The Rogers Come to South Carolina

Jenessa's husband, Chris, is in the military and recently received an assignment in Columbia! Columbia is 3 hours away from us, but that's way closer than the 36 it was before, so we'll take it! We are way excited to have some of the Benson family so close by!

At the beginning of December they came down to Myrtle Beach for their first visit. We started out by taking them to the beach; Thomas's first time seeing the ocean! Even though he slept most of the time...

 Here's everybody checking out a jellyfish that washed up on shore:

We went to the aquarium! They had Christmas trees decorated with each of the 50 states. Here's Josh with Utah:

Petting the horseshoe crabs:

Petting the stingrays:

It was a great first visit!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Giving Thanks 2011

This year was the first Thanksgiving I had back at home in I can't remember how many years! It was very exciting. We had it over at my parents with my Dad, Mom, Hunter, Halston, and Bishop and Sister Davis.

Here's the beautiful spread that took days of planning and coordinating (or 10 minutes of me and Mom running around the house seeing what we might be able to throw on there and have it look good...you decide).

And here are the boys..."watching" football...

The buffet line! It was all SO good. I was in charge of the green bean casserole, corn, strawberry pretzel salad, and no-bake cookies. There was also turkey, squash casserole, pistachio salad, three types of stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce, red hot jello, scalloped potatoes, and pineapple casserole.

We couldn't even fit all of our food on one plate...

After dinner, we played Wii Pictionary. Then we ate dessert (pumpkin pie, banana pudding, no-bake cookies, and strawberry pretzel salad) while watching some Brian Regan.

It was a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Columbia Temple

Recently, the youth in our ward went on a temple trip. My Dad is the Young Men's President, and he asked Josh to come along to help. Mom and I decided to come along, too, and do a session while the youth were doing baptisms. So we made the 3 hour drive up to Columbia.

This temple is very special to me for many reasons. At the time the temple was dedicated, I was about 13 years old and my Dad was stake president. My Dad's testimony was sealed up in the temples time capsule. My siblings and I invited to help the apostles who were there to seal the capsule:

We were also able to be in the Celestial Room with President Hinckley as he dedicated the temple. This was one of our first experiences in the presence of a prophet. When the dedication was over, everyone stood up. They were, of course, doing this out of respect while the Prophet left the room, but Jordan and I thought they were all standing up to go meet him, so we rushed to the front of the room. Where security immediately stopped us. President Hinckley, though, turned back and saw what was going on. So he walked over and gave us a hug. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

So going to the Columbia temple is always special. And this was my first time doing a session there! It was wonderful.

Josh is Tired

Josh is so amazing and works so hard for our little family. He has a lot on his plate between work, school, and managing the park.

In his leisure time, he has a book he's been reading and really wants to finish. But with all that's going on, sometimes he's just too tired. Poor Josh.

House Tour

One big pull for us to move to South Carolina was living at my Grandma's house! After my Grandpa died, my Dad helped my Grandma develop their land into a mobile home park to support herself. After my Grandma passed away, my parents have hired people to manage the park. The pay is that you get to live in the house rent free. So here we are, managing the park, and I get to live in an adorable house that has really great memories of my Grandma.

The coolest part of this house is that my Grandpa built it with his bare hands! And he never went into debt. Every time he got his paycheck, he would go down to the hardware store and buy more supplies.

Here is the beautiful result:

I LOVE these trees. They are pecan trees, and we always used to help my Grandma pick up the pecans and she would used them to make amazing pies and desserts!

Not long after we moved here, we painted the living room. Here's the before and after:

When we first got here, the kitchen was a truly terrible pinkish-mauve color. With yellow cabinets. (Don't worry, it was painted this color by mistake. But then it was too late.) Anyway, the paint was peeling, too, because the wrong kind of paint was used. Needless to say, we gave the kitchen a nice face-lift, too.

The hall:

The office:

The master bedroom:

The second bedroom (not much going on in here; we don't really have a use for it yet, so we haven't redecorated it yet):

The bathroom (the showers doors have swans on them. Kind of awesome):

And the storage room. We recently got some great shelves so we could expand our food storage.

We have loved living here!