Header Update

I updated our header with a more recent family photo! We had our family photos taken last fall by amazing photographer Victoria Baines Harris. I will post more from that shoot eventually.

The old header, with family photo circa Feb 2010 (the beach in Monterey, CA)

The new header, with updated family photo (seen above)

Who Knew

At my yearly vision appointment a little over a year ago my eye doctor said I was a little farsighted and that if I was having trouble reading I could wear a light reading prescription.

Which was fascinating, because I had just been thinking about how my head hurts after I read for a long time, and sometimes my vision goes blurry when I am looking at things close up (not just words… like when I’m making PB&J’s… weird, right?).

Well, I showed up at my yearly eye exam this year and he asked if I ever got that prescription filled for the glasses. Umm… nope. But my vision was definitely not getting any better.

So I finally filled the prescription.

And now I have reading glasses (which I am only 50% good about wearing…)

I need to take a picture of myself in the same position as my late brother, Ross, so you can really see the resemblance. I’ve always thought that I looked like Ross more than I look like anyone else in my family (a female version of him, I’ll say).

What do you think?

Where to Start

I have no clue where to even begin. I can’t believe I have been so bad at blogging our family stuff. I have no real excuses, but the fact that I have been blogging like a mad woman over at My Soul Delighteth probably has something to do with it.

That and the fact that I was teaching our co-op preschool every few weeks, coaching soccer, and teaching a toddler Mommy and Me piano class every Monday. Life got busy.

And I like to read. Reading = I don’t do anything else.

Lately I’ve been reading BYU Devotionals, Women’s Conference talks, General Conference, blog articles, etc and I get a little … consumed. I have been blogging a little bit about all the things I have been studying, but most of the thoughts are still either in my head or in my little composition notebook that I carry around. Writing out my thoughts has always helped me process them.

I have pretty much nothing to do tomorrow so I am going to make a goal to do some marathon blogging on the family blog. I was going to do that a while ago but I got distracted.

If you don’t follow the front page you should so you can get updates, since when I blog past events I usually back date them so they show up in the right order on the blog. I will post on the front page when I actually post the old post, and I’ll link to it so you don’t have to go find it.

Get ready for a Rowley Family Marathon! Woohoo!

A New Page

The Salt Lake County Libraries just finished building a brand new, huge library right here in West Jordan. The old library was small and kind of ghetto. The new library is spunky, big, and clean.

We went to the grand opening where we checked out some new books (it looked like they spend a lot of money on new books), watched a puppet show of Peter Pan, saw a giant snake poop in front of the audience, saw a tarantula, held a cockroach, and played on some blow up slides.

I love West Jordan, and the fancy new library makes me love it even more. I also love that we’re within walking distance of all these things to do – the rec center, the library, the big park. It’s all right here basically in front of our house.

Up a Creek

On Memorial Day weekend because we had nothing really cool to do (and Russ was out of town, as usual) we hiked a trail in Millcreek Canyon with the Wilde’s. We brought all sorts of snacks and treats, and Doc of course, and headed up the trail.

The trail we were going to hike originally was closed to cars (I guess we could have walked up to the trailhead?) so we picked a hike a little closer. There were some breathtaking views. The first time we hiked Millcreek Canyon was for my birthday last year (an event to which I would link … if I had blogged about it. Looks like my lame blogging has extended all the way into last year! I have way too much catching up to do… my bad).

The kids loved it, of course – Doc included. Well, Joseline wasn’t particularly a fan, but I think it’s because she’s such a light weight (seriously, at three years old she barely weighs 30 lbs, even though she’s over 3 ft tall. Compare that to her cousin Garrett who weighs 35 lbs (he’s one… just barely) and is at least a full head shorter than her. My crazy scrawny baby. She takes after her mama, I think. I’m pretty sure I was at least as skinny as she is. I was always really scrawny.

We stopped at a little clearing for some scrumptious lunch. Vincente wanted to take pictures, but he had a hard time getting anyone actually in them. Except Doc. He took a great picture of Doc.

Eclipse–not the Vampire kind

While Russ was gone (again) I took the kids down to Mom and Dad Rowley’s for Sunday dinner and to spend the night. We happened to be there on the day of the annular solar eclipse, so we tried to watch it. We tried the pinhole in a box method, which didn’t work very well because it was kind of cloudy. Or we didn’t do it right.

Brady went to drop off some forms at one of his youth leaders’ houses and when he got back he was so excited because he had seen the eclipse and knew how to view it!

We layered up four sets of polarized sunglasses and took turns looking at the sun. Even Joseline and Vincente got a turn. It was truly an amazing experience.

I tried to take a picture through the sunglasses but for some reason it didn’t work. Probably because I used my iPhone. Not exactly the best camera…

Other people were able to get some awesome shots, including my cousin Jacob. Here’s one of his that he posted on Facebook:

I wish I had snapped a photo of Joseline and Vince looking at the eclipse. I hope they remember that they were able to watch an eclipse!

Pomp and Circumstance

For the 2011-2012 school year, Vincente and I have been participating in a neighborhood co-op preschool with three other families from our ward. When I was making the certificates for their graduation, I realized that we didn’t really have a name for the preschool, and “neighborhood/ward co-op preschool” just wasn’t going to cut it. The park where we had the graduation, as well as the subdivision we live near/in, is “Jordan Meadows” so that’s what I named the preschool. The other moms seemed cool with it, but I apologize for stepping on any toes. I made the certificates kind of last minute.

Cassie, one of the moms, had the kids for the last two weeks of preschool and so she helped them prepare a graduation program. It was really cute and really well done. There is a video of a few parts of the program at the end of this post. Please excuse the droopy lens cover. Our camera has seen better days, that’s for sure.

I have really been impressed with how much the kids have learned this year. More than the content, though, I am glad they are learning how to pay attention to a teacher, listen, and obey. And how to interact with other kids their ages. Vincente has really learned a lot in preschool, even if he still doesn’t like writing his name. We’ll be working on that part.

The kids actually came up with a lot of the program on their own – they wanted to march, so Cassie had them march while they counted to 25 (the “magic number” they are supposed to know for Kindergarten this fall); they wanted to play musical instruments, so Cassie had them make some instruments (you’ll see those in the video, too).

We all took family pictures out in the shade. The weather was perfect and Cassie made some delicious and moist cupcakes with the cutest little homemade decorations that said “Congrats Grad!”

I am so glad that we went with the co-op preschool. It really was a fantastic idea, and we’re all talking about doing it again this fall with the younger siblings! Joseline probably had almost as much fun hanging out with the kids in preschool as the big kids did.

And here are the promised videos:

Third Honeymoon

Well, our first honeymoon was to McCall, ID, and our week long trip to Puerto Rico last summer was like a second honeymoon, so this would be more like a third honeymoon.

The view from the room, King’s Peak, at the Inn on the Hill

The same view later that night

Russ had just returned from a pretty steady stream of trips for work, and his mom offered to take the kids for a few days when he got back so he and I could get out and do stuff, just the two of us.

Of course, that is an offer I can’t refuse, so on Tuesday evening we drove the kids down to Russ’ folks house in Salem. We hung out with the in-laws for a while before coming back home and enjoying a quiet evening at the house all by ourselves.

We slept in, then made breakfast and went to marriage counseling. But not before making plans to stay Wednesday night in the Inn on the Hill, an adorable bed and breakfast in Salt Lake City up on Capitol Hill. On our way to the hotel we stopped at the Rec center in downtown SLC to get a little workout in. After we got nice and sweaty, we headed back to the hotel to shower and change so we could go explore the City Creek center and refill all those calories we burned by eating at Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian churrascaria. The food was pretty good – their feijaoda was the best of all the churrascarias we’ve been to (I don’t like it at either of the other places, but I had two helpings at Texas de Brazil). There weren’t as many meat options as there were at the other churrascarias, but the meat they did have was moito bom.

Unfortunately the City Creek center was closed by the time we were done with dinner. But not to worry – we headed back to the hotel to watch Hitch on DVD (the bed and breakfast had a bunch of movies you could check out to watch in your room).

The next morning we headed to the temple for a session before breakfast at the inn. The weather was great and the view from our room was excellent.

Breakfast at the inn was also really delicious. The lady who ran the bed and breakfast cooked it herself, served it, and helped us with anything we needed. She was really awesome (I wish I could remember her name!)

After breakfast we hung around the inn for a while before checking out and heading for Get Some Guns & Ammo. Russ shot a few different guns – some .45’s, I think a .55 or something like that. I tried the big guns once but the recoil scared the pee out of me every time. So we went back in and asked for a “woman’s” gun. They gave me a .22 handgun, and it was perfect! I really enjoyed shooting it, and I have to say, I was a pretty good shot with it.

Russ’ favorite gun was the XDM – I can’t remember if it was the .45 or the bigger gun. I was really surprised at how much fun I could have shooting. And Russ, of course, was in heaven. It was good for him to be able to shoot and try out different guns. He really had a good time and I hope we get to go shooting again soon.

After the shooting range we went to a Hibachi place in Sandy. We went in for the lunch special, and we were the only people in the entire restaurant. It was nice and quite and the Hibachi artist guy was really fun. I should have taken pictures of him doing all his flames and throwing stuff. Russ caught a cucumber in his mouth when the chef flicked it at him with his spatula. Next time we’ll have to take the kids. Vince would get a kick out of it, I’m sure.

We owe a huge thank you to Mom and Dad Rowley for keeping our kids (even Joseline sans fofinha – she didn’t have her blanket the whole time, which makes bedtime a little bit of a night mare). The kids really enjoyed being with Grandma and Grandpa, and Mamae and Papai really enjoyed spending some grown up time together. It’s so good for our marriage.

I’m already looking forward to our next trip together.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Remember how Joseline wasn’t super excited about her bike that she got for her birthday?

If you don’t, here’s a picture to remind you -

A few weeks later, we got her on the bike (happily!) and with a little help from Vincente she even got down the driveway!

She’s got a lot of room for improvement, but I’m sure she’ll pick it up.

Meanwhile, Vincente is getting pretty good at riding without training wheels! No pictures or videos of that phenomenon, but hopefully we’ll do a lot more bike riding this summer and I’ll try to remember to take pictures and videos.

One Year Older

Vince and Joseline’s birthdays are ten days apart, and Vincente’s birthday falls on or near General Conference every year, so birthday parties don’t happen all that often for them.

This year we partied while Papai was in Paris on a French immersion.

While we were taking these pictures

he was taking these pictures

Renae and her kids were down visiting for spring break so we had the entire family there for their birthday. The cake is always a highlight, although Joseline was a little worried about all those people singing happy birthday to her.

She perked right up when it was time for presents. Especially the gift from Jordan to “Joshasilin”. In some world, that spells “Joseline”. I really can’t fault them, though. It’s a hard name to spell, even if you go with the traditional “Jocelyn” spelling. Which to me is even harder than the way we spell it. At least our way makes a little bit of orthographical sense…

In true form, Jordan gifted several of his old toys.

The duct tape covered Nerf ax was a big hit (and still is).

And I am pretty sure Jordan’s gift doubled our stuffed animal collection.

Good thing I made that zoo.

They now have Nerf guns. I’m pretty sure every kid needs a Nerf gun.

The “big” Grandma/Grandpa gifts -

Bumblebee transformer for Vincente. He’s been begging for a “big transformer” since his cousin Sam got one last November for his 5th birthday. He originally asked for Optimus Prime, but I’m pretty sure when he saw Bumblebee all he could think about was how incredibly cool he was that he now had a real transformer. Whoa.

Joseline’s big gift was a bike. She was not incredibly thrilled about it and although we got her to ride around for a little bit she really didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Hopefully she’ll grow out of that.

Spring Bunny

After much discussion and a lack of Easter Bunny around our house for the past 5 years, we have decided that we really don’t like the idea of the Easter Bunny being associated with Easter. I don’t have a problem with Santa Clause, since he was an actual person (or is associated with an actual person) who did things that are related to Christ – gave to the poor.

But the Easter Bunny… brings you candy and presents… I really can’t see any connection between that and the Savior’s atonement, death, and resurrection.

And so, the “Spring Bunny”. We call him Vernal. Ha ha. Rather than celebrate the Easter Bunny on or near Easter, we have decided that we will have the “Spring Bunny” come on the Vernal (Spring) Equinox. While that date sometimes gets really close to Easter, more often than not it’s father away, at least a week or so, and by associating the bunny with spring rather than with Easter we can eat candy and not feel like we’re secularizing Easter. Best of both worlds, right?

This was our first year attempting the “Spring Bunny”. I think it turned out pretty great. Now we need to do some all-out Easter traditions to really make the distinction. Our family is young, so we’re still working out all our traditions.

We carried over a few from our families, with the Spring Bunny – including hiding baskets and eggs/candy all over the house. (this picture is Joseline finding her basket under the table)

Vince is getting old enough to make an egg hunt really fun.

We shared Easter this year with the Wilde’s who have been living with us for a few months while Dan was in China.

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are when we would find Easter candy hidden a few weeks/months/a year after Easter. Ha ha. Nothing better than a stale malt egg!