Miller Time

Caleb had Friday and Monday off from work this week, so we had an extended weekend.

On Friday we invited Caleb's brothers and their families up for a BBQ. Caleb cooked up all kinds of meat and we had a good time visiting with everyone.

Then on Saturday morning we drove up to Layton to watch Matt play soccer. He did really well and scored most of his team's goals until they put him on defense to give the other team a chance. It was fun right up until the last 15 minutes when it started raining and we quickly got cold and wet.

After that game we went down to Kaysville and watched our nephew, Trey, play in his soccer game. His team won too, and although they weren't quite as skilled it was fun to watch the little kids run around playing "bunch ball."

After the game we went over to Benson and Sam's house to watch the BYU football game. They finished the game with a solid win against the Air force Academy, who I think beat the University of Utah, so that was good for all of the BYU fans, especially after last week's game.

The rest of the weekend was pretty routine; we went to the Lloyd's for family dinner on Sunday and played Cameron’s new Wii.

Then we just sort of relaxed around the house most of the day Monday. Until that night when Ashley and Jake came up from Salt Lake to watch the season premier of Hero's with us. It is a good show, but I am starting to get more confused as the show goes on and things get more intricate. I think my mind needs simpler TV shows in order to completely follow everything that is going on.

Well I think that's about everything we have been up to lately. Now it is back to the same old, same old for the rest of the week.

CPA Exam

Today, I got the results of the first portion of the CPA Exam I took. I passed!

The section I took, Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) is usually the hardest one of the four, so I am very relieved!But there are still three more to go!

I will be moving onto the Regulation exam which consists mostly of Business Law and Tax material, and I will be sitting for that exam on November 21st. Study, Study Study!

REAL

Yesterday Aunt Tori and Cousin Rachel came over to play with Corbin. He loved having a little friend around to get into trouble with. The cutest thing of the day was when Rachel started sharing her cheerios with Corbin. She kept putting them into his mouth for him, and sharing her toys too. And he kept taking them... even after she stopped sharing. We will have to work on that.

After they left we packed a bag of stuff to occupy Corbin through the night and took the bus down to Salt Lake to meet Caleb. Corbin loved playing with the dirt in the flower beds by the bus stop and then thoroughly enjoyed staring at all of the interesting people on the bus ride down, and there were a lot of them to see.

Then we went to the REAL soccer game, where we watched them pull off yet another tie. Oh well it was still fun. We got free tee shirts, Caleb saw "the coolest free kick in all of Real's history" and Corbin got to stare at more people.

Well...

Well it's been awhile since we posted a blog, and people started complaining so we decided to finally sit down and write something. The problem is we went on our little trip and when we got back we were all excited to post all of our vacation photos, but then realized that we left our camera on our vacation, so you won't be getting any pictures, but here's what we've been up to:

The last week in August Caleb took the first portion of the CPA exam! He did a lot of studying, and we think it paid off because he feels like he passed, however he doesn't actually find out for about a month. In the mean time he has moved on with confidence and started studying for the next section.

The day after he took his test we decided he could use a break, so he took a couple weeks off and we went down to Cedar City. It was weird to be back during the first week of school and not be involved in everything, but we're grateful to be done and moved on with our lives.

The first day we went up to the good old town of Hatch and visited Grandma and Grandpa Nash at their new summer home. We rode four wheelers, played with the horses, played hand and foot, went on a tour of the town (that lasted for about 3 minutes), and ate tons of fresh fruit. All in all it was a great little trip.

The next day we went and hiked Angel's Landing with Jake and Ashley. I have always wanted to do this hike for the last 4 years I was at SUU, but we never made it, so Caleb decided to take me, and it was worth the wait! It took us three hours to go approximately 2.5 miles straight up a mountain. (Since we don't have our pictures, here are some from the internet so you can see what we did.)

Here are the switchbacks that you go up until you reach the finally leg of the hike, where you hang onto chains and climb over rocks.

Here is the top of the Angel's Landing that you climb up. Since someone seems to die at least once a summer, we left Corbin at home with Grandma Miller.

As you can see, once you reach it, the view from the top is pretty amazing.

The rest of the trip we spent relaxing with the Millers. We took a trip out to Cross Hallows to see Grandpa Miller one day. Corbin loved playing with Molly, however I don't think Molly loved playing with Corbin. And Caleb finally won a game of Settlers and got to write his name on the box!

We also took some time to drive out and see Harmony's house that was in the parade of homes. For a cool half a million dollars we could have owned it, but decided against it at the last minute.

Overall it was good to get away for awhile and enjoy some time off.

Now we are back to regular life, Caleb is finally done working on his job down in Provo, where they have had him for the last 2 months, so he is excited to move on to a new challenge and to not have drive so far everyday.

Bees Game

On Friday night we took Corbin to his first baseball game. The partners at Caleb's firm got everyone tickets for their summer get-together, so we watched the Salt Lake City Bees play the Tucson Sidewinders. Although he clearly had no idea what was going on, Corbin really enjoyed getting out of the house and looking around at everything around him. All of Caleb's co-workers thought he was so cute, and he got his picture taken to use at their recruiting open house. He is already a little star.

New Toy!

Aunt Tori gave Corbin this nifty little mesh pouch thing, which we then put an apple in to let him chew on. This way he can taste the chunks of food that he would otherwise bite off and choke on.

Although it made a huge juicy mess out of him, he LOVED it! He toted that thing around with him all day.

We call this his mobster pose, "I'll give you a toy you can't refuse..."

Exciting Things!

We had an exciting weekend these past few days.

On Friday night we went on a double date with Adam and Diane. We all went to dinner at this little Mexican restaurant near our house and then went to the Bountiful Summerfest International in the city park. It was pretty cool, there was singing and dancing from countries all over the world as well as little booths and of course, FOOD.

Afterwards we went back to our house for ice cream sundaes and found out that Jake and Ashley have decided to get married! Congrats to you guys!

Then on Saturday morning Caleb and I went to the temple, so Corbin went to visit Aunt Jan and Eric in Farmington. He had a blast there, they took him for a walk to Lagoon and he saw all kinds of animals and then came back and played with their bunny.

That evening we decided to barbeque and Caleb made some delicious chicken kabobs, while Corbin ate dry cereal.

Sunday was family dinner at the Lloyd's house where we found out that Cameron got a job! How exciting, I am sure he is thrilled to now have a part time, low-hourly wage job! It is good news though, since he just got his license and is going to need money for gas and to pay for all of the dates that I am sure he will now be going on.

And finally, John and Lindsey stopped by on their way through town and we had a chance to visit and eat no-bake cheese cake with fresh strawberries. Yum!

Our weekend

This weekend Corbin's cousin, Rachel, came to play with him. They were pretty cute playing together, most of the time :)


Here they are "reading" a book together, which lasted for about 2 minutes.

Over the weekend we also took Corbin to the playground behind our house. He loves to swing, and laughs everytime you push him away.

And play in the rocks, which usually only lasts for about five minutes before he starts to try and eat the rocks, which is actually better than I thought he would do.

Corbin's Thoughts

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Date Night

Last night Caleb took us all out bowling, which was a blast! Caleb of course beat Melinda by at least 50 points each game, but it was still fun none the less. And Corbin had a great time looking around at everything and trying to play with giant balls that weighed about as much as he does.

Then we came home and put Corbin to bed and watched The Last Mimzy, which turned out to be a good movie, and one we would recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

Afterwards Caleb stayed up and finished reading Harry Potter, which is good, because now I can talk about it in front of him without worry about ruining anything. All in all it was a great night.

Big Trouble

Corbin has reached some big milestones lately...

The last few weeks he has really been working on learning how to crawl. He can do three or four "crawls" and then plops down and continues scooting along. Which means he can now get into everything!

He has also figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position while holding onto the furniture. We lowered his crib mattress so that he wouldn't fall out, but there doesn't seem to be a lower-the-floor option to protect him from falling around the rest of the house, so we have been dealing with a lot of bonks and plops while he works on figuring out how to get back down from standing.

And finally, he now has two sharp little teeth! We aren't quite as excited about these painful little additions, but he does seem to sleep better and act calmer now that they have both finally broken through. It is hard to see, but here is a picture anyway, it is the light area just next to his tongue.

Car Trouble

We have had a busy week keeping up with Corbin. Last weekend we went down to good 'ole Cedar to visit the Millers. We had an awesome time, it was so nice to take a vacation and not have to worry about getting back to finish a paper or bring textbooks along to study. Being out of school is GREAT!

While we were there we had quite an annoying experience however... we packed up the car on Sunday to head home around 2:30 pm. After getting into the car we realized that we had forgotten to fill up the night before so we went to get some gas and Caleb miraculously noticed that our tire was about to blow. So rather than risking a blow out on the freeway we decided to get it fixed.

The first place we went to was closed. So then we remembered that Wally-Mart is always opened, so we hoped their auto center would be too. Apparently half of Cedar City remembered the same thing, because there was over a three hour wait, and since they closed in two and half hours we decided against waiting.

So we called around and discovered that Tesoro's auto shop was pretty much the only other place in town that was opened on Sundays, plus they said it would only take about forty-five minutes. After rushing over there, the wait got bumped up to one hour (even though no new business came it-what should have been our first tip that this was not going to be the best experience ever). But none the less, they said they had the tire in stock and so we left our car there with a phone number for them to call when it was done.

An hour and a half later Caleb called them only to discover there was a new guy there by now and he did not even know that our car existed. By now it was already 5:00 and we were nervous we would not get our car back at all that night, but he assured us he would have it done by 6:00, 6:30 at the latest, since that was when they closed anyway.

By 6: 20 we were getting worried and decided to go down there and check things out, and it is a good thing we did because as we showed up the guy was getting ready to leave with is buddy to go and hang out. Being slightly upset by this we calmly demanded that he fix the car first as promised and so he reluctantly headed for the back to grab the tire.

The whole process should have taken him maybe 15 minutes, however 20 minutes later he wandered out and let us know how sorry he was but they didn't have the right tire after all, and by now it was 7:00 and all of the auto supply stores in town were closed.

So incredibly annoyed at this point we drove around ourselves (after emphasizing the fact that he needed to wait there until we got back) and found a tire, brought it back to him and had him put it on. We finally got out of there and headed home by 8:30--FIVE HOURS after we dropped our car off for him!!

Overall the moral of the story is... NEVER take your car to Tesoro, even if it is an emergency.

Starting to Eat...Finally

Corbin is finally starting to eat some solid foods, so we went out and bought him his own little chair. I like it because it is four simple pieces of plastic that snap apart so that I can throw the whole thing into the dishwasher, he likes it because he can sit up to the table by us and feel like a part of the gang.

Here he is spilling his water all over the place because he already insists on holding the cup himself.

He has also tried squash, sweet potatoes, prunes, applesauce and bananas-none of which he will eat off of a spoon. The only way he will eat good is if you give him graham crackers which he can hold himself or little pieces of food.

Corbin Takes a Bath

Corbin is really starting to love his baths, especially chewing on his little ducks from Uncle Tyler and Aunt Tori. (As you can see he is still in the lunging for the camera stage...) What a little stud!

4th of July

To celebrate the 4th of July, yesterday, we continued our tradition of eating Chinese food and went out to lunch at Pei Wei with Jake and Ashley, because nothing is more American than foreign cuisine.

Then we went back to the house and went swimming and had a barbeque with everyone. Corbin LOVED swimming, it was like one giant bathtub for him to splash around in. By the end he was flailing his feet about and it actually looked like he was swimming since it was hard enough kicking to propel his little floaty around, it was pretty cute.

Then we continued the Miller family's holiday tradition... and built explosive tanks. We took the tank fireworks and strapped on some flashers, smoke bombs, cracklers, etc. so that later we could take them outside, face them toward one another and have them "battle" against each other. They aren't the best quality pictures, but here is a little reenactment of the festivities.

Before:

During:

After:

Styl'n Corbin

Today for church we styled Corbin's hair into a mohawk. As you can see, he looked pretty cool.

And here he is the next second, lunging for the camera...

It has become impossible to take a good picture of Corbin lately, because as soon as you get his attention, so that he is looking into the camera, he stops doing whatever it was you wanted to take a picture of and turns all of his attention to trying to grab the camera. So you have to take the first one from a discrete location and hope it turns out, because as soon as the flash goes off he is permanently distracted.

Whacka, Whacka

Today while I was making dinner Corbin learned the joy of whacking a large spoon against pots to create a delightful sound. It was loud, but kept him happy the whole time I was cooking, so I guess that's the trade off.

However it stopped entertaining him as soon as the expensive electronic toy that flashes lights came out, at which point all of his focus turned to trying his hardest to get the camera away from me so that he could drool on it and push buttons... he was almost successful.

It's been awhile...

Well we are finally settled in our new house enough to have found the digital camera cord and so we decided to update our blog.

A lot has happened in the last month. When we last left off, at the end of May, Corbin was working on learning how to sit up.

We would put his Boppy pillow around him so that when he got too excited and toppled over he wouldn't get hurt. By now he has been sitting up quite well on his own for about two weeks, which he loves, because now he can view the world up to a few feet off the ground, not just the ceiling directly above him or the floor directly under him.

The last week in May we also packed up our little house in good old Cedar City and moved everything up to the big city of Salt Lake.

(Here is Corbin helping us pack, which he thoroughly enjoyed since we had everything out and was able to get into most of it).

Right before we left we were able to attend John and Lindsey's wedding...Congrats Guys!!

Caleb had to start work on June 4th, but our house wasn't going to close until the 8th, so we moved into the Lloyd's basement for a few days, which turned out to be three weeks since the closing got delayed.

While we were there Corbin's Uncle Cameron was kind enough to style Corbin's hair for him, since he didn't like his ever so cool middle part.

With the help of all of our family up here we were eventually able to get moved into our new condo and things are starting to settle down. Caleb did training for the first week of work and then went to a conference the second week but ever since then he has been working on his first job for a client down in Provo.

And finally...tonight Corbin found his toothbrush, so far we haven't bothered using it since he has no teeth, but he actually loves it! He spent a good 45 minutes chewing on the bristles, so now we know his gums are nice and plaque free.

Well that is most of what we have been up to for the past month; from now on we will be more diligent in keeping you all posted.

Teething?

We think that Corbin is teething, either that or we are not feeding him enough (which is not likely since he is giant-sized for his age), because lately he has gravitated towards chewing on his bottom lip. He doesn't just suck it in, but he actually chomps down on it and makes smacking noises all day. It looks ridiculously cute, we like it because it flattens out his jaw line and makes his face look perfectly square... so here is a picture of his latest phase.

We're Back!

Well, after Caleb's birthday we headed up to Salt Lake City to start looking for a place to live next month. We ended up making an offer on a condo just off of Center Street in Bountiful. It is perfect for us, there are two bedrooms, one bathroom, a nice big living room, with a cute little fireplace, a pool and a playground for Corbin. Plus it is in a nice neighborhood and most importantly (according to the Lloyds) is that our church will apparently start at nine o'clock, so we can attend family dinners on Sunday. I meant to pull the pictures of the condo off of the internet listing before it was removed, but I did not make it in time, so until we move in, you will have to settle for this picture of the flier to see what it looks like.

When we got back we were all sort of sick, so the last few days have been spent lying around the house coughing and sneezing (the later might be due to all of the dust in our house, as much as the sickness, since I haven't dusted the office in months, literally) and packing boxing to get ready for our 'Big Move.' Which Corbin originally was pretty bored with, since he just got stuck in a Johnny Jumper all day (which he does love, but not enough to be happy in it ALL day). That is until this afternoon when he discovered that jumping on top of this piece of plastic wrap made 'The Crinkle Noise' really loudly, which was pretty exciting.