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.

Second (er, first?) Honeymoon

(sorry in advance for this super long post – but I think it will be worth it for you to read!)

Our first honeymoon was to McCall, ID where we stayed in a friend’s cabin (for freeeee) and were going to go to Brundage (see picture below) for some fun snowboarding and enjoying each other’s company.Well, unfortunately for us, December 2005 was not very snowy in Idaho, and McCall was not as much of a winter wonderland as perhaps it should have been. Therefore we elected to spend all our time staying in the cabin making yummy food and… well, you know, hanging out.

Then on our way home to spend Christmas with our families, our car broke down as we drove down the road out of McCall and we ended up spending the night in the bunk house of the cabin (another family had already took up residency in the cabin for Christmas – but they were friends of Russ, too, so it wasn’t totally awkward).

Thanks to a lot of really nice people, we ended up with our car in Boise, and us finally sleeping on my in-law’s couch at 5am Christmas morning.

Needless to say, our honeymoon was not very… honeymoon-ish.

So when Russ told me to book a flight to Puerto Rico for the second week he was going to be there for a Spanish language immersion trip, it was like a second chance for our honeymoon.

Since the hotel was paid for by Russ’ work, we only had to pay for my ticket to get down there. It wasn’t too expensive, even though we bought the tickets last minute, and I think that we might just have to take a trip to Puerto Rico again sometime. It was really fun.

We stayed in a Marriot Courtyard hotel right on the beach in Northern Puerto Rico, just outside San Juan. The entire beach was mostly hotels, and some apartment buildings (I think the building in the left side of this picture is an apartment building). The Marriot was really nice – they even had a poolside bar. I spent most of my time lounging on the beach and reading while Russ was in classes, and then in the afternoons and evenings we got to go out exploring.

Hurricane Irene made an appearance the day before my flight arrived in Puerto Rico, so our adventures were a little more… adventurous. It rained a lot because of the hurricane. Apparently the weather had been great the week before I got there, and then after the hurricane it was mostly cloudy and rainy all week long. But that didn’t stop us from having a swell time. There was also damage all over the island that was still being cleaned up. Not to mention all the power failures. I think we only saw a few working traffic lights while we were there. More often than not, the traffic was horrible (which I learned was not necessarily because of the hurricane – it was more because of how Puerto Ricans drive) and one intersection we were stuck in for a while because none of the lights were working and I think it was the intersection for people getting on and off the highway.

To keep myself entertained I took a lot of pictures of the beach and the waves. I won’t bore you by posting all of them here. Our hotel was really close to the airport, so you could always see (and hear) planes taking off right by the resort. The water was pretty cold because of the hurricane, but Russ told me it had been really warm the week before. Apparently the hurricane brought cold water with it – or churned up the colder water from the deeper parts of the ocean. Regardless, it was a lot of fun to play in the ocean. The salty water reminded me of living in Monterey and visiting the ocean there. I love the ocean, and I was really glad to visit it, even if it was cold (it wasn’t nearly as cold as the ocean in Monterey! Even “cold”)

One afternoon after class, Russ told me to meet him on the beach for a surprise. I was super excited, because I love surprises! He took me down the beach a little way to a guy at a makeshift looking booth with life jackets strung up between two palm trees. Obviously I knew what we were going to be doing as soon as I got there. Jet skis! Woo hoo!

Well, that’s what I thought until I got on the thing. It freaked me out. I was puttering along when Russ (who was sitting behind me the whole time) took hold of the accelerator and showed me how to ride that thing. I was screaming probably the whole time, “You’re going to kill us! We’re going to drown! Don’t make us crash! AAH!!!” After a little while I realized that I was indeed not going to flip over (Russ told me that it was usually the small jet skis that flip over, and that you’re actually less likely to flip over when you are going fast – not sure if that is true or if he said all that just to get me more comfortable driving like a crazy person). It worked and I ended up making some pretty crazy waves and jumpin’ ‘em like a mad woman. It was super cool, and I am glad he got me out there and got me comfortable – because that is something I would never choose to do on my own. That’s one of the things I think I like the most about being married to Russ – he gets me out of my comfort zone and shows me things that I would have never discovered without him. (disclaimer: the picture above was taken after our ride – we did indeed ride with life vests on. I promise)

We spent a lot of evenings playing in the pool with the other wives who had come out. The hot tub was really nice, and the pool was comfortable (although I spent most of my time in the hot tub – I don’t really like cold water). Russ likes to swim, but me? Not so much. I like to relax in a hot tub, and that’s about it.

Lest you think we were beach bums the whole time, we wives went on a tour of old San Juan with the guys (this was part of the language immersion program). We went to the old Spanish fortresses, and also walked around downtown old San Juan as well.

The old castle was definitely my favorite. In fact, when I first got to Puerto Rico I saw these cool looking turret things on everyone’s license plates and I told Russ, “If we have time, I would love to go there!” I also told him I wanted to go to a fresh market place and buy some mangos and avocadoes and all those other yummy things you can’t really buy in the states (especially not in the mountainous desert). While in Puerto Rico, I ate the most scrumptious mangoes (probably 4 or 5 of them in the 6 days I was there), star fruit (delish!), avocadoes (who knew, they're supposed to be bright green when they are ripe!), and don’t forget the monfongo (mashed plantain) and churrasco (grilled steak – yum yum yum). I think I ate the best I have ever eaten. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Back to that castle. Because I am a sucker for history and museums, I really enjoyed myself. It was interesting to learn a little more about the history of Puerto Rico – how it was so important to people trying to trade in the Americas because it was really the first “civilized” place between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. After all that water it sure was a nice place to land.

We also learned that San Juan is going to be using the old water collection system that the Spaniards built at the fort. They are in the process of updating it and getting it ready for their own use. I think that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard of. Of course, conservation of both history and natural resources are some important things to me, so it’s neat to see a city doing both! Using their history to conserve natural resources. Smarties.

Of course, the best part of being there was getting to spend “grown-up” time with Russ. We’ve had kids since we were married (practically – Vince was born a year after we were married) and we’ve been doing to school or moving across the country with all this military stuff. It was really nice to settle down for a while, and the trip to Puerto Rico for some time away was icing on the cake. Yummy yummy icing. This is my favorite picture from the trip. We were getting kind of bored (and tired of walking around) on the San Juan tour, so we stopped to take some smooching pictures. I think this one turned out the best.

“But wait! There’s more!” Russ wasn’t done with his surprises. The last day we were in Puerto Rico, he took me on the longest drive ever (seriously, I thought the actual driving through Puerto Rico was the “surprise” part…) and we finally ended up in this backwater, run down fishing town I later realized was on the far north east tip of Puerto Rico. Still having no idea what we were going to be doing (but assuming it had to do something with kayaks because there were kayaks everywhere at this little park where we stopped) we had some yummy fish, and shark, and other yummy foods at the little fish restaurants and stands at the park.

After dinner, we had a little kayak safety training and learned that we were going to kayak through a itsy bitsy canal to a mostly land-locked bay called “Bioluminescent Bay” where these little organisms live that light up when you move them! I don’t have any pictures because it was dark, and my camera is not very good at taking pictures in the dark. Now I am thinking I probably could have done a video. The glowing organisms weren’t super bright, but I bet I could have shot a video. It was fun to splash the water onto my shorts because it looked like I was throwing glitter on my legs. With every stroke of the oars, the water would light up. It was really magical. I thought I was going to get eaten by a snake or capsize in the canal when we were going back and forth from the bay, but it was really not too bad.

Here is a good video that shows what it was like. The glow was more green than blue (the video makes it look blue, but that’s probably the camera)

It was a fabulous trip, with memories made that will last forever. We’re going to have to make sure we take some “all by ourselves” trips more often! It’s so easy to get caught up in every day and forget to get out and do something special with your spouse. Gotta love that big hunka man!   

 

This is a picture of Russ in the rainforest the week before – this is probably the only thing I would have wanted to do and didn’t get to. I guess we really will have to plan another trip to Puerto Rico!

Puerto Rico – Finally a Vacation

Last time Russ and I went “away” without the kids was when Joseline was about 5 months old and my sister (thanks, Sisty!) flew out to CA and watched the kiddos so we could go on a military marriage retreat in Santa Cruz. Scratch that – we did spend a night in a resort hotel in Tucson, AZ last summer. But that was just one night, and we didn’t do anything really spectacular. Santa Cruz was the last REAL vacation. And that was over two years ago.
We were definitely overdue for a vacation.
My flight got in to Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning at 2:30 am. Russ picked me up, took me back to the hotel, we slept for a while, then he left for class around 8 am. And I kept sleeping. In fact, I slept until noon. It was crazy! Then I got up, ate some cereal, and put on my running clothes. I had a great run on the beach, it wasn’t too warm because of Hurricane Irene, and it was overcast. The sand was pretty wet, too, so it wasn’t as hard to run on the wet, packed sand.
After my run, I showered quickly and Russ took me out to a market where he bought me a few dresses! I’ll have to take pictures when we go out dancing. The hotel has live salsa music in the lobby on Wed-Sat, and free Salsa lessons on Thursday nights. Guess where we’re going to be tomorrow night? I love dancing!
Shopping was fun, even though we had to drive back to the hotel in a flash flood (I have NEVER seen such horrible traffic!! Peurto Ricans are probably the worst drivers in the world). Plus half the street lights were out (they are still trying to fix power outages from the hurricane – although one store we went to said that their power outage had nothing to do with the hurricane. Sometime their power just goes out for no reason… What?)
So after we braved the floods in the little rental Kia, we decided we were starving (all the food places at the market had been closed – probably because of the power outages) but the only place open near the hotel was Burger King. Against my better judgment, I had a burger and fries. The fries were probably the worst idea yet. But i think today is better.
After that, we came back to the hotel and I switched my flights (effortlessly, might I add – Southwest and JetBlue… how do I love thee?) and talked about the things I had learned at Education Week last week at BYU. Russ also napped for a while, since he hadn’t slept in until noon. 
Then Russ’ buddy’s wife, Luzmary, flew in and we met them at Casa Dante for some delicious churrasco and monfongo. The meat melted in your mouth – it was even better than the Brazillian style churrasco at Rodizio’s/Tucanos (which I thought was some of the best grilled beef EVER). It was a fun experience to try the monfongo, and it was actually really good. It was a different flavor and texture than I had ever really had, but was kind of like a potato stuffing? Something like that. I will definitely have some more of that before we go home. And maybe some more of that steak stuff. If anyone has food recommendations for Puerto Rico, let me know. I love eating locally when I am traveling (instead of Burger King… which wouldn't have been my first choice, except no one else was open.
After dinner we went in the hotel hot tub for a while (hot tubbing under palm trees? Yes please). Today I would like to try out the little “in-pool” bar. Virgin, of course. But it just looks like so much fun! After the hot tub we went out and walked down the beach. I would like to say we walked in the moonlight, but it was still mostly overcast, so it was more like a walk in the dark. A few stars were out, and the ocean was pretty calm. It was really nice. And the water was so warm. A HUGE difference from that freezing cold beach in Monterey, CA. After the walk down the beach, we sat on a hammock on the beach and talked some more. Talking feels so good, and I feel like we haven’t been able to talk much in the last year or so. Things have been so stressful, and I think that we have been holding a lot in. It’s great to be able to reconnect away from everything.
Oh, and on our way back to the hotel we stopped at a little local grocery story and I bought some locally grown produce! A star fruit (which I couldn’t resist and ate in the car on the way home!), some bananas, and a mango. I ate one of the bananas for breakfast, and the mango I’ll probably eat later. Russ bought me an avocado which I plan on eating today for lunch. It is HUGE. I’ll probably have to share it with him.
Today we’re going to Old San Juan, so hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures for my next post. Right now all I’ve got are pictures of the view from our hotel room (on the top floor!)

I forgot to take my camera out with us yesterday, but I’m remembering today!
Check back tomorrow for more pictures!

Finally, It Works

If you’re like me, you like to budget.

But if you have a husband like mine, you know that the budget thing has to be really simple, fool-proof, and funds have to be protected. I’m not saying Russ is a frivolous spender, because he isn’t, but his idea of budgeting is “Do we have  money in our account? Okay, then let’s go spend it.”

We have tried every method of budgeting (it seems like it, anyway!).

Don’t believe me? Since we got married we’ve tried:

- a paper spreadsheet printed out each month
- this book, Debt-Free on Any Income (which came with a CD rom of lots of fun spreadsheets)
- The Church’s “One for the Money” book complete with budgets, get-out-of-debt plans, etc.
- Quicken (too complicated, and too many features)
- Budget Map (actually a really cool idea, but it wouldn’t work with one checking account and one spouse who would never write anything down…)
- mvelopes (an online envelope system that really worked for a while, but cost us every month… how’s that for counter productive!)
- Budget (a program from Snowmint CS, which was actually pretty useful, too, but not as “automated” as mvelopes, and since we were moving from mvelopes to this program, it was just too much work).
- Dave Ramsey’s “Deluxe Envelope System” – which would be great if Russ was doing the shopping, but I spend cash way too easily (easier than using my debit card, if you can believe it)

All the trial and error was actually pretty good because we discovered a lot of things about our money habits:
1.) We don’t like to keep track of every single tiny purchase. We are not normally frivolous spenders, we have a pretty good grasp of “need” and “want” and we don’t spend emotionally. We get what we need, and leave what we don’t. We eat whole, natural foods, so we don’t buy crap at the grocery store. We don’t like keeping pieces of paper around, and we don’t like writing stuff down.
2.) I am not good at using cash. Russ is really great at it. If I give him a bunch of cash, he’ll end up with almost as much cash a month later. He seriously doesn’t spend cash. If you give me cash, I’ll spend it all at once instead of rationing. And then I don’t have any more cash, and I can’t get the things we need, because I spent all my cash. I guess I feel like because cash is “untraceable” I can spend it on whatever, instead of on things we actually need.
3.) We like to have all our bills automated.
4.) When we have less money, we spend less money.
5.) I like to plan out every dollar for the month, but Russ likes to have a large “slush” fund (which he usually does not use).

So, after trying every different budgeting method under the sun, we’ve finally found a process we think will work for us:

First, we use my own budget I made up (based off the mvelopes budget that I absolute LOVED). It is just a spreadsheet, but it is crazy powerful and really helps us give every dollar a name. It checks our sums in three different ways, so we can always tell how we need to move things around to make the budget work. In one document, we can do our monthly budget, and budget each paycheck. It’s pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Second, we added a feature to our budget (which isn’t in the one I posted publicly, but I will update it soon) – we’ve color coded the line items. Bills that need to be paid are highlighted in yellow. Bills that have been paid or are pending in the checking account are marked with green. Once the money clears our checking account, we change the color to red. That way, if we’re wondering why there is extra money in our account, we can usually just check the budget. This is a great recording system for us.

Third, we recently added yet another feature to the budget because when our discretionary spending is mixed in the same checking account as our “bills” money, we sometimes end up spending that money.

Remember Russ’ method of “budgeting”? If there’s money in the account, we can spend it! So we decided to open a second checking account for our “discretionary” spending. This is all spending that isn’t programmed, automatic, or regular. Grocery money goes in this account, gas money, spending money, etc (it all goes in there because half the time we are “stealing” money from one category to use in another, which doesn’t bug us, as long as we eat and Russ can get to work). The only drawback to this was that we would probably spend all the money in the account right up front (remember me with the cash? I’m not that much better with the debit card). So instead of putting all the money from each paycheck in there, we set the budget spreadsheet up to calculate all the “descretionary” items each month, and divide that by 30, then multiply by 7, and that is how much money we transfer to the second checking account each Monday for four Mondays.

We’re still working out the math, but the idea behind this system is that we create “artificial scarcity” with our money. We “have” less money, so we spend less money.

It has taken five long years, but we finally have a budget system that is going to work for our family. And it doesn’t involve me spending several hours a day recording bank transactions, balancing checkbooks, and checking online accounts. It should be seamless and only require us to address the budget twice a month before pay day, and any time we need an emergency budget meeting.

Which means more time to hang out with the babies, blog, and live life.

That’s what I’m talking about.

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.

A Little Bit of Everything

I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet – I promise. There’s proof over here and over there. Okay, not super recent proof, but proof enough.

You know how when you’re climbing a mountain, you can’t really tell how far it is to the top when you’re actually on the mountain, doing the climbing. Well, that’s kind of how I feel right now.

Although, the nice thing about climbing a mountain is that you can usually stop for a breathtaking view every now and then, making the uncertainty of when you’ll reach the top somewhat bearable.

The view of the Arkansas River on the way up Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas. I had a picture of the fog coming off the river from a different hike, but I couldn’t find it – so this will have to do. Not quite breathtaking, but beautiful nonetheless.

So we’re still working through some things (I say working through because we really are working through them. Things are getting better, not worse, so that’s good) but in the meantime, we’re enjoying the view from the side of the mountain.

Remember how much we missed this face? (photo courtesy of Vincente, of course) He came back from Brazil on May 15 with lots of goodies for us! Mostly books, but some flip flops for me (I basically live in flip flops – especially in the summer, but I’ve been known to wear them even in the dead of winter – as long as the ground is dry), and a berimbau, from which the airline took the tall stick – because they were going to charge him $100 to check it, and they wouldn’t let it in the cabin. Bummer. But Russ managed to take it apart and brought home everything except the long stick, which are not really a rare commodity around here.

Thanks to a lot of thiswith a few days of this in between, our yard has been growing a lot of these and a bunch of these

(disclaimer – the four previous pictures are not mine – I found them on Google images. I’m pretty sure as long as none of you say anything, no one will sue me. Right?)
Needless to say, whenever the heavens aren’t pouring their liquid gold upon us, we’ve been outside working the yard. I’ve got to put some before and afters of the little patch of our backyard where we laid some seed. Thanks to all the rain, it looks thick and luscious without us even running the sprinklers! And I wish I had taken pictures of our tulips. We ended up with mostly orangy-red ones, but a few yellows, purples, purple-whites, and a few pinks showed up later in the season. We’ve got what appear to be some dark purple irises coming up, too, and an unknown bush that I think is a hibiscus, but not entirely sure. And a lot of decorative grass. I mean… a LOT. If anyone wants some, please let me know, because I’m going to tear it all out.

Tonight we’ll be building the vegetable garden, and hopefully planting tomorrow. I know it’s kind of late in the season, but all this rain has made it nearly impossible to plant anything.

Russ mowed the lawn a little over a week ago, and it looks like a jungle again already! I’m not complaining – we’ve had to do a lot of repair work on the landscaping of this house. Remember what our yard used to look liked? (if you don’t, there are pictures in this post) I’ll post an update on the yard later, probably after we get the garden up.

We’ve been enjoying visits from friends – especially this friend who now lives very close to us, and who we adore very much!

We’ve been working out and running, and in general just plugging on with life.

Oh, and enjoying some really yummy watermelon ($.17/lb at Sunflower Market a few weeks ago! The absolute best! PS, Vincente took this picture)

So I can’t really complain about much, but I can’t wait to be at the top of the mountain. I’m sure the view will be amazing.

I’ll post a picture of the view from the top when we get there. And we will get there.

Monday Musings - Good Reads and Motherhood

Being a mother is all it’s cracked up to be. And more. I love it. And my attitude about motherhood is improving every minute. It’s a lot like marriage. When you are young (and not married) you have this sort of “fairy tale” impression of marriage. You’ll find the love of your life, making covenants in the temple, and the rest of your life will be utter bliss.

And then you get married and realize that marriage is a whole lot of work, patience, love, and getting to know each other. Especially getting to know yourself.

Sometimes the same thing happens with motherhood.

As a young girl, you look at the moms of small kids and think how awesome it must be to have those precious children and raise them all your own and do their hair and dress them up and take them to ball games and out for ice cream.

And then you have kids. And you realize that motherhood is a whole lot of work, patience, love, and getting to know each other. Especially getting to know yourself.

For a little while you may say to yourself “What on earth was I thinking?” among other things that you may or may not admit to yourself. Like “I wish I could just give them back!” or “I’m never having another kid.” or “I wish I could just start over.”

But none of that is constructive, and you did at one time want to be a mother, which I don’t think was just naïveté. I think the Spirit does a really good job of planting the seed of motherhood in every young girl. We want to be mothers. We crave motherhood, even if we don’t know exactly what it is like. But that is what this mortal experience is all about – experiencing new things and doing things that we have never done before.

So instead of thinking all those crazy thoughts that we deny ever even having, we should be praying for the Lord to give us strength to do things that we don’t think are possible – like keeping our cool when our kids pee on the carpet, draw on the walls, and throw their spaghetti (sauce and all) on our brand new shirt and favorite pants.

It helps to remind ourselves that they are just little people, too, who are here in this mortal life for the same reasons we are – to experience new things and do things that they have never done before. And it’s our job to help them in that journey, because even though our journey isn’t done yet, we have experienced more of it than they have, and we are (hopefully) able to guide them through it all and help them make sense of the whole thing.

I have been reading a lot about motherhood lately (it is, after all, my full time job, and I want to be the best employee I can be).

I wrote my thoughts about the things I read over on my scripture study blog. At the bottom of the post I listed the articles I’ve been reading. I highly recommend the one about Quality and Quantity Time by Beppie Harrison.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a mother, and I am glad that I had such a strong desire to be a mother when I was young and I’m even more grateful that I am learning to love being a mother. It is a lot more work than I ever thought it would be (it’s emotional, physical, spiritual, and temporal work) …

… but it is the best work I have ever done.

More Good

I’m feeling good and loving how our life is going right now, which is no excuse not to write blog posts. Part of the lack of blog posts might be that I still don’t have our camera (hopefully I remember it get it when we visit the in-laws for Easter).

Why am I so happy? Well, let me tell you what’s on my “happy list” right now:

- I’m getting stronger (I got to a power pump class at the gym on Tues and Thurs, and I can feel the strength and stamina I’m developing. Now I just need to start running again, since the weather is good)

- Russ and I have better gospel discussions and are more unified as parents and spouses. We have Family Home Evening, family prayer, we read scriptures together as a family, and are working on worshipping better on the Sabbath day.

- We are one step away from getting our foster care license! (home study tomorrow!)

- The military (finally!) paid a huge chunk of Russ’ student loans (almost HALF of the loan!!) and will make another payment this fall, and the fall after that.

- The military fixed our address in their system (finally!) and we are now getting paid enough to cover our housing expenses!

- Russ will be coaching Vincente’s T-ball team this spring, which starts next week!

- We’ve been to the eye doctor, I’ve had my first yearly exam (ever!), and the kids are getting caught up on their shots (we’ve been a little lazy about following our alternative schedule – but most of that has to do with moving around so much), and I’m going to the chiropractor regularly again, so my hips are feeling a LOT better.

- We’ve been getting a lot of work done on the yard (I thought that I had posted about how it looked before,  but I can’t find the post – so here are some pics of last fall):

The lawn is getting really green, and we have cleaned up all of the weeds and trees (well, the big ones). My plan for next week is to mow the front lawn, then weed & feed. Then in a month I’ll re-seed the parts of the front lawn that need help. The backyard is being re-seeded, and we expanding the dog run so we don’t feel so bad about keeping them cooped up. Plus, we’ve been taking them out on walks/runs/dog park visits more often so that they can get some much needed exercise. And I’ve also done a few home projects – I replaced the water line to the fridge, so we can finally use the water and ice maker in the fridge. I also replaced a motion sensor light on our back deck. The sensor was defective or something, because it would turn off and on and off and on… sooo annoying. I replaced it with a fixture that didn’t have a motion sensor, since we only want the light to be ON. We’ll hopefully be adding some motion sensor lights to the corners of the house soon. We’re also going to replace the light at the front door (which is completely broken…) and put motion sensor lights on the side of the garage door.

We’re going to replace some light fixtures and fans around the house, and replace the doors and door hardware (these two things will happen in the next few months). And this summer we’ll put in tile in the dining room (which is currently carpeted) and replace the tile in the kitchen.

We have to do things piece by piece because our cash flow is relatively low (some day Russ will be promoted). But we feel blessed because we have very little debt (and we’re paying that off) and some savings (which we’re adding to) and very low expenses, so we’re able to accomplish a lot of the things that we want to, even with our limited income. I’m always astonished with how much we are actually able to do each month with our limited paycheck. It always seems to be more than it really is.

Well, that’s why life is good here. I hope life is good for you, too!

When Life is Good

 

Life is pretty good right now. We’ve finished all the preparations for our foster care license, and have our home study scheduled for next week! I think it will go really well, and hope that we will be approved for a license soon so we can get a placement. I am so anxious to be a a foster mom!

My new normal has been working out pretty well. I love my kids, and I love just being with them, and I love my pump class at the gym, and I love that we can go to the indoor pool any time we want, and I love that the weather was warm enough for us to go for a walk and jump on the trampoline. I love that our dogs are living in their run again so that we can grow a lawn in the backyard. I love that my tulips are budding, and soon we’ll have tulips all over our front yard. I love that my husband is a sweet heart and that we have experienced so much growth in the past five years (both personal, and as a couple).

I am grateful to live so close to my little sister, who I adore more than pretty much anyone on this planet (after Russ and my kids), and who is amazing and selfless.

I am excited for my parents to come visit this summer and see our new house. I am grateful to be homeowners (even though it means we spend more time at the home improvement store than at home!) and I am grateful for a reasonable mortgage, little debt, a little savings, paid-for cars, food storage, and a handy husband.

I am grateful for my talents, my abilities, and my desire to improve them. I am grateful for my callings, and the opportunities I have for growth. I love to read, and I am grateful for all the good books there are to read – there is so much to learn!

Well, I didn’t expect this to turn into a thankful post – I just wanted to write something on the blog today, and post that adorable picture of my Mini-Me and me, and talk about how wonderful life has been lately.

Hopefully I will be updating more often. If I don’t write here, chances are I’m still posting over on my scripture study blog, or my preschool blog. So go check those out if you can’t find updates here.

When I post on the blog, I send a feed to Twitter (follow us!), which sends a feed to Facebook (friend me!), so all the posts will show up on both, not to mention any blog reader you have.

Have a great Wednesday, and I will, too!

Monday Musings - Mother’s Day In

Well, the pictures below have almost nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but I need to post pictures, so here you go.

I went to my in-laws house last week and spent the night. Russ was gone, so it was just me and the kids. And today, while I was thinking about how refreshing it was to go there, I realized exactly why (besides the fact that I really like them!).

I love my babies. So much. And I always need their cuddles and love. But I also need a little time to myself.

One solution to this dilemma is to take the kids to a daycare, get a sitter, or otherwise remove them from my presence (or me from theirs). But whenever I do this, one of two things happens:

1.) If I left the kids because I needed to get something done (take a class, run errands, etc) I end up completely focused on the task, and I end up not really having time to myself.
2.) If I left the kids because I “needed time to myself” or went on a date with their Papai, I end up thinking (or talking) about the kids the whole time.

So I’ve discovered what is actually more refreshing for me:

Having the kids where I am (in the same house, but not necessarily climbing all over me, needing me to feed them, wash them, potty them, etc etc) but having someone else be the primary caregiver for them. That means, if they come running to get on me, the other person who is taking care of them comes and gets them and takes care of their needs. But they are still around for me to go give love and kisses to, or play with for a little while. Or if I decide I want to feed them a snack, I can – but all the pressure of caring for the children is removed.

Sometimes Russ does this (takes care of the kids while I’m still around), and I feel great afterward. It’s like just enough of a break without feeling like I’m “getting away” from my kids. I don’t want to get away from them, but knowing that I don’t have to be the one making sure their every need is met at every second is a nice breather for me.

I think that is what makes me feel like a new person. Heck, what makes me feel like a person instead of solely a source of sustenance for two small children and a pillar for a grown man.

(p.s. funny story about that snowman – a few weeks later, Vince was asking, “Let’s go outside and make a Vincente-size snowman so I can put the carrot in his nose. Not a big snowman.” Ha ha. Cute kid.)

Monday Musings – A House of Order

Sometimes this is what my life feels like. Messy with little bits of life strewn all over. I’ve been doing pretty well keeping my life and house in order, but the weekend was pretty crazy (thanks for coming, all you who came to warm our house!) and I felt like I was getting further and further behind on life – leaving little scattered pieces of life lying around for people to step on. It was tragic.

Thanks to my sweet husband, he picked up all the scattered pieces and delicately put them back together for me, while I slept most of the weekend off. It was great.

Then we had an uplifting evening with some new friends on Sunday, and today had Family Home Evening – a beautiful lesson about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost (the Godhead). We sang the First Article of Faith song (in Portuguese – Regres de Fe) and we’ll sing it every day for the rest of the month, and hopefully Vincente will learn to recite the first article of faith himself. We’re going to make a sticker chart to “pass off” the articles of faith as we learn them (everyone, me, Papai, Vince, and Joss). We’re going to learn one a month, starting with the first this month (since it’s such a short article of faith, and the month is over half done, we figured it was a perfect time to start, instead of waiting until January – “New Years” resolutions can be made at any time of the year, in my book!)

So, now that the house is mostly back in order, and I got 8 full hours of sleep last night (plus a 1 1/2 hour nap! Which I wasn’t planning on taking...) I think I will be able to keep the little bits of my life from getting too scattered.

And Family Home Evening always puts me in a good mood – especially when they are followed with conversations like this:

Me: Vince, does Heavenly Father have a body like ours?
Vince: Yup.
Me: Does Jesus Christ have a body like ours?
Vince: Yep he does.
Me: What about the Holy Ghost? Does he have a body like ours?
Vince: Except, he don’t.

Love it. He soaks stuff up like a sponge (and I’m extra impressed, because FHE was entirely in Portuguese – which means he understands more than we think he does!).

What kinds of things throw your life off track? Do you ever feel like you’re leaving bits of your life strewn around? How to you clean up and get back on track? Do you have a sweet husband (or good friend) who helps pick up after you when you can’t seem to hold it all together?