Benjamin's Blessing, etc.

I just wanted to post some pictures of Benjamin. There's one from his blessing, one with Dallin (they look so much alike--Benjamin's on the right), one with him curled up in bed with Clarke, and one where he fell asleep on Dad.

Okay, is there a limit on how many post you can send in a day. Here's the rest of the pictures I wanted to send.

The first time I tried the pictures it didn't work so will try again. They are various pictures of our Alaskaan Cruise with us cruising the the Hubbard Glacier which was awesome.

Okay, this has been on my to do list for awhile and now it is actually near the top of the list. I am busy as usual. Wonder where all that time goes that I thought that I would have when everyone left home I have several projects going all at once. I am hoping to have them done by Christmas, Well we will see. I have been going through all the books. I am done with the kids books and the teen books and hope to have time to do the adult books soon. I have my 3 boxes, one for recycle books in Denton, one for 1/2 price books (those right off I know that recycle books won't take), and two so far to ask you guys if you want. So I am hoping to type the list up today but may not get done before we need to go to the temple. Scott, I know why you have BYU. I hadn't been on this this blog for so long I had a lot of reading to do but it was fun to see the pictures from everyone. I am going to see if I can do that.

Benjamin is here...

I know everyone probably has been to our blog to see the pictures of Benjamin, but here are a few new ones since we've been home. He is now 4 days old and as cute as ever.

Karen Donates Her Hair

Karen had been thinking about it for a while, so she went for it. She cut off ten inches of her red hair to donate to Locks of Love. Her hair will be used to make wigs for people in need, especially cancer patients who lost their beautiful red hair to treatment. -Kevin

Arielle's first day of Kindergarten

Arielle was excited to go to the "big school," more so than mommy. After three weeks, she's learning how to read and write and loves meeting new friends.

We like BYU!!! Do you?

We have had a busy summer full of visits from friends and family. School starts soon and we are gearing up for that. Amber will be teaching a pe and music class along with a class for adults. Mark is working on a few classes for his masters and a professional class. The kids have been doing swimming lessons and have dramatically improved in a short time. Lydia has done a few other fun things like snorkeling and making new friends. Connor has been on a quest to read as many books as possible. Logan will be starting preschool with his best bud Ethan. Brennan is busy crawling, pulling up on the couch and generally terrorizing the house as most 8 month olds do. He has two teeth and loves to eat. We will post pictures later...and challenge everyone to post a picture or two about your summer adventures...and new babies! Scott, on with the story!

Hey, I had the last post, and we just started our own blog with the latest update on us, but I want to know why you hate BYU, so I will write something. Clarke starts the new semester on Monday. I have taken advantage of all his free time these past three weeks by making him clean and organize the apartment with me. Well, I did leave him some time to himself to relax. We went and saw a few movies--Mamma Mia and Batman. We enjoyed them both although it was weird to see Peirce Brosnan singing in Mamma Mia. We have everything ready for the baby to come. We even have the base to our carseat in the car, and my bag is packed for the hospital. We're ready whenever he wants to come; It would be nice and convenient if he decided to enter the world on a weekend though since Clarke will be in school:) I'm shooting for Labor Day weekend, but I'm not due until 10 days after Labor Day. So, as you see, our lives are consumed with waiting for baby right now, and starting next week, school. We'll keep you posted on any baby news.

I Hate BYU

I figured I'd use a provocative title to get this blog going again. In order to hear the story about why I hate BYU you need post something to this blog. Trust me it is a good story.

It's a boy!

We've finally determined we're going to have a little Benjamin Franklin Farrer. The echo tech at the hospital where I work did an ultrasound last week for me, and the kid actually cooperated. Clarke and I have done some travelling recently. First, we went to Utah for his sister's wedding at the Manti temple. We also got to see his brother's five day old baby boy. Clarke loved holding his little nephew and can't wait to hold his own little baby. Right now, I'm having fun getting kicked in the ribs. I can no longer wear my wedding ring, and my ankles swell up frequently. I'm not quite ready to have the baby yet, but give me another month of this hot weather, and I'm sure I'll change my mind. We were in Dallas this last weekend for Fathers' Day and Clarke's sister's wedding reception. The only other trip we plan on taking is 4th of July weekend up to Dallas. We always enjoy getting out of town.

Yosemite & Sequoia

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Sequoia and Yosemite. Visit our blog at mitfamilynews for more pictures and description of the trip.

My Vacation in the WEst

I recently got back from my trip out west. It was a vacation I needed. I was able to go with Mom and Dad and Eric to our cousin Alan’s wedding. I enjoyed seeing Grandma and Grandpa and uncles, aunts, and cousins I haven’t seen in over three years. Unfortunately, I kept getting asked when I was graduating. Before we dropped Eric of at the MTC we went to Temple Square and BYU campus. Of course I had to drag everyone to a few museums. Eric wasn’t too happy, but what else was he going to do, read his scriptures. He had been set apart Thursday, we all got to Utah on Friday, and he did not enter to MTC until Wednesday. I was impressed by how he tried his hardest to live like a missionary. We even tried to get him to take off his suit coat jacket to know avail. It was fun taking Eric to the MTC. He was the only sibling I dropped off at the MTC. They still showed the exact video that they showed when I entered the MTC. I also enjoyed spending the week with Jeff, Lisa, Macay, and Kyla in Idaho Falls. I know, I know I need to visit San Diego sometime. It rained every day I was in Idaho Falls except on Sunday, when I went with Jeff and Lisa to their interesting ward you should ask them about it sometime. When we went to the zoo it started to rain right after we paid. I think Macay liked it better in the rain. Despite the rain, I played disc golf with Jeff two and a half times. I enjoyed playing with Macay and Kyla but was getting tired of pony rides near the end. Even though I have lived in Missouri for 6 years, it was weird during my trip to be introduced as being from Missouri. I am back in Missouri and finally have my car back. I start a job grading state assessment tests, like TAAS, on Monday. The vacation’s over.

Father & Sons

This past weekend Connor, Logan and I went camping for Father's and Sons. Our friends Jason and Anne were spending their last night before Jason's deployment at a hotel without kids, so I took their 4 yr old son Garrett with us and Amber watched their 6 yr old daughter Ellen. It promised to be a scorcher with temps predicted in the 100s, but it really didn't feel that bad. We were in the shade most of the time and didn't really notice the heat. We got their at about 5 and pitched the 2 man dome tent inherited from Amber's father. I have a newer tent, but it is a large one for the whole family and I didn't want it to pack it around. We won't be using this tent anymore though. two of the poles are broken and the tent ended up leaning at a weird angle. It was fine for 1 man and three boys, though I did have to line everyone up outside to come in one at a time to put on jammies and assign them a spot. We were one of the few that actually cooked a dinner instead of stopping for Subway, so we had a nice meal of barbecued hot dogs, bratwurst and the traditional Smores to finish it off. I think the boys preferred burning the marshmellows to eating the Smores! I did get a good tip for future camping ... glow sticks! One of the fathers brought some and gave them all to the kids to play with. It let you know where the kids were in the dark and they had a blast. In the morning we had breakfast cooked up by the bishopric and packed up and left. We had a good time and of course the kids got really dirty!!

My trip to Chicago

This past week I was able to go to Chicago for some leadership training. The training started Monday at noon. So I had to fly in on Sunday. Since I was leaving Sundy, we started celebrating Mother's day Saturday. Sunday there were a few windy storms in Chicago, so my flight from Salt Lake was delayed. With fuel costing so much, instead of circling till the plane can land, they are now delaying the plane from leaving the airport. So it was very late when I arrived in Chicago. The train throughout the week was very informative. After the training, some of the nights I went walking around the city. I have included a few pictures.

These first four pictures were taken at millenium park.

Well, I was having problems getting the pictures on my last post, so I will try again with this one. As most of you have probably heard, we had our ultrasound this last week. Unfortunately, Baby was being shy, so we still don't know the gender. Hopefully at my next appointment, it will have moved to a different position. Today we went and registered at Target. We didn't really know what type of things we really needed or wanted, so we probably ended up with a lot of random stuff on there. It was also difficult not knowing the gender. There are only so many yellow and green things. It was fun nonetheless. Well, Clarke is done with the semester and has the rest of May to relax until summer term starts. It's been nice having time to spend with each other. Hopefully our next big news will be the gender of our baby.

Hopefully, I am doing this right. I once had to blog to get more hours for the required amount for my laptop at school and I hated it but should be better with just family. Right! Since I am feeling over whelmed right now and going to be gone a week I thought maybe I should put something on it. Today at school was crazy. Everything that could go wrong with my computers did. So much for having an organized lesson today with my 6 graders. Well, I actually need to go do more things on my list. love, shauna

Clarke & Bethany Farrer

I have included some pictures of my growing baby (or belly rather). We find out Wednesday, May 14th what the gender is (if the baby cooperates). We are excited to finally be pregnant after 1 1/2 years of trying. We just made our first big purchase of baby things (crib, cradle, child's rocking chair, and changing table set) at a yard sale. It will take some rearranging of our little apartment to accommodate baby, but we welcome the rearrangement (of things and life). We still have not decided if I will work after baby is born (most likely yes, but part-time). Clarke is about 2 years away from his degree in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism and continues to work at FedEx. This summer he is taking a Spanish class (he's never taken a language class, even in high school, but he has to have had two to graduate from A&M), or rather 2 beginning classes. We will be flying to Utah for Clarke's sister's wedding June 6th then be back in Dallas June 14th for her reception. We went camping a few weeks ago at Lake Bryan (20 minutes from our house), which was fun even being pregnant. Our lives are busy, but we are enjoying it. Happy Mother's Day to all the women in the family!

Clarke & Bethany

Jeff, Lisa, Macay, and Kyla

Even though up untill a month ago I was against Blogging, I think this is a good idea.

Few weeks ago, We went up to Bear Word. It is located just south of Rexburg. The weekend we went they were having a deal on the bear feeding tour. On the tour, you ride on the back of a truck that puts you about 14 feet above the ground. At certain spots, the truck stops and you are given food to throw to the bears. We handed the food to the girls before we got to the bears, but they thought it was for them and started eating it. I decided I needed to hang on to it untill it was time to feed the bears. Below are some pictures I took of the bears. I also have video, but I took it with my phone and can figure out how to play it on the computer.

We have also started yard saling again. Iusually work Saturdays, but I have gotten a few off the last couple of weeks. Here the newspaper puts toegether a map of all of the yard sales. It makes it alot easier to find all of them.

welcome to the blog

With the family becoming so spread out, I felt it would be nice to have a family blog, so here it is. This is my first experience making a blog, so please help me with it. I know some of you participate in other blogs, or have your own blogs; if so, you can post links to those blogs that have information about family members. I know we are all busy, but it would help keep the blog going if we all post something to it a month, even if it is only posting a few pictures. Eric, of course, is exempt from this.

To start things off I with share the story of my transmission. It is a tale of woe and frustration. I got my transmission rebuilt in Dallas in January when I was home over break. At the end of March I was on my way to Springfield, Illinois for a date, which is a story for another time even though many of you are probably more interested in that story, when my transmission started acting up. I made it to Springfield, and when I went to leave, my car would not go in reverse. Luckily, I was able to put my car in neutral, push it out, and then put it in drive. I somehow made it home and took it to an auto shop a few days later. Because the transmission was under warranty, I had to have the auto shop here take out my transmission and ship it to Dallas, where the shop where I had my transmission rebuilt rebuilt it again and sent it back. It is now May, and I still don't have my car back. Right now my transmission is in transit from Dallas. It took over two weeks for my transmission to get to Dallas because the shipping company accidentally shipped it to Chicago, then St. Louis, anywhere but Dallas. I hope to get my car back by my birthday, but it does not seem likely. Speaking of my birthday, it is this Wednesday, May 7, and I am expecting phone calls from all of you. I do not teach Wed. so call any time.

Love,

Scott