and then there were twenty-three...

this is my mom and dad.

this is what happened after just a few short years of marriage...

and a few more years...

and finally, thirty years later, this is what they got for all that hard work!

and they've never been happier!

this year mom and dad gave us our christmas present early, aunt meggie and her son cody came home for a much needed visit! megan is living back east and hasn't been home for more than three years. this was our first time meeting cody and all the cousins were very excited to get to know him. unfortunately travis was unable to come with them but there is always next time. we decided to take advantage of this rare occasion by having family pictures done which were thrown together at the last minute and could not have happened without the help of my amazing sister in law, thanks debbie!

(there is a hole in each of these pictures where megan's husband travis should be because i do not have the talent to photoshop him in.)

of course we had to sneak in a rogers' family picture as well.

and who could resist this face?! (isabel is pretty cute too ;))

i figured as long as i was blogging i better make the most of it. here are the kids school pictures for 2011.

Carter

Chandler

Isabel

Desiree

happy holidays, we love you all!

miami 2010 pt two

i am home, and have been for a couple weeks now, so i thought it was time to finally get these posted. these were taken on the first day of my trip, straight from the airport.

these are more pictures of the day we spent at hollywood beach, remember the pictures that were on mel's camera? :)

this was my last trip to the beach, two days before returning to utah. kyle and i made the trek down to hollywood beach once more but did not get a lot of time to play before a storm came in. when we got to the beach the water was like glass, it was a little eerie.

within a short few minutes big waves were rolling in and they were coming from the side, i had never seen anything like it. it was really cool but being that i am not extremely familiar with the ocean we did not take any chances and decided to call it a day. it rained for the rest of my trip :(

and this is our farewell :( til next time my good friends. i love you and appreciate all you do for me. can't wait til our next adventure, even if it will be in texas :P

timpanogos cave

as our last summer outing before school started we thought it would be fun to take the kids through timpanogos cave. we actually picked a great day for the hike. it was pretty warm on the way up but as we made our way through the caves some cool showers made their way through the canyon and the hike down was just right. the rain was a bit of a surprise and we even saw where a big rock slide had taken place that was not there on our way up. we were happy to make it into the cave when we did.

although i grew up in american fork this was my first time up to the cave. it was fun to share the experience with my kids but as i was huffing and puffing my way up the mountain i mentioned that once every thirty one years sounds pretty good to me. i haven't changed my mind yet ;)

the one thing i will give the mountains, being that i am not much of an outdoorsy person and when i am i prefer the beach, is the gorgeous views we came across. it was amazing to look out through the canyon and see the valleys below.

just a little nature we happened upon on our trek.

all in all i'd say we had a pretty good day. it was fun to spend some quality time with the family and one of the highlights for me personally was running into an old high school teacher who is now a ranger at the cave. mr. allen taught my human biology class and was introduced to the kids as "my teacher that taught me how to disect a pig". they thought that was pretty neat :)

"back to school, back to school..."

school has officially started and it could not have come at a better time! the summer really flew by this year but we were all ready for it. the kids are happy to see their friends again and i am happy to be back on a schedule.

chandler started first grade this year and is already loving it, he feels so grown up. it is sad that he is growing up so quickly but i do love the peace and quiet i now have during the day. he is playing soccer again this year and making lots of new friends.

isabel is in third grade this year and is little miss popular at her school. i am known as bel's mom and chandler is known as bel's brother. i love that she is such a social butterfly and can befriend anyone, including most of the staff.

desiree is a big ninth grader this year. the older she gets the older i feel. i swear i can still remember ninth grade as if it were only yesterday. she is very excited about the new year and about being the big kids on campus. she has lots of fun classes this year and is looking forward to starting seminary.

and then there is my baby. being that he is almost three and a half i should probably stop calling him that but three or thirty three he will always be "my baby". this week has been rough on him. all of his playmates are off to school and he doesn't understand why he cannot go with them. this morning he even put on his new backpack, that he just had to have cuz the other kids got one, and informed me he would be going to school today. what a cutie!!

miami 2010 pt one

once again i am in miami and like last time i am loving it! this picture was taken on my first day of the trip. mel picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the beach, it was awesome! the weather was great and the water was perfect. what a great way to kick off my vacation.
this picture was taken at hollywood beach on the second day. we did get a picture of the two of us but i will have to post it in pt two because they are on mel's camera and she is in utah. utah...i'm sure some of you might be scratching your heads about now. my great friends mel and stephen flew me all the way to miami for one last visit before they move back to texas. this ticket, however, did not come without some strings. this weekend stephen is off to a conference in seattle for school and mel flew home for her brother's wedding. they were looking for someone to watch kyle while they were gone and i just couldn't resist. which leads to our next pics...

kyle and i got our weekend off to a fun start by visiting miami's children's museum. we climbed lighthouses, did some grocery shopping, went on a cruise and got in some fishing.

we also had some fun playing in bubbles and on an outdoor playground where there were oodles and oodles of other kids to play with. we then headed to an outdoor shopping mall where we grabbed some lunch and some souveniers for my wonderful family back home.

today kyle and i headed off to the everglades for a guided airboat tour. stephen had suggested to check one out on the indian reservation. when we got there we were told we needed a couple more people on the boat before he'd take it out so we waited..and waited...and waited some more but no one showed up. we decided to go get some lunch and check back later. boy did our waiting pay off. we ended up with only two other people and a guide who has a personal relationship with a few of the gators. he told us he wanted us to be able to get our money's worth so he drove us around for quite some time to make sure we got to see a couple of them.

the guide would make a clicking noise and the gators would come right over to the boat. this one seemed to be his favorite. he got him out of the water by feeding him some bread.

he also told us that this one likes to get on the boat. i'm still not sure if that was a joke or not but as you can see in this photo he gets pretty close. it was a little scary to be so close to these large creatures not knowing what they are capable of but it was awesome at the same time.

week in review

ast week desiree was able to attend girls' camp with our ward. as always she had a blast! she made lots of new friends and spent hours making silly faces at her camera, here are just a few of them :)

it has been tradition in my family for years to spend the 24th at grandma and grandpa petersen's in hinkley. this year we spent the 24th in style hangin at the beach! if only it were an actual ocean beach but the little watering hole we found in hinkley made due this year. the kids had fun playing in the sun, building some "mud" castles and swimming, swimming, swimming. they are little water babies just like their mom.

and of course, the weekend would not have been complete without the hinkley rodeo. grandpa dean and grandma dawn even made the trek down with us this year making it all the more fun. the kids were in heaven surrounded with so many people to spoil them rotten.

(this is no one in particular but i just had to get in at least one picture of a horse)

poor little graylee was wiped out after a day of so much fun. i decided to take advantage of the sleeping baby and get in some auntie time cuz that's the only time anyone besides her parent's gets to hold her.

these are just some leftover pics from the last post. this is the ride carter was kicked off and then snuck on with daddy. he was in heaven and rode it several more times.

and these are our "wheat" babies, as isabel called them. she was in awe of all the nature surrounding her in idaho. they turned out so cute i had to throw them in.