Growing up, my sisters and I would often get out a piece of paper and write down future years, and the ages we would be that year and talk about what we thought would be happening then. One thing I always assumed would happen was that we would have babies together, of course. But life happened and one day I realized that I was past the ages that we had dreamed about. Once my sisters and I started having babies, we all hoped we could be pregnant together and have little babies at the same time, but it soon looked like that would not happen. By the time, I was having my first baby, my oldest sister already had three children and my other sister had one child by adoption, so planning to have babies at the same time seemed an impossibility.
On January 7, 2003 I had my little baby, Noah. It was exhilarating, scary, insane and exhausting and the end result was so well worth it. Early the next morning, while I lay in my hospital bed, I got a message from my sister, Amy that I needed to call her right away. I quickly called her back to hear the joyful news that her baby boy, Mark had just been born that morning (through a birth mother that had chosen my sister and her husband as a adpotive parents) I was elated. Cousins that were born less than 24 hours apart. For me, it felt like such a sweet tender mercy. It was such a blessing to chat often with my sister and compare notes as our babies were the same age.
And now, those baby boys are EIGHT!! So, of course, we had to go down for Mark's baptism. We drove down to Vegas on Noah's eighth birthday. We had celebrated his birthday the night before, so our only celebration was to let him pick the fast food restaurant we ate at. (Mc Donald's it was!) Amalie and Gabriel were horrors until we stopped to eat and play. After that, they snoozed. This seemed to be the theme of the trip. Two screaming and fussy children until we stopped, fed them and let them play. (At least we know what to do in the future, right?)
We arrived at my sisters house at almost midnight and were exhausted, but so grateful to be with family. It was so wonderful to see both my sisters and their families and to see my parents the following day. The next day, I just figured we were chillin' since it was the day of the baptism, but of course, I should have know Chad had something fun planned, so off we headed to the Lake bed for some dirt biking and riding ATV's. My awesome parents watched Gabriel for me and my sister's baby, Jacob as well.
Oh man, it was so fun. As a kid, I never got the opportunity to do anything like this, so now as an adult, I am just enjoying these awesome new experiences!
It was especially gratifying to watch Noah on Mark's little dirt bike- he was having a ball.
The guys had a blast!
My sister, Amy, with the little girls.
The sky was amazingly beautiful!
Amalie had a blast playing in the sand with her one month younger cousin, Abby! Another huge blessing to have little girls so close in age.
Daddy and son riding dirt bikes together!
I loved seeing my sister in her full dirt bike gear. It was just awesome, my sister is so adventurous and fun loving. She's up for anything!
My sister, Lorelle and I had fun trying out Mark's little dirt bike. It was a blast!!
Amalie got a chance to go 4-Wheeling with Dad. She loved it!
And we topped it off with a quick birthday party for Mark and Noah. They each got to make their own pizzas, open presents and then we rushed over to the Stake Center for Mark's baptism. Mark is such an awesome kid. It was such a privelege and blessing to be there. We had so much fun and were so sad that we had to leave right after the baptism. We had decided to make a trip of it and visit our families in California as well.
Brad had wanted to go in the summer, but I was insistent we visit perfect California weather in the winter, to have a respite from the Utah five months of winter! We had both been missing our families, in my case, quite desperately. And having missed our Lake Tahoe reunion with Brad's family, we just had to visit! So we headed down to California.
1 comment:
That was Amy? Woah.
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