Better late than never... Right?

Luke called yesterday and said I was a slacker. He was looking at my last post from November... so... Here I am catching up again. =) I'm not much good at this whole blogging thing am I? =) It has been a very busy few months. RJ is finishing his last semester. Yay! Which also means that this is (knock on wood) my last semester too. We are really excited for the changes that are coming up. RJ has a really great offer at a firm here in Cheyenne, so we'll probably stick around this area. Anyway, needless to say, RJ is busy studying and fighting senioritis, and I am busier than ever with Mylee, teaching and the culinary team.

Oh, first here are some pics from Christmas. We got to go to Utah and see everyone! Sometimes I really miss being so far away from everyone. My nieces and nephews are growing up without me! Christmas was great though. Everyone was there, even Nick's family from Ohio!

Here is Mylee coming up the stairs on Christmas morning.She got a new slide...And opened her presents...Grandma got this dinosaur tent from Santa Claus, and Mylee had a blast crawling in it.
Then, when everyone got there, Grandpa took the kids for a ride on the sled and 4-wheeler
Mylee stayed out until her cheeks and nose were red and her hands were frozen. She grinned the whole time! Shalissa made her the pink and green hat she is wearing. It was soooo cute on her!
Mylee loves babies! Here she is giving her cousin Dallas a kiss. =)
And she had fun playing pool with Eli.
Later, we went to visit Uncle Ryan and his family. Ryan said this picture was typical... The girl taking care of babies while the guy just lounges around. It made me laugh. He sure has some cute kids!
By the end of the day, Mylee was so tired! I found the idea for this teddy bear rug at a local toy store. I loved it so much that I spent Christmas Eve making it for Mylee. I'm glad she likes it! =)


Mylee is growing so fast it makes me sick! Where did my baby go? She is growing into such a tease. This morning she grabbed a diaper and said "bummie bum!" and then got a huge smile on her face, stuck her foot in the diaper and said "sock!" She has so much of her dad in her! She's getting to be very independent too. Yesterday RJ bought her some new jammies. Her response was perfect! She grabbed them from him and said "Jammies! Tank oo!" and then tried to put them on. Anytime I tried to help her or even touched the jammies, she screamed "a-SELF!" at me. One time she had one leg in and was trying to get the other in, and I just straightened the leg to make it easier for her. She yelled at me, stood up, took the other leg out and started all over again. She cracks me up.

When Mylee is upset, Sidekick howls and it makes her laugh. It's pretty funny actually to see her laugh so hard with tears streaming down her cheeks. And then she remembers that she's supposed to be upset so she'll start crying again. It's a pretty hilarious cycle. Next time I'll have to get a picture of Mylee... =)

This is where we put her for time out... J/K! She climbed in there herself and screamed when I tried to take her out! She spends a lot of her time pretending to be a dog...


As far as teaching goes it has been a busy few months. We are getting ready for our annual "Thundershack." It's a business run by the Culinary I kids. They use the skills they learned throughout the year to make and sell food. The money they earn pays for our competitive teams and things our department needs but our limited budget can't cover. It's my favorite time of year because it is fun and I don't have to write lesson plans =). There is a lot of shopping involved, but I much prefer shopping to writing lesson plans!

As far as the competitive teams go... the teacher that was advising the Hospitality Management team resigned from activities, so I found myself advising that team too. It was busy advising both teams, but rewarding in a lot of ways. I have some great students this year,and both teams did great at State. The management team didn't place, but they were told they had some great ideas, and they amazed me with how well they answered some pretty tough questions. The Culinary Team took a very close 2nd at State. They were only about 2.5 points behind the first place team. I was happy with their excellent work, and was congratulating myself on being done with all of the practices and work (I was looking forward to a relaxing last two months of work...) when I got a call from the state director saying the first place team had dropped out. So now we are going to Nationals!!! It is going to be a lot of fun. I have a really great team this year. They are hard workers and they keep me laughing. I have never had a team that has got along so well and worked so well together. AND, I have two AMAZING mentors... They have both given us a ton of time and help.

Here's Mylee after practice while the kids are cleaning up. She loves tasting the food. =) She came with me to a lot of the practices and had fun with the kids. RJ and I took Mylee out to eat one day and she saw someone that looked a lot like one of my students and she said "Hi! Ben!" It made me laugh.
These are the girls on my management team. I'm so proud of them!
Here is our culinary team and one of our mentors.
Our starter was a baby green salad in a fresh parmesan wrap with homemade French truffle dressing.
Our entree was crab stuffed veal with asiago mashed potatoes and romanesco and baby cauliflower; drizzled with a mushroom demi-glace.
This picture doesn't do our dessert justice! But it is a lemon sabayon in a graham cracker crust garnished with a chocolate butterfly and strawberry rose. The kids and their 2nd place medals. Yay us! =)


RJ had Spring Break last week and got to spend a lot of time with Mylee. I'm glad they got to have so much fun going to parks and playing... They even met up with Stephanie and her kids at the mall in Fort Collins. Mylee had so much fun she couldn't stop talking about it. She still occasionally will bring it up. She says "water... bubbles" in reference to her new favorite fountain. And she will say "Rissa! tiggle tiggle tiggle" as she tickles her face because that's what Carissa did to her. She talks about how Katie held her hand and Justin kept bopping her on the head. It's cute cause she'll say " 'tin" and then smack her head, grunt and then just crack up. I love that she loves her cousins!





Well, that's about it! See ya in maybe another four months =)

I'm a slacker...

I guess I shouldn't procrastinate the updating of our blog any longer... so here goes...

At some point this past summer, I don't remember exactly when, we went to the Denver zoo. Emily and Eli were able to come with us, and we had great fun! Mylee loved seeing her cousin and all of the animals.

She LOVED this statue of the bears. She screamed and screamed when we made her get off...

I think the polar bears and the penquins were her favorite. (Probably because they happened to be the most active...)

By the end of our trip, she was pretty tired. She fell asleep as soon as we put her in her car seat.

We got to go visit Grandma and Grandpa Rowley in Utah one more time before school started. Of course, Mylee got super spoiled and even got to ride Grandpa's motorcycle.


And then we got to ride the 4-wheeler!

Mylee also got to meet her new cousin Dallas... She LOVES babies! She kept trying to share her toys with him, but he wasn't interested. =) She has a doll that she carries around and gives lots of hugs to. I'm jealous because that doll gets way more hugs than I do! Mylee is getting lots more cuddly though, which has been fun. She'll even sit still for more than a few seconds now. It's great!

While we were in Utah, Mylee and I went to RJ's Hyde Family Reunion in Vernal. RJ couldn't make it because he had to work ;( but we had lots of fun without him. =) We went boating, and I really enjoyed watching Mylee splash around in the water.


She got to touch her first fish. She even tried to kiss it. Gross!

And she was really hamming it up for the camera!


Uncle Bart took us for a ride in his airplane. Thanks Uncle Bart!


After we got back from Utah, we went on another campout. Dale and Eli came with us. RJ picked a piece of wheat and had it in his mouth. Of course, Eli had to copy him...


Our hike ended up being kind of a long one, but Eli was a trooper. He's such a happy, cute kid! On our way back to camp, Rogue found a cow and decided to chase it. There was no stopping her, and when she came back, she looked awfully happy with herself. I wish I had gotten a video of it because it was pretty entertaining...
Back at camp Eli plays with the puppies...



Don't worry Grandma Rowley! It was just candy! =) We bought the candy specifically so we could take the picture to get a rise out of you =) he he he...
RJ loves giving Mylee new flavors to see her reaction. I think its funny because she likes pretty much everything (even lemon salt, salsa and her favorite... cinnamon bears and hot tomales) and I think RJ gets a little disappointed when she doesn't give more of a reaction. Occasionally though, we find something he has a lot of fun giving to her. This time it was cotton candy. She grabbed some in both fists and was stuffing it into her mouth. Another favorite we recently discovered was the Marshmellow flavored pop corn. She had both hands going and ate almost a whole bag by herself! It's amazing she is so tiny because she eats so much!


Just some cute pics of Mylee... She loves purses and anything with a handle that she can carry like a purse. =) She also loves shoes. What a girly girl! She will randomly bring shoes to me and ask me to put them on her, even if she's already wearing some!




She also happens to love these dress up high heels that Grandma Walker found while cleaning some stuff out. She walks all over the house in them. I was lucky enough to catch her on video tape dancing in them. =)

This was our first snow storm of the season. We've had a lot of snow this year. They've already had a snow day and the Homecoming dance was rescheduled due to a snow storm. It worries me a little since RJ is driving back and forth to Laramie, but so far so good =) It has been a lot of fun to get out and play in the snow with Mylee, although she doesn't do much with it except eat it =)

And then last but not least.... Halloween! It also happens to be RJ's birthday, but I had so much fun dressing up Mylee that I didn't get any pictures of RJ. I feel bad about it now, but at least I made him a cake right? =) Mylee was Pebbles for Halloween. I thought about making Fred and Wilma costumes too, but in the end laziness won...

This picture is kind of appropriate because if you look closely Mylee is signing "candy." We took her to the Mall, but the lines for trick or treating there were so long it was ridiculous! We ended up hanging out with the fam at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was fun to see all the different costumes. One guy at the mall air-brushed his whole body to look like the incredible hulk!

Anyway, as you can probably tell, our summer was a busy one. I had hoped it would be a good time to catch up on things that needed to get done around the house, but there never seemed to be any time. The time flew by too fast! Mylee is learning and growing so fast! She says new things every day! Today her new word was "shoes". Yesterday it was "baby" and "home" It is so fun because you never know what is going to pop out of her mouth next. We took a video of her sitting by me at the piano. I was playing and she was singing. As we listened and watched I realized some of the things she was singing were real words! It was totally random, but fun all the same.

Mylee also loves playing in the water. If you say "bath" she immediately starts taking her clothes off. So RJ reverted to code and started saying "b-a-t-h" it apparently doesn't take long for kids to learn how to spell because it only took a couple times before she realized what those letters meant. The other day she found a razor and started trying to shave her legs with it. I guess that means she watches me shave more than she watches her dad =).

As for me, I'm busy with school again. It's always kinda fun when school starts because you get to meet your new students and get out and do new things, but it's also sad because I miss that time with Mylee. I'm so thankful that Grandma Walker is willing to watch her. It helps knowing that even though she isn't with me, she is with family who love her. In fact, I almost think that Mylee loves Grandma and Uncle CJ more than she loves me and RJ! =) Culinary Team has started up again, and I have a great team this year, including two AWESOME Chef Mentors! I can't wait to see what they cook up =)!

RJ is busy with school again too. He had a fabulous time with his internship over the summer and told me several times that it was way more fun than school =). Thankfully though, this is his last year. Now he is just studying and doing the whole job searching thing, and we are just praying that the right opportunity will come our way. And that's about it, we're pretty boring around here =)