Just us again

Well, the family is gone, and it is just Glenn, Violet, and I here again!  We will be in Arizona in a week and a half though, so we won't miss our family for too long.

We had such a good time with Glenn's family.  On Friday, we finally made it to the beach with everyone!  Everyone else went several times during the week, but Glenn had school until Friday.  Can you believe we only took ONE picture the whole time?  Here it is:

Violet is sure going to miss her grandma!  As soon as Terri would walk into the room, Violet would run to her with her arms in the air!  If Terri wasn't holding Benson, she was holding Violet.  And as you can see, sometimes she was holding both of them.

The highlight of the reunion for me was having all of Violet's cousins around.  She had so much fun!  Even though most of them are a lot bigger than her, she loved running around after them!  Now it is time for her to sleep a little more though, which is something she didn't do much of while everyone was here :)

Family Reunion so far!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Glenn's family is in town for a family reunion!  It is going great so far, but I haven't taken any pictures.  Here is the only one I have, which I stole from Kari's blog:

Violet has been having a great time with her cousins!  This is Violet with her oldest cousin Mason.  Mason passed the sacrament in our ward on Sunday, and it was the first time our ward has ever had a deacon!  

On Sunday evening, we had a big family dinner at the church building, which was so fun.  Then Monday morning, we went hiking, and on Tuesday we went to The Grove (which is just a big mall, but it has the American Girl Doll store, so our niece Audrey, as well as most of the rest of us girls, were excited to go there.)  Some of the family who didn't want to go to the mall went to the Tar Pits.  For dinner a bunch of us went to eat in Little Tokyo, while Terri watched the grandkids!  Everyone has already been to the beach several times too.  I will try to remember to take some pictures in the next few days!

Newport Temple/Beach Trip

Last weekend we had such a fun trip with our ward, and I actually remembered to take some pictures!  First we went to the Newport Temple.  Since we had Violet with us and couldn't do the session with the rest of the ward, we "took turns" doing initiatories.  I say "took turns" instead of just took turns, because we were a little late to the temple and I went first, and by the time I was done, our ward was out of the session.  So basically Glenn just watched Violet outside the temple, and never got a turn to go in.  

(warning: this post contains A LOT of pictures.  I understand if Violet's grandparents are the only ones who actually look at them all.)

After the temple, we went to our Bishop's beach house on Balboa Island.  It was so beautiful there!  Glenn and I definitely want to go back and explore the town sometime.  This time we just hung out at the beach house, and ate the amazing lunch the bishop had waiting for us, and played on the beach.  Or, I should say, Glenn and Violet played on the beach while I took pictures from the shade of the porch while I chewed the fat with the others who never ventured into the sun.  (chewed the fat=talked.  Just in case you don't know what that gross phrase means.)  Normally I'm not so boring, but I was REALLY sunburned from the beach a couple of days before with Kenny and Annie.  Here are the rest of the pictures:

(Our bishop's wife with Violet, and the only other kid from our ward that came on the trip)

(This poor, poor dog.  Violet loved him so much.)

(It took quite a bit of coaxing from Glenn to get Violet to sit in his lap like this.  For most of the kayaking, she insisted on standing in the front of the boat laughing.)

It was a great trip!  We are already planning to do it again once school starts back up and our ward isn't so small.

Our little soccer player

So much is happening around here right now, I feel overwhelmed about posting about it all.  (My family has been in and out of town a couple of times, and Glenn's family all just got here for a week long family reunion!).  So instead of posting about it, I'll show you this.

We got Violet a soccer ball for her birthday.  I thought it would be a long time before she knew to use her feet instead of her hands.  She did use her hands the first time she saw it, but after showing her how to kick it a couple of times, she is getting the hang of it!  You still have to remind her not to use her hands once in a while, but her soccer career is off to a good start!

3 Girlies

We got to watch these two cute girls from our ward a couple of days ago, and this picture was so cute, I couldn't stand not to share it.

They thought getting rocked in the rocking chair was the best thing ever!

See Violet's bandaids? 

She had her one-year-old appointment at the doctor and got a bunch of shots.  She was so brave and barely even whimpered!  Incidentally, she is in the 30% for height, but still <5% for weight :(.  However, she did show the doctor where her belly button was, and he was properly impressed.

Last Weekend

My family came into town last weekend!  Everyone was here except Kenny and Annie, and they will be here tomorrow for quick visit.  And then on Friday night, Glenn's family will arrive to a week long family reunion!  We are lousy with visitors right now, and we love it!

They came into town this weekend to go to the wedding reception of my cousin Ashton.  It was so fun to see some of my extended family there that I haven't seen in years.  I didn't realize that I still had aunts and uncles and cousins who hadn't met Glenn yet!  

We were going to go on a fun hike with my family on Saturday morning, but my soccer league surprised me by having our first game of the FALL season on Saturday.  So instead, my whole family came out to the game to support me.  Afterwards we went to lunch and Yang Chows, a cool restaurant in Chinatown.  

On Sunday, they came to church with us.  Our four visitors just about doubled the size of the ward :).  Our ward is tiny right now because it is the summer.   Anyway, it was a really quick visit.  Glenn was a little busy with school stuff on Saturday, and when they left on Sunday afternoon, he said he felt like they were only here for a few hours!

I took a few days off from blogging because I didn't have any pictures of the visit, but my mom sent me these from her phone so I could get going again:

(At the reception on Friday night)

(At the soccer game)

(At the restaurant)

The day after my birthday

Today everything is happening an hour later than usual: Violet slept in an hour, Glenn was to school an hour late (on purpose), my run started an hour late, Violet's nap started an hour late, my meeting this afternoon got pushed back two hours.  A nice slow day that is the perfect day after my birthday day.

Can I just say that I have the best husband?  He tried so hard (and succeeded) to make my birthday be special. This cake, that he made from scratch, was to die for!

I may or may not be eating some right now as a healthy morning snack.  (I am.)

Thanks for all the calls and messages!  It felt good to be remembered on my birthday! 

Happy Birthday to me!

Here is a picture of my presents that I opened this morning!  However, I looked so awful in this picture, I found it needful to blur out my face.

The book and Sound of Music soundtrack are from Glenn.  I already started the book, and I am loving it!  The knife is from my family, and I AM SO EXCITED TO CHOP THINGS FOR DINNER TONIGHT!  I have been wanting a good chef's knife forever!  Thanks family!

A Birthday Date

The Violet's Birthday posts continue...

Glenn had Monday morning off from school!  It was a wonderful coincidence.  The first morning he has had off from school in months just happened to be Violet's birthday!  So after her morning nap, Glenn took Violet on a date to the Natural History Museum.  USC students and children under 4 are free, but it is pretty expensive for everyone else, so that is why I didn't go.  (But I don't complain.  Two hours home alone?  I was in heaven.)

We are lucky to live so close to so many cool places.  This museum is where many of the scenes from "Night at the Museum" were filmed, and it is less than a mile from our house.  Glenn took some great pictures:

(my favorite)

Glenn said Violet really seemed to like it.  She walked around by herself almost the whole time!  Glenn is so sweet, and loves to buy her presents, and she came home with a plastic dinosaur from the gift shop.  We think we are going to buy a membership for me, so we can all go as a family as many times as we want during the year!

Birthday Haikus

My family has the strange but nice tradition of writing haikus on birthdays.  So on your birthday, you get several haikus written about yourself, which is pretty fun!  I though I'd share the ones Violet got yesterday!  Here they are: 

We'll see her Friday!
Violet, our first grandchild
She is beautiful!

From Grandma

It's cool to be one.

Vi is walking everywhere-

and gets to eat cake!

From Annie

Vivacious Violet (pronounced Vi-let)

Is a very shy dancer

Always grooves alone.

From Kenny

What? Violet's (again, Vi-let) birthday

already? She has learned much

in one year of life.

From Grandpa

You can't read this yet,

but someday when you read it,

you'll know I love you!

From Courtney

You like to read books

And you like to growl a lot.

Such a silly girl!

From Mom

Violet is sweet.
She is obsessed with books
Just like her mama.
From Dad

My birthday is in two days, and I can't wait for my haikus!

Proof that she ate something besides cake at her party :)

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday to my Violet!

She opened her presents this morning, and Glenn has the morning off from school and is going to take her to the Natural History Museum to celebrate.

We had her birthday party on Saturday evening, and it went great!  Three little girls from our ward and their parents came.  We feasted on pizza, watermelon, and birthday cake.  We had it at the park near our house, and the weather couldn't have been better!  Pictures:

As you can see, we let Violet try some of her birthday cake.  She hasn't really had sweets before, and I wasn't sure how she would react.  It seems like most babies either won't eat the cake because they don't know what to do with it, or happily grab handfuls of cake and stuff it in their mouth smiling.  Violet definitely stuffed the cake in her mouth, but she was very serious about it.  She took her plate, walked away, and turned her back on the group.  She held the plate in both hands and dove in, head first.  Every once in a while, she would look up furtively to make sure no one was coming to take her cake!  We laughed the whole time.

That is the face of a happy birthday girl :)

The Fourth

Happy July 4th yesterday!  I hope you had a good one.  Ours was wonderful for the first 40% and wonderful for the last 40%, with a small 20% of suckiness right in the middle.

We went hiking again!  Since we borrowed our friends' baby carrier last week and had so much fun hiking, we decided we needed to go one more time before we returned it (thanks Lauren!).  This hike was really close to the one we did last week, and about the same length, 4 miles.  It was cool because at the end of the canyon, so two miles in, you get to this old huge ranch house that got burned out.  The stone stairs and floors are still there, so you can see the layout of the house, and walk around in it.  I didn't think it sounded that cool, but once we got there, I loved it!  If you hike for just one more minute past the house, there is a pretty little waterfall.

We started hiking around 7:30, and it was totally empty.  I think we saw two other people the whole way up.  One the way down, we saw a lot more people.  I think the park officially opens at 8, so we beat the rush.  One of the groups we saw was from Biggest Loser!

In the evening, we went to our ward's Fourth of July party, and had a great time.  Here's the sucky thing that happened in the middle of the day:  When we got home from the hike, we realized Glenn's wallet was gone.  We looked everywhere and couldn't find it, so Glenn drove back to the trail (now that it was the afternoon and everyone was headed to the beach, it took him an hour to get there instead of the half hour it took us in the morning) and he redid the hike and looked for the wallet.  And never found it.  So he came home and canceled his credit card.  Wah wah.  

Other than that, the day was great.  And I ate A LOT of hamburgers and hot dogs at the party, so Happy Birthday America!

A Family Walk

We take a walk nearly ever evening together, but usually Violet is in her stroller.  Last night, we decided to see if she could walk instead.  Success!  

First, she held hands with us:

Then, about ten minutes in, she let go and took off on her own:

We just walked once around the little block we live on, but it took us well over half an hour!  It was so fun to watch her explore.  She could pause, examine something on the grounds for a  minute, and then stand up and keep going.

When she started to seem tired, we tried picking her up and carrying her the rest of the way, but she wasn't having it.  She cried until we put her down and let her walk by herself!

p.s. We are off to go hiking to celebrate the Fourth this morning!  Don't worry, we won't make Violet walk this time. :)

What I did with my manioc

Behold, my manioc root:

Pretty impressive right?  After I advised you to google manioc, I did so myself, and here is what came up for images with the caption "preparing manioc root":

So now you have an idea of what it looked like around here as I made dinner last night.  Anyway, I just read this crazy vegan cookbook (Veganomicon) and this recipe looked interesting enough to make.  It is basically a Jamaican curry (how I procured Jamaican curry powder is a story for another time) topped with mashed manioc root to make a strange shepherd's pie.

We loved the curry filling.  It was basically sweet potatoes, kidney beans, and plantains in the curry sauce.  We both went back for seconds, but my only complaint is that regular old mashed potatoes could be vegan, and would taste better than manioc.  So next time I will just use mashed potatoes on top, or just serve the curry over rice.  Or naan!  Yum!  

Also, when I uploaded the pictures from the camera,  I ran across this gem of Violet and her best friend Parker, who just moved away this weekend!  We will miss you Parker! (and Courtney!  I especially will miss you, Courtney!)

p.s.  Paul, Glenn will probably miss you too.  Wouldn't want you to feel left out :)