Yellowstone Trip

Mark's last day at Microsoft was the 13th and he doesn't start his new job until the 25th, so we thought we'd take a short trip to Yellowstone. There were lots of amazing things to see and we had a great time, even though we got pretty tired of being in the car on the way home.

The girls had a pretty sweet set-up in the car.  Once we got to the park they didn't watch movies as much so they could enjoy the scenery.  Joy enjoyed the scenery probably most of anyone for the whole trip.  On the way to Rexburg (where we stayed the first night), she gleefully pointed out every cow and horse and barn and other features.

An elk by the side of the road

Yellowstone Lake

We rented a motor boat and spent an hour touring Yellowstone Lake as a family.  This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  There was almost no one else on the lake and it seemed like we had it all to ourselves.

Pretty Joy on the boat.

One of the small islands on Yellowstone Lake

Joy "helped" drive the boat for a minute.

It was such a beautiful day, the perfect weather for a boat ride.

Pretty BethAnne and pretty Grace.

Sweet Mark.  It was his first time driving a boat and he did it like a pro!

On the way to our hotel on Wednesday night, we came across a herd of bison near a stream by the road.  They were so close that we could hear them grunting at each other.  

Undine Falls near Mammoth Hot Springs.

Tower Falls, I loved the rainbow in the spray.

One of our favorite things to see in Yellowstone was all of the wild flowers.  I just started noticing them the first day and it became a game to try to find them in all the colors.  We ended up seeing them in every color of the rainbow (except maybe green, but the stems and grass are green).  We saw red, orange, yellow, blue, lavender, magenta, pink, purple and white flowers.  It was amazing.

(if you click on this picture you can see the different colors better- blue, yellow, purple and white in this patch).

This picture is better viewed larger also.  It is a bunch of new trees growing in a forest of tall, burned and bare, tree trunks.  It was neat to see the resilience of nature.

There were many breathtaking views throughout the park.  We were able to drive all of them main roads of the park, so we saw some things we hadn't seen before.

A bison right next to the road sunning itself

                The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, very cool.

So, that was our trip.  We're looking forward to Suzie coming to visit and our Baker family Logan reunion.  See you soon!  Have a great weekend!  Love, Aubrey

Spring Portraits

We had some family Portraits taken in June.  I knew we would want some current ones for our Adoption Profile.  We've started the adoption process and we are working on our home study and profile.  We're almost done, we've been on a fast track in order to be considered for a baby that is due on my birthday (August 25th).  It seems like everything has just fallen into place.   We have felt a lot of peace and direction as we have gone through this process and we are excited to see where it leads.  It looks like Mark's last day at Microsoft will be on Friday, the 13th.  Despite the ironic date, we think it's a blessing overall.  Mark's severance pay should cover many of the adoption costs.  Mark will start his new job at Balihoo on July 25th.  During his week off, we'll probably go to Yellowstone for a couple days.  It will be nice to have a vacation, we've been pretty busy lately.  I hope you are all doing well.  We're excited to see everyone in a few weeks.  We'll keep you all posted if anything interesting happens.  We love you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun at the Zoo!

This morning we went to the Zoo.  It was a beautiful morning and we had a lovely time.

We took the little boat at the Zoo across the pond to the African exhibit.  It was sedate but fun.

 

 

Here's Joy pretending to drive the big truck at the African Exhibit

Riding the Carousel!

 

Joy had a great time on the giraffe slide, which is funny because I have a hard time getting her to go on small slides at the park.

 

 

Learning to feed the goats!  Joy was quite timid at first but she got the hang of it!

 

Have a great week! We love you!

Rogers update

I want to thank you all for your love and support these last couple weeks. It was so touching to have so many people reach out to us, we have felt so much love. We have had some very sad days, and still there are times that are very sad. We were really looking forward to having another sweet baby. However, through all of this, we know that Heavenly Father loves us and has a plan for us. We have seen his hand in our lives so much these last few years, and we know He will lead us still. I love the scripture from Job 1:21- "...the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

It was difficult to have Mark's job uncertainty hanging over us during this time, but we had so many good leads, we felt reassured that all would be well. In the last week, Mark has received three good offers, two in Boise and one in Lehi. We decided that the best job for Mark was with a company called Balihoo here in Boise. He has been offered the position of Senior Software Developer and that is exactly what Mark wants to be doing.  He thinks it will be a great place to work. We also felt the confirmation of the Spirit, that it would be the best choice, like it was made specifically for him. The health benefits are not great there, but they are willing to pay enough to make up for the deficiency in the benefits and they plan to get better benefits in the near future. We are so grateful to be able to stay in Boise. We love our house and neighborhood and we love living by our families.  We feel blessed still.

Love,
Aubrey

Joy riding her tricycle

I was so excited the other day when Joy started riding her tricycle. Now she can ride her bike in the front yard with the other kids. I didn't foresee one major problem though. Once she got going she didn't want to stop or turn around. She kept going and going and when I finally caught up with her to turn her around, she had a major tantrum. Luckily Daddy saved the day when he got home by showing her that she had to turn around often to stay close to home. She still won't do it on her own, but she'll let us turn her around now without a big fit. I took these pictures of her the other day, she's so cute! Have a great weekend!

 

 

Joy Comedy

When Mark was taking Joy into Nana's house this morning, she waved at a dead worm on the driveway and said, "Hi, snake!" Mark said, "Actually, that's a worm." She came back with, "Actually, it's a snake. Actually, its a big snake."

We love our sweet Joy. Have a great week!

Easter!

Spring is springing and Easter is here. We had fun yesterday on Easter Bunny Day. We hunted for treats in the morning and Joy thought that was really fun. She's old enough to really enjoy holidays now, and it's great to see it through her eyes for the first time. Later in the day, Daddy and Joy ran errands while Grace, BethAnne and I went to a movie. It's fun to have outings with my big girls.

Today, the girls wore their new spring dresses to church. I took pictures after Church. The girls are all in pretty serious need of a haircut, but other than that, I think they're pretty cute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you all are having a great weekend. We're having the Rogers over for Easter dinner tonight, which reminds me of a funny thing Grace said in the car yesterday. She said, "when I have a family, will it be the Grace Family?" I said, "no, it will depend on what your husband's last name is." Then she said, "But your name is Roger and we're the Rogers family." I then proceeded to tell her that my name is Aubrey and I explained how it all worked, but I thought that was really funny.

Then another funny thing happened at church today. We sat on the front row because those were the only soft seats left when we got there. Things went pretty well until Joy said "Knock, knock" (she likes to tell Knock, Knock jokes). I whispered that it wasn't time for jokes and then she proceeded to keep saying "Knock, knock" louder and louder until she yelled "KNOCK, KNOCK!!!" I decided at that point that I better follow along, and then she quieted down. In better news, Joy is enjoying nursery now which is a huge blessing. We were worried that we'd be taking her to our meetings until she was a teenager.

Everything else is going pretty well. I'm pretty tired and sore lately, but I'm okay. I'll be 16 weeks on Friday and I'll start having ultrasounds every other week at that point to make sure everything is okay. It will be great to see the baby next week and it will be fun to find out if we're having a boy or girl sometime in the next month. We'll keep you posted. Have a great week!

Love,
Aubrey