January in Iowa

Overheard in Iowa:

On the car ride home from seeing the movie National Treasure in the theatre:
Zak: Is there really a golden city?
Parent: Not that anyone has found?
Zak: We should go look for it. But we should probably leave Owen with a babysitter. He is too little.

We survived January 2008. The schedule became very busy and the weather almost unbearable at times (at -20 during the day for a few days), but we made it through. We enjoyed a couple games at our local bowling alley where Owen (using rails and a ramp) beat Jared (several high speed gutter balls) in our second game. We also went to our first in a long time movie in a theatre with the boys. Zak loved it. Owen sat on my lap for the first third of the movie. The next third he walked around in the end of our row and out to the aisle. The last third he enjoyed watching Chicken Run on his ipod in his own chair. Jared and Hillary made a day trip with some friends to the Winter Quarters Temple. It was fun to spend some time with our friends and see our new little Temple. The boys had fun playing with their friends and a med school couple who needed a dose of birth control by watching 6 kids for a day. Hillary received her yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do and now she matches Zak in belt rank as the two prepare together to test for their orange belts next month. Zak lost his first two teeth on the last Sunday night of January. They have been loose for several months. His parents have been trying to get him to wiggle them out, because with the new adult teeth growing in behind he was starting to look like a shark. Surprisingly, Zak had no real interest in wiggling or losing the teeth despite all of our teasing to tie the teeth to the bumper of the car. Sunday night as he brushed his teeth the loose ones started to bleed a bit so Hillary-remembering how her uncles had flicked her teeth out fairly painlessly onto the diary barn floor- easily yanked Zak’s teeth out. He exclaimed, “That didn’t hurt hardly at all!” He was really excited. He was even more excited the next morning to find two gold dollar coins under his pillow. Now we are working on the next two teeth.

Hillary took the boys ice skating one afternoon. The rink has construction cones that the little kids can hold on to to help them skate. A great idea! Zak got himself a cone and started racing around the rink with his friend. Owen wanted nothing to do with the cones. Mom was a more sure thing. He loved skating while holding mom's hands and Mom skating while holding him. Hillary literally had to drag him kicking and screaming from the ice. I think we may have a hockey player on our hands. Zak announced while turning in his skates that he is ready (skill-wise) for a hockey team.

Have a fabulous day!

Jared, Hillary, Zachary & Owen