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.

Our Own Little Beckham

Last Spring Vincente played T-ball and had fun, but this year we decided to try out soccer.

I’m pretty sure Vincente has found his favorite sport. I definitely found mind!

When we signed Vincente up for soccer with his best friend Nicky (one of his friends from preschool/the ward) I put down that I would volunteer to be a coach if they needed one. Apparently they needed one, because I became the coach.

I actually found that I really enjoy coaching. And what I lacked in soccer skills and knowledge was made up by my “assistant coach”, Nicky’s dad (a native Egyptian – i.e., he lives, breathes, and bleeds soccer – there is just an accent barrier – the kids had a hard time understanding him). We made a great team, and I am excited to get the team together again in the fall for more great soccer.

We’re just Rec league soccer folks – not too competitive, mostly for fun and learning soccer.

Speaking of learning soccer – our “division” was 5-6 year olds (technically, Kindergarteners and “just before” Kindergarteners). Seven of our twelve players were preschoolers. Which means that we were often playing games against whole teams of kindergarteners!

YouTube fixed the shakiness of the video for me!! Whoa, that is SO cool!

I am pretty sure we were the most improved team in the division. Our kids started out in a “cluster”, not really knowing what to do with the ball, and ended up being able to steal, block, defend, and dribble. They still have a lot to work on, but they improved so much. It was really rewarding as a coach.

And all the parents want me to coach again this fall! I’m pretty excited. It’s always nice to have a community – no matter where that community is.

On top of that, Vince and Nicky’s other best friend from Kindergarten has decided that he wants to play with them on their team this fall.

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:

P90x

Although I have done P90x videos before (my favorite is the plyometric DVD. Wow, now that’s a good workout) I’m not super into them. But Michelle was working out to one in the morning, and Vince decided that he needed a little bit of a workout, too.

Scouts and Pancakes

Our ward does an annual pancake breakfast fundraiser for the scouts. It seems like Russ is always busy on the weekend of the breakfast (ah, a job – both a blessing and a curse). So I end up taking the kiddos myself.

Can’t beat all you can eat pancakes, eggs, and sausage (well, maybe if it was all you can eat bacon instead of sausage. Mmm… I love bacon…)

The pancake breakfast was the day after Vince had his little run in with the couch. It was also the morning of the last West Jordan Symphony rehearsal for the spring. Obviously we skipped orchestra and went to the pancake breakfast instead. Probably a good idea since I don’t really feel like cooking much when I’ve been at the hospital all night.

Our Second Home–or the ER

I guess it’s just having a boy, but we have been in the ER/Urgent Care/doctor’s office way too many times in the past five years. I am sure this is only a premonition of what is to come.

Russ was on one of his trips, and Michelle and Dan (who have been living with us) had gone up to visit Michelle’s parents in Midway. It was a Friday night and I was sitting on the couch reading while the kids were playing before bedtime. They were already in pajamas, and I was letting them run off their energy.

They were putting pieces of paper into the box fan in their bedroom and then coming to show me/tell me how hilarious it was.

Children in a state of hilarity + running back and forth between bedroom and living room = disaster/ER trip waiting to happen.

It was about 9:00pm on Friday night when Vincente came running full speed out of his room and tripped. On the carpet. And caught himself on the couch. With his forehead.

As soon as he hit, I jumped up. I knew it was going to be bad. He didn’t pass out or anything, just grabbed his forehead and started screaming. I pulled his hand away to assess the damage, and as soon as I saw the gash I knew we would be making a visit to urgent care. I picked up that poor little guy and headed to the kitchen for some rags to stop the bleeding. I’m not sure why I wasn’t more freaked out. Probably because this isn’t the first time he’s done this.

I was a little flustered, trying to call my friend to see if she could watch Joseline, but when she didn’t pick up and I realized how long it would take me to find another phone number, I decided to walk across the street and knock on my neighbor’s door. Doc was running around outside, and Joseline was standing barefoot in our driveway as I knocked on the neighbor’s door. Chaos.

still under the effects of the sedative

It was perfect timing because my other neighbor who also happens to be the nursery leader (i.e., Joseline’s best friend from Church) walked past neighbor #1’s house as I was at the door explaining what happened. Neighbor #2 took Joseline for me, and Neighbor #1 drove us to the hospital.

Three hours, four stitches, and one dose of conscious sedation medication (that was hilarious), and he was as good as new. And we were all very ready to go to bed.

Vince kept saying “What’s this little light?” or
pulling the oxygen tube out of his nose and saying “What’s in my nose?”
every minute. He was sooo out of it. And it was adorable.

I am so grateful to my neighbors for being so totally awesome.

And grateful for good health insurance – we never have to pay anything from these ER/doctors visits. A huge blessing, since my children seem to be walking disasters.

Tugga Tugga Stop Stop–or Twinkle A

Thanks to a generous donation from Grandma Pam and Grandpa Victor (in the form of an old student violin I played on in high school) we were able to buy a violin for Vincente for Christmas! Mom and Dad’s donation covered half of it and we were able to pay off the last half with part of our tax return.

Vincente started violin lessons in March with Elizabeth Burton, one of the best Suzuki violin teachers in Utah. She is so great with Vincente and he loves going to violin lessons. We’re working on focus and obedience – but those are normal things you work on with a five year old. What I love most about his teacher is that she understands that and is so patient with my very creative, very active little genius.

Just look at that kid!

If you missed it before, here is his performance at his very first recital! He enjoys the group class, even though it’s all girls and he doesn’t want to sit next to them in group lesson (they have cooties). I’m sure he’ll reverse his opinion about that all too soon, so I’ll let him think they have cooties for as long as he likes.

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.

Trampoline Downgrade

When we lived in California and had a nice open backyard, we bought a 15’ trampoline with an enclosure. It was a lot of fun and we were excited to put it up in our backyard. Until we realized that it took over almost all of the open space in our yard.

So at the end of last summer, we sold it. We weren’t horribly sad to see it go – Doc had jumped on it a few times (who knew he loves jumping on a trampoline almost as much as our kids do) and got caught in the net once and tore a hole in the enclosure.

This spring I found a trampoline at Sam’s that was just the right size for our little concrete pad. So I bought it, and with Michelle’s help (I think Russ was out of the country when we got it), we put it together and the kids have loved it.

Now we just need sod on that side yard. Soon. Very soon.

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.