Long overdue...

Where to begin. We just remembered why it took us so long to set up a blog in the first place. Like most of you, our lives have been pretty crazy these last few months. We spent the rest of our summer in DC with the fam, then headed out to good old P-town for John’s last year of undergrad.

Jules took some great pics of our family in Maryland before we said our goodbyes.

Out here in Provo we are both working hard. John is taking a full schedule as well as TAing for an intense econometrics class. Rachael is LOVING her job teaching 3^rd grade at Noah Webster Academy. It took her a long time to get her classroom looking just the way she wanted, but it turned out pretty dang cute. Here are a few shots.

Notice the green chair lovingly painted by darling husband John.

Our cozy little apartment has been kept full as family have been in and out. Dawn came out to bring Michael to school. Cathey came out on her way to bring Julie to Idaho. Rich and Cat were out for a college visit, and Kevin’s been out for some ballooning adventures.

Once such adventure fell right smack on our one year anniversary. We packed our bags and headed out to Eden, Utah. John helped crew for Kevin and the boys planned a surprise flight for Rachael. They even announced our anniversary as we took off from the field.

During Eden we met some friends who balloon around Provo. On our free weekends we’ve been going out with them. John hopes to start working towards his pilot’s license in his spare time…ha..spare time.

Law school. The new focus of the moment. About a week before the semester started John decided to set his sights on getting into law school next year. (That means he only has three months to prepare for the LSAT eeek!) He went off to Borders and bought himself a prep book and has been working furiously ever since. He’s taken a few practice tests and is right on track to apply for some of his top schools being UVA and Georgetown.

Our sweet little baby has been not so sweet these past few weeks. Moving to Utah meant loosing his two best friends, Bryant and Harley, the Carver and Harding doggies. With John in school and Rachael working, he found new hobbies to keep himself entertained. This is what we often came home to…..

And this is where he now lives when we leave….

Anyway, hope this gives you the Harding update! We love you all!

Live like you were dying...

To celebrate the fourth John and I headed to my grandparents cabin in Tennessee. It was beautiful up in the mountains and we got to spend some quality time with the extended family. We must have gotten caught up in that country fever because while there, well, we decided to take some advice from our good friend Tim McGraw. Instead of BBQing or watching fireworks like most people were doing, we went SKYDIVING!

John was REALLY excited!

Practicing my form!

Making a memory together!

About to take off with our instructors and pilot

Our tiny little plane

There goes my husband!

EEEEK!

My turn!

aaaaaaaah!!!

Well it was a great memory that we will have forever! (Especially the part of me puking after we hit the ground!)

The Big Apple...

So we spent this last weekend in one of our favorite places-- New York! My mom wanted to take the girls to FINALLY get to see Wicked as a graduation present- me from college and Buggy from high school. But of course we had to have John come with us as our wise navigator since that's his old mission stomping ground (plus he REALLY wanted to see wicked too!) We stayed at our family friend Brian's beautiful historic apartment building in Brooklyn. Even though we only had a day and a half there, we squeezed in as much as we could! New York bagels for breakfast, Chinatown shopping for hours-- the boys loved that one, pizza at the well known Grimaldi's, WICKED, Junior's cheesecake, and then church at Park Slope with some of John's converts. We had a great weekend!

Here we go....

After spending hours eavesdropping on pals super cute blogs I have finally been inspired to make one of my own! Well... John and I had wanted to jump on the band wagon a few months ago.. but with the hustle and bustle of everything all we ever got to was registering the name. Oh my. I am so clueless when it comes to technology. So anyone out there listening...HELP!