Life in Mountain Home

Well, I thought I would just give a summary of how/what we're doing here in Mountain Home, Idaho. I can't believe we have been here for 4 months already and in our house for about 3 months! I am enjoying my work and my schedule compared to graduate school (Mary gives that an "Amen" and 3 "Hallelujah's"). Mary is still working on-line as a customer service rep for a book-selling company. We are enjoying our little home and the little town here with frequent trips to Boise for anything that isn't provided at Wal-Mart and Albertsons. Sarah is enjoying her twice-a-week preschool and has a couple of friends from church that attend on the same days/times as her which makes for frequent conjunctive play-dates. She recently went on her first "field-trip" to a local pumpkin patch and had so much fun. She seems to be enjoying things here as well, though there are frequent complaints of how far it is to see her cousins or grandparents. She is the sweetest little girl and just loves all of the neighborhood animals. She is also a great big sister for Nathan and they are really having so much fun playing together (most of the time). Nathan is a Daddy's Boy and gets so excited when I get home from work each day (I can't even describe how excited I am to see him do his little jig and hop and say "Daeey", "Daeey" over and over). He just recently said "Mama" (finally! and much to the relief of Mary). His vocab is probably up around 20 "words" and he sticks to the essentials: movie, juice, poo-poo, bear, doggy, bottle, Sarah, etc. Mary and I are enjoying being parents together and finding that we still like each other a lot (did I mention we're pregnant?). We are trying to make friends with some couples through church, which Mary is finding a lot easier process than myself. We are enjoying all the sunshine and have been a little caught off-guard by the southern Idaho wind in the Fall (and we hear in the winter as well). We miss having my parents so close to watch the kids for nights out or weekends away, but we're on the lookout, at least for the first part... for now. At the end of the day it's really nice to have enjoyed work and also feel like I was a good husband and father. I feel like my post-grad school life is much more appropriately balanced and I think that we're all really enjoying that.