We Are Healthy!!

Finally! Everyone is over whatever that life ruining illness was that we had. (knock on wood) We even all went to church together last Sunday! It was magnificent! And when you are healthy you get to play. Lucky for us it has warmed up enough a few times to actually go outside to do the playing! To give you a little background... last year it was too stinking cold to even go out and play in the snow. Not to mention that there are no hills to sled on and that even when we did brave the snow (for approximately 38 seconds) it was too cold to stick together so we couldn't even build a snowman. Last year we waited until April. Yup APRIL! To build a snowman cause the snow was finally melty enough to stick together. I thought I knew what winter was when we lived in Utah. I was wrong. Utah's winter is like a nice warm spring in Illinois. Im not bragging.. I hate it. When you get a brain freeze from walking from your car to the grocery store... its too cold and I want nothing to do with it.
However.... This year hasn't been nearly as bad. We have even been out in the snow a few times. Once was at night because the temperature jumped to almost 30 degrees! Fun times.

 AnDee even built her first snowman of the year...

 This was very exciting walk around the block. Ike couldn't stop squealing and laughing and we were driving Andrew crazy cause we had to stop and look at everything. It literally took us 45 minutes to get around the block.

 Miss Bernadette is fitting nicely into our family. She is endlessly patient with the kids. The only issue we have at all is that she is still a puppy and she likes to chew. Nothing is safe from her little champers. Not even fingers or toes. None of it is mean or malicious by any means but trying to convince Ike of that is pretty hard to do.
 She got her very first bath last week and it resulted in some really awesome 80's hair..

She is picking up on things really quickly. She is pretty much completely house broken, she knows how to sit, stay, come, and shake. We are working on laying down and of course... no chewing on children.
In other news, the kids started swim lessons! The first lesson was a total win for AnDee Lew

and a total fail for Pep

However at lesson number 2 there were zero tears and while he still had his stone cold facial expressions to impress everyone with, he tried everything he was asked to and earned every bite of the cheetos I rewarded him with afterward.
Poor little Ikey didn't get to do lessons this time. However he enjoys the simple things in life and is just has happy to stay home with daddy and party like a... cowboy?

Sometimes after swim lessons you fall asleep while eating ice cream... on the couch and your ice cream might melt and spill all over the couch... might.

 Mostly things are really good right now. We just heard back about Andrew's back surgery and are in the process of getting that scheduled so Andrew (and maybe the rest of us??) will be heading back to Utah in a couple of months to have his spine fused. Its a little scary but the hope is that life will be a little (or a lot) more pain free post-surgery and maybe Andrew will even get to do things like play soccer or go hiking without wanting to die.
Our new house is great! The ward seems great and our puppy is great! We are finally healthy and its warm enough to go outside without getting a brain freeze. Life is good.