The Awesome

Subject: In which Milo contributes to the letter

Good won this week as Silas the super villain renounced his diabolical ways and joined the forces of light.  Silas, the self-proclaimed mastermind of wrong, decided to express his villainy on Monday by telling people around him that he was a super bad guy.  To stress the point, he made sure to scream at the top of his lungs and fired everyone around him at the grocery store.  He told everyone that he hated them and told them he wanted to be bad.  He tried hard to think of ways to complete his plot for world domination and did the opposite of everything we told him to do…just because.  Fortunately, Silas learned the downside of being bad.  He wanted a treat and Amber told him that super villains don’t get treats.  Once he learned that there was a punishment factor, he apologized and decided to be a super hero instead.

Overall, the week was very good.  We finished the drywall on the basement (it looks a lot better now with the 3/8 inch sheet rock).  We spent every night working on it until 1 am.  Amber has started the mudding as well and I except we will try to level the floor this Saturday.  I do not think we will finish everything by our anniversary, but we should be close.

We also finished watching FullMetal Alchemist.  The anime is interesting, but I preferred Avatar.  Just thought I would mention that.

I’ve been talking a lot to my cousin, Dave Carr.  He just landed a new job as general counsel.  They will still be in Arizona , but he’s excited to be moving up in the ranks.  They implied that we should move to AZ as well, but we aren’t really interested in the heat.  I’d rather be somewhere where the choices aren’t hot or hotter.

I measured the distance from our house to my office.  The distance is exactly 20 miles.  I’ve started driving it rather than taking the train.  I like it a lot more.  The time to drive it is only 45 minutes compared to the 1.5 hours on the train.  I’ve been working later now that I drive, but I still get home at the same time.  The real advantage is that I get to see my children in the morning before work and I sleep in by about an hour.  I get there about 15 minutes later than normal, but since I stay an extra 45 minutes each day, work is really gaining about ½ an hour from me.

Milo ’s favorite book has become Hop on Pop.  He has me read it every night before bed.  When we get to the “hop pop, we hop on pop” part, he hops on me.  Ouch!  Its fun.  I try to sneak different words into the book to see if he can catch them.  He is very good at reading though, and I never sneak anything by him.  He catches all of my tricks.  I’ve tried hiding the book from him, but he always finds it and has it ready for bedtime.

Milo ’s school has a very strict outline.  On Monday, ,he goes to the library.  On Tuesday, he has music.  Wednesday is gym.  Thursday is art and Friday doesn’t have a theme.  Milo thought you all should know this.  Gym is his favorite, but he also really likes the computer time he gets.  The kindergarten here has a few computers so they each get to take turns using them.

Silas has read his first story.  Amber has been teaching him to read while Milo is at school.  Like Milo , he gets frustrated at times.  I came home one day to find him very upset after a particularly difficult session.  I gave him a big hug and explained that everyone needs to read.  I guess, he had been waiting to vent about how badly it had gone.  Other days, he excels and breezes through the lesson.

On Saturday, Milo went to a birthday party for a kid in his class.  They went to “Monster” golf.  It was glow in the dark miniature golf with a monster theme.   All of the parents stayed with their kids so I got to socialize a little with people in the neighborhood.  They are all very Italian.  Milo had a good time.

Anyway, everyone have fun in Utah .  See you later.

Jeremy and Milo

Subject: Work

Another week gone.  Another week without an extravagant boardgame purchase.  Sure there was a board game purchase, but not an extravagant one.

All that happened this week was work. We worked on the basement, I worked at work, and I worked at home.  Work, work, work.  Its not as fun as it sounds.  The basement is going well.  We got most of the sheet rock up only to find out the previous tenants had mixed sizes.  They had put up both ½ and 3/8 inch sheet rock on the ceiling.  Because we were trying not to start over on the whole room and were only patching the many places with holes, we didn’t notice this and installed ½ sheet rock.  Now it looks like there are bubbles.  I voted to tear down the whole ceiling and put up all new sheetrock.  Amber voted to tear down the bad parts and put up 3/8 instead.  With the vote 1 to 1, ties go to Amber.  So, she won.  I hope it looks good in the end.  Our goal is to get everything but the floors done by our anniversary at the end of this month.  I think we can still make it, but it will be hard with this set back.

I do not feel that the last newsletter adequately expressed how awesome the family vacation was.  It was very awesome.  Some might even say “awesome to the max”.  I enjoyed being with my family in the close quarters – even if Justin had trouble parking his car in a fashion that let more than one person in the driveway and even if everyone shared two bathrooms resulting a few accidents by my children and even if we had a see –through wall so that people could see my glorious self in the buck and even if Amber and Kirsti about came to blows over Friday mornings breakfast.  It was fun.

The all around best day was the first day of Disneyland .   The excitement was too much to allow us to sleep long.  We got up early and rushed to wait in line at the theme park.  And then we parked and rushed to wait in line to get in.  We didn’t have a stroller so we made Silas walk the whole day.  He got pretty tired.  The next day we rented one.  After that, we found out that the rental actually had strollers in the closet.  That made things easier.  The first day was filed with buzz lighyear action and space mountain.  Amber got a little sick from riding in the front in the dark.  It was also Milo ’s first roller coaster.  He didn’t like this one as much.  He did like rollercoasters but not this one.

Everyone’s least favorite ride was Innoventions.  A sales pitch seemed out of place on the happiest place on earth.  Although the home was sorta interesting, given a choice between  Innoventions and anything else, I think anything else would win.

One of Amber’s favorite parts of the vacation was finding this cool chain grocery stores called Fresh and Easy.  I think we went there every day.  They specialized in ready made meals that were both fresh and easy.  Plus they were really cheap.

I hope everyone has a happy week.  If you have anything you want to know more about then let me know.  If you have any ideas on how to blend or fix 3/8-1/2 inch drywall seams, let me know as well.  I really want to get this project done.

Jeremy

Subject: A slow week

This week has been a slow one in the life of the Rowleys.  There really isn’t much to say.  The weather was finally starting to warm up when all of a sudden it dropped back down to the low 20s and starting snowing like crazy.  I thought spring was just around the corner, but no – it had to pile up with another 2-3 inches of coldness. (more…)