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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!

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!

I realize that Easter was quite awhile ago, but hey, better late than never. We attended three Easter egg hunts this year; a community hunt, a preschool hunt and a friend hunt. Allie is a pro at it. Luke, however, could care less about the eggs. He was way more into the rocks and sticks. Here are some photos from the egg hunts:

Jake is currently in Seattle and will thankfully be getting home tomorrow. I wish I could have gone with him. He has rented a car and is driving all around Seattle checking out areas, neighborhoods, houses, etc. He has fallen in love with the place. We are so excited to be closer to family again (although we will miss NC and all of our friends).

I’m hoping to keep you updated since there is a lot coming up in May and June with graduation, kids birthdays, family visiting, new baby and then the move. But I’m not promising anything since I’ve been horrible at keeping this blog current.

Once upon a time we updated our blog regularly. That time is not now. I’m so sorry if you have kept coming back for updates on the Thornocks only to find the same old Christmas post. I know I LOVE reading your blogs but updating my own has become homework…and let’s face it, I’ve always been a procrastinator with homework. Instead of updating you on the past three months, which have been full of adventures, I’m not going to burn myself out of blogging and instead keep this post to the point so that I’ll want to come back and update you some more. Fingers crossed.

We love holidays! I love making them a big deal because I enjoy seeing Allie get so excited for the big day to come. So I tend to go overboard at times, which I may have done this St. Patrick’s day. But, we’re Irish, so I have a good reason to celebrate it. In past years, we’ve made leprechaun traps, wore green, had green breakfast foods, had the traditional St. Paddy’s day meal: corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, rolls, etc, and we have always ended the night with some delicious green dessert. This year was no exception.

However, this year we caught the elusive little leprechaun. We made the trap with rainbows and shamrocks, sparkly gold glitter and a welcome sign. Inside the trap was a homemade blanket and pillow (made by Allie with my help) to lure him in. Allie was informed the night before that leprechauns turn to stone when you look at or touch them but they quickly run away and hide if they have a spare moment. So when she awoke to find the leprechaun sleeping in her trap, she snatched him out and would not let him out of her sight for fear of him escaping. She carried him everywhere; he even came to the park with us. Every once in awhile when she’d leave him alone for a minute he would sneak away. But she always found him.

Other than catching the leprechaun, which was really a garden gnome that I painted green, she found a trail of gold chocolate coins that led her to a green sparkly box with treasures inside. These treasures included a clover planting kit, chapstick, a green crown, Lucky Charms cereal and more gold coins.

After our traditional corned been and cabbage dinner, we had rainbow cake with lime sherbet. Allie tucked Pat into his homemade blanket right next to her bed that night. Unfortunately, he was gone the next morning and in his place he had left a note of thanks for such a fun filled day. We hope Pat will come back to visit us next year.

That pretty much sums up our St. Patrick’s day. Now it’s on to planning Easter. To enlarge the pictures, click on the picture two times.

As for other news, Jake had been gone for about 6 weeks interviewing for a job. He had 13 interviews lined up. He is done with the interviewing phase and is now receiving offers. We are trying to decide between three wonderful universities and hope to come to a conclusion within the next week. We’ll keep you posted.

Lastly, our little girl is scheduled to come via c-section on May 27th. We are excited to meet her.

P.S. I stole some of my St. Patrick’s day ideas from a super fun and creative friend. Thanks Gina!

We had a great Halloween! On Friday night we went to the Carrboro Carnival. (You can see a pic of me and Luke on page 2 of the website). They have the carnival every year and it’s usually held on Halloween night. This year it was the night before. It’s perfect for young kids. They get to play games and win toy prizes. Allie and Luke spent a lot of time looking through hay for toys.

On Halloween we went to the student family housing party then came back to the apartment for a chili dinner with the Greens and Morgans. Afterward, we went trick or treating. This was Allie’s first time trick or treating. In the past we got so much candy from the ward trunk or treat that we decided to go to the Carrboro Carnival on Halloween instead. Since we missed the ward trunk or treat this year (we were in Utah) and since the Carnival was the night before we got to go trick or treating. Allie caught right on and was dashing from door to door. It was hard to keep up with all the kids. We then came back to our place to snack some more and hang out. It was an awesome weekend!

P.S. I’m embarrassed to say that I lost my camera (again!) while in Utah. Luckily it was a small, cheaper one this time. Anyway, if I happen to get it back, I’ll post pictures of Utah. I’m blaming it on pregnancy (I was pregnant both times I lost the camera). Oh yeah…did you catch that? We’re expecting again.

My super cool sister-in-law, Kelli, took pictures of Allie and Luke when we visited them in Carson City a couple months ago. She put Allie’s photos on her blog and Luke’s will probably be up tomorrow. Check out her Photography blog. I LOVE the pictures she took! She really knows how to capture their personalities. She is so much fun and my kids adore her. Thanks Kelli for sharing your amazing talent with us.

This is officially my last year with my little girl before she goes to all day kindergarten. I’m getting a glimpse of what it will be like now that she is in preschool 3 days a week for 4 hours. She had her first official preschool day today and although I couldn’t get much out of her on how the day went, I think she had a great time.

It was really weird not having her home. I should have gotten a lot done but somehow I didn’t. I found myself watching the time pass wondering what Allie was doing then, if she was enjoying it and if she was getting along with the other kids. I did, however, blog while she was gone (two blogs in one day…what the?) Anyway, hopefully I’ll become more efficient and productive with my time while she is gone so that I can focus on her when she gets home. Luke naps in the morning so I will be getting a lot of “me” time (although I’m not sure how long that will last since he is going from two to one nap).

Here is my sweetheart right before preschool:

Things I learned (I’m a novice at this preschool parenting stuff):
Send her with socks: she hated getting sand in her shoes at the playground and they wouldn’t allow her to take her shoes off.
Get her a backpack: she came home with like 10 different papers/flyers.
Pay tuition before the 10th: I just assumed that they would take the tuition on the FIRST day of school with out any fees, but I was wrong. It was due YESTERDAY! I was a little embarrassed and frustrated that I had to pay a late fee as were five other parents who assumed the same thing.

All in all, it was a good day for both of us and we are excited for the preschool year.

Here are some photos of our trip to Sacramento, Carson City and San Diego last month. For some reason, I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures from our reunion in San Diego (so family members, please feel free to send me some). I was having too much fun to get the camera out. Anyway, we had a wonderful summer. Allie started preschool today and will go 3 days a week. She’s super excited about it. Maybe I’ll have more time to blog. Don’t bet money on it though.

Our little man (aka Buster, Jej, bub, Lukey-poke) turned one last Friday. My mom and Dave came to visit for the occasion. We had a wonderful time with them, however, it went by way too fast. We did some fun things and ate way too much food. The pictures pretty much tell it all. However, we did go on a double date (thanks Tammy for babysitting) and saw Star Trek. I’m not a Trekky fan but it was awesome! Way better than I expected. Anyway, I’ll update ya’ll on Luke later. For now, enjoy the pictures.