Rachel's Walking!!!!! (and January)

Okay, so I was going to write about what happened in January since I haven't yet, but most important things first: Rachel is officially WALKING! Over the last week or so she's been making the transition, but today she pretty much refused to crawl anywhere and so it's official. I don't know how my baby can old enough to walk, but it's true. I have pictures, but they're still on the camera; I'll try to get them up by the end of the week (how's that for a goal?).

Another development, much more annoying but also important, is that Karen started asking "why" this week. Now everything she sees, she asks why. "Why are we stopped, mommy, I want to go" "why is it raining still" "why does daddy have to go on campouts" and on and on... Of course each question is followed up by another why question, until it feels like all I'm doing is answering questions while following Rachel around trying to keep her out of all the things she can now reach! And it seems like half of her questions always come back to "Because Heavenly Father wants us to do that" or some other version of the same. At least she accepts that without question for now, but I know it won't last too long. I think I keep falling back on that because it's easier than getting into a discussion with a 2 year old on photosynthesis, aerobic v. anaerobic, or other difficult science question. Yesterday I got away with telling her that it was raining because heavy clouds came from somewhere else with rain, and the rain was too heavy so it had to fall down (technically true, but still a bit fuzzy).

Now to January, but just the most important features of the month. Of course Rachel's birthday was on the 18th, which I already put up the picts for. The other big event was Joe's qualifying exam. For those who don't know what that is (which is totally understandable...), think Comps. or Comprehensive Exam. If that doesn't help, it's a really big test over 2 days (8 hours long) that was devised especially for Joe by the professors that know him best, testing whether he had enough knowledge on certain specific subjects to start his dissertation process. Scary? Yes! However, he took it just before the semester started in January and he passed!!!!!!! YEAH!!!! What does it mean? Just that now he can continue in the program, work on his dissertation, and that someday (maybe just over a year????) he will actually be done with school and we can have a real job that pays real money (okay, so he makes real money now teaching, just not that much of it)! I was so excited for him that I threw a huge party at our apartment clubhouse the night after the test. We didn't even know if he'd passed it yet, but it was such a relief that it was over! And our turnout was amazing, too! Almost all of our friends here in the Charlotte area came, over 50 people! We had lots of yummy food and visited while Ratatouille (sp?) was on, then (when in Rome, right) watched the Carolina Panthers get creamed in the playoffs. Thanks to all of you who came to hang with us that night, it was really great. And to all of you who didn't, that's okay. I'd put up pictures for you, but I was so worried about everything else that I forgot my camera that night. Sigh. So, if any of you who came took any pictures I'd love a copy...

Really for me in January it was all about Twilight. I borrowed the books in December and read them all in 5 days, no mean feat for a mom with 2 little girls. Joe bought the box set for me for Christmas (love Amazon.com) and in January I read them all again, and then again. (yes, I got a little obsessed, and I did in fact read the entire series 3 times in 6 weeks. I'm better now, I think). We also saw the movie for the first time the week before Valentine's day and it got Joe interested enough that he read them too! Sad, I know, but I can't wait until the movie comes out on Saturday!!!! (even though it wasn't very good; the next one will be awesome though!)

That's more than enough information in one post I think; I'll try and break it up with some picutes later this week. As a last note, it's been so long since I did a lot of typing that my skills are not as good as they used to be. This really took me too long to type.

Flashback Friday: Auto Theft

Okay, so I know it's not actually Friday anymore, but I started this on Friday and didn't have time to finish so I'm doing it now. For those of you not familiar with my friend Nancy's blog, every Friday she posts some funny story about something that happened to her. Last week it was eating pizza in Russia, other times it's about living in Jordan, living in Canada, or anything else she feels like writing about (like her grandma's food storage). As I was reading her Flashback last week I remembered something we did together once in High School, and I thought some of you might enjoy it. If it's not your cup of tea, sorry but it's still true.

I think it was my senior year of HS in Orem, but it could have been my junior year. It was in the fall during the time we had pit orchestra rehersals late into the evening several times a week and they were also having sophomores on the driving range-late October, probably. By the time we got out of practice it was dark outside. My friend Andy at the time drove a big old 10-passenger van. It was so old that the locks didn't work right, and the ignition would start even without the key. He drove to school one morning and then realized he'd forgotten his keys or something like that (a VERY Andy thing).

That's what gave me the idea in the first place. I remember that day he'd gone out right after the bell to move his van off the driving range so it wouldn't get towed or hit by the sophs. I told Nancy that I was going to 'steal' his car, and for some reason I couldn't understand she was very much against it. She knew I wasn't really going to steal it, but she was also way more anxious about the plan than I had thought she would be. (Now I realize it's because she liked him, since they're married and all, but at the time it was a mystery to me. It was around that same time that I told her I felt sorry for whoever Andy ended up marrying because he's so accident prone.)

Anyway, back to the story. After Andy had moved his van I snuck out of rehersal and met Nancy, who insisted on coming with me to make sure I didn't do anything too bad. We went out to the van which was now parked near the band room and climbed in. It started just fine without the keys, and I drove it over to the far end of the parking lot. Then we turned it off, got out, 'locked' the doors, and went back in. When we got out later (not sure what time) it was dark, and hard to see the far end of the parking lot. The van was a dark blue color with lots of rust, making it really hard to see clear down there. Of course Andy flipped out. He thought at first that he hadn't moved it and it was towed by the driver's ed people. Then Mike reminded him that he'd moved it. Then he was sure it was stolen, though none of us could think of why someone would steal such a nasty vehicle. Finally someone (I don't remember who) pointed it out, so far away in the dark. It didn't take long for everyone to figure out it was me, in fact I might have boasted about it, but I don't remember that now. Andy was mad of course, but more relieved that it wasn't stolen or anything (so were the other 5 kids who needed rides home that night). After that Andy drove the truck for a couple weeks while his parents got the locks and things fixed so it couldn't get stolen for real. Andy was never one to hold a grudge, thank goodnes, and a couple weeks later I even bummed a ride from him.

So, that's my flashback. I don't know if I'm thinking of these random things more now because my sister's a junior this year or because Joe's the YM pres and we do lots of stuff with his boys right now (BB tournament and Prom both this weekend). I know I have a lot more things I should post about, but hopefully someone will get a good laugh out of it and then forgive me. And Andrew, once again, I'm sorry I stole your van! (though it wouldn't do you a lot of good in Cairo anyway!)

RETURN!!!!

These first few are from Rachel's First Birthday! I can't believe she's already 13 months old! Where did the time go? (I know, you're thinking 'not by her blogging!') Anyway, it was a great time for our family and a few neighbors who came to help us eat cake and ice cream. Rachel got lots of Little People stuff; we walked through Toys R Us to find something she would like, and when we walked down that aisle she got SOOOO excited we knew just what to get her. She plays with these toys every day still (which is great).

Notice that the cake is the same colors and such as the toy castle? That was really on purpose, and Joe didn't even notice until after we'd eaten half the cake, when he said something like, "hey, isn't the cake almost like the castle?

This was our Thanksgiving that we did the day after Thanksgiving. On 'real' Thanksgiving, we went to the Tufts', Karen's best friend Hailey's house, and had a big ole' party then made our own the next day (mostly for the leftovers, I think). This year, I think we'll just stay home and do our own Thanksgiving instead of doing 2.
Setting up the Christmas Decorations after our Thanksgiving.

The rest of these pics are from our trip to Indiana for Christmas. It was a great week with Grandma and Grandpa Allen! The only problem we have now is that we have so much fun doing our fun stuff that we don't remember to get our camera out! It was fun to visit family and celebrate the holidays, as well as see the cousins, eat the yummy food, get presents, and everything else that goes along with that time of year.

Well, if a picture's really worth a thousand words, this entry is already WAYYYYY to long, so I'll be done for now and work on getting more caught up another time (tomorrow maybe? we'll see)