We will go where you want us to go, Dear Lord.

After all of the wonderful vacations which I shared life has finally slowed down and we are running a steady pace. Jon and I are working together and life feels smoothe and wonderful for the most part. We have had a few adventures which I will try to catch up on later, but for the simple life. It follows as such: Makenna is in Piano this year and that seems to be going well. It is very fun to hear her tinkering on the keys and I look forward to her learning and growing. I love piano music. She is also taking dance classes at Clytie Adams and this is also proving to be a joyful experience for her and I also get to visit my grandma (Carrie Archibald) while she attends and this is fun to visit with her and to see her with the greats. She is also doing girls scouts once a weeks. Autumn is doing wonderful in Kindergarten and she is also taking dance, and doing Girl Scouts, this is very fun for her to start to be in activities and associate with other children. She is very competitive, but I hope she learns to enjoy friendship in the journey. Dean is loves being home and tormenting just about everyone, but he is the only boy in a house full of girls so can you blame him? Lily is growing into a darling personality that is a little shy, but full of smile's and giggles. She is a joy to have so long as she has her bottle, (Yes she still has it). Recently we started watching my niece Maylee while my sister Whitney goes to work this has been a wonderful joy, and Lily and her are so fun to watch interact. Seeing that they are only a month apart they are like twins and pester and love each other as such. Maylee is a very easy happy little girl, but a BIG tease. Lily has a short temper and cries to mom about it, but also has learned to fight back. They love each other immensely though as they always call each others names when they see each other and try to hug each other. So CUTE! Jon is continuing on the job hunt. He has had many interviews with a few companies and one very promising that we are crossing our fingers for and another job that he would love that he is interviewing for. We are slow to get our hopes up as we have had many let downs, but our faith is strong that the Lord will guide our family where he wants us to go and we are willing to do whatever he wants whether it is here in Utah or moving across the country. Speaking of which we have put our house up for sale by owner. We have a had a few lookers, but no one is interested which is actually a good thing as we have no idea where we would go if it sold, but are putting our lives in the Lord's hands to do as he will with us. Life is good! As Thanksgiving approaches we are having Jon's family in town for the feast and we are excited to see everyone and have a full house. It is a lot of work and is going to be a bit crazy, but isn't that how the holidays should be! It's an Adventure and we will take it where the Lord wants us to go!

Dean's Birthday Pictures

The Dirty Dash and Lake POWELL

After reviewing the calendar and finding out we were loosing our live in Nanny we discovered that we needed to bribe grandma Debbie into staying a few more weeks so Jon and I could go on another vacation. Little Lily just had to give her a kiss and the deal was sealed! She extended her vacation for another two weeks so that Jon and I could attend his well deserved company trip to Lake Powell. This summer they were in a competition for most sells and won the trip! So proud of his hard work! However this isn't to be overshawdowed by our plans to run the dirty dash. We went up to Midway on Saturday and plunged into mudholes and swamps of mud! Jon dove in head first when the first puddle, which was up to my waste, was presented! It was super fun and we were very grateful we took grandma's rental car because this much mud was bound to make a mess! In preparation for us living on our couples getaway we of course had to get a new T.V. Well, at least that is what Dean thought. Jon was playing the wii with the kids when it was time to be done and go to bed. Well, Dean not realizing took the remote and hurled it at our 50 inch plasma. Yep, it was shattered and then flashed and turned off never to be alive again. Everyone was shocked and I quickly took him up to his room and tried to explain to him what he had done. At first he didn't understand, but after telling him that it was broke and he couldn't watch shows anymore I could see his little heart sink and he felt Terrible! Poor Guy. Thanks to Super Grandma and her Money Bags she promptly gone online and found a great deal for a new T.V. Jon and her went down and picked it up and it is now installed above our fireplace out of the reach of flying wii remotes. HOPEFULLY! It is wonderful and Amazing thank you grandma! The first few days Dean would want to watch a movie, and we would go to put it in on the new t.v. and he said "NO" I want to watch it in your room on the much smaller t.v. I soon discovered he felt so bad he was afraid he would break the new one and didn't want to watch his shows on it...What a tender little guy! The next few days went by fast. Grandma Egelund came up from St. George and Debbie recruited her to help with the kids while Jon and I took off for the week. She is so sweet and the kids absolutely were thrilled to have her in our home! She helped Makenna with her Piano lessons and Autumn with her reading. It is so wonderful to have these experiences. I LOVE THEM! Now on to Lake Powell. Jon and I decided to drive to the Cabin and spend a night then drive to Bull Frog Marina. It was so wonderful spending time together yet again. We teased and laughed like we had no cares in the world which felt GREAT! After arriving at the Lake getting the house boat and meeting all the other couples we took off on the Jet Ski's and played hard the entire week. Jumping off cliffs, Battling on Tubes, Wake-boarding, Hiking, and visiting with friends till the wee hours of the night! My favorite was when we told each others most embarrassing moments. Let's just say some crazy stuff happens! It was a vacation to be remembered! A JON AND MARIE FAVORITE! Not to mention when it was all over we were both super sore and Jon had bruises all over his body. I think we are starting to get a little old to act like teenagers, but hey it is good to stay young at heart! My love to Lake Powell.

My Favorite Little Man Turns 3

September 20th is a special day! It is the day the Lord blessed me with my Little BOY! We love him SO much and he has proved to be quite the character and very boy. He loves dressing up as Spider man as you can see as well as Fire Trucks, Ambulances, and running around the house then jumping off the couch yelling, "Super Dean!" He seems to have a smile on his face Just for His MOM! He is growing up quite fast, he's already potty trained, and dresses himself. Although some mornings I have to be careful because he will walk downstairs with his pants on backwards :) This year for his birthday we did a SpiderMan themed party and it turned out exceptional. I enjoyed decorating for it and having the family over! It is always a treat to celebrate another birthday. I LOVE YOU DEAN!

Grandpa Comes to town and State Fair

After arriving home we found everything great! Grandma had taken very good care of the kids and had also purchased them a brand new trampoline which was much needed seeing that our old one had a huge hole in it and was rusting away! The next day Grandpa Cottle came into town to enjoy some R&R from his very stressful job. He has been going down to Columbia to manage the work on the oil refiners and has also had a few very big business things go sour so he needed a break. It was also a special opportunity to have him here for His birthday! Grandma Debbie and Him decided to go to the temple then visit his mom Grandma Carol. When the kids got out of school we were going to meet them there and then go to the State Fair! It was so wonderful visiting with Grandma and the kids got to enjoy her sweet beautiful spirit! Then off to the Fair. This was the first time we had been to the state fair and was a fun experience for us all! We enjoyed some good BBQ cooking then let the kids fish in a pond that the Fish and Game were hosting, enjoyed the animals and a magic show put on by a pirate. Then, the finale was riding the carnival rides! SO MUCH FUN! We loved spending time with the Cottles :)

Jon Comes HOME

After waiting and waiting and waiting weeks went past and finally one very beautiful Sunday morning Jon arrived back in Morgan. Home safe and sound to be with the family! It was wonderful to finally be a family again. Being without each other was a large test for us this year! We enjoyed a few days at home working on house projects as there were MANY things to fix! Then we darted off to Glacier National Park the drive proved to be long. 12 hours in the car we ended up getting to know each other all over again a little too well ;) We ended up playing a few of those question games where you find out about hopes, dreams, fears, and funny stories of your companion. We arrived at Duck Lake late and spent the night in a little lodge. The room only had two twin beds in it with community bathroom and showers. The diner on the main floor was decent, but we were around a LOT of fishermen! We woke up to a cool crisp morning as we drove across the border to Canada. I couldn't believe how pretty it was! I loved seeing the Prince of Wales Hotel at Waterton National Park. What a beautiful quaint town. As we drove to the rangers station to get our back-country pass we spotted a black bear first thing. Yikes, it was super cool! We ended up deciding to go to Alderton Lake. The hike up was quite a beast. I don't know how much we climbed, but it took us 4 hours. It was good that we had some yummy wild raspberries to enjoy on the way up, we didn't see much wildlife, but the views were spectacular. When we arrived to the glacier lake we were so sweaty we decided to jump in. Well, Jon did and I just sat there thinking he was crazy! It was a beautiful night under the stars. Jon was sweet enough to bring Hot Cocoa so we enjoyed some chocolate and the wonderful mtns. The next day we hiked out and drove over to Glacier. We ended up seeing a brown bear when we entered the park. Couldn't have planned it better to see both kinds of bears. We also got up close and personal with some wild mtn goats. Pretty FUN! Driving on the sunrise highway was spectacular! After all this excitement we hiked into our second camp and spent another night on the dirt. It wasn't so bad :) I thought it would be fun to incorporate YOGA during the hike seeing how I was in nature and all. It was fun coming up with new poses! However, I think one of my favorite parts of the hike was the bridge we had to cross to get to our campsite! So fun! Namaste! After roughing it I wanted a shower! So we ended up at Lake McDonald. WOW GORGEOUS! They had vacancy at a cabin room motel thing. It was very rustic, we ended up grabbing a blanket and a Ghost Story book and read as we watched the stars come out. Good thing we grabbed a room because it rained that night! Not my favorite thing sleeping in a tent while it's raining. However, it was sad to have it be our last night. The drive home took forever yet again! But overall the trick was AMAZING! Thanks Honey for planning such a wonderful vacation. I LOVE YOU!!!

In SHORT life SPRINTED from me!

Wow, I decided it was time to play catch up but I didn't realize how much has happened since the last post. Lets just say TONS! I came back from St. Louis to Utah my dear mother flew out to make the trek home with us. It took 3 days and a lot of whinny kids and mom. I ended up living at the parents place for 2 weeks while I waited for our renters to move out of our house. My dad was sweet enough to take us down to the cabin and that was a blast. The funnest part was having the kids play with snakes a toad, friends, and dirt. After returning we found a lot of fun in the Morgan County Fair! I entered the kids in a Pet Show. Makenna showed Rocky, Autumn showed a baby chick, and Dean a baby Turkey. It was so darling. Autumns sat her bird on the judges table and it left them a little present :) Dean said that his turkey was named UNCLE TOM and was so big and brave. He won an award. The turkey got best singer because it squeaked when Dean squeezed it. Too fun. Later that night we also had the treat of watching uncle Billy ride in the Rodeo. Yep, he won! The kids thought it was awesome! Nothing beats the hometown pride. . . LOVE IT! After all of this Debbie came into town to help me move back into our house as well as wrestle the kids for next four weeks while Jon stayed in St. Louis to work. It has been very nice having the extra pair of hands to chase down all the kids. The next weekend we had a family reunion up at Bear Lake with the Wall Clan. It was very fun to see everyone and to play in the beautiful Mountain Lake and have lots of yummy raspberries. Two crazy moments happened at the beach. The first day we went and were having a grand time. My uncle took us out on the boat and Makenna and I took a ride in the tube. He was going slow and all was great until a huge wave came and pulled us under knocking both of us off the tube. Makenna was so brave I was proud of her. . . Then when we got back to shore I started chatting with my aunt and when I looked around I couldn't find Kenna anywhere! I was super scared we looked in the water and all over the beach finally my Dad darted down the shore. He finally came back with her stolling beside him. She couldn't find the family and had walked almost a mile down the shoreline looking for us! I was one scared Momma. The next day at the beach we were having fun and I was chasing around Dean and Lily when I look up to see Autumn in a kayak out in the water stroking like a pro. We did not have Kayaks' so I was wondering where she got it. I went out in the water to her and she said that the neighbor let her borrow it. She is such a friendly gal. She found a family with Kayaks asked to borrow there's and then like she was a kayak pro took off towards the middle of the lake. Watch out for this one! After Bear Lake we came back home to go school shopping and get ready for the first day of School. Makenna is in second grade this year with Mrs. Dent and Autumn is in Kindergarten with Mrs. Dicou. They love school and I am so grateful to have them sent on there way to learn and to grow! This year I asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up and took pix with them holding a sign. Autumn said she wants to be 6 then 7 and a petrinarian. Makenna wants to be a rockstar. They are so CUTE! Thinking I was going to slow down after school started was just a mirage! We still ended up taking trips up to Deep Creek for Dutch Oven and trying to catch a little bit of summer before the chill catches. We tried to get the girls home at a decent hour each night, but I am not saying we did. We had fun none-the-less!