Happy Valentine's Day

One man, two beautiful dates. Is it polygamy? NO! It's the Daddy Daughter Dance!

For the first year, Ivy is old enough to attend. The night was danced away. Rugs were cut. Moves were busted. They got down. They grooved. They shimmied, they twisted, they rocked, and they rolled.

Hope you had a wonderful day with your loved ones too! :)

Let's take a walk down Memory Lane, shall we?

Our first day in Utah, we met our cousins Tyson and Tamara in downtown Salt Lake. We'll let these cutie-pie second-cousins, Miranda, Eli, Lizzie and Ivy, (who are sitting in the "Values" garden in front of the original house of Brigham Young) lead us on our tour.
First, our Tour Guides took us to the top of the Church Office Building to get a great view of the City. What's that behind us? Only the Utah State Capitol, most famously known as "The Place where Adam and Aimee First Kissed." Little did we know that 12 years and 4 kids later we'd be looking over the same place...(and no, the lady on the left is not one of our kids. She's Sparklebutt, if you will recall.)
Walking around, our Tour Guides spotted this spectacular fountain.
And finally, the Salt Lake Temple, where Adam and Aimee were married. Nice shot, Adam. Oh, and the picture you took is good too. har har.

Becoming a Man

Awwwh! I wanna grow up too!

Sockless on Mount Whitney

I found Adam's special REI hiking sock last night when I was folding the laundry and watching Arrested Development with Erin. He was looking for it frantically on Wednesday night before he left on his big trip. Whoops.

This morning he called me from here:

The one-socked mountain climber on the highest peak in the contintental United States. I hope that one of your feet was nice and warm.

These conditions are not ideal. Just call him Bear Grylls.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Lizzie said:
"First, so we danced for quite a while and we did songs like "Twist and Shout" and the "YMCA" and then we did more dancing and I saw my friends Nicolette and Quincy, and then we did raffle tickets; there were tons of treats there and the music was blasting, and there was a disco ball! We danced some more and there was water there, and we got very sweaty from dancing so much! Daddy swung me between his legs and popped me back up again! I'm gonna remember it for a long time and my feet are sore from dancing!

Russian music. No, we did not accelerate.

At our Riznica concert tonight, a night full of Russian music. I crammed my brain full of "sriet shumnavah bawlaw" to sing my solos. Afterwards, we went with the Andrews to one of my favorite restaurants, Cibo's.

so silly.

Adam's new name

Ivy is really becoming interested in letters and sounds lately. One of her favorite things to do is write everyone in the family's name down on paper, over and over and over. It's so cute.

This morning, when she was writing "ADAM" she was saying the word slowly to hear all the different sounds. Then she looked at me with a very worried expression:

"'Adam'...'Aaaadaaammmm'. . . 'A-dam' . . . 'A-dumb'. . .It says 'dumb!'
"I'm writing a 'Y' at the end instead."

So now it's "Aimee and AdaY," thanks to Ivy cleaning up Adam's name!

Arenal Volcano, Alligator bridge, and Missionary Moment

Adam can't stop saying, "DUUUUDE!!!"

Here's why:

Here he is taking the extended shot pictures:
Also today, we drove over a bridge that had some carnivores lurking beneath.
On our drive to the volcano, we drove right through one of the country villages that Adam lived in for four months as a missionary.

We drove slowly through town as he was looking for the house he used to live in. Suddenly, he stopped. "That's them."

We parked, got out of the car, and walked up to a family that was sitting outside. The woman came and opened the door and hugged Adam immedietely. 15 years ago, she had housed him and fed him three meals a day as he served and taught the people the gospel in that area. Their family still houses missionaries today. Adam left a little note for the missionaries...Odile found a picture in an album of Adam! She insisted that we take it with us.Here is the family now. The triplets were adopted 10 years ago, and the dad has now been reactivated to church.

The boys also walked us down a couple blocks to the chapel, whose congregation has greatly increased in the last 15 years. They were so friendly and welcoming to me, and the Andrews as well. Hugs and kisses all around! What wonderful people. I thanked Odile from the bottom of my heart for taking care of my husband so well. What a good woman. What a blessing that we got to meet them today!

'Stauches, Stanton, & Bajawma

Wednesday's 'Stauche: The Bruiser Sunday's almost-lost -forever-but found-under-the-bed Moustache: The Hollywood

And now, the anticipation is over, the Third Grade Wax Museum was today! Here is our very own Elizabeth Cady Stanton, writer of the Declaration of Sentiments, and founder of the Women's Rights Movement:
The parents entered the room and all the children were still as statues. I mean wax. They were each holding a poster that was blank except for a large "button" that said "ON." When a parent touched this button, the wax figure suddenly came to life, telling the bystanders all the interesting and important facts of themselves. They each ended with saying, "Who am I?" and the parent would have to guess.
Yep, we sprayed her hair brown and curled it into ringlets! I mean, when do you get to do that for school, right? Not often enough, I say!

In other news, did you know Barack Obama came to Phoenix yesterday? Well, as a matter of fact, he did. Just ask Adam, he saw the whole thing. Adam works in building that has a view of the Sky Harbor Airport runway, and the way he tells it, yesterday afternoon, before Obama arrived, his cargo plane arrived, with his whole entourage, which includes: his helicopters, black armored cars (like three), and then, Air Force One flew in later that day, and all around the airport, they had roads shut down, police guarding underpasses and protecting roads, and before he landed, they shut down the runway, all of a sudden all the commercial airplanes stopped flying, and two helicopters started flying around in these strange formations to make sure it was safe. And after they landed, the helicopters went away.

Then this morning as Adam drove to work he looked on the runway, and there was Air Force One, sitting on the tarmac, next to the huge cargo plane. I don't care who you voted for, the office of the president is inspiring as an American.

Lizzie was personally affronted that she wasn't able to see the President, with him stopping in the neighborhood and all. So, I recorded his speech that he made this morning in Mesa. Tonight, we watched a few minutes of it before the kids went to bed. There was lots of cheering in the crowds, of course, and when we turned the tv off, Ivy jumped off the couch yelling, "Yay! Bajawma! Yay Bajawma!!" Which of course meant, "Yay Obama." We were in hysterics laughing at her.

And that concludes the news from the Stewart household.

I think I'm going to put my bajawmas on and go to bed.

Our Dancing Queen

Lizzie and Adam had a great time at the Valentine's Daddy-Daughter Dance last night!

Lizzie was really groovin'.

She was sooooo good at groovin', that she and Adam won the Dancing Contest!! They won some car cleaning supplies.

When she was spinning in her pretty dress, three girls approached her and said, "We love your dress! Will you twirl again?!"

She even makes the faces to go with.

She did not learn her moves from me.

She needs to give me some lessons!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!