A "New Year" Starts

Today is the first day of school, and although I'm not teaching, and the one class I'm taking at NAU hardly makes me a student, I'll probably always consider this event the start of the New Year. And how different this New Year is than all the previous ones! Instead of trying to make time to write in between class and grading papers and lesson plans, I have to coax my beautiful little baby to nap (sometimes it takes herculean effort) before I can sit down at the computer. And though Blake and I are involved in many of the same things we were before Rory's arrival, my days look so different! So how do I feel about being a stay at home mom and housewife? Like I finally know what I'm supposed to do with my life! Really, I glory in it. I love being there for my daughter, and I love managing our home to make things easier on my hardworking hubbycakes. We may be poor, but it is unquestionably worth it. Still, I'm realizing that intelligent, adult conversation is a crucial component of my sanity, and intellectual stimulation keeps me from feeling like I'm Aurora's peer instead of her God-appointed caregiver. So, these are my out-of-house involvements for the coming semester:

• MOPS! In entering the scary new world of motherhood, I get to join this elite company, and I am so looking forward to it!
• A book club! I love to read so much, and nursing Rory gives me ample reading time, and it's organized by some really cool women, and I'm pretty excited about it!
• Curves! Yes, I'm going to do it. I've always been a little skeptical of Curves, since the crowd it attracts seems rather, well, old, but I think it will allow me a chance to exercise without the intimidation that I feel at a regular gym, surrounded by real athletes! I don't want to be a supermodel, but I do want to be healthy.
• Grad Class! I'm taking one more class towards my masters at NAU, more than anything just to keep up with my academic Spanish and spend a bit of time in my field. It's just one evening a week, so it shouldn't be too taxing.
• Various political involvements! We're contemplating increasing our involvement with the Flagstaff Tea Party, though we cringe at the Tea Party stereotype. The Flag branch has a few different twists than the national one, and we think it's heading in a positive direction and that there are a lot of  neat opportunities coming up...it's been infiltrated by some awesome libertarian friends of ours, and we're working to convince people that parties are overrated and that individual and states' rights should be universally emphasized. I'm also hoping to help start a food co-op with some other members.
• Bible study! We go to two Bible studies, studying Matthew at the Millers', and young marrieds at the Korns' (which we've decided is more of a fellowship than a Bible study). They're both awesome and challenging and I learn a lot.

A New Year also means New Year's Resolutions, which I always make intentionally vague to allow me to reinterpret them as necessary. This year my focus is on self discipline. I need to have more discipline in just about every area of my life, so expanding on that would take far too long. Basically, I need to be more intentional about my actions, in everything from daily time in the Word to healthier eating and exercise habits to being more committed to staying within our budget. Pray for me if you think of it, and I'll post occasional reflections and updates.

I'll leave you with a recent picture of Rorykins, aka the most amazing baby in the world! I'm completely smitten with her!

Oh, and I made up a joke the other day! Here it is:
Q- What is ghost's favorite food?
A- Ghoulosh!
I feel like I should submit it to a Popsicle company to be printed on the sticks, along with all the eight and nine year olds!

our story.

Under the "pages" link at the right is Blake's and my story: how we met up through our wedding day. If you're bored sometime, check it out! I also have a printed version coming that I published through www.blurb.com if you'd rather not read it off the computer :-)

Summer

Beautiful Rory is nine weeks old today!

Going to a party a couple weeks ago

Playing with Dad at church on Sunday

• She has toe jam. Lots of it. I have no idea why, or if it is normal.
• She likes to sleep in...I assumed that when mama gets up, baby gets up. Apparently she disagrees.
• She has a favorite toy! It's her fun peacock, and she'll grab on to it and bring it to her mouth to suck on! She loves to watch her "friends" that hang above her bouncy seat too.
• I'm very impressed with the sun...it bleaches stained cloth diapers completely white!
• Everyday brings more smiles and new sounds...we have so much fun laughing with her!

What else (other than baby raising) have we been up to lately?

• With the primaries coming up the end of the month, we're re-involving ourselves in local politics, and are contemplating the best means of influence.
• We're packing and moving!
• I've been loving the rainy Seattley days...so beautiful! Perfect for cuddling with husband, baby, and pooch with books or a movie.
• Blake and I had an awesome date night on Saturday: dinner at the Himalayan Grill (lamb korma...mmmm), and home to watch Leap Year, which was an awesome movie...Blake even thought so!
• Speaking of movies, Toy Story III was so good...I'm impressed that they've kept the quality going through the whole trilogy!

For the past 20 years of life, this time of year meant getting ready to go back to school, as a student or a teacher. I still, in fact, consider Aug./Sep. as the start of the year, rather than January. It hasn't really sunk in yet that this is the first fall I am not going back. Well, that's not entirely true since I'm taking one class through NAU towards my masters (but that's just one evening a week so it doesn't seem to count!). While I won't really miss teaching and only sort of miss being a student, it's still very strange that this new stage of my life is starting...summer felt like, well, summer. We'll see what autumn as a housewife feels like.

New Home, New Adventures

After trying off and on for a year to sell our home, we got a large check on Saturday that closes the deal...our home has officially sold! God really did a fabulous work to bring us the perfect buyer, and now we are preparing to say goodbye to the first home we shared together.

Two wonderful years here...so many memories!

It was all decorated when  we drove up after our honeymoon!

The view from our deck was consistently gorgeous.

 

Our first Christmas was spent there...we had no tree so we decorated Apollo!

 

 

 

We smoked our First Thanksgiving turkey on its deck.

It was a humble house with a rich view.

It kept us warm during the winter

Our daughter won't remember her first home, but Vlad will never forge the little black poodle next door.

Thank you, House. Now, on to a new chapter!

"Bead's"

There is a little store near my home called "Bead's". I am confused; as multiple questions arise from its rendering. What exactly do the beads own? And, are they really "beads" at all? In response to the second question, yes, it is a bead shop, as opposed to a shop owned by a person named Bead, which would make more grammatical sense. It does not appear that the beads own anything, which leads me to believe that someone is an overzealous punctuator. And if we're talking beads and not "beads" (said with a mysterious, knowing tone), then the situation is even graver. The misused quotation marks are a bit amusing, but the spare apostrophe is painful. I scowl at it every time I drive by.

Involving another puzzling shop name:
There is a store in Kent, WA, called Seafood Etc. This leads me to wonder, what kind of etc. goes with seafood? Seafood is a category all in itself...what could the etc. be? Seafood and crackers? Seafood and fishing supplies? Seafood and deli meats? Hmmmm...

Mid-July Updates

Note: I'm terrible at formatting this blog, and apologize in advance for any unsightly gaps, indents, etc. I may get the hang of this one day...

Fourth of July FAIL!
I was so looking forward to the two BBQs we were set to attend. Then I got the 24 hour flu bug that was going around. Gatorade and saltines do not make for a nice Independence Day celebration. I feel worse for Blake though, since he gave up his grilled meat to stay home and take care of me. We watched Minority Report and Nacho Libre (my favorite) and I'm pretty sure Blake cooked Spam for dinner...we grilled the next evening to make up for it. One plus to the day: Rory had a stinking cute patriotic outfit!

July also means that Rory was introduced to her first bottle and pacifier...big steps for our baby girl!

 Dedication
We've done some more hiking and had visits from family, and this past Sunday, Aurora was dedicated at church, wearing a gown made for her by her grandma...it was a special day!

Blake and I are reading this book, Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, which is really impressing on us how there is no substitute for the parental role in a child's spiritual development. Books, conferences, retreats, youth group, and even pastors cannot take the place of parents who prioritize raising "sons and daughters who walk with God." What a huge responsibility- thank God for his grace!


Anniversary!
Two years ago, we never would have imagined that we'd have a child being dedicated the same day we would celebrate our second anniversary...so much has changed! I'm blessed to be married to a man who truly loves me for who I am (cliche, but true). He also loves me for who I'll be one day, and he's excited to be along for the ride! If I were an angle of 32 degrees, Blake would be an angle of 58 degrees, because we complement each other perfectly. He is my favorite person to share a lazy Saturday morning with, my favorite world travel companion, my favorite person to make fun of dumb vanity license plates with, my favorite person to worship with in church, my favorite person to do just about everything with except watch chick flicks and go shopping. Here we are on our first date (August 24th, 2006), our wedding, and our two year anniversary (dinner at Josephine's and an adventure to Bearizona!):

L

Last Exciting News:
I had a recipe published in one of my favorite cooking magazines, Healthy Cooking! I'll post the recipe here one of these days...I submitted it over a year and a half ago and forgot about it, so I was pretty excited when I heard they were going to print it in the August/September issue!
Very Last Exciting News:
Monsoon season has started!!!(!!!!) I love the rain THIS much!!!!

Babycakes and Pondering Thursday

Some happy thoughts for today:

• COLOGNE (Polo Blue in particular)
• Barbecues (one of my favorite things about America)
• Plane tickets purchased for Labor Day weekend in Seattle
• $1.99 Ben and Jerry's ice cream
• Wonderful grandparents (both mine and Aurora's)
• Hymns like The Love of God and Come Thou Fount
• South American World Cup dominance...will it continue?
• Celebrating our independence this weekend (see second bullet).
• Reading: (Family Driven Faith by Voddie Bauchman, The Baby Book by Dr. Sears, Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney
• Plastic party cups that come in fun summery colors (sky blue, grass green, bright pink, and yellow!) instead of boring blue and red
• Two fresh pineapples on my counter waiting to be cut up
• A week from Sunday marks two years of awesomeness with my incredible husband...hoping to leave the wee one with the grandparents for the evening, assuming she'll take a bottle by then!

Today's frustrations:

• I'm clumsy. I hate being clumsy. Especially when I drop something, pick it up, and drop it again.
• The monsoons have yet to hit our house.
• Rory appears to be in between diaper sizes...is that possible? Her newborn ones are too tight, but she leaks out of the size ones. She's still too small for her cloth ones too, so I'm in a bit of a conundrum...
• Our water heater is broken.

The good far outweighs the bad, so I'm going to ignore my clumsiness, lack of cool rain and hot showers, and babycakes' awkward-sized hiney and write everything I've done today on my to-do list so I can cross it off! Happy Thursday, everyone!

Little Aurora turned two weeks old yesterday, and we celebrated by spending the day at Nana and Granddad's house. Or maybe we spent the day there because we were evacuated from our home due to a 10,000+ acre wildfire. Either way. We got home from church on Sunday to see an enormous cloud of smoke rising from the forest behind our house. Blake immediately expressed great dismay, and seemed to understand the gravity from the get go. It was not long before he had us packing up essentials and irreplaceable sentimental things, like photo albums and baby blankets made by the great grandmothers. We left home before the official evacuation notice came, a sobering act even though both of us were pretty confidant that our house would be fine.

We hung out at my inlaws' place for Father's Day, which we were planning on doing anyway, and had a fabulous, very meaty dinner of grilled ribs, steak, and chicken (can you tell that the guys heavily influenced the menu?). It was Blake's first Father's Day, and while it was definitely a special day, his beloved forest was burning down, and it will be a long grieving process for all of us. Pictures posted earlier on the blog show us enjoying Schultz Tank, which is destroyed. Our favorite trails to walk Vlad on our gone. This wilderness area began literally just minutes from our house, and we've lost something more precious than even our home, part of me feels.

Rory got her dad a new razor (and other grooming accouterments) for Father's Day, with a note explaining how much she loves his kisses when his cheeks are smooth. She may have been unwittingly influenced by her mother in picking out this gift... her parents are convinced that she is quite advanced for her age, and will entertain inquiries from interested universities starting in a year or two, assuming the stipulations are acceptable. However, something must be done about her hygiene preferences first, since she is entirely opposed to bathing and diaper changes. Have you heard how beautiful she is? I may have mentioned it a time or two. She really is the most beautiful baby. It's a good thing Blake has so many weapons to intimidate her future suitors with...we'll probably have to get a guard shack too, or maybe a nice tower to lock her up in. Mark Driscoll has a great series on the Song of Solomon, and one of the last sermons is on dads and daughters. He mentions that girls are either doors or walls, and that a door lets any guy who knocks get close. A wall, on the other hand, remains completely impassable to all guys up until the point she meets the worthy one. My fervent prayer for Rory is that she be a wall, and if she's not, that her daddy barricade her up and stand guard with his AK47 until she's past the door stage. Raising a daughter is stressful, and she's only fifteen days old!

This lovely trail is charred now

  Family picture at Snowbowl for the wedding of some friends
Caution: Slippery when wet











Pictures taken from our house

Note: At the arboretum, I learned the difference between a forest fire and a wildfire- forest fires begin naturally, as with lightening, and are God's way of keeping the forests healthy. Wildfires are caused by humans and cause destruction in an unnatural, unhealthy way. This is a wildfire, caused by carelessness. Oftentimes Flagstaff's wildfires are started by people from out of town, tourists or transients, who don't know how to manage their campfires or just don't care. They ruin things for those of us who live here, and who care so much. It makes me mad!

Life with Rory

We've been home with our little one for almost a week, and it's been a whirlwind. Here are some random thoughts about her arrival and settling in:

• Blake is much better at changing diapers and swaddling than I am, but I make awesome milk, so we're even.
• Blake made an innocent inquiry about the placenta, and the next thing we know, it's in a Tupperware container in our hospital room. Now it's in our refrigerator. Gross. What does one do with a placenta, anyway?
• After months of preparing for natural, medicine free childbirth, both Blake and I felt nothing but relief when, after hours of apparently futile labor, our doctor informed us that we would be delivering by c-section.We were glad to go through labor for the experience, but discovered that c-sections aren't so bad.
• An enormous red flower in one's hair speeds the recovery process, and is, as I suspected, an excellent distraction from a drugged, tired face in pictures.
• Things I am finding invaluable:
• enthusiastic grandmas
• a loving, encouraging husband whose also an adoring father
• my moby wrap...wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, but it's amazing
• the nice comfy glider and ottoman
• I love not being pregnant so, so much!! It's almost worth getting pregnant again just to enjoy the thrill of being not pregnant after.

My first glimpse of my beautiful daughter occurred on the operating table. My doctor probably told me that she was going to hold up the baby for me to see before the nursery people checked her out, but it did not register with me. Thus, I was a bit taken back when I heard a cry and turned my head, and leering down at me was Gollum. the creature had grabbed hold of the curtain with both hands and stayed grasping the curtain even as the doctor pulled her away. It occurred to me that Gollum was actually my baby, and while I was a little underwhelmed, I determined that being cute isn't everything, and we could work with it. However, fifteen or so minutes later, in the recovery room, Blake handed me the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. She bore no resemblance at all to the slimy, unfortunate Tolkien villain; she was perfect and gorgeous and I was smitten at second sight of her.

Worth the Wait

Aurora Whitney Bowen

Born 6.7.10 at 6:32am, 8.4lbs, 21.5 inches

She is perfect!