Support a good cause

Many of you probably don't know, but my family has been affected by cancer. Brett's family has been much more affected then mine and because of that his family has participated in Relay for Life for the past 8 years. Brett's grandma Yvonne and grandpa Claude both died of cancer. His uncle is a prostrate cancer survivor and his cousin a thyroid cancer survivor. My family has been somewhat luckier and I have only lost one grandparent to skin cancer, William Carl Gale who died before I ever knew him.

The Petersen family is once again be participating in Relay for Life. Every year we try to raise some money to help find a cure and support a great cause and this year our goal is to raise $5,000. I have a personal goal of raising $100. I am asking for those of who you can to please support our family in this endeavor. You can click on the link below, click on my name (Chelsea Petersen) and then donate to our cause or email me and I will get you more details if you would like. Thanks in advance to all of those who are helping us achieve our goal.

The American Cancer Society - :

Well... Well.... Well....

This past month sure has been a crazy one, so bear with me while I fill you all in on our crazy last month. WARNING: THIS IS A LONG POST with not very many pictures.

Probably the biggest news of all is: WE MOVED! Yeah! We are now tenants of a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home in beautiful Newton, Utah. After living in our tiny apartment for almost 2.5 years (minus 8 months that we lived in Alaska) we were more than ready to get just a little bit more space. We will only be in this place for a short stint hopefully. We will be moving to the basement apartment of Brett’s sister and brother-in-law’s (Nat and Greg) home as soon as it is finished, or in October. They are finishing the basement by themselves so it will take a little longer and the family that we are renting the house from has a daughter that is getting married in October and her and her husband are planning on moving into this house. So regardless if the basement is finished or not, we will be moving out of here in October. But we absolutely LOVE living out here and are excited to call Newton home for the next year or so. Here are some pictures of our new house:

Our new home

Our house from the road - the trees keep it quite cool

Our backyard/back side of the house

The next best thing that happened in the last month was school got out. Unfortunately, both Brett and I have to go to school for the summer so we don’t get much of a break. Luckily for me, my summer semester is much more laid back then the rest of the school year so it shouldn’t be too bad. Wish I could say the same for Brett. He has got a rough couple of months ahead of him. He’ll do great though – he always does.

A few random events happened: Brett finished the LAX season up. They tied for 2^nd at the end of regular season and made it to the playoff game. They played Brighton at home in the first round of the tournament and unfortunately they lost. The boys didn’t come to play and it showed. Luckily, the season ended just in time for Brett to focus on his finals and do well on them.
I played on an intramural women’s 5 v 5 indoor soccer team for a few months during the winter. We played in the championship game the last week of April and we won! I scored 3 goals and had a couple of assists. But I NEVER score in games, usually just get the assists so I was pretty happy. It was a close game and it was fun to be able to play competitively again, even though it was very friendly. I just can’t seem to get enough soccer. Once I play for just 5 minutes I can’t stop and want to play more and more and more. It just sucks getting old and not having teams and leagues to play on. Hopefully, I will be able to make it to a few soccer tournaments this summer. We are still working on making it happen but I will keep you posted.
My dad had two baby horses, one on April 16 (colt/boy) and one on May 6 (filly/girl). They are dang cute little things. Unfortunately no pictures yet. I have been such a clacker lately that it truly is ridiculous! I will have to post some up with the next blog.
Brett’s niece, Abby, was blessed the first Sunday in May. She is a beautiful little girl who is always so happy. She loves seeing people’s faces and her personality is showing through more and more every day. We feel so blessed to be able to live so close to Brett’s family and share so much of their lives. We just wish my family was closer so we could share more with them too! Perhaps some day.
My sister, her husband, and their son, Dax were here from Alaska. They came down for Zach’s little sister’s wedding. They arrived the day before the wedding and they left this morning. We had to share them a lot with the Jones family and I didn’t like it one bit. We are used to having them all to ourselves for the summer and I am so sad that we aren’t going to be able to do so this year. We got to spend a lot of time with Dax, keeping him occupied during the wedding and such was a blast. I took their family pictures on Wed, we went for a hike and to a movie on Thursday, and then Friday we headed up to Idaho Falls so they wouldn't have to leave so early in the morning. We borrowed my grandpa's van and we got a flat tire on the way there. We stopped in Pocatello to get it fixed, had lunch and kept chugging along. We had dinner that night with my aunt's family that live in Rexburg and swam in the pool. Dax loved the pool and a great time was had by all. We really enjoy spending time with the Joneses when they are here. We love them so much and already miss them so much. I am still going through all of the pictures that I took while they were here but here are some of their family pictures:

On Mother’s Day we also got to talk to my brother, Dillon, who is on a mission in Portland. He sounds like he is doing so well. He is loving the area and the people there. I can’t believe he has almost been out a year – that means that I have finished a year of graduate school and am now considered a 2^nd year MFT grad student. WAIT! I’M WAY TOO YOUNG FOR THAT! P.S. I think that Brett and I are pretty dang lucky. We have the best mother’s in the world and are so blessed to be able to live so close to them – even closer now! J They are such wonderful mother’s and great examples. Thanks for being so great and teaching us so well Moms. We love you!

Last Saturday was the Black & White Days Horse Show. I miss showing horses like crazy! This month has really been quite depressing realizing just how old I am getting by not being able to play as much soccer anymore and not being able to show horses like I used to. Man oh man… getting old really does stink! Luckily, our nephew, Garrett loves horses and I talked his dad into signing him up for lead-line. We got “Airplane de Wasey” (Garrett named the horse airplane and wasey is how he says horsey) all shined up and ready for the show. We combed and braided her tail and got all of the snarled mane out. She looked really nice. Garrett went to the show and had a good time. About half way through the class we kept saying “Get down. Get down.” But for only being 2 years old he did a fantastic job and even got a blue ribbon! Go G-man! We had fun getting the horse all ready and it made me homesick for the good ol’ days. Thanks Mom and Dad for affording me the opportunity to do so much and be so involved in so many things when I was younger. You’re the best! Here are some pictures of Garrett and Airplane at the show all dressed up:

Garrett thought it was fun to comb my hair while I combed Airplane's tail

Garrett and his Blue Ribbon

Greg, Garrett, and Airplane at Black and White Days

Baby Abby climbed on Airplane with her big Brother while the judge was talking to each of the kids. What a cute family!

All of the above mentioned stuff was great, fun, and made our lives crazy for the past month. However, the best thing that happened to me in the last month was that everyone in my cohort at school got placed in their internship. The internship goes for the next year and we interviewed for the positions just like you would for a job. I was fortunate enough to get LDS Family Services in Logan. I don’t have to travel to Ogden, and it is one of two paid internships. It’s a fantastic place to work and I can’t wait to start there – which will probably be about mid June when I see my first client there. I am so happy about this! I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to get position. And hopefully, this will open up some opportunity for when it is time for us to move away for Brett’s school. We’ll just have to wait and see…

Happy Birthday Brett!

Brett turns 26 tomorrow and for his birthday every year he always jokes about going to Chuck E. Cheese, "where a kid can be a kid". On Friday we were headed down to Salt Lake City to Brett's Mission reunion. I told him that we were going to meet my cousin in Salt Lake for an early dinner. He didn't question me and thought that we were going down early to Salt Lake for that. Little did he know that his entire family had left for Chuck E Cheese a little bit earlier than we did. They were all waiting at Chuck E Cheese when we arrived. Brett had no idea that it was coming and it was a really good surprise.

Part of the surprise was I had registered Brett for a birthday party so he was a Birthday Star of Chuck E Cheese for the evening. Because I registered him he received a big balloon with his name on it, a blow up crown, a piggy bank with Chuck E Cheese on it and Chuck E Cheese himself actually came out and gave out fives, sang Happy Birthday and gave away some gifts. Brett was a little embarrassed but I am so glad that it all happened that way! We all felt a little awkward with 8 adults and only 4 kids there but it was fun. Definitely an experience that anyone who was there will not be forgetting for a while.

All of the adults were a little apprehensive about heading down to Chuck E Cheese but it was actually really fun. I'm just glad Brett's nieces and nephew was there so that we didn't look like pedophiles.

Here's proof of the event:

The Crown

The Medallion

Brett, Me, Garrett and Brooklyn with Chuck E Cheese. Gracie, Brett's niece was not found of Chuck E. at all. She was not impressed

The Birthday Cake

After Chuck E Cheese we headed to Brett's mission reunion. It was so great to be able to chat with a couple of his mission buddies and their wives. Most of them have small kids so it was fun to see their kids and catch up with some of them. Then of course it was a weekend full of General Conference, lots of family time, and good food. Conference was great, as always, and it's always nice to get some good family time in, especially when there is food involved. It was quite a fun weekend. I hope it won't be a weekend that Brett will forget any time soon. I am so thankful for all of his hard work and am so grateful to have him in my life. Happy 26th Birthday Sweetheart!

Rise and Shout!

Check out these awesome shirts Brett and I bought for our niece and nephew. Aren't they just the cutest?

Spring Break 2010

This year for Spring Break we headed to Southern Utah for some sun. We originally we going to backpack through Coyote Gulch in Escalante, Utah. However, much of the hike must be done through the stream, the weather was only supposed to be in the mid 50's, which is what the temps were here in Logan. So we changed our plans and headed to a little Recreation site about 15 miles north of St George called Red Cliffs. It's just south of a little town called Leeds. It was a a very small campground and we camped right next to a stream. It was very warm, about 75 degrees the whole time we were down there. It was beautiful! We did some hiking and exploring in the area and had a blast just spending some much needed Brett and Chelsea time.

We left for Red Cliffs on Monday afternoon got to camp at about 7:30, set up camp and enjoyed a nice fire. Tuesday we went for a hike that started right at our campsite. It was gorgeous! We went boulder hopping once we couldn't go up the trail any further because of neck-deep water. Rock scrambling was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of driving to our camp site, our camp site, and that hike:

We also went to explore the ghost town of Silver Reef. It was a Silver mining town. The silver was found in the limestone, which is supposedly the only commercial Silver mining from limestone that has ever been done. It was once a booming town with a Main street that was over a mile long. Silver Reef had over 2000 people living here. There were hotels, 9 stores, 6 saloons, a bank, several restaurant, a hospital, 2 dance halls, 2 news papers, a china town and 3 cemeteries. In 1891 the last mine shut down, about 25 million dollars worth of ore had been taken from the mines here. Between 1891 and 1901 another $250,000 of ore was taken out of the area. Here are some pictures of what is left of the town:

We also tried to get to the abandoned Fort Pearce to look at the petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks. We had spent about an hour trying to find this place and a few miles away from the Fort the road was covered in a few feet of water, too much water for the subaru to handle and we didn't really feel like getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. So we had to turn around. We did get to enjoy driving around a new area of St George.

We also went to Quail Creek State Park. It's a big lake/dam that is between Leeds and St. George. We spent about an hour just skipping rocks. It was a beautiful lake. Of course, here are some pictures:

That night we spent around the campfire, eating oreo's and milk and playing Rook. Good times!

Wednesday we went for another drive through the Dixie National Forest. It was a gorgeous drive! Brett enjoyed driving through the here because he said he felt like a derby car driver. It was a lot of fun seeing Southern Utah from a whole new angle. There were lots of deep canyons and gulches. Here's a few pictures from our excursion:

That afternoon, my friend Justin, who is in the MFT program with me who is from St. George, took us 4-wheeling in the Veyo area. It was so much fun. We were caked in dirt after words and my hair felt so disgusting! But we had a blast and got to see a lot of the area. Here's a few pictures from our awesome ride:

We had a campfire that night - to add to the dirt, we thought adding a little campfire smell would be the best idea. We ate oreo's and milk yet again and enjoyed just chatting next to the campfire. I LOVE CAMPING! I can't wait until it gets warm enough that we can go in Logan! The next morning we headed for home.

P.S. The last couple of weeks Brett has been super busy. He went to Las Vegas two weeks ago and Boise a week ago with Lacrosse. In between those two trips he also had midterms so he ahd two huge tests in the middle of all of that. He got home from Boise on Sunday night and the next afternoon left o go to St George with me again. It's now Friday morning and Brett has once again left to go to South Salt Lake for, yet, another Lacrosse tournament. He is such a wonderful husband and I appreciate him so much for his willingness to spend some time with me on our camping adventure!

It's been a while...

Life this semester is crazy as ever but luckily for me, this semester of school is much more enjoyable than stressful. I've seen a few more clients and I can't tell you how much I enjoy it. Everyone must think I am crazy but I just love doing therapy! Some people might think that it is more stressful than anything else but I think it is so much fun. I love walking into a therapy session and seeing what I can come up with and just watching people's minds at work as they finally begin to see the results they are looking for by coming to therapy. Every case is a new challenge and i love being pushed every time that I'm sitting with someone. Call me crazy but I think I'm going to love this job for the rest of my life!

Ok, ok. Enough about all that gross therapy talk. Things in the Petersen Household are crazy as ever! Brett is coaching Lacrosse again this year. It is now in full swing. They played a hockey game yesterday (coaches and the Varsity team) and let's just say that it's a good thing that they don't play on ice all the time. Brett will be working with the special teams on the varsity team which means he helps them with face-offs, clears, and rides (transitions). Brett loves working with the boys and we are so blessed that he has the opportunity to work with the boys. Lacrosse season is always such a busy time but it's also such a satisfying time for both of us. Every game I'm learning a little bit more and more about the sport and can't wait to spend a few hours in the sun watching Brett's hard work pay off.

I also started a new job. I am working as a PSR worker or Psychosocial Rehabilitation worker in Southeast Idaho. Right now I just have one client that I am working with who is 4 years old. She is going to be a challenge but once again, I'm very excited to see what I can come up with. The traveling to Preston twice a week kind of stinks but the pay is great so I can't complain one bit.

Brett's sister and brother-in-law had a new baby and named her Abby. She's a month old and needed her pictures taken so her beauty could be shown off to the friends and family. She's adorable! Here's a few pics that I snapped of the cute little thing.

Here's a great action shot of Brett on the ice...

Here's Brett attempting to pick up his stick.... Oops! Him and the ice got to know each other pretty good yesterday.

Studio 5 and Good Things Utah

This week is National Marriage Week and because of my associate with the Utah Marriage Commission they have asked me to write a blog post that will be posted on http://blog.strongermarriage.org/ This post will be used to help the Utah Marriage Comission promote stronger marriages and will be used to promote it on Good Things Utah on Wednesday and Studio 5 on Thursday. So here's a copy of what will be on the blog and we sure to watch Good Things Utah on Wednesday and Studio 5 on Thursday and look for my blog post!

Unnecessary Pressure

Hi, my name is Chelsea Petersen. I am currently a graduate student at Utah State University in the Marriage and Family Therapy Program. I would like to share with you the one thing that I would change about being a newlywed, if I had the chance.
A little over two years ago I got married, while going to school, and trying to work. Add the adjustments that need to be made in a new marriage on top of being a student, preparing for Graduate School, and working, and there was a lot on my plate. My husband Brett, who I might add is quite a wonderful man, also had a full load with school and work. When we were first married, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the “perfect wife”. I thought that because I loved him so much I had to show that love by being the “perfect wife.” To me, this meant having the house spik-and-span 100% of the time, having a home-cooked meal on the table every night at 6 pm when he’d walk through the door, and catering to his every need. I felt a pressure from society that I had to be this ideal wife. Don’t get me wrong, I loved showing him my love by doing all of those things for him but it wasn’t until about 8 months after we were married that I realized that Brett would still love me if there wasn’t a home-cooked meal on the table the second he walked through the door, or if the laundry didn’t get done until we were down to our last pair of undies. I have learned that those things are OK. It took me and Brett some time to figure this out together. Brett would often walk in the door and I would be busy running around the kitchen trying my hardest to get things done so that I could measure up to that “perfect wife”. Often times I wouldn’t even stop what I was doing to welcome him home, to give him a kiss, to tell him I love him, or even ask about his day. Over time Brett helped me to realize that a spotless house is nice, but it’s more important to live in a place where you can feel relaxed and be yourself. By trying to measure up to the “perfect wife” I was not being myself. One of the most important things for me now is not to be perfect by society’s standards but to be the best person that I can be for my husband. Now that we are getting further into our marriage and beginning to discuss children and how we would like to raise them, I find myself again, trying to be the “perfect parent”. I have all the solutions for every problem that will happen with my children and exactly what I want my kids to do and not do. I am sure that soon enough, when my child is eating a Kit Kat at 3 months old or writing on the freshly painted wall I will have to change my way of thinking once again. But hey, I can dream for now, right?!?
My hope for you as the reader is to not make the same mistake that I have made. Realize that the most important thing in your marriage is to take the time to really love your spouse, communicate your expectations with each other, and to not get wrapped up in everything the world says that you should be. Love your spouse to the best of your ability and don’t worry about what other people say. Who knows, you might surprise yourself and actually enjoy watching a football game while you’re curled up next to the one you love.