Hello everyone! I thought I would try my hand again at posting pictures. I hope you like them. Nate and I had a really fun time when we went to Nauvoo. The town was much smaller than we had even imagined it would be. We stayed in a guest house a local resident rents to tourists. That turned out great. I would definetely recommend it. Nauvoo was absolutely beautiful, and it only took us 5 hours to drive there. We are looking forward to going again. I hope everyone is doing well and having a fun summer. It's been really fun to read up on all the happenings. - JoLee

Ok. And here is the picture I meant to post last time of the Red Meat Night girls at my wedding. 

This was one of my favorite parts of Nauvoo. I am facing the LDS sign and to my back is the Community of Christ (RLDS) sign. I thought it was really funny. Dueling signs! 

I am in Brigham Young's cellar. Brigham Young's house was one of our favorites. 

Here we are in Historic Nauvoo. 

Nathan and I took a trip to Nauvoo over Memorial day. This was one of our favorite views of the temple. We are on the trail the saints took to the Mississippi and beyond. 

East to West Coast

So good to catch up on everyone. Its been far to long since I've seen most of you. Zac and I are packing up and driving across the country from Boston to University Place, Washington. Zac is officially a denist, Dr. Bird, and doing fabulously at it.
I am going to be the high school womens coach for the cross country team. Nan- I can use all your advice as you've been doing this for awhile now. I am really digging the Hawaii trip they've planned! They are a fun bunch of girls.
Nicole and I meet up once a week to run and get to talk about the good 'ol days and how everyone is doing. Jessica Heiner joins us occasionally and Emily Raymond is recovering from the birth of her handsome little boy. I was worried that I wouldn't have any BYU girls to run with anymore, but it turns out Laura Heiner....Turner just moved 15 minutes away from where we'll be living. We look forward to hanging out with her and Aric, but I might get waisted if I try and run with her-so fast.
Hopefully we will see everyone more often now,
Sherida

Just checking in...

Hi all! Just thought I'd post an update since it's been a while for me.....
So Aaron and I finally finished our back yard!!! Yeah! We have grass! I also planted a garden and Aaron built a deck while I was at Girl's Camp with the YW of our ward. I was pretty impressed because in the four days while I was gone, Aaron fulfilled the roles of Dad, Mom, Regional Manager for his company, AND Construction Guru around the house. He was up past 1 a.m. every night working since that was the most effective time to get stuff done (when Abe was asleep). That was two weeks ago, and just last night we started another fun house project, replacing our kitchen and half of our front room floor with hard-wood. My hands are aching from hammering and sawing SO many slabs of wood. Its GREAT! I dont know why we got such a fix-er-up additude lately, but we did, and it's been FUN! Its really rewarding to see a job finished and have worked so hard on it. Although, I wouldn't mind if in the future we are in the financial position to just pay other people to do all the hard-labor fix-up type jobs around the house. :) But if anyone has any questions about building decks, laying floor and sod, putting in sprinkler systems and a garden, or building retaining walls just ask us, 'cause we've certainly learned A LOT these last couple of months (and made a lot of mistakes too). :)
Oh and its always fun to write about other teammates I've seen lately....Amy Cooper called me last week when she was in town and we went running in Alpine with the High School team I coach. It was GREAT to catch up with her and have a good-ol chatty run. I also saw Lindsay Dunkley and Kara Bankhead at a 10k race around BYU last Saturday. It was one of those "wow, they're giving prize money to the top 10 finishers, maybe I'll do it" last minute races and it turned out to be extremely competetive because of that prize money. I was quite impressed with how fast Lindsay and Kara ran! Go girls! I was a few minutes behind them, and far from even getting the 10th place $100, but it was still a fun run around BYU and also good to see Coach Shane and a few other girls still on the team that I haven't seen for a long time. :)
And that is the Kennard update!
-Nan

posting pics

Hi Gals-

Hope this helps in posting pictures:

1 - Go to https://secure.hello.com/download.php
2 - Create a username and password at the bottom and submit it to start the download process.
3 - Once installed on your desktop, open 'Hello' and type in your username and password.
4 - At the next page, double click "Bloggerbot" or if it isn't there, go to "Friends" on the menu bar, click "add" and type in "bloggerbot." Then go back to the main page and double click on bloggerbot.
5 - Click settings, type in the login info for our blog, choose the size you want your pictures to be and click save.
6 - This should put you back to a page where you see blogger in a smaller screen. There are 4 simple directions to post a picture from there. (Just use explorer to "find" your picture.)

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HI!

I just wanted to say how excited I am that people have actually been posting! Shar, it was great to hear from you, I have been wanting to hear from you forever, I loved the black and white wedding photos and Emily I am so glad that Bruce is doing well. Blake had one day in the NICU and it was scary, so I am happy that your two weeks are over. Let us all know how you are sleeping...He really is a cutie. If you want, email me your pictures and I will post them for you - kristen.edwards@gmail.com.

We are doing well in Cali- I was able to hang out with Sarah watching the last episode of the OC a few weeks ago and Jill Dogger was there too for the closing drama. It was great, I felt educated in popular culture after spending time at the Ellis house.

We are headed to Utah for the weekend because Cory's parents are going to serve as Mission Presidents in Lansing Michigan this coming July and Elder Oaks is going to set them apart this weekend, so it should be very cool. I will tell him about the blog :)

Lately I have mostly been dealing with the Ford dealer and insurance company trying to get our car back in shape after having been stolen. I guess that is what we get living out here.

Blake keeps talking and recently ran away from me at Sacrament meeting for the whole ward to see and Rachel fell down the stairs for the first time this morning but has recovered very well and is still crawling around like a little maniac. (Want to know more, check out edwardsfam.blogspot.com)

Keep posting - let us know about your adventures everyone and Nicole you had better comment about your wedding soon! Amy and Katie I want to see pics of the babies on the Blog - you can email me too and I will put them up if you want.

The newest Mars Raymond!

Bruce decided to come a bit early. He was due June 28, but came May 19 instead. A few weeks ago, my doc said I looked a little on the small side and ordered an ultrasound for me. The ultrasound confirmed that he was a runt, so I went in for a follow-up to see if he was still growing. That ultrasound said he was still growing, but not at the rate he was supposed to. My doc went through all the risk factors of having a low birthweight baby, but I don't smoke crack or drink alcohol and I wasn't a small baby myself, so I didn't fit any of those descriptors. The doctor did notice that my blood pressure was rising slightly over a few visits, then she put me in the hospital when I started getting headaches. She said I had preeclampsia and needed to be monitored. I went into the hospital on a Monday and got all kinds of tests every day. On Thursday, the full case of preeclampsia showed up complete with protein in the pee, headaches, swelling, and sky high blood pressure. That caused the blood flow in the placenta to reverse, so the doc induced me. I called Scott and told him to get to the hospital; he was giving his final presentation in one of his classes! After an hour and a half of contractions and little Bruce's heart beat decelerating and taking a long time to recover, the doctor said we'd have to do a C-section. So an hour later, Bruce was born. 3 lbs. 3 oz. at 34 weeks - small for gestational age. He is tiny, but he came out screaming and is doing well. He spent two weeks in the NICU gaining weight and came home with me yesterday at 3 lbs. 10 oz. He needs to gain more weight before I can take him out in my jogging stroller; I guess my belly has to do some healing before I can go running. Anyway, we're both doing well and happy to be home. I tried to put pictures up on this thing, but couldn't figure it out and got impatient. So if you want to see pictures, go to ohiomars.com. He's so cute!
-Emily Mars Raymond