Há quatro anos

Four years ago today, Sam completed his 2 year mission in Manaus, Brazil. He describes it as two of the hardest, yet best, years of his life. He loved the people he met there, and they loved him right back. Someday we will make it back, but for now these pictures will have to do!

What do you do when....

nothing seems to be going your way?

Move back to Hawaii, of course! As of January, Sam and I will say aloha to Utah and ALOHA to Hawaii.

Sam and I couldn't have enjoyed our time in Ogden more. However, since graduation and moving to Provo, it seems like our life has been misplaced. I have never believed in bad luck, until this last year. HOWEVER, the bad luck was not all bad. It brought added strength to my faith, my marriage, and my respect for Job :)

Sam's job not working out meant that he began exploring all options, one of them being Edward Jones. After a few months of interviews and paperwork, he has been hired on as a financial adviser. His office will be in Mililani, Hawaii. It's been hard to stop smiling since we heard the news:)

Things have slowly been falling into place. Like Sam's thousand dollar mountain bike was stolen, so we didn't have to worry about shipping it! And our car was rear ended by someone without insurance, who we threatened into buying it rather than taking them to court! We don't know where we will live or where I will work or any of the details, but we feel happy and peaceful and just plain blessed to be able to move back to Hawaii.

Scraping ice of the car windshield isn't nearly so bad when permanent 80 degrees, sunshine, and ocean are right around the corner!

Tubular!

Jill threw Matt the most killer 30th birthday party ever! That girl knows how to plan a party. We had a blast!

Matt was "Mr. T". Jill surprised him with the costume and he was a very good sport :)

Aaron ended up looking like an 80's child molester. You can never have too many blackmail pictures :) Sam's fanny pack was filled with a slinky. Somebody please bring back the fanny pack!

I sure wish this picture showed Sam's legs, because they were quite bare. Those were some short shorts!

The Bates Boys! I love finally having brothers. They don't get more entertaining than these 3. Sam got a little shy and changed his shorts, while Aaron was loving being able to show a little leg...

I really, really love this man.

Update

With so many friends and family praying for us during my fertility treatment, I figure I had better give an update... I am sorry to say that things did not go as we hoped. Normally it takes about 10 days of shots to get the eggs nice and ready (that sounds really weird). Well, it took me almost 30 days, which was very unusual (most doctors won't continue the shots for longer than 2 weeks). This meant a whole lot of injections and ultra sounds, which wasn't the best for my body or my wallet :) After a month I was finally ready, so they went ahead and did the insemination. After a couple of weeks of waiting, I could have sworn I was pregnant. I was feeling queasy in the mornings and was very bloated. When I went in for my ultrasound, it turned out I was not pregnant but had plenty of giant cysts - a reaction from having so many shots. We were ready to try again, but my doctor said it would not be safe to continue the treatment, seeing how my body reacted, so that's the story in a nutshell. We don't really know where to go from here, as there are no more fertility treatment options. We are, of course, disappointed but still feel like somehow something will work out for us when it is right. Thank you for everyone who sent prayers our way, we honestly could feel your support and really appreciate them!

So Thankful

We had ourselves a wonderful time in Arizona for Thanksgiving! Our week flew by. It was filled with baseball games with the boys, bike rides, shopping trips, huge breakfasts, my mom spoiling us, Flake family cousins and aunts and uncles, the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had, Oregano's and Namebrands girl's day, Car show for the boys, late night games at Brooke's, and best of all - just sitting around talking and laughing with my family. It was extremely hard to say good bye to such an amazing family!

We went through Vegas on our trip home. Britt had never been so we stopped and went through the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace. After driving ALL DAY we came home to some snowy weather.

We split into teams and played Minute to Win It Games on Friday night. We caught Dad leaving them games when he saw we would be wasting toilet paper ! I told him we would save it for him to use later on but he called it quits :) The bottom left picture is my favorite, Brooke looks like she is in a diaper with a crazy hair-do, he he.

I got to run Brooke's first 5k with her! She always said that the running gene skipped her, but I have proof that it definitely did not. She did awesome. It was so fun running with her. Cody and Sam were thrilled to have their picture taken.

Ethan is quite the entertainer. He loves anything to do with sports, so we played a lot of baseball this trip. It is always fun to play with him, because he provides quite a show. He is really talented, but extremely competitive and almost every game ends in a funny tantrum. Here he is in timeout after throwing a tantrum :)

I literally can't say no to Kade. He is too cute. He LOVES gum, and has no problem asking around for a piece. He was hitting up all the realtives for gum at Thanksgiving, and when someone would tell him no, he would ask if he could check their pockets. Took em' by surprise every time :)

I need to take more pictures with Rhett. He is the sweetest kid I know. Whenever we visit, he spends every minute he can with us. I loved playing catch, jumping on the trampoline, and drawing monsters with him.

The actual feast... I don't think there is anything better than being surrounded by family (although we missed our Ashley who was forced to be surfing North Shore instead)