Summa...Summa...Summertime!

It seems I'm keeping up with my trend of posting once a season... so here's to SUMMERTIME! I just love the Summer...crisp watermelon, bright sunshiny days, living in a bathing suit all day long, vacationing with family, BBQs and pool parties, flip flops, the smell of coconut-scented sunscreen, sipping refreshing lemonade and homemade smoothies...love it all. EVEN in Arizona 107 degree summer heat. I'll take the heat if I can have the sunshine all year long. Living in Arizona means it basically feels like summer 8 months out of the year. Which means I'm not complaining. There may not be a beach nearby, but it's summertime and Life Is Good!

(Even if half of my summer was spent locked in a library studying for my National Board exam... my light at the end of the tunnel was the vision of laying out on the beaches of Oahu...and we finally made it!!)

A quickie spring & summer wrap up: Trips to California for sweet baby Finley's blessing and my bday (yes, I'm 29 and still want to go to Disneyland for my birthday, I'm not ashamed), Kody finished his residency intern year and is becoming quite the seasoned doctor, studying for my national boards (and passing them... woohoo!!), swimming and cruising to the lake with the fam, week-long bliss in Hawaii for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary celebration, starting back as a second year dental student, and celebrating our 7th anniversary with a surprise overnight stay at the Scottsdale Resort.

I think I'm still going through withdrawals from Hawaii...vacation life is just a little too good sometimes! But otherwise we're back in the swing of things and rolling right along. This Thursday marks only 4 more months until Christmas! (Who thinks that way, I mean really?? If you think I'm crazy, I better not tell you who put a Christmas track on to warm their spirits during a few long nights of board studying in June...) I'll likely be back then for yet another seasonal post, stay tuned...

Introducing Finley Rex...
A weekend get-away to Sedona
St. Patrick's day with Cam, Jenny, Oakley and some scary lookin Leprechauns (if you can see the picture in Jenny's hands). Love having them live so close!! (Cam, Jenny & Oakley... not the scary little leprechauns...) And they've since welcomed precious little Raleigh to the Smith fam.

My neice Taylor graduated from High School. I still can't believe it, it feels like I was just in those shoes...My birthday get-away to Disneyland and San Diego. What could be better than Space Mountain and Dole pineapple whip with my hott sister-in-laws and great friends??


I know the image quality below is horrible, but check out Kody's face. I laugh every time I look at this...
Cutter-man and his sensitive ears.... Buzz was apparently just a little too loud.Coco and Carter. It looks like the adults were having way more fun on this ride than the kiddos...

Breakfast at the best lil beach cafe in San Clemente.
Nice toothpick babe...So fun to get together with my OC girls. Gotta have our fro-yo!

My dental girls surprised me with a birthday lunch at Fogo de Chao. Sooo delish. If you think girls don't eat much meat.... think again.


Ahhhh Hawaii.... A private beach house on our own private beach in North Shore. A-mazing. We've been saving up for years as a family to take an adult trip in honor of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. And it was worth every penny. We were all so bummed that my brother Justin and his wife Chenoa couldn't make it, though. We missed you guys!




Travis, Kody & Jeremy.... and some sweet body surfing.



Of course Trav had to bust out some P90x moves on our hike.... love my Dad's face in this, nice Tarzan, Dad.

Baby Finley, the only 'non-adult' allowed.... how could we get by without this sweet little face??

The Rex fam getting down with the natives at the PCC
Swimming in the falls at Waimea Valley



Oh Hawaii, how we miss you. Hurry back... please?
Celebrating 7 years of the Smith family... dinner at the Alta Ristorante, followed by a gondola ride and serenade. And then a night stay at the Scottsdale Resort. It was our first time trying the 'staycation' and getting a room literally less than 15 minutes from our place... I was a little skeptical that it would be worth the money, but I seriously felt like we were on vacation miles away. The resort was so gorgeous and relaxing, and we didn't have to check out until 1 pm, so we went bike riding around the golf course, laid out and enjoyed the amenities all morning long. 10 points for Kody, he went way overboard this year. I felt like we were on our honeymoon all over again.


Yep, we definitely wore the luxurious bathrobes provided in our room. I'm still laughing about it....
The resort pool at night. I still walk around places like this thinking, "this is way too nice, what are we even doing here? Just don't trip, act like you know what you're doing."

Life or Something Like It

I believe it's finally time for a new post. Four months later. So, I'm a blog slacker, I've come to accept that. But it's always a pain to try and recapture the last few months and what we've been up to. So I'm just going to visually illustrate what life is like these days for the Smith clan. I could say that life is good but busy, but then again, who doesn't have a busy life these days?

Kody:


Kody has now delivered around 45 babies. One from a woman who weighed around 400 pounds. Try that on for size... must have been a BIG baby.



He also had a patient who complained of horribly smelly farts... who then farted near him so that he could take a whiff. All in a day's work.



He's been a champ working nights, 30-hour shifts, and on-call weekends. Sleep is a valuable thing 'round these parts.



And somehow he still manages to serve the young men in our ward, help with laundry, and take his wife out for date-night. Or in for date-night. These days, staying home, relaxing and watching our fav. shows together never looked so good.




(NBC comedy fans: If you haven't seen Perfect Couples yet, you are missing out.)

Larisa:


My life in a nutshell:

My friend took this picture in our sim-clinic. Learning how to be a real dentist... good thing I have 3 more years to try and figure it out.



Most days you can find me looking like this, sans the facepaint







I don't know about you, but I look just like this when I run.



And like this when I bake. My latest creation: A chocolate mousse peanut butter cream pie for my girl Nadia's birthday...



...which is part of the reason I'm into this:



And I love being in the primary right now and singing with our little primary troup- we only have about 8 children who regularly come. I just started teaching them 'The Army of Helaman,' and I started tearing up as they sang out the words. Those kids were staring at me like, 'why are you crying, we're trying really hard to sing?!'





And Meesha, well I guess she's part of this crazy healthcare family as well, whether she likes it or not. And these days probably not as much... we're gone most of the time and she's stuck inside, so she'll be pretty happy once we finally buy a house with a cat door. And I'll be pretty excited to finally have a garage and maybe even some closet space. We'll keep you posted as our house hunting continues...

Much love from your favorite Mr. and Mrs. Smith.



p.s. - This deserves much more than a post script, but alas... I have some exciting news - My oldest brother Travis and his fam are moving to Phoenix this May, and my parents have decided to join the AZ clan as well and move out here permanently this Fall! Sooo thrilled to have so much family living close to us. Kody's brother recently took a job out here as well, and we couldn't be happier. Looks like AZ is a mighty fine place for us to be.