Syd's Baptism

Sydney chose to be baptized. She is such a special girl. She is so beautiful and sweet. There is nothing but good in her heart and she has truly stepped up to the plate in her responsibilities since turning 8. She is one of a kind.

I took her out to a pond near our home to take her pictures, and she looked absolutely stunning! I don't know how she grew up so darn fast, but she is transforming before my eyes. She was very excited to pose for the pictures. What a sweetie.

Syd with her dad right before the baptism!

Jess could not stop hugging Syd. She was so proud of her! We all were.

Syd and all of her cousins in town.

Syd's best friend Samantha, Annabelle, and Jess hanging on her still :)

There are so many more pictures of the family that was there, but too many pictures to post. What a beautiful day it was. Syd is so lovely.

Easter 2012

We spent Easter in St. George, our home away from home. Since the kidss were out of school for so long, we got to spend 5 days in paradise! My parents were there for a short time, but for the most part, it was just our family.

The girls played a lot with the next door neighbor, Lindsay (6) when we were at the house. When we were not at the house, we were:

Running around the beautiful city enjoying the beautiful scenery, warm weather and smells of spring! (I was). Visiting my grandma, aunt, uncle and cousin who live there on Easter was a real treat as well. They cooked us a delicious ham dinner! Thanks grandma! Love you!

At the Easter Egg Hunt

Free picture collage made with Smilebox

At the Art Festival visiting my long time best friend, Lindsey Madsen, and her kids

This picture collage generated with Smilebox

At the Temple taking pictures

At the Glitter Mine

It was great to spend so much time with my family, especially with Andy. I have the best husband in the whole world! He just melts my heart! Look how sweet his is with me...

I just love him!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. This year I was focussed on the Resurrection of the Savior, but mostly on the suffering he did in behalf of my mistakes. I am grateful for forgiveness and for eternal families!

*I'm experimenting with tons of different slideshow/collage programs. Nothing does what I want it to...if anyone has good ideas on how to simply create a collage to post on here, please let me know.

Aruba - Just another day in paradise!

Andy and I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Aruba! What a beautiful place that is. We stayed at a gorgeous hotel with wildlife all around.

We were either at the beach or at the pool most of the time. The water was beautiful and warm and calm. The sand was white. It was so beautiful!

We were able walk around town a bit and bought souvenirs for the kids. The views were gorgeous and the restaurants were divine. We ate. A lot. The food was delicious. We both gained 5 pounds, or so.

Andy and I went scuba diving! This was Andy's first real dive in the ocean. We went on 3 dives. The first day, it was just the two of us and the dive master, our own private dive! It was beautiful under the water. It's so calm and still down there, a whole new world!

The second day, were were on a boat full of about 20 divers. They split us up into two different groups. We got our gear all set up and went down on the first dive, saw some beautiful fish and coral and a ship wreck from WWII. It was very surreal.

After the first dive of the day, we made our way to the second site. Once being down in the water, divers must remain on the surface for an hour (called the surface interval) to neutralize the nitrogen in the blood. This is the part I was nervous about:

Sitting on a rocking boat.

In the middle of the ocean.

Smelling the salt water.

Headache from the first dive.

Uncomfortable wet suit.

Sticky from the salt.

VERY nauseous from the rocking boat.

Yes, I puked. Twice. All over Andy. It was so windy that even when I leaned over the edge of the boat, the wind blew it straight into Andy's face. GROSS.

My loving husband simply wiped it away and brought me cups of water to clean up as best I could. Now that is true love. Once we geared up again (everyone was in the water waiting for us at this point) we got back in the water for the second dive.

So embarrassing.

Here is a slideshow of some of the favorite pictures we took. It's just so hard to narrow it down!