Happy 4 Years

Last week Peter and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been 4 years. Better said, I can't believe everything we've done in 4 years!

4 years ago we packed up our car and started the drive from BYU to Buffalo. We didn't make it very far before things got pretty bad.. When we got to the top of the Continental Divide in Wyoming our car started making a horrible noise. We soon discovered that the engine was having major problems. Peter had checked the oil right before we left and had forgotten to put the cap back on. So , the steep climb up through the mountains with no oil caused our car engine to throw a rod (and basically die). We coasted our nonfunctional car to the side of the highway and flagged down two wonderful truckers who stopped to help us and let us use their cell phones so we could call a tow truck to haul us in to the closest town--Rawlins Wyoming.

Since it was so late we went straight to a motel and tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately it was totally disgusting--black hairs on the sheets, giant spiders and beetles crawling, and a toilet that looked like they had just taken it from a prison cell. After many hopeless tears, we woke to a sunny Sunday morning and looked in the phone book for a chapel. We called and within half an hour, someone came to pick us up for church.

We were ecstatic to learn that we had been blessed to breakdown in an area where the bishop owned a car dealership. We were also blessed by two wonderful families. One of these strangers walked up to us and handed us the keys to his extra car so we would have something to drive. Another family invited us to stay at their house and the parents insisted we sleep on their bed. In the morning we learned our car was dead, so we went to the dealership and the Bishop sold us our amazingly dependable Toyota Camry at cost. Once the sale was final we transfered our belongings from the old car to the new one and continued our journey to our new life.

The hopeful couple leaving Salt Lake

Peter trying to reassure me that everything was alright.

A photo at the dealership with the old red Sentra and the new silver Camry in back.

A new dawn arises on our restarted cross country trip

The Hansen family who allowed us to stay with them.


So, here are the highlights of the last 4 years....

A blissful courtship

wedding

starting dental school and taking the dentist's oath

Our new apartment in Buffalo. We had an air mattress and no kitchen table or furniture.
We were luckily blessed with both from wonderful people.

We were then blessed with our first angel, Joseph.

Followed by our sweet Kimball

Then, after 4 years of lots of hard work by the whole family, Peter graduated!!!
And then we made the exciting move to Texas

I have definitely learned a lot the past 4 years! The biggest lesson for me has been to always rely on the Savior! Only He will give us the strength we need to get through life. He is always there! He will help send people when you break down on the side of the road, when you have nothing and need to start a new life, when you decide to have children despite being broke, and in every struggle we face. We have relied on faith constantly the past 4 years and we have always been blessed! We have always had enough! I am so grateful for a loving Savior!

So, on a less serious note, we have been really enjoying being able to finally afford to pay for a babysitter. Joseph loves Alex and she is great with the kids. To celebrate the 4 years we went to a nice Italian restaurant and then saw Journey to the Center of the earth in 3-D.
I love 3-D movies so it was a lot of fun!


Happy 4 years Peter, I Love You!!! Thanks for being such a wonderful person to go
through every part of life with! I'm so glad we have had each other for support and strength. I am excited to see what other adventures our next 4 years hold!

Cars

It's so cute to see the boys out there playing together. The second breakfast is finished, Kimball is pounding on the back door anxious to go outside. He then heads straight to the sand table and starts driving the cars on top, or playing in the sand.

Kimball has a new obsession with cars. It is so cute to see him constantly driving a car (or anything resembling a car) around all day.

Hike

Here's another fun hike we went on. It feels so great to hike again, and it's so fun to see Joseph becoming so excited about it! He loves the adventure and getting to see all the lizards. This one we spotted wagged his tail like a dog!
Kimball is not the biggest fan of hiking yet, but as long as we can keep his mouth full of food he's pretty pacified. And let me just tell you, it is a really good workout lugging that 30 pounder up the mountain :) I was so relieved when he started standing on my hips and taking a little weight off my back!

Our House

Here are some pictures of our wonderful little house. We really love it!Here's the view of a beautiful sunset from our front door. We live on a quiet little cul de sac where everyone is amazingly friendly. I tell Peter it's like living on a tv set where you wave and talk to everyone as you go for a walk.

Here's the front of the house complete with palm trees and rock landscaping.
Peter is sad to see that sweet rental car go.

I love our breakfast nook!!! It is wonderful to wake up to sunshine and
hummingbirds every morning!

Ahhh, the backyard and pool--it's heaven!

Here's some video of the first floor of our house.

Rainy Season

We are officially in the rainy season here and we get some great thunderstorms almost every afternoon. It's been great because we still have beautiful mornings where the temperatures are in the low 80's (the afternoons get up to only mis 90's now), and then we get rain in the late afternoon which saves our water bill .

So, one afternoon after a rainstorm Joey went outside to play, and started walking in the house sopping wet. I asked how he had gotten so wet and he said he was rolling in the puddles. I then asked him to show me what he did so I could take a picture of him. He did show me, but for some reason, his face looks like I am torturing him. I swear, he was having fun.

Forth of July Fun

We had a great 4th. I was really interested to see how people celebrated the holiday since 90% of the population is from Mexico. We went to a local parade and had lots of fun. The best part for Joseph, besides all the cars and police motorcycles, was all the candy that people threw--it was better than Halloween! Good thing he was wearing cargos, because those pockets were loaded. The best part for me was the "Low and Slow Club." I'm not sure what that has to do with the founding of our nation, but it was entertaining. All the Mexi-cars were pimped out and doing stunts with their hydrolics.




We went and had dinner with some friends and Joseph loved playing with Hailey. I'm so excited he has a new little friend here to try and make up for the loss of his sweet friends in Buffalo. It's so cute because Hailey reminds me of his two best friends in Buffalo. She has the beautiful color hair and eyes of Sariah, but is really spunky like Julia.
We went out onto our balcony to try and watch the fireworks, but they were on the front side of the house. We then took the party to Joseph's room and it was so fun to be with him and see how excited he was to see everything. We we also able to discover that the balcony is a great place to stargaze.

Sand Box Fun

Those cute little tummies look so cute playing. I'm so glad Kimball's still
hanging on to that chub!

Sunday Fun

Here's a random glimpse into our funny children. One afternoon after church we were all playing in the living room and Joseph found an extra toothbrush, and suddenly he had Kimball down on the ground and strangely still. Kimball being the eating machine he is, will open his mouth at the sight of anything coming toward it, so Joseph was able to brush away. Kimball did look a little confused that it wasn't edible.

We love our backyard!

It has been so nice having our own private backyard! I feed the boys breakfast and then send them right outside to play. They love playing in the sand table, the water, and Joseph especially loves finding all the bugs and holding them in his bug house.