Does this place look like home? Let me tell you why.

Kacersko polje, Reka Krivaja Kacher's field, Krivaja River




















Super Duper Important item #1

• I have been doing some genealogy work and I have a new theory about the national heritage of our ancestors. Are you ready? We are actually not Czechs, but Serbs! How do I know this you ask? Two reasons.

"Vrutci Lake near the village of Kacer"

1. While exploring the world on Google earth I actually came across a village in Southern Serbia about 13 miles from the Bosnian border called Kacer (spelled with the Slavic hot chick over the "C"). It is a most beautiful village in the country near a lake. This city was obviously named after one of our famous ancestors. I propose it as the destination of future family reunions, everyone check it out and let me know. The village is located at 43 48' 53.02" N, 19 44' 41.03" E. You can copy and paste those coordinates in Goolge Earth and you'll fly right there, it's beautiful!

2. "Kacer" is an actual word in the Serbian language meaning "Harrier Eagle". Much more noble than the green headed duck which we ate for dinner a couple of weeks ago.

characteristics Encyclopædia Britannica :
The harrier eagles, six species of Circaetus (subfamily Circaetinae, serpent eagles), of Europe, Asia, and Africa, are about 60 cm (24 inches) long and have short unfeathered legs. They nest in the tops of trees and hunt snakes. -Sound like us? I submit that it does.


Super Duper Important thing #B

· Thank you for the nice birthday posts. Mikaela, you are incredible, it was like you were reading my mind.

And Finally...

• I hope everybody reads and enjoys this blog posting. Putting it together was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life.

----------------It's the Birthday BOY----------------------

In order to better know Ryan, we sought out the one person who could tell us best: Mikaela. Mikaela had the goods on her uncle Ryan, and so here's what we learned.
What animal does Ryan look like? a pig.
What color does Ryan like? mostly Red.
What is Ryan's favorite game? pretty much CandyLand.
What is Ryan's favorite food? Oatmeal and brown sugar.
Who is Ryan's favorite person? Zach
What is Ryan's favorite thing to do? Read books.
What is Ryan's favorite book? 'are you my mother'.
How old is Ryan? 5
What should Ryan name his baby? Rydum.
How many kids should Ryan and Abby have? 25
What does Ryan want for Christmas? A new coloring book

And there you have it folks.
Happy 25th Birthday Ryan!

what a guy...........

B odacious
E nviable
N ebulous

HAPPY 27th BIRTHDAY BIG BOY!!!

we did AWESOME!!!

I just want to say, Me and Tyler ran a great race on Saturday, it was the best feeling!

Happy b-day

Happy Birthday Ma!
You're the bestest. Thanks for always worrying about me (even though I'm pretty sure I'll be alright) and always being willing to help out!
Josh

DeaR MaMa KaCHeR

We LOVE our...

adVenTuRouS

fuN-LoViNg

eXpReSSiVe

wiLLiNg to SeRVe

aThLeTic, aCTiVe & HeaLTHy

HaPPY

iNSPiRiNG

GRaNDMa PoLLY!

THaNKs for raising a PeRFeCTLy aMaZiNg SoN!

I HoPE I can follow in your footsteps:>

HaPPY BiRTHDaY!!

We LOVE you!

Happy Birthday to MOM

I thought I'd compile a little photo montage of mom being a mom through the years. I think the thing we all are so proud of is to have such a fun mom. Mom would drop whatever she's doing in order to have a good time. Even now, when we're all together staying up till late hours talking, mom just can't miss out and is right there with us. Even if she is half asleep on the couch. She's got the best laugh, the most interesting conversations, the best listening ear, she's tough, she can figure anything out, and she can hike any mountain. Mom never sits around letting things happen around her, she makes sure to be a part of everything! I think she'd be happy to know that she has helped me strive to live life to its fullest.

I LOVE YOU MOM! Happy birthday

love Amelia, Tyler, Mikaela & Kacher

i love you mom!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM youre the bomb, even more than our uncle tom. even though girls dont say im cute you always do so they can have my boot! it may sound a little shallow but for your sticky buns.. id go to the gallows. i miss you so much, here at school, i wish i had spent more time with you because you rule!!!! everyone wants to be my friend cuz of you, all i have to say is "my mom teaches dance" its true!! you always love me even when, i have a mullet or im bald or i have stripes in my hair or my hairs orange or the cops called because i jumped off a bridge or i didnt do well on a test or i didnt want to go to work or i was tired or i was in a bad mood or i was rude to you or anyone else in the family i could list more things again and again! and another thing thats very special, you saw me have a seizure (i dont show that to any old seashell) dear mom i love you a lot, you have all the love that i got!!!!!!!!

love zachary

Memories

Here we present our proud purchase.....
a trampoline!!! Thanks to craigs list... we sure did have a great childhood- growing up on a trampoline, I couldn't let Mikaela and Kacher miss out!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!!!!

TYLER'S TOP 30..... 1. strikingly handsome
2. a wild rockclimber

3. Everyone's favorite doctor

4. Tall

5. Dark

6. Handsome

7. Long Toes

8. Big hands

9. Nicest guy around

10. Wise

11. Pensive

12. kinda a lot of leg hair

13. avid reader

14. opinionated

15. amiable

16. likes everyone

17. doesn't not like anyone

18. up for anything

19. never not up for anything

20. avid hiker

21. has good taste in women

22. handy around the house

23. hard worker

24. has a sweet tooth

25. can eat up a storm

26. can put up a good wrestle

27. patient

28. humble

29. is very clean

30. voted as america's #1 all around best husband

Our TRiP to THuNDeRBiRD, AZ!

The drive was so beautiful that it didn't seem like 10 hours - maybe that's because Ryan did most of the driving:> More pictures of that at the end...but one crazy story - there were two cops that were totally slowing down traffic, and we wondered what they were up to. A few minutes later we saw them pull a truck over, and in the bed of the big truck was a tarp - no bungies, no back bar or anything on the truck, the tarp was just tucked under on the sides. While we passed, we saw PEOPLE jumping under the tarp! Busted.

So we checked into the 'Thunderbird Executive Inn' (such a nice hotel-bath and body works shampoo) right in time to give Ry a haircut and go to the opening reception for the weekend program. Doesn't Ryan look snazzy in his business casual attire?

We were able to talk to several Campus Ambassadors, who are basically students there to talk to us, answer questions, etc. We were surprised at how many students and prospective students there were from Utah. A few administrators came and gave inspiring presentations about the school. The night ended with an India Festival outside on campus - authentic food, and Indian dancing.

Day 2: Thunderbird had so much planned for the prospective students today. Ryan had seminars about his program, financial aide, recruiting season, international experiences, a professor even came to lead a mock class about a business case everyone read ahead of time, lunch with professors, alumni spoke. I went to some of the classes, but spent a lot of the day trying to find us housing: it's looking pretty expensive! There are some really trashy and really nice places - I haven't yet found a tweener place right inbetween or in the middle.

The day ended with an Asian festival - HUGE event that happens once a semester - with great ethnic food and entertainment, and TONS of students and members of the community. I was able to meet with several of the wives of current students which was great. We even went to one of their apartments to check it out later that night. The students were so willing to tell us about life on loans. We also discovered that there's a wives group that meets for swimming everyday at 3pm, and there's a thunderkids club who plan activities weekly.

Although we learned a few things that were a surprise to us about starting the program in January - with Ryan's internship, international experience he needs to go on, and the big fall recruiting season - We have decided that Ryan is going to become a t-bird! As you can see:

which means little Poppy will become a thunderKID!

Anyway - that's our trip in a nutsheLL! Hope everyone's HaPPy and doing weLL! We LoVe you and are thinking about you! Here are some extra pics from our drive home - beautiful!

PS - Bonnie Craigslist IS amazing! We've been collecting baby gear thanks to craigslist.

Here's the view from the bridge - it doesn't do it justice! It was STRAIGHT down!

Don't forget that Kacher also says Josh (he's not really just saying dah). Way to have cute kids sis.

Birthday Boy

KACHER'S TOP TEN
why we love him

by,

mom & mikaela


1. he says dah
2. he gives Mikaela big tackle hugs
3. he eats all of our green tomatoes and green strawberries off of the plants
4. he gets food on his belly button and on his hair when he eats, he spills all over
5. he's the fastest one year old crawler
6. he's got a great growl
7. he doesn't like to sleep
8. he loves to laugh, especially when his big sister Mikaela is being funny
9. he's got a fabulous smile
10. he's just so loveable

Kacher's Birthday Breakfast

Happy 1st Birthday Kacher

These is my words

Here we are girls, too bad we can't all be close enough to discuss the book over a cup of coffee, or at least some delicious postum. But, I guess we'll have to settle for a blog.
So.... please start adding in your thoughts on These is My words. Why doesn't everyone who has started reading it first just say where you are in the book, so that we don't give anything away.
I can't wait to hear what you think...

I just wanted everyone to see how cool Grandma Polly and Grandpa Koko are :)

WE LOVE THE KACHERS

we're so great
amelia

guess who's birthday......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBY!!!!

Mikaela has some proud news to share.....

And Finally Mikaela is a true Indiana girl :)

mom, finally

Hi everyone,
Sorry it took me so long. I really enjoy reading what everyone writes, and I know my life isn't that boring, but I really can't think of anything to write.....
We're quite busy working on the house, making decisions, and stuff, but half of you really don't want to hear about it so I guess one day you'll be surprised to find that we have moved.
It's been a wonderful summer, and as always, it has gone way too fast. Tomorrow I start into a week of faculty meetings and then school starts the next week (with Swiss Days in between)
I pulled up my rolls and I have 9 guys (of 25 students) in my 140 class and 4 guys of 25 in my 240 class! I've never seen so many guys in a modern class. Josh tells me that I have a "hot chile pepper" on my "rate my professor.com" listing. So I'm wondering if when they come the first day and see that I am actually the oldest grandma in the whole department they'll drop out!
I had a nice little miracle. The 326 class that I was scheduled to teach didn't fill up so they have cancelled it! It couldn't have happened during a better semester! The other classes I teach are easy to get a substitute for, but this one really gets messed up with a substitute. So now we can plan a trip back East to see Amelia, Ben and families!!

Zach received the Mechezedic Priesthood today!! It was really a special time. We wish Ben and Tyler could have stood in on the ordination, but we were grateful to have Ryan and Josh there. Also, our bishop came. Zach is a great kid and we are so proud of him.

Josh brought a bunch of his school buddies up for dinner too and along with Ryan and Abby here it was a wonderful Sunday!!

We love you all, and we are so proud of all of you. Good luck to all of you as (we) start a new school year!
love,
mom

RyaN and AbbY

We are back in Utah after a fabulous trip to Minnesota. Ben and Bonnie - there's a chance we'll be in Minnesota for Shanksgiving too, we'll see what the Doc says. It was HOME and we felt like kids again: boating, canoeing, hanging out, fishing (Ry), and doing whatever. We visited with the Kachers while Amelia was still there. The highlight of that night was probably when Uncle Mark set his lawn on fire. We'll upload pictures next time.

Ryan's studying his brains out for the GMAT, which he takes this Friday. After he takes it we're celebrating by going on a campout with three other couples in the ward to Lava Hot Springs that night. Ryan is working at the MTC still, doing various workshops for missionaries in the LRC, teaching couples still, and waiting for his next Serb group to come in.

Abby's sort of a BYU grad...she has finished all her classes, is not student teaching, and has applyed to graduate without her lisensure - but she has to take care of an 'e' on her transcript because she STILL owes a professor a paper from a year and a half ago. Abby will start substitute teaching for the Provo school district this week, and continue working her OIT job 20 hours a week this Fall.

Baby boy Poppy is excited about being 22 today - he's looking for a girlfriend so that he can be like Uncle Josh. He's not sure what he wants to be named yet, but he has become more athletic in the past week. Ryan has been able to feel him move, too which is fun.

Life is GRAND. We love you all!

me

It's kind of late, so I'll write quick. Things are good. It looks like I'll be publishing 2 papers for research in the near future, and get ready for a conference in Pittsburg next summer. Rugby practice started yesterday, so i plan on playing for as long as my knee holds up. I climbed kings peak last weekend. It was neat. I highly recommend it. I'll put some pictures up as soon as I get them.

The Joshua Tree

Since Josh hasn't contributed yet, I thought I'd contribute for him. Here's a picture of Josh.

i went to california for a week to live the life and i did. it was most excellent surfed with gordon shared the park with a few other bums skated la jolla san diego and mission bay and got kicked out of about everywhere we went. it was a most uplifting experience and finally drove thru the most excellent city of san dimas california i feel like im pretty ready now to move out of the house and live off of about 40 bucks a week and do whatever i want if anyone wants to join me... feel free!

NellaBelle

Hey everybody!! This last week I went to EFY in Provo, and it was pretty much amazing!! But I also had soccer try-outs that Monday and Tuesday, so a bit rough too. But it all worked out!!!
At EFY Lauren and I roomed together, and the room to our right there were two girls from my soccer team, and in the room to the left were three girls from my school, so that was pretty fun. My counselor's name was Kirsten, and she was awesome!! She pretty much let us do just about anything we wanted, and really didn't care if we stayed up late talking, as long as our lights were out and her head counselor thing didn't notice. There were a lot of cute boys in my company :D, so that was definitely good, and for the most part pretty talkative. The dances were probably my favorite part (other than the testimony meeting), and I've decided that when i take over the world all dances are going to be like the ones at BYU.
My company's testimony meeting was the coolest one I've ever been to. There were two friends in our company, Jeff and Sam, and we didn't know it, but Jeff wasn't LDS. So at the testimony meeting when Sam bore his testimony, he started crying, and then when Jeff bore his testimony he talked about how he wasn't a member yet, but he wanted to be one, and at that point Sam just started sobbing. Everybody was crying, but then it was weird because it seemed like everybody was so happy, that we all started to laugh! It was really cool because it wasn't like a drive-away-the-spirit laugh, but just like a sort of so-incredibly-happy-that-you-can't-hold-it-in laugh. It was really cool.
My other favorite part was the classes. There was one teacher in particular who everybody LOVED. His name was Brother Bowman, and he wrote these children's books called 'Who's Your Hero?'. You probably don't recognize the name, but if you saw one you would recognize it. They were about the Book of Mormon heroes. I couldn't say exactly what it was, but he was an awesome teacher.
But I think that one of the coolest moments was at the fireside Friday night when we all sang the EFY Medley together, and the girls finished their part, and all the guys started singing. I don't know what it was, it was just really really cool.
And I guess that's it... Hope to see you all soon!!
Lalu!!
NellaBelle :D

La Famille PEARCE

Hey Everyone,
So I hope by now everyone has at least glanced at our new family blog, if this is your first time, make sure you keep scrolling all the way down the page so that you can see what everyone has posted. It may even require clicking on older posts to see Ben and Bonnie's. I'm sure you'll all get the hang of it. Also, another thing to remember- we can leave comments for eachother's posts. I have left a few, so make sure you click on the comments button at the end of a post to read these comments.
WE still need to hear updates from Ryan and Abby, Josh, Zach, Nellie and MOM!!! So, fill us in on the happenings of your lives.

As for us, we are loving it here, I have been amazed at the number of people who have so quickly reached out to us. We feel like we have wonderful friends that we have known all of our lives, already! One couple who have two kids, just like us, and who is also starting an Emergency Medicine residency, live just a mile away from us. So, we have switched babysitting which meant me and Tyler got to see 'The Bourne Ultimatum' last night at the movie theatre! I don't think we've ever once gone to a movie, just the two of us. Now, that's an exciting movie.

Mikaela is truly a little princess here in Indiana, she is growing up right before my eyes. And that is totally true, she will be starting preschool in a couple weeks just with a bunch of moms that will switch off teaching it. She continuously talks about the baby sister that is in my tummy. I guess she really is growing up to be just like me!

And our little man Kacher loves to climb the stairs, eats just like his dad eats- meaning he hunches over his highchair tray and stuffs everything he can see into his mouth at one time without hesitating to breathe, talk, nothing---- His cheeks puff out like a little chipmunk they get so full. He is as handsome as can be. He has formed a bad habit of picking the cotton stuffing out of his carseat and eating it anytime we put him in the car! And, unfortunately, I have no way of stopping him while I am driving. What a guy. He officially crawls now as of a month ago, rather than does his army scoot. And as you will see in the pictures later on, he can climb all the way to the top of our slide.

Tyler is not around much, he is on call every 4th night, which means he stays at the hospital for about 30 hours straight. Which means me, Mikaela, and Kacher get lots and lots of bonding time. RIght now he is in the newborn baby unit, checking on the newborn babies and moms all day. He finished a month in the emergency room and has some great stories to add to his list of crazy experiences. Some of them, you'll have to just ask him to tell you, I don't think I should post them on here. He is tired, but very happy with his choice to do both ER and pediatrics. He is a real doctor now, with his own patients, making his own decisions. He hasn't killed anyone yet, so he must be doing something right!

I am somehow staying extremely busy, it seems like every day we are off somewhere- to the library, a friends house, running, to the park, or watering our garden. I have found a great group to run with and we are training for the Indianapolis half marathon in October. I'm actually training for a specific time, meaning we're doing sprint workouts, hills, distance runs-all of it- I'm not sure what that time is yet though. I'll let you know!

Tyler's brothers are coming out this weekend to see us, and his parents are coming in October. SO, we're going to need some Kachers to come see us to represent our side of the family!!!

Love you all
Amelia

kacher on the slide

Here's Kacher actually climbing to the top of our slide, completely on his own! He was totally elated when he made it to the top. What a climber!