Twenty Months Old

Since yesterday was my birthday, and since Benjamin has been twenty months old for ten days now, Joel told me that he would go ahead and write this month's blog post as a little gift to me! (This blogging stuff is SUCH hard work, you know!!!) :) Anyway... Take it away, Joel! And don't leave anything out!!! :)

Well..... This month has been exhausting! Here is an outline of how I spent the last month: Wake up at 7, start studying around 7:45 or 8. and then finish around 10 o'clock at night and go to bed. I rarely saw Lindsay or Benjamin, but hopefully the amount of time that I dedicated to studying paid off. Lindsay and I went up to Sioux Falls the night before the test and went out to dinner and celebrated our fifth(!) anniversary. It was nice to be able to relax the night before the biggest test of my life. The test was.... long. I feel like the time just flew by and dragged on all at the same time, but now it is over and I have to wait 4-6 weeks before I get my scores back. I am so lucky and blessed to have the most amazing and understanding wife in the world who was willing to support me and listen to me whine about having to study for 14 hours a day.

So enough about my boring old life, let's get to the fun part of the family! Benjamin and Lindsay are doing really well. Benjamin is growing up so fast! He is so smart! He knows all of his colors and shapes and he is such a good little talker! He has started to say, "YAY!!!" when he agrees with something. So if we say, "Benjamin, do you want to go see Grandpa and Rara (That's what he calls Lindsay's mom... so cute)?" He says, "YAY!!!!" and throws his arms in the air. It is so sweet. Linds has taken him to the pool and he loves doing that. He is just a little fish and he loves to swim and dip his face in the water.  He also LOVES to go out to the farm with his Papa. He likes to go out on the four wheeler and "drive." He helped my dad install the sprinkler system on his flying field and came inside completely soaked... he absolutely loved it! Lindsay has been keeping busy as well. She has given a few voice lessons while we have been here and has been wrangling Benjamin and keeping him happy. Last week I built Benjamin a new toddler bed. We are excited to move in to our new apartment on the first of the month and hopefully we won't have to get out the crib at all and he can just move right into his new bed.


The Tjarks family is doing well. I start school on the 2nd of July and I'm really excited to start this next chapter in our lives.


I also have to give Lindsay credit for being so diligent in keeping our blog updated. It's hard work to try and remember everything that has happened in a month! I'll leave it up to her to keep things updated from now on :).