Dinner at Kumi's

Here are three good pictures from the dinner at Kumi's. The first is a picture that Celeste and I definitely thought wouldn't turn out...at all. But it DID! Our necks were craning up and our stomachs were about to explode but it was still a good picture. The second picture is for Jason's sake. The man with the glasses: yes, that is Tim Leatherman. The FOUNDER of Leatherman. Next to him with the white hair is his wife who has the coolest name ever: Chau Leatherman (pronounced Cho). And the third is just a great picture I wanted to include of mom and dad. Enjoy!

Babushka

It was great to have Grandpa and Mary Jean come down to visit (sorry Jason and Lindsay that you weren't here, just pretend you are next to me and in front of Grandpa). Our Ukrainian/Romanian neighbors came over to talk to them about the Ukraine. He told them, "Don'tuh drustuh duh peepl!" (What he meant by that was that citizens are also professional pick-pocketers.) We had a lovely visit together and shared some of the music from the Christmas Program. It was great!

Multnomah Falls

As all of us would agree, the Columbia River Gorge is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Multnomah Falls was absolutely spectacular with all the added water from the snow. We were DRENCHED after standing down below just to take pictures. I can't imagine what it would have been like to hike up to the bridge!

The Girls o' the Fam!

In The Snow

I think we would all agree that the snow was very unexpected but very fun indeed. There were great things about the snow that allowed for some great memories: the trek out to Bonnie's for the men of the family (very memorable I'm sure) and the intense eskimo decking-outness of Saren and me to play for a few moments outside in the blizzard .

My FHE Family!

This is most of my FHE family (and by the way I don't know why this is underlined and I can't figure out how to fix it, sorry). Last night we made little grateful hand turkeys. It was lots of fun. So along the top is Leeann, Tanisha, Sam, Katey, Sacha (hiding behind her turkey), Paul off to the side being weird, (next row left to right) Kira, me, Scott, Jill, Emily, (bottom row) Spencer, Kristy, Tanner and Jes. Just thought you might like to see the picture. We sure have a lot of fun together! (Brandon and Heidi are the only ones missing.)

Procrasti-what?

I'm sitting here in the library, and I have just finished classes for the day. I took the time to eat my scrumptious lunch (crescent rolls baked with hot dogs in them...quite tasty) and now I am not wanting to do my HW! So I decided to take a few pictures to illustrate this and then I will put my shoulder do the wheel and get all my work done in this wonderful place of a library.

Halloween

Dad sent me this picture and I am taking the liberty of posting it. Mom and Dad were so creative, where they not? Lucrecia could definitely strike fear into the heart of anyone. And I think Saren makes a wonder magical unicorn!

Dad sent me this picture and I am taking the liberty to post it. Isn't our family the greatest?!

The Dance

I had the funnest experience last night at a formal dance!! There was a real band there so we did swing and cha cha and salsa all night long. It was amazingly fun. My date was one of my FHE brothers, Paul. So, I am having fun here in ID taking advantage of all the fun things going on. YAY! The first picture is the after picture: we were pretty beat. Then the middle one is obviously me and Paul. The third is the whole group with their dates. Fun stuff!!!

Mother's Weekend

Thanks Dad, Saren and Lucrecia for letting Mom go for the weekend. Mom and I had a bunch of fun (along with Jason and Lindsay too!). It actually snowed on Sunday which was not totally unexpected but still unwelcome. We went to Comic Frenzy, a comedy club, that was really hilarious! Battle of the Dance was fun as well, seeing there was a hilarious MC. In continuation of Mother's Weekend tradition, Mom got a really cute haircut. It was a great weekend and I'm so glad Mom could come!!

All She Wants for Christmas

Dad sent me this picture of Saren. Saren, you are the cutest little girl EVER! I think it's so cool that you lost your two front teeth almost on the same day! Thanks for the picture!
Lovies, Emily

The Gardens

Hi family! I am having the time of my life at BYU-I right now. SERIOUSLY!!! I am loving life SO much. My roommates are amazing, I am making great friends and I am having so much fun having Jason and Lindsay here too. Just thought I'd drop a note and a picture. This is me sitting in the beautiful gardens up by the Benson and Ricks. I should be doing homework. But updating the blog is definitely a great excuse to not do homework :) Love you all!

Jesus Wants Me For A Sun...BEAM!

I've learned so much from working with kids this summer. I have learned more about why Jesus tells us to become like little children. So I thought I'd share more precious pictures of my lovely children. (Well, surrogate kids anyway.)

This is Evan. His dad is English and has a really cool accent. Evan can make the saddest face in the whole world that just breaks your heart! I love his eyes.
This is Sam. HE IS SO SWEET! He has such a cute smile. His eyes are green and he always carries a stuffed dog with him. I love Sam!

This is Nyla. She has the raspiest voice I've ever heard (because she screams a lot). She calls me Teacher Ang-uh-lee. She's doing a lot better with the whole screaming thing and it helps that she's so cute!

This is Spence! He was my life-saver Sunbeam that answered all the questions and listened when I was talking. His big sister is Lexi, Saren's best friend in the ward. Spence uses his hands to talk a lot. It's hilarious!

Welcome to the TFM!

Our temporary family member (TRM) Lucrecia loved the coast. She had never seen the ocean and was quite amazed at the beauty of Ecola. We are having fun here at home having her here. Personally for me, it has been an interesting experience to be scared out of my wits concerning my Spanish abilities. Granted, she is a native speaker so she speaks SUPER-DUPER fast! Saren loves explaining things to her slowly in English and is very pleased when she is understood. All in, all we are loving having her with us in, what is to her, the foreign United States!

Really Being At Work

Woops. Sorry about that. So, working at Small World Learning Center has been a great learning experience. And there have been so many cute kids!!! Here are two pictures of 2 of my favorite kids. The girl is Libby and the boy is Miles. Aren't they ADORABLE?!?!

Being At Work

Alpine Slide

Many thanks to Dad's company who annually have the most awesome company picnic ever! Both Saren and I were allowed to bring a friend (I brought Kindal, Saren brought Makayla Wright) as we headed up to Alpine Slide!! I love riding the ski lift because it is so relaxing. And then it's great fun to ride the 1/2 mile slide down on the sled. This is a picture that I took from the ski lift. Isn't is amazing beautiful? Jay, this one's for you!

Family Links

Dad's book, Release This House, is available online via the Mower Family Blog. The link is on the left under "Family Links"... how's that for a pun Dad? :)

By the way, I'm making reference to "God Expires No Plea" in my talk today--answers to prayer. I accessed G-Mom's poem from Dad's book online.

Also, Lindsay and I are getting into Family History work. We are the Family History Coordinators in our ward and we're enjoying it. We enjoy climbing our family trees.

*Request: Disneyland Video

EMILY. "I just had an apostrophe... lightning has just struck my brain." You should totally try to post your Disneyland Video on the Family Blog. YES!

Teaching Moment

Here is a hilarious picture of Saren teaching Dad the lifted-point-toe Yoga pose...or something like that. I love that Mom is casually chatting on the phone in the background as if all is completely normal in life when her husband is practically standing on his head.

Saren the Genius

As we all know, Saren definitely got the deep end of the gene pool. Watch this video to find out what her new favorite pasttime is.

Dead Sea Spa Mask

Shhhh... Jason doesn't know I'm posting this! So this was something that I convinced Jason to do with me after we got the apartment all set up. It was time to relax and let ourselves rejuvinate... He admitted that it felt pretty good! HA!

Welcome Mower Family!

Being spread out all over the U.S. can make it tough when you miss out on the everyday joys that members of the family are experiencing. I know that Jason and I would have loved to be there for the Rose Parade, and we wish the rest of you could have been here as we moved in to our very first place together! I can also bet that all of us would have like to have gone to Hawaii, or been there to see Ben and Celeste's reaction when they found out Ben's amazing score on the MCATS. I don't know about all of you, but I surely miss Emily's piano playing, and Saren performing her acrobatics that we all wish we were limber enough to do. All of these exciting events in our lives are happening everyday, and we only wish we could be together to experience them as a family. This is our purpose for creating this Mower Family Blog. Each of us can have access to it to post journal entries to share, pictures, videos, or just thoughts from the day. Every time you post something, it will be emailed to the rest of the family so they can be apart of the experience too! Jason and I are excited for this family blog, and hope that each of you will contribute to it so that we can be apart of the everyday happenings in your lives. We love all of you! And HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD!
Sincerely,
Lindsay and Jason
P.S. This picture is to share with all of you the place where Jason proposed to me on December 1, 2007. It's at Cress Creek.