Celebrate!

We took pictures by the statues of good ol' Malone and Stockton.  We tried to pose like them, although I think I look like I want to throw it down instead of the mailman's lay-up pose.  More dramatic is always better in my opinion.

For our six-month anniversary this week, I decided we were going to do something fun.  Since Landon has never gone to an NBA game, I thought that we should break him in.  Last night we went to the Jazz vs. Celtics game.  I think I was more excited than he was.  We decided we had to root for opposing teams for fun, so I went for the Celtics and he rooted for the Jazz.  He ended up having to buy me dessert, ha.  But it was a good game--down to two points in the last minutes.  My man Ray Allen came through with some clutch 3's.  We were pretty much in the nose-bleed section, but it was still a fun night...aside from getting pulled over.  We were going to be late and I wanted to see them announce the players, so I was speeding pretty bad.  I was on track to make it in time, but I was caught in the act.  Luckily, it was a fun and nice cop, and she let me go with a warning because I don't have any previous tickets.  So I can't really complain.  Sad to say, we missed the tip-off.

Practicing Compromise in Marriage

Landon's favorite thing to eat in the whole world is fruit.  I guess that is understandable coming from a fruit farmer.  Plus, it's about the only food group where he doesn't seem to be allergic to anything.  Favorite ice cream is vanilla with fruit on it.  For dinner he would rather peaches and cottage cheese than almost anything else.  The whole Rowley clan has amazing abilities in fruit consumption, really.  I'm pretty sure Makenna can eat a whole watermelon in one sitting.  My favorite indulgence is chocolate.  I blame my sisters.  I go to Tami's house and we make chocolate chip cookies every day because they are obviously better warm, so you might as well make a quick small batch each day than one big one and have old leftovers.  Not that we don't make enough for leftovers...  We get in conversations where she argues that white chocolate is not chocolate at all, just candy.  It doesn't have any cacao--which is essential to any chocolate worth eating.  I tend to agree.  Angie feeds me fudge covered oreos.  She's always coming up with healthy creations like that.  There's no way I was going to turn out anything but chocoholic.
So, what could be better than chocolate dipped strawberries?!  Pretty much nothing.  It's one of those simple pleasures in life.  Landon and I had some fun yesterday with the chocolate fondue dipping set we got from our wedding.  Rather than looking at it as an activity I do because I most enjoy things that involve eating, I think of it as a practice at compromise in our marriage.

Might Need To Find a Different Hobby

Landon's parents recently got to go on a trip to Aruba.  Although I was pretty jealous, it helped when they brought us back souvenirs, including a cool set of dominoes.  Everyone in my family seems to collect something interesting from other countries.  For some it's chess sets, for others it's nativities, and for us it seems to be cool dominoes sets.  We have one from Landon's trip to Mexico and another now from Aruba.  I suppose it's a liberal use of the word "collecting" when we only have two, but after all the world traveling we are planning, it is sure to become a good collection.  After about 6 games of me losing, Landon tells me, "I'm really glad you are not a gambler."  I kept telling him it was because he always went first, but I finally got to go first in the last game, and I still lost.  I just can't end on a losing game...but I can't seem to win either.  It's true--I should never get started on gambling.

Discount Weekend!

Fortunately for us, this weekend was full of some fun events for low prices!  Our ward had a ski night where they subsidized some of the cost.  I think this is the first time in my life that I have gone skiing twice in one year!  (No wonder my skill level is not so high, eh).  I even hit some jumps and went down a black diamond for the first time on skis instead of a snowboard.  Woot Woot.  I only wrecked twice, and Landon was there to get my poles that went flying.  We decided to go exploring in some of the darker wooded areas too, which was pretty exciting.  Then we got free pizza afterwards.  We are all about the free food. It was really fun...and cold.

Us hanging out the sunroof of the limo

 Last night was BYUSA's Y-ball.  Landon and I got all dressed up in some formals and went for a catered dinner and dance.  Luckily a nice girl in our ward let me borrow a dress.  All of Landon's married cousins were there, so it was a fun time. We will post the pictures taken by the photographer of our group as soon as they get them online.  We got to boogie down with some swing, cha-cha, and even a polka.  So fun! Although, I will never understand how girls wear strapless dresses and don't have issues, because mine was sliding around all over while dancing--good thing I had an undershirt. 

Landon loves dips while dancing.

 Anyway, we even got to ride in a stretched limo for Landon's first time.  It was actually one of those stretched SUV limos, which was awesome.  Since we were the ones sitting underneath the sunroof, we got to stand with our heads out the top for fun :)  We realized this was the only dance we have been to together outside of our wedding.  Crazy.  It was a great night, and thanks to BYUSA it was all for free!

Just for fun, I'm throwing in a picture of our last FHE.  We had our neighbors over, and for the activity did an egg drop.  Our contraption worked amazingly well, and even after two drops and chucking it off the top level of the complexx, it was not even cracked.  We definitely won :)

I'm Not Sure How Much I Can Believe The Groundhog...

It's groundhog day!  They say the groundhog is right only 39% of the time.  I'm not so sure I believe him this year, because we just went ice skating outdoors, and it's pretty much as cold as it has ever been here in Provo.  But anyways, Landon and I were able to go to the Gallivan Center ice skating outside in Salt Lake last weekend.  We both thought it must be a romantic and fun experience because it's on all of the romantic comedy movies, right?  Ha.  We worked on our twirls and played some tag, before beginning to enjoy the couples all around us.  I find it hilarious to watch couples on one of their first few dates, where they haven't broken the touch barrier yet.  We figured ice skating was a great time to breach the gap, because you can act like it's an accident.  So, we spent some time "accidentally" bumping people into each other to help the guys out, ha.  Guess whose idea that was.

sorry, our camera broke so we only had the phone

Landon's amazing ice skating move...so graceful

 We have also been doing some interior decorating to finish the apartment.  We were pretty excited that some of our experiments worked out.  Here's a picture of something we put on the wall that turned out pretty nice.

Ahem...Attention Please

I would like to announce that I am officially domestic.  I spend my weeknights scrapbooking and crocheting while Landon studies, ha.  But the crochet skill is new.  My good mother taught me to sew while I was growing up--though my talents still leave something to be desired.  But I have always looked in envy as my older sisters could knit and crochet cute things for babies and I never acquired that skill.  We keep saying we should get together and teach each other, because I used to be the only one who really sewed and used a surger, and they could work the needles.  Together we could make a whole Grandma :) But over the last couple of holidays, both Tami and Angie took some time to show me the basics.  Bless their hearts.  I still didn't really know what I was doing until I tried making something.  So, when I saw Janet and Heidi making headbands at the cabin, I was determined to learn.  They tolerated my numerous questions and slowly I am getting the hang of it.  My first finished product was not amazing, but I started another one now that I know what I did wrong :)  So yes, that's my announcement.  I can kind of crochet.  Someday maybe I will try the whole knitting thing, but right now one needle is complex enough.

There's a Lesson to Everything

Landon is convinced that every event in life has a gospel lesson in it.  So, during last weekend's snowshoeing experience, we were coming up with all kinds of good parallels to the gospel.  Maybe I will use it in one of my sunday lessons, :) . We decided to try out our new Christmas present--nice new snowshoes.  We were going to go to Stewart Falls.  But, when we got up to Aspen Grove, finding the trail proved more difficult than planned.  You can't see any trails in snow!  So we decided to just follow someone else's tracks, and what do ya know, they were going to Stewart Falls too.  They didn't stay on the trail very well though, we later came to find as we trekked up steep mountain sides and through trees to follow their trail.  We then came to where their trail ended, and we could either follow a cat-track, which seemed a little easier, or trudge through new snow where we thought there might be the real trail (with marks on the trees).  We ended up taking the more convenient cat-track because it seemed to go in the right direction toward the top of the falls.  After about 3 miles, the waterfall was just over the next ridge, but we were stopped by a man who said the cat-track we were on was a private road.  They sent us back without having seen the waterfall.  What a bummer, eh. Had we continued on the other trail I think we would have gotten there, but by that time it would have been too dark, so we just turned back.  On the way back we had some races in the snowshoes, sang some crazy songs, and made snow angels looking like skiers, ha.  As we got closer to the cabins, we did some trail blazing, which was pretty fun.  It was a great free Saturday date, and a good workout.
  So, we learned that just like in the gospel, it doesn't always pay to take the trail that is more convenient or more fun.  You should stay to the trail that has been marked for you and you will get to where you want to go in the end.

Somewhere between Aspen Grove and Sundance.