Happy Anniversary to Us!!!!!

3 Years....

August 21, 2007

It's hard to believe that Sampson and I have already been married for three years.  We have served and lived at orphanages in Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru.  I have graduated from BYU and almost finished my Masters Degree.  We have been blessed by our sweet little angel, Phoenix.  Sampson has become a certified lifeguard and EMT.  He has devoted hundreds of hours to shadowing, the Timpanogos Emergency Response Team, scouts and Young Men's,  being a TA, serving in Peru and Haiti, working as an EMT at BYU, and studying and taking the MCAT on top of taking all of his classes and working 20 hours a week.  Looking back, I wonder how we did it all, but somehow we just did.   Life has been crazy as we have begun to experience what applying to medical school is really like. I don't think we ever thought I would be 6 months pregnant with our second kid in three years, but we both wouldn't change a thing.  Amidst a lot of struggles this summer we have become closer than ever.  It has been amazing to see the tender mercies of the Lord have such a profound impact on our lives.  We find the examples and lessons that our parents have inculcated into our lives have helped get us to where we are thus far and for this we are forever grateful.  We look forward to see where life will take us next.

Yellowstone

The Grand Tetons

Animals

So we saw this elk grazing along side the road and I was so excited.  Then we saw one buffalo really far away and I was even more excited.  Little did we know that we would see an entire herd (about 50+ buffalo) at our campsite at Bay Bridge.  We couldn't even get out of our cars to check in because the buffalo were walking so close to our car.  One buffalo bumped the car behind us as it tried to make its way through.  One got so close I thought it was going to stick its head in my window.  Phoenix loved seeing her Bison (buffalo is to hard for her to say). The rest of trip was focused on spotting bears and moose because we had already seen so many buffalo.

This is a Black Bear! (You can see it if you click on the picture) If all the cars stopping wasn't enough attention, the bear actually started charging toward the crowd on foot and they all took off running.  

On our way home we finally saw a MOOSE!! Just a cow though, but still a moose!

Old Faithful

So it turns out that we ended up doing more driving than hiking due to me being 6 months pregnant.  We drove around everywhere making stops for our supposed bear spotting only to be disappointed with yet another dead tree stump.  The best part was swimming in the Mammoth Hot Springs.  Phoenix kept wanting to swim into the middle of the river where it was cold and Sampson spent most of the time trying to wash his hair.  He only wore one outfit the whole time and was proud to be a real mountain man. Phoenix was a trooper throughout the whole trip. She loved all of the animals and rocks.  We have quite a few souvenir rocks all over the car since she insisted on taking a rock into the car after every stop.  All in all, it was nice to get away from Provo and enjoy nature.

Trip to Tennessee

We spent the last 2 months in Tennessee so that Sampson could study and take the MCAT.  We went and visited one the D.O. schools in NE Tennessee and we hiked above the Cumberland gap to where we were standing in three states at once: Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

While Sampson was studying everyday, Phoenix and I helped out down at the greenhouses.  Phoenix loved being outside listening to all the birds, smelling the flowers, and eating all the strawberries and raspberries she could handle.  We had a great time when all her cousins came to play at the farm with her.  We even tried to take pictures with everyone, but it turned out to be quite difficult to get all four kids looking in one direction with a decent face :)

Phoenix did not like looking at the camera at the right time...so at times she was forced too.

I loved being around all the beautiful flowers.  Here are just a few...

Now that all the fun is over and Sampson took the MCAT we came back to Utah and now we start the 30 day count down until we get his scores back.

A While Ago...

Snow Shoeing

So for those of you who don't know we are expecting another little one this November.  So I thought this pregnancy I would try to be a little bit more active to help me not be so sick.  Its working....kind of.  So we went to out in the snow with Phoenix and thought we would be adventurous.  We were going to try and go to Stuart Falls, but we thought we were too cool for the trail and ended hiking straight up for a while, a long while, and lets just say I got really tired fast.  So we didn't make it all the way to Stuart Falls, but we took some cool pictures and had fun watching Sampson run down the side of the mountain :)

Goblin Valley

We drove down to Goblin Valley, where Sampson had previously taken his scout troop.  Even though we brought a Coleman stove, Sampson decided to cook all of our meals from his new Jet Boil.  Yay for ramen, mac n' cheese, and hot chocolate!! We made peach cobbler that night in our dutch oven and Phoenix was completely amazed by the fire...so amazed she kept trying to get in the fire.  Phoenix spent most of the day playing in the dirt.  She had the time of her life!

Capitol Reef
We decided to drive through Captiol Reef on the way home.  We then decided to go on a "little" hike and ended up hiking the 8 miles up to Cassidy's Arch and back to the car.  I had done this hike before a few years back, but lets just say hiking is slightly more difficult when you pregnant : ) 

CASSIDY'S ARCH

The Park