for those who are curious about my comment on the Young family blog, here is the story on my toes. Karen called us on Christmas to wish us well, and while we were talking Michael rolled over my toes with the computer chair. I screamed and dropped the phone, and about a minute later and much cursing, I realized that Karen was still on the line. it was a bit embarassing, but my toes and ego are doing better today.

birthday and recital

Joshua has had a big month. He performed in his first ever piano recital, and he turned five. The recital went really well. Joshua was a perfect little performer. He played Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and he sang the whole thing. He did great! His birthday was really fun too. Pirates all around!

Gingerbread house

This year my girlfriends and I built gingerbread houses from scratch. This was an ambitious endeavour. We spent one saturday baking our gingerbread, one saturday constructing, and decorating, and then it took me another few hours on my own to finish it up. Very fun though, and Joshua enjoyed the whole process. Next year if we try it again, we may enter in the "Parade of Gingerbread Houses" contest that Logan Main street has every year. We'll see.

Christmas Eve

Here are some pics from our Christmas Eve festivities. My dad and Jan came for the evening, and Dad was thrilled when we did the pageant! He says it is the first one he's been involved in in all his 63 years.

Christmas in all it's over-done splendor!

Christmas was fabulous. Santa was very good to us! I got some new piano music, a bath pillow. a crepe maker, and a skookie skillet set. Michael got a new golf bag, a massage mat, a new wii game, and a dremell. As for the kids, they made out well this year. Joshua's favorite gift was a castle playset. Andrew's was a wooden block set that makes farm animal noises. They had a blast opening their presents, and following the "treasure hunt" that santa left for them.

Thanksgiving Cheer

This one is for you, Ma! We love you!

Osmond Mania

How did everyone enjoy the Oprah Osmond Occasion (or OOO for short)? Laura finally understands the Barlow obsession with the Osmond family-- they are sooo cool! And, lest we forget they have made our family slightly famous (or at least 'rubbed on famous'-- i.e. Becky's 'date' with Donny!) Laura can now also say that she has hugged a man that has hugged Oprah-- Tom. That goes right up there with getting a private tour of Brisbane from Mel Gibsons cousin. But, that is a story for another time!

Halloween

Here are the kids, Laura too, in thier costumes. Joshua went as Batman and Andrew went as a Smore, in case you couldn't tell. We sent Andrew as a Smore because his nickname, given to him by Joshua, has been Marshmellow for a few months-- or as Josh says it 'Smarshmellow'. We went trick-or-treating in our nieghborhood and did much better this year-- Josh made it to 6 houses as opposed to about 3 last year. Luckily for hime, Laura had gotten a bunch of 'booty' for the kids at the Mall earlier in the day and we had oodles of extra candy at the house. It was a fun Halloween for everyone here!

Pumpkin Walk

We went to the pumpkin walk last week. For those of you who don't know what a pumpkin walk is, let me elaborate. North Logan has this quirky tradition of creating still-life scenes composed almost entirely of pupkins and various other squashes, arranging them all around the park and letting the community come to oooh and ahhhh. It actually is alot of fun. This year they had scenes including Thomas the train, pirates, an old west town, frankensteins labratory, farms galore, and even elvis. We only stayed an hour because it was stinking cold, but fun none-the-less. These pictures are of the kids at the end, where they had those boards that you put your face through. Andrew thought those were so cool.

Meet Shelob

We've had her for a couple of months now, even long enough to experience her moulting process (verry interesting)! Shelob the Tarantula is the newest addition to our household and I find myself absolutely immersed in teh world of "boys". Really. There's a spider living on my kitchen counter.

We do love her though, and she makes for a great pet. Right now she is about a year old, and she could live to be 25. Josh can take her to college. She eats crickets, which is quite violent, but the main reason for getting a spider in the first place. Like I said ... boys.

Email!!

We've given up our netzero account, and the email account to go with it. So we have a new email address. Just thought you all might like to know! Here it is:
[email protected]

More Pictures

Here are a few more Yellowstone pictures.

Yellowstone Trip

We're only a month late getting these pictures up, but we have a great announcement to make.

Drum roll please.......

we finally got a decent internet connection!

Anyway, it will be easier to blog now, and to enjoy all of your blogs as well.

As for Yellowstone, we had a fabulous time. My family is, if nothing else, entertaining. We stayed at the Grey Wolf Inn in West Yellowstone. The kids (my brother brought his four) thought the hotel swimming pool was just as cool as anything we saw in the park. But Mike and I definitely prefered the scenes in the park. It was so beautiful! Our favorite part was the Yellowstone canyon, and the water fall there. There was this great trail that was 600 steps down into the canyon to a viewing area. The kids all did really well with the hiking.

We saw every animal except bear and moose in the park. But we got close and personal to the wolves and bears in the preserve center in West Yellowstone. Joshua even got to feed the bears! They took the bears out of the habitat, let the kids go in and hide food under rocks and trees, and then let the bears back in. Such a fun experience for a 4 year old!

The highlight for Andrew was the imax movie about Yellowstone. There was this great grizzly bear in it that stands up and roars at the very end. Since then, Andrew has been roaring nonstop. Even now, a month later, he roars all the time. No words, just roars!

Lost Blog

I've lost the address for Rob and Karen's blog site. Can anyone out there fill me in? Much appreciated!

Simpsonize me!

My friend introduced me to a fun site. Look it up when you have and hour or two to kill.

http://simpsonizeme.com/ You upload a picture of yourself and it turns you into a simpson character. Here are Joshua's simpson self and My simpson self.

We're still here, believe it or not!

Hello all, and especially Barlow family members! I realize we have been conspicuously absent from the email and blog scene. My many apologies. I wish I had a good excuse, but all I can come up with is: Mike is working ten hours a day. I'm teaching fifteen piano students a week. Both the kids have been puking their guts out for two weeks now. oh, and our Internet is snail slow, which makes the blogging process a little more difficult.
Okay. Out with all the excuses! The point is, we are still here, and we still love you all! So, here's the latest update on us.
We got a pet spider. Her name is Shelob and she is a Mexican Red knee tarantula. So far Mike and Joshua are having a fabulous time feeding her crickets and scaring my piano students with her.
We had a great weekend in Park city with Mom, Daniel, and Becky. It was so nice to spend some time together and enjoy such a pretty place. Joshua loved watching the ski jumpers practice at the Olympic park, and everyone loved the swimming pool at the hotel. It was the only thing that has made Drewby happy for a week. (The kids are finally both feeling better, count our blessings!)
We have been working on our yard a little more too. We planted three very large maples in the back yard, and got some nice shrubs for the back bed against the fence. It is nice to be married to a landscaper, not to mention a perfectionist. The trees Mike brought home were literally twenty feet high! They are beautiful.
Next week we are taking a trip with my family to Yellowstone. I'm really looking forward to it. Jaussi adventures are never dull. We will be leaving on Wednesday and returning Saturday. So I will definitely blog pictures from that trip.

To all the kids starting a new school year ( and adults): good luck! work hard and have your best year ever!

We love you all and thanks for all your comments. Forgive us for being techno-slackers!!

Deck the house with planks of redwood, fa la la la la!

We've lived in this house for almost three full years now, and this weekend I was finally able to use my sliding glass door! I can't tell you how silly yet exciting that sentance sounds to me! I had all the framing done by Friday, so when my brothers came up on Saturday we were able to pound out the decking, stairs and benches. All that remains to be done now is railings and sealant. It is so nice to have a deck! We need to figure out something for shade though. The benches act as railings along two sides of the deck, which saves alot of space. We are loving it! The other little boy in the first picutre is Joshua's best friend Zachary, who lives next door.

I have been hounded lately about my lack of posting on this blog. I have to admit, I've mostly been lazy about putting my pictures onto the computer, and this is where the hold up has been. But anyway, I'm kicking it into gear! Here are the descriptions for the pictures: 1-Andrew taking a little nap on daddy's knee. 2-Andrew's first birthday (boy was he a happy baby!) and 3- Joshua petting baby pigs at baby animal days out at the historic farm.

Joshua's adventure

Today Joshua and I were making ramen noodles for lunch when he decided to test the "don't touch it, it's still hot" rule. Well, His hand now has blisters in the patern of our stove blister. It has been quite traumatic for him. I didn't take him to the doctor because the blisters weren't popping, but it did require some first aid attention. He is protecting his hand with his life, and getting very good at doing things one-handed. These pictures are of Joshua calling Grandma Barlow to tell her the news

Here are some more pictures....

Disney Land part 1

Okay everyone! Here is the report from our California adventure!

Day one: We left our house at 8:00AM and drove all day long with our friends Andrea and Jason, and their daughters Emma and Alli. (all in the same vehicle). We got to our KOA campsite in pamona at about 10:00PM that night, set up our tents and sacked out! By this time, Andrew was already sick and throwing up every solid meal. Yuck.

Day two: California Adventure park all day long! We saw lightning McQueen and Mater, explored a whole world of Bugs Life rides, Monsters inc rides, and lots of other fun stuff.

Day three: Sunday we woke up to a lake in our tent. It had rained all night, and when we woke up we realized that the rain flap was not doing it's job. we were all soaked, and freezing! It did nothing for poor andrew's illness. He spent the entire trip cuddled on my shoulder. We made an emergency trip to Target for a tarp to put on the tent, and then went to the pier to see the Aquarium of the Pacific. What a mad house! It was soooo busy. But it was really fun because we could pet sting rays and sharks, and they had all kinds of cool displays and tanks. We had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, because you can't go to the coast without getting some great sea food! That night after we got the kids to bed, Jason stayed and played video games while Andrea, Mike, and I went back to disneyland to get on all the adult rides. We rode every adult ride in both parks within 4 hours! That was great!

Day four: Actual Disney Land! We did it all! Mouse ear hats, breakfast with the characters ( that cost a pretty penny but it was so worth it ) all the fun rides. Josh loved the toon town where you could go through Mickey and Minny's houses and then meet them. We just had so much fun! We stayed until the fireworks at 10:00, and then went back to camp.

Day five: Mike, Andrea, and I got up very early to drive down to Hollywood. Mike drove Andrea and I to the Paramount studios, where we went to a taping of Dr. Phil. It was really fun! It ended up being kind of a smutty episode, but the experience was still really fun. So if you like that sort of thing, I think the two episodes were called "caught in the act" and a little bit of "exebitionists". I guess I need to watch them to see if Andrea or I get any face time on national TV! That afternoon, Mike and Jason (who had broken camp and packed the car) picked us up and we started home. We go home at 4:00AM Wednesday morning.

So there you have it! That's the story, and I will keep uploading pictures as fast as my internet connection will allow! Love you all!

Dinosaur Museum

We just realized we totally forgot to post our dino museum pictures. We're what you call "sporadic bloggers". Last month we took Josh and Andrew down to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, where we met with others of the Barlow kind. Joshua absolutely loved it! Especially the T-rex's. In fact, we couldn't keep up with him and Aunt Becky as they raced to the next "cool thing" in the next room, until we got to the T-rex's. At times we forgot we were part of his group. If you haven't gone we would higly recommend it!