North Carolina Memories

Here is the sexiest fireman I know!! We got invited to a birthday party today that started at the fire station. Ryan said he would go if they let him wear a real fireman's hat. This is as good as it gets for him. Haha! We had said in the RSVP that Ryan wanted to wear a hat and all of our friends had some funny comments about that. Gotta love Monica and Natalie! Hahah!
Rock was sensitive to the bright sun and got a little outta place. Fun picture though.
Ian, Amelia, Grace, Alice, Rockwell, (?, sorry can't remember) and Alyssa (his sister)
Steve and Rocio's beautiful family that we became friends with through the missionaries. They were finally baptized last night right after their marriage ceremony. It was a long awaited occasion and we're are so excited and happy for them. Rocio is due just a month before me so we have had lots of fun being pregnant at the same time. Awesome people! We will miss them!
Another friend we made through the missionaries. Brian is a great guy with lots of faith. He has a fun story about how he was converted to the church. BTW, he is available if anyone knows anyone:) Sorry, Ryan was being silly in the picture because this was the 2nd picture we took. In the first one my arm looked fat. Hahaa!
But anyway, because of Ryan's calling as ward mission leader we have been able to be a part of so many baptisms of new members and see their testimonies and faith grow as they learn more about the church. It's been a really fun experience. We always have people over to our house for dinner along with the missionaries to teach the discussions. I love it, because I get to learn more as we go too. I deffinitly had to learn more about cooking! I think I'm doing pretty good now too, if I do say so myself:) Ryan's glad about that aspect of it. No more stroganauff everyday!! haahaa!
This is the kids getting ready for the 4th of July. They call these their "Team Shirts." I'm glad they think they are on a team. I don't know where that came from but that's good.

Rocky is potty training so this is him in his new "big boy" underwear. He's real proud of himself
This is the kids with their very own horse. This is their favorite game to play. It makes mom a little nervous though. Dad likes to buck.
We had face painting at a recent church activity. It was a "Pig Pickin" party and I'm proud to say it was my idea. I really wanted to try a true southern picnic while we were here in the south. Sister Rogers did a great job and it was a great missionary opportunity. About 4-500 people showed up and about half were non-members. Everyone got free sunglasses and played games and had a great time. It was awesome.
We've been hitting the pool about every other day since it opened in the middle of May. The kids have gotten really brave with the water. We bought them some Disney goggles at the Disney Store for only $4. They have been putting them to good use. Ryan has been working with them and helping them learn how to swim. They went from being totally scared of the water to being able to hold their breath under water for about 8 seconds. It has really helped with bath time. They aren't scared of water being poured over their heads anymore.



It seems we are getting down to the wire now with having to pack up our stuff. I've been packing a few boxes a day for a while and I think I have 1/2 of the house packed but I think I'm going to have to hit it hard this week. It's crazy how fast time flies. We will really miss everyone in North Carolina. We have made some really awesome friends here and we will be sad to leave them. This ward is the best we've ever been in. Everyone has been asking what they can do to help us. The Relief Society sisters have offered to babysit and they are bringing us dinner for 3-4 days in a row, and they are going to come help me clean the house after everything is out. With all that help, I bet we get it done in less than three hours. The Elders Quorum is coming the day before to load all of our stuff in a truck so we are totally set. I can't tell you how grateful I am for all of the help and sacrifice that is being made on our behalf. If anyone ever gets the chance to live in Cary, NC, take it, because the people are really awesome!! I really am sad to leave. We've moved so much that I thought I was past having these kinds of feelings but it will be hard. We've had a great experience here.

Birthdays and New Plans

Poor Gracie is a pretty good sport for the month of May, but all these birthdays are really wearing her down. It's hard for her to understand why she doesn't get presents or a new dress, bike, and pretty pictures of herself. Rock's b-day was May 03, and Alice's b-day was May 18th. Their b-days kind of last the whole month of May because of getting pictures before hand and then picking them up, then their actual b-day, and all the grandmas sending presents in the mail that don't get here until after the b-day. It's kinda stressful for Grace. I told her that she gets the new baby for her birthday, and that always makes her happy. Anyway, Rock and Alice really enjoyed their birthdays. Rock really loves horses so we got him some little animals including a horse to put on his cake. He got a little people barn set. He loves it. Alice got a Hannah Montana cake and a new pink sparkle princess bike. She loves it and she learned how to ride it on the first day! Grace was happy to inherit the old bike but she has to fight Rocky tooth and nail for it. He's a brute. Usually he'll let her have it once I show him that he can tow his trucks behind the little scooter bike.

So our new plan is that we are not going to come visit in June anymore because we are moving to San Jose, CA in July. Ryan decided at the end of the day and at the last second before he couldn't change his mind anymore, that he wanted to go to CA rather than stay in NC. The new SAC (I don't know what it stands for) program that they're launching is based in CA, so he wants to be where all the action is so that he can further his career by being around all the right people. We're way excited but we have made a lot of good friends here in NC and we will miss them. There's really a lot of good people here and good members of the church and that will be hard to leave them. We are nervous about the cost of living also. We are thinking that the job will go virtual in 6 months to a year and then we could move back to Utah but who knows? Anyway, that's the new plan for now. Knowing us, it will change in a couple of weeks!:)

Oh yeah, there's pictures of Rocky and daddy on their first father and son's outing. They went camping and had a blast while I took the girls to the new Hannah Montana show. I had to spell it out to the girl when I was buying the tickets so it wouldn't give it away. It was a big surprise for Alice. They both loved it. They danced throughout the whole show. Grace liked it but she would have been more excited if it were something like Dora.

This is the best!

All American Baseball!!

We've been pretty busy lately

Sorry I never post anything any more, but life has been pretty crazy lately and I've been too worn out to do anything extra. Ryan has been working hard on finishing up all of his certifications for Cisco. He finished his NP and his DP this week (whatever those are) but I am really happy for him that he finished all the required certs for this training program that he's been in this year. We were planning on moving to Virginia but because of the economy, Cisco had to reassess all the alignments. Ryan was going to take a commercial sales position but I guess that commercial sales aren't doing so hot right now. He had already met the team and really liked them. His team really liked him and pulled all the strings they could to get him to still be able to move to Richmond with a Public Sector team instead. That was all in place butjust before it was all decided they placed a new decision before us. Cisco had a new oppurtunity for 15 people to learn more about a new way of doing things on a more virtual level but it would require 10 weeks of intense training and 3 more certs. We decided to try for that and he got it. This new postion had the option of staying in RTP or moving to San Jose, CA. We decided to stay in RTP because we have low costs right now and we wouldn't have to move in the middle of a pregnancy. Yea!! After 6months to a year we can probably live wherever we want because Ryan could do his work from home. That was pretty exciting for us that he got into the new program. The one thing we are thinking though is that his intense training might get to crazy toward the end, so we're thinking that me, and the kids will come out to Utah for 2-3 weeks and then Ryan will come out and meet us and visit everyone that we can before Ryan starts the real job after all the training. Oh yeah, and more exciting news is that we are having a boy on October 13th (around there anyway) We can't hink of any names though, sad. Any suggestions?

It snowed in North Carolina!

I, personally, was not thrilled about the snow. It was our 2nd snow fall this year. The good part about it is that everything shuts down and Ryan doesn't have to go to work. Th

Christmas!!

This was actually a really fun year for Christmas even though we were away from our family. We had Ryan's cousins Eric and Jen up from Sanford for Christmas Eve dinner. I think Grace got a little crush on her 2nd cousin that night. She is really into pretending to get married and he looked like a handsome prince and he was nice to her. I guess it wouldn't be illegal just weird. Anyway, I was a little stressed out for two weeks during Christmas because they asked me to speak on preparing for and honoring sacred covenants in the temple. I hate speaking in public and the topic was and is a very important subject to me and so I didn't want to say the wrong thing. It turned out pretty good though and I didn't faint. The sister missionaries said that they would pray for me, so that helped a lot. Ryan got a new calling as ward mission leader, so we're really excited about that. The missionaries call us every night to let us know how their day went. It's so fun. I met a lady today that was asking about Mormons. You could tell that she'd been told a lot of wrong things about Mormons. I think it's sad that other religions use their resources to preach against another certain religion. It's weird to me. I don't want to join a church that has to put someone else down to boost themselves up.

Anyway, we found out that we will be moving to Richmond, Virginia next, so we're excited about that. I've never been there but I'm thinking it's not much different than here except that price of living is lower. We will be close to Washington DC and I Virginia Beach. Maybe someone will visit us now huh? Family?? I have never been to Washington DC so I am very excited about that. I really love the DC temple. That will be the one closest to us. Anyone know a good babysitter in DC?

I'm sorry I didn't get Christmas cards out this year, I'm thinking about sending a Valentine's Day card or something, but I still wish you all a Merry Christmas!

PS Please don't mind our fonapoc tree this year. The kids rearranged everything but it was not greatly decorated to begin with.

It reminds me, we had another missionary experience a couple days after Christmas. OUr neighbor across the street wanted to know who Santa Clause was and what the Cristmas tree was all about. She and her suband are Hindu. We learned more about Hinduism that night and enjoyed sharing the story of Christmas and who Jesus is. Cool!