DARE

Kendall was chosen to read his essay he wrote about the DARE program at the DARE graduation.

Christmas

Max loved his binki - in fact he insisted on sleeping with two. He would suck on one and rub the other one on his forehead. I guess he got tired of holding on to it and just left it there - ha ha.
The kids are patiently awaiting their grandparents so they could eat breakfast and then open presents.

New PJs (except for the boys ratty shirts that they insist on wearing to bed)

Pre-Christmas

I often find Shelby cuddled up to this bear on the girl's bed.
The girls had a dance recital - it was so fun to watch them perform.

October

Hooray! Kendall received his Arrow of Light and is now moving on to Boy Scouts.
One Mad Scientist, one Vampire, one Devil, one Witch, and one stinky Skunk = a very fun Halloween.

Change is Constant

One day in July, Dale called me to tell me that the Milwaukee guy over the West had just called him and asked him if he would like to take over the Northwest region which needed some help. This would mean moving. I told him it was up to him, but really I was thinking, I SOOOO don't want to move again. Within a few weeks, I was living in my parents basement in Utah so we could get the kids registered for school and Dale was in Florida finishing out his job there. It took a lot of searching, but this is the house we found to rent. This is what I'll miss about Florida: Warm winters, the beach, great friends, friendly people, the running trail, wearing sandals all year round, Disneyworld and Sea World, our awesome ward, palm trees, squirrels scurrying everywhere, oranges to juice, and the beauty of the green everywhere.
This is looking up our street - yep, that's the church. That is a definate plus about Utah. You're never too far from a church. Our neighbors are VERY friendly.

From our front porch, you can see the Draper temple, Jordan River temple, and Oquirrh Hills temple and of course the beautiful mountain range. Look how far you can see - no trees.

The best part of this house is that it has this huge extra garage in the backyard. Dale is in love with all the cement too.

Dale's parents just left for a mission to South Africa. They will be missed, but we did sneak in a BYU game in the loge before they left.

Shelby turned 5 and we celebrated by giving her cake.

We've had fun playing with cousins.

Max is now in a big boy bed and we are attempting to wean him from the binki.

Max had a birthday - he's 2!! How time flies. My Florida baby won't even remember Florida. He had to be held back from the candles because he wanted to blow them out so bad. He got a sand and water table for outside - too bad it's already starting to get cold.

Vacation to Utah

Pardon my ignorance, but I couldn't figure out how to put the pictures from top down, so you'll have to read this post from bottom up.

The last day, we all went to church with my parents and then went and had my brother take our family's pictures. This isn't the one he took, but you get the picture - no pun intended.

After the Mortensen reunion, we had the Hyer reunion. First we went miniature golfing and pigged out at Golden Coral. We saw Elder L. Tom Perry there. The next day we went to the park and played softball and went swimming at Cottonwood Heights (very fun pool). This is my oldest brother Todd and his wife Joy and me with my neice's husband.

Dale won the horseshoes competition at Aspen Grove.

The spray from the water was FREEZING, but the view down was so beautiful.

The canyon was gorgeous. We took a hike up to the falls.

This is Taylor on the wires.

The boys did it too.

Then repel down which I had never done before. Exhilarating, exhausting, and totally scary at the same time. Then you had to climb up this rock wall. Then climb around these wires in the trees, but I refused because my muscles were completely exhausted.

This was the ropes course. First you had to climb up a telephone pole.

Each night we'd gather around the tables and play cards. Here are some of the boys playing Texas Hold'em. Can you say "Thanks grandma for the poker chips"?

This is the huge lodge we stayed in at Aspen Grove. We were on the top floor- that's Katie on the balcony. All meals were included, all entertaiment for the kids all day - what a fun week.

This is the Bean Museum on the BYU campus. It hasn't changed one bit, but they tore down the dorms I lived in when I was a freshman. We went here with the Colsons.

My mom made the most glorious dessert for us.

We visited Wheeler Farm.

We used to play with this old toy called "The Flexie" and my parents still have it so the kids played on it.

Isn't this a gorgeous view in the early morning. Too bad the running trail is a hill - everywhere you go you have to run up hill.

We crashed our old ward's BBQ and Summer had fun playing with her Eliza and Rachel.

Summer's 6th Birthday Tea Party

Summer decided she wanted a mommy-daughter tea party this year. We made fans and painted nails. I made everyone a tea party hat and we played pass the parcel and had tea party food of course. She had a lot of fun and she has some very cute little friends. It was fun to have the moms their too. I can't believe she's already 6!