Motorcycle Family

When the weather is good, we like to ride on Papai’s motorcycle. Vincente has a DOT approved helmet we found at DI, so Russ will take him around the block (just on our neighborhood streets) and back.

Joseline had never been on a motorcycle before this picture was taken, and she freaked out. Russ was just letting them ride while he pulled the bike into the garage. Silly babies.

When Russ and I go on dates, our preferred mode of transportation is the motorcycle is the weather is even half decent. Our favorite rides together were in California when we rode to Santa Cruz for a marriage retreat, and then our frequent rides to the movie theater in Monterey. That ocean air all around you, the smell of sea brine, the cool breeze – it was perfect. We miss that place a lot, and if we get a chance to go back we will in a heart beat!

Now our motorcycle dates are usually to the dollar theater in Sandy or West Valley.

Russ is such a responsible motorcycle driver, and so observant. I never worry about riding with him on his bike (ironically, I’m more scared riding with him driving a car than I am with him riding a bike…)

Buying that bike is probably one of the best decisions we ever made! And it’s paid for, which makes it that much sweeter.

Repost and Some Thoughts a Day Late

I was reading the following post today and I just loved it. It was a record of one amazing weekend, and I just thought I’d post it because this past weekend was just about as amazing, but I don’t have time to write about it (I was trying to get Live Writer fixed… it’s fixed, but I have to leave for the gym in about 10 minutes!)

So here’s a repost of July 6, 2009 for your reading pleasure:

Sunny Day
originally posted July 6, 2009

Ah, the sun, the sand, the shore, the waves crashing on the beach, a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. We spent the day on the beach in Santa Cruz with the Wildes. It was fabulous. We didn’t even really do much. Just bummed around on the beach. I like bumming on the beach better than bumming at home – you’re bumming around either place, but at least when you go out to the beach you feel like you’ve done something that day.

Mostly, Russ and Dan went out on the boogie boards, and Michelle and I sat near or in the tent with the babies, while Vince jumped around in the sand, explored the rocks, ate bananas and sandwiches, and made friends with some other little kids on the beach.

The babies were pooped after a while. Okay, well, Ethan mostly slept the whole time. Joseline was awake for the most part, but she was bored with Ethan (since he was just sleeping) and kept squawking at me, begging me to take her out to see the ocean.  When I did, she would just stare at the waves crashing on the shore. It was really just a peaceful day. No rush to do anything. Just … living. That pretty much describes our weekend! (oh yes, that and potty training Vince – which has been WAY wonderful)

I got some pretty great shots – even with my dinky camera. It actually works really well out in the sun. Indoors is where it has problems.

On the way home we stopped at “Top-a-Lot Yogurt” in Santa Cruz. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt place. Think DIY Coldstone. You grabbed a cup, filled it with your choice of 6 different flavors of frozen yogurt, and then topped with any of dozens of toppings from candy pieces to fruit to sauces. Then they weigh your treat and you pay 39 cents per ounce of goodness. I think our total (including Vince’s chocolate ice cream topped with marshmallows) was something like $11. And Russ got a HUGE bowl of ice cream with just about every topping that had anything to do with peanut butter (pb cups, Butterfinger pieces, peanut butter syrupy stuff, chocolate syrup, etc). I should have taken pictures of the place. There are way too many things to think about these days now that we’re taking a two year old to the potty all the time.

This evening, some new friends from Delta Co. came over to hang out. It was a lot of fun. They have a daughter just about Vince’s age, and they are both potty training, and they both had accidents tonight. It was adorable. Okay, well, it was fun having friends over. The kids were exhausted, but they played pretty well together, considering. Joseline went to bed almost as soon as we got home. She was worn out from the beach, even though all she did was hang out in the tent with sleeping Ethan! I’m super ready for bed, but I’m waiting for Russ to finish some Chinese homework.

All in all, I am very satisfied with this weekend. I told Russ that I am neither anxious for him to go back to work tomorrow (like I usually am after the weekend – geez, just go back to work already! You’re messing up our routine!), nor sad to see him go back to work. It’s like the weekend was perfect, and I am completely content for life to just continue as normal! I think that is the sign of a perfect weekend.

Park Day

It’s kind of weird being a mom in the ward I grew up in.

Thankfully, Wednesday was playgroup for the Relief Society, so I took the kids. We’ve been going stir crazy in the house. What, with me moping around all day … every day (not to mention the heat). But I just had to get them out yesterday.

So we went to Lake Willestein park in Maumelle. It’s about a mile or so away from my parents house – we could have walked, except it is entirely too hot to walk anywhere in Arkansas. Not sure how I did it as a kid. More carefree back then, I guess.

  Joseline was looking particularly adorable yesterday (if I do say so myself). Any she loved those graham crackers! She was also walking a lot more. I think she’s started to realize that walking is much more fixe than crawling (fixe – cool in Portuguese, pronounced like “fish” but with more of a long e sound than a short i sound).

Vince had a great time with a lot of new playmates. See the flush in his cheeks? I think he rarely got flushed in Monterey. It seems like every time we move here, we get flushed. Even if we’re just getting in the car! I can’t believe how hot it is. This weekend is supposed to be a little cooler, thankfully. Highs in the upper 80s. How’s that for “cool”?

(but don’t you love how green it is! And all the tall trees! Arkansas puts Monterey to shame – as far as green-ness. Although the beach sure beats the pool. Hmm… now that I think of it, the pool water is warmer than the ocean in Monterey, so maybe the pool still beats the beach. At least the beach in Monterey)

2+/2+

Russ' DLPT scores! For those of you who are not familiar with the military and their arbitrary language test scores, this is a VERY good score! He has done REALLY well! His course is finished! Hooray! And he graduates on April 1. I will be flying down to CA with the kids on Tuesday next week to celebrate with him and to help him and the Wildes move back to UT.

We are pretty excited to see our sweet hubby/Papai next week! Especially with all the stress of DLI Chinese behind us! What a great adventure! We are glad it is over, and we are grateful for all the things we were able to learn and experience - especially the new friends we have made, new places we have seen, and new things we have learned to love!

He reports to his (more) training in AZ on the 14th of May. Until then, he is ALL OURS! We love him so much.

We are so proud of you, Papai!!

A Whale of a Tale

Things have been quite busy around here (hence no blogging) but I’m  blogging right now before I have to get dressed for a run.

We got lots and LOTS of boxes last night (and a tape gun!) so I will hopefully be able to pack most of the house today. It’s starting to get me down – the thought that we’re leaving beautiful Monterey and the ocean and all the wonderful friends we have here.

Thankfully a lot of those friends are in the Utah National Guard as well, so we’ll see them occasionally. But there are a few precious friends who are dear to our hearts that are active duty and will be sent to far away places. We will miss them SO much. We will probably have to take some vacations out that direction (a few of them are going to Ft. Bragg) and visit. It would be neat to see the other ocean!

My little family is doing wonderfully. They are growing up so fast.

We went Whale Watching on Monday with Sanctuary Cruises. Vince loved the boat. Joseline slept. Russ got sea sick. And I got to play hero and take care of everyone.

We saw one whale. It was magnificent. He only surfaced about 3 or 4 times, but it was really cool. And now Vincente has seen a real live whale. He probably won’t remember it much, but we’ll remind him about it. Especially since we will probably never go whale watching again. We have decided that we are not ocean people. At least, we’re not the riding-on-the-ocean type people. We like the beach! Does that count? 

Long Time

It’s been a while, and I’ve been taking too many pictures (again!) but I’ve decided to start only posting my very favorite pictures or the pictures that go along with a particular story/event I want to share. And then not spend so much time talking about the stuff that went on. I’d like to … but my life is probably not nearly as interesting as the pictures are cute :)

I’m going to work more on scrapbooking and eventually I’m going to start printing pictures to hang in our home (this fall… when we have a “home”)

Anyway, life has been very eventful this month. My parents came to visit, we went to the aquarium with them, the farmers market, and did a bazillion other things.

Now we’re getting ready for yard selling and moving and such.

I can’t believe our time here is almost finished.

 

We’ll be moving back to UT on March 1 (well, me and the babies) – but those plans are kind of tentative… they’ve changed at least 4 times since the beginning of the year…

 

Then it will be job hunting for me, graduation for Russ from DLI on April 1 (which I may or may not attend… he said he doesn’t care as much about his graduation from DLI as he cared about his graduation from BYU – I can’t blame him… bachelor’s degree and 5+ languages vs. associates and 1 language… hmm, it’s easy to see which schooling wins in the “coolness” dept for him)

In other news, Joseline still does not walk, I speak more Portuguese at home (and have committed to speaking Portuguese to the kids this summer while Russ is in AZ), Vince speaks Portuguese in the evenings and on weekends when Russ is home, and Joseline mostly just giggles. Oh yeah, and makes the “car” noise. Like every time she sees anything with wheels. Motorcycles, cars, push toys, etc. It’s pretty much hilarious. Her favorite toys are cars, and dishes. Good thing we have a lot of each.

 
And she loves Lightening McQueen. If Vince’s Cars toys are out and she has a choice, she goes for the Cars toys before the Hotwheels. I can’t blame her – they are pretty fun cars.

Vince goes potty almost all by himself and FINALLY puts his undies back on by himself. I just stopped helping him one day. The first few days he ran around naked because he wouldn’t put them on by himself. Then I started taking away toys/privileges if he wasn’t “underweared” Now he just does it himself.

 

Russ is getting ready to take the Chinese DLPT on March 20 (another recent for our early departure). He’s doing pretty well in class, but still hates doing homework. I totally understand though. We are SO much more entertaining than his homework :)

I am mostly hanging out with the kids, marking off my to-do list every day, and SO enjoying my garden which is blooming all sorts of beautiful flowers (the flowers are totally coming with me to UT).

We try to go to the library more often, and I’ve started doing a run/kid swap with a friend – she runs while I watch her 2 year old, then I run while she watches my kids! It’s working out great, and I’ve been pretty consistently working back up to a 10 min mile for 3 miles. I hit it just about on the head on Wednesday, and I hope to do a 4.1 mile loop next week, probably on Friday. With lots of hideous hills. It’s going to be a great run, though. Half-marathon, here I come! I’m progressing, slowly but surely.

The Post Wide Yard sale is on Saturday (the 6th) and my goal is to make $1000!!! Can I do it!? Better bet your bottom dollar I will!! I’ve got lots to sell, and I have the very best spot on the lot, which is going to be all decorated pretty, and I always have a “free stuff” box, which I’m going to place at the BACK of my spot this time, instead of the front, so people have to walk past all my COOL stuff to get to the free stuff :) You’d think I was in marketing or something.

 

  

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the random update and the pictures. Just a few BAZILLION of my very favorites from the past weeks. (Sorry, I wrote “few” before I actually went through my pictures to see how many favorites I had… )

Green Thumbs

  I hadn’t looked at the garden for a few days (other than to water it) and went out on Saturday and THERE WERE LITTLE PLANTS GROWING IN MY GARDEN! I went out today after church to show Vince all the little plants, and there were even MORE little plants! So far the only plants that haven’t germinated are the lettuce and the bell peppers. I took pictures of all the little plantlings. I am SO excited.

I took pictures of the green beans, peas, sugar snap peas, spinach, lettuce and broccoli here. I had two broccoli plants, but one of them got eaten by something (I think a raccoon… odd, I know). This week’s project (aside from fixing up the backyard) is going to be animal-proofing the garden. I know it was a little digging animal, because it had been digging around in the dirt as well. And I found little paw prints on the front porch. 

The pictures of the really watery plants below are of my basil and my tomato plant. I accidentally watered them too much. They look much better today. I’ve started putting them out on the front porch (more sun) and hopefully they will start growing faster. The backyard is pretty shady, unfortunately. Anyway, I have two tomato plants (no bell peppers are peeping through, yet, but hopefully I’ll see some this week!)

The weather has been very warm and sunny, which I’m sure is helping my little garden! It was also sprinkling a little yesterday evening and this morning, so the extra moisture (without water) is always nice. The backyard lawn is growing in pretty well. My goal is to have the backyard looking nice (and hopefully fenced!) by our birthday BBQ on the 26th. We’ll see. It will only be fenced if we can get our dislocation allowance this week or next. I’m going to go in this week to harp on them to pay us. I’m hoping it will work out.   

(P.S. The picture at the top is me pointing to a little sprout coming out of one of the bulbs my friend gave me. They were all pretty dead looking when I got them from her, but I’m trying to nurse them back to life in my front garden. On Saturday I found a little leaf pushing its way to the sun!! Hooray plants! – I’ve decided that I really love gardening. Some people love crafts… I love plants. And the outdoors. Love outdoors.)