Christmas Is Coming!

Since its already december even though we haven't seen any snow here yet (which I am very bummed about) I decided to put up our christmas decorations. I hope its not a green christmas I hate that. But I wanted to post some pictures of our tree which is real and Ted helped decorate which is a big thing since he loves to "decorate". Ted did put up christmas lights outside our place but I didn't take any pictures sorry. As you can see kitty and roxy looked on as I decorated the house with all the lights and greenery. The other picture is of this really yummy salad I made from a magazine picture. I was so proud of it because I tried to make it look like it did in the magazine and it was all spinach no other lettuce and Ted actually ate it!!! and like IT. Do you know how hard it is to get him to eat different vegetables. Its worse than pulling teeth. So I had to take picture of the moment to remember it and realize I wasn't dreaming. We also went to my parents this weekend and I will have to post pictures of that later but I wanted to say how blessed Ted and I are right now in our life together. I love having 2 loving families that are growing so quickly but we love spending any chance we get with them. I love christmas time because it always makes me think of all the things I am grateful for in my life and above everything I love celebrating the birth of our savior and remember all he has done for me in my life. I love spending everyday with my best friend who I am so in love with and treats me so well and knows when to just give me a big bear hug. We just wanted to say to everyone how thankful we are for your thoughts and prayers on our behalf and how much you all mean to us.I hope everyone has a merry christmas and takes a moment to enjoy the birth of our savior.

Fall is here and Teds birthday

Well I can't believe it but my husband celebrated his 27th birthday today. All I can say is if he is 27 that means I'm getting older and I don't like it. Since his birthday was on a sunday this year we celebrated friday night with my parents who were visiting by going out to diner and we came home to cake and ice cream. Ted has been extremely busy with school lately and I am finally in my last week of orientation at the hospital. Ted was gone one night this week until 2 am at the library editing a paper so he can try and get on the school law review board. Its like a legal paper that students write and it looks really good to have on your resume so hopefully he gets it. In the midst of all his school and my work we have be making many visits to Lowes for renovating things around the house. We have almost finished the upstairs bathroom we painted the walls and cabinets instead of buying new cabinets and we are pleasantly surprised at how nice they turned out. Ted just has to lay the tile floor in both bathrooms for them to be finished. We still have many other projects to do around the house which is good to keep us busy. It was fun handing out candy to all the trick or treaters we got this year even though Roxy had to bark every time one came to the door. hope every day a happy Halloween.

Still Here

Well sorry everyone I know it has been forever since I last posted and this is going to be a boring post because there are no pictures but everyone has been telling me I need to update my blog. So here is the latest on us. Life had been busy. Ted is getting right into school and is busy reading reading and doing more reading. I guess this is what I have to look forward to for 3 years! Ted actually flew home last weekend to see his dad after he had bypass surgery which was a really big surprise to all of us because he is so healthy. His dad is recovering well and is making a fast recovery. Ofcourse while he was home he also was conviently able to attend the first BYU home game which was to hard for him to even talk about.

As for me while Ted was gone I went and babysitted for my sister all of her 5 kids for the weekend while her husband planned a surprise trip to NEw York for them. I even took all 5 kids the youngest 15 months up to 9 yrs to all 3 hours of church and did my best to keep them quite during sacrement. I must say it brought on an entire new understanding and appreciation for mother as I struggled to keep Jack the youngest quite and in the row and everyone else happy and not fighting. It was the longest hour of my life! I must say after the exhausting weekend I would rather go work a 12 hour shift and make money than stay at home with all the kids!!!!! It is not easier but I;m sure when its my own it will be different.

In other news I did get that job that I posted about the interview last time. I am a LD and Postpartum nurse. They do it all here. I started last week and have been doing tons of orientation classes and other things. Its very different and tons of different cultures here with language barriers that it can be very difficult. One thing I am excited for and very nervous is I assist here with c-sections which I love surgery but can be very stressful as well. I found out I am very lucky to have this job in this area because it is hard to get a job here as nurse let a lone a coveted area like LD. So I;m very grateful for that but as it is only part-time for now I may have to find a second job if I can't get enough hours. Well thats all from our neck of the woods hope everyone is well.

Still

We have arrived & cottage week 2009!

Tug of WAR. the kids were surprisingly strong

Me in one of the relays

ted
melanie
the kids loved it. they laughed the entire time
water balloon toss
this was roxy majority of the time. She loved diggin in the beach and she even went swimming.
the kids playing
zoie being zoie
my borther brads family. ever year we do one big group picture and then individual family ones.
me and zoie on the dock
here is our family photo. i wanted to put roxy in it bu Ted said no.
my sisterss family

this is roxy in the moving truck where she had a nice spot next to ted on a pillow. spoiled much
documenting ted driving our huge moving truck oh im glad that is over.

Yes Yes I promise we are still alive. I know its been forever since I last posted well I have been a little busy!! Ya know moving to a different country requires a lot of work. Along our cross country drive (with the help from teds parents we could have never done it without you guys. thanks a ton) we stopped at winter quaters temple and saw the historic site. It was so sad to see all the names of children that died there. It truly is a special place. Oh ya for those who haven't heard Ted and I are living in Windsor Canada because Ted is attending law school in Windsor and Detroit. He is getting a US and Canadian law degree in 3 years attending these two schools. He started school this week and is getting to know everyone in his program. As for me I had to leave my amazing job at AF (shout out to all my AF girls I miss ya tons!!) but I had an interview this week at the windsor hospital to be a LD, postpartum and NICU nurse!! Can you believe it they do it all there. All the nurses are crosstrained to be able to do every area. I'm a little nervous and intimated as the hospital is huge! The Womens floor covers an entire city block from end to end. So I am waiting for my liscence to come through and hopefully I will get a job. We are almost finished moving in but I havent taken any pictures yet so I will have to post some later (after the overhaul of painting that desperately needs to be done).

On to the vacation we had last week. So we went up to the cottage for the annunal Templeman cottage week minus a few Templemans and kids. Although it felt like they were all there. Two of my sister inlaws had their babies a week before our cottage week and so all their kids and them were not able to come, however there were still 8 adults and 11 kids. Above are some pictures I captured of the week. We went boating, wakeboarding, cliff jumping and grandma templeman provided a plethera of events for the family olympics (tug of war, balloon toss etc. I must tell everyone that Ted lost to all the grandkids in the tug of war, it was hilarious) We also had the annual biathalon which involves all the neighbours and templeman clan but because I was in it I didn't get any pictures, sorry. We miss all our family and friends in Utah but don't worry I promise we will visit a ton.

Yosemite 2009!

So I am finally getting around to posting our annual Cox family vaction to Yosmeite National Park. I think it took me 2 showers and hours of scrubing to get off all the dirt but it was all worth it. We ended up going a little early and spent a day at Magic Mountain--a huge amusment park in CA (which was all for Ted) as I am not so into the rollercoasters as he is. I went on as many rides as my weak stomach would allow. I think I did pretty well considering I went on all of them except 3 and even blacked out on one. I would call that sacrifice for my spouse! Ted was very grateful that we got to go. So after that and another 4 hours on the road we got to Yosemite Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning we awoke to Ted and Kenny (the grill chefs for the week basically) cooking up a mean breakfest of bacon and eggs for 30+ people. After that we hiked to Vernal falls with all the kids and adults and had fun looking at the pretty scenery and feeding the squirels. They wil eat things right out of your hands--its amazing, they aren't afraid of anything. We were excited to have David and Kaci come up that afternoon with all the kids. While they arrived safely, they did have some car trouble and unfortunately Kaci got sick with a temperature on Tuesday and had to leave Wednesday to go back to the hospital. We are grateful she is doing much better now and that they had fun while they were there.

On Friday was the Panorama Trail hike (8.2 miles) for the adults which as many of you can remeber was not my favorite things last time in Yosemite a few years ago!!!! But I am happy to say that I think I did very good this year as I knew what to expect (vigorous hiking, unstable ground, thousand foot drop-offs, cliffs, etc.). Ted was very proud of my camping/hiking improvements and can attest that I didn't complain once and even, dare I say, had fun. So we took some beautiful pictures and had a great time even though we were all vey sore afterwards. It took us only 3 1/2 hours to hike the 8 miles up and down the moutain. I think thats probably a little better than our last time which was closer to 5 hours probably. See I have improved so much! (I didn't even give Ted any "I hate you/I hate this hike/I hate camping/I hope you die" looks like last time!

All in all we had amazing time, got very dirty, and were very gratful to everyone who helped plan and carry out the trip. Special thanks to Barbara for doing some crazy planning and cooking to feed 40 people almost everyday. We wouldn't have been able to do it with out you. I'm sure we will all forget the craziness and do it again soon! Until then...

My 1st Triathlon!

So this past weekend I did my first triathlon with my friend Sarah from work and it was amazing. I had so much fun testing myself to see how far you can push yourself. To start the morning off Ted and Roxy came with me early in the morning at 5:30am and gave up sleeping in on their saturady morning to head to the race start. They were there to cheer me on through each event. Roxy also had some spectators herself, which consisted of a few children! We got there and it was windy and cold for a June morning in Utah. After I set up my bike and got my race packet we headed over to the pool shivering. Thank goodness the pool was heated. As we jumped in to start the race is started to spinkle rain. I jmped in the pool to do the 300m swim around the 7 minute mark crowd but I should have gone a little bit before that time as I wanted to pass like4 people as soon as I got in. Aparently I didn't know I'm a pretty fast swimmer. Ted says its from all his coaching skills he gave me on how to make my stroke better. I will admit I think it helped a lot training with his tips. Next year I think he should do one with me because he could fly through the swim and bike. So I ended getting out of the pool at 6minutes 30 seconds. I was pretty impressed as that was faster than any other training time I had. When I got back out to transition I was happy to see over half the bikes still there awaiting riders. I thought oh good I won't be last. (That was probably my biggest fear)

Next was the bike. I am terribly slow through the transition zones but I guess that will come with practise. I was too stressed to make sure I had everything I needed before taking off. The bike was extremely hilly and measured 12 miles total. Em's bike that she let me borrow saved me life. It was so easy to go up the hills with it instead of my heavy moutain bike. (Although I still ingested a few flys, just a little protein right!) I was just happy to get back to the transition zone without having fallen off the bike or gotten a flat tire. I started the run around 1:01 and ran the 5K trail in 28minutes which I was also pleased with as that was faster than my training time too. So my total time was 1:29minutes. I was just happy I did it in less than 2 hours.

Well it was a fun day and I'm glad I was able to do it with my friend Sarah. We will have to do another one together soon so I can try to improve my time now that I know what I'm doing, sort of. Hopefully I can convince my husband to do one with me!!!!