Happy Birthday Kenz

My beautiful, creative, intelligent, artistic, new-mommy sister is 26! Hope you had a great birthday Mckenzie!

Triumph, well sort of

Ethan and I are both coming close to our goals. We're just not there yet. Here is Ethan trying to push up to get on his knees. This is from our digital camera, not our camcorder. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Please disregard my loud, unsettling baby-talk voice. I'll try not to do that next time.

Ladies' man

No development on the new development

OK so I am officially inept. I have read through every manual there is and I can't seem to get video on this site. For some reason I am unable to get video off of the camcorder with a USB, I have to wait and finalize the DVD, then use that. Then, once I try to download videos from our DVD, Youtube won't take them (even if they are small enough). Ben, Emma, you two have this camcorder. Have you tried it yet?
Poor Ryan (best husband, father, man in the world - sorry, I have to gush) has been working 11-hour days, then going straight to school until 10 p.m. He is unable to help me with my ineptness.

Oh, and there is a cragged little tooth shooting through Ethan's lower gums!

New development

Ethan has recently started clapping. It's like the best thing that has happened since he started sitting up!
If I can figure out how to post a video, you'll all get to see that clap-happy baby soon.

Ethan finally got his pictures taken!

We're sleeping underneath the same big sky

My little brother is serving in the Philadelphia, Pa. LDS Mission. Only he is in Salisbury, Md. - a city less than two hours away from me! You can see how close he is to me here.
He has commanded me to stay away, warned me that he'll be excommunicated if he sees me (yeah, he's a bit of an over reactor).

It's killing me.

Calling all Mormons - and friends of other faiths, or no faith

Yeah, it's Mormon night at the Nationals game Friday! I think (even though the game starts at Ethan's bedtime) we are going to get tickets. Let me know if you want to go with us (hint, hint - please go with us!) and we'll buy our tickets together.

I copied this from an e-mail Judi (Ryan's mom) received:

"The BYU Alumni Association's DC Chapter is pleased to sponsor the third annual "Mormon Night at the Nationals" event on Friday, September 21 , against the Philadelphia Phillies. We'll have a pre-game pizza party at 6:00 pm in Parking Lot 7, and then sit together at the game (starts at 7:05). A ticket that includes the pizza party and game is $8/person. Tickets for children ages 2 to 4 are $5/person, and children under 2 are free. Get more details and buy tickets at http://dc.aa.byu.edu. Please email jeffrey_child@byu.net with questions."

Please disregard the BY-Poo sponsorship. Go Aggies!

Tragedy strikes the Roe household

I lost a diamond in my ring last week - and I don't have insurance on it.
It's just one of the small diamonds around the outside of the main stone, but the loss of that minuscule thing has sent me into a funk and I am only now (a week after it happened) able to write about it. When I talk about it with friends I feel like crying.

Now I worry about wearing it because a) the gaping hole on the circle of diamonds in my ring looks like a missing tooth in a beauty queen's mouth - sort of trashy, and b) I'm now concerned that I might lose other diamonds in this ring, or even the larger diamond that Ryan and I painstakingly picked out.

That's all I have to say about that.

P.S. It's hard to tell in the photo which diamond is missing. It is the diamond closest to the bottom of the circle in the photo or the right side of my finger.

Run-in with the law at our nation's Capital

Today, I was pulled over by a bicycle cop in a parking lot. If that's not the saddest statement ever, I don't know what is.

It all went down after Ethan and I went to the Botanical Gardens and the Capital with Julie and Elliot.

As we were driving through a parking lot right by the Capital, I had to hit my brakes when - out of nowhere - a man on a bicycle skids to a stop sideways right in front of me. Then a large bus with a the word "POLICE" across it screeched to a stop on the side of me - like they were boxing me in, like they thought my car had a bomb in it and there was no possible way that they would let me pass. It all made me feel like I needed to step out of the car with my hands up or something. Then the bicycle cop commanded me to go the other way, so I started to. He then yelled, "Stop!" So I did.

"I'm just trying to turn around," I told the scowling man.

"License and registration, please."

So I got my license out and he asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over.

"I have no idea." I was being completely honest.

"You were driving on the wrong side of the road."

In a freaking parking lot, I thought.

I got off without a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road IN A PARKING LOT.

It was a fun day, otherwise, and we got some pretty awesome pictures of the little ones.

Bad Night Haiku

I am exhausted.
He woke up three times last night.
I blame the carrots.

I typed those three sentences and then realized that I had essentially written a haiku. I had to tweak a few words, but there you have it. The upside of exhaustion - bringing out hidden talents such as poetry. ;)

Sweet tooth

Carrots are not Ethan's favorite. I secretly (well obviously not anymore) blame my mother, who introduced ice cream, Oreos and chocolate licorice to Ethan before he ever ate any real food. Now rice cereal and Gerber pureed vegetables are just disgusting to him (and to any other living thing with at least one taste bud).

I shouldn't blame my mom because I would much rather eat those things than real food as well.

On second thought, that's probably her fault too. ;)

A Day at Kings Dominion

We spent some quality time with my co-workers from NGIT TASC. Although the lines were longer than I could have imagined, it was a lot of fun. I had to admit to people that the most exciting ride I had ever been on was the Colossus at Lagoon.... they acted like they had never heard of it. Ethan had a blast even though he was sweating profusely when we first arrived. It was in the mid-nineties and we were walking on asphalt. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Brett and Cami from work for watching Ethan while Megan and I rode a couple of rides. It was a great day.

Undecided

For a long time I have wanted to read "The Kite Runner." Everyone loves it. It's everyones' favorite. Everyone is on the waiting list at the library for it. So finally my turn rolled around.

After reading the first 100 pages, however, I put the book down and decided I did not want to pick it back up. Then I had the urge run to the toilet and throw up, slip into bed, cover my face with my down comforter, fall asleep and forget everything I had just read.

It wasn't that it was boring. It was far from boring. Incredibly descriptive, beautifully written and emotional would be better ways to describe it. You could also use the words horrifying, graphic, shocking and depressing. I wasn't expecting a sappy romance, but I was not prepared for what the characters in this book would go through.

But, of course, I could not just not finish it. So I continued. As I read, I'd catch myself holding my breath in some parts, laughing out loud about others.

And when I finished last night, I cried - hard.

I can't say I liked that book because I didn't. I hated reading many parts of it. But it was amazing and ironic and beautiful and in the end, it filled me up and made me want to tell others to read it.

Two places at once

"Are you two just taking the Metro?" my grandpa asked.

"No, I think we'll drive," I said.

This may seem like a normal conversation, except for the fact that we were in River Heights, Utah at my grandpa's house. We must have been going to something formal, because I was wearing the sky blue bridesmaid dress from my sister's wedding and was in the process of curling my hair in ringlets (not joking - ringlets). Ryan was ironing his white shirt.

"Well, you could just change trains in Millville," Grandpa said.

"Oh. That's right. Maybe we will."

Then another voice came into the conversation, a strange, very kind, woman's voice.

"Hello Baby," the high, happy voice said.

Then, the tune "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" woke me up. I laid there for a few seconds wondering what was going on. Then Ryan sat up. It all came flooding back.

I was in my dark bedroom in Arlington, Va. sound asleep when something set off one of Ethan's talking toys that must have somehow gotten into our bedroom. Now the tune "Mary Had a Little Lamb" blared. I jumped up to find the toy and turn it off. The heavy comforter had fallen on it and set it off.

I went and got a drink of water (my mouth tasted worse than the Triscuit crackers I had eaten last night) and jumped back into bed and was reminded of my dream.

I chuckled aloud. A Metro or anything like that (and the "free" bus system that hardly anyone uses doesn't count) in Cache Valley, Utah? Yeah, in like 300 years - MAYBE.

Go Nats!

Yesterday we went to the Nationals game with Ryan's brother Rob. I have never been to an MLB game and it was very fun. The Nats won (we definitely weren't expecting that) and Ethan seemed to enjoy it.
We then went and hung out on the Mall throwing Frisbees and looking at beautiful (and some ugly) sculptures and people in the sculpture garden. We ate at our favorite Mexican place here (though not as good as Utahan Mexican food), the Cactus Cantina, where Ethan flirted with the Latina waitress and about three women at other tables. The boy's got game. We were surprised he didn't have any numbers by the time we left.