It's Almost February...

Glen, Beth and the kids had such a wonderful time in Utah and Colorado visiting family.  We saw so many people and it was such a whirlwind of adventure!  Our highlights were:

• Seeing Beth's sister, who is expecting.  We love her cute little baby bump!
• Having a snowball fight at BYU with Glen's brother and sister-in-law.  The snow fell fast and was very thick on the ground...
• Visiting Beth's sweet aunt and cousins
• Driving in lots of blizzards...it's a good character-building exercise  ;)
• Sledding in Rocky Mountain National Park with Uncle Chris.
• Hanging out with Uncle David and Sheri
• Celebrating Christmas Eve with Grandma Betty
• Seeing our Grammy, who is almost 100 years old!
• Visiting Great Grandma and Grandpa Woods in their cozy house while a storm raged all around us
• Seeing Glen's parents in a beautiful part up of Colorado...almost way up in the clouds

Our time in Colorado went so well that we have decided that is the place for us to settle.  :)  Beth grew up there and Glen is impressed with the scenery and the entire "Colorful Colorado" scene each time we travel there.  Our goals to get there:

Glen will work really hard here and finish school.  It should take a year and half.  If we still need it, he'll start looking for jobs in Colorado in Fall 2011.

We also have a bit of house remodeling to do so we can sell our house.  We are blessed that we bought our house for a very low price and should come out a little ahead when it's time to go.

Beth is working on her business.  She has come up with some great plans and has hired a nanny to watch Esther part time while she researches, creates and builds in the office.  During Christmas break and shortly after, Beth did a lot of research for ad campaigns to start up, found some awesome places to outsource some of her work to, and narrowed down her focus to one niche.   

We are both very excited about this and it will help us get out of the "Rat Race" once and for all.  Good things are ahead of us.  :)  We have been prompted to do this for a long time and feel very good about building an Online/Offline business.  It's not network marketing or blogging, although one can always use these ways to earn residual income, as well.

Off to work now...be good and do well!  :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

2010 has been exciting for us and full of a lot of changes.  We have been blessed immensely.

Esther is 2 (almost 3) and in nursery at church.  She absolutely loves her nursery teachers!  She loves to look at books, sing, dance and she is quite a dare-devil.  She climbs on things at the playground that make Elizabeth's knees shake.  Esther has a best friend named Lydia that she adores and has become good friends with two girls next door.  Esther has mastered animal noises.

Joseph turned 6 this year and started Kindergarten at a Montessori charter school.  It has been good for him and he has made lots of friends there.  Joseph loves to read, build things out of anything (Legos, blocks, car parts, recycled stuff), draw plans of things to invent and sell to people, and run.  He recently got a suit to match Glen's and loves to wear it to church.  He wants to grow up to be just like his dad.  :)

Athena turned 18 this year and she is engaged at school with choir and other great things.  When she is not busy with school performances, she is busy getting good grades and having fun with friends.  She also plays the organ at church. 

Elizabeth has been busy with the house; especially with painting and organizing things.  We recently made our casita available for missionaries in our stake to use and the things from the casita that ended up in the house must go.  ;)  Elizabeth has fun exercising at the YMCA.  She also has very strong entrepreneur-tendencies and is working on projects from home to make extra money for the family.  **Here's where Elizabeth's life gets really interesting:  Because she has dysphagia (trouble swallowing her food), her doctor tested her for several things and one of the things she tested positive for is a gluten intolerance.   Now Elizabeth is learning how to cook gluten-free food.  And it's pretty fun, unless she really wants a nice slice of baguette with a bit of Brie.  Sometimes, there is just no substitute for the real thing, haha... Another side benefit of dysphagia is getting an endoscopy, which will take place at the beginning of 2011.  A specialist will stick a long tube with a camera down her throat and take a peek at her esophagus and stomach.  Eek.  

Glen, the very smart and hard-working head of our household, went back to school and is earning a Master of Ed degree at Arizona State University.  He has completed his first semester and is learning LOTS.  He likes to ride his bike to school when he can and is having a bit of extra fun with learning how to teach secondary school kids (middle school and high school).  He is a Priesthood teacher at church, as well as a ward missionary.

We send you and your families lots of love and prayers for the best blessings the Lord can give you.

With Love,
The Stowers Family

We Blew It Up and Then...We Ate It!

Okay, so I remember the last time I blogged on our family blog, that I promised to do a blog post devoted entirely to Glen.  I have to forego that for now, but will do it next time.  He's been up to some amazing things.  Stay tuned...

Now, onto our firstborn son, who just turned 6 and is loving it...

We had a blast celebrating his birthday as a family and then a few weeks later with his friends.  We had a science-themed birthday party and our birthday activities were centered around doing short, easy science experiments.

To kick things off, I cut out bow ties (with scrapbooking paper) in advance and had the kids decorate their own "mad scientist" bow ties.  After each child (and parent, haha) was done, I glued a clip onto each one with my trusty glue gun.  The drying time was quick and each of wore bow ties for the rest of the party.  Then, we had 5 science experiments, present opening, cake and ice cream and the finale science experiment.

We decorated our dining room and front room with green and orange colors and hung pictures of various famous scientists on our wall.

We also had an erupting volcano cake.  I got the instructions for that at http://beyondwonderful.com/recipes/desserts/cakes/volacano_erupting.html .  I modified it a bit to my liking.  ;)

I don't normally buy dry ice (which the recipe calls for) and found it at the grocery store for about $1 per pound.  The smallest size I bought was 5 pounds.  Never, ever touch it with your bare hands!  It's extremely cold stuff.  We kept it up and out of the way of curious and inquiring children.

Enjoy the pictures and video of Joseph and his party!

A view of the Rocket Balloons Experiment...

More Rocket-Ballooning!

The egg went from here...

To here.

  And now, the volcano cake eruption!









Happy Birthday Joseph! We love you! xoxo