California Trip

Way back in July we ventured on a trip to California. Here is what we did:

Met cousin Shea


Played with cousin Kai



Celebrated my birthday


Ate pumkin muffies from Panera Bread every morning - YUM!



Spent time with Nana and Grandpa


Went to a fun petting zoo

Had a date night and ate yummy seafood at a beachfront spot - Doesn't Justin's plate look delicious?!

Took lots of naps

Met up with Elise and her cute girls

And spent lots and lots of time at the beach

Can't wait to go back!

Thoughts on Foster Care

First of all, the baby is staying for a "while." How long is a while, you ask? We don't know! CPS called today to say it would be a while. In my mind, I am thinking month(s), but I am trying not to think about it.


Thank you for all of your congratulations, best wishes, etc. on our new placement. I thought I better do some explaining about this new journey we have embarked upon.


After Maya came along and before Kenyon joined us, we thought about doing foster care. We truly feel blessed with the ability to love and care for children that are not our own biological children. This is not the case for everyone and we realize this, thus we realize that many of you out there think we are CRAZY for doing foster care. As we thought about doing it before, we decided that we needed to get the children into our family that were to come to our family through adoption and then open our hearts to foster care.


We have felt prompted that now is that time. We are very happy and content with our 2 children. They bring us more happiness and joy than we can even comprehend. If we never adopt again, we are complete. We are in foster care to help families heal and be reunited. We are not going into this looking to adopt, but if an adoption were to come from it, of course we would be open.

So where do we go from here? We will love on this little one as much as we can. We will take this opportunity to provide her a safe, structured home where His spirit presides for however long He allows us to keep her. And will it hurt if/when we let her go? YOU BET! But we would like to believe that we will all be better off because of it.

P.S. I am really struggling with what to do about posting pics of the little princess on here. For now I have decided not to, but at some point I might go private and then share more. If you want to see her, come visit!

It's a Girl!

We have our 1st foster child - a 7 month old baby girl. She is so sweet and happy! She loves to watch the kids run around and just squeals with excitement. She will cuddle up and fall asleep on Jer or myself. She will most likely only be here for a couple of days so we are lovin' on her all we can!

Update on Kenyon's Foot

No break - Yahoo! I really didn't want to keep him out of the water much longer. He is always asking to swim or play in the sprinklers. He is back on his 2 feet and we are very happy!

Kenyon's Foot

Last week the kids had some friends over. They were jumping off of this slide like they often do.

Kenyon landed on his foot weird. He cried for a minute, but was then back up playing. We noticed that he limped on it a little, but it never was bruised or swollen so we thought we would just watch it.

A week later, he seemed to be limping even more, but never complained of it hurting. We finally decided to take him to the Children's Urgent Care last night. Let me start off by saying the dr was a total jerk. He came in and before saying, "Hello" or "How are you," he said, "I don't know why you came to Urgent Care a week later. I don't know what you expect me to do. You should have went to your pediatrician." I informed him that I called my pediatrician and since they don't do x-rays, I came here for an x-ray. He went on to say that jumping from 3 feet on a foot that is mostly cartilage and few bones would most likely not break anything. Okay, well we still wanted an x-ray.

After the x-ray came back, he said it showed a line on a bone. He couldn't tell if it was a fracture or a growth line so he referred us to an orthopedic dr and sent him home in a splint. For now, we don't know if it is a break or nothing at all, but doesn't he look cute?!

Appointment with Ortho Doc on Monday so for now we just wait!

Utah Trip: The Final Week

After our Bear Lake excursion, we headed down to the Salt Lake area to meet up with friends and family. My aunt and her family are always so nice to let us stay there. She has preteen and teenage kids so they are a HUGE help with my kids. Many days were spent on the trampoline!


We met up with friends daily and had a blast seeing everyone. Sometimes I remembered to take pics and most of the time I didn't. (Anyone at the family reunion in Layton have pics - I was too busy chatting that night!)

My high school friends got together at Niki's gorgeous new home - there were a ton of kids there! (Who has the picture of all 9 of us ladies at our girls night out? Please email me! :)

We drove up to Park City one day to meet up with some of our Park City friends. It was so nice to catch up.

Since Heidi and her kiddos couldn't make it to the Park City lunch, we met up with them at a park/splash pad another day (& Niki and her cuties joined us too!)

Alexa and Maya spent a TON of time together while we were there. They had both gone through withdrawals since they moved back to Utah. We sure miss them!

Kenyon ran wild in the water!

The boys - Gavin and Kenyon

Cooling off with an ice cream cone after a tough day at the park!

We were also able to get together with Jeremy's cousin and kids for a playdate. She had her baby 3 days after we left so we just missed her!

We made it to the Oquirrh Temple Open House. So neat to take my kids to the temple again since they hadn't been in since they were sealed to us.

One evening we rode the Trax light rail train downtown to Temple Square.

Then we were able to spend the 24th of July with our good friends' Adam and Katie - we miss hanging out with them so much!

Jeremy manned the grill for our amazing BBQ!

Then Jeremy and Adam put on a firework show.

Then the next morning we made the 11 hour drive home; all in one day. It really wasn't bad though. Our kids are great travelers.

Still to come - our California trip we took 4 days later! :)

Utah Trip: Bear Lake

For Grandpa's 80th birthday, the whole crew stayed at a cabin at Bear Lake

Notice my nephew in the bottom-left corner, Kenyon wanted to be like him:

We had some killer games of spoons!

And spent lots of time looking out the front window:

Lots of good food!

And quality time with family!

Here are the terrible two year olds!

One day we headed to the lake...

We rented a boat (Kenyon and I on one tube and Chelsey on the other)

Ashley and Maya on a tube

Kenyon was in his element:

And then he crashed for a nap on the beach.

These ladies built an intense sand castle.

And buried Maya, of course.

Another day we headed to the Minnetonka Cave. I hiked those 400 steps up and down carrying this monster most of the way.

It was a cold 40 degrees in there.

Some of the group

It was really pretty around there - Grandpa and Kenyon

And that was the 5-day Bear Lake portion of our trip. Coming up soon - back to the Salt Lake Valley for visits with friends and family.