The Portland Zoo

Last Saturday was Erika's first birthday.(Steve and Nicole's little girl.) We got up early and went to the Portland Zoo. It was so weird to go to another Zoo but it was a lot of fun. The morning started off a little chilly but the sun was out urning the morning into a beautiful fall day. The Portland Zoo is HUGE, they have so many animals including Polar Bears, Pingins, and sun bears which the Calgary Zoo doesn't have. We bought a year pass which I intend to put to good use. Usually we get to the Zoo once a year, wake up early and spend the whole day rushing around trying to see everything. Now that we have the one year past we can just go wander around for a morning or head over to see our favorite animals being feed. AJ loved being at the Zoo, he is learning all the different animal names and sounds, you should hear him try to say Zebra!!! With Aaron's busy school schedule we don't get to spend much "quality" time together, being at the Zoo was a nice treat for our family and a great chance to enjoy each others company again.

It's been quite a while since I've seen Polar Bears and I was really looking forward to it. Nicole said that their bears are really playful and active....... This is all we got out of 'em.


So here we are at the Sea Lion exhibit. I had no idea these animals where so ginormous!!! I guess I was thinking of seals but these are nothing like seals. There where two Lions the exhibit, the were super playful and loved to swim right up to the glass where the kids were. AJ kept giving them five as the swam by.


I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the naked mole rat but I saw them on planet earth (which I love!) and was so exited when I saw that the Portland Zoo had an exhibit just for them. They live underground and hardly ever open their eyes, as you can see they have no hair and since they spend all their time chewing away the dirt, their teeth sit in front of their lips. Isn't that crazy and disturbing!?!

The Zoo, like all of Portland, was full of trees and beautiful walk ways. As we walked from each exhibit to the next AJ pointed out all the leafs on the ground. AJ love the Giraffe, we couldn't get him to stop staring at them!!! Maybe he should have been a Giraffe for Halloween.

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Here we are at the tiger exhibit. The tiger was all over the place! It was so fun to see him up and moving. Usually the big cats just lay there. Here is Age doing his best Tiger face, hope it doesn't scare you to bad!

All systems Down.

Friday night was a very sad night indeed, for that was the night our computer decided to CRASH. We think we got a viruse and now it won't even turn on. we are looking into it but as of now we have no computer, which means not blog, skype, email, or facebook. Then on Sunday our truck started making this awsome new clunking noise, which sounds rather unhealthy, we are also looking into that but are kid of stranded untill we can find a good machanic. I am at Nicole's house right now and will try to keep you posted. We are still loveing POrtland and have been having lots of adventures, which I will post later. (We went to the ZOO) Love!

Together Again

Once we got back to Edmonton our first order of business was to get together with Lauren and Deanna. We have really missed them over the past few months, so we called 'em up and they invited us right over. We enjoyed the pancake breakfast Deanna had all ready for us and then let the kids play while we caught up. It's funny how easy it is to slip back into your old routines, we spent the next 3 days together and it was a blast, I almost forgot how much fun it was to have the Gundersons over. The kids were playing with this pumpkin bucket all morning, I think they just liked having their pictures taken.




Most of you know about my major fear of the dark and all things creepy. It is virtually impossible fr me to sleep until Aaron is home unless I am heavily drugged and even when he is home I get scared from time to time. I am sure you can all imagine how hard it must have been for me to spend two nights alone up in Edmonton with just the kids. It helped that they had an alarm system but I still only got like 3 hours sleep one night. After hearing my sob story Deanna insisted on staying over and I have never been more grateful to anyone. I was finally able to get some sleep and of course it was a ball!!!

Back at Grandpas

AJ was so happy to be back at Grandma and Grandpa Petersons house. His little face lit right up when he saw Grandpa coming out to the car to get him. I'm not sure who missed who more. For any of you who don't know, AJ is all about his Grandpas. Sure he loves us all, but there is no where he would rather be than hangin' with Grandpa. He calls them Buck-a-ba and he just loves spending time with them. He is especially fond of Dad since we lived with them for 2 months and also because since AJ was born Dad had come over every other day to see him. They love going for drives, watching cars on Youtube, playing with the dogs, and AJ's all time favorite game: Sit in Grandpas arms and point in directions while he walks all over trying to figure out what I want. Here are a few pictures of them out with Zo one morning.

Time in Lethbridge

After Alaina was done school on Friday we went down to Lethbridge for the wedding and the funeral. Since I had a lot on my plate Cindy's sister Wendy said that she would watch Alaina from Saturday evening until Tuesday evening. It was such a help to know that Alaina was somewhere she loved being and having a great time, just one less thing to think about for those few days. Thanks so much Wendy it really means the world to me!!!!!
Since Thanks-giving dinner was kind of non existent at Moms this year the Hill's invited us over for dinner. There were quite a few of us there and SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!!! We had a great time and as usual I ate way too much, Lynn's cooking was irresistible, and I packed away as much as my tummy would allow. Honestly it isn't thanksgiving if you don't have to at least undo the top button of your jeans!!! AJ loves Nash, I am sure it wasn't the best walk Nash ever had, but AJ could walk her around the house all day.





Monday we spent the day out in Fort Macleod. We have been missing our family so much we needed to get out there to see the Poytress crew. Lorraine had prepared a full-on thanksgiving dinner even though there were just 5 of us and AJ. I know that its a lot of work getting all that food prepared but shes such a great mom she wouldn't let us miss thanksgiving dinner. We ate until we could hardly move and then crawled to the nearest bed or couch and everyone had a little snooze. Normally we would get up and go throw rocks in the river but the wind was blowing so hard that was not an option so what did we do.....Experiments. I don't know if you have ever seen some of the science experiments on Youtube but we have and we decided to try them. First up was glow in the dark mountain due. Since this was a big failure I will not explain it to you, just know that it is not real!!! Then we tried the Diet Coke Rocket. What you do is get a 2L Diet Coke and then drop a pack of mentos in it, screw the lid on as fast as you can, and when the presser is built up you throw the bottle on the ground and it explodes into the air like a rocket. It took us 4 tries but it worked, Happy Thanksgiving!

Grandmas Funeral

So I am not really sure if you should post pictures from a funeral but I wanted to post about it so I'll just put up a few. My grandma passed away October 11th 2008, one month after her 68th birthday. She is a hero to me in so many ways and I will never forget her. Although it is hard to think that she won't be calling any more to check in or sending me cards and letters in the mail, I find great peace knowing that I will see her again one day. The day of her funeral was perfect, the winds were calm, and the weather was peaceful. We gathered together for a meet-the-family and after a beautiful family prayer we proceeded to the funeral. All the flowers were beautiful shades of purple and pink, it was no secret that grandma LOVED purple and she would have loved the all the flowers on this day!

Dustin did an amazing job on the Eulogy. The sisters helped prepare it and it really painted a perfect picture of the woman my grandmother was. After a musical number by Adam (cousin-in-law) It was my job to give a tribute to our grandma. I worked really hard on that talk and felt very satisfied with how it turned out, I considered posting a copy but most people interested in hearing it were at the funeral. Anyways, Josh gave the church talk and Jay dedicated the grave, it was beautiful and helped me find the closure I was looking for. We enjoyed sharing memories and visiting with family at the luncheon afterwards, but all good things must come to an end. It was a day my grandma would have loved and I am sure she enjoyed it from her heavenly view. It was emotionally draining and I was glad to curl up on my bed that night!
This is the first family picture since Grandma passed away. It feels sad to not have her in the picture but it truly is a blessing for the girls to still have their dad. I have seen these girls pull together to get through this tough time and take care of their dad. I feel blessed to have close siblings that will be there to weather tough situations in the future.

UP's and Downs

Today was one of the weirdest days of my life. This morning at 1:00 my Grandma finally past away, she held on for so long that we were all ready for her to pass away and be at peace, after that call it seemed that we weren't quite as ready as we thought. There always seems to be something so final and permanent about death, like you are saying your final good-byes, we however have been blessed with the knowledge of the plan of salvation, It is this knowledge that has kept me strong over the last few weeks. I love my grandma and miss her so much already! Tonight I took Grandpa home and it was just the two of us. I wasn't sure how going back to their home would be for me but as soon as I walked in, I lost it! For the first time I really sat down and let the tears pour out for my Grandma. Grandpa had been being so strong all day at the wedding and he too was ready for a good cry. He took me by the hand and together we sat on the couch and wept. After a while we started talking and reminiscing about all the things we loved about Grandma and the miracle of Eternal families. There are no words to describe the feelings I experienced as I hugged my Grandpa good-bye and left him alone in the room he has shared with his wife of 51 years. She loved to make everything around her beautiful, that room had "Gerry" written all over it. My heart broke for him as he stood alone in the door way, with tears streaming down his face, knowing tonight he will really sleep alone.
It was one of the saddest moments in my life thus far, but the time we spent together before the good-byes are mine to Cherise forever, and that makes the tuff stuff worth it!

Okay now that I am back in control of myself I can tell you about the other major up today. This morning Josh and Shayla were married for time and all eternity in the Cardston Temple. Since I forgot my temple recommend in Portland I was not able to go in the temple but I was there waiting when they came out. It was so fun to take pictures and pretend I was a photographer, snapping shots to add at the end of their slide show. The whole day went so smooth, although it was cold after last nights snowfall, the clouds made for some beautiful pictures. Here are a few of them (unedited but still cute!)