Miss You Dad!

The best day of my life (my wedding) was followed the next day by the worst day of my life (the death of my dad). I miss you Dad. You were my hero and my strength. I take comfort in knowing that we will see you again someday. Until then, you are never forgotten.

Happy 15 Years of Marriage

I thought I loved you when we got married 15 years ago today. Now I know it was just the tip of the iceberg of how much I love you. I still get giddy when I know you're coming home. Together we have 4 beautiful boys. We have suffered a few blows, but have had many successes and have come through everything stronger. You are truly the greatest husband and the best daddy.
I love you "Rose Man" - you are truly my Handsome Prince.

Summer Randon Pictures

I haven't written in a while. I always feel like I need something grand to write about, but we're just having a plain old normal Summer.

Baseball took up the first part of the summer. The three oldest boys played and it was so much fun to watch them.
We spent the 4th of July weekend in Salt Lake City. Here is a picture of Gerry with my Mom, our 4 boys and my brother Kameron's 4 boys. My younger brother Devan is standing up behind them. It was my Mom's birthday so we all went out to dinner. The waiter wasn't even scared with having to serve 8 boys age 14 and under- he grew up with five brothers. :)

We got to see the Jonas Brothers at the Stadium of Fire.
We had nosebleed seats and could see them better on the large screen t.v.

We had fun anyway!

My sister-in-law Emily got to sing in the choir. We were surprised when we saw her on the big screen. She is to the left of David Osmond.

Beautiful fireworks.

Changing subjects: It's been a lot of work to keep up two homes and trying to market our other home as a vacation home. Some days we are very hopeful, some days it's very discouraging. One day while driving up to the other house, we took this cool picture. It looked like a window coming out of the clouds. Our town used to be called "Hole in the Sky" by the Ute Indians - believed because it had better weather than the surroundings towns. Often bad weather will skip over us.

This reminds us of "Hole in the Sky".
Our town does something cool every year for the annual town celebration called "Gypsum Daze." They turn this park:

into a rock concert. They built an outdoor stage and bring in a big country band every year. In the past we have hosted "Rascal Flats", "Sawyer Brown" and I can't remember the others. This year we had "Little Big Town." and the "Charlie Daniels Band." Thousands of people attend the concert.

We've also been attending the free Friday night movies in the park. It's like a drive in without the cars.

In other news: nothing on the adoption yet. Gerry is finally finished with all of his physical therapy on his knees. We are looking forward to camping and four-wheeling soon.

26 Months Waiting, But Who's Counting?

I haven't written much about the adoption lately as basically there is nothing to write. Are we the only ones who have waited 26 months and still not gotten a referral? I know China tends to have waits this long, but for Taiwan this is totally baffling me. So, we wait and continue to hope that it ACTUALLY will happen. It's pretty discouraging lately.

My birthday is this week and a referral would be an awesome birthday present! Hint, hint!

Knee Surgery, A Little Crabby and Donuts

Today was actually a really nice day! After such a tough week we needed a day to rest and recoup. Gerry had his other knee operation on Monday. The weird thing is that one of our best friend's - Mark had back surgery the same day. It was like a scene from a comic movie when both of these crazy men were walking down the hospital hall holding their i.v.'s and walking towards each other. Karie and I laughed so hard. Here's a picture of Mark visiting Gerry. They were almost roommates, but the hospital wasn't that full, so they got private rooms.

Once we got home, we have dealt with a couple of sick kids this week. Not fun. I may have to take the two oldest to the doctor tomorrow.
So today Gerry stayed home with two kids and I went to church. After church we had a scrumptious meal of crab legs, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and strawberry shortcake. Yummy! Grandma and Grandpa and the missionaries enjoyed it with us. This is what happens when you eat too much crab- you turn into a little crabby!

Then tonight Gerry felt good enough to make homemade donuts. It you make them with half whole wheat, they are not bad for you.. right?


It's hard to believe that Denver had tornadoes today when the weather was pretty nice on this side of the mountain. Pretty scary!

Trying to Make Lemonade

We feel like we've been dealt an extra load of lemons this year and so we are doing our best to try and turn them into lemonade.

Where do I even start?

Last October we purchased our dream home and moved into it. It was only a 2 mile move, but still the same amount of work as if moving 2,000 miles. A week after we bought the home, it seemed that the economy changed overnight. Up until that point we had been pretty immune to it in our area.

Anyway, our old home that we put on the market wouldn't sell. People wouldn't even come to look at it. The price began to drop on our old home. Several other things happened and all of the sudden it seemed like the perfect financial storm. After lots of prayer, our answer was to move back to the more affordable home and try to sell the new home.

So, after living in the home for about 6 months, we packed up and moved back. The day after we moved all of the heavy furniture, Gerry had surgery on his knee. That left me finishing up the move, etc. I was totally overwhelmed. Thank heavens for great friends and family that helped me through it!

So, we put our dream house on the market and have not been successful in selling it yet. We're even giving away a trip to Hawaii to whoever will buy it, but still no success. In the meantime we are turning it into a vacation home rental. http://www.teddybearlodge.com/ I am busy trying to get it furnished etc. Hopefully, this gamble will pay off.

I know we are very blessed and can't complain as many people have been hurt far more than us with the economy turn. At least we still have a job. We are just doing the best we can and praying that everything will work out the best way possibly.

As far as the adoption, I have not heard anything new in months. We hope we hear something soon!

Our Frugal Spring Break

This post is only two months late, but I figured better late than never. My kids keep begging me to write about our Spring Break. We were supposed to go to Hawaii, but our economic situation dictated that we had better stay close by and go cheap. So, we went to White Sands with plenty of sand, just no ocean.

However, we had a blast. We love to go camping in the motor home, or "rocket turd" as my kids call it. White Sands is a little known National Park close to Green River, UT. Our friends took us there a few years ago and it has quickly become one of our favorite places. It is hard to find as you exit off of I-70 on a ranch exit dirt road for about an hour. Once you arrive it looks somewhat like Moab. There are hills of sand dunes everywhere. Driving there takes us about 4 hours from our home. On the drive there the wind was blowing so hard that we about got blown off the road. By the first morning the wind had stopped and the temperature was in the low 60's for the entire four days we were there. We put on our jackets and climbed every sand dune we could find, including some that were hundreds of feet tall. The boys love the freedom and I do too!

One of our favorite games was "follow the leader" with the four wheelers. Every day we would take a morning trail drive. The scenery was spectacular- red rocks, wind blown rock formations, beautiful canyons and more. Usually I or Gerry would switch off leading the trail ride. The kids would be in the middle and the opposite parent at the rear. Then we would come back to camp for lunch. The afternoon and evening were spent riding the sand dunes.

I must say that I have become somewhat of a dutch oven chef. Normally I don't enjoy cooking, but I sure do when we are camping! Perhaps it's a change from the normal every day cooking, I don't know, but I enjoy it. The boys beg to have frito chili pie every time we go camping. Dutch oven carmel apple crisp has become my specialty.