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We have been keeping busy getting our home in order and exploring the area. It’s been a crazy past few weeks but really fun too. Jake’s schedule is so awesome. He goes to work and comes home when he wants. His schedule lately has been 6:30am-3:30pm. Jake’s home early enough to go out and shop or explore. Here are a few things we’ve done:

We went to a UW alumni picnic for faculty and alumni. Jake won a UW polo shirt by spinning a prize wheel. We ate tons of yummy food and explored a little bit of campus.

Jake bought a grill. We put it out on our deck and had a bar-b-que. The weather here is amazing (high is upper 70′s) so we spend a lot of time on our deck.

We went to a beach. It’s not your typical sandy and warm beach but it was fun. The water is cold so people don’t usually swim…only the brave ones.

We had ice cream at a little shop right off of the beach. It was so delicious!! It was just soft serve but it was hitting the spot.

We are ready for visitors!

I created 4 posts today so we should be up to date now. Scroll down for lots of pictures. I’m hoping to keep this blog updated regularly from now on.

We made it! Washington is beautiful! I can’t wait for all of you to come visit us. We’ve been here a week now and we are still unpacking. It’s taking forever. We have made countless trips to Target, Costco, WalMart, and Fred Meyers trying to fill this home with groceries, cleaning supplies, yard supplies and furniture. We still have a lot to do. We went from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 5 bedroom house. Our living room and dining room are empty…hopefully not for long though. We still haven’t done a lot of exploring but in a week or so when this house feels like home, we’ll be getting out a lot more.

For the first couple of days our dining room was filled with moving paper and boxes. Where’s Allie?

There she is:

The kids (even big kids) had fun with all the paper.

I signed Allie up for soccer and she had her first day of soccer practice on Saturday. For being as unathletic as she is, she did quite well.

And last but certainly not least, Mia is smiling! She is such a sweet baby! I love this little girl.

The second weekend in Utah was mostly spent with my family. Here are some pictures to document what we did:

Jake blessed Mia:

Our family

The men who were in the blessing circle.

My pops and me

My sisters and me (yes, I look obese…but that’s because I am )

Jake and his brother, Greg

We celebrated the 4th of July by watching the parade on Provo Center Street.

Then we went to a park to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday. It was so much fun! We ate and played water baseball (each of the bases were a kiddie pool). I don’t have many pictures of this but I have lots of video. Maybe I’ll post a video later on. I’m too lazy right now .


That night we went to Hollie’s and watched fireworks. The girl cousins pretended to be cheerleaders and the older boy cousins had fun lighting the fireworks. It was a beautiful night in Utah.
Jake, Luke and Mia enjoying the fireworks

The moving truck took about 8 days to go from NC to WA so we made a trip to Utah to visit family. The first weekend we were there we had a big reunion with the Thornock side. We went to a fun pool in Provo and then had a BBQ at Jared and Melissa’s house. It was so good to see everyone and the food was amazing, as usual. It was the first time we had all been together in a very LONG time.

We hung out at Jake’s mom’s house most of the week. The kids have so much fun in Grandma’s preschool. Allie bonded with her older cousin, Savannah. I rarely saw Allie while we were in Utah because she was always downstairs playing with her cousins.

Jake had to make a quick trip to Seattle to receive our stuff and while he was gone for 2 days, I was able to visit a couple of friends. We visited Molly, Mya and Beckham. They were friends from NC who had moved a year ago to Utah. Allie loved playing with Mya; we were just sad that we didn’t have more time to hang out. We also got to visit my best friend from Elk Grove, Shirley, and her family. I don’t know why I didn’t get pictures of these awesome people. Oh well, we’ll be in Utah again and hopefully we’ll have more playdates.

Family hanging out on the backyard deck; a daily activity

Playing in the pool with super fun Aunt Ashlee and Kelli (not pictured)

Abe holding Mia.

Saying good bye to friends and to North Carolina was really hard. We loved our time there and cherish the friends we made. If only Duke had hired this year…

Anyway, here are a few pictures of some friends that we had to say good bye too:

We said goodbye to the Green’s a month early since they moved before us.

We went to Marbles Museum for one last play date with Ami, Kristin, Mary and their kids. We exchanged babysitting with these families every Friday night and the kids always had a blast when they were together. Allie always looked forward to Friday nights (as did Jake and I).

Me, Ami and Mary (Kristin took the picture).

Allie and Iliana dressed up for Fiona’s baptism.

Luke and Shane

Me, Liz and Fiona at Fiona’s baptism luncheon

The Morgan’s came over for one last play date. The girls had a tea party and then Liz made tacos for dinner. I LOVE her tacos. They are seriously the best!

We said good bye to MANY other friends as well and I want you to know that I miss you all already. I have shed many tears saying good bye to our good friends. Thank you for making our four years in NC so memorable. We love you.

May was a very busy month for us. Jake’s parents and Ashlee came to visit for graduation. During their visit, we went to Jordan Lake and had a BBQ. Allie had her 5th birthday and we celebrated it by having a fairy/elf party at our apartment. I’ll put pictures of the party up soon (my camera battery is dead at the moment). We all went to see Wicked together, which was AWESOME! We witnessed Jake’s graduation the next morning and then we headed to Myrtle Beach, SC. We had an amazing 3-bedroom hotel room. We played on the beach, shopped at the outlets and ate out too much. It was a busy week but we had so much fun. Thanks Kathy, Ed and Ashlee for visiting us!!

After their visit, we had Allie’s dance recital. Allie has loved dance and it has been so convenient having her dance class on the third floor of our building. We sure are going to miss dance and especially her best friends who were in her class with her.

Then my mom came out to visit (a week before the scheduled c-section). Thank goodness she did come out early because I went into labor on Sunday morning at 1:30am. She was here to watch the kids so we could head to the hospital. But the day before I went into labor we celebrated Luke’s birthday and had a get together with our close friends, the Greens and the Morgans, at a park. We grilled burgers and hot dogs and had tons of yummy food (provided by everyone). Luke love’s balls so I attempted to make a basketball cake, similar to the beach ball cake I made for Allie when she turned two. It didn’t quite work out and I didn’t have the patience or energy to make a second one so I used half of the ball and threw it on top of a 9×13 cake. It wasn’t very cute, but the kids didn’t care. They loved it.

While I was in the hospital with Mia, Allie graduated from preschool. I was so sad to have missed it but luckily Jake and grandma took a ton of pictures and video taped it.

Dave flew out to visit so now we are all just hanging out and having fun together. We leave NC on June 25th. It’s going to be a sad day but we are excited to go to Utah to visit family and then move to Seattle.

Here are some pictures from the month of May:

So this is about a month late, but hey, we’ve had a busy month! Here are some pictures of Jake’s graduation. For those who might not know, Jake graduated with a PhD in Business Administration in May from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He’s been working on this degree for four years, and we’re really excited that he’s done and we can have a real job! Next month, we’re moving to Seattle where Jake will be a professor of accounting at the University of Washington. Wahoo!

A couple notes about the photos. First, Jake was ecstatic to have his name up on the scoreboard in the famous Dean Dome (home of the Tarheel basketball team). Second, we had some family out, including Ashlee. She also graduated that weekend so we’ve got a nice graduation photo of her in the mix. Congrats Ashlee!

Way to go Jake! We’re proud of you!

All, here are some pictures of our new baby, Mia. So far, she is an angel–she sleeps nearly every hour of the day and never cries. Hopefully that will continue for a while!

Here’s an update on the birth of our daughter. Since Kerrie always delivers via C-section, we had scheduled to have the baby on Thursday at 8am. However, on Sunday morning at about 1:30am, Kerrie woke up with labor pains. After about 3 hours, she was satisfied that is was more than just Braxton Hicks labor pains, so we headed to the hospital. She was born a couple hours later.

We’ve decided to name her Mia May Thornock. She was born on May 23rd at 6:47am via C-section. She was 7 lbs, 4 oz and 20 inches long. There were no complications at all. I’ve posted a couple videos below of her and I’ll try to post some pictures later today or tomorrow.