♥ Sherri & Doug ♥

Quick Family Update (I know, it's about time)

2011-02-13T06:51:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I am really horrible at this blog stuff.

Calli and Casey and her little family are doing great. Casey will be returning home from Afghanistan soon. We look forward to having him back home. He has been missed.

Jacob has about nine months left in France. Not that I am counting down or anything. He is really loving his mission experience and all that he is able to do there.

Brittany has graduated Cosmetology School and has passed all of her State Boards. She has found employment at a local salon and loves her work. We are so proud of her.

Becca has graduated from college with her nursing degree and is working at a local hospital. She doing great and we are so proud of her.

Kendra will graduated this Spring with her teaching degree. She will be an amazing school teacher. She loves working with the children.

Josie got married. She married Jared in the Fall. They are working hard to make a life together. Josie is also going to college.

Our children are amazing.

Doug and I our looking at selling our home and building another one. We have found a beautiful floor plan and can't wait to get started on it. We are hoping that we will be able to get moved in in October, right before Jake returns from his mission.

So that is what we have been up too.

Family Update...

2010-01-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

Wow, so Elder Jake Porter has arrived safely in the mission field. He is serving in the Belgium Brussels/The Netherlands Mission. He arrived on Tuesday, January 19, 2010. I can't believe it. He spent the last 9 weeks at the MTC, in Provo, Utah. He has learned the French language and has had many amazing experiences. He was able to serve as the District Leader for the last few weeks that he was there. He has been able to meet some amazing people. We are so excited for him. I was able to speak with him for a while monday afternoon from the Atlanta, Georgia Airport. It was great to hear his voice again and just talk to him. I have missed him so much. I know that he is in the Lords hands now and that all will be well with him. He is an amazing young man and will be an amazing missionary. We can't wait to hear from him.

Josie has moved in with us for a time. We have had a lot of fun spending time with her. She is working at Big 5 Sports in American Fork. She has decided to postpone her college for a little while.

Brittany is still going to the MATC Cosmetology School. She is really having a lot of fun learning about color and cuts and everything else. She does a great job and is taking appointments now. She is also still finishing her high school credits and is on schedule to graduate this spring. She is very excited about that. She has been attending early morning Seminary and has enjoyed seeing some of her old friends again. She is still working as youth counselor for the Special Needs Young Womens in Lehi. She has really enjoyed the friendships that she has made there. She is so busy. We are very proud of her for how well she is handling all the pressure.

Calli and Casey are getting ready for his deployment. They have been packing and trying to get things in order. We wish the best for them. Natalie has gotten her first tooth. She is so amazing. She is growing so fast. She is walking around furniture already. We love her so much.

Doug and I are doing great. We are amazed with our family. We feel so blessed.

Major Post

2009-11-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have to say that I am the worst blogger ever.

So here is what has been going on in our world.

May brought a new addition to our family. Calli and Casey had a beautiful baby girl.
She is amazing and just a joy to have. She wakes me and Grandpa Doug up every morning with her amazing smile. We get to babysit her while her mom and dad are at work. She just celebrated her six month mark on Sunday.

Jacob has been getting ready for his mission. He received a call to the Belgium, Brussels, The Netherlands mission. He has been very busy working and getting ready for this. He leaves next week. He can't wait.

Josie graduated High School and moved back to Utah to attend college at Utah State. She is really enjoying college life and being so close to family. It is great to have her here. Go Aggies.

Brittany started Cosmetology College and is loving it. She really joys doing make-up and color. She has started working in the schools salon and is staying very busy. She is still working on getting her high school credits finished. She will graduate with her class this coming spring and then graduate from beauty college at the end of the summer. Great job Britt.

Doug and I have been working hard. We had another awesome garden this year. I wasn't able to bottle as much as I wanted because I had a bunnion removed. That was not fun at all. We went to New England this fall with Brad and Laura. We met up with Mark and Kat for a day also. We had a great time, enjoying the fall weather and all the wonderful history. We decided that a week was not long enough to see all that we wanted to see.

Doug...

2009-01-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

1. Where did you meet your husband? We were set up on a blind date by his sister. Neither of us wanted to go but I think we are both happy at how it ended up.

2. How long did you date before you got married? We started dating in February 2003 and were married in October 2003. I guess that makes it eight months. Wow, that is pretty quick.

3. How long have you been married? We have been married for five and a half wonderful years.

4. What does he do to surprise you? He sneaks up behind me and grabs my ribs. Just kidding. He does a lot of things that surprise me. If he sees a need somewhere he just takes care if it. It amazes me how great of a man he is.

5. What is your favorite physical feature of his? Well, he has really nice thighs. And I love his hands.

6.What is your favorite quality? He has a gentleness about him that is just wonderful.

7. Does he have a nickname for you? Babe.

8. What is his favorite food? His favorite food is Japanese Curry. He served a mission in Japan and learned to make it there. Soon after we were married he showed me how to make it.

9. What is his favorite sport? His favorite sport is martial arts. He has his black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

10. When and where did you first kiss? He kissed me the first time in his driveway, August 2003. We were saying goodnight after a date and I asked him for a hug. He kissed me. I cried the whole drive home because I thought that would mess everything up. We wouldn't be able to be friends anymore. I'm okay with it now.

11. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? I love it when he takes me on a date and we go to the temple and then to dinner. We also do martial arts together. And we travel together. It is all good.

12. Do you have children? We have children. I have three and a son-in-law. He has four. It is always fun when the family is all together.

13. Does he have any hidden talents? He can play the accordian. I think he wants to keep that one hidden.

14. How old is he? He is 48 right now.

15. Who said I love you first? I did. I was very surprised when I said it but he said he liked to here that. So I kept saying it. It just felt very natural to say. This was about two weeks after the first kiss. I guess I decided it wasn't going to mess up our friendship after all.

16. What is his favorite music? He is a big fan of "The Moody Blues". He likes the classic rock.

17. What do you admire most about him? He is very patient. I'm not as patient as he is.

18. What is his favorite color? I'm not sure about this one. I think blue but that is just a guess. I should find out I guess.

19. Will he read this? Probably, I'm sending him the link.

20. People I tag...I just found out what this means. I think everyone should do this. My daughter made me.

Mega Post

2009-01-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it has been a long time since I have updated our blog. Even Doug has asked me when I was planning on updating it.

I spent most of the month of November in Baltimore, Maryland helping my sister Andrea. She had a beautiful baby girl named Zoee. We had a great time getting ready for the baby. The day she went into labor, we were at a karate tournament. Everyone around us thought she was crazy for staying. Then we went to a baby shower that her daughter Lindsay was throwing her. We didn't stay real long for that because the contractions were getting really bad. She was in labor all night long and had Zoee the next morning. It was so fun to be there for that. I miss them all.

I had to be back home the week of Thanksgiving because I was having everyone come to our house this year. We had turkey and all the trimmings. It was wonderful. Doug has never thought my Lemon Merngue Pies were tart enough so this year I doubled the amount of lemon and lemon zest that I put in them. He took a bite and puckered. He decided that they were more lemony than a lemon. We had a good laugh and decided that next if I half the the lemon it should be good enough. Too fun.

Christmas was great. We had all of our kids at the house. We ended up getting a lot of snow right before Christmas so everbody decided it was a good time to build a snowman. It ended up being about thirteen feet tall. It was huge. We named him "Rico" bcause the bucket that we used to get the snow to build the top was carried in an old rice bucket but it looked like it said Rico. So there you go. Brittany sacrificed her old green comb for the mustache and we used lemons for the eyes and carrots for the wicked eyebrows. He is very scarey.

We spent Christmas Eve at my dad's house. He has a big prime rib dinner every year that we wouldn't miss for anything. All of the kids got to open one gift, jammies. I ended up making 9 pairs of jammy pants. Doug is beginning to think that is a tradition that needs to end but I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I was sewwing jammies before Christmas. Maybe in a year or two when all of the kids have graduated high school I'll stop. We'll see.

Christmas morning we got up and had a nice breakfast of ham and sweet rolls. My mom came over to spend the morning with us. We opened presents and were just settling down for a long winters nap when Brittany handed each of us another gift. She got up and announced that this gift was in honor of Doug and explained that he has done so much for each of us and has been such an awesome example. She said that she wanted to do something to show him how much we all love and appreciate him. We unwrapped our gifts and found a nerf gun that was loaded and ready to go. Doug's gun, on the other hand, was still in the package. He was very confused as to why we were able to shoot him so quickly. After we got him. She explained that she had been shot randomly by Doug a few times with an old nerf gun he had found. The same with the rest of us. She thought it would be funny to get him back. We laughed alot. It was great fun.

We hope that everyone had a great Holiday Season. We love you all. Happy New Year.

September...

2008-09-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

So September first Sherri celebrated her 40th birthday. Brittany and Doug (mostly Brittany) threw her a huge surprise party. Some of her friends from High School even came. It was so much fun to see everybody.

Calli and Casey had a huge surprise. They gave her a card that said "Happy Birthday Grandma! Sherri was in shock. She laughed and cried and then started thinking of all the fun shopping trips. Very cool. She can't wait!

July...

2008-08-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

We have had a great month.

Calli and Casey were able to go through the Manti Temple on July 5th. That was the coolest thing. They both looked so happy. It was so neat to be able to be a part of that. That is like the best pay off for being a parent.

Jacob was bucked off a horse and had to have surgery on his wrist on the 15th. He is doing very well and was proud of the fact that it took the horse 8 tries at bucking him off before he got hurt. He is enjoying his bright pink cast (not).

Brittany survived color guard camp on the 28th to the 31st. She is really having fun with the marching band and the attractive boys.

The girls arrived from Missouri on the 23rd late in the evening. We just let them sleep after many hugs. They were so tired after driving straight through. The next day we left for the cabin. Grandma and Grandpa were there. We had a lot of fun playing games and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. We helped Grandma work on a puzzle too. The next day we headed home, packed lunches and headed up to the Timpanogos Cave. We would have had to wait for a couple of hours to be able to do the hike with the size of group we had. So we went to see batman instead.

That evening we went to the Kennecott Copper Mines. That is one big hole. We came home and had foil dinners and orange cakes around the fire pit. The next day Doug and the kids went up to the Cave and were able to get an early hike. We spent the rest of the day at 7-peaks in Provo. We had so much fun. It was so good to see the girls again. We love them and miss them so much.

Summertime...Here at last.

2008-07-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

Well Summer is here. We have been spending alot of time working on our yard and garden. We got a late start on getting the garden in but it is doing fine now. We are eating strawberries every day. That is the best. We are looking forward to fresh garden tomatoes. Yummy.

Jake graduated! We were so excited about that. Now he is busy looking for work. Any suggestions, let him know. He can do just about anything. He got his motorcycle and is having a blast. He has done a few rides with a the Lindon Harley Club.

☺ Happy Birthday Brittany!!! ☺
Brittany and I just spent a week in Vegas for her 16th birthday. It was a lot of fun. We went to see PHANTOM at the Venetian. It was amazing. Totally Vegas style. Brittany was in aw of the whole experience. We also got to see the LEGENDS Concert. That was incredible. We had VIP seats. Front row, right at the base of the stairs. ELVIS, of course, was incredible. He kissed me and Britt and he gave me his scarf. We got to talk with him afterwords. He was real great.

We went camping over the weekend up above Orangeville. I have been sworn to secrecy on the location so I can't tell you exactly where we were. It was beautiful. We were right on a lake. It was so much fun. Doug fell down a waterfall. We didn't get any pictures of it but we decided that he would have scored at least a 9 1/2. He didn't get the 10 because the top of his head stayed dry. He did have Sherri's camera with him but after it dried out, it still worked.I watched him and couldn't do anything to help. Brittany ran down to catch his hat. She caught it right at the bottom, just in time. Doug was happy he didn't loose his camping hat.

Calli and Casey are getting ready to go through the Manti Temple. We are so excited for them. We are so proud of them and how well they are doing. Life is good.

The girls are going to be out here from Missouri at the end of the month. We can't wait to see them again. It has been way to long. ☺

OUR FAMILY

2008-03-23T07:10:00.001-07:00

Between us we have seven children. Rebecca, Kendra and Josie live in Missouri. They are going to school out there. Calli, Jacob and Brittany live in the same town we do.

Rebecca is in the nursing program. She and Cody ,her boyfriend, have bought a house and have had a lot of fun fixing it up. She is also working as a waitress at a local Olive Garden.

Kendra is also in a nursing program, but was thinking about changing to a teaching program. She enjoys spending time with Zach. He is going to teach her how to Sky Dive. We can't wait to hear how that is.

Josie is now a Senior in High School. Very cool. She is very smart and an awesome tennis player. She wants to be a bio-chemist when she grows up.

Kyle was in college out in Missouri. He wanted to be a Lawyer. He was awesome at debate. He was also in many plays and loved the theatre. He passed away in December of 2007 and will be missed by all of his family and friends.

Calli and her husband Casey were married in 2007. They are both working very hard and making a great life for themselves. They enjoy riding horses, camping and spending time with their dog, Bawls. Casey taught Calli how to fish last summer. She caught two fish, both over five pounds. We won't talk about the fish that Casey let get away. Casey got a new job and they will be moving to Idaho. We will miss them a lot.

Jacob graduated High School!!! He had a lot of fun playing football and wrestling. He also enjoys spending lots of time with his friends and staying up real late watching movies. He is trying to decide what he wants to do after high school. He bought a motorcycle and is having a lot of fun riding.

Brittany is a Junior in High School. She is on the color guard team and loves that. She also enjoys playing softball and basketball. She has her learners permit and her mother is having a blast driving with her. Brittany is really looking forward to going to Las Vegas for her 16th birthday. They are going to see Phantom of the Opera.

We love all of our children and hope that they have great success in their lives.