Here is a video of our garden You guys get the video cause i think i sound like an idiot, and i am only willing to share with those of you who love me no matter what!!! love ya all!!!

While it is uploading i will explain my garden k--
we have 3 yes 3 packages of beets, 2 packages of carrots, i package of radishes, 1 onion, 1/2 green onion, like 10 plants of peppers, Anahaeim, Jalapeno, green( 6 plants), and Serrano i think, i think 24 tomato plants and 2 cherry tomatoes, Honeydew, watermelon, and catalope, 2 rows of beans, 6 rows of peas, 20lb of planted potatoes--LOTS!! and 4 rows of corn. We just planted lettuce and swiss chard, and then we have pumpkins, zuchinne, yellow squash, banana squash, butternut squash, and i think that is finally it. Way to go into gardening on my own without children for slaves huh!!! Love you mom!! : ) PS i need you to come thin out everything!

Some Pictures For You To See

I'm tired and want to go to bed, but I thought I should put a couple pictures on the blog of what we've been up to the last little while.

Sometime in February or March we went to a "sugaring" farm, that's where they make maple syrup.


It was freak'n cold outside but really really warm inside where they were boiling the maple sap, that was nice.

In May we celebrated Cinco de Mayo at some friends' house where Enoch gently tapped a pinata with a plastic baseball bat.

This was an improvement from the last couple times we've introduced him to pinata's where he screams and crys for "Mamamamama!"

One day Chase and I were downstairs doing grown-up things while Enoch was busily playing with toys and wondering around the house. We noticed he had gone upstairs and became quiet. Suddenly we heard something heavy falling down the stairs, Enoch's step stool. He scooted back downstairs, picked up his step stool and set it in front of his chair. He promptly sat down and set his feet up on his stool and grinned from ear to ear.

Chase started an illegal fire in our backyard to get rid of all the dead brush we had.

Memorial Day weekend we went camping with two other couples from our ward.

We discovered that Enoch is a TOTALLY AWESOME camper/hiker. We can take him anywhere...pretty much. We hiked the highest peak in Vermont (4,195 ft.)partly in the rain and Enoch slept through most of it.

This is your retarded sister/daughter-in-law. It's actually the best picture we have of the view at the top of the mountain, so if you can look past my melodramatic heroism you'll see a beautiful view of Vermont...on a cloudy day. So these are pictures of us on hikes with friends. Enjoy!

Our Trip

Beautiful HUH!!!! Ahhh I love maddy!!!!

This is what you call a traffic jam!!!!! We laughed for a good ten muniutes after seeing this! We were on the top level of a double decker bus, which gave us a prime seat for peoples stupidity. It took them like 10 minutes to figure out how to undue this mess. Everyone had to back up and let others through then pull up to let the others through. Thank goodness for traffic lights, and wide roads in America..........I dont this i could drive in this without dieing!!! : ) This was in Paris by the way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

So i just posted on my blog a little about our trip.....i am just tell you that on here just in case you are checking this more than my blog. Love ya all!!! Here is a pic for this blog.....

Vermont Petersens

This was Chase's Birthday celebration at school.


This is Chase playing hockey.


This is Enoch wearing his "Duck Man" cape, which is actually a towel. He parades around the house in it after bath.


After receiving the chastisement of my life I felt that I should post so people know we still care.
Yup, we were graced by the presence of our matriarchal figure a few weeks ago. It was a RAD surprise, one we'll never forget and will forever be referred to when discussing cool things Mom has done in her life.
Last week Chase and I went to a furniture store, "Buck's Furniture," a name that screams class and quality. It was a one-and-a-half hour drive to Wolcott Vermont when we finally saw the big brown warehouse-like buildings. We got out of the car and while collecting our child I locked the car with the door still open (like a often do) and promptly shut the door behind us. Being the exceptionally astute person I am I immediately gasped and covered my mouth in horror as I realized I had locked the keys in the car...in the middle of nowhere. We rolled our eyes and headed for the door of the furniture store but only after passing a man dressed in a moose costume clearly in an attempt to attract customers on the lonely stretch of highway. We opened the door to a quaint, country consignment-type shop and were greeted by an electronic wax figure of an old man dressed in overalls and a straw hat. "Welcome to Buck's Furniture!" bellowed a prerecorded voice from the mechanical creature, "It may be hard to believe that over 50 years ago this store was . . ." It seemed a bit questionable but it was a furniture sale that couldn't be beat. Following our sales person through the dizzying maze of stairs, ramps and hallways we found what we were looking for, just passed the lamps whose stems were a pair of fishnet clad legs topped with a red shade (something you'd only see in "The Christmas Story,"...and Wolcott Vermont). We had accomplished what we had come for, but still had the daunting task of getting back into our car. (If you had just picked up the story at that sentence, we'd sound like a bunch of retards). Lucky for us, if medical school doesn't work out for Chase, he'll have an excellent future in the business of auto theft. He unlocked the car with a coat hanger, apparently that's all you need to break into our car, so now you know. We finalized out purchase in the customer lounge which was great, doughnuts, nachos, juice, hot chocolate that tasted like the store smelled, etc. While we were there we got two free tickets to one of the ski resorts here in Vermont, courtesy of 92.9 "The Bee." We haven't gone yet, but now I'll have a chance to compare the Vermont snow to Utah snow (Chase says there's no comparison, Utah is by far better).
Yes Vermont is beautiful but not without it's bizarre-eties

Chase White Coat Ceremony

Hello Family,

I am really getting brave and writing on our blogspot.

Last Friday, I got to surprise Chase and Missy, and flew to Vermont to be there for Chase's white coat ceremony. It was so wonderful to be there with them and darling little Enoch, even if it was just only for 24 hours. It was well worth the flight! What a beautiful place they live in, and they have just a darling little home. It is so much like Grandma Pete's home, that it made me so homesick for her. The only thing it lacked was the smell of bacon cooking! Chase took us for a neat drive and showed off Vermont. What a beautiful place they live in. The campus has such neat old buildings. I can't wait to go back to see Chase and Missy and Enoch when the trees are all green!

practice

Testing, Marci is teaching mommy.........

Hello out there??

So no one is posting on here.......for a while there were lots of postings! Is it cause i changed the background???? : )



So becuase no one else is posting i am going to re-post a picture that is on mine and Brandons blog, cause i think it is a cute picture and i pretty much love it. So here is it.....now you people start posting.


Mom i would love to see pictures of the house.......


Jake........love to hear whats up in your life.........


Luke.......well you can post on your blog and i would be happy.....i need to see pictures of your children....i miss them!


Chase.......How is school?? Busy i know so i cannot expect long ones, but an update is always nice. Also, miss my cutle ol nephew.....

You guys realize i love children and love to see them....even in picutres and movies!! : )


Marci.....your good your posting right now


Quinn......HELLO your the only one that has NEVER posted......i think we would all love to hear from you.....you should take pictures too----you, i assume, get buffer everyday!





Ok so after that i think i am done. See my blog for updates....unless you want to get after me for that, and i would be happy to post some on here.

Love you all tons!!!
Marci Kay

new look

So i gave our family's blog a face lift......if any of you hate it i will change it, but i thought the farm picture is cool. I also added my blog and Luke and Hils link to the blog so you can go directly to them. ok. bye!

Brandons Poor Face!!!

I have been asked to post pictures of Brandons face after the accident.....so sorry they are kinda gross, but i still think it was awesome to watch the Dr. stich him up......i should have been a nurse!!! But not a dental Hygenist.....i was in the room the whole time they did his two room canals and honestly i almost lost it!! I had chills the whole time.....i can take blood and guts, but a drill in the teeth is just too harsh for this girly!! This doesnt give it much justice...you can only see two of the 4 broken teeth, and the place on his lip that he got stiches is barley showing, but ya get the picture huh!!

Anyhoo here they are!!

P.S. Nice pictures for being taken by a cell phone!! Amazing how technology works!

Neat "first" for me

So.....Angelina is now 6 and had a "wiggly" tooth for about 2 days last week and she REALLY REALLY wanted to get it out. She tried and tried but to no avail. Shelly then tried and again...nada. So....she comes to me and asks me to pull it out. It was so cute! She comes over to me and said "Jake my tooth is really wiggly and me and mommy have tried to pull it out but we cant. Will you try?" So I sat down in the recliner and tried but it was really slippery! So I says to her... you know what my daddy used to do to pull out our teeth out? He used pliers!! Her mouth shut so fast i felt the wind on my face! LOL!! I had to PROMISE not to use the pliers and then she reluctantly opened back up and I tried once more...then.. POP!...out came the tooth. She was not int he least bit scared (except when I brought out the pliers or course) :) We hurried and put it in a plastic bag and she RAN to her room when we explained to her about the tooth fairy and put it under her pillow. You can guess the rest of the story, but I just thought it was neat because chances are I will not be there to pull any of Mitchells teeth let alone his first one. I really felt like a daddy that day and it was really cool!! I can see now why dad liked to pull our teeth out so much!

Love you all and can't wait to see you all this Christmas!!

Jake, Shelly and kids

Marci's Blog

Gerr i hate internet and computers. There is nothing more annoying than having to type the same message twice because cyber space choose to ruin your life for 10 minutes.
Anyway i am writing today to annouce that i have my own blog. I have friends that have blogs, and thought i would be fun to have my own, that everyone can see. I dont know how many of you know, but ours is only visable to us, chase disigned it that way i guess....which is fine, but this way my friends can see what is up with me and my life too. I am planning on posting at both, but for now i am too stinkin busy, so if you want to see what i have already posted, you can view it at http://marcikay.blogspot.com/
I love you all and cant wait till Christmas and snowmobiling. Hope you are all praying for snow so we can go SNOWmobiling and not MUDmobiling!!! : )
Love, Little sister!

Restoring Old Blue

Hello Family,

I put this together for a friend and thought that you would like to see it as well. I wish I had more pictures of the process but regretfully I was being myself and was way too caught up in getting the project done to remember to take some "in process" pictures. I am pretty proud of myself for getting some "before" pictures though. I hope that I didn't take too many liberties with dad's stories. If you have anything to add or subtract from what I wrote feel free. This is still an "in progress" story. Thanks, and I love you all very much.

Luke

Restoring “Old Blue”

I have to admit putting into words the story behind restoring my dad’s motorcycle is a bit intimidating to me. It is not a simple story but an ongoing quest for understanding. In order to portray the essence of this project I have to start from the beginning.

The story begins with a young man raised on a farm in Riverton, Utah. My dad, Craig Alan Petersen, was the youngest of 5 children. He loved working on the farm with his father and grew to be a very valuable asset to the farm. Although he was very committed to the farm, he also had a bit of a wild side, as most young men do. His greatest influence in this aspect of his life was an interesting young man named Steve Phelps who lived in one of the only other houses on the block. Steve was known for his loud voice and large belly. He was a very free spirit and a blast to hang out with. So it was not surprising that Steve had a good number of friends among the closest of which was my dad Craig. When this group of boys hit the high school scene Honda motorcycles were a huge craze, especially the new SL350 motorsport. This bike was highly advertised and wildly popular (I have heard from some that it still holds the record for the most bought and sold bike in the US). It was built to go anywhere the rider wanted to go asphalt, dirt, mud, water, rain, or shine. Dad and his friend Steve, along with a few of the other guys, bought into the craze and purchased 1971 SL350 K1s brand new off the lot.

This band of boys on power trips were living it up on their new machines. In fact, Steve, in all his free-spirited glory, even coined a snappy name for the group of bikers “Yogurt”. To this day no one can tell my how that name came about but no one really seemed too surprised to hear something so off-the-wall come from Steve. Their classmates have told me stories about how the yogurt clan would scream past the school bus on their bikes yelling “yogurt” and showing off for the girls. Then they would all get in front of the bus and slow way down delaying the school goers for considerable amounts of time. The boys would end this game by laying on the throttle and disappearing in the distance.

Dad and Steve rode the heck out of their bikes but eventually life caught up to them and circumstances led my dad into selling his machine. Steve, on the other hand kept his bike around. Although he did re-paint it once it eventually sat idle out in the back yard. One day in about 1991 when de-junking the yard Steve came across the old bike. He approached dad about getting rid of it who gladly took it off his hands. Dad took the bike to a local shop to have them get it running again. A slight tune up and new tires later he had the old yogurt machine running again. My mom recalls riding on the back of the old bike with dad when it came back from the shop.

Not long after the bike was running again dad was involved in a serious automobile accident that left him paralyzed. Old blue sat idle for another 3 or 4 years before us boys were old enough to “handle” it. One day we pulled it out and rode it around the block. Sadly, however, it had sat a little too long and was not running very well. We didn't ride it long before it would not run anymore. At that point in my life I knew nothing about motorcycles but my friends and I were determined to get it running again. All we really accomplished was tearing it apart and losing a bunch of parts. The bike then sat again gathering dust, but I never forgot about it.

The old SL350 took on greater meaning to me after dad passed away in 1998. I kicked around the idea of restoring it for years when finally the opportunity came when I enrolled in a small engine repair class here at USU in 2006. I dug the bike out from the old horse tack shed at home and hauled it up to Logan. I got a good feel for the magnitude of the project when on the way up I stopped at the Vescos Honda store in Brigham City to find a replacement for the fuel valve my friends and I lost years before. It took the parts guy 10 minutes to even find the bike model in the computer and then he informed me that most of the parts had been discontinued. A bit downhearted, I left the store and walked out to my truck with the motorcycle in the back. I stared at the bike for a little while wondering if I would ever be able to ride it again. Just then a car pulled up and an energetic kid got out and immediately said, is that an SL350? Are you going to restore it? I told him that was the plan and he assured me that it was possible and to try ebay for parts. I found his advice very useful in the days to come.

I started from ground zero restoring the motorcycle. Ever since I was little I have had this mysterious idea about motors and cars. I thought they were something that only a select few could understand. This mystery surrounding mechanics turned into almost a debilitating fear that in the past discouraged me from even trying. This time was going to be different though. I was determined to overcome this fear and I had the class to help me. In the class I learned that if a motor won’t run the problem must lie in one of three areas: spark, compression, or fuel delivery. A quick check of the bike showed that only compression was still good. I worked feverishly to get spark, chasing wires everywhere and investing in a good shop manual for the bike that included wiring diagrams. I had to buy a new battery and through a process of elimination and a bit of luck we found that the problem was in the grounding of the system. Now we had spark, but still no fuel. A deeper investigation of this problem resulted in the conclusion that the tank was so badly rusted that the fuel lines were full of rust and grime. I cleaned and lined the gas tank and purchased some carburetor rebuild kits from ebay. Soon enough I had fuel delivery and was ready to kick the engine over after nearly ten years of being idle. I can’t express how happy I was when the bike turned over. I let out a "yeehaw" in the shop that drew some pretty funny looks. Then came the hard part, deciding how far to go with the rest of the restoration.

I knew that this motorcycle meant more to me than just commuter bike or a weekend joyride so my wife and I decided that it was a project worth investing in and that I would be able to spend the money necessary to restore the bike, not to showroom condition but to a condition I could be proud of. Little did I know what I was getting into. First, I had to strip the bike down to the frame and sandblast and repaint the frame. This was scary as I didn’t know if I could put it all back together. I was surprised when it took me only a few hours to tear the bike down to the frame. I thought at that point that this was going to be a breeze. What followed was much less speedy. I worked on the bike every free moment from January 2007 until well into the summer. I set a goal of completion by the family reunion over the 4^th of July. It was a nightmare getting the right parts in but I put the final touches on the bike the night before we left for the reunion in Wayne County. This maiden voyage was such a blast. Not only did I get to show off the bike to my family but I got to put some miles on it and “break it in”. I literally did break some things but this trip enabled me to find and work out all the glitches.

I can’t explain the satisfaction it gives me to not only know that I overcame my fear of mechanicing but to sit in the seat of that bike and in a way be where dad had been 35 years ago. I wasn’t even there but I still get nostalgic about riding that bike every time I get on it. This bike was my way of reaching out to dad and of remembering him, even like being with him again and understanding more about who he was when he was closer to my age. It’s such an incredible feeling I can’t hope to explain. I joke that my brothers got tattoos to remember dad by and I rebuilt this bike. I’m not sure which caused more pain but I do think my coping mechanism was more healthy (although my wife may not agree having spent many “date nights” alone while I was working on the bike and hearing me complain about horrible nights sleep worrying about how I would fix something on the bike).

I guess I can sum up this story by saying that the Old Blue restoration project was more than just a hobby, it has become a tale of deep emotional yearning and lofty hopes coupled with a lot of determination amidst a considerable amount of uncertainty. Truly, I can say that this is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

More Movies

Enoch was Frankenstein's Monster for Halloween because of his "natural" walk.


He also had his first birthday on Tuesday the 6th but we're celebrating it on the 10th. We had him open one of his presents anyway.

He Walks!

And a little su'em-su'em for good humor. He gets it from his dad.

Vermont in the fall

This one is titled, "Autumn Seduction"

We attempted to hike to the top of 'Camel's Hump,' but it got too late, this was on the way down though. Enoch's a good little hiker ;)

Posting videos is a scary thing. I'm always afraid if I take too long writing my message, the computer will decide it doesn't want to keep that much information in it's system and throw the video out. This is why I have posted twice, to ensure y'all got to see the nonsensical video I put on. We'll get one of Enoch totteling up eventually. Until then, here's us...


We went to the Champlain Valley Fair in August and Enoch met his first live sheep. Consequently a few weeks later we went to an orchard to pick apples where he met another sheep and wasn't nearly as interested as he was in this one.

Woops, should have flipped it for you, sorry about that. We like to call this one, "Oompa-Loompa." Enoch got spaghetti for dinner and later left an orange ring around the bathtub.

This is when we went to pick apples. Actually, we just collected them. The night before there had been a pretty good storm that knocked a lot of the apples off the trees so we didn't have to pay full price for picking them.

We recently got a fancy-pants leather office chair. Chase spent all evening teaching Enoch how to put leather chairs together. I think, by the end of the night, Enoch finally figured it out.