Merry Christmas . . . . in August??

So yesterday I stepped out my front door and low and behold I found this on my doorstep

My very sweet friend, Karli, left me my first Christmas gift of 2009. Her tag says it's from "who else? Your Christmas Sister. Couldn't resist. . . got one for me too!" She is so cute! We both love Christmas! Right now as I am writing this post I am watching Fred Claus and listen to Christmas music. This was such a nice surprise and I love my gift. Thanks a bunch Karli!!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

So Ty's birthday was on the 25th. I am so sad that I don't have a picture but my camera was getting repaired and I just got it back. Anyway, we had a fun time. Ty doesn't like to do much for his birthday and I don't know why. Every year I want to through a party and have a BBQ at our house and every year Ty says let's go to dinner and a movie, which is one of his favorite things to do. Anyway, we went to lunch and had dinner with some friends last week end. Didn't go to a movie, nothing was playing we wanted to see. I finally broke down and got Ty an i phone for his present. I think he is in heaven. He loves tech gadgets. He's been singing the "I love technology" song from Napoleon Dynamite while holding his phone. He's so funny. Anyway, he loves it. He is always looking for new apps and finding more "cool" things that the phone can do. Last week we were laying in bed just about ready to turn the lights out and I asked if I can see his phone to check my email to see where we were meeting to go running in the morning (at 6 AM!). He hands me the phone gives me a big kiss and with a huge smile on his face he says it's that the coolest phone ever! He is so funny! Anyway, happy birthday, sweetheart! I love you!

Slacker, Slacker, Slacker!

So I know, I'm a slacker! It's been 8 months since I last posted! I'm going to try to do better. In the last 8 months we've traveled around visiting family (CA, WA, UT), vacations on the Oregon coast, friends/family came to Portland, Tyler started a new job, I took a leave of absence from Nike and now am back at Nike, started training for a half marathon, and the biggest news is we have submitted our paper work for adoption. These last several months have seem so busy but I am really going to try not to neglect my blog.

Rowley Family Photos

Christmas with the Hollist's

So I am really lame and am finally getting some more of my Christmas pictures posted to my blog. They are only 2 months late! These pictures are up at Ty's parents new home in Eden, UT. We all went up there for a week or so. They had tons of snow so most of our activities were snow related. We went sledding a couple of times and skiing twice. They live just a few miles from 3 different ski resorts so I am excited to get back into the sport. So we would play hard during the day and then relax in their new theatre room watching movies, or in my case sleeping through all the movies on their big projector screen. Thanks Pen and Julie for letting up come up!




This is Pen & Julie and Japen's family. Japen is Ty's oldest brother. They live in GA so we don't get to see them very often. We are trying to work our magic and get everyone out to the west coast!



Me and Liv. We took a picture because we were had matching outfit colors!




This is the view from Pen and Julie's breakfast nook window. Isn't it beautiful!

This is Ty and Blaine going up to the sledding hill.

This is my Dad and little Ashley. Ashley and I were sledding buddies and went down the hill together several time, although we had a few bail offs of the sleds.

This is my sister Cindy and my brother-in-law Frank up at Pen and Julie's house. Some of my family came up to Eden for ATV's and sledding. It was a really fun afternoon.

This is Sharri and Talmage in the new Rhino (a supped up golf cart, which is really fun to ride). If you notice little Talmage's eye we had a bit of an accident with sledding. He was going down the hill and was heading for a boulder and instead of bailing off the sled he just put his head down and smack the boulder head on. His eye was all black and blue and he had to get several stitches. He looked so miserable, although he didn't really complain. He was tough and even went skiing later in the week.

This is Tyler riding Pen and Julie's new ATV's and sledding down their neighbor's hill at their new house in Eden.

Christmas with the Rowley's

Like every year I got to SLC for Christmas. This year I was able to go for 18 blistful days. We spent the first part in WJ with my family and the second half with Ty's family up Ogden canyon. Most of these pictures are taken on Christmas eve. We had 16 nieces and nephews there so the gift giving got a bit crazy. All the kids were so excited to give/receive their gifts from their cousins. As a kid Christmas Eve was one of my most favorite nights. We always had a big dinner with the whole family and my Uncle Art's family. We would do the gift exchange, read the Christmas Story in Luke, and watch movies. Misty and I would usually sleep int the same room and talk about all the things we hoped we'd get for Christmas. The building excitement for seeing the Christmas Tree all lit up and all the gifts under the tree. My parents always tried to make Christmas seem magical, and it was.

Cindy and Boston

Boston

Mike and Boston

Kids and their gifts.

Me & Brandon.

Cindy and Bree.

The next few pictures were taken in Mike and Anna's van. We were waiting in a huge line of cars waiting to get into the Thanksgiving Point Christmas Lights. We got bored so we took some random pictures. Aren't my nieces beautiful! This picture is of Mackenzie and Tailey.

This is Paige. Lucky girl, she got to sit by me the whole time! She loves me!

Here is Quiny and Tailey, and Mackenzie in the background.

Here is the whole back seat. They all squished in the back so Cindy and I could come. This is Quiny, Anna, Tailey, and Mackenzie.

Cindy and I went with the Newman's to Temple Square to see the lights. It was really, really cold that night. I have like 6 lays on and was still cold. This picture isn't the best of me but it a good one of Misty and Cindy.

This one is of the whole group. All the kids unanimously voted me their favorite aunt - sorry Cindy! :) Right before this picture was taken I ran into one of my best friends in high school, Tara Wood. She now lives in FL and was in SLC for Christmas. I have seen her in like 8 -9 years! It as so good to see her. I played basketball with her and had a lot of good memories with her. Hopefully next time we are both in SLC we can spend more time together.

This picture is of Misty and Brandon's kids - Tanner, Mckena, and Jake.

Every year at Christmas we get together with the Finlayson's for lunch. The Finlayson's are just an extended part of our family growing up. Jay was my second mom and Kim has always been like a sister to me. We were said that Katie and Phyllis couldn't make it.

The first day I was in SLC I went to Tailey's piano recital and she did a incredible job. She is really talented and she looked really beautiful in her dress.

Seattle Trip

So I am finally updating my blog. It has only taken me 2 months! What can I say - the Holiday's are busy.

In mid December we went up to Seattle to go see Ty's sister, Tiffany and her family for the weekend. The NW hardly ever gets snow. Maybe a day or two with a skiff of snow but it usually melts within the day. The weekend we decide to go to Seattle the weather gets out of control and decides to snow a whole bunch. Unfortunately, it was the first and many snow storms this year. Anyway, this picture is right outside their home on Sunday morning. This is a lot of snow for Seattle. Where Tiff lives there is a lot of hills and it makes driving a bit scary, even if you know how to drive in the snow! When we finally left and we starting driving down the hill I had to close my eyes and put my head between my knees and Ty drove/slide down the hill. Yikes!

We did make it to the movies before the storm hit. In fact it started to snowing as we we're walking out. We went and saw Bolt in 3-D. It might have been my first 3-D movie ever. It wasn't so bad actually. The movie was kind of cute and we felt so HOT in my glasses we asked a theatre employee to take our picture with our glasses on. Don't we look good?? The picture is blurry. I am not sure why my camera is not taking very good pictures lately. I'll have to check into that.

With the snow we were stuck in the house for a few days. We didn't even go church because the roads were so bad. Anyway, Liv got some pretty cool straw glasses at a birthday party. She loved to drink with them on. To bad not much of the liquid got in her mouth, it leaked all over the floor!

Thanks Tiff, Tore, Liv, and Ella for letting us come. We love you guys!