Thirteen Wonderful Years!

Justin and I were married 13 years ago today in the Salt Lake Temple.  It was a beautiful, memorable day that we still think about fondly.  The past 13 years seem to have flown by until I stop and think of all that has happened since then, including but not limited to:

6 cars 

4 jobs (3 in the last 15 months alone)

3 degrees of higher learning (1 BA, 1 BS & 1 MBA)

3 children (2 girls & 1 boy)

2 apartments (Provo and the Avenues)

2 houses  (Sugarhouse and Pinebrook)

1 miscarriage

1 dog

We have certainly learned a lot and made many happy memories together since our marriage. We aren't perfect and to illustrate my SIL, Brittney loves to tell the story about a trip we took together about a year after she and Peter were married.  We traveled to New England together for my friend Beth's wedding in Connecticut.  Blythe was about 10 months old at the time and traveling with a baby is never easy.  Brittney was convinced by the end the trip that Justin and I were about to get divorced because we fought so much.  She didn't tell us for years how worried she was about us after that trip and the funny thing is that neither Justin nor I remember fighting on that trip and remember it as a great trip.  Brittney soon came to realize that a little arguing never means that your marriage is falling apart.  Justin and I hope to be like his grandparents Kay and Verl Barrett someday who are now 90 and 92 years old and still can be heard squabbling affectionately on occasion.

I can't resist posting some photographs from our wedding day.  It's amazing how young we look.  I love the one of Justin by himself that was totally unposed.  I must say I do miss all that wavy hair that Justin used to have.

This photo was taken at our wedding reception at the Old Miner's Hospital in Park City.  My wedding dress was a copy of my Grandma Ruth Chudleigh's that she wore in 1946.  I love how this photo looks like it could have been taken that long ago.  

Thirteen years later and still a happy couple!  I can only hope that the next thirteen years are as wonderful as the past thirteen have been.  Justin often comments that I'm not a very romantic person and as such I'm not going to post a bunch of mushy stuff about him.  However, I will say . . . .

I LOVE YOU!!!

(I know I've posted this photo before, but sadly we haven't had another photo taken of just the two of us since then except one photo from Concord, MA that I used in the previous post.  I wish I had thought to have someone take a picture of us at the wedding in Boston when we were all dressed up to the nines.  Oh well. )

Our Trip to New England

The first week of June, Justin and I took a 5 day trip to Boston for his cousin Carter's wedding.  It was the first time we had left all three children and the longest time we'd ever left any of our children.  My parents watched the kids for us and did a great job.  Barrett wasn't even mad at us when we got home.  We flew into Manchester, NH and were met at the airport by Justin's parents who had spent the week at Acadia National Park in Maine.  We stayed at a beautiful New England inn close to the airport and had a fabulous dinner at the hotel dining room.

The Bedford Village Inn in New Hampshire.  

I had to take the photo out of the car window as we  were leaving because it was pouring rain at the time.  We didn't have to be in Boston until that evening for the rehearsal dinner so we took our time and stopped in Lexington and Concord, MA.  Lexington and Concord were where the first shots were fired of the Revolutionary War.  We saw the famous Lexington Green and stopped at a museum and the Minute Man visitor's center.  The weather was cold and damp, but it didn't really rain on us. The most memorable event of the day was when we got slightly lost and ended up at the gate house of an Air Force base.  Chuck explained to the the guard that we were lost and were only trying to find Concord.  The guard looked at him and said, "I'm going to have to confiscate your ID . . . while you turn around.  Justin's Dad thought he was kidding at first and replied, "You couldn't just ask me nicely for it?" but handed over his license while we made a U turn and stopped all of 20 seconds later on the other side of the guard house to reclaim it.  We couldn't quite figure out how confiscating Chuck's license would have helped if we had been terrorists and set on wreaking destruction on the base with our rented Volvo.  

We did eventually find our way to Concord.  This photo is of Justin and me in front of a bridge that has been recently reconstructed where the first actual battle of the War of Independence was fought.  Concord was also home to many noted authors.  We toured two homes where Louisa May Alcott who wrote the book  "Little Women" lived.  Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in one of the same houses too.  Ralph Waldo Emerson also lived in Concord and was a friend of the Alcott family.  

This is the Fairmont Copley Plaza where we 

stayed in Boston and where the wedding

 reception was held.  It first opened in 1912.

I couldn't resist taking this picture of some geese

and their goslings crossing the street.  It looked like

a scene straight out of the classic children's book,

"Make Way For Ducklings."

Beth Parcella, Jill Chudleigh Petty and Nicole Iovanne.

My two best friends (who I have known since I was 2 or 3 years old) Beth and Nicole drove up from New Haven, CT on Saturday and we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and then Beth treated Nicole and me to a birthday lunch. We stopped at the concierge's desk on the way out of the hotel and asked for a restaurant recommendation.  He recommended Stephanie's on Newbury Street but warned us that there was usually a long wait.  He pulled out one of his business cards and gave it to Beth with the instructions that if there was a long wait we should give his card to the hostess and tell her that Jim from the Fairmont had sent us. When we arrived at the restaurant very hot and sticky after walking from the museum in the 95 degree weather with lots of humidity there was indeed a long wait.  So Beth handed over the card and they told us they would halve the wait time.  So we went over to the bar and ordered drinks (lemonade and iced tea) and they had a table ready for us before we had even finished our drinks, which was a lot sooner than we expected.  We were very impressed at how the restaurant staff responded to Jim's card and felt that we could easily get used to preferential treatment.  We had the most delicious Bruschetta I have ever eaten, as an appetizer and had a great time catching up over lunch.   The photo was taken in the hotel room after I had put on my dress for the wedding to show it to Beth and Nicole.  

The wedding was held in a beautiful old chapel on the Harvard Campus and the wedding reception was very elegant.  We sat at a table with Justin's cousin Elliott and his wife Heather and their 4 girls.  Justin and I were very happy that we didn't have our kids with us, especially Barrett since the 4 course dinner with French service took hours.  The food was delicious and we had a good time visiting with many members of the Petty family.

The next day we left Boston for Vermont.  I had made arrangements to visit Deanna, who was one of my roommates at BYU and now lives in Sharon, VT with her family.  Sharon is where Joseph Smith was born and Justin and I were able to visit his birthplace and take the full 1 1/2 hour tour that evening.  It was another extremely hot and humid day, but the weather was perfect at 7 p.m. when we took the tour.  The photo is of us standing in front of the granite monument which is 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for every year of the Prophet Joseph Smith's life.  

Deanna Creighton and Jill Petty in Vermont.

We had a nice visit with Deanna and Eric and got to meet all three of their kids for the first time.  They live right on the White River and Justin tried some fly fishing on Monday morning, but didn't catch anything.  Deanna drove us to the King Arthur Baking Co. store where I picked up some thank you gifts for my Mom and then over to Dartmouth College where Eric works as their Bio-Safety Officer.  We had lunch and Eric gave us a quick tour of his part of campus before he drove us back to the airport in just enough time to catch our plane home.  One of the best parts of the trip was being able to actually read a book on the plane instead of trying to keep a small child amused.  We also enjoyed sleeping undisturbed through the night for the first time since Barrett was born.  In spite of these luxuries we were happy to return home to our children.  They were glad to see us again, even though it might only have been for the presents we brought them.  

Memorial Day Weekend in Moab

For about 22 hours we had my whole family together in Moab over Memorial Day weekend, as various members of the family arrived and departed between Thursday and Monday.  We were glad that we had the opportunity to see Dan and Mia before they left to spend the summer traveling around Europe and the Middle East.  It's always a little crazy when you have 17 people staying at the same house who are on different sleep schedules.  Barrett was the earliest riser and despite Justin and I trying to keep him quiet he took it upon himself to wake up everyone else by running through the house proclaiming, "It's morningtime everybody!!" as loudly as he could.  My mom thought it was cute, nobody else did. 

 Some of our weekend activities included attending the Moab Arts Festival, 4 wheeling, playing croquet in the front yard, swimming in the pool, taking a hike to look at dinosaur bones, watching movies and bike riding.  The men rode Slickrock Trail one day and my Dad took a bad fall and injured his shoulder so badly that he couldn't ride out.  Brett came back to the house and got his Jeep so that he could 4 wheel in to pick up my Dad.  Peter and Justin walked him down to the point where Brett could pick him up and then had to hike back up to their bikes and ride out.  It ended up taking most of the day so we didn't make it over to Arches National Park for a hike as we had planned.  My Dad waited until the next day to go to the hospital to have his shoulder looked at and fortunately it wasn't dislocated, he had only torn his deltoid muscle.  He had his shoulder in a sling for a few weeks, but it is almost fully healed now.  

My Mom and I did a lot of cooking and made some delicious Mexican food.  We made three kinds of fresh salsa (which entailed ALOT of chopping) and some spicy Chipotle Grilled Chicken and a Mexican Chocolate sauce to put over ice cream.  It was fabulous.  Overall I think everyone had a good time and my kids are already asking when we can do it again.

The entire family in front of the Moab house.

Brynne, Hannah, Blythe, Barrett, Nathan and James

waiting to be fed.  It seemed like we always had at 

least one hungry kid in the kitchen at all times.

The kids in the pool despite the temperature only

being in the 60's.  No adults braved the pool that day.

Brynne enjoying the pool.

Barrett about to jump off the diving board

with a little encouragement from Uncle Brett.

Barrett in action, although unfortunately out of focus.

Our little water bug, who could not get enough

of the pool even when he had turned blue with cold.

Barrett was so worn out by all the swimming he did 

that during dinner he left the table and promptly

fell asleep on the couch.

Thomas the Tank Engine

It's been a few weeks since I managed to publish a post.  Life has been busy with the end of the school year, but the main reason for my lack of posting has been that Barrett has been monopolizing the computer.  He finally figured out how to use the mouse and can now play computer games on his own.  Anytime I sit down at the computer he shows up almost immediately and wants to play his Thomas or Cars games. 

 Just like every other three year old boy, Barrett is fascinated with Thomas the Tank Engine.  "Thomas" came to the Heber Valley Railroad over Memorial Day weekend and Justin and Peter took Barrett and James to ride on him.  It was hit with the boys, although in true Barrett fashion he spent the entire time he was on the train complaining that he was hungry.  

Barrett and Justin posing with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Justin and Barrett on board one of Thomas' coaches.

Barrett (and James) in the hay maze.