Summer to Christmas 2011

Okay....shock of the century. I'm actually updating my blog. This is for you, Mom.

We've done a lot and been pretty dang busy over the last 6-7 months. Obviously we aren't in Okinawa anymore. The move went fairly smooth and although it seemed like our stuff was out of our possession for a long time we got it all with minimal breakage. We stopped in SLC and Buffalo to visit family on our way out to Annapolis, MD where Rob is now stationed at the Naval Academy. Here are some pics of our visits with family. This is a picture of us with Grandpa Kiser. Rob was living with Grandpa and Grandma Kiser when we met! He was also a Navy pilot who later switched over to the Air Force and retired as a full bird colonel after 33 years (also a dentist) too! Rob really looks up to him.

Visiting Grandma Kiser's grave. It's super close to several prophets gravestones and the kids had a fun time spotting them all.

Rob's dad is a representative for the State of Utah. Here the kids are voting on his behalf up at the capital building.

Visiting the planetarium with cousins

Visiting Temple Square (my old mission). I love taking my kids there.

We hiked up some canyon in the SLC valley. I can't remember the name, but it had a little creek and the kids had fun on the rocks.



Ben's hiking around the woods in my mom's backyard in NY. She gave him a leaf collecting guide/book so he spent the time matching leaves to the ones in the book.

Hamilin Park


Bonfire in the backyard with smores!

Once we got to Maryland, I put the kids on our local swim team. Best decision ever! They spent every morning swimming for one hour and had meets each Saturday. The kids were only ones that lived in our neighborhood so they recognized some faces when school started. Ben ended up being voted "Best 6 and under boy" and he relishes his trophy. They all had so much fun with kids ranging in age from 3-18 on the team.

4th of July down at the Naval Station with the ships in the background.

A little children's museum in Annapolis

When we finally got our stuff, I took the girls' annual birthday picture in my wedding dress. Kate turned 2 on June 10th and Issy turned 5 on June 1st.


In August my mom paid for the kids to attend a wicked Boys and Girls Club camp that I went to when I was their age. They had SO MUCH FUN! They were filthy muddy every day when we picked them up and literally needed to be hosed down.

We also got to meet up with my niece Rachel and spend some time with her. She is so good with the kids and they love her. She also recently got baptized into our church and it's soooooooo exciting to have another member of my family belong to our faith. She is darling!

The boys on their first day of 1st and 2nd grade

Isabella on her fist day of kindergarden (along with her brother who started the week before)

Rob and I looked out the window one day and noticed the kids had set up this "picnic" on the front lawn. A bunch of random stuff was out there, but they were having so much fun. They have really bonded together and have been getting along pretty well since there are NO neighborhood kids to play with like Okinawa. It's pretty sad actually. In Oki we could open the back door and there would be many children running around all day for hours on end. Here, everyone has tightly fenced in yards and we have retired people all around us. I feel bad for them, but they have resorted to being better friends with each other!

Noah turned 8 at the end of September and as you can tell from his abundance of gifts....he's still very into Legos. Somehow we convinced him to just hang out with us and get more presents instead of having a birthday party. Works for me!

In case you haven't heard, the real reason I haven't been blogging is that I'm pregnant with another boy and due Feb 25th. I really don't have the energy or motivation to blog. However, my picture upload speed was WAY faster this time so maybe it'll make updating easier. We'll see. Here I am about 5 months prego. This baby is measuring really big and I predict he will beat out Ben's 8 lb 12 oz (2 weeks early) and Kate's 8 lb 13 oz (1 week early).

Noah finished reading the entire Book of Mormon and we told him before he started reading that if he finished we'd give him $100. Of course, he bought Legos with it.

Here the kids are announcing that our new kid count will be "Boys-3, Girls-2" Issy wasn't very excited about that (as evidenced from the picture), but she has been the only one excited about my pregnancy. She constantly gives Matthew hugs and kisses and loves to feel him kick her. Oh, yeah....we are naming him Matthew Driggs Kiser. Driggs is Rob's mom's maiden name.

One super fun thing for us about moving to Maryland is getting to know my Uncle Dan and his family better. Uncle Dan has 8 kids (all grown) and live on a rural farm about 45 minutes from us. My cousin, Morrigan, got married this fall and my other cousin, Megan, had her first baby too. It's been fun to be a part of their family gatherings. The kids beg to go over to Uncle Dan's all the time. They have every farm animal you can pretty much imagine.

For Morrigan's wedding reception they had a pig roast with also included the slaughtering of a goat and sheep. We actually got to witness the slaughter and skinning. So fascinating! Uncle Dan even took out the lungs and blew them up to show how they work inside us. The kids were mesmorized. He made the boys two necklaces our of the goat's horns.

My cute friend Kat took these pictures for us outside her home this fall. I love experiencing autumn again! We have yet to have our first snowfall though. I guess we are just too far south.

Gettysburg is about 1.5 hours away from us and we went up there one Saturday. The kids love things about the Civil War so it was great to actually be a part of that history.