What's up in our world - wk of 6/18

Happy B-day, Juje! Can't believe it's been 28 years since you broke my heart! Just kidding with you, Sis. I love you tons and I'm proud of you. Hope your day was a great one.

The Rose world continues to turn here in O-town. I was in Chicago last week for work and the weather was perfect. I took a run along the Des Plaines River on a forested path and talk about beautiful! I saw 5 whitetail deer, including a doe and her fawn. Also, the cicadas were out and just finishing their once-every-17-year party. Man, are they ugly! But it's amazing to see thousands and thousands of them all over the ground, trees, etc. Quite a phenomenon.

I met with the members of my management team for the 1/2 of the call center I run out of our home office and all seems to be going well. I am glad that over the last 6-8 months we've been able to build our strength and weed out some of the performance issues. After a couple of days up there, I was glad to get back to Sara and the kids. Luckily, I have not traveled as much this month.

On Saturday, I completed my longest run yet - 8 miles. I had a pretty good average pace and felt much better after that one than the 7 miler last Saturday. Probably a combination of improving conditioning and running a little bit earlier in the morning. By the time I get to 7/24, my Saturday long run will be around 10 miles. Kind of weird to think about running that far, but even a few months ago I would have never thought I could run 8. Pretty cool. Let's hope the Utah altitude doesn't kill me.

We also took the kids to Wet 'N Wild, an area water park, and I think we mistakenly took a detour and traveled to Puerto Rico. I have nothing against Puerto Ricans, it's just that I'd rather not be in the same square mile with the entire island's population. It was wall to wall people at the park due to some special event that was going on, but even so, the kids had a blast and it was pretty fun for Sara and me, too. Luke and Emma spent the day riding around on tubes, swimming around, sliding down the kiddie slides, scaring us to death because they think they are so independent and can just wander anywhere they want to. Man, kids are so fast. I'd turn around for a second and one of them would be gone to the neighboring pool. Yes, there were lots of stern talkings-to and explanations of how sad Mommy and Daddy would be if we lost them. At the end of the day, Luke finally got up the nerve to take a ride on the zip line and that kid was fearless! He got on that thing and zipped down the rope and then dropped a few feet down into the pool. I couldn't believe it. I kept thinking all day long how grown up he seemed. Changing before our eyes.

We had an awesome dinner at Texas de Brazil, which is a Brazilian Churrascaria (steakhouse). I rolled out of there a very happy man. We'll have to take you all there when you come and visit us. Bring your carnivorous appetites!

We have our first Young Single Adult activity coming up this Friday. In our ward alone, we have around 50 YSAs on our roster, with most less active, so we have called a rep in our ward and he and I have been working on getting our committee going. We are having a game night at our home and some ice cream. So far, we have around 10 coming. I'm hoping we'll have at least a couple less actives join us.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to check out the video at the bottom of the blog. If you've seen Casino Royale, you'll remember one of the opening scenes with the crazy free running chase. Well, this video is equally amazing. Happy watching!

matt

AND NOW FOR Sara's 2 cents:

Not much to report here...we are just doing all kinds of summer things: park, splash pad, swimming pools, movies, etc. It is so hot that if we go outside it has to be to water. Then the movie theater has free movies in the summer for kids and so that is a good indoor activity! A couple of updates and funny things kids have done:

On Father's Day the kids and I rushed home from church to wrap Matt's Father's Day gifts. Usually Matt doesn't get home for quite a while after us due to meetings, but Sunday he didn't have any meetings. We heard the garage opening right when we were wrapping a carry-on suitcase that we had bought him. Emma ran to greet him and the kids were screaming "Don't Look!!!!" Matt is so clever and says to Emma "Don't look at what?" to which she replies "Don't look at your new suitcase!" And I thought I was being so clever surprising him! Matt knew what he was doing. Emma felt so bad after she realized and ran up to her room and sat on her bed and cried! :) Kind of funny!

Gavin is growing up over night. I think I reported last letter that he got a tooth. Well now he has 2!!!! And he is rolling like a champ! Today the kids and I got out his little jumping seat that you put in the doorway and I thought Luke was going to wet his pants he was laughing so hard at little Gavin jumping around. Gavin was liking it until he got into a spin and couldn't stop himself :) Then we also put him in one of the standing play centers today for the first time! My little baby is growing so fast! Because he is teething he wants to chew on EVERYTHING! Mostly my cheek! He will just lunge forward at me with his mouth wide open and start biting my jaw bone or sucking my cheek. I like to think he is kissing me, but really I think it makes his teeth feel better!

Luke is soooooooo into Pokemon right now. It reminds me of Danny and Devin when they were young and they would talk about it and I would have no idea what they were talking about. I still don't know what Luke is talking about. Matt and I decided that he and Luke have very addictive behaviors and when they start a hobby or get an interest in something, that's all they can think about! First thing in the morning Luke comes into my room talking about some crazy Pokemon character.

That's it for now!

They went to a birthday party :)

Work...

It has been a crazy couple of weeks at work. Lots of travel, meetings, some poor quality from my team, and some frustration. Seems we have taken a step back over the last month after several steps forward. Nothing I haven't dealt with before, but definitely impacts my time and ability to do anything strategic. Oh well, we'll keep working...just another challenge to face.

I hit my 10-yr anniversary with Hewitt on 6/9. My manager had a little celebration for me on Friday and we had some cake, a few laughs, some Matt stories, etc. It was really fun. Hard to believe I've been here for 10 years. Thanks to Sara for supporting me and thanks to my good friend, Mark Pingree, for pointing me to Hewitt 10 yrs ago.

This year has been great so far because I have two weeks' extra vacation due to my 10 yrs. It is giving me a bit more time to do church stuff, e.g. youth conference, and we're also taking a few mini vacations plus a pretty long one this summer. By the way...we can't WAIT to come out and see everyone. We're looking forward to being with the Gillespie clan in Logan. Neat to be able to go back to the old college stomping grounds. We also get to go to Park Valley and attend the 24th celebration. Sara and the kids have never been and I am pumped to be able to show them how we party in PV! I am dusting off my cowboy boots and hat for that one. Then it's off to Rupert to the Wilson family backyard for some 'in tents' fun at the Rose family reunion. I am going to miss the squirrel target practice this year...Lori and Brad...perhaps you have a rodent problem too? Dad, bring your rifle.

P.S. I did a bit more work on the blog...added some stuff as you can see. Maybe I can get Sara to post. Feel free to respond, comment, etc. We love it!

matt

OK - Sara here - here is my addition:

Friday June 8th was a big day for our little family...we were all sitting around and watching Gavin play on the ground with his toys and right there in front of ALL of us HE ROLLED OVER! So now he can roll front to back, and back to front! It is amazing how fast they master it too! The next day I laid him on the floor and a few minutes later he was clear across the room!

Then yesterday, Monday June 11th...Gavin was chewing on my arm and I actually felt something there...he has his first tooth breaking through already!!!!!

Gavin is starting to warm up to people and let them hold him for a few minutes. He is such a happy, loving baby. I love it because he will give me kisses all over my face! Yes it is very slobbery, so it's probably just the kisses a mother could love! He will just attack me and suck on my cheek or chin. I LOVE IT! :)

Emma's new thing is that she LOVES to put on the music that I danced to at the recital and she tries to do some of the same moves! It is so funny to watch.

OK I am tattling on myself a little with this story, but it was too cute...Sunday we were on our way home from church and we were about to run out of gas. The gas light had been on the whole way to church and as we were coming home from church I swear it got a brighter orange :). I had an argument in my head as to what I should do. Part of me said to have faith and I would make it and then another part of me didn't want to be stranded on the side of the road in the heat with 3 small children with Matt unable to answer his phone due to meetings. The faithless part of me won and I pulled off at the gas station. But as I am pulling in I realize that I am really not setting a very good example for the kids. So I explain that mommy is doing something very wrong, that I should have gased up the car the night before but I didn't and that makes Heavenly Father sad that I am not keeping the sabbath day holy. Soon after my little "I'm a sinner, and don't follow my example, and let this be a lesson to us all" speech Luke says "That's ok mom, Heavenly Father will still love you, He made you!" Talk about CUTE! I thought that was so cute of him to comfort me :)

Saturday we had such a fun family day. Matt has been running a lot lately and Saturday was supposed to be his 7 mile run. He accidentally slept in and got a late start. So the kids and I got up and we loaded up the kids bikes and we went to teh park where Matt was running. We caught him on the way back (that's how long it took me to load up the kids and bikes). So we had a family exercise morning with them riding and me jogging and Matt outdoing us with his 7 mile run. I am very proud of Matt and the hard work he has been putting in to train for his upcoming 10K. He's a running fool now! :) Then we came home and swam! It was very refreshing! That night we had a fun ward auction to help the YW raise money for girls camp.
Also last week was our Enrichment night that I was in charge of (well along with my friend Roberta). The theme of the evening in "Lighten Your Load". We used "Light" as the theme of everything for the evening. We had "light" dinner, our spiritual thought was centered on the Light of Christ, then we talked about nutrition and called it "Lighting Your Ignition", then we had my friend from the gym that teaches pilates, come and teach us some simple exercises we could do and we called it "Light without Lightheadedness", then the treats table was called "Lighter Later". It turned out to be a fun evening.

So there you go there's my 2 cents :)

Dance Recital!!!

Last weekend was our dance recital. Emma's little number was so cute, and Luke danced with the owner's daughter and they stole the show! It was such a fun night and the kids felt like celebrity's!