With Love From New York: Showing Support For Ukraine

Sadie, Jeff and I were in New York over the weekend. It was an amazing trip with the choir and band students from Sadie's high school. We were able to see and do a lot of memorable things, and maybe I'll eventually post a bit more. But I wanted to share what happened at the very end of our trip, just before boarding the buses for the long drive home. 

Our last activity on Sunday night was "Top of The Rock", the observation deck at the top of the Rockefeller Center. The 360º view of the city is said to be stunning. Unfortunately, the weather was wet and freezing and foggy. There was even a guide who met us at the elevators to tell us that there was zero visibility and we were welcome to use our tickets at a later date instead. Since this was our last day in New York, that wasn't an option for us so up we went. 

While the view was somewhat limited, it was still beautiful with the misty fog and the lights on the buildings. The Empire State building was a bright blue with gold lights below. As I looked around the city, I saw a few other buildings with lights across the top - a solid stripe of blue above a stripe of golden yellow - and I realized they were lit up in support of Ukraine. Then, with that realization, I looked back at the Empire State building, saw the blue and gold again, and almost started to cry. Here was this iconic structure making a bold statement for all the world (or at least all of New York) to see. Yes, I felt like bawling, but I really felt proud and happy and in total agreement with the sentiment. It was a beautiful way to end our trip. 

'Tis But a Scratch

Sadie signed up to play in the Homecoming powderpuff football match. During practice a couple of weeks ago, while running to tackle a defendant who had intercepted the ball, Sadie slipped on wet grass and caught herself with her left hand as she went down hard. She laughed it off at first, but then realized her left wrist looked a bit wonky. I got a surprisingly calm phone call that went something like, "I think I broke my wrist. You should probably come pick me up now."

Four hours in the Emergency Room verified that Sadie's wrist was broken. The end of her radius was tipped back and, despite more than one attempt to bring it back into alignment, she was put in a bulky cast and told that surgery might be needed. We were sent home with instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon within a few days. 

Sadie didn't miss a beat; she was at school the next day. One of her biggest hurdles was not being able to type so some of her teachers gave her extra time to complete assignments, but overall she wasn't going to let this slow her down. Four days later, we took her to the orthopedic surgeon. He said she would need surgery to either 1. manipulate the bone into place and hope it heals properly, but often it will tip back again or 2. put in a plate to hold the bone in place and solve the problem. At his recommendation, we opted for number 2. He was able to schedule surgery the next day.

Sadie's biggest fears are doctors and needles. She really isn't scared of much else. To keep her mind off the surgery, she attended her first two classes the next day. I picked her up from school and we went straight to the hospital. Despite her fears, Sadie was so brave as they inserted the IV. For her, that was the hardest part. Then before we knew it, she was waking up from surgery and prepping to go home. 

The orthopedic surgeon assured me that everything went well. He even stayed longer to stitch her up himself to make sure it was done well. :) A little over 6 hours after we arrived, Sadie was given the green light and we headed home. She even insisted she was well enough to attend a couple hours of a college softball game that some friends were playing in that evening. 

Most people would settle in and take a couple of days to rest, but this was Homecoming Week and Sadie had been looking forward to Decade Day for a few weeks. So the next morning she got all dressed up and headed to school. She made it through like a champ and definitely rocked the awesome '80's, complete with big hair, acid washed jeans, and Jeff's high school letterman's jacket from 1987.    

Sadie, the day after surgery

Since then, Sadie's hardly complained. We're hoping she graduates to a removable splint next week. And then it's on to a full recovery shortly after. I'm telling you, this girl is tough!

Better Than Valentine's Day

Twenty-six years ago today, Jeff asked me to marry him. Saying yes was one of the best decisions I've ever made. We've now been married longer than we were single and I love the life we've shared. February 11 will always be my Valentine's Day. Here's hoping for at least 26 more. 

Photo taken November 2020 at Spencer and Grace's wedding

Homebound

Like everyone else, a lot of our plans have been canceled over the past year, but if I must stay home, I'm sure glad I get to stay home with these guys. Turns out, home is my favorite place to be. 

Merry Christmas 2019

Wow! It's been a great year! Savannah returned from her mission in July; Spencer in October. We drove to Utah for Thanksgiving so that we could get a family picture before Sterling left on his mission on December 18. We haven't been together for the holidays since 2016 so I'm glad we made the effort to all be together, however briefly. I sure love these guys.



I've done a lot of hand lettering this past year. I love to doodle various sayings and words. This was the back of our Christmas card. I wrote it in pencil on white paper, smudged it a bit, then scanned it and reversed the colors. I love how it looks just like chalk on a chalkboard!

We have a lot to look forward to in 2020. Let's make it our best year so far!

Merry Christmas 2018

The Stowells are alive and well. It's been a good year and we have so much to look forward to! Our two missionaries will both come home in 2019 and, if all goes well, Sterling will graduate from high school a year early in May. It's possible that I could have 4 kids at BYU in January 2020!

With our missionaries out, I couldn't get a family picture this year. I could have pieced together a Christmas card with everyone here and there, but I wanted us all together so I hatched a plan that worked out beautifully!

Isn't that awesome? I commissioned Sadie's 13-year old friend, Jack, to draw our family picture and I am so happy with how it turned out. The word "Christmas" is something I doodled on the back of my church program a couple weeks ago and my friend, Jen, digitized it for me. (Jen and I have started a little Etsy shop with these digitized files -- I'll blog more about that later!)

I was a little worried about getting the cards out before Christmas. I received the finished drawing on Sunday, December 16th and had the card designed and ready for the printer on the morning of the 17th. The week before Christmas felt like a bad time for a rush order at the printers, but I walked into my favorite print shop at 9:20 Monday morning and, literally, walked out at 9:30 with a stack of 90 cards -- printed, cut and shrink wrapped! It was a happy little miracle and my cards were in the mail Monday afternoon.

Life is good! We have been so blessed and can see God's hand in our lives on a daily basis. We are grateful for the Savior and the opportunity to celebrate His birth.

Merry Christmas!

End of Summer

Oh, why do I procrastinate my blog?? Well, late is better than never so here is a quick recap of our summer.

We started off with four weeks of no major obligations. Those weeks seemed to last forever and we just enjoyed the time together. There was plenty of badminton, progress toward goals (we got a LOT of things accomplished this summer!), and just time together. It was a needed break from the typical demands.

I already blogged about our end-of-June activities, High Adventure and the youth Pioneer Trek.

July was pretty steady with several week-long activities. Jeff and the boys attended a hot and sweaty Scout camp and Sadie attended her first Girls' Camp during the hottest week of the summer. Ugh! We picked her up a day early to head to Utah where we spent the last week of July so Sterling could attend an A Cappella camp - ReMix Vocal Academy - at BYU. I'll post more about that once the videos of the final concert are up on YouTube. It was amazing!! He had a great week and we all loved the final concert.

Sterling and the bros after his awesome concert!

Sterling with Adam, former beatboxer for Vocal Point
(Sterling looks really short here, but Adam is 6'10.)

While in Utah, we were also able to spend time in the temple as a family and we were there when Savannah went through the temple for the first time.

Draper Temple with the cousins! This was Sadie's first time to do baptisms for the dead.

Somehow I didn't get any photos after Savannah went through the temple (rats!!) but here's the whole crew at the Provo City Center Temple after our family did baptisms for the dead.

My mom and all of my siblings were in town so we spent time with cousins as well. We stayed with friends who made us feel like part of the family and, despite our vow NOT to go to Utah this summer, it was definitely worth the drive.

We didn't make it to Idaho this year, but Idaho came to us! Sadie and cousin Ana are BFF's. Little Sawyer is a cutie!

My dad's headstone was installed while we were in Utah.
I'm glad I got to see it. We visited dad a few times.

We hiked the Bonneville Shoreline Trail one morning with our friends and hosts, the Afflecks.
It was a beautiful hike and morning!

The cool, new suspension bridge on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Bridal Veil Falls

A motley crew. :)

A rare photo of Jeff and me.

We saw a full rainbow in Wyoming on the drive home. So pretty!

Pioneer Trek

My boys have had quite a week! Monday morning they left for Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with their Scout troop. They went caving and hiking and pretty much wore themselves out until they left for home on Wednesday morning. They got home in time for lunch then hurried to repack and switch to pioneer gear before they headed out that same afternoon for our stake's youth conference Pioneer Trek.

For the next three days, they pulled handcarts, danced, cooked and ate in the great outdoors, and tried to stay dry during a thunderstorm. And you know what? They loved it! They all had a great time honoring our many pioneer ancestors.

This is my favorite photo from trek. Don't my boys just look the part? I love that Jeff was with them, too.

The whole group:

Here is Spencer (far right) with his trek family.

This is part of Sterling's trek family. It's hard to tell with the smoke (though I love the effect), but Sterling is second to the right. His Ma and Pa are in the center.

Soren (left) with part of his trek family:

A couple of months before trek, the youth were encouraged to submit stories from their pioneer ancestors. Here, Spencer is sharing one of the submitted stories.

Here, Soren is helping his "family" stabilize the handcart as they walk down a hill.

On the last day, on a steep segment of the trail, the girls had to pull the handcarts alone while the men and boys watched helplessly. My boys said that as each group of girls reached the summit, they left their handcarts and hurried to help the girls still on the trail.

Daddy's Girl

I'm on my way to bed, but I wanted to post this sweet photo before I forget. This was taken a few days before Christmas and it shows just how much Sadie loves her dad. These two are fast friends. Jeff tucks her in every night and wakes her up every morning. Sadie is 100% daddy's girl. Don't get me wrong, she tolerates me just fine and we play a lot of games and make a lot of crafts together. But when she has the choice, it's daddy all the way. I'm okay with that. :)

Sweet Dreams!

Rebecca Burdick Winters

Jeff's fourth great grandma was Rebecca Burdick Winters. She passed away in 1852 during her westward journey with the Mormon pioneers. The historical marker shown below tells a little bit about her, including how the railroad was rerouted so that this pioneer mother's grave wouldn't be disturbed. 

We stopped to see the tribute marker last summer on our way through Nebraska. It's located on a little sort-of-street off the beaten path, appropriately named "Rebecca Winters Drive." 

In front of the granite marker is the original iron wagon tire
that marked Rebecca's initial resting place. 

Rebecca's father, Gideon Burdick, was a 14-year old drummer boy in George Washington's Army during the American Revolution. Gideon also joined the Mormon church and settled in Illinois, but he passed away a few years before Rebecca and her family began their trek west. 

 

We've driven across Nebraska so many times, just plowing through on our way to Utah or Idaho. I'm glad we finally took the time to visit Rebecca's resting place. It was worth the trip.

Pasta Angels

I attended a writing group last night for the first time in several years. It was a blast! To start off, we were given twenty minutes to write on the prompt "Projects." We could interpret that however we wanted, from class projects to Christmas projects to the lack of projects, etc. Everyone was then invited to share what they wrote. Some were serious; most were funny. Here is what I wrote. It's a story worth remembering.

They were just the cutest little ornaments. The delicate angels looked like porcelain, but they were made almost entirely out of pasta. Bowtie pasta made the wings and dress, elbow macaroni formed the arms, and the little wooden bead head was covered in Acini de Pepe or what I call "frog-eye" pasta to look like curly hair. A few coats of white spray paint and a dash of translucent glitter was finished off with a little ribbon rose nestled in each angel's arms with a beaded halo on top.

I learned to make them at a church craft fair and decided I must make them for everyone I knew. How hard could it be? I started off just fine, but then the demands of the season started creeping in.

I was making them assembly-line style, one step at a time when I had a few minutes here and there. But then it came time to put the hair on my tray full of angels. For some reason this crippled me. It was the most tedious step and suddenly I felt overwhelmed. I put it off for days. One night I came home from a meeting and complained to my husband about all the demands on my time. I finished off with, "And I've still got to put hair on all of those angels!" At that, my husband of only six months said, "Come look at your hairless little angels." 

I walked over to the tray to find that my very masculine Jeff had laid aside his studies to spend the entire evening calmly and methodically spreading glue on my angels' little bald heads and then sticking them in the tiny pasta balls to cover every single angel head with hair.

That was 21 years ago, but I will never forget that selfless act of love.

Redneck

We've got some hummingbird regulars in our yard. It's become quite entertaining to watch them through our big dining room picture window as they fight for the feeder and hang out in our tree. The other day, one of them flew right up to the window and just hovered, looking in and scoping us out.

We were sitting at dinner the other day when Jeff looked out the window and said, "Oh look, there's a redneck hummingbird." I chuckled to myself at his description, picturing a little backwoods hummingbird who was married to his cousin. I pointed out that it was called a ruby-throated hummingbird, not a redneck.

(It still makes me laugh.)

Imagesource

Kayaking at Sunset

One afternoon in Idaho we went to a big gravel pit that is on some land owned by my sister-in-law Kristin's family. There is a big rope swing that the kids had fun with as they swung out over the water and then willed themselves to let go. We also brought along some kayaks which was my favorite part. Kayaking isn't something I've done before, but I loved it! It was so relaxing to paddle around the gravel pit. The kids and Jeff enjoyed it as well so we decided to pick up a couple of kayaks when we got home. 

Lake Charleston is just a few minutes from our house so it's not difficult to get out on the lake for a quick morning or evening paddle across the lake. 

Jeff and I went on a sunset kayak date tonight. The weather was perfect with mild temps and low humidity (rare this time of year!!). The lake was calm and the sunset was beautiful. I can't wait to go back!

Fifty Years Worth of Family

A big reason we timed our Idaho trip when we did was so that we could see Jeff's brothers and celebrate Richard and Carol's Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary (their actual anniversary was the end of May). The Fourth of July weekend was a good time for everyone to get away so we had about 36 hours where everyone (minus Sam) was in town at the same time. 

The cousins enjoyed time together. There was plenty of singing and creative music making. We ate lots of good food! One highlight was the evening where we sat around and reminisced about life on the farm and all the Stowell family things we remember from the past. There were plenty of laughs and a few tears. I think we all left feeling pretty blessed that we get to belong to such a great family group! I know I do. :)

A Father's Day Birthday

Today is Jeff's birthday and Father's Day! This doesn't happen very often, but it's fun when it does. (Soren sometimes has a Father's Day birthday, too. In fact, Soren was born on Father's Day.) 

In the past, Jeff and I have gotten into a bad habit in the weeks leading up to his birthday. He'll find something he needs, buy it "for his birthday," and then use it right away. When his birthday finally rolls around, we have nothing to give him. While I did let him have one inexpensive gift a few days before his birthday this year, we still managed a couple of surprises.

One of them was discovered when Soren was putting together a personal first-aid kit for one of his Boy Scout requirements. Jeff got a good laugh out of his gift:

The kids were all in on it and thought this was pretty funny, too. They thought I was a genius for finding an actual iPad box to put it in. In the end, the joke was on them because after we all had our laugh over the "eye pad," Jeff received the new iPad he'd picked out a few days before. :) 

Happy Birthday, Jeff. I hope this is your best year so far!

(I got the best one. Wahoo!)

21 Years and Counting

November 1988:

May 26, 1995:

May 26, 2016:

Our thinning hair is turning gray (I'm blaming the kids) and we've got our share of wrinkles, but I'd say after twenty-one years we're doing pretty well! 

Life is good. 

Lip Sync Battle

Saturday night was a Stake Youth Lip Sync Battle at church. (A Stake is just a group of wards or congregations in a specific geographical area.) They've never done anything like this before out here and my boys were excited!! They decided on a less-than-serious song by BYU Vocal Point (of course!) and worked out their moves. At stake was a "solid gold plastic trophy," and there was plenty of good competition for the prize.

My phone died before the boys ever set foot on stage, but fortunately Jeff's parents were in town from Idaho and Carol filmed it with her phone. Jeff made a cameo appearance which was a hit. (Jeff is the Stake President and loves working with the youth!)


At the end of the evening, the youth chose their champions. "The Stowell Boys" won the trophy. It was a fun event! :)

The Stowell Boys - Winners of the first annual Lip Sync Battle (with their friend, Anna)