25 Years

Today is our happy anniversary. 25 years of wedded bliss and a crazy amount of kids has been a ton of fun! Joseph let us know that 25 years is a Silver anniversary. So I guess our children should have bought us some silver gifts or something? 50 years is Golden anniversary. I don't know who made up these rules... Anyway, here are a few stats - 

• 32 years since our first date - May 15, 1992
• 29 years since our first kiss
• 25 years of marriage
• 24 years of diapers
• 13 kids - JMEHWALSNODPK, also known as Joseph, Melodie, Ethan, Hyrum, Wesley, Abigail, Lilian, Sophia, Natalie, Owen, Daniel, Peter, Katharine
• 11 houses (Orem basement, BYU green basement, Pink house on 10th east, Wyview, Centreville VA, the Chacara in Barão Geraldo Brazil, Crosswood House, Villareal Costa Rica, Santiago Chile
•  Current corner of heaven, Campinas Brazil, back to Granite home sweet home)
• 10 years of pregnancy 
• 10 moves
• 8 cars (Helen's Oldsmobile, Pathfinder, White Van, Chrysler Van, Hyundai, Fiesta, Odyssey, Pilot)
• 4 countries

Junior Prom 1992

"Forever Young"

So another year down, an eternity to look forward to! We are taking a rain check on our anniversary date. We might try to sneak away this weekend? But Corey might be going to Arizona for his aunts funeral. Perhaps after the wedding? We didn't do anything today because Peter is sick and we didn’t want to leave him to go skiing or anything. 

(And Corey lent out his skis to a friend anyway...) Corey's been working from home in our bedroom, where he has been sitting as a vigilant sentinel over Peter's current health status. Peter's been coughing, watching Mandalorian, taking baths, and eating bread with Nutella. Joseph and Mel were here this morning, Mel did all the dishes from yesterday, for which I gifted her one of the feast's leftover bags of strawberry yogurt covered pretzels. They headed out around noon, Mel went with J in his car. Hyrum is still here and will be borrowing Mel's car to drive up to Rexburg tomorrow. He's taking her car so he can come back down for the wedding in two weeks. I think I'm in denial about the amount of urgency I should be feeling about wedding prep stuff. Last minute panic should be hitting me soon. Hyrum's siblings enjoyed having him (and his phone) around today - 

There they are, wasting time on screens again... None of them have been very productive. For the past few weeks, I've been taking phones away from Lily and Sophi after they get home from school, but when it's a holiday it throws me off cause they had them most of they day until my after school alarm went off. So then I took their phones, and I got a kick out of Sophi's alarm to practice violin...

So yeah, we just hung around here at home today. So what will the next 25 years bring? I'm excited to find out! Here is how we celebrated our love over the past 25 years. 

1999 - Marriage - Honeymoon at the Homestead in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Lion House)

2000 - 1 Year, went Blue Boar Inn in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Roof and the Blue Boar Inn)

2001 - 2 years, went to the Worldmark resort at Wolf Creek in Eden, Ogden Canyon, Utah

2002 - 3 years - Pepperdine Weekend at Malibu, California (Corey was there being recruited for his MBA so we turned it into a trip) I was 8 months pregnant with Ethan.

2003 - 4 years - Wharton Visit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and trip to Washington DC

2004 - 5 years - Homestead in Midway, Utah 

2005 - 6 years - Hotel Monaco at Salt Lake City, Utah (Dinner at the Roof)

2006 - 7 years - JW Marriott and Teotihuacan in Mexico City, Mexico, with baby Wesley in tow

2007 - 8 years, Barao Geraldo Chacara in Campinas, Sao Paulo Brazil. We had just moved to Brazil for our first adventure and Corey spent the day looking for a car with a friend, and I spent it with his friend's wife learning Portuguese. 

2008 - 2010 - undocumented here on the blog, so sad. We were living in Sandy in the Crosswood house at the time... him, I'll have to go break out the scrapbooks to remember what we did.

2011 - 12 years - in Chile, took little Abi to the ER after getting her finger slammed in a door by the wind in our windy apartment.

2012 - 13 years - Skiing and The Roof with baby Sophi

2013 - 14 years - a romantic dinner for 10, went to Park City, kids stayed with Corey's parents, bought red flower framed pictures.

2014 - 15 years - Skiing at Solitude

2015 - 16 years - Dinner at the Garden Restaurant, Night at Grand America, pregnant with Owen

2016 - 17 years, Corey and I took a little early anniversary trip to Hawaii in Jan, found out we're expecting again, Feb we had our anniversary family dinner

2017 - 18 years - I uploaded our wedding video to Youtube, went to San Diego and Tijuana, anniversary dinner

2018 - 19 years of family pictures, big snow storm on our anniversary

2019 - 20 years - Grand America with baby Peter and night skiing at Brighton. I made a list of 12 kids, 10 moves, 7 cars, 4 countries, and 2500+ blog posts

2020 - 21 years Bed and Breakfast fail, then Hotel Monaco, family breakfast feast, 21 years and a little trivia

2021 - 22 years Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee anniversary Ski Trip turned Family ski trip, Wasatch Broiler for lunch, Tuscany for dinner, family dinner

2022 - 23 years - Skiing at Brighton and dinner at LaCaille, 7th annual Anniversary feast

2023 - 24 years, Night at Wolfcreek, Skiing at Snowbasin, Dinner at Miyazaki, Climbing at Momentum, Illustrated book by Mel and Lily, anniversary feast

2024 - Silver Anniversary! Peter sick, anniversary feast

Family Anniversary Dinner

Today we had our Family Anniversary Feast! It's a tradition that we all enjoy. 

Feasts from previous years: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, missed a few years, 2016, 2015, 2014, and the first year of this tradition in 2013) I ran into Costco for all the food yesterday on our way back from Bella's bridal shower in Logan. Then after we got home, I left again to see if I could have any luck thrifting before our party. I was mostly looking for wedding clothes, but I also had our anniversary feast on my mind, so when I saw this full red pant suit at kid to kid, I just had to get it. 

Yes, I think Sophi's outfit will be one of the things that will be remembered from this year. She made an impression when she made her reveal in the red high heels (also a thrift find from last night) with the evening light shining through the windows, she looked like a girl on fire. 

Peter has been sick with croup, so he didn't join us at the table or in the group photo this year. Corey has had Peter quarantined in our bedroom for the past 36 hours. And, since Peter was sick and Corey was with him, the boys didn't leave the house while we prepared the food and decorations like they usually do. That made things a bit less fun, cause they were all hovering and wondering when it was time to eat, and when they'd poke their heads in to check the status of things, they'd sneak a shrimp or take a few grapes or a spoonful of mashed potatoes and I would tell them "NO! Stop eating! Not yet!" but they'd do it again and again. So yeah, note to self, next year, they gotta leave! I think we'll also go for a later time next year. Today was at 4, and the sun was shining, so the candles and white lights didn't have their ambiance affect. But it was still good. Time to finally sit and eat~ Kids gathered round... left to right: Mel, Hyrum, Abi, Sophi, Daniel...

Owen, Daniel, Lily, Ethan, Joseph...

Selfie of Corey and I (he's wearing the bowtie he wore on our first date!)

and just some of our many blessings!

A dollop of whipped cream with some berries for a plate decoration as we sit and visit for a moment - 

Then it was time to feast! The menu this year was similar to last years - 

Salmon, mashed potatoes, beet kale salad, shrimp, apple sparkling cider...

The entrees of the happy couple...

So Peter was upstairs all day, watching veggie tales and playing fruit ninja. Katharine was also asleep as we started...

But she woke up when I was looking around the front room for the remote. I couldn't fin it, but she was sleeping on it, so we found it, and she woke up.

Then we were able to turn on the Love Songs playlist. We didn't do much dancing. I tried to get us going by dancing with Katharine, but no one else joined in. Next year, Corey won't be upstairs with a sick kid, and then he can start asking the girls to dance and then we'll get it going. We did go into the side room to watch our wedding video. 

I need to find a way to upload the reception too, cause it cuts off kind of abruptly without the reception part to end. So instead, as we were watching, right after it ended, the Circle of Life came up, and we all laughed at how quickly the circle of life continues! And then we sat around watching family videos on youtube for the next few hours.

While everyone kept eating treats at the dessert table (pink pretzels, pistachios, choc chip cookies, and lindor chocolates) and then I served up strawberry shortcake in some glasses that I got at the DI last night. Fancy schmancy.

Peter up in our room - he's been playing fruit ninja on the ipad most of the day. 

He is sounding a little better. So tomorrow will be 25 years of wedded bliss for Corey and I. We were going to go skiing together, I thought, but then this afternoon Corey lent his skis out to a friend, so.... maybe we'll go biking in St. George? ha, probably not. Maybe he can just work tomorrow and then we'll take a rain check and go skiing during the week, when it won't be as crowded as I'm sure it will be tomorrow. Life is good and I thank the Lord for our abundant blessings. We have been so richly blessed! 

Bridal Shower

Abi and Lily had GMS today. Melodie came up from Provo to go with us to Logan for a bridal shower for Bella.

They all fell asleep on the drive. I wished I could have fallen asleep. Cute Katharine wasn't sleepy last night and wanted to stay up last night and play. Here she is past midnight. 

I didn't mind that much, since we needed to pick up Hyrum, who was coming down for President's Day weekend and was dropped off over by the freeway at 12:30am this morning. But I still knew I was going to be tired on the long drive to and back. I didn't fall asleep until 1. I drove up while Mel quizzed herself on anatomy and the girls snoozed.

Before we left, we dropped off Owen and Daniel to go with Wayne to the IFA Customer appreciation day. They had a petting zoo! 

I was glad that they were able to go with Wayne, so that things were a little easier for Corey at home. He stayed and took care of Peter all day. Peter's had a bit of a sore sounding throat. The bridal shower was very cute. Nancy and Chalane came up too, so nice of them!

Enjoying the lunch -

It was hosted by Bella's grandma, her mom's mom, and it was at the house that Lisa grew up in, so it was really fun. Beautiful home. 

Bella telling us the answers to the quiz we took to see how much we knew about her. I only got one answer right, and it was a lucky guess - that her favorite color was orange. We had a nice lunch, then watched the video that Ethan made for her when he proposed, and then she opened gifts. Katharine came up and down the stairs, to the place where they had fun vintage toys. 

The girls fell asleep on the drive home too. We stopped at Costco so I could get the food for our fancy feast tomorrow. Sophi woke up and said it felt like it'd been three days sine we left. But that might happen when you take two naps. I stocked up on salmon, potatoes, chocolate, etc. I got home and Owen's party that he earned was underway - thanks to Hyrum for spearheading that in my absence. Owen finished his checklist this past week, and his friends were in town over the holiday weekend, so they came over tonight from 5:30-8 for pizza and video games. Peter was feeling sick and Corey's been attending to him all day. Even with that, things seemed to be calm enough, so I left again to go thrifting at kid to kid and the DI for wedding clothes and some dishes for tomorrow and by Smiths for ice cream, then Reams for Beehive frozen rolls. I got some glass goblets and cute ice cream glass cups, they're all in the dishwasher. I brought up the flowers and decorations, so tomorrow after church we'll straighten up the house and will be busy preparing for our feast. I should be good with the girls here helping me. I found some good stuff thrifting that will be fun, esp some red shoes and a red outfit for Sophi that I think will be really fun. I was home at 7:45, in time to serve up some ice cream for Owen's friends and be here to greet the friends' parents when they came to pick up their kids. Our neighbor and the kids pediatrician came over to check on Peter, and gave us some medicine, he is very kind, and we're hoping that makes Peter feel better. It's been a run around day, I need to go read my scriptures before I fall asleep. Trying to keep up with Ethan and Corey and their Nazarite vow. One of my goals is to blog everyday, so yay, I did that. It's good to have goals and to be at work trying to achieve them. It's also good to have traditions. The family anniversary feast tomorrow is one tradition that I love and look forward too. It will be fun!

Girls Skiing at Sundance

Abi, Lily, and Sophi didn't have school today (not sure why... teacher work day?) I didn't know that until last night, and Corey said we should go skiing. Well, I had planned on going to see Joseph present at the Religious Symposium at BYU. That was at 10:00 am. But yes, we should take advantage of this ski day opportunity for Abi and Lily... they can't go with us on Saturdays cause they almost always have GMS. Hmm. We talked about the different options of what we could do and how, and our final plan was that NOD would go to school, I would take ALSPK skiing, Corey would go listen to Joseph, go to the luncheon with J for the presenters, and then Corey would come pick up PK after lunch was over, and I'd ski with ALS until we were done. Corey had also been texting Mel about coming. She wasn't sure if she'd get her work shift covered, but we brought her stuff. We left around 8:30 pm and on our way down, Mel said she was coming. We waited for her at the Palisade Park n ride, and then we headed up. We parked in D parking, I was glad we got a spot. It seemed like we were trying to get boots on forever. K was quick enough, it was mostly all the other girls... Saying "cheese" 

I walked to the kiosk to enter our parking code. Back to"  the car. Off to get ski passes for P&K, who didn't come with us last time, then back to the car. K and Peter are ready for fun!

They're so cute!

Peter's ready to hit the slopes!

Then once I had K ready, I left. I told MALS to do whatever, call me if you need anything, and don't lose Peter. I'd be at the magic carpet with K. I hauled baby and her skis and my skis and poles and waddled toward the chair lift. It seemed so far away... my biceps were burning, K was slowly sliding out of my arms down to my hip. I was still in the parking lot, coming close to the bus stop, when a kind young girl and her boy friend saw me and offered to help carry our skis. "Are you getting on the bus?" "No... to the lift..." "We'll help you!" and then they carried our skis and poles to the chair lift and I was able to carry K on that stretch no problem. SO NICE. Thank you, you very very kind young lady. I wish blessings upon you both for your kindness shown to me. K and I had a nice ride on Jacks chairlift. Katharine sat so still, we said "weee" and gave sighs of relaxation. At the top of Jacks, we skied over to Outlaw. My legs were burning soooo bad skiing over there with her between my legs. It hurt. I was praying my legs wouldn't give out under me and I yelled and grunted to get through it. I made it without wiping out, phew! Then we shuffled over to the magic carpet. Hooray we made it. I was so glad to be able to stand up straight as we rode the carpet up the hill. I'm going to live. 

We rode the carpet over and over again. There were three sets of carpets. We would ski down and get on the closest one that didn't have a line. Katharine asked me for milk. Nope, not going to nurse right now. "Snack..." I checked my pockets... I thought I had brought some but didn't find any, darn. I offered her snow, and she was happy with that.

I heard kids calling me from overhead and I turned and saw Sophi, gave them a little wave. After a bit I decided to go find food, and luckily they were all arriving at the bottom of Outlaw, so we headed over to the lodge. Actually, ALSPK headed to the lodge, Mel and I took Outlaw up so we could go over to the car and get our sandwiches. But first, a quick pic. K was sad and ready for some warmth. 

Left to right SMPKAL. When we came back with our sandwiches and apples, K was busy preparing snow to serve up to her sisters. Cutting it up with a plastic knife and eating it. 

The snow was really wet and we were getting a little soaked as we sat at the table. But what ya gonna do - not outside food is allowed inside. 

K ate her pb and nutella sandwich, then the nutella and pb got on her mittens, so then she was sucking on that. 

Phew! This whole time I was trying to call Corey to tell him our status, but the reception was not good. All my texts and voice messages to him were not delivered. Finally, we gave up on him and came up with our own plan. L would stay at the car with P and K, who were cold and ready to be done, and hopefully my messages would go through to Corey and then maybe he'd eventually come to the rescue? We got ready to go to Outlaw, to ski over to the upper parking lots, and right then my phone call to Corey got through! He would come get LPK, yay. So we just had to wait 25-ish minutes and he'd be here. I helped LP go find a place to sit, AS took off skiing, and Mel wanted to take K on the magic carpet. 

Mel was exited to ski with her baby sister, cause she is so cute!

My communication with Corey wasn't great, he doesn't know Sundance, so he didn't know where I wanted him to meet us, but told me to text him, but texts weren't going through again, so I kept calling him until I got through and then finally felt like things were clear. L and P were good sitting by the lodge opening, and I went to get Katharine from Mel. Mel was having a blast skiing with Katharine. She told me that Katharine would ski with her mouth open to try and catch snowflakes, cute. She was also happy with other servings of snow Mel gave her. 

Mel would just give her the snow right off the hill though... I told Mel that when I gave K snow to eat, I went and got it off by the trees where it was clean, where people hadn't stepped or skied on it. You shouldn't give her snow from there....

Katharine didn't seem to mind... Open wide, yum!! That's good stuff!

I got two cute videos~ Mel and I loved how she said "I'm ready!" I told Mel Corey was probably almost here, so this is the last run. On Katharine's last run, she took a few little shuffles! So adorable. I think Katharine has had the best attitude of all our toddlers when they learn to ski. She's gonna be tearin' it up in a few years! She and I can be ski buddies when all her older siblings are married or off in college. 

After Corey left with Lily, Peter, and Katharine, the four of us were left to tear it up. Abi was kinda ready to be done, but I said "I haven't skied yet! This is my first run!" so maybe we could ski for an hour or so? They were ok with that and we took off. My view most of the time was of these three skiing ahead, blazing the trail for me. 

We went down diamondback, which we didn't go on last time. We took a right and that was kinda boring... we ended up at the Midway point and got our bearings, ok, so that's where that one goes. So  we went back to Outlaw, and we went down diamond back again but went LEFT. That took us to Red's lift. It was a loooong lift, and we didn't know where we were going, but it was great! At the top of Red's lift - Wow! What a view!

Then we did the Flat head lift too. And with that, we did all the lifts that we didn't do last time. Very fun! We like Sundance, it's a good little resort. We had a good time and left around 3:30, cause it was crazy cold and windy. We're glad we went up, it was fun. Corey recorded Joseph's talk, I'll need to listen to that later. In other BYU news, we heard back on Wesley's application, and he was not accepted this round, but he really wants to go there. His application didn't include in his GPA the classes that he finished at the end in January, so we think he is going to apply again. Today was his Pday and we were able to talk with him. He's doing good, and I liked the story he shared of butt prints in the sand (don't judge a poem by it's title. God intends us to learn how to walk, and might drop us in the sand sometimes.) Corey and I went out at Aubergine tonight for date night. 

Kissing Booth Box

It was a happy valentine's day around here yesterday. I didn't help kids with valentine boxes, per the norm. But Sophi helped Natalie a lot...

They started it together, and maybe Sophi was just more into it, but she stayed up last night working on it, and made a nice big mess in the laundry room...

Then this morning (after I did a heart braid on her hair) Sophi showed Natalie the finished product. 

They came up with quite the creation. I give you the Valentine Box "Kissing Booth" ~

All the barbies lined up to get a "fresh" kiss from Prince Charming and his friend. I thought the menu of different kisses was quite telling: 

• Peck 50 cents
• Regular $2.50
• Xoxo $5.00
• French $10.00
• Lip Smack $15.00

Sophi folded up a little paper and had it on the ground in front of the kissing booth. It was a short written up acceptance speech, so Natalie could read it after she won 1st place for best valentine's Box, which she was obviously sure to win! 

"Once you win, say this speech... "But I should really give the credit to my favorite sister, Sophia, who stayed up til 12:00 am making this, and got severely burned while doing, cuz she stepped on a hot glue gun while plugged in. She's the one who's really behind my success. Thank you." 

And when Natalie came home from school, she let me know that she did win. There were 4 categories: Humorous, beautiful, creative, technical. Natalie won 1st place in the grade for Humorous. Well done Natalie! Natalie also made me a valentine cookie on Tuesday at Activity days. She left it on the counter for me...

A cookie and a note, which two fingerprints on it, and also note the line that is going across the top left bump of the heart... Natalie explained: "Yeah, I added the fingerprint and hair on purpose. In case I die before you, you can remember me. So can I have Wesley's phone since you love me so much?"

The hair was a nice touch, ha! Another funny thing from yesterday, a story of motherly service... I was climbing, Lily texted that she forgot yoga pants and needed them for fitness for life. I was not going to run home and get them, but I offered the pants off my legs. I didn't have extra pants tho, so she was going to run out and get them when I texted that I was there, I texted that I was ON MY WAY and she came out (and I wasn't there) and then when I texted that I was there, her teacher wouldn't let her go out again. So after a few more texts, I took off my leggings, threw them in a bundle out the window, only was able to get them to the sidewalk (and couldn't go out to throw them further or set them anywhere, cause I was now pantless) and she picked them up after class. I assumed no student would take them,  and hoped that the school police or whatever wouldn't confiscate them as a possible bomb. So that was kinda funny. I drove carefully on the way home, to be sure I did not allow an opportunity for a cop to pull me over for any violation of law. 

Katharine yesterday morning, seeming a bit dazed and confused. Cute little girl holding her monkey. 

And then yesterday evening, the Young Women held a babysitting night and offered to watch any kids in the neighborhood, so that couples could go out for a few hours on Valentine's Day. This activity was Abi's, and it was a good idea! Owen and Daniel invited some neighborhood friends and we were glad that their parents let them come (I had to assure one mother that there would be no gospel preaching to the kids, it was just babysitting.)

They had two bounce house things and donuts and Abi made a lot of sugar cookies for some cookie decorating activity, they did a really great job. Peter running away to have fun ~

Natalie isn't in young women's yet, but she went over to help (and have treats)

It was a good valentine's day for everyone. I was able to come home and blog a bit. Today I was glad to finish this post and I've been playing with Peter. He is making sets, I just tend to collect animal lego figures, and dinosaurs...

I like how he has his lego minifigures fly by having them stand on clear wall legos. Very creative. I have creative kids!