China

After 10 days Brian finally got home from China yesterday. Here are some pictures he took.

The Emperors Throne 

The Birds Nest Olympic Village

Dinner one night. Duck. 

Getting fitted for their handmade suits

The Great Wall of China

This is an original non-rennovated section of the Great Wall. A lot of foliage starting to overtake it. 

Yes, that is a scorpion on a stick

On the Subway going to work

on a bike

Mt. Ranier from the airplane

He has a couple videos to put on but it is not letting them upload right now for some reason.

Maternity Photo Shoot

I was privileged the other day to take pictures of a very dear pregnant friend. I have know her for 5 years now, and she is very close to our family. In fact, we see her every single day.
You can see the gleam in her eye and the "mother to be" glow about her portrayed in the photographs.
I am soo excited to be the official photographer when the baby gets here. He, or She, is due to arrive next week!
Stay tuned for newborn photos.







Introducing, Roxy!

Last week was crazy hair day for Graci at preschool.

She really wasn't too happy that morning. 

You can kind of see the black eye she got from a collision with her table. 

She is so sweet.

There was a big surprise bday party for my Aunt Faye. She turned 80! It was at Hotel Monaco and it was

a lot of fun to see her so happy.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from that night. 

Isn't that expression great?

All the siblings

All the aunts, uncles, cousins that were there. 

Shelby got to finally meet her 2nd (or 3rd) cousin, and namesake, Shelby!

She was a bit shy at first but now all she talks about is "two shelby's"

Mom and her poor face after tripping and falling on a wood bed. She and Graci were twins for a bit.

Shelby wanted to dance the whole night. I love this one of the two of them. She sure loves her grandma.  

 Check out that ice sculpture!

 Faye and her immediate family. 

The Calfin's are a couple that Brian lived with in his second area in Chile. They came out to conference last weekend and attended every single session. We hosted them Monday and showed them around the Temple and BYU a bit. Then we had a bar b q that night at our house. I have more pictures of our excursion but they are on our phones and I haven't gotten them off yet. 

 They are a very sweet couple and I really enjoyed their visit. 

Today started out crummy but turned out great because I was able to talk with Brian via skype. He is several thousand miles away in Beijing and it sure is lonesome here without him. Sure made my day to see and talk to him. Kind of funny he is living a day ahead of us now. The upside is we get to have lots of girl parties!

Peep Peep Moo Moo

We have lived in our new house for about 3 1/2 months now. I have recently come to realize something. Despite the distance the miles puts between me and most of my favorites such as In n Out, Costco, Ikea, I really love living on a farm. Not only do I have a lovely apple orchard out my front door, I also get to nourish, pet, and love a variety of animalkind.

Here is what calls our place "home":
                                                                                   2 of these. 1 black, 1 white

Several of These Kickin around:

We have a good handful  barnful of these uninvited quests:

we wouldn't mind them so much if they didn't make such 

a mess of everything or everyone below them. 

Who can forget an occasional one of these?

Here are our newest additions:

we have 5 of these "handsome Brutes" as Casey calls them. I told him

its because they take after their Uncle. 

Now, I have always wanted a rooster. Never really thought seriously of hens

until Casey decided to get some for eggs. We thought, why not? 

We now have 6  !  They are babies living in a box under a light on 

my kitchen counter. We have a coop coming, and dont worry, 

I WILL be getting a rooster.

Like their cute little corral I put them in while cleaning their box?

The girls Love them to peeps pieces. 

Maybe someday we will add a few bunnies to the mix. Or perhaps,

One of these?

How about this?

You never know. The Sky's the limit at our house!

Lilly

Our only event this week is one we wish wasnt happening. Our newest little niece Lilly, is in Primary CHildrens with rsv. She is 3 weeks old and came down with it early this week. She was in the hospital and kept getting worse and got so bad that they life flighted her to SL early Friday morning. They credit one nurse for recognizing how sick she was and saving her life by getting her sent up there. She has been on the verge of a collapsed lung but they are trying to get it drained. The update today is she has been very heavily sedated and in a drug induced paralyzed state so her little body can start to fight the virus. Hopefully she will  be able to start breathing on her own again. She has been very traumatized and her body hasn't been reacting well when she is woken up a bit. We pray for her constantly.