Been Around The World and Back

Josh and I had the incredible opportunity to travel to the Middle East and Europe for the past two weeks with the BYU EMBA program. We flew to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for 5 days, visited Abu Dhabi, then flew to Istanbul for 5 days, and flew to Madrid for another 4 days with a side trip to Toledo, Spain.

It was amazing to see so many great sights, see other cultures and try different foods. Each country had a different vibe. Overall, I think Dubai was the coolest visit. So without further ado, here are the pictures.

It was a great getaway with my hubby. Its always so great to spend so much time together and have the energy for one another instead of being drained by kiddies all day and only having 20 minutes a day to catch up. Thanks to all our family who helped us go together on the trip. We love you!

My Shepherd Will Supply My Need

For Joel's (Josh's baby brother)missionary homecoming today, the Whitmer family and spouses sang a beautiful and moving hymn entitled, "My Shepherd will supply my need". I've never been one for singing in front of groups, but slowly my musically gifted husband and his family of singers/pianists/guitar players are breaking down my fear and resistnace. I'm feeling more comfortable singing with them and I honestly love hearing them all together. All the Whitmers have the same tone or tombre (?) to their voice (and they somehow stay perfectly on pitch with the notes, kind of annoying!)and so when they all sing parts together it really is amazing. So without further ado, here is a clip of our song. Enjoy!

P.S. Joel is singing the solo at the beginning.


"My Shepherd Will Supply My Need"

Blog Catch Up

For the sake of the blog (and some grandkid lovin’ grandparents) I thought I’d post some holiday pictures.

Christmas was so much fun with our little ones. They were so excited about Santa coming to our house…at least Matt was. He set out cookies and milk for him even. Everything about Christmas is magical for kids: lights, presents, Nativity story, family parties, Santa and reindeer. I’ll show you the joy in their faces…..

We went table shopping and came away with this gorgeous one from Ashley Furniture.

Emma had her first picnic with Dad and Matt. Great gift from Nana!

Matt was first on Santa’s lap. Emma did not share the excitement.We had a nice Christmas Eve party with Grandma and Grandpa. Here we are making chocolate suckers and candy molds. The kids just wanted to lick it all.

Christmas morning, the joy!

Of course, Emma was more interested in the candy in her stocking than the toys.

We took the kids to their first BYU basketball game and bowling over the break. It was a lot of fun to do some new and different things with the kids. Josh is really good at coming up with new things…all the time.  Its one of his many daddy-superhero powers.

We went on a fabulous New Year’s Eve Date to Tepanyaki and Sherlock Holmes with all the Whitmer siblings and spouses. So great!

                       

We’ve babysat our adorable nephew Caleb a few times. The kids get so excited to have him over. (And we do too )

Lastly, would be our Jordan World Circus outing. The kids (and Me) were super duper excited to go to the circus. It came at the end of January to the South Jordan Equestrian Center. It was SO fun. The had a ton of acts. We got to see lions, dogs, elephant tricks, tight rope walkers, trapeze artists, jugglers,clowns, twirly rope girls (don’t know their name), and several balancing acts. Matt cried all the way out of the circus and all the way home. We loved it! We will be going to the circus again someday.