The Gator Farm experience

Now, this was quite a fun afternoon at the Alligator Farm...except for the part where Parker climbed up into one of our strollers, caused it to tip over, then fell and busted hi upper lip and his nose. Poor boy bled all over the place and had a rough afternoon, but then we got to see the alligator feeding and that kept him pretty happy the rest of the afternoon. The park was pretty amazing and seeing Maximo, a more than 15-foot long and somewhere around 1,500 pound crocodile, was quite impressive and awesome!

Our Florida Bucket List

Well, since we've moved here, we have decided that we are going to work on our "Florida Bucket lit." This list highlights all of the things we want to go do and see while we live in Florida (since we aren't sure how long we're going to live here). One of those items on our list is to go see some of the beaches we were told are really nice. In the pictures, we went to one of the beaches because we were told that we could find lots of shark teeth on the beach there. We think we actually found 2 of them, but...we were also told that a little farther north than where we were is the best place to find shark teeth. So, we're going back to make sure we find some! As you can see, Sarah loves the beach! She especially loves to be "in" anything she can be...holes, boxes, buckets, bookcases...you name it. If Sarah can be in it or get in it, she's going to be in it!

Alright...couldn't get the slideshow loaded. So, I'll post just a couple of pictures here for you for now until I can get the slideshow uploaded!

Here's the best video of the day from the Alligator Farm/Zoo we visited with Mom here. The alligator farm was quite unique. It wasn't as big as we thought it would be, but, by the end of the afternoon, we had seen a few hundred alligators. It was quite hard to get a real count of how many there were just because so many were under water and hard to find!

The Kids

This first picture is of Sarah playing at the local mall's kid playground. She really liked climbing up and down on the toy airplane and car they had there. She tried climbing up the slide but couldn't make it in her socks. She was pretty determined, though! She tried and tried and tried!



These next 2 pictures are of Kelly and Parker playing in some big jump houses. We had a big stake activity last month. There were 5 or 6 jump houses, 2 of which had water hooked up to them so they could slide down some of the bigger ones. They had a blast that day! What Parker loved the most was that he had one of the jump houses all to himself for almost 10 minutes!




And this last picture here is Parker taking care of his sister after playing at the mall. He and Sarah were pretty cute together after playing. Parker was really excited to hold her, and she sat pretty quietly while we walked back out to the car for those few minutes! We could have gone for quite a decent walk had we wanted to and Sarah would have just laid there with Parker for a while.

No more Slide shows!

So, apparently, slide.com is no longer allowing new slideshows to be made. They are shutting down their site and taking a new direction. SO, I was about to make a new slideshow tonight and found out that I couldn't! Unfortunately you won't get anymore mass pictures from us at one time!

Anyway, here are some pictures of us just having fun recently...I mean, these are mostly pictures of Parker still falling asleep in random places, at random times!

Day at the Beach

Our summer has been fun so far! We have experienced plenty of heat and humidity to go around. I personally have spent lots of time in my car, traveling all over my area. In 6 weeks, I put nearly 5,000 miles on my car. Luckily right now, I have been able to stay in my office more trying to get some training in on some software and other things. Aside from that, we have had a very busy tropical season thus far...Hurricane Irene and a few others that never made landfall but were close. And, we've had our fair share of tropical storms roll through. Again, we have been lucky not to have too much affect from most of them. But, it does keep us on our toes! The biggest news around here right now is that Rachel got called into the Young Women's presidency as 2nd counselor. Also, her baby bump is now showing, Sarah is walking and starting to copycat lots of things like actions and faces, and Kelly is still bent on naming the new baby Snow White no matter what happens. Parker is potty training and doing pretty well as long as he doesn't have any pants on...he does even better when he doesn't wear any underwear. He gets swedish fish every time he goes on the potty, and he gets the most excited when he goes and gets to try staying dry while wearing underwear. He got so excited the other morning that he went in by himself after crying for a bit about not wearing any underwear. He went potty all by himself. We were super excited and congratulated him for doing it and told him he would get his swedish fish...Parker squealed in excitement and immediately after being told he would get his swedish fish, he shrieked, "And I get to wear underpants now!" It was pretty cute! Well, we've been to the beach a couple of times now. So, the next posts are going to be some pictures of taking the kids there. Sarah really liked the sand and Kelly and Parker really liked sitting in the small waves. We are excited to go again! Enjoy the pictures!

Moving Trip

We thought we'd make a vacation out of our trip moving across the country. So here it is in pictures!

We're Back...finally!

Well, we've moved to the deep south because I've taken a job as a facility manager with the Church. So, after a good year and a half of running my own remodel company (and many, many, many job applications) we have picked up and left the mountainous west for the flat but very green south. The kids are adjusting well...Parker has probably taken it the hardest because he is tired all the time. Kelly has made a bunch of friends but still asks to go back to see the family and our "old house," by which she means she doesn't even want to go back to our apartment but back to our original house where she first remembers living. Sarah has been a little sick but adjusting ok thus far. Rachel hates the humidity but loves the southern hospitality. So far, I love the job albeit it has been a challenge to move here and get things going. Anyway, here are some pictures right before we got the job and moved. We know it kind of came (or is coming as) a surprise to many of you that we've moved but we had to act quickly when the opportunity came about! So enjoy!

Snow Drifts in North Dakota

So, below you'll see a few videos of the work I've done up in North Dakota. I hope the information I talk about is right (by the way, I hate listening to myself on camera). This video here is of us getting stuck in some real big snow drifts just by our house on our way home. What an experience!

The Drill Cellar

Working in North Dakota

Recent Job

So, here's some pictures of the most recent job Kevin and I finished. These are NOT the pictures we took (our pictures would be from the same angle) but our customer gave these to us today as we finished remodeling/refinishing her kitchen. It's the first time we have ever refinished cabinetry. Her cabinetry didn't have any hardware on it before and didn't match her furniture in the rest of the house. So, we changed the color of the cabinets to match her existing furniture and then installed a stone back splash to accent her floor tile. I'll have my pictures downloaded tomorrow and hopefully posted.

More Family Pictures

Finally posting pictures

New Arrival: Sarah

So, again...it's been too long since we've posted! But, since we last posted lots of things have happened! We have moved to a condo that we're renting, still in Utah. And, we've had a new arrival to the family: Sarah!!! She is the only one of ours that has dark hair, let alone has any hair at all at birth! She was born on Friday, making our 3rd October baby! She was 7 pounds 12 ounces, 20 inches long and perfectly healthy. Pictures are always worth more than words, so here she is: