Photo Album

We love to travel all over the southwest, but our favorite place to visit is Lake Powell. We are lucky to be able to visit quite often and love everything there is to do there: swimming, hiking, wakeboarding, fishing, riding wave runners and just relaxing. The next time we go we plan to make a giant water slide that runs down a sandy hill into the lake.

A summer night out watching a local minor league baseball game.

We went backpacking in Alaska and saw spawning salmon, a feasting bear and the northern lights. We stayed in a hotel in small town called Seward for a couple of days and went on a ferry ride where we saw sea otters, puffins, seals and glaciers. We saw pretty much everything we’d hoped to see, but definitely want to go back someday soon--especially since Cohen's birth mother's parents live there part of the year.

Cohen has three living great-grandmas, all four grandparents and twenty-three cousins! We also consider Cohen's birth family our extended family which gives him many more grandparents, aunts and uncles. We enjoy spending as much time as we can with family and are very blessed to live close to many of them.

One of our favorite family activities is to go for a bike ride--we bought a bike trailer for Cohen shortly after he could sit up on his own. Of course most rides include a stop for ice cream.

Megan has always loved to swim and bike, but never was a fan of running until she trained for triathlons. Sam, on the other hand, has always been a runner and runs several days a week. He ran a marathon a couple of years ago and has been working toward running another one.

This was Cohen's first camping experience and he loved it. We camped out at Tanner Flats with Megan's sister's family and had a delicious dutch oven dinner. The next day we went on a hike and took a tour through Timpanogos Cave.

On this trip to Mexico and traveled all over the Yucatan Peninsula. It was an epic!  We saw a lot of Mayan ruins and about a million iguanas. We stayed in quaint little hotels and even found one with a trampoline! We loved the food, the scenery and the people.  The next time we go, we want to visit a spider monkey reserve and do some deep sea fishing. 

We are both certified scuba divers and Cozumel is our favorite place to dive. The water is warm and clear so you can go deep and still see everything. While we were visiting this island, we stayed at a quaint little bed & breakfast and found THE BEST enchiladas.

Family Traditions: When we were dating we started a holiday tradition of baking treats and taking them to family and friends. Spending Christmas with Sam’s family means a smorgasbord of hors d’oeuvres and stockings filled with oranges and peanuts. With Megan’s family we eat fruit-topped pancakes on Christmas Eve followed by a reenactment of the Nativity story. Our favorite birthday tradition started with Megan’s extended family—we sing happy birthday as loud and as off-key as possible. We get some interesting looks if we’re out in public, but it reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.

We ALL love Cohen's Tummy Mummy! She and her family are very excited for him to have a brother or sister.

We are very involved with Families Supporting Adoption (FSA) and take every chance we can get to education others about adoption. Every year our local FSA chapter has an adoption awareness walk around a local park where adoptive families, birth families and people who were adopted celebrate their adoption experiences. We're also involved with birth mother and adoptive family support groups and lead adoption information presentations at local high schools.

The day after Cohen's adoption was finalized we spent a special day at the temple with close family and friends. It was definitely one of the best experiences we've ever had.

Last Halloween we all dressed up like characters from Charlie Brown. Cohen was way cuter than the original!

The first time we took Cohen hiking he was about two weeks old. This picture was taken about a year later in the mountains near our home.

Here we are about mid-way up Mt. Fuji. The air was so thin and the trail was so steep, but cute little old Japanese ladies kept passing us! While we were in Japan we also went to several Buddhist temples, saw the never-ending city of Tokyo, and went on a river trip where we saw giant koi living in their natural habitat.

We went to England for three weeks to be with Megan's sister's kids while she, her husband and their oldest son did humanitarian work (Mothers Without Borders) in Africa. While we were there we went on several road trips to explore the country. We went to a Broadway show in London, explored several castle ruins, went to the beach, and took this photo at Stonehenge.

Another photo from our trip to England.

We recently took a road trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit extended family. We went to museums, the beach, hiking, and did a lot of sightseeing.

Megan always wanted to learn to rock climb and she finally learned from Sam. He was the perfect person to learn from because he had a lot of experience and is always sure to be extra safe.

While Sam was growing up, his dad built their house from the ground up. In the process, Sam learned a lot about home building and repair. This knowledge has come in handy because we've purchased and remodeled two houses. We’ve also done some finish work and remodeling at Sam’s parents’ house.

A few of years ago we went on a pioneer trek with our church. We both like to hike and be outdoors, but pulling a handcart in these clothes was a whole new experience. We were also assigned to be a "Ma & Pa" in charge of about eight teenagers. We got blisters sunburned and exhausted, but had a lot of fun in the process.

Sam's family did a lot of powwow dancing growing up and he got to show off what he learned in front of millions of people at the 2002 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. He looks forward to teaching our children about his native culture.  We are both committed to teaching our children about their biological culture whatever it may be.

Sam's sister and her family hosted Thanksgiving at their house. One of our favorite activities was sledding with Cohen and his cousins. The turkey wasn't too bad either.