Belated Congratulations to Papa Bear

I have been meaning to post for awhile but just haven't done it... so much to catch up on the pressure gets overwhelming. But I really have wanted to congratulate my Dad. He graduated in August from BYU with his MBA. (Here he is with Madison, Angie's baby. I didn't have any other picture of him with cap and gown)


He went back to school to get his masters, something he has wanted to do for 30 years. Trying to raise and provide for 11 kids made it impossible for many years. Finally a couple of years ago he decided it was time and went for it. I am so proud of him for chasing his dreams and not giving up on what he wanted. He is an inspiration that it is never to late to achieve those life-time goals you have set for yourself.

To celebrate we managed to get all 11 children, 7 spouses and 6 grandchildren to his graduation. This was a big feat for our family coming from all over. It was so fun to have everyone home and around for a couple of days before families started splitting off to their respective homes, and new adventures across the country and oceans. Here we all are!


And here are the 5 pregos in order of closest due date... if it isn't obvious by my bulging belly.

Noah Aaron Rasmussen

We welcomed Noah into our family on August 19, 2009 at 5:58 pm. (He couldn't get here soon enough as far as I was concerned!) He was 7 lbs 6 oz and 21.5 inches long. The best part is that he is completely healthy and we were able to take him home the next day. A new experience for us... I would recommend it. Here are some photos of the little one.

This is right after the nursery was done with him in the hospital.

Snoozing today at home in the bouncer. (His feet are not really that big, I promise)

One of those rare moments when he was wide awake.

Summer Fun

Here are a couple of things that we have been up to this summer. (With our camera on the fritz our pictures are few and far between)

Hanging out with cousins: Luke and Olivia chilling with Ryan

We were lucky to get this one shot of the both of them not moving neither one looks thrilled with the situation but they are getting to be better friends all the time. It is really good practice for Luke to have another baby around. With more cousins on the way (Congrats Roxanne, Deb, Em and Liz) these pictures should be popping up more and more.



Emily and Levi were in town to play and so one of our outings was to the mountains to do some 4-wheeling. Pete, Heidi and Olivia joined us. The first ride was a scenic one down by the river that Moms and babies went on. Then the serious riding began while Heidi, Olivia, Luke and I cooked dinner. This was as close to camping that we have been with Luke. He loved the campsite and loved the dirt even more.

He would push the truck around from rocks to dirt to rocks and so forth. Dirty as ever but happy as could be. We tried out the sunscreen mohawk and both decided we like him better without the rebel look. But... why is it no gel will hold his hair in place for church but sunscreen will stick it straight up for hours on end?

Feeding the Dog

Why is this such a big deal? Luke has finally realized that dog food is for the "goggie" and not for him to eat. All he has to do is ask and I will give him much better tasting stuff. This is a milestone for us. No more juggling Biscuit feedings with Luke on the loose time.

We have been lucky to have lots of friends and family come and pay us a visit this summer and are looking forward to more this weekend and even more in August. We are hoping to juggle the delivery of baby #2 around my dad's graduation, visits from family and a work schedule. But mostly just hoping the little guy comes soon.

Guess who's back..

To steal from the great American poet Eminem,

Guess who's back, back again... Ryan's back...tell a friend..


I have decided to return to the world of blogging. My hiatus can be attributed to a couple things. #1 as much as I love to blog, we all know those little dots in the map are 99.9% Annalyns friends. I like you all very much (accept for whoever visits from Thailand and has me scared they are stealing pictures of Lukey for their diabolical endevors. WHO ARE YOU?!?) But you come to see what Annalyn is up to, not to here me ramble on about how awesome Teen Wolf is. (Awesome x 23 quadrillion) and #2 simply writers block. The only time I sit down to write letters are to travel agencies to complain about these things... They are working on it.

P.S. I typed number 2.

I did get the opportunity to travel to SLC by myself this last week and downloaded Michael Jackson music for the trip. Am I the only one who has gone from thinking that Michael Jackson was awesome, to Michael Jackson is a pervert, to Michael Jackson might not have been a pervert after all? Martin Bashir, I blame you.

Don't read too much in to my waffling opinion, I also think that we never landed on the moon.


And lastly, our iphones have replaced cameras around our house. So the 12 megapixel (not quite a QUADRILLION) camera gathers dust, we have grainy pictures of the cutest boy in the world.

As the french guy who worked at Lowes in the lawn and garden quoted Mark Twain to me when he asked if Luke was mine...

Motherhood is a certainty, Fatherhood is a rumor.

My Arch-nemesis

I heard the word nemesis the other day and while working in my garden I realized that I have an arch-nemesis. THE THISTLE.


While this weed may look harmless it is the prickliest, worst weed ever. The spot where my garden is used to be pasture grass... there is still a lot of grass in the garden, some days I don't know whether to weed or mow the garden... anyhow when I killed(thinned out) the pasture grass to make room for my plants, the thistle decided it was time to move in.

I wear gloves and the stickers poke right through and get you. I have been poked so many times that I am becoming overly bitter and have reached the point of declaring the thistle my arch-nemesis. I even want to kill the random ones on the side of the road so they don't spread to my yard. The only good thistle is a dead one.

(this is the pile of dead weeds out of my garden) Hopefully the rest of the garden will survive the summer. It has all grown a lot more since the heat has come but then Biscuit likes to "mark" my tomato plants. One is dead...
I can't blame it and the other shows signs of wishing it was dead. See the brown leaves at the bottom?


Other than gardening we have had a fun week. We had Grandma Rhonda visit after all the Bensons were here for the 4th and Olivia's blessing. We recruited everyone and had them be in the Idaho Falls Parade with our old car and some residents.

I am not sure how much they enjoyed it but we sure had fun with them. We wish they could come up more often. As they were leaving Ryan's mom pulled in for a little visit. We sure enjoy her company. We went to the zoo with her and Grandma Benson.

I didn't have a picture of Grandma Rhonda and Luke but she was there and helped juggle the diaper bag, stroller, wheelchair and baby. We were sad to see her go.

Summer at Last

We have been enjoying the heat that has finally arrived here after our month of rain. Unfortunately I have been a slacker about taking pictures so I don't have much to document. Here are some pictures of our little outing to Rigby Lake. They have cleaned it up a lot and they let Biscuit join in the family fun.

The Gang

Tasty Rocks

Fun with Dad

Enjoying the Beach

After this adventure my camera is on the fritz and won't turn on. I will work on that and post more later.

My Old Kentucky Home

You may not know that Ryan was born in Kentucky. We recently took a trip to see his birthplace and let him reconnect with his roots. His mom had a high school reunion, so she was heading out anyhow and it worked out great for us to meet her there and have her show us around. After going back and forth we decided not to take Luke with us. Grandma Benson was kind enough to watch him for us while we took off for a couple of days. I like to call our trip a baby-moon... I think we need to make it a tradition. While my mom was dealing with a Pukey Lukey (literally, sorry mom!) we were having a great time in the green state of Kentucky!

We had a lot to see. After dropping Rhonda off at her friends house, Ryan and I headed straight for the races! No kidding. We wanted to see Churchill Downs. We were lucky enough to get a beautiful day and there were actually races going on that day. We decided to try our hand at playing the ponies. We allotted ourselves $20. It took us a couple of races to get the hang of placing the $2 bet on the right horse. My first couple came in DEAD last.

It wasn't crowded and so we got to go down right by the track and watch the horses come across the line. I have to admit it was really cool. We got to see where they saddle up the horses before the race and watch them ride out to the track.


We actually got to see Calvin Borel race on a couple of horses. Warming up for the Belmont Stakes is what we assume. In the end we won back most of our money when realized you could bet on a horse to win, show, or place (come in the top three). I think we left with $15 of the $20 we allotted. Pretty successful for a couple of rookies.

The next day we got the history tour of Rhonda's childhood homes. First stop in Elizabethtown was the cannon ball.

If you can see the black dot way up on the wall (where the arrow is pointing), it is a cannonball that stuck in the building during the civil war. Still there however many years later it is a must see! It was fun to get the tour of Radcliffe and see the house where the famous BBQ sauce was created and made by Grandpa Hammers. Next we went to Bowling Green to visit Uncle Dan. It was good to see him, we haven't seen him in a while. We went from there to Morgantown. This is where Grandma Ernie was buried. We got to go to the cemetary and see her headstone.

It looks really good. We were reminded how much we love her and miss her. We saw where she and Grandpa Hammers were married. There is a house called the Hammers House that is a historic site maintained by Great Aunt Nyla.

We had a good visit with her and she showed us a lot of history in that house. This is where Rhonda was born. It was really fun to learn all that family history.

Back in Louisville we saw the house Ryan lived in as a child and visited some family friends, the Montegues. We also saw the hospital where he was born. We couldn't leave without hitting the Louisville slugger factory. (No pun intended!)

That was pretty cool. I never knew so much went into the making of a bat. We got to hold and swing Micky Mantle's bat among other baseball greats. The mini-bat give away at the end of the tour was just the icing on the cake.

On our way back to Bowling Green we stopped by Mammoth Caves and took a tour. I wish I could say that we took the 6 hour crawling tour to the underground rivers but my belly is starting to poke out. Jr. and I were not up for tight spaces. The cave is HUGE and the tour was cool. Pictures kind of all look the same and don't do the cave justice.

It is one of those... you had to be there things.

We got a taste of southern foods: Fried Okra, Fried Green tomatoes, Derby Pie, Hot Browns, Hush Puppies, White Castle burgers and Waffle House waffles to name a few. We are pleased to report the mullet trend is alive and well.

(I had always assumed it was a dying art... not so!)

We enjoyed Kentucky so much Ryan is thinking about getting his MBA from University of Louisville.

After a couple of days we were both getting anxious to back to Luke. On the last day I couldn't think about him too much without tearing up. Can you blame me?

We were glad to be home and finally starting to catch up on everything we missed. Big thanks goes out to Pete and Heidi for taking care of our recently Hydro-seeded lawn and house, Mom, Micheal, Matthew & Tamy for watching Luke and Biscuit for us and last but definitely not least Rhonda for being a great tour guide and great traveling companion. Hope our next baby-moon is just as fun.