Christmas 2011

David and Zina Cox Family 2011

David is still teaching (31 years), but this will probably be his last year. Still loves teaching, but wants to do it his way and not the way someone else wants him to do it. He loved teaching the 11-year old Scouts, and got so he didn’t mind leading the choir, but the Singles Stake asked him to be the Executive Secretary in the Lehi 1^st Singles Ward, so that is where he is serving in Church now. He is trying to decide how he will keep busy once he retires. There are several options open to him and he is busy weighing the options.

Zina still substitute teaches and did a 6-week long term in March/April for a 5^th grade (once again working closely with David was a lot of fun!) and for a 2^nd Grade class that ended just before Thanksgiving (also at David’s school). The last 4 weeks, she has been catching up on all the things she put off while teaching full time. On Sunday, I get to teach the Primary Sharing Time once a month and play the piano in Relief Society. Taking the horses out for a spin and giving children rides is still a hobby she loves.

Kadie is handling things alone in Utah while Tony works in construction for the oil fields near Dickenson, North Dakota. They plan to sell their house in American Fork and move as soon as they can get the money together to get a house there. Rental property is very expensive and few and far between. Daniel (13) is growing fast – like 5 or 6 inches in the last year! He is doing an online school. Elisabeth (9) is in the 4^th grade, takes piano lessons and likes to sing. Annalisa (1) has had a rough year with illness. She spent several days in the hospital just before Thanksgiving and had a lot of tests taken to try and figure out why she gets fevers. Still no answers, but they are going to document everything and see what turns up.

Ammon and Tiffany are still in Lehi, but that may change if he gets a job in the accounting field that takes them away (he wants to do auditing). He is currently working at the Social Security Administration. Tiffany is expecting our 12^th grandchild in late March. She is in the Primary Presidency of her Ward. Preston (6) is doing well in school and loves Star Wars and Legos. Micah (3) is also into Star Wars and anything that involves guns or fighting with lasers. He is always trying to keep up with his older brother and cousins when they get to play together. Nathan (1 ½) loves horses, so whenever he comes to Grandma’s house, he has to be taken out to see the eee-heees!! Nothing is sweeter than a hug from Nathan!

Seth and Carolyn had a job change late last year and the drive from Springville to Draper was a long hour through construction traffic for most of the way, so they bought a house in Lehi and tried to rent out their house in Springville, but that hasn’t worked out very well, so they are trying to do a short sale on it. Two house payments is no fun! Seth is 1^st Counselor in the Elder’s Quorum and Carolyn is Choir Director. Jacob (6) is doing well in school and is very talented on the piano and singing. He is also a big fan of Legos. Evelyn (4) enjoys preschool and drawing and singing. I got to pick her up from Preschool one day and she had a carrot in her mouth and took it out long enough to quote me the poem they had memorized about a snowman and a rabbit! So cute! Megan (3) is a busy little girl that likes princesses (as does her older sister) and watching movies at Grandma’s. Justin (7 months) was born in May and makes a wonderful addition to the family with his sweetness and happy smile.

Rachel will be finishing her second Bachelor’s Degree in Music in April and then hopes to find a job somewhere in the field of teaching music or drama. She was chosen to compose a song for the Utah Valley University’s production of Othello and it was well received. She will have another of her compositions performed at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration at UVU in January. She had her Senior Recital this month and did a wonderful job. We love hearing her sing. She moved to Orem at the beginning of the school year to room with two of her friends and has enjoyed being there. We do miss her at home though.

Caleb and Bethany have moved into the basement of our home (I knew there was a reason to put a kitchenette down there!) while he finishes his last semester of school at UVU in Psychology. Then it will be off to graduate school in Ohio. Bethany is 8 months pregnant and they hope that their little girl gets here before Caleb starts up his last semester of school in January. We are excited for our 11^th grandchild to come and for the chance to get to know her well before they take her off to parts unknown.

Evan has enjoyed living in Provo this last year. He was called as the Elder’s Quorum President in his Student Ward. He works in the Student Transfer and Admissions Office at BYU and also does concessions at sporting and other events at the school. He took the big step of buying his first car this summer. His major has changed to Information Systems instead of accounting.

Alisa is living at home with us. She worked as a nanny for a local family for the summer. Imagine getting paid to take kids to play at the water park, zoo, shopping, amusement park, and anywhere else they went for entertainment and be able do it all yourself at no cost to you! She has decided to start classes at UVU in January, going into Elementary Education and take some photography classes also. She has started a blog to show off some of her photography. Look up http://sugarrushphotos.blogspot.com/ to see what she has done.

We enjoyed a wonderful Petersen Family Reunion in July in Southern Utah in July. It was such a wonderful time to see most everyone in the family. Even Mom and Dad at ages 91 and 95 made the trip!

Life always has its challenges, but we find that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we can overcome them and be stronger for them. At this time of year when we celebrate His birth, we hope that you are well and that you find joy as we do.

Just David and Me

David and I went for a little camping trip to a place called Lake Hill Campground, east of Ephraim, UT. It was a beautiful spot. We had ATV access to several trails and also drove up to the scenic, Skyline Drive. Most of these pictures are the view from Skyline Drive. It was a dirt road, something for trucks and ATV's to go on.

There are people who haul their trailers up there for the summer (elevation about 10,000 ft.), and we had a hard time believing that they had traveled some of the roads they did to park them where they did. This first picture is an example of that.

This picture is a view to the East.

We have been fortunate to see several areas of Utah this year in their prime wild flower season, mostly because of the unusually late cold and wet weather we have had.

Here is a Columbine with a type of Paintbrush.

I have to admit to a passion for Columbine flowers. I think it is their unique pattern that intrigues me.

This is a field of red, white and blue that we found: Columbine, Paintbrush and Larkspur.

There was plenty of snow at the 10,000 foot level. We found out that the stream in the picture, was built in the 1930's by the CCC to help capture the water melting from the snow, bringing it to a tunnel, and down to the communities on the west in the valley for drinking and irrigation purposes instead of going down eventually to the Colorado River to the east. It was just such a beautiful contrast of the blue and green and white.

The dead trees that are so abundant in the pictures are because of a spruce beetle during years of drought that we suffered. It would all look better if they could be logged off. At least we had plenty of firewood while we were there.

Along side of the road, we often saw these little cascades coming down. Little springs would just pop out of the side of the mountain. In some places it is more dangerous because it causes the soil on the side of the mountain to slough downward. It was interesting to see the damage that it caused to the road and how they were trying to alleviate damage.

Just a pretty mountain stream that we passed on one of our rides. David and I both like water, so it is hard to pass a stream so pretty and not take a picture.


Rocky Mountain Irises made us stop for this photo.


David is showing the view to the West of where we were at. This is the Sanpete Valley (Ephraim) in the background. Manti is a little further south.

Here is our camp. Wonderful shade for most of the afternoon.

I took this just after David set up our new tent. It has lots of room inside and we could stand up anywhere inside! Really good purchase for us. We could have slept more people in it, but this was a trip for just the two of us.

Petersen Family Reunion

Every three years, my family has gotten together for a family reunion. There were about 40 of us at the first one in 1984. The scope of this has increased every year with the addition of spouses, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This year we had over 110 people come together and renew acquaintances. What a fun three days we had at Pinewoods Resort in Duck Creek Village, Utah!

My parents had twelve children and they now have 67 grandchildren and over 80 great grandchildren. Mom and Dad are in their 90's and traveling was a little more difficult, so they flew out here first class and the airport people took good care of them so they didn't have to walk much.




This is all of my sibling, except one brother, who could not be there.


Here is all of the Cox family with my parents.



I introduce Evelyn (4) to my Mom shortly after we got there. She became enamored of the "Lady with the White Hair" and always had to go say "hi" to her. After our family picture, she had to be coaxed away because she wanted to be with her. I was laughing when she insisted I should take her to the "Lady with the White Hair"'s house in Minnesota and that we go there now! (I wanted to at least finish the reunion!)


One of the hikes we took was to Cascade Falls. This area is know for the Lava tubes and Navajo Lake drains by way of one of the tubes and comes out of the rock at this point. It was a fun hike, but a little unnerving because there is barely room for two people to pass in some spots and the other side is a cliff that goes way down! I walked with Evelyn to the falls and she was pretty steady, but Megan (almost 3) wanted to be Grandma's partner on the way back and she is a little less steady, so Daddy Seth came to the rescue when the path was a little more difficult.

Capital Reef Fun

We took a fun quick trip to Capital Reef National Park last weekend. As much as we love going there, we have never been there in May. The flowers were beautiful in bloom! We did have to be concerned about dodging the rain and some wind, but over all we had a great time.

And we had to get pictures of everyone in our favorite rock holes. Evan, his friend, Rachel, from Canada, Daniel and Elisabeth all climbed into these. Then David joined them on the easiest seat to get in.

Annalisa (Kadie's 7 month old) loved having a ride on her Daddy's back! She was such a good traveler and we think she liked the hat, because she kept it on the whole time.

Wedding

I know this seems fast to a lot of you, but three days after my post about Caleb and Bethany's engagement, things changed fast. Bethany's Mom was not going to be able to make the trip to Utah for their April wedding because of health problems, so the wedding was moved up to February 19!!!! Caleb and Bethany had been planning to fly to South Carolina on President's Day Weekend anyway, so David and I bought tickets for that weekend and flew out to be with them while they were married in the beautiful Columbia South Carolina LDS Temple. It was a wonderful weekend and we met some new friends! Bethany was raised by two wonderful people, Dave and Rachel Venus. These first few photos were taken outside the temple.






Caleb, Bethany, Dave Venus, Rachel Venus, brother, Rob and his wife Beth.

The following pictures are from the reception in Utah. It has been a wonderful time. I also have to mention that we were a very stressed out family at this time also. Rachel had been on crutches for over a month and her ankle was not getting better. Because of this, she could not drive, so between Caleb, Alisa and I, we were getting her to and from classes and to the other places she needed to be. I also started substitute teaching full time for a teacher on maternity leave. Now that all of this is over, I have time to update the blog and let you all see what we have done the last two months!


At the reception, they wanted a theme with stars. In the middle of the night, the idea came to me to find some shiny stars to tie to the end of balloons filled with helium. I was thinking that I would need about 300 or more balloons, but the lights in the cultural hall had a dimmer and when the lights were off, the effect was perfect. Alisa was taking pictures and she didn't get one with the lights dimmed that showed off how well it came off. So just imagine in the picture that the lights are dim and all you can really see is the shimmering stars hanging above you.




Zina, David, Bethany, Caleb, Grandmother, Kay Cox and Grandfather, Nyle Cox.
The wedding cake made by a friend of Bethany's.

Engagement

For those who haven't heard, Caleb has found a wonderful girl and they have decided to get married on April 21, 2011! Here are some photos that Alisa took of them.

Her name is Bethany Venus and grew up in Duncan, South Carolina. She has been attending BYU and will graduate in April.

Bethany and Caleb met at a 4-H mentors retreat. (They both mentor different children.) Caleb never asks for girls phone numbers when he first meets them, something about if it is meant to be, then he will run into them again ;). He did ask for her number and after Christmas, they knew that they wanted to be together for ever!

We are so happy for them both. Bethany is a beautiful, happy, level-headed person and we are happy that she will be joining our family.