Spring Break Brighton

Happy Birthday MOM!! 71

I thought since mom's birthday card is still sitting here on my desk with her name and city, but no street address and her birthday is TODAY, I'd better use the mainstream form of communication and feature her on my blog. This is mom and dad about 3 years ago, and they look just as good today as they did then. See. This is them at 2 houses later with my boys recently-ish.
A few things about my mom:

• She likes to write things down

Even though she may never see the "one of her millions" of notebooks again or scraps of paper or know who it was about or when it was, she's always writing EVERYTHING down. I know in one way or another all her notes are eched out in her mind because of this.

• She will always tell the long version unless you specifically ask for the short, then you get the barely less long

She is an awesome story teller. You can sit and listen to her stories forever. I remember listening to her tell me stories as a kid, and they envelop your imagination and take you wherever your mind will go. I see that same affect when she now tells stories to my kids or my nieces and nephews, or their kids.

• She wants to see her kids be happy and would do all she can to help them be happy

After years of this type of sacrafice this might eat at a person, but I want to acknowledge that I know that she did a wonderful job to try to make her kids (and more) happy in life. This is a huge burden, but one that I am extremely thankful for. Just knowing what she had and would have sacrificed when I wanted the perfect dress that she would go through the entire process to sew, or whatever endevor I wanted to pursue, she would go to extremely great lengths to get me on my way, only to have me change my mind, and on and on. Just knowing of that sacrifice, no matter what the outcome is or was, that in itself is inspiring.

• She can pretty much do anything and do it well

She is a "Jack-of-all-trades, master of all". That pretty much sums it up. She can do anything, it's pretty amazing, and she can do it really good. Well, if anything doesn't include working the noon hour in a fast food restraunt. I spent hours of my childhood watching her do -- whatever it was, sewing, quilting, baking, cleaning, weeding, painting, making anything and everything, writing, talking, playing the piano, etc... I remember when I was maybe 4, I would sit in one of the "clothes baskets" (they were actually big plastic garbage cans I think, piled with clothes, hmmm this is sounding like me today, but I assume they were her mending, what do you expect with 9 kids) and I would sit and watch her sew for hours it seemed, and I'm sure I yapped her ear off the whole time, but I learned about every crafty trade I know from watching her.

• Also, she loves my dad

They have been married for over 50 years, had 9 questionable kids, and 30+grandkids, and who knows how many great grands, they've had money, lost money, had lots of houses and businesses, she's told us how many of each quite a few times, but I still don't remember, they've been through a lot together and have stuck close together through it all. I love her for that and more. Happy Birthday mom, your card's in the mail (well maybe on Monday).

He sure knows how to win me over.

My 1st Time Snowboading...

Except one time 12 years ago on ice. I still have a headache from that. This was my Valentine's Day gift from Cam, a day at The Canyons with snowboards on March 20th. I'm not sure he calculated what it might cost if I ended up liking it. I really liked it a lot!!! We won't be getting boards anytime soon, but it was exhilarating, and I'm still really really sore!! Thanks Cam, you're the best.

Powder Keg 2008

This is at Cam's race. The kids rolled and tackled in the snow forever. Landon just wanted to go skiing, so they went later on.

Helmet

The Peterson's know how to party. Cam won by the way and Bryce came in at a close 2nd, no kidding.

Cam's new biking shirt. Doesn't he look happy? Wait until you see him with his new helmet cam on his backcountry ski race. Coming soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMERON Part 3

10 1/2 years ago Cam and I met in our ward at the U, it was so romantic. Ok, boring I know, but it is ironical (that really is a word).

Cam set me up with an old mission friend of his to double with him because he didn't want to go with this girl alone. I didn't want his friend to think I liked him, so I paid more attention to Cam.

Next, I told he and his buddies they could stay at my parent's in Idaho on their way up to ski at Targhee for New Years, so later he invited me to go with them. We became great friends and spent most of our hours together after that. Still just friends.


Well I was going to have to let him know soon we could only ever just be friends... (mostly because I wasn't going to ever marry a blonde skinny Utah boy, because all they knew how to do is shop at the malls, and they didn't ever carry jumper cables with them)

Well I broke the news, we could only ever be friends. To my surprize he said, "OK, easy." I didn't appreciate that at all. So we made out. Wait, that comes later.

A group of us were going to Seaside Oregon to run, this would be Cam's first marathon, which becomes significant later in the story. Alot of the group, including some that had previously run marathons ended up not running it at all because the weather was horrible.

It was COLD, and WINDY, and RAINING horizontally. And Cameron still ran it. That's not what I thought Utah boys were supposed to do.
I was rather impressed. And I fell in love. I'm not sure about his side of the story as to why he liked me, but since I'm writting for him I'd say it was because I always carried jumper cables with me.

June 21st, 1997 high noon, Summer solstice, Cam and I were wed in the Bountiful temple. We took our honeymoon to Whistler, BC. It was the best time ever. Rafting, biking, hiking, it couldn't have been better.

4 month later, I ran my 1st marathon, which is when our marathon of having kids began, well 9 months later it began.

We've been to undergrad together, medical school, living in Dominica and Miami together, having 4 awesome boys, and a whole lot more. Call it a marathon or climbing a mountain together, it's been daunting for me to have done it all with him. I love you Cam! Happy Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMERON Part 2

Some of his favorite things:

Backcountry Skiing
Rafting
Moutain and Rock Climbing
Mountain Biking
Adventure Racing
Running (in mountains)
Doing Fun Things, trying new things
Hiking/Camping
Yurting

His Boys!!
His Friends
Family
Working at the VA (j/k)
Talking - especially about anything dealing with outdoors, gear, any type of motorized vehicle (maybe got that from his dad)

Character Traits:

Even keeled

He loves adventure (he better, being married to me, that it an adventure in itself)
He is kind and good natured

He is genuine

He is a great friend

He is an awesome dad and almost perfect husband

He is inspiring


OK I could go on with that and I wasn't just listing all my opposites.

Things he doesn't like:

Conflict

Not playing

Atrophizing

K that was a dumb topic, let's see...

OK, 10 1/2 year ago history coming up... (by the way I may have alot of the previous material totally wrong, but that's what you get when someone else tries to write your personal history)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMERON

Today is Cameron Glade Peterson's 34th birthday, so I thought I'd spend some blog space on him today and type a little history about this crazy guy.
Cameron was born 34 years ago in a place called Reno, Nevada, where his dad David Arthur was somewhere along the medical field with the Army. His mother Gayle Harmon Perkins bore his older brother Clint 3 years before Cameron. Cam is the 2nd oldest boy in a family of 6, 3 boys, 3 girls. He has lived in Colorado, Washington, and moved to Provo, Utah when he was maybe in 3rd grade or so. He went to Timpveiw High, and had some great friends and good times. I love hearing about his funny stories when he was a "roudy teen" which are always very clean stories. One of my favs is when they stuck the cheerleaders in the back of someones truck and flew threw a huge puddle and drenched them. He has way better stories and probably wishes I'd tell those but I like that one.

Jobs: Lifeguard at 7 Peaks

River Rafting Guide in Riggins, Idaho

Outdoor Couselor guy for Delequent
Youth in Loa, Utah

Missionary in Dresden, Germany he was there when The WALL came down.

Ski Instructor at Deer Valley - he taught the GAP kids, and go Robert Redford to yell at him for speeding by his girlfriend.

Then a gas station, and UPS, and other more practical jobs.

Post race and bike ride Mexican Food. YUM YUM

Springing into Spring.

Bret is the man.

Jackie, Amasaback post race ride.

Jenny is cruising down Amasaback, lookout!!

Packing it in at Pasta Joe's.

Jenny, Jessie, Julie skiing at Pebble Creek.

We call this his "cheese ball"

Dave, Nat, and Beav

Dave and Natalie getting snugly

Our new playground equipment. The boys couldn't wait to jump in, it WAS fairly clean for and item containing the part of the word "dump" in it. And they love to "chuck" stuff in, so don't worry Scott, you can called off the Elders Quorum service project (which I know would only include you, oh and your camera).

This is a picture of Future Bloggers of America, we will from here on out refer to them as FBA, but in the meantime, I hope they can enjoy the hard work that Nicole has put into the recruiting and aiding in the reconnection of the community through cyberspace interaction.