friend Monica did a great job of putting it on and we had a good turnout. I got some cute clothes although most of them are 6-9 mos ( apparently I look like I'm having a chunky baby...just kidding!), but we don't really have any 0-3 yet but those are the most fun to buy, right?!

So we had a little scare on Friday night. Apparently, Aubrey thought it was time to come to because I started to have contractions! Steve and his brothers and dad had gone off golfing and I was just sitting around the the girls and was having a lot of pain from the top of my stomach down. My sister-in-law Amber is actually a labor and delivery nurse up at the hospital and she was the one who started being concerned. She said it felt like my uterus was contracting and she starting timing me after they had gone on about 2 hrs or so. I didn't want to go into the hospital because I though it was probably nothing, but she didn't leave me much choice and called up to her friend's at the nursing desk and told them I was coming in! I tried to even talk Steve out of it on the way there, hoping that he would let me just go home and we would just tell them that we went and everything was fine...but no go. Anyway, turns out it was good that I came in because I was having contractions, and after hydrating me they had to give me a shot of something to stop them. It was tons of fun. We got home about 2 am. Everything seems fine now though, and I just have to take it easy and hopefully we don't have a baby while we are gone on our trips to Florida and Missouri this week! Hopefully our baby girl wants to stay in now though, although it would be nice to see her! We'll just have to wait a little longer I guess. :)

Steve is now the big 2-5. His bday was on Saturday. I got him our new favorite game "killer bunnies" for his birthday and we went out to eat at Bajio with family and friends. The top picture is of him making a birthday wish before blowing out his "candle". We figure he is too old for more than one, and one trip to the ER in a week is more than enough! : )

Well it's t-minus 2 hours until Steve and I are supposed to leave to drive down to Utah so I better get moving. Seeing as how I pack everything but the kitchen sink for even weekend trips, this two-week excursion should be interesting! Here we come Florida!

The Ladies Reunite???

Hey All! So, yes, it has taken me this long to figure out how to post pictures! Here are a few recent ones of Easton...he's a goober. We had a busy week...Rob's dad and sister were here from SLC and we did all the tourist stuff-saw the Hollywood hand prints, went to the beach etc. We also went to the new Harry Potter movie and we left Easton with a baby sitter for the first time! It was good except for the part where I puked my guts out at the movie theater. That's right...gross. California is good though and we are having a good summer. I have started to reminisce about our college days...remember when we said that we would try and have little reunions at Conference every so often? Well I think we should get that going. October might be a bit ambitious but what about April 2008? I think we could pull it off...if we don't get to planning these things we will never see each other! So mill that over. Hope everyone has a super week...I am going to attempt to hike with Easton in the hiker pack...should be interesting!

Happy Thursday!

Hey girls! Thanks for inviting me to the blog. It's a lot easier than Kari being our relay man. Steve is in his last class right now and will be graduating on the 18th! Yeah! ( Providing he passes all of his classes....) He is still not sure about one of them. I am so excited though. But, it's not like we're leaving lovely little Rexburg just yet. We plan on staying here til December so that I can have the baby here ( last week of October) and then we'll move to wherever he ends up getting into grad school . We've got applications into University of Utah, University of Missouri, and University of Arkansas, so we'll see which one pans out.

I 've been keeping surprisingly busy and enjoying my first summer off as a paid teacher, although I am pretty sure I already worked all these hours during the school year! : ) Steve's family is coming into town on Tuesday and a friend of mine is having a baby shower for me on the 21st, so we have a busy week coming up.

But the good news is we are going to Florida to visit Steve's parents for a week on the 24th ! We are so excited, although I am already melting in Rexburg's heat so I don't know what I'll do in Florida! Who cares though, they have a pool and I just bought a maternity swimsuit so we are good to go! There are actually no pools around here and the school's is closed for remodeling so I'm starving for any kind of water...basically I'll sit in a puddle if I see one. Anyway, after Florida we head straight out to Kansas City to see my family. Kari and Brett should be there too so that will be fun. I'm glad we get to take all these trips, but I'm pretty sure I'll be ready for sleeping in my own bed once the two weeks is over. As long as I'm near a bathroom though...that's all that matters!

I don't know if Kari shared or not yet but we decided on the name of Aubrey Michelle Redd for our new baby girl. We are so excited to meet her! I have been trying to be ambitious and sew the crib bumpers and a quilt for her and I'm almost done. We'll see how it goes. Well, this is definitely long enough for a first post so have a happy Thursday!

6 weeks later...

Hey girls! I am very excited about the blog! I am sorry I have not called people after hyaving baby wardle number 3 aka Mason Jeffrey. Life has been pretty hecktic. A few days after having Mason I found out I had three blood clots. I was not able to walk for a week and today I found out that I can't use birth control with hormones and if I get pregnant again I will have give myself two injections a day to prevent blood clots. I started to get misty eyed in the doctors office. Brooke I don't know how you do it. The week that I could not walk I had Brad give me the shots. I didn't trust myself. Anyway... On a lighter note the three boys are happy and healthy. Mason is a good baby and very even tempered. Right now he still sleeps a lot so that is nice for me, I can usually get two boys taking naps at the same time. Ellie got married on Saturday and for the occassion I got my first pedicure. It was very enjoyable and I love my pretty toenails. Okay here is my chance to send you guys pictures. The family picture was taken at my sister's wedding which is the explaination for Brad's loud shirt and the fake flower in my hair.

Hooray for vacations

Well, we just got back from Florida yesterday so I thought it was a good time for my first post! Even though I've already told half of you all about it, I'll summarize our fun trip for everyone else.:) We got to Fort Lauderdale on the 4th and discovered that our hotel was in walking distance to the beach so that was great. There were also lots of cute little lizards walking around outside which were fun to watch. We watched some fireworks displays from Pompano Beach that night which was very nice and exactly what I'd hoped we could do. There were a lot of tropical storms going across the peninsula all week, so pretty much every afternoon was filled with lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. Some of it was pretty incredible...with 10 inches of rain falling in only 2 hours, and flooding all the roads! Luckily it was hot and sunny every morning, so we got up and laid out on the beach and played in the nice warm water. The ocean was very calm and clear and it was just gorgeous. We also drove up and down the coast a bit to oggle at all the huge mansions on beachfront property. I got to have some fresh tuna and swordfish (very yummy) at a nice restaurant on the pier. We also made our way down to Miami on 7-7-07 to check out their huge downtown and port area, and of course the infamous South Beach. I prefer Ft. Lauderdale to Miami although Miami was entertaining...it reminds me of the difference between LA and San Diego. Anyway, it was an awesome trip and I was very sad to have to leave the beautiful ocean and come back to Nebraska. At least I came back a little tanner!