Life at the Beutler House

So where has the time gone? I realized that it has been far too long since I have posted anything and tried to think back on what has taken up our time lately. This is literally the first time in a month and a half that I have had a chance to sit and relax and think about putting something on the blog. So I will try and catch you up on our life and happenings.

First of all, since it is Christmas time, all my spare moments have been taken up making our family book. It takes me about 2 weeks to get everything from the blog into the book and formatted just the way I want. So since our Puerto Rico trip, that's what I've been doing and I finally got it done, ordered and on the way as Christmas gifts for our parents. It is one of my favorite things to make because as I look back on the past year of our life, I can't believe how much has gone on and how much the kids have grown. It's so fun for me to put it together.

Secondly, Josh started a new job this month! After 13 months of looking, interviewing and looking some more, we finally found a job that fits perfectly for our family. The company is in Midvale (so we don't have to move!) and Josh is very excited about the opportunity and the company. Most of all, he is so glad to be back to work. What a crazy year we have had with him being home with the kids and at the same time looking for a job - not an easy task. But we feel very blessed to have found this and most of all grateful for the years worth of moments that will make us always remember this time of our lives. The crazy thing about Josh taking this job now is that this happens to be the only time this whole year that I have had steady work. I have been temping all over northern Utah for the past 11 months and just happened to have 2 girls ask me to work while they are on maternity leave in December and January. So all of a sudden, I am working 4 days a week and no longer having to temp - which is awesome! So Josh started his job December 1st which was also the same time I started working the maternity leaves. We talked about it and thought long and hard about how to work it out with the kids. We always said that once Josh starts working then I would be home. But with the commitments I had made to these 2 offices, we felt like we needed to stick with it for the next 2 months and then I would be able to officially be home again full time. So thanks to our wonderful moms (Grammies), neighbors, friends, cousins and whoever else is willing to watch our kids, we have both been able to work and still have our kids taken care of during the week. Let me say that it has been exhausting. Getting the kids up and ready to be dropped off wherever they are going for the day before 7:00 when I have to leave for work, has been quite an adventure. Luckily they are always happy to be going somewhere new and playing with new kids everyday - they think it's a party! Once again, we feel like we are very blessed to have such great people around us who are willing to help us out! Our girls are amazing too and we love having a few hours to hang out at night once we are home from work.

Also a quick update on baby Liev. My official due date is February 16th - just less than 8 weeks away. I have been feeling good and have had enough energy to work full time which has been a blessing for us - this baby has made it easy on me! So I saw Dr. Smith on Wednesday for my 32 week appt. Everything is looking good and I am measuring big as I always do. He did an ultrasound this time to double check everything and said that he is averaging about 33 1/2 weeks with all his measurements. We are happy to be having a healthy boy - no need to worry about small kids in this house! I asked him if we could be induced again this time around and he said, "Yep, lets set the date!" So he pulled out his calendar and said that he can cheat by up to a week if we would like (of course we would like!) So I happily agreed and we set my induction date for Wednesday February 9th! Wahoo! Best news ever - a whole week early! So now we are on the official countdown and I really need to start getting ready for this baby. I told Josh that I feel like I haven't done anything for this boy yet - no clothes, no bedding, no nothing yet. The only thing I have been doing is stocking up on diapers and formula. Thanks to coupons and good sales, I have been able to get both for next to nothing. I feel good that we are taken care of in this department at least!

Anyway, life is good and busy this time of year. The girls are excited for Christmas to be here and hoping that Santa will find them at Grammie Beutler's house this year! Hope all is well with everyone and that this season is bringing happiness and joy to you all!

Puerto Rico - Day 8: Leaving Beautiful PR

Saturday morning we woke up to a rain - I guess they were right about the tropical storm and it rained most of the morning. We were lucky that we had a week of perfect weather and it only started to really storm on the day that we left. We spent most of the morning just packing up and cleaning the house. Mom and dad left early in one van to take Grandma and Grandpa Iverson to the airport. So the 7 of us kids squeezed all our luggage into the other van and had a full load for the drive to the airport. It actually worked out okay because we had all just brought carry-on luggage (so we didn't have to pay extra) so the suitcases fit fine in the back of our van.

We got a few pictures of the house before we left.

Justin was making fun of us girls during the week because he says we always "cheese" for every picture. So I gave him my best frown and asked if that's how he wanted us to look for the pictures. Hayley was in love with the gates on the driveways and windows on all the houses around. She got a bunch of pictures of some of her favorites. They actually were really cool and fun looking.

And we loved all the colorful houses in our neighborhood.

This was the road our house was on - Calle 2. We were cracking up at Caleb because everytime he'd get out of the van or come outside from the house, his glasses fogged up. On our way out of town, Josh was nice enough to stop and let Hayley and I get a picture of our favorite trees. These "flat trees" as we called them were along one of the roads that led to our house - so we passed them at least 25 times during the week. We thought they were awesome cause they were flat tops.

This is the map that our car used for the week. We were not fortunate enough to have a GPS in our car, but we managed just fine with our little map.

We loved these flags along one of the bridges headed to the airport. Every other one was an American flag and then a Puerto Rican flag.

We stopped at a gas station to fill up on our way to the airport. Garrett ran inside and grabbed a few treats to share with everyone. He says these little hippos were one of his favorite snacks on the mission. He bought some for everyone and we snacked on them while we were waiting for the plane.

Dad was acting very excited to try his treat. In reality they are really delicious!

Garrett also tried to get us to taste this drink "Malta." I smelled it and decided that I was not even going to taste it. I don't think anyone else did either.

It was bittersweet as we were boarding the plane to leave beautiful PR behind. We had a fantastic trip and loved all the moments and memories we made. But one the other hand, we were headed home to see our girls - and that made me more excited than anything!

Thanks to Garrett for serving a great mission and allowing us to share in his home of the past 2 years. And thanks to the family for a great time and great memories that will last forever!

And that's our trip, in a nutshell!

Puerto Rico - Day 7: Bio Bay

Our last full day in Puerto Rico. Josh and dad were supposed to go scuba diving on Friday morning but they woke up and found out that all the scuba diving on the island had been cancelled due to a tropical storm in the area. We didn't notice any extra rain or storminess but the scuba companies said that the waves were much bigger and the visibility was not great. So after a week of waiting to scuba dive, it ended up that they weren't even able to go. They were disappointed but I guess we can't control the weather! I woke up and thought that Josh would be gone diving but instead found most of the group down at the beach. Mom, dad and Hayley were collecting shells.

They also had taken some crazy pictures of these little mussels hanging on to everything they could find. Interesting!

Josh collected these shells for Rease. He knew she would love them because they were mostly pink. So we washed them and put them in a clear jar for her so she could see all the pretty pink shells we collected in Puerto Rico.

So change of plans once again. Dad called the zipline company and found out that they had some openings for that day, so he and Garrett decided to do that. The rest of us decided on Plaza Las Americas - a big mall in San Juan that we heard was worth going to. So dad and Garrett went one way and we went another and planned on meeting back at the house later on that afternoon. We all loaded into the van and "punched the address into the GPS" to get to the mall and Josh reminded us again that we will "never need a map again!" On the way up we took turns choosing songs to listen to on the i-pod. (We do this with our girls when we have a long drive ahead of us in the car. It seems to pass the time quickly.) Out of all the songs to choose from on our i-pod, I was amazed at the selection that was brought out. These are some of the songs we listened to:

Chris Brown - Forever

Jay Sean - Down

Owl City - Fireflies

Tracy Chapman - Fast Car

PM Dawn - I'd die without you

O Town - All or Nothing

Justin Timberlake - What goes around comes around

Blessid Union of Souls - I Believe

Quite the selection I must say! And some that I haven't listened to in years!

The mall ended up being nothing more than any mall we have here in the US and it was much more confusing than I would have liked. We kept getting turned around and it took forever to find the food court! Anyway, Josh ended up getting some nice, cheap ties and I got a pair of earrings. We also got a nice handmade wood bowl to take back to Josh's parents. It was a nice day to just do nothing.

We headed back to the house after spending a few hours at the mall. We got stuck in traffic for a while - rush hour I guess. The Oldies had us over again for a barbecue. We had hamburgers and chicken again as they were trying to get rid of leftovers before we all packed up to leave the next morning. They were just finishing up a game of Poker when we got there, so Josh took charge of the bbq and cooked up the burgers - they were delicious! We snapped a couple pictures of the Oldies, since we didn't have many of them from the rest of the week.

Garrett caught a gecko and showed us a trick that he learned on his mission. He held onto the gecko's cheeks until he opened his mouth and then let him bite on his ear. The poor little guy was hanging on for dear life! He would not let go!

We left the Oldies house and headed to Fajardo for one last adventure. We had heard that while in Puerto Rico we had to go to one of the Bio Bays. There is one in Vieques and one in Fajardo, so we chose Fajardo since it was closer. The Bio Bay is a bay that supposedly glows in the dark. We didn't quite know what to expect but were excited to see what it was like. We had called the day before to get reservations on the kayak tour and found out the they wouldn't let anyone pregnant or with heart problems on the kayaks, so Steph and I got onto an electric boat tour. The rest of the group rented the kayaks. Our tour left at 8:00 and the kayakers were just about a half hour behind us. It wasn't raining when we got on the boat, but our tour guide promptly handed all of us ponchos because he knew it was coming. We ended up needing them so I'm glad they thought ahead for us!

We had a fantastic tour. I'm not sure of all the details exactly, but I will do my best to explain how the water glows. First of all there are only 5 places in the whole world that this happens - 2 are in Puerto Rico and the other 3 are in other places in the Carribbean. There is a single-celled organism in the water that performs photosynthesis during the day and then at night when it is agitated, it releases the stored energy by glowing. So whenever fish swim or jump, you can see a glowing path in the water where the fish is disturbing this bacteria. Or when it would start to rain, the drops of rain hitting the water would make little glowing drops as it agitates the organisms. It's hard to explain but basically, any time there is disturbance in the water, it glows. So our guide took us through a channel that was covered by trees and then out into this huge lagoon. Once we were in the lagoon, he handed us paddles to put into the water and watch the water glow as we drove around. It was seriously amazing. He would then hit the side of the boat and we would see millions of shrimp, sardines, fish, etc. scatter and make little glowing paths as they swam away. We could not get enough! He told us that there are lots of fish that live in the lagoon: puffer fish, stingrays, shrimp, tuna, small baracuda to name a few. I'm not sure which fish we actually saw, but there were fish jumping all over the place and we drove around the lagoon a couple of times. We had our hands in the water too and could watch the water glowing in our hands for a few seconds. It was truly amazing.

Our guide helped me set the camera to the right setting to be able to get a few pictures of the glowing water. I wish that the pictures did it justice, but it was just so much more than these pics will show. Anyway, this is all we have so enjoy.

Steph was holding the paddle in the water as we drove and you can see the blue glowing light behind it.

This is the same thing but we were in a spot that the water glowed a little more than other spots - you can see the blue light is much brighter.

This is my favorite picture I got because you can see the city in the background and then the glowing water right by the boat.

We loved every second of it! Our tour ended up being about an hour and half and just as we were leaving the lagoon, the rain started. It rained hard on us all the way back to the dock. Just as we were going back through the channel we passed the rest of our group on their kayaks. I remember thinking that I felt bad for them that they would be in the rain the whole time. Steph and I couldn't have been happier that we had our ponchos keeping our cameras, bags and clothes all dry!

So after the rest of the group got back, they told us about their tour. They ended up leaving later than they thought because the kayakers before them didn't get back on time. So they were leaving just as it started to rain. But, unlike our tour, they did not get ponchos or anything to keep dry. In fact, they were told to not take anything that was not waterproof: cameras, watches, phones, etc. So they weren't able to get any pictures of them on their tour or any of the glowing water. (I'm glad that we could get a couple since they weren't able to.)

Also opposite of us, they didn't mind the rain and Hayley said it was actually more fun because they were already wet and didn't have to worry about tipping over in the kayaks because they were soaked from the beginning. The tour guides took a few pictures of each of the kayakers. Garret and Justin were together.

Dad and Josh.

And Hayley and Caleb in the third. Hayley said that dad and Josh's kayak was sunk in the water much more than theirs was - there's a little bit of weight difference there!

They told a similar story about how amazing the water was and how much fun they had letting the glowing water drip down their hands and arms. They also said that all got into kayak tipping wars and water fights out in the lagoon - which would be amazing as all the water going back and forth between kayaks would glow! They spent a good amount of time in the lagoon as well and said they loved every second of it.

We got a picture of them and their tour guide after they got back to shore.

We all agreed that this was probably our favorite part of the trip and was a great way to end a fabulous vacation!

Puerto Rico - Day 6: El Yunque

We all slept in a little bit on Thursday. When I got up I snapped a couple pictures of some of the lovely people in our house.

Mom - looking good this morning.

Don't you love the bedhead and sleepy eyes on everyone?
Anyway, we woke up and had breakfast and dad was still undecided on what to do the rest of the day. We went over the options again: zipline - called and it ended up being full for the day already, Scuba diving - full until tomorrow morning. By default we chose to do the rainforest El Yunque. Mom decided to go back to the Market in San Juan with the Oldies, so she left and the rest of us gathered our stuff together to head to the rainforest. We lingered around the house for a little while and finally loaded into the vans to leave. Drove up north by way of Fajardo which was an area that Garrett served in. He wanted to stop at his old apartment and get some things that he left. So we stopped and saw where he lived and also met the missionaries that are in the area now. By then it was lunchtime, so we stopped at a little panaderia in the neighborhood. We ate sandwiches and rice and beans - the rice and beans were good but the sandwiches weren't great. But we were full and ready to finally get on the road.

We left the bakery and finally were on our way. Just before we got onto the freeway outside of Fajardo, we were stopped at a stoplight. All of a sudden we saw a man in a motorized wheelchair putt through the intersection, just like he was another car. He was much slower than the cars, but he did make it through before our light turned green. It was hilarious. Hayley grabbed her camera at the last second and snapped a quick picture of him. We didn't know she had her camera out until she proclaimed "got him!" from the backseat. She was so proud that she got him on camera!

On the road again. We came upon a semi that was carrying a large cement beam of some sort. The crazy part about the truck, wasn't that it was carrying such a large load, but was the fact that it had two drivers. One in the cab driving the truck itself...

and one in the back driving the rear end. Crazy! We had to slow down to get these pictures and this guy kept looking at us like we were stupid. But we got our picture and waved to him as we drove off.

We finally made it to El Yunque. It was beautiful. We climbed up a tower and were able to look over the whole rainforest. You can see the rainclouds in the background - it rained basically everyday that were there but didn't ever last more than 10 or 15 minutes. So we weren't worried about getting wet.

The main reason we went to El Yunque was to hike down to a waterfall that Garrett had been to a couple of times. He said it was worth the hike and he was excited to be able to swim in the water once we got there. This is us just waiting to start our hike.

On the trailhead.

The view from everywhere looked like this - green and full of trees, bushes, flowers, you name it. I guess that's why it's called a rainforest.

Hayley said I looked like a true tourist with my backpack and camera.

The hike was only about a mile long so it wasn't too hard. And it was gorgeous along the way, so it made it very enjoyable for all of us.

About halfway down, it did start to rain. We found this little shelter not too far from where we were and stopped in for a rest from the storm. Luckily I had a few decks of cards in my bag and we were able to take advantage of the 15 minutes we were waiting for the rain to pass and play scum.

We saw a wide variety of flowers and plants along the hike. So pretty!

We made it to the waterfall and were not disappointed. We were hot and tired after our hike and ready to get into the water. Justin was the first one in.

And the rest of the boys were not far behind.

Everyone got behind the waterfall for a quick picture. The water was cold, but it felt really good once we got in.

Justin was trying to get Steph and I to get in. I stopped taking pictures and got in, but Steph wasn't feeling great so she took over the picture taking and stayed on the shore.

It was so fun a refreshing to spend time in the water. I did not want to leave.

But we had a mile hike back out so we finally got out of the water and packed up to leave. The hike out was harder than the hike it because going out it was all uphill and upstairs. It took us longer, especially with 2 pregnant girls in the group. But we made it and felt good about our day in the rainforest.

This is another waterfall we stopped at as we were driving back home. El Yunque was one of my favorite parts of the trip!

Hayley loved the colorful freeway barriers all over in Puerto Rico.

We got home and the Oldies had us over for a barbecue of hamburgers and chicken. Dad and Garrett left not too long after that to go visit a couple more families in the area.

Josh, Caleb, Hayley, Steph and I took a late night run to Coldstone - it was about 20 minutes from our house, but we were having an ice cream craving so we decided it was worth it. They had the regular flavors we have here but also a few of their own creations: Cookie batter was the most different. You would think it tastes like cookie dough, but it doesn't. It wasn't very good and after tasting a few, Josh and I ended up getting our original - sweet cream with brownies and caramel.

We got back and dad and Garrett were home so we started in on a card game we call "3's." We ate oreos and orange juice (not like we hadn't eaten enough that day.)

In the middle of our game, Hayley got up to go to the bathroom and realized the door wouldn't open. She first thought that someone was in there but then noticed that the light wasn't on. Earlier that day, our curtain rod had fallen down and we put it back up before we left for the rainforest. When Hayley called us in to open the bathroom door, we realized that the curtain rod had fallen down again and was now trapping the door shut. What are the odds? So we started in on a long process of figuring out how to get the door open.

First thing, we opened it just enough to reach a hanger in there and flip the light on. That helped so that we could look underneath the door and at least see where the rod was.

Hayley came up with the idea of sliding a knife underneath the door and moving the rod over just enough to get the door past it. That ended up being what worked, but not until we worked on it for a good 10-15 minutes. Finally she got it and the door was opened. Victory!

This is the culprit of the door locking mess.

We went back to our game and Josh and dad each won a hand.

Day 6 was a great day filled with fun and adventure!