Lots of News!

Life has been nothing but crazy this past month! Crazy is an understatement! We went to Washington when my dad had a heart attack. Good news.....He is doing great and is good as new! On July 31st while recovering from his surgery, he walked out the garage to get his newspaper, and was attacked by two pitbulls! What a nightmare it was! He had surgery and is now recovering again. When we thought all of the craziness was over we had one more big surprise! Saturday August 9th 2008, I started to not feel well. Things deterioriated quickly and I became white as a ghost, no strength, dizzy, and sleeping constantly. I collapsed on my way to the doctor, ambulance came and was in the hospital by Thursday August 14th 2008. I was shocked to find out that I have Hemo-lytic-anemia! My body had been blowing up and destroying my blood cells. I had only 1/3 of my blood left in my body. A normal woman has a blood count between 38 and 40. My # was at 14! The doctors said that I was so blessed to still be here! My body was fighting hard to keep going. I was hospitalized for the next 5 days and had 4 blood transfusions, tests, bone marrow biopsy,etc, etc, etc! So now my numbers are going up and up, little bit by little bit! This might just go away and I could be fine or I might have to deal with it on and off for the rest of my life. Time will tell, but I feel positive about the out come. I have been so blessed in the process with many miracles. The Lord has been truly mindful of our family! I am so thankful for all the prayers and fasting! We are excited to be back in Rexburg and start this new fall semester!

Morgan and Grace!

I Love my dear friend Morgan Martinsons!

Adorable Nieces!

Gracie & Alayna!

I Love my dear friend Alayna Beckstead!

Love from Washington!

Just Checking In...

We just wanted to say hi! We hope that all family and friends are doing well! We got to Washington on Thursday the 24th of July. Dan, Gracie and I had a wonderful trip. We had great all night talks, lots of music and beautiful scenery as we drove through Idaho, Montana and Washington. We got fresh Yakima Cherries! YUM!!!!! We surprised all of our families. It was soooo fun. Dan's mom screamed! Great Moments! Thank you for all of your prayers and concern for my dad and family. He is doing quite well after his surgery and can resume activity by the end of this week. He just has to take it easy! All Grandparents just love having Gracie with them. (Aunts, uncles and cousins too). She is so excited to see everyone and doesn't feel she needs mommy and daddy.(We're not bitter)! On Friday we went to Bradley Park with Grandma Ottosen and cousin Rebecca. We played at the Playground and went to see the ducks at the Lake. We had a great time! We have filled up lots of time visiting with family! It has been fun to see friends from church! Fun to date my husband! Fun to shop at great stores (especially for scrapbooking) YEAH!

We hope that everyone is having a great summer! All our love and thanks to you! We will keep posting!

Hello World!

Our first official vacation day!

Today July 21st 2008 is our first official vacation day! Dan just finished his semester and we start classes again in September. We went to the splash park and had more fun! It is just so nice to be together as a family.

I'm a big girl now!

Our Grace is so excited to be a big girl in a big girl bed!
Yeah!!!!!!!!! She even stays in all night without getting out,
and waits for us in the morning. Our little girl is growing
up so fast. Time flies! What a sweetie pie!

A great time at the Splash Park!

Monday July 7th 2008 Grace and I, Kali, Gracie and Daemyn, Lacey, Gracie, Samantha and Levi and walked to the Splash Park. We then met up with Megan, Liam, Ossi and Megan's sister Tamsin. It was so nice to play in the water, relax in the sunshine and hang out with friends. We then had a great walk back to University Village. It's great exercise!

Left to Right- Daemyn, Gracie O, Levi, Gracie H and Gracie A.

The Three Beautiful Gracies!
Relaxing!
Love the Slide! (Well at least after she is on it!)

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! We had a wonderful day celebrating the independence of our nation. We are so thankful for the freedom that God has blessed us with. We are so thankful for those serving and those who have served our country.

We celebrated the 4th with the Hainer Family. We had a ton of fun. We walked down to Porter Park to watch the 4th of July Parade. We had sno-cones, cotton candy and ice cream. Kali, Gracie, Grace and I went on the carousel. We went to the ward BBQ and then went to the movies to see Get Smart. Very Funny! Afterwards since it was still extremely hot we went to the Splash Park to cool down. (clothes and all). Dan and Rob held Me and Kali under the Big Bucket against our will and we were SOAKED! It was so fun. After that we got ready for a dinner picnic. We had fried chicken, macaroni salad, fruit salad, watermelon, chips and lemonade. We played games and watched fireworks. The girls ran around the field and played in a blanket fort. We had a great day and hope that you did too! Happy 4th of July!

Scrapbook It!

I love to scrapbook! I love getting idea's from others, so I thought that I would share some of my scrapbooking pages. I can only scan a 8 1/2 by 11 layout. My origanal layouts are 12 by 12. I think that you will get the idea though. Scrapbooking is a great way to perserve your special memories, have a family history, get creative, and have a lot of fun with friends. I hope that you will feel inspired!

Happy Scrapbooking, You can do it!

Friday Night we went to the BYU-I Luau! What great dancing from all of the islands. We had a great time.

On Friday we went to Porter Park. We had so much fun as a family playing in the water and getting soaked. Grace went on a little water slide. She was really nervous at first, but ended up having a great time. She also had so much fun playing with her new friend Gracie. When they are together we make sure to call our Gracie, Grace. They chased each other around the park and had fun watching the carousel. Grace kept yelling, Horsey, Horsey, Horsey! Oh how she loves the horses.

Let us introduce ourselves. We are Dan and Robbie Ottosen. We moved to Rexburg Idaho May 29th, 2008 from Washington. We were married in the Seattle Temple January 31st 1998. It still feels like we are newlyweds. We will be forever. Time has passed so quickly these 10 years. We were blessed to have a sweet, little, redhead named Grace in 2006. She is truly a gift from God. Dan has now decided to go to school and that takes us to the present. He is going to BYU-Idaho full time and I am taking 1 to 2 classes a semester. This has been a life changing event for us. Rexburg has been nothing like we imagined.
We are just settling into our new little apartment. It is starting to come together. We have a really pretty veiw from our window of green hills and a valley. Our apartment sits on a hill facing south. Still we have lots of boxes, but we work on it a little bit each day.

Gracie has been keeping us busy. She turned two years old on May 13th 2008. She has been trying to adjust to this big move. She keeps wondering where her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are. She still asks for them everyday. She loves talking on the phone to them. She is so much fun and has a beautiful spirit. Her favorite songs right now are Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree and Book of Mormon Stories with all the hand gestures. She loves to say her prayers, taking baths with her duckies, playing with mommy and daddy, meeting new people and making friends and going to the playground. She is no longer afraid of going on the slide by herself. We love our miracle!
Dan has been so busy at school. He has been doing homework, homework and more homework. Did I forget to mention homework? He has 4 weeks left of the semester. He is wonderful as usual, always so loving and serving. He is my superman. I love him so much. He is an amazing husband and father. He is my college sweetheart.

I have been learning my way around Rexburg and Idaho Falls. I only have one class on Thursday's right now. It is going really well. The rest of my time is filled with being Gracie's mommy, unpacking, decorating and getting to know the sisters in my ward. They are all so sweet.

We are learning so much at this time in our lives. We love the beautiful BYU-Idaho campus. We are thankful to be together on our new journey.

We send lots of hugs and kisses to our family and friends. We miss you!