Happy Anniversary!

Flowers from my sweetie for our 19th anniversary!

Mississippi and Louisiana

When Mark left in September, I really thought that was the last time I would see him for a year, so to be able to go see him was fabulous. Not to mention, it was Mississippi in November; not too bad.

So here we have the view from our balcony, the hilarious souvenir shop down the street where I made Mark pose inside the alligator, Beauvoir, where Jefferson Davis lived, and me and Mark on the beach.

This McDonalds bench ad made me laugh everytime we walked by it; seriously, 2 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico is a McDonalds?!?!? Mark chilling on the balcony, the Biloxi Lighthouse, and a sharks jaw from the same souvenir shop that survived Katrina.

New Orleans!!! I was so excited to go; too bad we only stayed for about 45 minutes. It was a fun drive, though; beautiful trees, driving over Lake Pontchartrain, and really just being in the car together. It just made things feel really normal. Weird, I know. We made it to St. Louis Cathedral just in time to take one picture before it got too dark.

Beignets at the Cafe du Monde! I love it when I get to do things I've always wanted to do. Bucket list check! I accidentally took a picture of the waiters butt...

And that was it. We spent our last morning sitting across the street from our hotel, running our feet through the sand, watching the waves, and wishing it could last so much longer.

And so he goes....

The time had finally come. It was honestly such a relief to finally have him leave, not because I wanted him to go, but because we were finally able to move on. He can't come home until he leaves, after all!

Blackfoot had a little parade with the soldiers marching through town, ending up at Jensens Grove for hot dogs.

Hanging out at the airport, waiting for them to leave. Seriously, way too much emotion, just go already!

See you next year!

Craters of the Moon

Before school starts, and in-between Marks many training trips, we wanted to run out to Craters of the Moon. We went last year, but it was a quick trip, and we didn't have time to do everything. This trip we had more time, so we had a picnic lunch, climbed the spatter pots, and crawled around in the caves. The kids thought that was so cool, and Zach gave me a heart attack climbing out on a ledge. Fun!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ah, I just love to hear Johnny Mathis sing that. Totally puts me in the mood!
Not knowing for sure if Mark will be here for next Christmas, we tried really hard to make this Christmas a really good one. Everything we did involved hot chocolate, and cookies if possible, we played lots of Christmas music and tried to be really involved in what was going on.

Here are a few of my favorite things:
*Christmas decorations~ I am particularly fond of our stockings. Charlie Brown and Linus, and the framed "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" print Chris made for me one year.


*Chocolates~ When I was little, I couldn't wait until I was old enough to be able to help dip chocolates. I remember the first year I was able to help Mom, we dipped them downstairs in the family room with the windows open and listened to a BYU football game on the radio. I love that my kids want to do it too.



*Gingerbread houses~ This is one of the traditions I remember doing every year for what seemed like my entire childhood. I wish I had been better about doing when Jonathon was little, but we didn't start doing them until a couple of years ago, thanks to Kimmie.


*Christmas Eve with the Evans~ It's so nice to be able to do Christmas Even with Evans and then Christmas Day up at Moms. That way there's no rush, we can enjoy being with our families. I wish I had Christmas Eve pictures with the Evans, but being me, I forgot my camera. So here's another favorite:
*Sugar cookies~ Yum Yum Yum, and the kids are getting old enough it's not nearly as much work as it used to be.


*The looks on the childrens faces~ The excitement, the giggles, the ripping of the paper. This year we papered over the entrance to the living room so the kids couldn't peek, and it was the best! I am totally doing that from now on. Zach, being the youngest, got to break through the paper first, and we were finally there to see the looks on their faces. Usually they get up, sneak in and look at everything (without unwrapping) before we wake up. This was way better!

*Christmas ornaments~ One of my happy memories involving my father is of him giving us Christmas ornaments. I have 3 or 4 that he gave me, and they are very important to me. Almost all of our ornaments have a specific memory or event attached to them, and I love them all for that.

Christmastime

What a busy couple of weeks we had! First, Chris and Eve "popped" in for a visit with Sevi! Kimmie was expected, so more company was a surprise!

While they were here, we dipped chocolates.




A few days later, we decorated gingerbread houses with Grandma, Kimmie and the Deans.





Christmas Eve brought the annual Nativity and Christmas jammies at Grandma and Grandpa Evans.





Christmas morning started way too early, with lots of fun presents. I think my favorite, though, was Zach's Clone Trooper helmut; he looks like a bobblehead!



Jonathon got what he wanted; lots and lots of iTunes cards.



Grandma Toy gave Alli a Madame Alexander doll, and made her a wedding dress for her! Alli was in heaven.



We went to Mom's that afternoon to open presents and have dinner and play in the snow.






After Christmas, we went to Orem and spent a few days at Kimmie's. We went sledding at Rock Canyon, we played the Wii a lot, watched movies, went to a Utah Grizzlies hockey game (so much fun!), saw Bolt in 3-D, and went to Temple Square to look at the lights.










It was such a fun Christmas! We have been so blessed.

Merry Christmas!

From the Evans to all our friends and family, Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We started out Thanksgiving Day at Freeman Park in Idaho Falls where Mark and his brother Mike ran a 10K for Feed the Hungry. We chased them around town to get pictures, and then went to Mark's sister's house for turkey. We made turkeys out of pears and gumdrops, and pilgrim hats out of marshmallows, chocolate and shortbread cookies. Just a fun day.

Flashback!

Kimmie was helping Mom clean out and organize her garage yesterday, and when she came back to my house she brought stuff with her. I turned around and said "Holy $#!%*&@!!!!" I haven't seen these clothes in a really long time, and I had no idea Mom had them. Especially the floral one; I wish it had died a long time ago. It's so embarassing! However, all three of these dresses have a story.

The ugly floral one was, as the time, totally in style, and I wore it one night when my best friend Deana and I were taking pictures of each other to send to our boyfriends. What I couldn't believe was that Mark actually remembered it, how I was sitting on the fence in one of the pictures. I guess I made a better impression than I thought!

The navy dress is the one I wore in our engagement pictures and to the temple the day we got married. Again, very popular at the time; darn those early 90's!

This is my favorite of the three, and I will always love this dress. I wanted a dress like the one Elizabeth Shue wore at the beginning of "Adventures in Babysitting", and we almost pulled it off. We just couldn't find the black plaid taffeta for the skirt. Other than that, though, it's the same. Black velvet, white taffeta, a bow (because it was the 80's), *sigh*. I had so much fun in that dress....I realized last night that I was actually wearing it the night I met Mark for the first time! We were on dates with other people at a dance, and he was with a friend of mine.

Let's try this again!

So, I tried to post something, and it was horrible, so I am starting all over again.

I am going to backtrack a little, because March and April were just insanely busy, with tons of fun stuff going on. Over spring break, we went to Disneyland, and then drove up to Portland for my little brother's wedding. It was a really long trip, and it didn't help when almost all of us got sick, but we had so much fun anyway. Watching the kids experience Disneyland was fabulous, and since I've never been there, it was almost as much fun for me!



On the road again! I think this picture was taken in the first hour. If I'd only realized just how far we had left to go.

Hanging out at Disneyland.

At the end of the day in California Adventure. Zach was literally sleeping standing up.

On our way to Portland, we took 101 through the Redwoods and drove through a tree. Talk about a tight squeeze. We are all starting to look a little tired; it had already been a really long trip, and we were only halfway to Portland.

This is my little brother Tolman, and his wife Audrey. They are so adorable!

Kimmie tried to take a nice photo of our family at the wedding reception. Oh well....