a great read

so in the past week this book has consumed a lot of my time. thankfully brody and brooklyn were entertained by all the family. kristin told me i had to read this book. she was right. i loved it! i cant wait for the sequel to come out. it is like hunger games and the ugly series and its own book all together. it was really good. i highly recommend it. but warning: it will consume your time. so read when you have time!

the first two weeks in arizona

well as you can already tell the first two weeks here have been very busy. josh did a two week rotation with his dad. things were busy getting tyler ready for his mission and spending lots of family time together before he left. the first weekend here we had a farewell party for tyler, kelly and peter were sealed in the temple, a luncheon for kelly and peter, family pictures with the whole family, tyler's farewell talk in church, josh's test in LA, trip to california and disneyland for three days, general conference, and finally saying goodbye to tyler. josh has started his month long rotation here and is excited to be back with the residents he became such good friends with a couple years ago. we have loved every minute of busyiness with the family. the kids have loved spending time with their cousins and now that the weather is cooling off we are getting excited for halloween to come.

Elder Tyler John Bingham

uncle tyler has had such a big impact on brody and brooklyn all their lives. brody and tyler especially have had such a close relationship. they are best buds. two nights ago we said goodbye to tyler as he was set apart as a missionary. he will serve two years in the mexico torreon mission. we will miss him dearly as he is gone. but we know he is doing the best thing he can right now for himself and for our family. he has spent months preparing and is excited to go. he will teach all of us while he is gone to be better missionaries i am sure. the night he was set apart was a very spiritual one. a night that i am grateful we were here for and that our children were able to see. we would have missed out big time if we would have been in virginia. the spirit was very strong and he was promised some amazing things. brooklyn had the hardest time saying goodbye to him (she has my emotional genes) and earlier in the day when we went to the mall, we threw money in the fountain and made wishes. i asked brooklyn what she wished for, "that tyler wouldnt go on a mission!" we already miss him lots but right before he got to the MTC he called and said, "this is awesome, i am having the best time!" he will have the best time of his life.

disney land 2011

the day started out a little chilly but it ended up being perfect! since our hotel was right across the street we got to disney land bright and early at 8 AM. we started in tomorrowland and were literally walking on and off all of the rides until about 11, and then things started to slow down. brody loved buzz lightyear and so did tyler. it was their favorite ride. star tours was pretty cool too, although i stayed with brookie since she wasnt tall enough. space mountain was full of ghosts in the sky coming at you during the ride. brody and brooklyn loved driving the cars. they had a special event with jedi training. brody loved it but was too shy to go fight darth vader. we told the kids that they could each get one toy that day. brody wanted another lightsaber. he built his own and loves it. brooklyn was having a hard day. she couldnt go on a lot of the rides at the beginning with brody so she was sad. mommy took her to get her face painted. she LOVED her make up and that made her happy for the rest of the day. brody was tall enough to go on all the rides except for indiana jones (the only ride he really wanted to go on all day long). needless to say, when he saw the height requirement sign, he burst into tears and was so sad. poor guy. when we went to disney world we didnt get to go to toon town so we made it a priority to go there this time. the kids had fun seeing mickey, minnie, and goofy. brody laughed really hard on splash mountain with dad. brooklyn's favorite ride of the whole day was its a small world...she continues to sing the song to us. my favorite ride was indiana jones. the whole day was lots of fun. i have to say it was harder this time though because brody could go on so many rides that brooklyn couldnt go on, so we had to split up to do the park in a day. i wish we could have stuck together more as a family. one of these times when we go we want to stay at the disney land hotel, have the character princess breakfast, and take more than one day seeing everything. josh and i both said to eachother how spoiled our kids were to go to both disneyland and disneyworld already in their young age. i have to say though it truly is such a magical place. the memories we made there are ones to last a lifetime. it is worth it to us to create those memories for our children and for us. we loved it and we loved having tyler with us one last time. we will miss him so much.

downtown disneyland

brooklyn loved all the fountains and spent lots of time playing in them

brody of course loved this darth vader made of legos. it made lightsaber noises and talked. it was pretty cool.

daddy and brookie at another fountain together.
for josh's birthday present this year i planned on taking him and the kids to a BYU football game while we were in arizona. we were going to travel up to provo and spend the weekend reminiscing in good memories and fun. well josh had one final test he had to take to graduate and had wanted to get this test out of the way before interviews started. he had a chance to take the test in L.A. but unfortunately it was over the weekend i had planned on taking him to the game. well instead of making his present a complete waste he decided he wanted to take us with him to L.A. and go to disneyland. whoo hoo!!! we went last weekend and had a great time. we invited tyler to come with us on one last trip before his mission. he was a great help to me and the kids. the first night there we went to downtown disney and had dinner. the next day josh had to take his test so tyler and brody went to disneyland adventure together and brookie and me did some shopping and relaxing. that night we spend another night in downtown disney and then on friday we went to disneyland for the whole day. we drove home late friday night and made it back to home by 1:30 AM. it was a adventure and lots of fun memories. we decided that we will take tyler again after the mission to relive the fun we had.

albuquerque overall

our second ortho rotation in albuquerque was more than we could have ever thought it would be. josh told me a long time ago when we were planning our away rotations that he felt very impressed that we should to one here. i was not so sure...i mean we had planned to do one in california and instead we went to albuquerque. well, knowing all we know and how our Heavenly Father continues to guide our path...we went, not knowing what to expect. josh told me as he drove into the city he had the thought, why are we doing this? we are spending soo much money to come here and we dont know if it will even be worth it. well after the month there we believe it was worth it! josh loved loved loved the program. cami loved loved loved the weather. brody and brooklyn loved loved loved playing with our friends. really though albuquerque has everything we are hoping for in moving out west: closer to family and stronger membership in the church (ie...a big primary)! there is so much to do and places to visit. we loved being with our friends and enjoying their company. we could really see our family there. needless to say we dont know if it will turn in to anything in the end but we followed josh's prompting and we are grateful we did. it was a family adventure we will always remember.

a night in old town

the kids at dinner

maggie looking so cute

brody on one of the cannons

daddy bought brookie a special bracelet to remember new mexico

in the middle of the town is a square where there is dancing and music. we all had fun dancing after dinner.

lookin fabulous

daddy and brookie together
our last night in albuquerque we had dinner with the holbrooks. we said our goodbyes in hopes that we would see them again soon. we had such a wonderful time with them and again we are so grateful for all they did for us while we were there.

zoo day with the holbrooks

i have actually never seen a pink flamingo before so i thought it was pretty cool to see one and of course brooklyn loved it because it was pink

brody's favorite animal to see this time was the seals and sea lions. he really wanted to see them get fed but we didnt make it in time to watch that.

the three girls looking at the lion below

ella loved petting the llama

brody and brooklyn were not quite sure

maggie just liked to look.
we sure had such a fun day together with heather and the kids. they had a pretty amazing zoo with animals i have never seen before. a bonus was that it was not too hot and it was not crowded in the least.