Running for Risa

On Saturday we attended the Running for Risa benefit marathon and had a blast! Risa Whitaker is an 18 year old girl who recently lost her battle with a rare cancer and she's a part of an amazing family we know. All of the proceeds from the race went to her family. The race was awesome! There were a total of 386 runners doing a marathon, half marathon, 5k and fun run. It was the most gorgeous perfect clear day ever and being at Haag Lake was so pretty! Jayson got there super early to help set things up and we arrived later and prepped for our race. I ran the 5k along with Karen, Madison, Ashley, and Natalie. Clarissa did the half marathon and was awesome! There were a lot of other friends and people we knew running and it made for such a fun atmosphere. I was a little nervous because I hadn't prepared as well as I could have, but it was great! Yes, I did walk a bit on the up hills - there were some good ones! - but I ran most of it and made a time of 35.06. I'm happy with it as it was my first 5k ever! It was fun hanging out with the family and enjoying the atmosphere and especially remembering Risa and supporting her family. Awesome day and a great experience. Kind of makes me want to do more runs! We'll see...

Getting ready to run
Coming into the finish line!


Karen had a great finish!

So impressed with Clarissa finishing her first half marathon! She did awesome!
Have to pose on the finish line...
The boys were kind of bored but did great hanging around.

After the run, we went home, cleaned up, took a short nap and then went to a friend's house for an Easter egg hunt! They have a couple acres and invited a few families. The boys had a lot of fun playing with friends and finding eggs. Dallas was content to hang out at the treat table and eat lots of chips and salsa! (The scrape on his nose happened at the run when he took a nose-dive off his bike!) He also had tons of candy from the eggs that Jett found. =)

Later in the evening, we left the kids with some friends and attended Risa's funeral. It was incredible! Karen did the eulogy, which was so perfect and wonderful - then the Encore youth choir performed a few musical numbers, her brother read from her journal, more singers and the whole thing was so great. She was such an amazing girl with a very powerful testimony of the Savior and the gospel and her funeral was a great celebration of her life and legacy. It was quite a day and one we'll always remember!

Happy Birthday to Dallas!

Dallas is TWO! I can't believe it really - he's still my little baby but oh is he trying to be a big boy! He just won't stop growing...He sure brings a lot of joy to our lives and we all have so much fun with Dallas. He's snugly and funny and sweet and of course a super cutie!

Well, we have fun plans to get together with the whole family for some yummy dessert and fun presents and just hanging out! I don't think Dallas realizes today is a special day for him, but he'll get it more tonight when he sees the presents!

Happy Birthday little bug!
We love you!!!

Happy Birthday Jayson!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweetheart!! Here's to leaving the 20s behind and looking forward to enjoying your 30s!Jayson, you are so kind, gentle, funny, hard-working, handsome, caring, a great dad, talented, smart, goofy, sweet, loving, strong, cool, nice, active, loyal, sensitive, trusting, friendly, reliable, brave, charming, honorable, romantic, skillful, thoughtful, witty, sexy, wonderful...

and best of all...

YOU'RE MINE!!!I love you babe - Happy birthday!!!

Portland Children's Museum

Ready for a picture overdose? You've been warned. And they're not even the greatest pictures, but here we go anyway...
We went to the Children's Museum a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd share some fun pictures of our day. The boys were so well behaved the whole time and we spent a good 4 1/2 to 5 hours there! It was awesome.Playing at the grocery store and bistro--Tucker loved making me different meals, Jett got good at flipping his pancake, and Dallas loved pushing his cart around filling it up.The exhibit going on right now is Curious George and the boys loved spending time with all the cool stuff in there. Here's a little mini-golf action.Dallas loved this George statue and had to give it a hug whenever we passed by it.Getting the big fan to blow the windmills around.Definitely Jett's favorite area was this conveyor belt. The kids put in a foam block and cranked the wheel to get it to the top where it would then fall down zig-zag conveyors to the bottom. They loved it! Dallas liked watching them fall down each level.Digging in the Dig Pit.
Tucker always likse to brush the alligator's teeth.This was Dallas' favorite area - it had steering wheels! We spent awhile in there.

Tucker's face is goofy but he sure had fun playing on this huge train table!

The water area is always so fun and wet. The boys had a blast there. Dallas was so clever in figuring out if you put your finger in the spout, it makes the water shoot harder and makes the wheel spin faster. He spent forever doing this. And surprisingly, Tucker didn't freak out too much with as wet as he got - a small miracle!
My camera battery died here so that's it for photos, but we sure had a blast! There are so many fun areas to play in and we just rotated between them all all day long! I sure am lucky to have such awesome boys!

Snow Day

Portland is funny. They reported that we should expect a lot of snow and that it would stay for a few days. They were a little right. It did snow but only and inch or two and it was gone by this afternoon. That always seems to be how it is. So around here any little skiff means no school! Yay! We all bundled up and headed outside this morning and had a blast playing in the snow! We built a big snowman and rolled lots of snowballs and threw a few, made snow angels and trekked across the field. We also had a few tastes of the snow - Dallas especially enjoyed eating it - and even enjoyed the sunshine through it all! It was great! SO here are some photos of our fun! =)
I know there are a lot but we don't get snow very often so too bad. ;)Jett's first order of business...a snow angel of course!

Our snowman! Jett called him Snowy and Tucker called him Mr. Snowhead.

Tucker wanted to hold his hand for the picture.

My goober.

He loved eating the snow - I made sure he got the clean parts. =)

Cheese!

I don't even know why he made this face. Silly booga-lips.

Jett made his own small snowman and later karate chopped it apart. It was awesome.

Handsome Tuck-man

He just makes me laugh.
=)

Happy Birthday Jett!

Happy Birthday to Jett!
SEVEN YEARS OLD!

We all had a great time celebrating Jett's birthday. At school everyone sang happy birthday and he got to pick a treat. Then in class he got birthday cards and I brought cupcakes for everyone. He loved it of course. Then Daddy picked him up from school and took him out to Burgerville for lunch and then to the store to pick out a toy. He got a cool shotgun! That evening Jett asked for chili for his birthday dinner - nice and easy for me ;) and then we took off to Grandma's house for dessert with the family!
It was so nice for everyone to come and celebrate Jett! He got totally spoiled and loves all of his cool presents. He has seriously watched his movies over and over and over already and he wants to play Battleship everyday. They do lots of shooting with the shotgun and all the dart guns and he looks so handsome in his new clothes. The puzzle has been fun to put together, the books are fun to do and he's in love with all the spy gear - especially the cool watch! Thank you everyone for loving our boy so much! It was a great birthday and he loves being a seven year old! Now just one more year til the big eight!!


Seven years old

Captain America cake

Super cool movies

Awesome night vision goggles

Silly brother

Making a wish!


Happy Birthday Jett!
We love you!!

Hubbie's Hobbies - Airsoft Edition

So Jayson is not in want when it comes to hobbies. I'm glad he finds fun things to do that he can enjoy. His all time love is riding dirtbikes, but skiing, cycling, air-chair, ping pong, snow-skiing, water-skiing, etc. keep his interest and he loves it all. We sometimes joke by trying to guess what the next "toy" will be. Recently however, his attention has gone to guns. He loves the real kind and wants to get a Taurus 800-series (?) soon to add to his 22-rifle and his 357 mag. I don't mind- I'm all for protection and I rather enjoy going out shooting. However, he has also discovered the joys of airsoft! This is a wave that has hit every Rowley man and has spread to a couple others as well. At first it was the cheap pistols from Fred Meyer that you have to rack manually after every shot. They were fun for a while, but then dreams of automatic pistols came alive and they all got awesome, real-life-like pistols that came with extra magazines and could shoot a lot more rounds per game with more firepower and simulated the real thing. These are awesome and so much fun...but...they don't work very well in the cold winter weather. And wouldn't an airsoft rifle be so cool?!! Thus we have entered the era of airsoft. All the guys now own their own airsoft rifles that have full and semi-automatic shooting capablilities, can hold hundreds of rounds in a mag and have even MORE POWER. Yeah it hurts more too and the guys often come home with bb-sized welts or scabs, but they're real men and they LOVE it! Now they don their camouflage and head out to the back yard and enjoy games like terrorist vs. SWAT, and one-on-one with a ghost shooter, and other awesome games that help them develop their army man skillz. So even though he's way into this new hobby, I'm actually okay with it. He gets to spend quality time with his bros and his dad, he has fun, gets exercise running around, and he's actually really good at it. He's also been good about balancing family time with his airsoft so hey - bring it on and have fun!