A Happy Home is Filled with Love and Laughter

Road Trip Fun

Beej & Chris

Jewel Cave

Kaylee and my mom and I took the Jewel Cave tour in SD. It was just over an hour long and about 753 stairs. I didn't know if I could do it with my bad knee's but thankfully their were breaks inbetween and places to sit. Jewel Cave is the second longest caves in the world.

Kaylee fell asleep and slept through the whole Cave tour

I love my mom!!!! She is so fun. She went on the Jewel Cave tour with me while BJ and my dad and brother went on the candlelight Wind Cave tour.

They had sooo much fun! All you took in the cave was a candle so it was pretty dark and exciting.

Go Dad go!

This is a priceless picture. I love my dad's half smile! :)

Watching the World Horshoe Tournament (that is my mom and dad on the right on me watching my little brother play)

My dad took 5th place and my little bro Nate took 9th

Giving Kaylee a much needed bath in the sink at the Hotel in Ogallala, NE

A water ride in the Mall of America!

The amusement park in the Mall

Mirror Maze in the Mall. SOO much fun! We took a video that I will try to put up if I remember.

BJ's favorite shirt :)

Space Aliens in Fargo, ND

Nauvoo Pageant

This was AMAZING! The spirit was so strong and such a neat experience. There was soo much to do in Nauvoo and we were only there for a half a day. We definitely need to go back!

Some fun at a rest stop

Mt. Rushmore

Aint she cute with HAIR! :) This was at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD

The ONLY Corn Palace in the World.

A windy ride up to Martin's Cove.
One benefit to having bad knees. They gave us a ride up the Martin's Cove instead of us taking a 2 hour hike. The spirit was really strong there and the stories that the missionaries shared was amazing.

What a good daddy. :)

Where I served and who I interacted with...

Beej & Chris

Black hills

Crazy Horse

Praire Dogs

I started my mission in Fargo, ND. My trainer was Sister Smith. We served together for a transfer and then my old MTC companion Sister Nicholls joined us making a trio companionship. We had a lot of fun together...but of course had some drama as well. Both Sister Smith and I made a trip to the ER. We each took our turns being sick as well. We ended up being quite a sick bunch. But overall it was a good experience and one that I learned a lot from.

I was then "ET'd" or emergency transfered to Hot Springs, SD with Sister Smith. We took over the elder's apartment so the first day...week...month...we cleaned it up :) Here is a picture of the apartment and the stairs to get up to our apartment.

After our car window was smashed by a beer bottle our mission president told us that he wanted us to move in with a member. We then lived in Custer,SD and then back in Hot Springs, SD. Needless to say..we moved a lot. :)

Here are some pictures of the branch in Hot Springs. They had a pancake breakfast one of the days we were there.

giving the sister missionaries referrals

Brother Carrol and Brother Daybreast

Brother Horrocks

Sister Daybreast

Dorothy Ewertt

Sister Horrocks and Sam

Sister Zortman

Kaylee liked Sam's nose

**While we were driving around Hot Springs we had to stop because the truck in front of us had spilled a truck full of bannana's . ha ha only in a small town :)**

** It was Dorothy's birthday so we bought her a cute bracelet and I set it on top of the car while I was putting Kaylee in her carseat. Later while we were driving I realized that I had left it on top of the roof. Don't worry I did it again later that day with a bannana **

More friends....

Beej & Chris

Marvia Hall

she had just returned from her mission when we got to Fargo, ND so she would take us out teaching a lot. She was SOO much fun!

The Meidlingers
Hazel is from England so Sister Nicholls and her got a long really well. This family was so kind to us. They made us amazing food and was always doing everything they could to take care of us.

Shelly Carlson
She would go out teaching with us A LOT and really made an impact on me on my mission. She taught me a lot and was HILARIOUS. We were always laughing when we were around Shelly.

Crystal Kuntz Whitney

SOO much fun! Crystal brought out the fun in our trio companionship. We loved to visit her! Her little daughter Molly loved to play with Kaylee. She even tried to teach her how to crawl.

Dixie Pederson

She went teaching with us a few times. We taught her two daughters who after we were transfered got baptized. Such a cute family!

Julie!

We met her by tracting. My companion had just got bit by a dog so we knocked on her door to ask her to use her bathroom and for her assistance since we were no where close to our apartment. Julie would take us out teaching and was so much fun getting to know.

Sam Pierce

He was recently baptized when I got to Hot Springs so we taught him a few of the new member discussions. Sam was such a gentleman and was always offering to help us out with whatever we needed. Sam even came to our wedding at the Salt Lake Temple.

The Horrocks family

Brother Horrocks was the missionary leader in Hot Springs. He helped us out a lot! This is such a cute and fun family. Sister Horrocks is always happy and just fun to be around.

Dorothy Ewertt

We would spend countless hours talking with Dorothy. She had been a member for a year when we got to Hot Springs, so we helped her prepare to go to the temple. BJ and I were able to attend with her at the Salt Lake temple when she took out her endowments.

We're Back!

Beej & Chris

I don't know if you can tell. But to the right of the cooler we made a bed. The seat in front we put down all the way so we could lay down on the long road trip. It was SOOO nice. Both BJ and I took hour long naps back there with our seat belts on of course ;)

Getting all packed up

We saved a lot of $$ by bringing snacks, drinks, and sandwiches.

We made it!! Kaylee took her first big family vacation with us and she did AMAZING! We seriously have the BEST baby ever! I don't have time to post all the pictures and go day by day on all that we did right now but I thought I would just add a video and a picture or two highlighting the trip.

At Mount Rushmore we found this adorable buffalo. I love the big eyes and gave it to Kaylee to play with at the store. Kaylee kept pushing it away. She didn't want anything to do with it. In attempts to get Kaylee to like it, my mom was making the buffalo move like it was walking up to Kaylee and she FREAKED out!!!! My mom bought it for Kaylee hoping she will warm up to it. Here is a video of one of her attempts....

No worries, Kaylee now loves her buffalo. Thanks mom for buying it for her.

BJ and I had a lot of fun on the road. We played the alphabet game over 10 times. You know, the game where you find the letters of the alphabet on billboards and license plates. Kaylee ate her baby food while she was in the car seat and we would get her out to crawl around whenever we stopped. It wasn't till the last day when we only had a few hours left on the trip that she was done with the car. However whenever I get her in her car seat now she cries. ha ha. Hopefully with time that will get better :)

BJ putting sunscreen on Kaylee with the help of Uncle Nate.

A few quotes from BJ that made me laugh....

BJ handing me Kaylee saying, "Can you take this?"
BJ putting Kaylee in the play pen for a nap "Here, let me put her away"
BJ pulling Kaylee out of her car seat "Eww..did you poop? Oh no, you just stink a little"

ha ha ha the last one is my favorite!! BJ cracks me up. In all seriousness...I miss having BJ with me everyday. He came home from work the day after the trip and came and grabbed Kaylee and took her grocery shopping with him. I told him I could watch her. He said, "I want to take her and spend time with her". He is such a good dad.