12 wonderful years!!

On Aug 15 Karl and I celebrated our 12th anniversary!!  It has been a wonderful 12 years.  I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love another person.  We have 4 amazing kids, lost at 3 to miscarriages, laughed, cried, gone through hardships and joys, and just grown closer as we have experienced life together. 
For our anniversary we decided we wanted to go to the temple and also to check out a new outlet mall.  Our anniversary fell on a Thursday this year and Karl took a vacation day on the Friday so we had a nice long weekend.  Originally on the evening of our actual anniversary we were planning on just having a stay at home date with some take out and a movie. But then the week before our anniversary we heard that Billy Dean was going to be in town in concert that night.  I love Billy Dean, he is one of my favorite country singers.  We were able to get tickets and go.  It was held at this tiny barbecue place in a tiny town.  It was small but unfortunately since the seating area was flat it was kind of hard to see.  But the concert was great.  He has the most beautiful voice and is very funny too.  Some of the songs he sang were "Billy the Kid", "Somewhere in my Broken Heart" "Crazy Beautiful", "Let them be Little", "If there hadn't been You".  Lots of others too!  And he ended the concert sing "I Am a Child Of God".  Nope, he isn't LDS but he is good friends with Thurl Bailey (Utah Jazz player) who is.  They recorded the song together a few years back.  He said it is now one of his favorite songs and that it is the "perfect combination of melody and lyrics".  Extra special not only because it is one of the most popular children's songs in our church but Karl's great great aunt (I think that is correct) wrote it,  Karl told him so when we got to meet him after the concert!  He stayed after and signed autographs and took pictures. We got his autograph and pictures taken with him. So so cool!!  He is a very nice guy.  It was the perfect anniversary evening.  We had a lot of fun.  Thanks Mom and Dad for watching our kiddos!!  And thanks Annalisa for taking a bottle, yay!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random pics



My mom recently emailed me some pictures my dad had taken of my kids on his camera.  So here are some random pictures.

Summer on the day of her preschool graduation

 

Steven our photographer while we were watching one of Matthew's baseball games.

Some cute ones of Annalisa sometime over the summer



Solid Food!!

That same night after pictures and the trip to Logan (it was a busy day!) we gave Annalisa her first bite of solid food.  Her doctor said we could try it anywhere between 4-6 months and it took us this long to do it (she was about 5 months and 1 week old).  We started on baby oatmeal.  In the past I have always started my kids on rice cereal but my kids have NEVER liked the rice.  Her doctor said there is no reason at all we have to start with rice or even give them rice at all.  So we didn't we went straight to the oatmeal.  She did pretty well the first day and then after that it was hard to get her to eat it.  Then after a couple of weeks she would eat like two big bowlfuls mixed with bananas.  Now we are struggling to get her to eat it again.  Sigh!!  There is no consistency but we will keep at it. 

 

I had a video but I couldn't get it to upload!!

Day in Logan

Since we had driven all the way up to Logan for pictures we decided to spend the day there.  first we got lunch at a local restaurant.  It had a sign saying that it was where the local ate so we decided to try it out.  It was very good and the service was good too. 
After lunch we went to see the tabernacle and went on a tour.  So happens the lady doing the tour was brand new and this was the first time she had done a tour.  It was a beautiful building. We didn't get to see the baptistery area because a baptism was going on.

 

 

After the tabernacle we drove up to see the temple.  So beautiful!!

 

This was taken by a nice man on the grounds who offered to take a family picture

Who is missing from this picture?  Steven, he took it!  Pretty good for a seven year old!!

Oops got a finger in the way (this is Steven again!)

 

Afterward we went up to USU (Utah State University) to try out the Aggie famous ice cream.  Karl's brother recently told us that Aggie ice cream was better than BYU's so I just had to see.  Honestly I couldn't taste much of a difference.  Maybe if they were side by side but for now I will say they are the same.  And they didn't have chocolate milk which BYU's Creamery chocolate milk is the best I ever tasted.  Thick, rich, like a dessert.  Think chocolate ice cream but in liquid form.  Delish!!  The creamery was tiny and very crowded, I don't like crowded tiny areas.  I have a bit of claustrophobia.  So we went outside to eat. 

Steven eating the famous blue mint ice cream.  It was good but I didn't see what was so spectacular about it other than the fact that it was blue not green.  Karl actually ordered this but Steven had order birthday cake and didn't like it so Karl gave him his. 

I got some kind of chocolate with caramel and peanut butter

Summer had chocolate

I can remember what Matt got

And look you can buy Diet Dr Pepper at USU (BYU is a caffeine free campus). 

These two were there too.  Love this pic of the of them.  and you can see Matt in the background!!

After ice cream we went home, stopping long enough in Brigham City to pick up sandwiches from Old Grist Mill for dinner for me and Karl.  The kids got cereal at home! :)  It was a fun day and Logan is a beautiful city!!