Rowley Poly Romping

Stuck In A Moment And Stress For The Future

2011-12-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

Song that describes my life right now: Stuck In A Moment by U2. Please pray that Adam can get a job and that I can get more sleep at night.

Merry Christmas From Us Rowley Polys!

2011-12-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! I could only send out an e-card with photo this year, stamps and photos are expensive. Although... I did send cards back to people who sent them to me - don't want them to lose hope in me returning a card. And we also sent some to immediate family. But not with photos, just Christmas cards I/we made in our card club where we make and exchange cards. Too much explaining.

WE HOPE YOU HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Significance behind photos:

The first photo is one of my favorites of the year. Adam and Adeline just look marvelous. And also I had to crop out a huge herd of deer that we had followed across the street! The lighting was beautiful, the sun was low behind the green trees and it was near setting. Taken just this September. (Taken by me.)

Another one. Lovely lighting. Lovely deer. How can you not like that?

The second picture you might remember from Halloween. Adeline was being a wild woman and was trying to wriggle free and jump out of my arms. I love the look on her face. She was being a Bee from Pushing Daisies and I was the bee keeper, aka Chuck the Dead Girl. Watch the show, it's great and it's on DVD. I'm grateful to say that I think Adeline liked her costume. She certainly wasn't trying to pull it off all night, so that was a bonus. The wings did start to bug her a bit, but luckily they would just pull off and velcro back on. Simplicity. (Taken by Adam, at the peak of the action! I'm pretty sure he's a better photographer than I am.)

The picture in the bottom corner is from our lovely August/September roadtrip out west, and this is Imperial Beach in California, right above the Mexican border. We look great! The horizon is a little crooked, but I'll take it! (I had put the camera on top of a piece of propped-up driftwood. Taken by: A piece of driftwood, aka "makeshift tripod.")

The picture in the top corner is our most recent family photo! Hurrah! We look awesome! I still have yet to post these photos in a blog or on facebook. Meh.

This is my favorite long one from our most recent family photo. We are on the back deck at Mom and Pop Rowleys, many thanks to Grandma for taking the photo. I love the bright red Maple? Japanese Maple? tree in the back that was still super-red for awhile so by the time I got my bum in gear to take these photos, there was still some of the pretty autumn color left. Hooray for Mother Nature!

We're cracking up!

We took a photo around the Christmas tree tonight that turned out really well (also taken by Grandma) and it will be THE photo that helps us remember what Christmas 2011 looked like. I am hoping to print out photos of Christmases past and put them in a big frame together that I can whip out every Christmas as part of the decor. Wouldn't that be lovely? Wish me luck in this endeavor! I have too many things on the back-burner as it is.

And now you know too much.

-Danelle

ROMP

2011-12-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

Leave it to ThinkGeek to sell one of these sweet babies. I love my ROMP! And so did my physics students. They liked to play with the magnetic pendulum. I mean, who wouldn't? There is so much crazy stuff going on here!

ROMP (Random Oscillating Magnetic Pendulum)

This also gave me an idea for what to update the blog name. Now you might notice it's not "Adam, Danelle, and Adeline" anymore, now it's Rowley Poly Romping. The Poly is to help people realize that maybe they've been pronouncing Rowley incorrectly. Roe-Lee. I hope that might clear up any confusion.

Sincerely,
Danelle

Baby Picture Sidebar Lusting

2011-12-13T22:24:00.001-08:00

This is probably one of my more trite posts (okay, stupider), but I want to get one of those cool baby picture sidebars that show what Adeline looked like at 1 month, and 2 months, and 3 months, ... and a year, etc. Those are sooo darn cute! I'll have to get on that!

I don't know if it will happen anytime soon. And I want it to be PERFECT. I want to pick the perfect photos, and also do the detective work to make sure the picture I'm posting is true to the age, because a lot of my photos are just kind of mashed together in the same "summer2010" folder, so it could be a range of 4 months or so. I will probably end up spending WAY too much time on getting it right, and it will probably be viewed by no one but me. Ah, the curse of perfectionism. I'm on a slow recovery to being more realistic. I think that having kids especially forces that upon a person. I know just getting the blasted thing done, albeit a little bit crappily, but not wasting too much time on it, is key. That must be my mantra.

Other wrenches in the works are that I'm still trying to make Christmas presents for people, and I'm helping to watch my sister-in-law's children and help make dinner and unload/load the dishwasher and watch my own little one, get caught up on my blog posts (I've got a great Six Flags one that's almost done!), and also I'm trying to add musical numbers and performances, and THEN Physics and Calculus tutoring into the mix. I don't know if I'll be able to pull it all off.

I guess I should really focus on the things that will help make us money, the tutoring. We are in need. If we want to be able to have just enough to help us move to whatever magical spot that Adam will get employment, we will be needing a few more thousand dollars. If anything, the move we did from California to Missouri showed us that moving is NOT CHEAP. We spent at least $4,000 on the moving van and the diesel gas. Ahh! The gas was a nightmare! It was the summer of 2008 and diesel was peaking around $5.00 a gallon, and the moving truck got barely 10 miles to the gallon! Horrors! Horrors!

I think we realized that in that case, it would have been cheaper for us to sell or donate a lot of our furniture and then buy it when we got here in St Louis, for those insane prices. Yeesh.

I still want my picture sidebar! Will someone make it for me for Christmas??? Pretty please?

Love,
Danelle

August in Missouri - Six Flags with the Rowleys and the Welshes

2011-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

Six Flags? Yes please!

We had so much fun. It's safe to say that at this stage in Adeline's development (she was 15 months) that she loves playing in those water fountains that shoot up like snaking water streams! We played in that thing for awhile. We also rode some rides! Oh my goodness, I couldn't believe how much she LOVED the Ferris Wheel!

This is the best photo of us, taken by Cam! (He's seven. Haha!)

Just look how excited we are to go to Six Flags in Missouri.

Now you know why they call it Six Flags.

What it feels like to park a car at Six Flags.

Taking our own photo at the entrance of Six Flags. Adeline loved the water and there are so many wonderful things to look at.

Adeline is taking in all the scenery.

A great Daddy-Daughter photo in front of the mammoth Ferris wheel.

Walking with family to the rides.

Photo with family in front of Mr Freeze! An excellent ride.

A game of Peekaboo with Grandpa by the Scooby Doo ride.

Adam and Adeline admire the Ferris wheel. Fun structure. Love the black and white.

Adeline's getting excited!

Up, Up, and Away!

Seeing the Ferris wheel afresh in the eyes of a child. (Because, let's face it, as a ride they are pretty lame. Except when your child LOVES them!)

More cool structural black and white photos with Adeline enjoying the Ferris wheel.

Look at all that contagious joy and happiness. :-)

Onto splashing in the water fountain!

Potty break. Haha, picture of a toilet!

What cool thing could they possibly be looking at???

Now we're riding a train? Will the fun never cease? :-D

I love Adeline's WOW! face! She just totally drops her jaw!

Such a cute one of Daddy. Rrowrr! Foxy man!

Onto the next attraction!

Waiting in line.

Mommy and Adeline go on a spinning ride together!

Spinning in the "hot air balloon" is fun!

I love the look on Adeline's face. Pure excitement!

Time to play in the fountains again, this time with Mama.

We are getting super soaked!

We are making the same face!!! :-D

Dad goes down a slide with Grandma and Uncle Nathan while Adeline and I take photos of them!

SPLASHDOWN!

Aunt Sarah and her kiddos!

And I took soo many photos of a bunch of strangers for about 15 minutes! (it was a lot of photos to review!), but I somehow missed some other people in our party. Sorry! I don't know what happened!

I think this was the third time we rode the Ferris wheel. Adeline just couldn't get enough!

Finally, Adeline wears herself out at the theme park. Time for a nap in Daddy's arms! Awww.

Goodnight sweet Angel!

Quickening in the Tummy, Cheaper Baby Health Care Please

2011-12-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

I totally feel like I have quickening in the tummy. It is weird and wacky and wild. It feels like a baby is moving around in there and doing somersaults, like Adeline used to do before she was born. But I know I'm not pregnant. But wouldn't that be funny if I was and didn't know it and I ended up on that, "I didn't even know I was pregnant" show and had the baby in the bathtub or something.

Seriously though, lately I've been thinking about doing a home birth. I think having a baby is costing a ridiculous amount of money these days, and also we lost our health insurance not long ago and lately health insurance companies have been writing into the contracts that you have to wait a YEAR OR TWO before you can conceive so they can make up the cost? (This is what our new health insurance is all about.) I would be mad at them, except this is a complex problem that didn't come about because of something THEY (the insurance companies) did, so instead I can be mad at rising health care costs, at hospitals and doctors charging up the wazoo and ordering C-sections all over the place so that the average birth at a hospital costs about $20,000 to $30,000, and a birth with a C-section can cost up to $100,000 or more!?! This is insanity!

What made me think about it (what made me "go there," ah yeah, I went there) was that I am kind of astounded that it cost about $30,000 for me to have Adeline. I did NOT have a C-section, although the docs were pushing for one and Adeline was having some stress and dropping blood pressure here and there, something to watch, but nothing too serious yet. I know it was because my body wasn't ready to deliver her yet, I had some rupture and water breaking but no labor pains, although the computer was picking up consistent contractions every 2 minutes. I think I could have benefitted from waiting longer to go to the hospital, continue in my routine until my body was ready, so maybe that's what I'll do next time. Let my body be ready to deliver, not having to administer pitocin (what they did in my case). I was barely dilated. Like a 2, but I'm pretty sure the doc was rounding up to try to keep me from stressing out.

Continuing, the doctor ordered that I have C-section labs done, in case they needed to quickly open me up. So the C-section labs were run. And I'm telling you, lab tests are NOT cheap. Especially ones for Cystic Fibrosis, when your OB/GYN doctor orders them for you, even though you know you have no family history of it, your parents do not have it and neither do your husband's, so it is literally impossible for me to have it, genetically speaking. (I think he thought I was Jewish, and Jewish populations have a higher genetic risk.) But I still have to pay $375 for a lab test that was a waste that I didn't want! I'm pretty sure that the lab results themselves cost a large portion of that $30,000 baby bill. Which I didn't end up needing. And which I probably wouldn't have needed had I labored longer at home. Luckily our health insurance helped pay the cost so I think that with all the prenatal care factored in, I paid about $5,000 for Adeline while the health care company covered the rest, the $25,000. I'm pretty sure I still got charged for a C-section although I did not have one, because I bet whoever was preparing the bill saw that I had the labs so they probably assumed that I had the C-section, and tacked that onto the bill. Because the insurance company isn't going to look too closely. The hospital can get away with it. And most patients are apathetic to the whole process and don't read the fine print on their bills as long as they know the insurance is covering it!

I was talking to a friend the other day who had a C-section and she said that she had to stay an extra five days in the hospital (something like that) and her bills all totalled up came to a whooping $100,000! I seriously cannot fathom that! What the what? Did the room cost $15,000 a day?!? I hope it was some beach-front property in The Hamptons, for those prices!) Some of my other friends who have had C-sections did not have a bill that large, so I'm wondering why the discrepancy? Did they overcharge? Slide something extra through? And why are the prices so hush-hush? They really need to be open and transparent, and more competitive. She gave birth at a different hospital than I did (but literally across the "street," the freeway, I gave birth at Mercy St Johns and she was at MoBap) and I know that they have similar features and similar prices.

If we are concerned about rising health care costs, we should be concerned about the waste and excess going on. Hospitals love to "pad the account," so to speak. One of the big reasons that they do this is because of a government bill passed back in the 1980s, called EMTALA. (Can you believe it? The government got involved and prices went up?) Basically it says that a hospital cannot refuse care, even if they know that you cannot pay. So lots of people are getting free, expensive hospital care when they could have gone to an Urgent Care clinic for their child's sore throat or ear infection, rather than costing about 8 times more to go to a hospital's ER to get the same treatment (usually with longer wait times because of Triage), but who cares, right? It's "FREE"!

No, it's not free. ERs are the big money pit of the hospital, so they make up for it in other procedures, baby births being a great way to make up the money. It's like a company charging more for clothes because 10% of the people keep coming in and shop-lifting, walking away with "FREE" clothes. The company still needs money to operate, so they have to charge more to the paying customers to stay in business and not go bankrupt. And trust me, lots of ERs have made lots of hospitals go belly-up. So then nobody can get ANY CARE, not paying customers, not customers who fail to pay for something that does cost a lot of money.

Also, the women themselves are pushing for C-sections because they like to know when and where they are delivering, not just knowing it could be in the fuzzy, two-week window. (Maybe not even then!) If we are tired of rising health costs, then we need to be more responsible patients and speak out about abuses to the system, and not abuse the system ourselves.

A sneaky trick I found out from my mom and sister (who unfortunately has health care insurance woes so that they will not insure her) found a good, reasonable doctor and have a great method for paying the bills. At her pre-natal visits, she would pay the bill immediately, in cash. The health care companies and the doctors' offices have a trick where the doctor's office usually charges A LOT more than they should for the visit, but that's okay because the bill then goes to the insurance, and they bargain down the bill so that it's usually about half the amount. Well if you pay immediately, the doctor usually likes this because the whole "bargaining" prcoess between Dr office and insurance can take anywhere from 2-8 weeks. The doctor would usually prefer to get paid immediately and not have to go through all this. And that in itself keeps prices down, paying immediately. So they will usually cut you a deal. Hopefully they will already take the price down by half, usually more.

The big secret:
Let me tell you, my sister did this (she HAD to do this, there was no option) for her pre-natal visits and for the birth. Her birth bills cost $2,000. And that included the Epidural. She did give birth vaginally, no C-section, no pitocin. By the way, she delivered at Davis hospital in Layton, Utah, where I was born (back when it was called Humana). I am seriously considering doing this for my next child, maybe go visit Grandma Brown for a few months while I finish growing the baby, because they don't let you fly the friendly skies once you're eight months pregnant, and then deliver it at a reasonable hospital for a fraction of the cost. All while taking a little vacation for less than it would cost me to deliver at a local Missouri hospital. Oh yes, and pay in cash before I left the premises. Because they will tack a lot of stuff on as that bill goes through the system and travels to you through the mail. Trust me.

Ya, I might be down with homebirth. Except for the mess I would have to clean up. Because seriously, who's the one who cleans up around here? I would be cleaning up my own labor mess. And trust me, it makes a big mess. My water breaking alone was like the gushing of Niagra Falls on the hospital bed, enough that my husband just made a completely astounded noise and couldn't stop mentioning it for a few days. Maybe laboring in the bathtub is not such a bad idea. Just throw a bunch of towels in there that I don't care about, to make it warmer and more comfortable. And then just toss those in a garbage bag and toss that into the trash when it's all over. I'll have to teach Adam how to sew me back up. That was probably the hardest thing that the doctor did, because it was basically the nurse who got the baby out of me. I only had to push 15 minutes, and then she told me to stop because she had to run and get the doctor so he could catch and cut the cord. And sew me up. And yes, that will be $30,000, thank you, come again. Adam could do that for $10 and some fishing line. Maybe I'll hire a nurse, because they did help a lot to get the baby cleaned up and suctioned what needed suctioning. Seriously the nurses are doing most of the work. And if I really need a C-section, then I'll be singing praises to the doctor.

It is typically safer to have a homebirth after you've already had one kid because you are more used to the process, although who in the heck gets used to THAT!?! Pushing out a watermelon through a tiny opening? But I would be less likely to have complications. And if I do, a hospital is nearby and I'd head there. I'm no dummy. Just trying to save money and not be a part of these "rising health care costs" that we are doing to ourselves.

Recipes and Getting Organized

2011-12-06T21:03:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

Back in, hmm, maybe June or July? I had the lofty goal of getting my recipes organized and ready to use so that I wouldn't spend forever looking for them and wasting my time when I could be cooking. (Oh my goodness, if I could only tell you how irate it makes me hunting for something when I could be DOING something? I value my time even more now that I have less of it to myself. Having a baby is hard. It's still hard. It will always be hard. Tangent over.)

We moved in with my parents-in-law and not having things at my fingertips is a little frustrating. So even though I had put a lot of my recipes into Word documents ready to be accessed, those Word documents (and my trusty recipe book) are sitting in a storage unit that is about an hour round-trip drive away. And since gas costs money and I really need to curtail my driving because we have no inflowing cash resources, I don't know if I'm going to get to go there anytime soon. I have put the kibosh on my driving long distances because we are poor and getting poorer every day.

Luckily it's not too bad. I have forwarded a lot of recipes as emails so they are floating around in my sent mail folder. But I still have to hunt for them. And sometimes they can't be found, because they never got sent in an email to begin with! (Curse you, false memories!)

So my new brilliant plan is to use an ancient technology I've known about since 2008. Good old Google Docs to the rescue. I'm going to put my recipes into there, alphabetically, to save my sanity. Hooray! And I invite you to do the same. Or some form of it. To bring sanity to your life. Seriously, am I the only one hunting down things and then getting frustrated that I had to spend a lot of time looking for the item? You could do it with other things that you want at your fingertips, things that won't go away if you computer hard drive crashes or goes into storage.

I also hope to be putting more recipes into my recipe blog: http://danellesrecipes.blogspot.com/

Danelle's Recipes and Adventures In Cooking

but that hasn't happened just yet, and it still can take some hunting around in the blog posts. I want it all laid out like a scroll for me and my happy brain that craves a little more organization in my life. Mm mm good!

Google Docs Tutorial

Feel free to steal my idea. That's kind of the whole point of me telling you about it.

-Danelle

Time is Flying - August in Imperial Beach, CA

2011-12-03T22:08:00.001-08:00

Ah, the beach! I was so glad that we were able to follow our plans and make it all the way to the California beach! I needed some good beach time! And I wanted Adeline to enjoy her first time at the beach! And I wanted Adam to enjoy the relaxing time and the cool ocean breezes. I think we accomplished our goal of some good relaxation.

But first!
A Wal-Mart at a nearby mall! Two-stories, so it needed an escalator, and of course! an escalator for your cart! I was blown away!

Adeline and Daddy enjoy the beach!

A great shot of us all!

Adeline touches her sandy toes.

Jump for Joy! On the beach!

Adeline starts eating our match game.

Endless summer. I wish.

I guess it's easy for us to accomplish all this while we are jobless! Pray for us that we can get employed and find a place to live! Because we are running out of loan money! And we have to start paying it back soon too! Yikes!

Time is Flying - August in Mesa

2011-12-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

We drove on our way to Mesa after our fun times in Utah.

Driving through Vegas.

Adeline loved loved LOVED floating in the pool!

Pool party baby!

Davey jumps in!

Mommy and Addy.

Do not get inbetween Adeline and her popsicle. She might bite your hand off!

Cooling off in HOT August Arizona.

YAY! for her cute Mermaid and Seahorse outfit.

Davey's cute smile. And so good at sharing with Addy.

You can bet I was playing on this piano!

Beautiful purple Mesa sunset.

Going to the fabulous zoo outside of Mesa and petting the animals. You can feed the giraffes at this zoo, which is amazing! Except it wasn't open that day, probably too hot in August.

Time is Flying - August in Utah

2011-12-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

I got to go visit my fun Browntown family in Utah. I had been missing them.

Here's a great photo after we just arrived. With Dad and Grandma Margie.

Adeline is so funny. She had fun wrestling this giant purple monkey.

I guess the other grandkids were scared of this thing. She liked it.

Grandma gave Adeline a pretty purple dress. She wore it on Sunday.

Adeline has a Meerkat head!

Fun Sunday photos in the front yard!

Playing a game of Obstacle Croquet at Twilight, with Matt and Megan.

My mom is pretty funny.

My dad gauging the shot. I love the moon in the background! Mm, the purple dusk of twilight, baby.

Uh oh, here comes poison.

Megan devises the strategy of hiding in the bushes!

Cheesing with Great Grandma Gwen.

Adam and I do a live session at the Salt Lake City temple.

We ate at the Lion House Pantry.

Pool party with the kids is a magnet for the adults. :-)

Adam and Blake telling stories and cracking up.

Adeline's a little sweetheart. <3

Christine gets in the pool!

Life from Adam's point of view. Looks pretty good.

Adeline loves doggie licks.

Here come more adults to enjoy watching the kid pool show.

Christine gives us a harp concert.

Playdate with Krista and Abby at the Boun-cy Cast-le!

My brother decided to engineer a giant slip-n-slide for us. Here's Adam slicking it up with dish soap.

Tim!

Megan!

With an assist from Matt!

Adam's getting soapy.

I was getting bruised! We were all getting bruised. Ouch! But it was fun!

Matt goes on his feet!

And then wipes out.

Rachel sails like a swan.

The next day we feed Adeline and get on the road for a 12 hour roadtrip straight to Phoenix WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!? (On the way back, you bet we stop and stayed in Vegas.)

A big cheese, because you don't yet realize you're about to be stuck in the car for 12 hours!

Please stayed tuned for August adventures in AZ and CA, and Halloween and all that other jazz leading up to Christmas!

Time is Flying - July, beginning of August

2011-12-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

What pictures to include? And hopefully I can make this fast. Those Christmas presents aren't going to make themselves!

In July, just a few weeks before moving, we went to an awesome pool party at Trina's. Seriously so awesome. Adeline and I, and I think everybody, had a great time. And can you see how close we are to the St Louis Arch? Beautiful downtown!

Adeline is having fun!

Mama and Adeline.

It was a welcome break from all the packing and all of Adam's studying for the Bar. I don't know how I didn't go insane this summer. (Although Adam probably thinks I was close...)

Heather and Samir's wedding:

Irish dancing at the Sangeet

The day of the wedding. I get to wear a sari. Seriously so awesome!

Here's a lovely photo of Adam and Adeline in front of the World Fair Pavilion, where Heather and Samir have a Jainist wedding and then a formal wedding. And then a bangin' reception!

The happy couple after the Jainist ceremony.

A picture with the bride and groom.

Here we are, taking a play break on our way to the Rowley campout. This is in August, right after going Heather and Samir's wedding, right after moving. Yes, I had to pack not only for a move, but for a wedding, for a campout with our camping gear, for Arizona weather, for St Louis weather, for summer, for fall, it's been interesting. Thank goodness I can go poke around the storage unit every now and again.

Almost there, near Cedar City, taking a picture in the Beaver Valley chair!

Adeline running down the hill with Grandpa Rowley.

A was having so much fun with all the other kids! Here she is in the hammock.

We love to cook! Adam cooking with C.

Mm, tri-tip. I want to eat it!

Roasting 'mallows around the fire.

Stayed tuned for more of the August road trip to Arizona, California, and Utah!

Help Me Or Jarilynne WIN!

2011-12-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

Hello!

There is a cute kid contest going on right now. I do think that Adeline is pretty stinkin' cute so of course I had to enter her. My sister also has some pictures of her cute kids up. Please go and vote and help one of us to win a free photo shoot!

Go vote for us at Forget Me Not Photography by Jana. Go to the bottom of the page and leave a comment and don't forget to list #4 Adeline, #11 Davey, and #12 Mark in your comment. (You can copy and paste that and put it in, nice and fast and easy!) You can vote for multiple kids, but please only one vote per kid. (And give preference to Jarilynne. I'm sure she'd love a free photo shoot!) Thanks for your help!

http://www.forgetmenotbyjana.blogspot.com/2011/12/vote-for-your-favorite-cute-kid.html

The Beef

2011-07-22T20:52:00.001-07:00

I don't know. The 4-1-1. I guess it's not really at beef. Not yet. Just packing packing packing. Whilst trying to watch my little one, keep her and I and my husband fed, and keeping on top of the dishes and the schedule. There is not much time to myself. Only during nap time for Adeline, which happens to be my nap time. Or else everything goes to pot. Like it did today. But the maintenance man came and fixed some big apartment issues we were having, so that was good. Except that I really needed that rest. Yes, I broke down around 3pm today sobbing. I'm exhausted. I'm overwhelmed. I'm at best 30%.

Adam goes out of town Monday night to go take the MO Bar in Jefferson City on Tuesday and Wednesday. I hope he does well. He's been studying like crazy. He's been applying to jobs EVERYWHERE. He was even lucky enough to get an interview in Kirksville. But that ended up being a no. He's gotten rejection letters in the mail. One of them recently wasn't so much of a rejection as a "try-again-once-you've-passed-the-Bar," so now the new plan is that Adam isn't going to be studying all day and applying for jobs at night, it's study all day and all night and apply for jobs once he gets his results back from the Bar.

Anyway, I am grateful to my neighbor and also my mother-in-law for watching Adeline this past week so I could get some more packing done. I have cleaning inspections in a week, still have a lot to pack and I haven't been able to do much cleaning because I'm just tired and beat from doing my mommy duties and chasing my 14-month-old around. I would LOVE to post some pics, I have many to post, but I don't have the time to get them off my camera and post them. I guess I could post one. But not now, Adam needs the internet. Bye!

That's my life. It kinda sucks right now. Talk to me on August 5th, when I've been camping and I smell like a campfire, and all my stuff is safely in storage in St Louis, when we come back at the end of August to move in with Adam's parents. In another ward. In another stake.

Tata!

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-01T14:37:00.001-07:00

Today we remember those who sacrificed and struggled to bring freedom to the American colonies and all the blessings we have been able to reap over the past two-hundred years through their efforts. Read your Declaration and Constitution and the words will feel fresh. Those who say that the Constitution is too out-of-date or out-of-touch are the ones who are too out-of-touch with the purpose of our country. Celebrate a glorious history! Happy Fourth!

WONDER WOMAN!

Posts that may or may not be verbatim from facebook...

2011-07-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

I know there are some of you who don't have facebook (yet, heh heh) so I thought I'd post those posts here too. The big news:

Adeline is walking today! It's fun to see the change from being able to take 2 or 3 steps to 20 consecutive steps. We went to the Tower Grove fountains/splash park with Emily Durrant and Adeline had fun walking from fountain to fountain (and getting a drink!). :-)

She has been so proud of her shoes lately, which I think led to her motivation to walking. The other day she brought her sandals to me in the morning and wore them most of the day around the house. And she's been so happy in her red shoes and her pink light-up sneakers today. I'm glad she loves her shoes!

Adeline is 13 and 1/2 months. Not breaking any early walking records, but man, is she a fast crawler! She's had lots of practice!

I have TONS of pictures to post, but I have to actually get around to uploading them from my camera, deleting all the bad ones and keeping the best ones, touching them up if needs be, and then use the slow uploading tool. So maybe maybe maybe I'll get around to doing it. We are also moving soon so I'm feeling the crunch and the pressure of needing to get everything done asap.

The end. :-)

Play by Play of the Storm

2011-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

It's raining and windy and thundery outside... so we're playing SOCCER IN THE HOUSE! Haha!

Adeline has learned how to kick an inflatable ball, and she's getting pretty darn good at it. But I get ahead of myself.

The fabulous Careen and her 9-month-old son Dillon came for a visit and we had a lot of fun around noon. Earlier the sun was shining here and there through breaks in the clouds and we went to a nearby park on a little walk and got some nice 10am sun and enjoyed the lovely spring smells. While Careen and Dillon were here, things got gloomier and gloomier outside from a look out on the balcony. As Careen and Dillon were leaving, it was getting windy.

And then the storm hit! We get pretty wild windy thunderstorms here (and tornado warning sirens!), but this one seemed unusually strong. Our balcony chairs were getting blown across the balcony and knocked over and stuff was flying around through the streets. The trees were pitching in the wind.

Careen had just barely left our third floor apartment so I called Careen's phone to see if they needed to come back in our building to wait the storm out. I got her voicemail so I hope she's okay.

Anyway, Adeline and I were beginning lunch and the lights were even flickering a little, so thinking ahead I got some candles out and lit them on the dining table by Adeline's high chair. She loved watching them, as I'm pretty sure she had never seen them before. We had lunch by candlelight! But the power didn't go out, so things were fine. Still, lots of strong rain and wind and lightning and thunder.

We finished up lunch and then we have been playing with her toys. I helped her kick the inflatable ball that she loves and we had a good time laughing and I was swinging her by her arms into the ball. Then we started kicking a swiss-cheese-like rattle that Adeline got from Lisa, it's in the shape of a ball. She liked that. But then she wanted to take a break and sit and play with my cell phone, so I started kicking the little pink rattle-ball against the couch, and she thought it was hilarious!

So I kept kicking the ball and it would roll back to me and I kept kicking it and she was laughing and wanting me to do it MORE MORE MORE! So I did. We played soccer in the house. And I got quite a workout! (And we didn't break anything!) And the thunder was going on outside and it was gloomy and FUN! I think this might have to become a daily tradition. :-)

The End.

Big News! Adam Graduated!

2011-05-20T19:12:00.001-07:00

You should refer to him as Adam Rowley, Esquire, now. Or Adam Rowley, JD. Adam Rowley, Juris Doctor. Okay, maybe I'm more excited about it than he might be. He still has to take the Bar this July and has a lot of studying ahead of him. He's taking the Missouri Bar, as we are still waiting to hear about job offers and the like. It's been rough out there for new lawyers, particularly the last graduating class (2010) and this one (2011). Hopefully things will improve.

I'm going to have to post pics! Also, Adeline had her first birthday, and tomorrow we celebrate Adam's birthday (although his actual birthday is on Monday). No kidding, it has been a busy busy May. Mommy is tired. But pretty happy. :-)

PHOTOS!

Before the procession to the Law Ceremony

Family!

Daddy and Daughter

Waiting for things to begin and Daddy to walk across the stage. Hanging out with Grandma.

Bored. Time for a "crawling-on-the-grass" break.

Adam's name is read and he is presented with his Juris Doctor. The diploma is all fancy and all in Latin! Haha!

Adeline fits in a nap. Hooray!

Adam with friends: Heather and Samir!

Betsy!

Melissa!

Ryan!

Jacob!

Adam's Family Law Professor. He really enjoyed the class.

Photo with the George Washington statue. (Who the school is named for, of course!)

Photo with the fabulous photogenic Wash U arch.

And a few from Adeline's birthday.

Birthday girl with Grandpa.

With Mommy.

With Mommy and Daddy.

With her yummy monkey cake.

The end!

Finally Updated the Bookmarks

2011-03-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

Sheesh! Finally updated the Bookmarks. (See the right side of this website.) I hope it will be worth the effort. Yes, I already feel like it will be worth the effort. I love things to be organized. (Although, to look at my life right now you wouldn't believe it.)

ta ta for now!

PS Let me know if I'm missing your bookmark. I will probably add it. (Although it might take another year or so for that to happen!)

Going To The Zoo

2011-03-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

I guess I must post while I'm in a good mood, to counteract all these downer posts I've been posting. I used to pride myself on being a cheerful, optimistic person a lot of the time, but I don't know if I've been living up to that since I've had a baby and lost valuable hours of sleep.

Anyway, I am happy right now! Adeline did an amazing stretch of sleep last night, took an almost 2-hour long nap this morning, and then napped one-and-a-half-hours in the afternoon. And now she has been down pretty well tonight (not the recently typical waking every half-hour, boy did that suck!).

We went to the zoo with some friends and had a grand old time! I wanted to post some fun pictures of our escapades, because bed is calling and I better work fast!

Going to the Monkey House with Friends!

Rhetorical Question: Who doesn't like watching those funny monkeys?

Babies And Ladies Having Fun!

Off-roading with the strollers = FUN!

Adeline picks and eats the grass. Mmm, fiber.

What a sweetheart!

Looking at the fishies

Look! A hippo swimming by.

I forgot to blog about this, but it's on facebook. Tori, Emily, and I at the 4-mile cave run, in the DARK! We are hardcore! (Well, maybe Emily and Tori are. I hope to be again!)

Our shoes are disgusting. Did I mention there were obstacles? Like climbing a sand wall and running through a muddy pond?

In case you don't believe it, I have run a marathon (the LA marathon):

(Okay, I ran the 1/2 marathon, and walked/ran the rest. It still counts! And I trained hard, I was running complete 10Ks about twice or three times a week to train. I was in some good shape!)

And rollerbladed a marathon (Long Beach, oh how I miss California):

Before:

During:

NERD POSE!

After:

My running chica friend Hina talks me into these things.

I hope to get into better shape again.

I feel motivated by the possibility of having another baby. I need to get this stuff off so I'm not as big as a whale for my next pregnancy. I am also annoyed about going on birth control when I was first married. It made me moody and it made my boobs and butt get big! Grrr! I think it was causing problems in my leg muscles, I would have weird pains which I am guessing could be clotting or deep vein thrombosis. It freaked me out, so I stopped running. I got off the birth control but the weight did not want to budge. I used to run a lot during our summer in Iowa but the weight would not budge and I felt like it was doing damage to my knees, which it probably was. Now I've been having knee problems in St Louis. Oh well, life sucks. I have started running again. I went running the other night when Adeline was driving us insane, thanks to Adam for watching her. It helped me get out my frustration and anger that I was having with a baby that decided that she should wake up every half-hour from 7pm to midnight, and then a few more times in the middle of the night.

Yes I am a Mommy! How are you?

Blog Frog Blog

2011-03-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well I seriously have five minutes (or less) to blog. No pretty photos for you. I was just thinking how nice it was to have some time to myself tonight to make gifts and do crafts. I have been a little stressed about it - I have many crafts half-way completed scattered around my sewing machine (which still sucks and does a weird loopy bad tension thing - no matter WHAT the tension is set to). I have wedding gifts I sewed that still need pockets and bias tape around the edges that are almost a year overdue! Both of my friends I was making the wedding presents for are pregnant and who knows if I'll even get it to them by the time they deliver! It's becoming a sad joke.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be a downer, I actually wanted to get on to say that it was nice to be productive. Unfortunately, Adeline hasn't been going down at nights as nicely as before, and she likes to wake up every hour from 8pm to midnight or 1am, and then again at 3am for good measure for Mommy. So I get interrupted all night, and I was already so tired from the day that I didn't even want to look at my crafts. I work slow, so it's painful when I spend an hour sewing, don't even finish my project, then realize the hem looks like crap so it takes another hour of unpicking to end up where I was before. Geez, okay, I can't stop complaining.

Well tonight was different! I got TONS done! And Adeline stayed down for awhile, although she is up right now and Adam is trying to get her back down. But I think the keys on this computer click too loudly so it is probably keeping her up. So I'm logging off now. BYE!

-Danelle

Sarah gave me a thermometer for Christmas

2011-02-04T23:49:00.000-08:00

And now I know that my living room temperature is at 64 deg! Even though our thermostat is set for 72 deg! Yes, it is cold in here! (What a waste of freakin' money!) And yes, I have put up that weather protection sheet stuff (last May!) that is that weird plastic wrap stuff. And it actually made a difference, no more draftiness, but still, COLD!, so that it was probably more like 59 deg the last two winters! I put some of it in our non-functioning fireplace. It doesn't feel as drafty, but still, 64 degs. That is why my feet are ice blocks in this apartment.

So what have I done to fix that? I can't sleep if my feet are frozen, I will literally watch the clock all night getting angry that I can't doze off.

So I made heating pads! They are super-cheap! Just get a bunch of white rice (buying it in bulk can really save you $$$) and get some of your husband's thick work-out sneaker socks, fill it with rice (but not too full, in case you want it as a neck-heating pad to soothe sore muscles), and sew that baby closed, (machine is easiest, but by hand if no machine). I did another seam as a backup in case one ruptures, so I hopefully won't have a big rice mess to clean up.

It was fast, easy, and I can sleep better when I put one of those in the bottom of my bed. Oh yes, to warm it, you throw it in the microwave, about 2 mins for one sock, 3 minutes for two. Ah, HEAVEN! So toasty, and you can put it in your bed 5 minutes before you go to sleep, and it's just a pocket of warm goodness. Happy times. Cheap and practical and good. Great investment of my time.

I think I know why I am hopeless at blogging...

2011-02-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

... IT'S BECAUSE I'M TOO DARN BUSY READING/COMMENTING ALL OF YOUR GREAT POSTS!

And then I feel like I have nothing to offer. Or it's past midnight and I'm out of time.

I hope I am funny.

But sometimes I am funny when I am not trying to be funny. And I sometimes make people laugh the most when I am angry and saying something in my "My dog is dead" voice.

And it makes me MAD when they laugh when I'm trying to be serious. And passionate.

I don't know if it's because it's a really deadpan delivery. But it's weird, the only time I don't want laughs, and I get them.

Okay, let's get back in a humorous mood.

I had been having a rough go of things. Maybe this is how all my posts are sounding. Well sorry, that first kiddo really tests you (and they probably all do, just no one ever talks about it), like in the fiery furnace of affliction, or the crucible, or whatever you liken it to. So I was kind of a monster yesterday. Pent-up feelings from the last two months came spewing out of me like "truth-buckshot" (see Pushing Daisies) and I let the anger fly. And then I was humbled. I had more answers, which gave me some relief and explanation. And I saw my own flaws, and my own beam in my eye (you know, like a beam that holds up a roof or ceiling in a house, that span like 20 feet!), compared to a speck in another eye (you know, like so tiny that no one else notices but you?). And I had to eat some humble pie and try to restore the balance.

So that was sad, but also, now we can make some progress and try to do better and work on things. Also, I realized I needed to get out of my own rut and try to help what had been bringing me down. The sleep is still hit-and-miss, but I got some UV therapy to help with my winter blues (being cooped up from all these stinking ICE STORMS and freezing temps!) I think I had cabin fever on top of everything else. I really think things will improve in the spring and summer when I can get out and feel the sun, and get away from this rotten apartment with the squirrels in the ceiling and the creaking like we are on some kind of ship crossing the Atlantic! But I know I gotta be happy in the moment, or else you are always looking for moments in the future to be happy, and completely missing out on the great present right in front of your face.

Sheesh I am rambly. Here's what works for me, when you no longer have Christmas to look forward to and you are stuck in your house freezing to death.

- Go tan. Not just to get your tan on (bc I think that is stupid) but because you probably haven't had a good dose of UV since September. And it can help with SAD, seasonal depression. Because who isn't depressed when winter comes along, the sun is barely up, and you have been cooped up and probably driving everyone around you nuts.

- Go play a sport or do something active. Lately I have been getting my DDR on (Dance Dance Revolution) but then the PS2 memory card decided to delete all my data ... AGAIN! That was yesterday. That always kinda brings me down. I play almost every day, sometimes I get to play on harder levels while Adeline is in her exersaucer, but then she hasn't like to be in there, she wants me to hold her, so I hold her AND do an easy level. So I hadn't been exerting myself like I had a few weeks before. Oh well, we both have fun. But it wasn't cutting it. I played basketball with the ward ladies tonight and that REALLY helped. They really make you run and I feel worked out! And great! And my circulation has improved and I can feel my feet, they aren't ice blocks! And I sleep more soundly!

- Hang out with someone fun. I like hanging out with Natalie Lukens, she has a daughter close to Adeline's age and they play pretty well together, but I want to broaden my horizons and hang with other ladies I haven't seen too much lately. Like Careen and Amy, and anyone!

That's basically it. That really works for me. And try to not overextend yourself.

Now to clean this house and get some things in order. Tomorrow. Now I've got to go to bed. I've stayed up too late as it is. But I finally had the gumption to pay my bills, so I've been doing that at this late hour.

Night night!

-Danelle

Okay, Okay, I'll Post, Sheesh!

2011-01-14T21:24:00.001-08:00

I got on here this Tuesday night and was ALMOST seduced into posting more stuff. But I am still having sleep problems, on account of Adeline being sick and not sleeping through the night, which meant that I wasn't sleeping through the night.

But I'm finally feeling back to being good again, and hopefully I can hit the hay before midnight, which is actually pretty good for me. Something ALWAYS keeps me up past midnight.

We're doing good. Adam's set to graduate, I'm plunking along, and Adeline is doing well and she's getting to be a big girl. She's crawling and exploring sometimes makes mama and dada noises and she turns 8 months old this Sunday. She loves to laugh and talk with us, and we play on the piano together and look in the mirror in my bathroom together and play with toys all day long. :-)

Here are the major major highlights of things going on. You want to see more, get on facebook and peruse.

I can't remember what I've posted. No matter, here are pictures of Adeline and I just minutes from our house. The leaves were changing all over Art Museum Hill by this lovely basin and fountains. So I bundled up Adeline (it was cold outside) and we did some photos and it was so fun!

Adeline and Mama in a beautiful spot.

Adeline has long arms and can take a picture of herself! ;-)

Hi cutie!

I'm coming for you, Mommy.

Taste the rainbow.

Mom, did you want a profile shot?

Blue Steel!

Did you get the shot you wanted?

Okay, I'm crawling away now. We're done here.

Other Things We Did:

Licked a Rose

Did A Christmas Photo
(which we were too poor to send, except by email!)

Looked Confused

Looked Scared

Took A Train and A Plane (This is at the airport)

Went for a Hike (and Laughed and Laughed!)

Looked Cute While She Slept!

I love this one of Dad and Adeline!

We ate.

We bathed.

We celebrated Christmas!

Oh, and we built a snow man (woman, actually).

Then we all got sick and took it easy!!!

What have I learned?

I really need to clean my camera lens, it's kinda blurring up the works in some of these shots.

Take Care!

Bare Minimum

2010-11-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

My astronomer friend Kevin would always say, "The C gets the degree!" But seriously, we were all too nerdy to be pulling C's. However, I'm pretty sure none of us (except Ryan) had the 4.0 thing going on either.

This post is all about the bare minimum, because although Adam just worked a miracle and got Adeline down for the night again, she will probably be crying again in the next hour, so I must hurry and only post the bare minimum. Also, I am on a slow slow computer, so I will only be able to upload a few pics too. Thwarted on every side. But not in dispair... something like that. If I remember my bible. Barely.

I am going to update you to my situation first. I don't really sleep anymore. Even if I get the chance to sleep, my body doesn't want to do it. I am trying not to take on any more projects, because I already have so many that I haven't finished. I meant to make a bag and pillows when I went fabric shopping with Amy before any of us had kids. I still have not even cut out the pattern of the fabric, let alone started to sew it. This bums me out a little. I also have projects that are half-way done, and I'll probably be lucky to finish them in the next six months. But I know that I am getting better at doing things faster. I cooked dinner, I did the dishes, took off the bedsheets, washed the laundry, and put away a bit of laundry tonight, when I probably wouldn't have been able to do all those things before, in that amount of time. I also fed Adeline, both breastmilk and solids, tried to get her down, etc, all in that same amount of time. I have to see progress where progress is made and not be bummed that there is still so much left to do.

I REALLY wish I could find the time and the selfishness to exercise. I would love to be back at pre-pregnancy weight, and then onto pre-marriage weight. That would be swell. I should forget about sewing and crafting and focus on this. But looks and body shapes are so fleeting in this life, and the older we get, the more of an uphill battle it becomes. It is a source of strife for me. I'd rather focus on the things that are more lasting. Even if it is a fun craft that I give to somebody, like a card or a delicious recipe. Woe is me.

Oh, I've been reading Hugh Nibley. I have REALLY been enjoying it. He writes exactly all the things that I am so interested in. It's that Egyptologist/Biblical Archeologist in me!

Adam is doing great. He is really on his game as a 3L, and he will graduate in the spring. He is waiting to hear back from the Air Force JAG program, which we hope he will get accepted into. We don't know where we would be stationed. Things are still up in the air. Adam is the president of the Federalists Society at Wash U and he loves it. He has been able to plan and carry out fun debates and activities with delicious food, which he gets reimbursed for. His law school friends are very fun, and we karaoked with some and went to a Jainist festival and Hindu temple with another. I wore a sari! And probably looked like a dork! haha! Adam loves playing with Adeline. She is so fun. She was so giggly tonight. Adam is especially happy about the elections today and tonight, and he just loves watching all the results come in.

Adeline is a sweetheart. She laughs so much, and I was just realizing while I was playing with her today that she is like a fun toy that I get to play with ALL DAY! It's great! But on the other side of the coin, if you play with a toy for more than five hours a day, you get tired. I am tired. Adeline still has energy, and I just have to put her in her jumpy gym where she bounces like a banshee and wails and makes a racket and has the time of her life. And we just kind of shift her from toy to toy, mat to shakey chair. It's getting kind of ridiculous. And I bet that she'll be crawling soon. How I need to steam these carpets! They are disgusting! She was trying to gum them the other day and I was SO GROSSED OUT! Anyway, another project. Hopefully this one shoots to the top of the queue, it's important!

Okay, some pics of things we've done lately. The bare minimum. The highlights.

I finished ONE project. Of 100! I guess I should be happy.

Our darling Adeline was a cute little monkey for Halloween! Maybe I'll post some pics from Trunk-Or-Treat. Like, in a million years!

Adeline likes eating people food. And giving us the smileys!

Adeline had a happy 1st Halloween!

Adam made a lovely spinach and applewood bacon quiche. It was to die for!

Adeline and Mommy went to a spooky Mommy N Me.

Mommy felt the need to dress up like a tiger (for Halloween)

Family photo at the St Louis Zoo

Adeline is building up some nice leg muscles from playing all the day in this jumpy gym. Worth every Craigslist penny!

The end! Wow, I did it! Thanks Tuesday!

Updating on a Tuesday

2010-11-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, I seem to only get in the mood to update on a Tuesday. What is it about a Tuesday? I also just paid some bills. I don't usually keep track of the day of the week, but maybe I tend to pay bills on a Tuesday too! Tuesday, you seem to be a productive day for me. But I still wish it was Friday!

Love,
Danelle

Updating My Blogspot

2010-11-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

How many entries do I need like this? Don't you love how I always say, "I'm going to update soon, sure I am!" But seriously, I hope that I do. I am thinking of fun things to post. But it is like so much of my life, a pipe-dream. Only 10% of what I want to do gets done. Maybe I need an assistant like some of these other friends who are teasingly asking for one on Facebook.

I am grateful that Adam is taking Adeline right now, so that I can even write how someday I will update this blog. Thanks Adam!

That's all from me. Adeline's doing great, although we're trying to figure out the whole get-her-to-sleep-in-her-crib thing, and the get-her-to-sleep-for-a-long-time thing.

Love you all. Thanks for reading. I do in fact read your comments. Maybe it's half-a-year after the fact, but I DO read those comments!

Love, Danelle

Baby Pictures!

2010-06-01T01:10:00.001-07:00

We had our baby! She is a sweet angel that likes to sleep lots and lots! Her name is Adeline and she was born May 16th, two days early from my due date!

But tonight she is busting my chops, and not sleeping like the typical angel she is/was. She just would not go down. Adam tried many times, then I tried some times, then Adam gave up and went to bed because he has to work in the morning, and I kept trying and started praying, and then started crying. I wonder if I will ever get up to 8 hours of sleep a night ever again... If I can get six, I'm pretty happy. Last night, I got 1. 1 hour. I got a couple more somewhere between 7am and 11am. Anyway, life just sucks right now. It's how it is. I will look forward to when Adeline sleeps through the night.

That's my life. I know many of you have already experienced these baby hardtimes, but that doesn't make it any less sucky for me. The end.

Interesting Pregnancy Observation

2010-05-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

I think it's pretty darn amazing that I haven't been sick (as in a cold or flu - NOT counting nausea from morning sickness) for the last seven or eight months. You want to know my secret? I take good care of myself, and I've learned to say no to extracurricular activities.

I got pretty sick when I first started my job at Virbac. I was newly pregnant, pregnant ladies have generally lowered immune systems, and I was just getting my regular eight (more like seven) hours of sleep. One thing I learned about being pregnant -- it makes you so darn exhausted! I had heard of all the other things, the nausea, the gas, the bloating, the weight gain, being hungry all the time, etc. The exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks! So after having this horrible hacking cough/cold, runny and stuffed up nose, and grossing out my boss and coworkers, I took a day or two off just in the second week that I started working at Virbac, I started REALLY listening to my body.

I started going to bed at 8 or 9pm. Or even 7pm. Adam would laugh at me because I'd fall asleep on the couch if I couldn't make it to my bed. I'd miss watching The Office or other tv shows that we like to watch together because MY BODY NEEDED THE SLEEP! I ditched book club and hadn't been to any Relief Society activities in awhile. If people called me to babysit their kids, I generally said no. It only happened twice that I remember. (I think I said yes to Emily Southerland, and she found me asleep on their couch at 11pm when they got back home. But Noah stayed asleep the whole time, he was very easy to watch. But I remember being in a daze heading out of her apt to my car. I had to wake up a little more before attempting to drive home.) So if you think I was a rude jerk, oh well, I was doing what was best for my baby and my body and my health! So suck it!

It was glorious getting 10 or 11 hours of sleep a night, and I needed it working full-time at my job AND being pregnant. It was exhausting. I did try to steer clear of naps, because then it's harder to fall asleep at night and get a long stretch that can really do wonders for the immune system.

Other things I did to benefit my health:

-Obviously, stayed away from sick people and washed my hands lots and lots.

-Made sure I got enough to eat. And I think my metabolism has gone way up! I don't think I was eating enough before and my body was kind of in starvation mode, and just holding onto fat and calories. (I actually lost weight during the first trimester, although I was eating about twice as much! But it was good food, not crap. And the baby was growing right on schedule.)

-Took multivitamins every day - I take fish oil, calcium, magnesium, blackstrap molasses on my cereal for iron, and a good multivitamin (did you know that most multivitamins have about the same stuff and amounts as prenatal vitamins, and cost a lot less? What a racket! Adam found this out just by comparing labels. Where the things are lessened you usually get in cereal anyway)

-Drink lots and lots and lots of water! I started carrying around two water bottles in my purse. Heavy but worth it! And pack snacks, you never know when you'll be waiting in line somewhere.

-I didn't eat crap. I craved salads and breads and whole grains. Everytime I had sweets I had a horrible horrible headache. And I only made that mistake a couple of times and then just laid off the sweets for most of the pregnancy. It was not worth it to eat the junk food! (Maybe I'll have another pregnancy down the road where I'll crave the crap, but I sure hope not!)

-Was not afraid to say NO! Go bug someone else that isn't pregnant! (Okay, I know a lot of you didn't know then because I hadn't told anyone, but don't lay on the guilt. I'm saying no for a reason, even if I'm not sharing it yet, not because I'm lazy.)

-Seriously though, I think the most important factor was GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP AT NIGHT!

So a bad cold went through the office where I worked about a month ago. Guess who was the only person who DIDN'T catch it?? Pretty amazing for a pregnant lady!

Okay, but now I'm being an idiot because I didn't get much sleep tonight. I don't know if I'm getting all hyped up and excited because I'm going to be having a baby very soon, two weeks or so. It's like the night before going on a trip, I usually can't sleep, although I know I really need it! I need to listen to my own advice!

Seriously good advice! Whether or not you are pregnant!!! Take good care of yourself and get plenty of rest!

When it rains, it pours

2010-05-04T02:54:00.001-07:00

You get to hear from me lots and lots! I've been jobless for just a week and a half, and that energy needs to go somewhere!

Something funny -- perhaps many of you remember our psycho neighbors that live below us. The ones that were obsessed with us being noisy and always telling us to be quiet. Funny funny updates about that, very ironic.

Remember how I said I didn't know what we'd do if we had a baby, because the wife would probably spaz and we'd drive her insane and maybe she'd get us kicked out of the building... well I think I misjudged that a little bit.

And this is still speculation, but the update is that THEY'VE HAD A BABY. Okay, this is definitely old news now though. Their baby is probably a year old now! And I don't ever remember seeing her pregnant, so maybe she didn't necessarily have a baby, but a family member that has a baby moved in with them, or they adopted, or they are taking care of a family member's baby, etc. They have family visit them on Shabbat (Friday night) and they make a lot of noise. Did I mention they are Jewish? I don't know, and I don't feel like asking them if they had a baby. According to Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is that THEY'VE HAD A BABY!

Their baby sometimes wakes me up at 4am. Good times! Okay, seriously though, their baby cries so quietly, it's not very noisy at all, and not a big deal. I usually go right back to sleep. And Adam doesn't even wake up in the first place. It's a real blessing. I forget that they have a baby.

Sometimes they watch tv and I think that they've got some serious subwoofers because the bass coming from them is noisier than their baby crying. I wonder if the husband likes to play Call of Duty or watch a lot of war-type movies like Saving Private Ryan, because those are the kinds of loud bass noises that I hear emanating from their apartment, bombs going off and loud explosions! But it's usually just noisy on weekends. And I don't really care. Sometimes I want to go knock on their door and give them a taste of their own medicine, "Can you quiet it down down there? It's just too loud and my knick knacks on my fireplace mantle are shaking from the bass!" Okay, but I pride myself on not being *that* anal. Although I imagine it and giggle to myself if I were to actually do that sort of ridiculous thing.

Okay, I forgot to dish, but one reason the wife was mad the day we were moving in was because her knick knacks were shaking on her shelves below. Yes, she is NOT an eighty-year-old crazy cat person, although this would be the perfect description of one. She is probably my age, maybe younger. She told me that herself later that day, she complained a few times that day -- what a glorious welcome -- and told me about the knick knacks shaking. I thought about it later and almost died laughing. Anyway, again, not our fault. I'm sorry that the floors probably are carpet straight to crappy plywood, no padding, and all our vibrations of us going up the stairs and into our apartment shake your knick knacks, but we are walking normally, not stomping around. You have a problem with that, take it up with the HOUSING and STOP ANNOYING US and making us walk around on tiptoe, like we are tiptoeing around eggshells. This is ridiculous! I hope an earthquakes comes (they happen a lot in MO) and all your knick knacks fall off your shelves and get broken. Who would you complain to then?

So I wonder --- I wonder if the wife was pregnant during the time she was being a nutburger and complaining to us about everything under the sun. Maybe she was seriously hormonal, and close to delivery, and not able to sleep at night, or any little thing would wake her up, like our creaky floorboards, and she just couldn't resist but come complaining to us. Pregnancy hormones can make you pretty rabid and crazy, and so can sleep deprivation. I think they've only knocked twice in the last year or so, since they've had the baby and all, telling us to be quiet. Or maybe they just realize how darn hypocritical it would be now that THEY HAVE A CRYING BABY?

I was wondering how they'd deal when I had a baby, and it was crying, and it was the middle of the night. Because it would seriously be the biggest hypocrisy if they came knocking on our door telling us to quiet our baby down, and I would either A) laugh in their faces or B) slap them in their faces, preferably A) because I'd be less likely to be sued or go to prison.

And I might not ever find out how they would/will react when I DO HAVE A CRYING BABY, BECAUSE THEY ARE MOVING! HAHAHAHAHAHA! If'n that isn't the most ironic bit of info of all?! I'm dying over here! Again, we didn't hear it from them, we heard it from our fun neighbor Mark from across the hall. Also Jewish. And very outgoing.

Those are the developments to the story. Thanks for tuning in. We also had some other neighbors move in, maybe in the last six months, and can I tell you, they have the noisiest toddler in the whole wide world??? They live directly across from our quiet-obsessed neighbors. But the moms have become friends and I think that they have playdates. So it's all good.

More about the noisy family. The wife is very nice and friendly. I met them as they were looking at the apartment, and again as they were moving in. Her son is the biggest brat EVER! He throws a lot of tantrums, which we get to hear. And the part that bugs me is that the wife leaves the front door to the apartment wide open, and his crying and screaming boomingly ECHOES around our stairwell. And she leaves it open for the good 20 minutes that he has his tantrums. That part blows my mind. I would shut that door faster than anything out of embarrassment! It's really obvious that the noise is severely augmented in our stairwell. You can hear every single word of what people are saying as they go up the stairs, we've heard cell phone conversations from our BACK BEDROOM!

And for a crying screaming kid who is in another logarithmic range of Decibels, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and she seems like a considerate person. Anyway, I would just think that the resident noise experts (crochety neighbors) would take it up with her, but I don't know if they have. Maybe they've stopped caring now that they have a crying baby and they are tired walking zombies. Fortunately, screaming evil toddler usually just has tantrums during the day and sleeps at night, so his screaming doesn't wake me up either. :-) So again, not a big deal. But just a weird fact of life.

I do feel like I might have a noisy baby. The singing pipes are generally genetic, and I have a pretty stentorian loud voice. I could see my baby being a very noisy wailer, unlike the nice below neighbors' baby who is the quietest crier in the universe! So our neighbors might still be driven insane, but again, they are supposedly moving. So it's just funny how everything is going to work out for the best! It's hilarious!

The end. :-)
Unless they aren't moving after all. :-(
-Danelle

Visiting Krista in October

2010-05-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

Haha, she didn't know I was pregnant. (Or she didn't say anything if she figured it out.) Well I was kinda sneaky. I knew I wasn't going to see my fam until Thanksgiving, which was about 12 weeks along for me anyway. Finishing the first trimester is a good time to start announcing, in case a spontaneous abortion happens.

And I didn't want to tell people until my family knew, so that's how it all kinda worked out. We did tell Adam's family at a dinner a few weeks earlier than Thanksgiving, but still, I wanted my family to hear from us in person that I was pregnant and not leaked from facebook or something. So I kept it from my friends and coworkers. My coworkers were especially shocked. Fortunately I only threw up a few times at work, and while I was already in the bathroom, so they didn't have to see me spew or anything.

But I miserably digress. Onto the photos!

Adam and I visited Krista, her husband Brad, and their cute little girl Abigail! We had a lot of fun, and we went to Churchhill Downs, where the running of the Kentucky Derby happens! And we just watched that recently on tv! Way to go, Super Saver!

Churchhill Downs with the Christensens!

The Stables!

One cute bunch!

The race track!

This and That

2010-05-03T22:10:00.001-07:00

Pictures that I want to share:

Graduation from Drexel U, Philadelphia, June 2009. I got my master's in the science of instruction, essentially a master's in education. I am certified in MO and PA to teach high school physics, chemistry, and math. Good times!

I love China Towns! Chinatown in Philly, which we happened upon serendipitously while walking back from graduation to our B&B.

We also walked by the spot where Ben Franklin performed his famous kite experiment during the lightning storm! Adam is pointing out the plaque marking the spot, and now it's where a church stands.

Aw, my parents are cute. Walking to Whole Foods, the one criterion that our hotel/B&B needed to be close to. ;-)

Work, Campaign, Etc

2010-05-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

My job ended just two weeks ago, but I worked there for seven months. The ladies I worked with were excellent and I had a lot of fun. They were also very sweet and had a little going away party for me, and also got me a fabulous baby gift, a JOGGING STROLLER! Talk about fantastic!!! And very kind. I know that jogging strollers aren't cheap, and I know that they aren't very rich. It was very kind and I really appreciate it. I will miss them. I cannot forget to send them pics of the baby when she is born!

Getting to my job. More stairs! And I live up three flights of stairs! Stairs stairs stairs! I didn't really bother to exercise during pregnancy because I figured I was getting enough exercise just getting from point A to B and carrying groceries up the stairs. (I didn't want to cause problems or anything by overdoing it, and I hope I found a good balance. I gained the average amount of weight, and fortunately during my first trimester I just craved salads and cereal and steered clear of all sweets because they'd give me a throbbing headache -- didn't need to learn that lesson twice!)

Okay, the bucket at the stairs cracks me up. Ghetto, I know. When the A/C is on at work, there is a big drip that makes a puddle at the bottom of the stairs that the forklift guys have to drive through -- so they just put a bucket there. Problem solved!

A view of a small part of the warehouse from the top of the stairs. There are four large warehouses and a two-story administrative building at Virbac Animal Health - it's a pretty big company, and an international distributor of animal health products and medications.

Proud to be an American. About to enter the office! Oh, I love it, my pregnant belly made a cameo in this picture!!! hahaha! My arms aren't as long as I thought when I was taking this one.

My "office." Okay, not anymore, but it was good times. I remember the first month I used to get a little distracted and stare at Florida on the map, planning trips I may never take. Hello Pensacola! And the Florida Keys! And Cape Canaveral! One day my boss caught me, I think it was the first week, and she said something, I can't remember what. I tried not to look at the map when she was around. But it always got tempting around 4:15pm when I was about to get off work and logging off.

Darcy's Office! Bonjour, Darcy, representative to the French Canadians!

All my sweet coworkers! And the jogging stroller that they gave me! They also brought lots of good food from Costco! (Thanks Sarah!)

Eek! A rat! Actually, it's a squeaky toy! We sell rat bait at Virbac, and this was a little promotional item of sorts. It was like our mascot. Squeak squeak! (I did enjoy squeaking those rats, we had about six of them?)

Heehee, I drew that doggie. Woof woof! We make and sell dog shampoo, dog toothbrushes, dog meds, etc.

This fan saved my life when it started getting hot the last few weeks. Ahhhhh, I would set it right in front of my face on my desk.

Changing Gears - Onto the S ch weich campaign. (I have to spell it like that because there are spies everywhere in the opposition - and google is so quick to link to pages, believe it or not.) Our friends Amy and Elliott helped out at this fundraiser, motivated by good food! Woot! We also got autographed copies of Mitt Rom ney's book.

The life of a volunteer - Adam furiously getting the name tags ready for check-in, registration starts in a half-hour!

I got to check people in at registration, a perfect job for a pregnant lady in her third trimester. One awful pic of me, but this kid was the other half of our team and he was very helpful. Also, we had Mitt's badge at our station!

It's Mitt! Endorsing Tom S c h w iech for state auditor! Woot!

Mmm, good food, free for volunteers! Yummy salad:

The main course was, eh, okay. Still, it was nice not having to cook. Of course, I've been super-cooking lazy since I've been pregnant. Or maybe I was always cooking lazy, you'll have to get Adam's opinion there.

The dessert was super-excellent! Adam and I were huge fans!

Mitt Mitt Mitt!!!

Elliott, you did a great job putting up those flags!

That's all for now!
-Danelle

Getting New Pics Up - I am so severely proud of myself ;-)

2010-05-03T19:26:00.000-07:00

Haha, this is going to be hilarious.

Adam saves my bacon, because I have this Canon camera, which *thinks* that it needs proprietary software. And I also thought that that was the requirement. So I would try to open my camera to the pics, which used to work very well with the software. But then the software stopped working if the printer was on. So I'd turn off the printer. Okay, working again. But then recently, it wouldn't work if I had opened itunes. So I'd have to reboot and try again. That helped. But then only a month ago, it wouldn't open the software, period. Even if it was the only program I was trying to run, after a fresh reboot. The USB cable was fine, we checked it out. Anyway, it just stinks burning up an hour of your life trying to trouble-shoot why you can't get your darn pictures off your freakin' camera. And then it leaves you zero time to post and comment said photos.

Adam found out that I can go right to the camera memory through My Computer and get the pics that way. That was how my Sony Powershot used to work, and I loved it. No proprietary messes. Anyway, I could have *sworn* that I tried that with my Canon and it gave me an error, so I never tried it again. Well, silly me. And smart smart Adam. :-) I love it when the solution is easy, but I never tried it.

Okay, long story short, it takes me just a few minutes to get my pics off instead of hours and hours of laborious trouble-shooting and head-scratching. And then you start to dread trying, and put it off for months and months.

So, without further ado, won't you please enjoy some pics from the last, let's say, year?!? Some old ultrasound pics? Some newer pregnancy pics?? Although sometime soon I should have some great baby photos to post! Yippee!

oldest to newest:

It's a sweet little baby with the hiccups! 10 weeks! (from October)

It's a picture of the baby at 20 weeks! (from December)

It's a picture of pregnant me at 29 weeks! (from February)

Pictures from my baby shower, back in March:

Me, Careen, and sister-in-law Sarah, with my cute little niece Bronwyn, at the baby shower:

Playing an awesome game!

Woot!

How are you enjoying my pregnancy in fast-forward? It's almost like instant gratification!

Here's me now (actually taken tonight), pictures at 38 weeks, 2 left! (Unless I'm like many of the Brown kids and go an extra week, highly probable.)

Okay, so far my fav pic of being pregnant! Popping my heel in my fun red-orange shoes (that I got at Walmart for $4.00, and they are perfect pregnancy shoes, slip on and off, and with good arch support.)

I did it! Huzzah! I do hope to take some pics of the nursery, although there isn't much to see, just a crib, no new paint job or anything. And then I hope to post them! Maybe it will happen!

I do hope to post some other fun pics tonight. Pictures of where I used to work, and also at another campaigning event that we volunteered at. Mitt Romney came to endorse Tom S ch weich! Hooray! And we got a pic with Mitt! I hope it turned out well. It was taken by a professional photog. But that means we have to wait to get it. :-( Boohoo.

Love ya!
-Danelle

Quick Update - No pics, sorry

2010-04-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today was such a great lazy day. I have a week and a half left working at Virbac and with my sister-in-law. My boss let me stay a few weeks longer to help her with stuff, after my sis-in-law came back from maternity leave. That was very nice. But I only have about four weeks left in my pregnancy and I am ready for a break. Soooo ready. I took the day off because I haven't slept well the last couple of nights and I was feeling run down. I took lots of naps on our comfortable couch. Hooray! But back to work for me tomorrow. Thus far I've been able to gestate AND work, which has been a blessing.

Let's see, other news... along with all the pregnancies in my ward, in my family, and among my friends, there is also some other exciting news. Tons of my family and friends are also getting married this summer! Makes me wish I had some money so I could fly out and enjoy all these weddings. Congrats to all you engaged people out there!

I can't remember if I wrote this yet, but we are thinking of naming our baby Adeline. :-) We are fans.

I've done some sewing lately, which I've been proud of. I made my sis-in-law a nursing cover and a car seat tent. Awesome!

I am looking forward to our fun summer plans. Adam has a paid position now with the Tom S chweich (for state auditor) campaign. Adam's finals are coming up, and then the baby is due May 18th, right after finals. We are glad it worked out that way, but then again, you never know if a baby will come early! My parents are coming out to visit right before my due date and my mom will stay and help for a little while, while we adjust to being new parents with new duties. Adam will also have a great summer internship at Scott AFB and continue to work on the S chw eich campaign over the summer.

We are going to visit Utah in June. We are planning on blessing our baby on July 4th at the Lindell Ward in St Louis where we go to church. Then the Rowley family campout will be coming up, and we'll have it in Missouri with the immediate family. We also hope to catch a shuttle launch at the end of July. :-) Before the program ends. sniff sniff.

Something I discovered at work is that Google Reader is accessible and not blocked! So I can catch up on friends' blogger posts! Hooray! (But Blogspot and Facebook themselves are blocked.) So it's been fun being able to catch up a little with what people are doing and to read what they are posting. Okay, I probably shouldn't be doing that at work, but I need a break every now and again from other things I am working on. I'm typically a hard worker. I work hard and I play hard. ;-)

That's it from me. I need to get to bed. Hooray for sleepies!
Love, Danelle

One Year Later

2010-02-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

A lot can happen in a year.

I can realize my own apathy and try to fight against it.

People can ask me to update my blogspot and I'll have every intention to do it, but it probably won't happen.

But the biggest change is that I am 28 weeks (six months) pregnant. That's pretty exciting. I'm having a girl. I've been feeling her moving around a lot lately, and I've been showing a little more. It's taken awhile though. I guess it's a good thing I haven't gained a lot of weight (yet) and started to show definitively. I've had morning sickness, lots of feeling nauseated but I only throw up here and there, maybe two to three times a week. I count myself very lucky. My mom and my sisters have usually had morning sickness every day for nine months.

I got called to jury duty in St Louis near the end of January. I probably should have tried harder to get a doctor's note to get me out of it.

The mailing made me laugh. There are two major questions you have to answer and then turn the form back in. The first is: Are you a US citizen? If not, provide proof. (Most people don't want to do jury duty in the city of St Louis, and so they probably lie and say that they aren't citizens. But now you have to prove it, thanks to all the abusers. But if you're here illegally or something, wouldn't it be hard to get proof if you don't have any documentation anyway? But then again, you probably couldn't register your car or register as a voter, which is how they get your name for jury duty anyway. You better not be voting if you're not supposed to. Voter fraud makes me soooo angry!)

The second question you had to answer is, are you a resident of the city of St Louis? If not, provide proof. (So many people like to claim that they reside just outside the city in the county, and we live right on the line, but no such luck.)

Wow, are we all just a bunch of liars???

Then there is a spot about if you have a medical issue to keep you from serving, and yes, they want proof, a doctor's note or whatever, because apparently all St Louisians are liars. Well I wasn't sure if I was medically compromised enough NOT to be able to serve on a jury, so I went like a good citizen.

I figured jury duty here would be like jury duty in California, where you show up, they take volunteers, and then they start calling numbers. I had to serve three(?) times in CA, but never actually got called onto a jury, no jury selection, nothing. It was nice. Oh yeah, I had to do the call-in thing too in cali, but still, didn't have to show that time. And I never even got called to jury duty in Utah when I lived there. Weird.

Okay, a lot happened to me over the course of the three days of my jury service, I went through jury selection, I ended up on the jury after I told them I was pregnant. I just thought, "What are they thinking!?!". It was not a nice civil trial either, it was a criminal trial. I got to hear all about incest, how a father raped his 12-year-old daughter. Fun fun.

Anyway, I'm glad it's behind me. It would have been nice to obtain the doctor's note and get out of it for 12 months, but I thought it would be easier to get called to jury duty pregnant than when I'm trying to nurse a baby. And now I don't have to report for 40 months, and we'll probably be long gone by then, hopefully in Arlington VA or somewhere in the DC area. But then I'll probably just get called to jury duty there. Sigh.

Other updates: We are having a lot of fun in our ward. It's funny the different wards we've been in. I've been in so many singles wards, and single student wards, and then some family wards in Riverside. This is like a student/university ward, except that most of the people are young married couples, most of the husbands are in med school (lots of docs) and many ladies are pregnant or have little kids. We have waves of pregnancies, there was a big one last year (that I missed) and now I'm kinda leading this next wave, where we hear that new ladies are pregnant almost every week. "There are dozens of us! Dozens!"

I've had many jobs in a year. I did temping for awhile with Snelling and got called back to Missouri American Water twice. They wanted me again, but I needed to do my student teaching and was not allowed to work at the same time. I really enjoyed working there. Then I had an excellent time student teaching with two physics teachers at Ladue Horton Watkins High School. I feel bad, I haven't been in good contact with my cooperating teachers since. I haven't even told them I'm pregnant, and I'm six months along!

Then I graduated with my masters in education from Drexel, and Adam and I and my parents all went to Philly for the fun festivities. Adam hadn't ever been to Philly! I couldn't believe it! Then I got a job teaching at Bayless High School over the summer. I taught the students that had failed the physics/chem course. They were an interesting bunch. Some things were tough, and they didn't have the best of science backgrounds, but we worked through it. I liked the questions that they asked about science and they were pretty creative. We had fun reviewing with this Jeopardy game I found that I could populate with the questions. I had a SmartBoard in the class and used technology as much as I could, and they seemed to do well with that. Still, we had tests every three days. It was a crazy pace to learn science.

I also did some tutoring. I had a regular who, ironically, was taking physics classes online through BYU for a program she was entering in the fall, an alternative medicine PhD program. Very interesting. She was an excellent student to tutor. She found me through a Craiglist post, and we had tutoring sessions in a local public library (bc you never know what weirdos you might meet, and you definitely don't want them knowing where you live).

Then I got a crazy job through Snelling where I had to make calls back to back to gather medical info in Texas for this database. It was all general knowledge, but still, the receptionists and schedulers we would get didn't always want to give out the info freely. It was weird. It was supposed to last three weeks, I could handle it, but it wasn't the most fun. I don't really like having to call over 100 people a day. They wanted us to make a new call every two minutes. Yeesh!

Sarah my sister-in-law contacted me to let me know a temp position had opened up at her work, Virbac, to last about three weeks. My job was going to end in a week anyway. But before I left, Practice Match (the place where I had been making all the data-gathering calls) offered me a full-time position! They really liked my hustle! My boss there, Susan, was awesome, but I knew that I was still looking for a teaching position (unless I got pregnant in the meantime). So sadly, I turned them down. Plus I wanted to work with my sis-in-law.

I have been heading up the Virbac Iverhart recall for the last 4 months now. That temp job really extended! And Sarah was prego and my new boss, Pamela, asked me if I could take her job temporarily while Sarah was on maternity leave. That was fine, because I am pregnant too and I'll be pretty darn pregnant when Sarah comes back, and I might be ready to take some time off anyway, preparing for the baby to come.

We are ward missionaries in our church and I play the organ in Sacrament meetings. It's fun, I enjoy it. Adam just got called to be a teacher in gospel essentials. We really enjoy that class.

Recently, I hosted a great bookclub in our ward where we read Murder on the Orient Express, I made yummy English scones, and we had a fun tea party! Hooray for girly parties!

That's my life!

Adam has been busy with school, he had a great summer internship this past summer with a federal prosecutor. He's been applying everywhere for a summer internship for this summer, hopefully in the DC area, but he's been turned down, those lame-ohs! We even tried to work some Orrin Hatch connections that my dad has, but to no avail. Those DC snobs! Wash U is a highly ranked law school, and Adam is on the law review. You are stupid for not wanting him! I just want to know how this lame hiring process happens. Is it all just connections? Or being really really charismatic? Stupids. Where's the merit involved? I ask you.

He has also just been wait-listed for the DC clinic program (like a study abroad through Wash U) for fall semester. We were hoping for both a summer internship and the fall DC clinic so that we would move out to DC about a month after the baby girl comes, and just come back to St Louis for the winter semester and get a furnished place, then Adam graduates and back to DC for us, where Adam can start progressing his political career in becoming a lobbyist. :-)

A new direction we may be headed is - drum roll please - the Air Force. Adam is looking into being a JAG and the law school loan repayment program. We would only be with the air force for 3 or so years and they'd repay the loans, and Adam would be making pretty good money, tax free! And he's hoping we'll get sent to Germany for one of our transfers, and we would be able to tour a lot of Europe, just hop on a train and go basically anyway, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark, wherever tickles our fancy! That would be great. I would have to laugh if we got sent to Hill Air Force Base. I'd be five minutes from my parents' house! So far, a lot of things have not been turning out the way we've planned, so we'll have to see if we are fortunate enough to end up in Germany.

Maybe I'll get some pics up soon! It's been forever! But they are sooo much easier to upload to facebook! Blogspot, take notice!

-Danelle

Getting Riled Up on Amazon.com

2009-02-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Getting Riled Up on Amazon.com
Current mood: pugnacious
Category: News and Politics

I typed this up just a moment ago, and figured it was rant-worthy to go in my Blogger blog. I'm also going to put it on my Facebook account as a note. Feel free to comment. I love comments. Even if you violently disagree, please comment.
:-)

The impetus for this post was an interesting thread started on Amazon.com by Ron, who actually had a very good question to ask. Instead, he got a lot of personal attacks and even people calling him a "parasite." It was interesting. I couldn't believe all the anger. And Ron was still nice about it as he was commenting other people's angry comments.

Ron is also an elderly guy, so I don't blaim him for thinking about the consequences of Universal Health Care.

He wrote: "Do the elderly recognize that they'll lose much of their slice of the Medicare pie should nationalized medicine become a reality?"

Already, 125 people had commented on his thread, mine probably won't pull up until the end, but here it is in it's entirety:

TO BE SEEN BY YOUR DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY

- OR -

TO OFFER CARE TO EVERYBODY (but wait in line for a long time - hope your cancer's not aggressive).

It's like Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be."

You decide with your vote and what politician you choose. You have that power and freedom of choice! Study them out carefully please. Don't just vote for them only because they inspire "hope." (And then use scare tactics six months later when they want to pass some bills ... ironic, don't you think?)

Ron has a very good point and I think that Anna and Doug should listen to it, rather than falling prey to one of the logical fallacies of attacking a person's character if they don't like what he is saying.

Whether or not our US health care system becomes fully universal (hopefully not) there will be some trade-offs. These trade-offs already exist in many of these "utopian" countries that you have mentioned: Great Britain, Canada, and many other places where they have some form of health care like unto Universal Health Care. It's called time and resources.

In America we have gotten very used to quick health care (relatively). If you go to an emergency room, you will be treated at least in the next 24 hours, depending on how life-threatening your problem is. We United States citizens want to be treated NOW! (We can be very impatient.)

Now go to Great Britain. You have some form of aggressive cancer. Right now (and for awhile) Britain has had really bad problems with long waits to be seen by a doctor -- we're talking a few months here, not just 24 hours. So you are going to croak while you are waiting in line. So guess what kinds of patients come to the U.S. to actually get some service? YOU GUESSED IT!

Also, if you are over 80, they will offer you hospice care ... and that's about it. You can die in comfort. Pass the morphine please. (I guess that's cheaper than a lot of surgery and expensive drugs, or to be on respirators for years.)

Long Lines Make Universal Health Care Suck IN Great Britain: (2008). Please read and be enlightened to the situation in Great Britain.
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/23/health-care-around-the-world-great-britain/

Excerpt from article:
Waiting Times. Waiting lists are a huge problem in Great Britain. Some examples: 750,000 are on waiting lists for hospital admission; 40% of cancer patients are never able to see an oncologist; there is explicit rationing for services such as kidney dialysis, open heart surgery and care for the terminally ill. Further, minimum waiting times have been instituted to reduce costs. “A top-flight hospital like Suffolk Est PCT was ordered to impose a minimum waiting time of at least 122 days before patients could be treated or the hospital would lose a portion of its funding.”

So based on what is happening in the British system, it is likely that more people will die in our country than they do now, just because of long waits and rationing on big ticket items.

Or you can pay more in Britain and get better care, like everyone eventually does, if they make getting health care for themselves a priority. Excerpt from the article, link included above:
"Private Insurance. 10% of Britons have private health insurance. Private health insurance replicates the coverage provided by the NHS, but gives patients access to higher quality care, and reduced waiting times."

How The Health Care System in Great Britain works, if you want a detailed answer:
http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/elt/h_what.htm

Personally, I think Americans will have a hard time sacrificing the immediacy of our health care to offering it to all. It's just our culture and how we're wired. Unless we're lied to about consequences and then slowly discover them along the way, and then have a lot of "buyer's remorse," which is also very possible.

PLEASE!!! Study the issues and don't get caught up in rhetoric. VOTE WISELY! And remember, there's always a trade-off to every system or proposal. Find out what it is first before you get on the bandwagon. Find out what the unintended consequences will be down the road. Don't just live for today.

Thank you for reading my reply. This is an important issue, and we should do a lot of thinking and research before we come to a final conclusion.

-Danelle

Facebook Sillyness - Danelle's High School Experience

2009-02-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

All I can say is that it was a VAST improvement to the whole Jr. High scene. Yes I loved high school. I loved elementary too, but there's something about Jr. High that makes it the armpit of life. (I think my sister called it that, I can't take credit for it.) I just felt so repressed in jr. high, blah! Some of my art friends got pregnant, it was AWEsome. not really. (They were 14, at best.) My mom threatened to send me to private school because of my bad language (I had a potty mouth, I wouldn't cuss, but I'd say everything next to a cuss). But I didn't want to leave my friends, so I guess that threat worked...

1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes, but none of them really seriously. Never really had a boyfriend, or the DTRness, but boy oh boy I went on a lot of fun dates - picture scavenger hunts, video scavenger hunts, went on a treasure hunt, sent other people on treasure hunts, got free pie and then got handcuffed to a chair a few minutes later, had a HUGE pie fight (something about the pie?), wore matching pajamas with a back door, kissing rugby (but I guess we weren't necessarily on dates), crashed another school's Cotillion, then got kicked out, fire pits, scary stories about South Weber and skin walkers, went ice skating in clothes we got at DI, got heckled by some unruly kids, lots of good times.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school? No. I figured it would be at college, but it wasn't until I moseyed out to California. They have a great singles LDS scene. But so did Provo. I guess I was still too immature.

3. Did you car pool to school? Yes. I drove my sister, I drove Rachelle for awhile (and she put up with me listening to some pretty weird stuff, Bare Naked Ladies to Schubert Concertos. Who listens to Schubert in high school? Axe murders? I drove others on occasion. Sorry if I didn't mention you by name. Luckily my brother had gone on his mission and I got his blue-green Chevy truck, the exact truck that you had, Madison, except slightly different color. I occasional also drove the suburban, but Christine really got the full experience of that car. Oh, the bus was also great. I was just reminiscing about bus memories the other day. Our bus stop kids had an obsession with getting the bus to tip over on snow days. It was a really stupid idea and I'm glad it didn't work, but we'd all lean over to one side of the bus when the bus driver rounded this sharp turn on the corner. i think we even all sat on the same side one day and leaned. Didn't work. Yes, we were 14-ish. Not five.

4. What kind of car did you have? A truck. (A duck! jk) Chevy, Teal, extended cab, could fit six people extremely snuggly. During dinner theatre when I'd drive people home, I remember making Lisa Lloyd and Adam Nielson get in the back of the truck bed and I'd go flying just right over the dip on Sunset in the Oak Forest neighborhood and they'd go bouncing up and down. It was great! Risking other people's lives. I'm glad no one died.

5. What kind of car do you have now? A 2001 black Honda CR-V, I found it and bought it used on my birthday 7/7/2004, right when I had decided to drop out of astrophysics grad school. Tyson and my roommates were watching Emperor's New Groove while I was finalizing the deal with my gay neighbors. I guess I needed to cheer myself up. School had really beaten me down, and I felt dumb as a bag of hammers. I had just sold my 1996 Diamond-colored Cadillac, my dream car (thanks parents), because the price of premium gas was killing me (and it only got horribly worse, good premonition). Yes, no more premium gas cars for Danelle. I'm burned out on them. I had to rollerblade to school for a week, it was about 11 miles away. It was fun though. Except I almost got run over by a bunch of business men going to lunch, they weren't paying attention as they werre pulling out of their executive building parking lot (we're talking Newport Beach here). Luckily with my catlike reflexes I pushed myself off the hood of their car. I really wanted to punch the hood of the car and make a dent in their Voltswagon to remind them to drive more carefully in the future, but I controlled my temper. It's funny how much thought can happen in a split second.

6. It's Friday night. Where are you? Meh. Getting someone's house with bagels, or doing unpleasant pranks to someone's car. Possibly doing my own stunts by jumping into a moving vehicle. Maybe barricading someone's house. Maybe playing the piano. Maybe going to a movie with friends or family.

7. What kind of job did you have in high school? I worked at Old Navy one summer. A guy I had known from elementary school and Kids R Music choir worked with me, and he was now flamboyantly gay. We still had a really good time unloading clothes shipments at 5 am on a Saturday, talking really loudly while everyone else was half-asleep and answering in grunts. I guess we were both morning people.
We laughed a lot. There was a girl that unloaded shipments and worked with us too, and she was awesome. I wish I could remember her name.

8. What kind of job do you do now? Meh. Temp work. Getting my master of education at Drexel U. Watch my nephew here and there. Sell used CDs to the local used CD store. It's a life. Hopefully I'll be teaching and doing physics demos in a high school classroom soon.

9. Were you a party animal? Not really. I was not good when I had to function without sleep. I remember vividly and ashamedly that Jennifer Williams kept us up all night talking about weird things when we were having a sleepover the night before graduation, (I remember Ralae telling her to be QUIET!) then we had to get up early and sing in the choir, then there was the senior all-night party where we were essentially locked in the school, and I started crying uncontrollably during the hypnotist show in the auditorium around midnight. I felt soo stupid, but I couldn't stop crying, I was so tired. Okay, seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Luckily I had my trusty red blanket with me and I think I just laid down somewhere in the school and passed out from sleep exhaustion for a few hours. (We had the all-night party to deter drunk driving and student deaths the night of graduation, in case you are unfamiliar with them.) But on the flip side, almost every night in high school I would always read whatever book that was laying around until 3 or 4 am. I'm a party animal when it comes to reading books!

10. Did you get suspended or expelled? I got in big trouble from the tennis coach when I missed practice one day to do street painting and show my school spirit. I was pretty pissed about that. I was also pissed when we had that sub one day in choir and a bell rang and we all left early (I think I am getting memories mixed up here - wait, I asked the sub if I could direct because it was obvious that she didn't know the song and wasn't very good at sight-reading, and she tattled to Mr. Wright, but I think I just got a warning for that.) Anyway, I think we left early and Mr. Wright was there and dismissed us, but then he was mad we left and gave us all 'U's, bad citizenship grades. I don't remember crying, but my mom does. I ranted to her about it and I'm pretty sure he got a pretty persuasive call from my mom. But we still had to go to detention. It really sucked, and I remember the detention guy asking us, "Why are you here?" We looked like good kids, and we let him know how stupid our teacher was about sending us there. Oh well, we did our time.

11. Can you sing the fight song? Yes. Good times. Thanks choir! Oh yes, and Pep Club sophmore year. Too bad our football team sucked that year, but got immensely better the next two years.

12. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)? Ya know, I had a lot of great teachers. Mr. Harris was an awesome physics teacher, and probably influenced my career choice, Ms. Spencer was fun, I enjoyed her as a creative writing teacher at times, but she had her bad moments too, I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. I also learned a lot from Mr. Wright, although I didn't enjoy him much as a teacher. I had some great seminary teachers, most notibly Mr. Read. Reader? Something like that. I learned so much about the gospel from him. (I enjoyed Ms. Spencer's creative writing with Ryan and Joel. We really had a good time. Remember the Scarlet Ibis? Ibish?)

13. Where did you sit during lunch? At first outside in the commons area with my packed lunch. NERD POWER! Then I started eating in the cafetaria with choir friends. We used to mix nasty concoctions from all sorts of food and then dare people to drink it, and sometimes reward them with prizes if they did. I think Adam told Lisa he would always accompany her for choir pieces if she drank it, and she did. Blech! It was really gross. Oh, we also played Pit, the card game. Some of my happiest high school memories! I got so good at the game I could influence other people to win. I could tell what they were collecting and start passing them that item. And they usually won. It was fun picking the winner. (I got tired of winning, and I tried to give everyone a turn, without actually telling them that. Sorry if I spoiled any surprises.)

14. Favorite music group? Bare Naked Ladies, John Williams The Last Crusade soundtrack, John Williams Sneakers soundtrack, Hook soundtrack, R.E.M., Cranberries, U2.

15. Where was your favorite hang-out spot? At my locker. Katie gave me one of those gargantuan tins of Altoids and I'd pull it out randomly and say, "Altoid, anyone?" like an "air hostess from the 60's." - Flight of the Concords. Also, Katie Wilcoxson's house, hands down! Watching Space Ghost laughing my head off! Ralae's house was also very fun. Many people have very fun houses. The Drake, etc. I also liked having the occasional pool party.

16. What was your school's full name? "Northridge High School, a.k.a. 'That other school in Layton.'" -Ryan Uhrey put it best. :-)

17. When did you graduate? 1998, make it great!

18. What was your school mascot? The Kah-nigget! (knight)

19. If you could go back and do it again, would you? No, I did it perfectly. I'm done. Time for the next adventure. (I can't believe I used to get up at 6 am to practice the piano! Adam's turned me from a morning person into a night owl! Okay, my family did too, bunch of freakin' night owls!)

20. Did you have fun at Prom? I didn't get asked to my prom. Sad llama face. :-( But crashing Roy's Cotillion felt like Prom, I think I was Quintin's date, he had a girl on each arm. Good old polygamy. ;-) Okay, not really! So it was like a prayer being answered. Yes, we had fun. Moreso than I would have had at Prom anyway.

21. Were you involved in any school clubs/sports? Pep Club, Mesa? some kind of science club, we went and saw Gattaca (NOT Mensa), Varsity Tennis, Choir, possibly others.

22. Are you going to your high school reunion? I went to the five year and had a blast. I don't know what happened to the ten year, but I couldn't have made it anyway. Facebook kinda negates the reason to have high school reunions anyway. I read that in an article somewhere.

23. One of your favorite high school experiences: Ah geez, I'm starting to get tapped out on high school experiences. I guess this is a pretty stupid experience, but my tenth grade English teacher (trying to remember her name) had us write a book report on the classic of our choice and I chose Pride and Prejudice. It was really hard to get into, but then the language just clicked and it was really fun finding the ten quotes, responding to them, and I really liked writing the paper. I hadn't liked English since I had had Mr Puzy (sp?) in Jr. High but started to like English and reading and writing again, if only occasionally. I still wouldn't have taken AP English, not for a million dollars. Writing essays was the bane of my existence. Also another reality that drove me to the sciences. Bring on AP Calc, AP Bio, and AP Physics! Good times! However, creative writing is another story. (I also read How To Win Friends and Influence People in that class. Another all-time favorite book, and preparing the assignment and presentation was superfun. People got really creative.) Another favorite was getting a free pizza from Little Caesars at closing with the trouble-making girls, taking a bite out of every piece, and leaving it on Tyrun's porch. Talk about weird. But funny. I'm laughing about it right now. it's like, Hey, a free pizza! Wait a minute, every slice has a bite taken out of it. WTC? (What the crap?) We liked to play weird pranks like that. It was Utah for crying out loud! Also, it was funny to hear coach (Mr. Harris Physics Teacher) say, "Ah geez, what do you think I am, a Seven-Eleven?" if someone forgot their pen or pencil or something.

Mmm, writing this was cathartic or something. It was good to reminisce. Okay, I guess cathartic isn't quite the right word, but I was letting something out, not bad tension and anger, but just another side to me that I had forgotten.

What's happening here

2009-01-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, not much. Same old same old. That could be one reason why I haven't written. Also, if any of you are friends with me on Facebook, you could use your deductive reasoning about how I said I beat Final Fantasy XII to realize where all my free time has gone. To playing video games. Stinking, time-wasting video games. It's sad. Okay, but school for me got out early and it was just the month of December that I wasted. And I visited family and did stuff and lost a little weight, so I don't feel too bad about it. I just don't want to relapse again. It doesn't help that Adam encourages me. I do like to please him. :-)

Our status quo is that: Adam is in his first year, second semester of law school at Washington University in St. Louis. (I say in St. Louis because people would THINK we were in Washington State or Washington D.C. - it helps nip any misunderstandings in the bud, and that's what teaching is all about.) He is enjoying his classes, although it snowed a whole lot yesterday and he had to trudge through a lot of unshoveled sidewalks today in his sneakers. He said it felt like trudging through deep snow, uphill, both ways. And then he laughed at his hyperbole. Or sounding like someone's grandfather.

When Adam isn't in school or here reading, studying, or working on assignments, he is putting on fun shows for us to watch like 30 Rock on Hulu, or The Office, or Netflix movies piped from our laptop to our new flatscreen*, and then he plays video games like old school Final Fantasy, or sometimes The Political Machine 2008. He also cooks for us when I'm not feeling up to it. It's very nice. :-)

Today I picked up two baby shower gifts at Babies-R-Us. It was the first time I had set foot in the store and it made me a little scared about having babies. Not too scared, but it gave me a lot to think about. I didn't realize that babies needed soooo much stuff, and I feel like I should already start getting all the free and cheap Craigslist.org baby stuff I can pick up. And I could kick myself for already passing up the chance for a free stroller. The people next door had set theirs outside with a sign that said "Free." Grrrr. And we have some space where I could just store it for a bit. I'm hoping we can start a family when my student teaching is done or after (or during) my first year of teaching, that I hope happens as soon as this August. I am starting to get more and more interested in babies, and it's about time I had some of my own.

I couldn't believe all the things that Babies-R-Us had. Aside from the obvious - strollers, cribs, carseats, bottles, clothes, blankets, diapers, books, toys, breast pumps - there were also mattress pads, fitted mattress sheets, mattress pad covers, changing stations, changing station covers, all kinds of bedding, pack-and-plays, pads for the pack-and-plays, it was exhausting. And I couldn't believe how much everything costs!!!! I would need to take out a loan just to get my baby the "necessities."

Onto something more pleasant, I am almost done with my Master's program at Drexel U. I am enrolled in two classes this quarter, and I have two more classes to take next quarter at the same time I do my student teaching. I'll be teaching at Ladue High School, a great high school in the area. My cooperating teachers are two physics teachers at the school. I'll most likely be with one for the morning classes and then another for the afternoon classes, something like that. It will be great to see the two teaching styles and be able to find my own style in the classroom. I should have my Master in June. :-) Wow, that is really coming up close. Okay, I'm sorry, I feel like this is all I ever talk about these days, but it is what is going on for me. I also temp for a nice temp agency and have been placed at Missouri American Water Company twice and it has been a very enjoyable work experience.

Today one of my Drexel classes met in a virtual classroom and quite a few of the students could participate. We were using Wimba. I was feeling especially techie and not only had my microphone hooked up for comments, but my webcam was also up and running. It was really fun. We talked about our class projects called Action Plans that help us incorporate technology seamlessly into our lesson plans. We also discussed Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, an extension of the regular taxonomy which focuses on higher-order thinking and critical thinking skills.

*Sidenote: Our biggest news is probably that we got a flatscreen a few weeks after Christmas. Adam found an amazing deal on the Internet at Newegg.com that we just couldn't pass up. Adam was pleased because Newegg.com has such a great return policy that if there was a problem with the flatscreen it could be easily remedied.

Back to babies, I think that our downstairs neighbors are going to kill us when we have kids. I'm not even sure what the housing policy is like - maybe we'll get kicked out of this building if/when we have kids, because of all the noise that emanates from a crying baby's mouth. But thinking about evidence, some of our neighbors in the next building (owned by Quadrangle, our same housing company) have kids (the very same folks that gave away their stroller) and I'm pretty sure that our contracts are exact. Our neighbors already hate us though, due to our creaking floors without a lot of padding. Our windows also have pretty big cracks underneath. Often we can hear whatever is going on outside or in the building next to ours, conversations, etc. And we know that translates so that people outside or nearby can hear whatever we are saying or doing. It's annoying because it's not our FAULT but we are getting blamed for everything! Our neighbors are so rude anyway, every time they think we are being noisy they hit their ceiling - our floor - very loudly with a broom handle or something. I tip-toe everywhere at night now. I even realized that I am doing it without even thinking about it. Surprisingly, I NEVER had neighbors this crochety at BYU. Or anywhere!

Something funny: So of course, we were being "too loud" by our neighbors standards, and we hear quite a few knocks while we're trying to watch something on Hulu.com, and we keep turning the volume down so that even we can barely hear what the actors are saying, and the show just doesn't make that much sense that way... :-( Finally the husband comes upstairs to ask us to be quiet. He comes up here and I would normally comply and be polite, but I am just too annoyed and demoralized to be nice anymore. So I roll my eyes and just comment how poorly the floors are insulated in a gruff voice. Adam is being nice. So the husband is like, "Do you guys have a subwoofer?" We even let him poke around. We of course DON'T have a subwoofer, we show him how sissy our computer speakers are and that we DON'T have surround sound for our t.v., yet again a case of woosy speakers. He even takes a few steps toward the speakers, looks confused and says, "Well where is that low bass sound coming from?" I wanted to say your crazy mind, but I let him put two and two together. I am now guessing that it was coming from neighbors across the back alley, they are partying types, or even the building next door. On the plus side, they haven't been bugging us as much since they were trying to blaim everything on us before. Maybe they've found someone new to terrorize! So the husband is actually pretty nice, and can be reasoned with, but his wife (who I'm sure is the main instigator and just gets her husband to do the dirty work) is a nut-case if I do say so myself. On the day we moved in, we had been up and down the stairs with boxes about twice and she came out and told us to be QUIET! Very rudely. And did I mention that we were moving in??? And it was 1 o'clock in the AFTERNOON on a SATURDAY?!? (NOT two a.m. on a Tuesday.) She is a nut-burger. Adam's bro-in-law was helping us move in and he was also taken aback by said neighbor. He was incredulous and said, "She actually asked you to be quiet?!?" Granted, she has been through some hard times. She is a teacher at a nearby school and has to get up at the crack of dawn, her husband in is an MD PhD program for the next 10 years or something (I think that he is one year through the program), and she broke her leg twice in the last year outside of our apartment complex. That sucks but don't take it out on everybody else!

I was already thinking of moving but we are so sick of moving and it would be so pointless. So we're staying until they can find some way to kick us out. And my crying baby will be waking up this wife in the early hours of school days and she will be pissed. And I will curtly tell her to invest in earplugs. Hey, I had to start learning to sleep with ear plugs in my last couple years at BYU because I had a hard time falling asleep and I was tired ALL THE TIME. They are uncomfortable at first but then they really do the TRICK! And you sleep like a freakin' LOG! Or else, we will be moving in 2011 anyway, and her husband will have seven or so more years left on his life-sentence of schooling. Or maybe they will move first. Seriously though, I only see their situation getting worse because I think this is one of the most QUIET buildings I have EVER lived in going to any school. While we were living in cheapo housing at UC Riverside, Asians were always outside in our pool area partying it up, screaming, laughing, playing loud music, until 2am on weeknights, and I feel absolutely NO PITY. And we just got used to it. We could have turned them in because of quiet hours and all, but instead you just tune them out and live your life, and pop in those ear plugs if you need them. :-) Problem is solv-ed.

However, babies crying through the night is something different. I think I would be bugged if I was in school and a baby that I was not related to was keeping me up during the night. This could be interesting. Hopefully I get a baby that has no interest in crying and sleeps 14-18 hours of the day.

haha, I should have known this was going to turn into a rant. I still have angry feelings toward our neighbors. Enough out of me. How are you doing?
Sincerely,
Danelle ;-D

Danelle the Dragon

2008-10-25T21:41:00.001-07:00

I made a new blog where I'm putting papers and information from my masters program onto the site. Feel free to give me comments and feedback on my papers. I'm certifying as a secondary science teacher and also certifying as an instructional technology specialist and many of my classes have an emphasis of bringing technology into the classroom and overhauling the curriculum, rather than just trying to map old curriculum onto new and available technologies. One of the papers discusses wikis in the classroom.

http://danellethedragon.blogspot.com/

I like being a Drexel dragon. :)

Playing in Forest Park

2008-10-25T20:40:00.001-07:00

I really love Forest Park. I'm grateful we get to live so close to it and it motivates me to get outside and enjoy it.

On September 1st, the day before our second anniversary, we got to go to the park with Anne, Nathan, Sarah, Matt, Gwendolyn, and Campion. We had fun flying kites, playing ball, playing card games like Guillotine until it got too windy, walking, and riding bikes and scooters. We walked over to the Jewel Box building and it is very beautiful. I was just reading more about it at the Forest Park website.

I forgot how much fun flying kites is.

Go Campion!

Go Adam!

Nathan and Gwendolyn were also doing a fine job of flying those kites. (I thought I had pictures of them, but I don't know where they went.)

Playing some ball.

Gwendolyn flying her kite through the game. :)

Nice one, Nathan! Quick, someone catch that ball in the air!

"We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher."

"We want a batter, not a broken ladder." Taunting is the best.

Time for a walkabout.

A pretty and swampy pond.

This dragonfly was TOTALLY posing for a picture. He even kept flying back.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial.

A beautiful fountain and gardens by the Jewel Box.

I love the circling staggering effect of the flowers.

These types of flowers are so alien and exotic-looking.

This bowing sunflower is bigger than my head!

Stop to smell the roses.

The Jewel Box. I love Art Nouveau.

A beautiful waterlily pond adjacent to the Jewel Box.

It reminds me of Monet's many water lily paintings.

Walking back to the cars.

Seed pods in the shape of hearts? How romantic.

My plan is to take some artsy sepia pictures of various parts of St. Louis and then frame them somewhere as art in our house. Maybe it will happen...

Join us next time for Balloon Races!

I hacked my ipod

2008-10-25T19:57:00.001-07:00

I had an ipod for a very long time - since about 2004 - and I had taken great care of it and it had been working great! Then Adam and I went to work out at the YMCA and I was jogging on the treadmill. I usually have it inside a pouch on one of those water bottle fanny packs for protection, but I had it out on the treadmill in the cup holder.

Sadly, I ended up whacking the ear buds cord with my arm and my ear buds popped out of my ears and my ipod went tumbling. I tried grabbing for it, but instead gave it more momentum and it crashed onto the treadmill and then got spit out on the ground behind us. Adam was jogging beside me and he got a good laugh at me comically grabbing for it and actually making the situation worse. (I think at some point I even *kicked* the ipod on its way down.) I checked it out. It still turned on and was playing music, so I went back to jogging. It couldn't have been five minutes later when the exact same thing happened AGAIN! It was so frustrating because I had jogged like this the last few times, ipod in cupholder, with NO problems. So yet again, I checked the ipod for damage, but it was still turning on and playing music. No problem.

The next time we go to the gym, I turn it on. It plays music for a little while, then starts making a horrible clicking noise. Then it turns itself off. Hmm, this is NOT good. I take another look at my ipod and notice a dent. No doubt the fall caused that. It's not too bad, but I turn the ipod on again and it is clicking like the hard drive is on its last leg, and then a sad ipod face (literally) shows up on the ipod screen and gives me a web address that I can check out for ipod problems.

Now if that picture doesn't just break your heart... I feel like I will be arrested for ipod abuse and neglect.

I feel like I've lost a friend, and jogging without an ipod is even MORE boring and monotonous.

Adam also has an ipod but his battery croaked and it wouldn't hold its charge anymore. So after a few boring, ipod-less workouts, I decide to look up to see how much it will cost to fix an ipod, or at least get a new battery for Adam's. The battery prices aren't too bad. Actually the new hard-drive prices aren't too bad either. Of course, to pay the Apple people to fix it IS going to be quite expensive. Well, I have a little electronic know-how, and I've heard of other people replacing their batteries and fixing their ipods on the cheap.

I found a great website of another person who needed to replace his battery. He had great instructions for both replacing a battery, as well as a hard-drive, a little more involved.

It took me awhile to get the faceplate off because I was afriad of snapping the plastic and breaking it. Seriously, Adam watched me play with it for an hour or two. Good thing my school classes hadn't begun yet.

So the plan is that my ipod has probably kicked the bucket due to my negligence, but my ipod battery is still just fine. So I'm going to put my battery into Adam's old ipod. (Adam has an awesome Archos anyway, so he doesn't need an ipod anymore.)

It's a delicate operation.

With great results!! HUZZAH!!!

The BEST PART. A working ipod to jog with, zero dollars. Did not cost me a penny. I already had the little screw drivers to help pry open the case.

Oh yes, my warranty had also expired LONG ago, so I had nothing to lose. However, if you DO have a warranty, you might NOT want to hack your own ipod. Apple might help you out. Read the fine print.

Here's a good video about it. I didn't see it until now, but maybe it will entertain you or help you. I thought the statistic at the end was funny. 1 out of 5 college students would trade their presidential election vote for an touch ipod. Hmm, shooting high there, college kids!

A card from Robyn

2008-10-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

Our good friends Robyn Rowley (and Tyler and little Lincoln) sent me and Adam the cutest card in the mail. It is so fancy. I wanted to post it so interested people could take a look. (I know my mom had an interest.) It has a beachy theme and the silver thread and the raffia go through little slits to the back side of the front fold of the card.

We miss Robyn and Tyler Rowley, but maybe we'll get to go back and visit them in Riverside one of these days. We <3 You!

Our Apartment

2008-10-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well hello friends!

It has been almost three months since Adam and I have been living in St. Louis. I've been taking pictures here and there but it has taken some gumption to finally get them up on the blog. Here's some photos of our fun apartment. It is in a pretty good spot by Washington University campus and Forest Park. The buildings nearby, like on Skinker and Lindell Boulevard, are just beautiful and I've taken some walks around them and taken pictures of them too. But first things first...

Here is the outside of our building. Ours is the one on the left.

We have just gotten back from church and Adam is entering the building.

I like the cool tile on the floor in the entry way to our building. Oh yeah, we have an intercom system in the front and people can buzz us and we can talk to them and then buzz them in, just like on Seinfeld. It's a good thing too, because we live on the third floor and it can be a lot of steps when you go up and down repeatedly, like when we are taking up a lot of groceries.

Our mailboxes.

You can see our car parked on the street outside the stairwell window.

Our door is on the right. Our friend Mark lives on the left. He's very cool and friendly, he's a second year law student, and we had him over for dinner.

And here we go inside!

We have a big pillar in our living room/dining area. It's kinda silly, but I'll bet it's load-bearing and very important.

Some different views of our main entry/living room/kitchen/dining area. :) I like it. One day I will finish that painting.

We love our kitchen! It is an improvement over our last one. It is much bigger, we have more storage and countertop space, and we have a dishwasher! Very importante!

Hey Hina, do you recognize the Yucca plant you got us?? ;-)

Wow, I wish it was ALWAYS this clean.

There are some noisy birds nesting on the outside of our bedroom window. I hear their scratching and tweeting in the early morning.

I guess it's a Missouri thing or something, but there is a "sunroom" on the back of our bedroom and it gets a lot of light. I guess some people use it as an extra closet or storage room, but I wanted to start a garden so I got some planters and seeds and the plants are doing pretty good. I just recently bought some basil. Can't wait to start cooking with fresh basil all the time. :) This sunroom also houses my piano and piano books and painting stuff quite nicely. It's like a nice bonus room.

I thought it might be fun to paint an orchid.

Some fun pictures of us and our parents. :) I had fun making a mosiac of beach shells on the frames.

There is a beautiful church and a school just a block away from our apartment. We hear the churchbells ringing every hour or so, and they really let 'em ring at noon. It's wacky. But it's kind of cool. I love the church's architecture.

Big wooden doors.

There is a fancy relief over the entrance of the school, I really like it. There is so much detail in lots of St. Louis' architecture. They like to use a lot of stone and brick.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped move us in up those three crazy floors! Thanks Matt and Sarah and Anne and Nathan and Gwendolyn and Campion. :)

Moving to Missouri

2008-08-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

What an adventure. I had never driven anything so big. We did drive a moving van from Anaheim to Riverside when we moved in 2007, but this was definitely a big change. We drove a big diesel beast and it was the height of a semi. We had to climb two steps to get in. I took some pictures of the crazy move.

The dash on the passenger side.

Making our way through Arizona. Some big bugs met an untimely end on our windshield.

Checking out the traffic behind us in the gargantuan side-view mirrors.

Such a good driver!

Watching a beautiful sunset ... in the side-view mirrors.

I love the reflected light off the side of the van.

Night-driving and cool squiggly lines.

We were soo hungry when we got to Albuquerque, NM, but it was past eleven p.m. and everything was closed. Fortunately we found a Sonic that was close enough to walk to. It was delicious for a late dinner, and delicious for breakfast. Mmmm Mmmm. There were some lovely white bushes there too.

Views of the enormous truck in Oklahoma.

More night driving. The way the truck was rhythmically bouncing, the dash lights look like spirographs.

A truck passing us in the dark.

I like these pics of the cars and the street lamps blurring.

Just so you know, Oklahoma has some of the crappiest roads EVER! We were bouncing all over the place. We thought something might be wrong with the truck or trailer and had to pull over to check it out. Nope! Nothing wrong, just crappy roads with seams everywhere creating bouncing over 40 mph. Oklahoma! Fix your roads!

The next day ... Near the OK and MO border, there is a McDonald's that is built on a bridge that covers both sides of the freeway. We made a pit stop there and Adam got us some Bluebell ice cream that many people rave about. It was good, but nothing to write home about. Adam says, and I quote, "Overrated." (The bridge McDonald's that semis were zooming under was REALLY cool, though.)

Inside the McDonalds looking down.

It was hard to get a picture of, but there were cars and semis zooming 'through' this building.

ARGH! We had finally crossed into Missouri, and then a driver going by gave us some big signals that we were in big trouble. I nodded and pulled the moving van and trailer over onto the shoulder right by a freeway on-ramp and got out to find the problem. One of the tires on the trailer had blown and was shredded. It's a good thing that there was a tire right next to that one on the same side, or else we might have been worse off. We called for assistance and we were told it would take about 90 minutes for help to arrive. Unfortunately, it took longer than that, but he found out that a tire on the other side of the trailer was going bald and replaced that too! I love problem prevention!

The annoyance of inconvenience. And waiting for help to come. And waiting... and waiting...

Adam's Archos is great! We listened to Michael Medved and then watched some Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

Pulling off at the first available spot.

Lovely fields nearby.

Being bored and playing with the Sepia feature on my camera.

We went back in time!

We could make old-timey Pioneer Village pictures, for a lot less! (Guess we'd just have to rent some costumes. haha, Adam would LOVE that... not really.)

Hooray! Help is here! And we don't even need to take the car off of the trailer!

So later on as we were nearing St. Louis, I found a place to fill up and then I saw this compatriot. Moving with a big van with a car attached. Except this guy put all of his house plants into his car. This just made me laugh. That's a lot of houseplants. He must be a collector ... of house plants.

We had been making excellent time before our flat... but then we still weren't doing too bad and we had almost reached St. Louis ... and then we hit TONS of traffic. Traffic that wasn't moving. It was VERY frustrating. Darn St. Louis freeway construction and stand-still traffic.

We finally got off the freeway and took an alternate route that Adam's mom gave us. :-) Finally safe and sound in St. Louis!

Visiting Arizona

2008-08-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

My sister Jarilynne lives in Arizona. I love to visit her when I can, and luckily we had a little time before our move to visit some spots. We had a great time. Usually it gets to be over a hundred degrees by 8 or 9 am in the summer, but the monsoons were coming through. It kept the temperatures down one day and we got to go to the park with Mark, Alexander, and little newborn David. We shot marshmellows both large and small. The larger marshmellow shooting gun was great, but I had bought the cheap kind of marshmellows and those were jamming up the works.

Alex and Mark had made marshmellow blow guns that work with small marshmellows, and the best part is that you can shoot them at people's faces. They like to blow marshmellows into each other's mouths. Totally cracked me up!

We appeased the nearby ants with marshmellows.

Jarilynne demonstrating the marshmellow blow gun, made easily enough from PVC pipe.

Cute little David.

Alex found a great stick for a sword!

Shooting marshmellows into each other's mouths and laughing.

Mark giving his mom the bunny ears. Mark is so tan. He's been swimming in contests and been winning first place. What a great swimmer, and he's only 8!

Soldering is my friend

2008-08-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

Soldering is fun. I learned how to do it in an electronics class a few years back. I bought a soldering iron from Fry's Electronics (one of my favorite stores) back when I lived in California and made a few things with some kits I got at ThinkGeek.com.

I assembled an LED heart that lights up and alternately flashes, as well as an electronic die with a random number generator. I made movies of them to demonstrate the nerdiness.

NBC's The Office - Some Blogs

2008-08-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this site just kills me! I laugh sooo hard! It's Creed's blog called Creed Thoughts. He has recently updated it too! 08/08/08! Check it out!

Creed Thoughts

Dwight also has a blog. Also really funny.

Shrute Space

Take care! "Take ... luck! Good luck ... taking care ... of the luck you might have." - Brian Regan

Christine's Harp Concert

2008-08-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, I haven't put this up yet?!? What am I? A slacker-face?? Well apparently. Christine, I'm sorry it's taken me til now to get these up. I have some video too. It might be hard to upload here (it's a large file), so I'll probably just send it to you via e-mail.

Remember, if you want these pictures, if you click on them with the hand, they will open in a new window and be larger with more detail. Better for reproduction. Then you can right-click and save the file to your computer.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know Christine, she is my awesome younger sister and she has a lovely family and plays the harp. She was in a concert with some other harpists. The concert was at the beautiful Logan tabernacle. (What lovely, golden organ pipes you have, my dear.)

The concert's about to begin. We spectators have found a good bench from which to watch and listen. (From L to R: My husband Adam, my sister Michelle and her daughter Naomi, Christine's son Sammy and my mom, Christine's husband Blake, and then Christine.)

Pretty harps all in a row.

Christine with her harp. (Sorry if the flash scared you a bit.)

It's my birfday

2008-08-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it was awhile ago. Blogging the Rowley campout took forever to get all those pics uploaded. But I'd like to say thanks to everyone on Facebook that sent me birthday wishes! Wow! I was not expecting it, and I really enjoyed it! I love it when people drop me a line.

Anyway, here are some fun photos of me spending some birthday time with my family in Utah.

I LOVE ME A FLAG CAKE! The fruit was delicious. And I love those pom pom fireworks toothpicks. Really nifty!

Making a monkey face!

My mom works so hard. She was showing me her lovely quilt pattern book. But she needed a nap. It was so cute I needed to take a picture or two.

We went to set a few fireworks off on my birthday. Hooray for fireworks! There was the most beautiful sunset going on, so I had to take a picture of it.

I wanted to get some fun exposures of fireworks and sparklers and my sister Michelle was very obliging.

It looks pretty cool but I've still gotta play more with those exposure times.

THE END.

A Hilariously Satirical Website on Blogger

2008-08-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this site yet, you need to check it out.

Seriously So Blessed

It just makes me laugh. The comments are especially hilarious. I can spend hours going through them all! A great spoof on a "blessed" Mormon girl's site.

Rowley Campout and Summer Adventures!

2008-07-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

WHEW!!!!

I had to take a break from blogging! Plus, I don't know WHAT happened to the formatting on that last post. Blogger, you are a weird beast. The pics never insert where they are supposed to, they always end up at the top. And I want to make the post wider -- it's all squished at the moment. And trick out my page, but first things first... I'm still just in June and a lot happened in July...

Well I'm NOT trying to insult your intelligence, but if you see a picture that you like, if you click on it, it will open in another page to original size. You can right-click and save, and then upload to Walmart or the like and print professional, goodlookin' photos to pick up or have mailed to your house. It's what I do. My printer doesn't do the best job with my pics, so I outsource.

So without further ado: More of Danelle and Adam's summer adventures!!!

Here we are driving to the Rowley Reunion Campout - The Heat is On! (And that song was stuck in my head a lot of the time...)

I took a lot of pics of the scenery on the way up. I guess I was feeling inspired. Don't worry, not everything is a picture of a tree. Pretty quaking aspen and scenic views, though.

Adam gives my picture-taking the thumbs up!!! Okay, maybe not really...

And we have arrived!

We brought our telescope and had a lot of fun looking at nebulae, clusters, and Jupiter and Saturn. We also attempted to take long exposure pictures. I like the way the stark trees look against the black sky. In reality, the sky was so lit up with stars, and the Milky Way was sooo bright and beautiful. Perfect timing to go camping, with the new moon and the planets up and a favorable tilting of the rings of Saturn. And all the moons of Jupiter were out! Io has a really fast rotation period so sometimes if you can't see it, just wait an hour or two and then you will see it. ;-)

Anyway, big tangent... back to campout pictures. We had fun talking and playing games.

This picture makes me laugh really hard, and not just because of Adam's jocular face. :-)

We went and hiked Twisted Forest and it was amazing. I had never been there before. The hiking went slowly because we were so high up. Usually I like to go fast, but we were always running out of breath and needed frequent breaks. That was odd. But the scenery was beautiful. I had to take more breaks to take pictures. :) It was nice to sit in the dirt at the top though, and try to catch my breath. (I didn't care if the tiny ants at the high elevation were climbing on me.)

Me and my baby

Lovely wildflowers poking out of a rock.

Finally made it to the top!

Throwing rocks off the cliff!!!

Back at camp, lots of cute kids!

Beautiful Sego Lilies - the Utah State Flower.

Messy kids playing in the dirt! I'm cracking up!

The kids (and some adults) played with water pistols and the marshmellow shooter. Some did a taunting dance to the people shooting marshmellows on the hill.

Glenn had a good time hitting his brother Mark with the marshmellow shooter.

The marshmellows were making it around 40 ft, and some would land on top of the blue tarps and roll off. It sure got the adults' attention underneath. We had fun watching people shoot marshmellows. :)

Nathan taunting the marshmellow shooters while holding his water guns.

Later on we built a fire and asked some of the boys to get firewood. Well they found A LOT of firewood!

The kids started to play teeter totter on all the logs they had found and piled up.

Gwendolyn makes some GREAT scary faces! Oooooh!

Making a monkey face!

Happy Fourth of July! (And the parade around camp was really fun.)

I have this fun LED wand that you wave to make messages and pictures appear and I thought it would be fun to play with at camp. I could wave my green LED flag proudly. It just looks faintly green in this exposure but Adam took a better picture of me waving it at night. I got this device from Thinkgeek.com, one of my favorite nerdy websites. I'm not sure if they still offer this LED wand, but there are a lot of other good items.

Adam got a pretty good exposure of the night sky. You can see Saturn (it's the bright one) and a few other stars. We really enjoyed bringing the telescope up, even if it did take up most of the car.

Hope you enjoyed the campout photos! Still got more to post...

Meramec Caverns - Hide-out of Jesse James

2008-07-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

While we were visiting the inlaws in Missouri, Adam, Anne, Nathan, and I went and checked out the awesome Meramec Caverns. Truly an amazing place! We had a great time and our tour guide was pretty funny. Here are some pics from our adventure. At the Cave Entrance! Haha, Nathan's cracking up because he's giving Adam bunny ears. Unfortunately they are hard to see with this camera angle. The first cave room is HUGE! It's ballroom size, it gets booked for parties, it can fit a lot of chairs and there's even a discoball. In this picture, Nathan is boogie-ing under the discoball in the dark ballroom. Adam and Nathan posing in a room full of stalactites and stalagmites, ... and "soda straws." Just gorgeous and immense! Illuminating the caves in different lightning makes them look so mysterious-o. Going up the big stairs to the Wine Room. Excerpt from wikipedia about the Wine Room in the Meramec Caves: "The fifth level of Meramec Caverns includes a "Wine Room." The Wine Room is home to the world's rarest cave formation, The Wine Table. The onyx table stands six feet high and is supported on three natural legs. Known as an aragonite formation, this structure was composed almost entirely underwater. The Wine Room and the Wine Table are adorned with grape-like clusters called botryoids. Originally called the Wine Room because of these grape clusters, the cave now claims that it is called that because of the "whining" that visitors do when they learn that the room is accessible only after climbing numerous stairs." There are only three of these "tables" in the known world and this is the largest one. It doesn't appear to be able to support its own weight anymore. Either that or someone broke it. Check out those large "bunches" of "grapes"! Playing around in the slippery caves. Now onto the Stage Curtain room, complete with stadium seating. We're going to see a light show and listen to Kate Smith sing God Bless America.

Nathan's Baptism - June 2008

2008-07-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Adam and I needed to find some housing in St. Louis while Adam's going to law school at Washington University. Luckily around that time, Nathan, Adam's brother, was going to be baptized, and Adam's dad Glenn was also having a birthday too! (We all chipped in so Glenn could have a great new Canon camera to take to Afghanistan.) We got to visit and here are some pictures from the momentus occasion. :)

Adam and Nathan

I was having some camera drama (which has finally wrapped up nicely - Adam downloaded some drives for the Canon on the computer that we needed but weren't included in the software. Also, the USB cable I was using was a dud. And the wireless internet connection needs to be unplugged when uploading pics from the camera. And I need to stand on one foot and hop up and down and sing "Waltzing Matilda" and THEN the pics download properly!! WHEW!)

Anyway, camera drama was making me bummed*. I couldn't figure out how to use the flash at will or turn it completely off. Turns out the camera needs to be in "Portrait Mode." Of COURSE! At least I have Adam around to help me with such things! And I had to play the piano anyway, get some prelude goings on, so Adam took over taking the pics...

*We've figured it all out so I'm not bummed anymore! :) And my camera is taking great pictures and it's been taking great pics and videos all summer.

CHEESE!!

MORE CHEESE!

Great pictures of father and son.

Sometimes Nathan likes to make faces.

A great family photo.

Some near misses.

Sometimes Campion likes to pick his nose. In pictures.

Stayed tuned for pictures from the Rowley Campout! :)

Gift From Adam - Dwight Bobblehead

2008-07-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Adam got me this lovely gift back when we were dating and we had become big fans of The Office. I love it and it sits above our computer. Dwight's head is moving from the vibrations from my typing. Well I just took a picture of it because I had gotten my new Canon camera and was snap-happy. Hopefully it survives the move... it probably will. Surprising during our last move, none of our glass or crystal dishes got broken, and the trifle dish and salad bowl remain intact. I hope that we have the same good luck this next time around!

Here's DWIGHT!

"If they don't bobble, then what's the point?" -Dwight, touching all his bobbleheads.

More on the way!

When I feel like jogging....

2008-07-01T02:16:00.000-07:00

... this is where I go. In the springtime the blossoms from the nearby orange groves would waft in through our windows and the surrounding area. It was such a heavenly scent, and it stayed that way for at least THREE WEEKS! Anywho, Adam said it reminded him of living in Oceanside back when he was in high school, and he could smell the orange blossoms from some nearby trees there.

So I decided to take a camera with me to get some good pics, although this isn't smellavision and you can't smell what is happening. I guess you'll just have to imagine or experience it for yourselves.

The orange orchards(? do you call them orchards or groves? Groves seems more likely...) are right by our apartments and are now owned by UC Riverside. There aren't any sidewalks, but there is gravel, sand, dirt (and broken glass, my favorite!) along the roadsides and that's what I like to run on. I'm hoping it will help save my knees for a few years longer with the cushioning and what not. So I try to map out a good route for me to go on, but it can still allow me some creativity and tailoring. And I can measure it by car odometer to find out how many miles I'm doing. I started doing this back when I lived with Madison and I had a great route to go around Irvine. Then Hina talked me into doing the L.A. marathon, so that motivated me, and I did my first 10 mile straight run on my own nifty course. I moved to Costa Mesa while I was still training for the marathon and had to find a new route to run, but I found that running by the back bay along Irvine Avenue was a good way to go. I could do a 5K in about 30 minutes and a 10K in an hour and worked on my endurance, being able to run 6-7 miles without stopping to walk. Then when Adam and I got married and we moved, it was hard to motivate myself to run and I had to find a new course. Unfortunately, the birth control prescription I was on made my legs feel weird and throb and it would scare me to run because of the tingling. Side effects are no fun. Cue the weight gain...

So anyway, I'm off the meds and trying to stick to an eating and exercizing regiment and I'm feeling better and I've lost just a little bit of weight. I'm hoping that I can shed more in the next few weeks and months. The views are nice as I'm jogging though. Here are a few of them.

Don't mind the barbed wire. I don't.

Orange trees all in a row. Orange trees as far as the eye can see!

The setting sun. It's so hot I need to wait for sunset to get my jog on.

There are a lot of palm trees along the way and they are beautiful. I love them. And they give me some shade sometimes when I'm crazy and I go out around noon.

Okay, I'm gonna jog tomorrow! Or go for an hour-long walk. I've been doing that lately and it's been very enjoyable. I went and walked around the UCR Botanic gardens a few days ago and it was awesome! I got some good pictures on my cell phone of some swimming turtles!

Okay, I'll put more pics up tomorrow. Adam and I are going to bed. We are tired, and it is 2:39 a.m. We are crazy t.v. watching night owls!

FRIENDS!!!

2008-07-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

It was Adam's birthday back on May 23rd, and we had the Rowleys over to celebrate. Here's a fun pic of us. We had a good time playing some Guitar Hero and eating delicious ice cream cake, and playing Guillotine. (The Harveys were over earlier, but I forgot to get my camera out until the end! And I didn't get a picture of Adam blowing out his candles. Sad.) L to R: Danelle, Adam, Tyler & Robyn Rowley.

I can't remember when, in the springtime, we went down near Oceanside and visited Rachel and Marcus Pond. We had a barbecue with some of Adam's old high school friends and here are some pictures. We made ice cream and it was GOOD!

Adam and Marcus listening to my ipod. Adam and I had gotten tickets to The New Amsterdams show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, and we were trying to talk Rachel and Marcus into going with us. Unfortunately, Marcus had to work or something. It was a good show, though.

This picture CRACKS ME UP! Adam's face looks distorted from the close camera lens.

Rachel's waving to the camera, and what a nice spread of food on the table.

THE END.

Sept and Oct 2007

2008-07-01T00:50:00.001-07:00

Oh dear, I'm going in reverse. There were some pics that I missed.

Adam and I found a cheap hotel in New York City around the time of the big tennis matches known as the U.S. Open, coincidently around Sept 2nd, the time of our first anniversary. It was a deal not easily passed up. We found good airfare and before we knew it, we were having a grand first anniversary in the Big Apple. (Kudos to Adam for doing nearly all of the trip planning and execution!)

We got tickets to Conan O'Brien! And we hung out around 30 Rockefeller, Top of the Rock had one of the best views and hardly any crowds!, and took the NBC Studios tour and the Radio City Music Hall tour. So many great things! The museums and art galleries are amazing. I especially love The MET Cloisters. They can be found a little north of Manhattan. It was a little trek for me and Adam. We had to do some subway riding and walking and try to get our bearings here and there, but I still HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it.

We got to meet a Rockette. They have to be between 5'6'' and 5'10 1/2''. She was one of the taller Rockettes.

Crappy cell phone pic of the Conan set. But we weren't supposed to be taking pictures of it. I'm sooo naughty!

Waiting in line for Conan. We felt like Chattel.

We also got some cheap tickets to some great musicals, Spamalot, Curtains (with David Hyde Pierce), and Phantom of the Opera. We weren't planning on seeing Phantom, but Adam found some third row seats for $60 a piece and it would be silly for us not to take the deal. (I think the tickets were about 70% off!) We also got pulled into seeing a show at the Laugh Factory by some street ticket sellers. We also got a good deal on those tickets (half-off), but I wouldn't recommend the show to everyone. The language is definitely NOT the best. So beware!

So we ate some of the BEST PIZZA of our LIVES!! And I was feeling sick and dehydrated that night, so Adam went and got some for me while I laid on the bed! What an awesome lover!!! Okay, I was hoping we could remember the name, but we can't. (Adam finally woke up!) Well, maybe it was John's, but I doubt it. There are many good pizza places in NYC, though.

Another great pizza place to eat at is John's Pizzeria. Inside was just amazing, you feel almost like you are on the deck of a cruise ship or something, but it looks like a converted church in some parts. We were sitting at the top of the stairs...
http://www.johnspizzerianyc.com/index2.htm

HALLOWEEN - 2007

I had bought this magazine a couple years ago with cool halloween ideas and I wanted to make this cake that appeared on the cover, but I'm a procrastinator, so two years later ....

... I made this cake. oooooh, spooooky! It was really fun! I guess to spoil the surprise, it wasn't entirely edible. The way the house is put together is with two 1/2 gallon milk cartons glued together with frosting, with Keebler elf chocolate cookies making the sides and roof, and two empty paper towel rolls with chocolate frosting on them and two cones on top to make the turrets. Yes, I killed the magic. It was really fun making the Nutter Butter ghosts. Maybe another year I'll make the cake completely edible. Anyway, the non-edible-ness of the cake kept me from eating it! So that was good!

Going to a party, December 2007

2008-07-01T00:38:00.000-07:00

I like this picture. Adam had just cut his hair nice and short. He liked how easy it was to get ready in the mornings. Of course, I do prefer him with a little longer hair, but I can understand how he would like to save time in the mornings. It can be hard to get out of bed on time.

Getting gas at the cheap gas station nearby. Ooh, I like that Adam is wearing his snappy blazer with pinstripes, looking good, baby!

I put some sparkly stuff in my hair and I like it!

I'm also wearing more eyeliner than normal. I think it makes my eyes look too small. no me gusta.

It was a ward Christmas party and we were hanging our with our friends Kelly and Mike.

These two kids are not theirs, just kids from a family that enjoyed playing around with my camera. It was fun. They were torn between taking pictures with my camera and actually being *in* the pictures.

THE END

or

FIN

More pics forthcoming!

Doing Sillyness - Quiz of Lo-ove !

2008-06-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm doing one of those quiz thingies. I figure it might answer some of your questions, if you've got some. It's about my sweetheart. :-D ooh la la!

1. What is his name? Adam Stephen Rowley*
*(that's Row - lee, in case you need some pronunciation help. Definitely NOT Rowl - ee, just Row - lee. It's English for a rough field, a meadow, a "lee." And now you know. By the way, J.K. Rowling's name is pronounced "Row - ling." Row, row, row your boat. Or think of Rowley Pole-y. Alrighty, good chap. People in the ward are STILL pronouncing our name wrong. And there is another set of Rowleys in our ward. We hang out with them. They are fun kids!

2. How long have you been married? We are celebrating 2 years on Sept. 2nd.

3. How long did you date? We started dating around April 22nd or so. I met him around January at an ice skating activity, although he tells me it was much later, like Feb or March. We knew each other through friends, and we also got more acquainted at a movie party at Stephanie Bennett's house, probably in March. Most everyone was watching "National Treasure," but I had to leave soon, but in the meantime, I was putting a puzzle together in the adjacent room, but still talking to people in the other room. Weirdo. Weird puzzle addict, that's me!

4. Who eats more sweets? Depends. I eat more chocolate chips, and he eats more bowls of ice cream. ;-)

5. Who said I love you first? Adam did. We were watching t.v. (possibly CSPAN) and maybe giving each other a kiss or two. It was very sweet. Of course, I said I love you back and then he said to only say it if I meant it, so maybe I didn't sound sincere, but I definitely meant it. :)

6. Who is taller? Adam is taller. I'm 5'7'' and he's got to be around 5'10'' because he's still taller than me when I'm wearing heels (maybe I've shrunk!), but he says he's 5'9''.

7. Who can sing better? Me, but I love singing with my hunny bun. I wish he would sing more. :) Makes me happy. Sometimes he plays the guitar and sings "Rainbow Connection." And "Hey Delilah."

8. Who is smarter? Probably Adam. I feel like a dum-dum. Heehee, okay, he's smarter when it comes to computers, politics, law stuff, t.v. trivia, and he's also pretty good with physics and math problem-solving. I've got a little more astronomy know-how, singing and dancing ability, and I'm pretty good with the math, science, and biology skills.

9. Who does the laundry? I do the laundry most of the time. I don't mind. It's the dishes that bother me. And no dishwasher. :( Boo hoo!

10. Who pays the bills? At the moment, I pay the bills. I use the ole online bill-pay and it saves me time and a stamp or three. Good ole bill pay. Once Adam is done with school, hopefully he'll be making some money and then I can use his money to pay the bills. ;-)

11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you’re looking at the bed, Adam is on the right.

12. Who cooks dinner? Adam does probably 60% of the time. He's a great cook! We both love to cook and sometimes like to make things together, like delicious cheesecakes and Swedish meatballs and chocolate souffles, it's ALL good!

13. Who drives? When I was working, I was driving a lot, by myself, to work. And then Adam would drive us to church on Sundays or to the occasional restaurant or movie. So I drive on weekdays, and Adam on evenings and weekends. I figure he needs the practice so he doesn't forget, and it's a nice break for me.

14. Who is more stubborn? I can be pretty stubborn. And Adam can be pretty stubborn. But only every now and again. We're pretty easy-going 90% of the time.

15. Who kissed who first? Adam kissed me first. It was May 7th, early morning, and we had been hanging out and watching t.v. He moved in slowly, cue music "smooth operator." It was good times. :-*

16. Who asked who out first? Adam asked me out first. In the past, I had not been shy and had probably asked 70% of the guys out that I dated. It usually strains the relationship though (whether or not the guy wants to admit it), so it was good that he asked me out. (But I wasn't just going to be sitting at home doing nothing!) Adam took me on the best first date EVER! We did TONS of stuff, went to delicious dinner, went to Cold Stone, saw a movie, went to Dave & Busters and played at the arcades, then back to my place to watch the National Geographic channel and a cool show on Ancient Egyptian pharaohs. We stayed up til two talking and watching t.v.

17. Who proposed? Adam. I thought he was going to propose on July 4th when we were watching the fireworks on top of the parking structure at Disneyland. It was okay, though. (I don't think he had asked my dad yet anyway.) He proposed after we went for a walk around the Newport Beach temple on July 9th. It was awesome. He proposed and I was so happy and I said yes. I gave him a big hug and a kiss, and then he asked, "You said yes, right?" He was so nervous, he didn't even hear me answer. It made me laugh!

18. Who wears the pants? Both of us at different times, but I don't mind if Adam wears those "pants." (Skirts look better on me anyway. Figuratively and literally. Adam liked that I was "feminine" and wore a lot of skirts. It was one of the things that he said attracted him to me.)

So I'm supposed to tag people and tell them to fill this questionnaire out on their own pages, but do it if you feel like it, I say. I'm not gonna call any of you out, and I'm sure that those of you that like to fill these things out naturally will.

I hope you are all having a good day!
Sincerely,
Danelle