Belinda Carliel was right...

... HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH! No, this isn't a post card. I took this picture! This was our view of the Atlantic Ocean from the balconey of our room. For our 11th anniversary we went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. The trip was awesome. Our hotel was amazing. Not only was is beautiful but the service was outstanding. They remembered your name, where you are from and even our favorite drink (ours was their freshly squeezed juice). Whatever you wanted they would find and try to make it happen. This was the perfect spot to relax! We can't say enough about the food, the rooms, pretty much every thing that has to do with this hotel and the Dominican Republic in general. The people are so friendly and the country is truely spectacular. Mostly Eurpeans vaction there but we did run into some couples from the USA. You must vist this amazing county.

This is me out on our balconey.

Can you belive our amazing view. Where most hotels give you an ocean veiw, here they put your room right on the beach.

This pool ran like a snake and throughout the property and then emptied into an infinity pool.




This is our room on the top.

The beaches were clean and went on for miles. There are only 53 suites on the property so at times you felt like you were the only ones there. No fighting for a spot on the beach or pool. They even bring food and drinks to you out on the beach. It's like room service. They have waiters that roam and ask you what you want. Now that's what I call a beach!

More of the amazing beach.

Josh and I

Josh, my P90x stud!

I love that Josh is a romantic at heart!

This was our amazing room.

Our last night there they had a dinner on the beach.

So romantic!

Here we are on the zip lines. They were amazing. This wasn't even the longest one!

Josh

The course we went on

We went to Santo Domingo for the day to tour the capital. It is a very beautiful and historic city. They are very proud to say that Christopher Columbus landed there. This is the oldest cathedral in the Americas. His remains are burried here.

In front of the cathedral

Here we are in the main plaza, outside of the Hard Rock Cafe where we had lunch.

This is the castle that Christopher Columbus's son and brother built.

Here is the castle again.

All in all the trip was amazing. We aslo went snorkeling and drove 2 person speed boats. It was just like James Bond. We took pictures of that with a waterproof camera so I will post those later. We love the DR. We will return.

Winter Pictures of the Kids

Here are some pictures I took of the kids after a snow storm in December. It's great to finally have a backyard for them to play in!

Christmas..... finally!!

The kids's tree in the family room.

The kids put all of their homemade ornaments and decorate it anyway they want.

Christmas morning


Some of the stockings and my new temple picture!!!

The 12 foot tree in the entry way

The living room after Santa came. (Yes, that is tree #3)!

Looking at the entry way from the 2nd floor

Daddy and Ty on Christmas morning.

Ali and Nate

Abby opening presents

Ali with her Book of Mormon action figure!!!

Sorry that it took so long to update the blog. I don't know where the time goes. Oh, maybe it is two kids in school, one in preschool, one 11 month old, 3 kids in basketball, 3 practices a week, 3 games on Saturday, 5 days of early morning seminary and one hardworking husband. I guess I have been a little busy!!!!

Christmas Card Pictures

Here is a preview of our Christmas card this year.

Alison's Hero

Ali's teacher showed this to me at parent teacher conference. She is right, he is a hero!

Disney World

Disney World was great. We spent six days there in which we were able to go to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. The weather was in the 90's with a heat index of 102-104. It was a little warmer than we expected and they broke all kinds of records while we were there.

Disney was decorated for Halloween which was fun to see. October was a great time to go because there were hardly any lines to wait in.

Ali and Abby experience all the the "big" rides this year. Ali loved the Rock and Roll Roller Coaster and Abby the Tower of Terror.

Ty was a trooper. He loved riding with Daddy in the backpack. He did really well until the end when he began to get sick. We stayed on Disney property at our favorite hotel The Grand Floridian. This helped because if we needed the kids to rest we took the monorail or ferry and we were back in 5 minutes.

Yes, that is an electric wheelchair. We rented it for most of the days we were there. It helped with my recent leg operation and with my handicap pass we didn't wait in any lines. This came in handy on the weekend when the lines were longer. The pass allowed us to get in the fast pass line for every ride. For those who are familiar with this know you can only fast pass one ride at a time and then come back at a certain time to ride the ride. With my pass we didn't need a fast pass ticket but could still go in the fast pass line. Ex. the wait line for Toy Story was 100 minutes. That is just to ride it once. The fast passes were all given out by 11:30 am that day. Thanks to my pass we went through the fast pass line 4 times throughout the day. So we rode it 4 times that day and never stood in line once!!!! I guess something good did come from my fall!

We had a great time but took turns being sick. The girls at the beginning of the trip and the boys at the end. Josh and Nate are finally feeling better but Ty is still pretty bad. If he isn't better tomorrow I will take him in again. And to top it all off I too am getting sick again. But at least we had a "magical time" considering this was Josh's first day off in 18 months. (can't count the days he took off for Ty's birth and my surgery :)

Princess Abby's Smile

This pretty princess...

is hiding something with a smile.

A hole where a tooth use to be!!!

This is the first tooth Abby has lost. She told us it was wiggly and it finally came out eating an orange. She was so excited and as you can tell the new one is already there.