In Search of Covered Bridges

Since our things did not arrive as planned we decided to go sight-seeing instead of unpacking as we had planned. Mike went searching the town for tourist maps and found just what he was looking for. Covered bridges. We got in the car and took off on an adventure to find these covered bridges and maybe some Amish country as well. We found the covered bridges but no Amish country on this trip. At the first, biggest, and most famous Indianan bridge there was a cute little town with shops and ice cream. We stopped in to see what they had to sell.

There was this amazing sign outside and I just loved that the pottery demonstrations were 'PERT NEAR' everyday. Luckily, we were there on one of those days. I found myself a few treasures that I could not pass up and I was pretty thrilled. Then on to find more bridges.

Apparently the bridges all look the same. You'd never guess that these are picture of 5 different bridges. Oh the joys and adventures of sight-seeing with the Baileys.

Road Trip

And the fun begins. We drove through Wyoming and Nebraska and stopped to fill up with gas many times. Day 1:

We ended up staying the night in Nebraska City, Iowa at a very nice Super 8.

We were sure glad this day ended after 15 hours of driving. Day 2: This is how the day started:

Mostly the day looked like this:

We did stop at the Liberty Jail and Independence Visitor's Center for a little church history. Always a neat experience. I recommend it.

We passed through Missouri, Illinois, and finally into Indiana. We would have arrived within 8 hours, but the awesome state of Indiana decided to close the roads to get to Bloomington. Finally after an hour or so of wandering the lovely back roads, we found our way into this lovely city.

Goodbye Condo

This was our home for the last 4.5 years. I cannot believe we were here that long and that the time has passed so quickly. We had some good times in this place and just wanted to remember how it looked the final few weeks. This pictures were taken to post with our house listing. Looking at the pictures, I cannot believe we don't live there anymore. It seems so strange. Goodbye condo, our first experience as homeowners. Sad.

Last Week

Our last week in Utah we had a quite a few fun adventures. Monday, we packed all day and then got together with my friends from high school. It is crazy how we all ended up transplanting from small Rupert to the big SLC. We had been getting together almost once a month for the past 5+ years. I am so sad to no longer be a part of girls night with these girls, but I sure enjoyed having them around the last few years. I sure miss them. Seriously, I've known these girls it seems my whole life and will love them forever! I can't wait to move back in 5 years and get back in on girls nights.

We enjoyed the Pioneer day parade and festivities at Butlerville days in Cottonwood Heights on Tuesday. It was fun to see the Miata club in the parade and then enjoy some music and fireworks after.

Wednesday, Jeff and Mike hiked Mt. Olympus.

While Lynn, Lisa and Logan, Kim and Jeremy, and Bensen and I had one last swimming party at our condo. This was also the day that Mike and Lynn's kitchen flooded.

Thursday, Jeff and I hit up the Jordan River Temple to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary two weeks early.

We spent the next few days packing up our stuff and putting it all in the pods while Grandma Lynn watched Bensen, Logan, and Jeremy.

Our Georgian friends Trent and Erin were in SLC and came to hang out with us Friday night. We were lame and didn't take pictures so I'm stealing one from Instagram. We sure like these guys and cannot wait until we meet up in Nashville over Christmas break.

Saturday night we had tickets to go see Wicked. Jeff had gotten them for me for my Mother's day and anniversary present. The play was fabulous and it was a nice break from all the packing.

Sunday we drove up to Idaho for my parents' farewell. Monday we finished packing. Tuesday we signed our condo over to the renter/future buyer and finished cleaning. Tuesday evening we had one last party with the Simmons family at Anzac Park.

And the next day we began our journey to Indiana.

Back to Work

(I'm documenting this more for me than anyone else, so if it's boring move on to the next post.) I've mentioned that I was working at Alta High School when Bensen was born. I was allotted 12 weeks leave, 6 paid and 6 unpaid. However, 2 of those weeks fell during Christmas break, which ended up being a good and bad thing for me. Good because it extended the period I could take for FMLA 2 weeks, so technically I could be home for a total of 14 weeks. Bad because those 2 weeks fell within the 6 weeks of paid leave and I could not be paid during Christmas break so I would only get 4 weeks of paid leave. Complicated nonsense. Anyway, I decided to take the full 14 weeks which meant that I had 14 more until the end of the school year. Going back to finish out the school year meant that I would be paid through August which would be the most logical thing to do. I had to convince myself of this often. Though I missed my baby terribly and was sad to leave him many times, I absolutely loved my job and my co-workers. Honestly, if I couldn't be home taking care of my baby, then Alta Counseling Center was the next best place to be. I also returned to work to find a few pieces of paper that students had submitted about staff members on my desk. I'm not really sure why they were writing these things but these few students made me feel like I might have done something good at work and that it wasn't such a bad thing to be there.

And to memorialize my time at Alta I made this super great yearbook page of my co-workers with all of our nice school pictures. Counselors: Roxann Wolfe, Ann-Marie Proctor, Lisa Sanders, Amy Hardcastle, Christine Astle, Logan Laszczyk, Kent Robinson, Venita Simmons. Support Staff: Cindy Greenwall, Amber Ipson, Shauna Ahlstrom, Jami Torgrenson, not pictured: Leslie Smith. Registrars: Paula Seaich, Lori Brockbank. Psychologist: Aimee Tubbs. I sure love and miss most of these faces. It was a good two years working at Alta.

Kimball Mania

Jeff worked for Sugar House Vision Clinic for the past few years as he prepared for optometry school. Dr. Kimball promised Jeff when he got accepted he would take us to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a nice dinner. Dr. Kimball's son Quinn is the office manager there and was kind enough to ensure that the dinner happened as he was very excited to join in on the dinner plans as well (he also looked up and told us there is a Ruth's Chris in Indy so we could have it on special occasions when we move as well-how thoughtful). The food was amazing!!! They staff knew that we were there to celebrate so the entire time they kept congratulating Jeff and gave him a free dessert (along with the one that came with his meal). It was an amazing experience. This is their White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie that Jeff chose.

If you don't remember the post that covered our blog for the past six months, Jeff helped set up a fund raiser for his boss's family. He raised about $5,000 which is awesome. He had this great idea to give them the money old school style. It turned out looking pretty awesome if you ask me. He decided to give the briefcase to them during our dinner at Ruth's Chris and it ended up being the perfect time because Quinn's wife Kristy just happened to be there as well. It gave us all a good laugh to feel like a drug deal just went down over dinner.

Then on Jeff's last day of work he was told that it was his responsibility to provide his farewell treats. Knowing the Doc has a soft spot for donuts, Beyond Glaze was in order. Needless to say the Maple Bacon donuts are absolutely amazing! My mouth is watering just looking at the picture. That may be on our list of things to get when we visit Utah next summer.

Jeff loved working with the Kimballs. He learned so much from them and has already found within the first two months that his experience with SHVC has made his studies so much easier. We are so grateful for the time they spent training him and teaching him about the field. Jeff thinks the world of them and would love to work with them again in the future. ;)

Brotherly Bonding Time

Jeff decided he needed one last trip with his best friend and brother Mike. Conveniently, Dave Matthews Band was playing a show just outside of Indianapolis and he could use the trip to "finalize" some things for school while hitting up the shows. They had a great time at the shows and managed to make it to Bloomington to see our rental house, the site of the future Indianapolis temple, and the Indy speedway.

Haircuts

Bensen has already had two major haircuts. His first was in July and then again in September. He has so much hair. I had a hard time cutting it too short the first time, but the second time it ended up much shorter than I thought it would be. But he is cute no matter what.

It definitely makes him look much older now. No one believes that he is only 10 months.

Smith Family Reunion

The end of June my grandma Lowder's family had a Smith family reunion. They decided to honor our great great grandfather Rasmus Julius Smith who lived in Brigham City and walked to Logan every Monday to work on the Logan temple and then walked home on Saturday for two years until the temple was completed. The family decided in order to appreciate they wanted to walk this same path and have a fireside at the temple after hiking 27 miles to get there. Jeff had to work that morning so we weren't able to meet up until the fireside/dinner, but with Bensen being so small, I wasn't complaining. Elder Packer (a great grandson of Rasmus Julius Smith) spoke at the fireside at the Logan Tabernacle lawn before the last little hike up to the temple. And the LDS Church News also covered the story. For the full story click here. Here are a few picture from the article featuring my cool family. My dad was the oldest individual (almost 61) to walk the entire 27 miles! What a trooper! My grandma is the pretty lady holding the picture of her grandfather. And a picture of everyone at the temple.

Jeff took this last picture with his cool camera phone.

Lagoon Day

July was time for our annual Simmons Family Lagoon Day. It was fun as always!