Camping at Kettletown State Park

One of our best weekends this summer was spent camping at Kettletown State Park. It's located in Southbury which is actually about a half hour away. It is amazing how one minute you can be in a fairly large city and the next you can feel like you are in the middle of no where. There are so many trees here, it just shelters you from the world! This campsite/park was really nice with great showers etc. There was also a nice lake and hiking trails. The staff had also planned lots of great activities that the kids could do. It really was just a nice set up. Just funny. I call it city camping because the campsites were really close together and the ice cream truck came by right about dinner time. The camp staff had activities planned that could keep your children occupied the whole time you were there. It was sad to me to see parents taking there kids camping and then not actually spending time with them. There was this one little boy (about 8 or 9) who kept coming over to our campsite to hang out with all the kids. It was kind of sad, because he was literally hanging out with us all Saturday morning and we never saw his parents. I think he was an only child and was just lonely. He really wanted to hold the baby, all the time. Kind of annoying, but I really did feel bad for him. As for us, we pulled into camp around 6:30 and immediately started putting up the tent. It didn't take long for me to realize that we had left one of the poles back at home. We really weren't that far from home, but didn't want to go back, so we used our ingenuity to jimmyrig our tent so it would stand. We tied it to a tree (Justin's idea) and used a branch to prop it up (my idea). OK so Justin's idea was better than mine.

THere's my oh so sturdy branch. (tiny tim's crutch as Justin called it).

The tent tied to a tree.

The sign in the bathroom asking us not to hang our tent to the tree.

John on our hike.

Super Michelle.

Nathan. This is the picture he took into kindergarten to show all of his classmates about his summer.

Climbing a huge rock on the trail.

Samantha at the lake. Love the goggles.

Joseph and John building sand tunnels.

My birthday. Justin made me a cake with fruity pebbles for frosting. It was GGGGrrreat! This picture is all the kids jumping on me and waking me up from my sunday nap with my freshly baked cake. Happy birthday to me!

A few summer highlights!

Now that school is back in session, I finally have some time to post and blog about all the fun things we did this summer. It will take me a few separate posts, but here is the first batch:

On august 23rd (the day after my birthday) my little brother Danny flew in and spent the 23rd adn 24th with us. My other siblings came as well so we had a little reunion before Danny headed off to Egypt. He had a 30 hr layover, so it was short, but fun. Maia picked him up at JFK on Monday then headed to my house where Matt and Colleen met up with us as well. We spent Monday night chatting and then on Tuesday we walked to Brooksvale park and played with the animals and threw around the football. It was great! I love my family! then we came back for thai food and more chatting. Then Matt and Colleen took Danny back to JFK where he flew away to Egypt. We are missing him, which is weird because it's not like we ever really saw him that much before he left, but it's always a little anxiety producing to have a loved one in a foreign country. I hope we get to visit him before he heads back. I'm thinking summer 2012. The siblings: Maia, Matt, Danny Megan

The whole crew minus Colleen (she took the picture for us.) lt to rt: Maia Greene, Brigham Greene, Matt Stoker, Danny Stoker, Megan Rowberry, Joseph Rowberry, Kate Rowberry, John Rowberry, Justin Rowberry, Nathan Rowberry, Samantha Rowberry, Michelle Rowberry.

The next set of pictures is from our trip to Rhode Island. One of Justin's co-workers owns a beach house in Rhode Island. We were invited to enjoy it (along with all of his other co workers.) Of course no one else has kids, but fortunately pediatricians (especially developmentalists) are very kind and tolerant of little ones. We had a BBQ at the beach house, and then went to the beach. The beach was gorgeous. The waves were much bigger than the Connecticut waves. We also learned to catch these cool little crabs. I think they are horseshoe crabs as they don't really look like the typical kind you think of. After the beach we went back to the house, cleaned up and went out to eat at a popular sea food restuarant. The boys shared a lobster because they really wanted to try it and it was a pretty good price. yum!

Our bucket of crabs. It was amazing how many there were. All you had to do was start digging and you would find tons. They just feel like little rocks and try to run away as fast as they can. It was fun to catch them.

Joey, John, Nathan and Justin catching crabs.

Michelle. See sometimes she lets me put her hair in pony tails, just not that often.

Hiking sleeping Giant with the cub scouts. (I'm the leader over the bears and wolves). It was fun!

Kate's blessing

Kate was blessed last Sunday Sept. 5th. It was really sweet. Justin's parents came up from Washington DC and so did his sister Janae and her husband and kids. Matt and Colleen came from my side. It was really sweet. I love it when we have a chance to get together with family. I made the dress she is wearing. It's hard to see the details, but the bodice is smocked. This was my first smocking project. It was really fun to learn, but took a long time. I really didn't anticipate it taking quite so long, so of course I was scrambling to finish it on Saturday night. Justin's mom actually hemmed it and did the facing while I made dinner on Saturday. She's great!

The weekend went really well. We've never really lived close to Janae and Tyson, so it was fun to spend some time with them and their little family. On Monday we went and toured Yale and went to the park, then grabbed some Thai food and played games at night.
Tuesday was a little dramatic. We went to Brooksvale park to see the animals, but got home a little late. As I was speeding to get Tyson and Janae to the train station to make their train, the power steering went out in the car. Then a few minutes later the temperature light came on. I kept driving because we were kind of close to the station and I didn't really know what else to do. Then the battery light came on. Then the car just started beeping constantly. I dropped Janae and Tyson off and the car completely died. The battery was dead. I was in the drop off lane blocking cars behind me. Luckily a taxi driver pushed me to the side of the road. I was still parked in front of the bus stop, but didn't really have any other options. I called Justin from work and he came and rescued me. We had to get the car towed to a car shop and got it fixed. It was a broken serpentine belt. The annoying thing is that we just spent a significant amount of money on it last week to fix a big oil leak that we had. Apparently this wasn't related (at least that's what they tell us). Hopefully the car will run for a while longer. We started looking at replacement vehicles, and let's just say it's not cheap to buy a car that seats 8. I would like to go a little bigger too, but don't really want to have the really big van, not a lot of options. Hopefully we'll just make it a while longer so we can save up some more money.
Here are some pictures of Kate in her blessing dress. Of course I couldn't find my camera on Sunday, so these pictures were taken a few days later, but you get the picture.

I normally really dislike collars, but it works on this dress. I love Kate's hair! She's actually wearing one of my barrette's, but has the hair to keep it in. So fun!

Spring Break

Ok, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our spring break. What can I say, between moving, having a baby and having our computer break down several times, blogging kind of got put on the side burner. My good friend Kelly Landin and her boys came to visit us for spring break. It was a lot of fun. We went to the sand dunes one of the days she was there. It's one of my favorite places in Idaho. Even though it was a little chilly, the boys were still fascinated by the water and kept trying to figure out a way to use the sled as a boat. Luckily no one fell in..

Kelly, Soli, Dominic, Tyler, Samantha, Joey, John, Nathan, Adam, Michelle and Megan.

silly face picture

Building a tunnel in the sand.

Samantha and Dominic getting ready to slide down the hill. Justin and Michelle at the top of the hill.

Sweet Michelle!

Cross country trip to Connecticut

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our cross country moving trip in June. We took a little over a week to get here. It was a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Rowberry each taking some time to travel with us to some hot points along the way. To begin with, we spent a few days in Idaho Falls with Grandma Dalling and Kelly and her boys. It was great to see them, and of course enjoy some yummy ice cream from reeds dairy. Then we drove to
Mount Rushmore. It is truly amazing! unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the first part of our journey because our camera got sand in it on memorial day weekend and it still wasn't working correcrtly. It happened before, but after a few weeks started working again, so I was hoping it would be back to normal soon. Unfortunatley, that never happened. The night before we went to Nauvoo Justin broke down and bought us a new camera. So most of the pictures are from Nauvoo. After Mount Rushmore, we headed for Nauvoo. We got there on Friday night. It was a really neat learning experience. Between the two of us, justin and I actually have a lot of ancestors who lived there at one time or another. It was neat to visit some of there homes and read about them. Gilbert Belnap was one of those ancestors. There is a quote from his journal along the road the pioneers traveled while exiting Nauvoo. Since returning home, I found some papers my dad had put together and sent me years earlier depicting his live. It was really facinating to read a little more about his life. Times sure have changed is all I can say. Joseph and John standing by the Gilbert Belnap sign. He was a son in law to Vincent Knight, and was also with the prophet in Carthage before the martyrdom. He and a few others were sent back to Nauvoo just before the shootings. It said in the pamphlet I read about his life that every year on the anniverary of Joseph Smith's death at the exact hour he had been killed, gilbert would take an hour of silence out of respect for the prophet.

Joeseph, Nathan, Michelle, John and Samantha at the gravesite of the prophet Joseph Smith and Hyrum.

A bullet hole in the door to the prophet's room at Carthage.

John Stoker Rowberry pointing to the name of John Rowberry Sr. who was buried at the Nauvoo cemetary. It was neat to hear about him.

John and Joseph by the Gilbert Belnap sign. Sorry, didn't mean to get that in here twice and can't figure out how to delete it.

Gravesites of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. Lt to rt. Samantha, Joseph, Michelle, John and Nathan.

Children's band and parade in Nauvoo at the "Sunset on the River" show at night. After this show, the BYU young ambasadors performed. They were amazing! I was grouchy and tired and almost didn't go to the last show, but am so glad Justin took the kids for a few minutes so I could recharge. It was definately worth seeing. The best part though, was watching Samantha dance on the sidelines. She was in heaven. At the end we realized that one of the girls was my really good friend Valecia's sister. It was fun to talk to her for a few minutes after the show. It's such a small world.

Justin took the kids for a few hours to the pioneer village while Dad Rowberry and I searched for ancestors at the land and records office.

The kids waiting for the show "Just Plain anna Amanda to start" It was perfect for them. I still hear Michelle sing the theme song to it every once in awhile. It definately made an impression on her.

Samantha at the pioneer village.

Kathryn Marie Rowberry

Here are some lovely pictures of our new baby Kate! Michelle and "Beanbag". The nickname Michelle has given her sister since she was in utero.

Her eyes are actually open! She sleeps a ton! (Which we appreciate!)

The whole family Lt to right: Joey, Justin, Kate, Megan, John, Samantha, Michelle, Nathan.

Kathryn Marie Rowberry was born at 5:16 am at St. Raphael's hospital in New Haven. She was 8 lbs. 9 oz. 21 inches. She has lots of dark brown hair and so far sleeps a lot. Thank goodness! The kids all still fight over who gets to hold her. Labor started at 3:53 am, so it was a pretty quick labor again. In fact, the doctor went into the other room to grab my records, and when he came back, the baby was already born. Luckily she came when my sister was still staying with me, so she was able to watch the kids. I was really nervous about getting child care before we had to leave for the hospital, since we are so new to the area. Maia was so great about staying to help us out until my parents got here.

We Love Connecticut

So far Connecticut has been very good to us. Our house is old, but spacious. There are lots of projects I want to do on it, but am restraining myself since I need to still get the babies room situated.

Our ward is super friendly. It's been really nice to jump right into friendships. We're still working on finding friends for everyone, but i feel really accepted and loved here. The boys have made a few friends. Still working on the younger crew, but I know that will come with time. I went to see the movie Eclipse with my new friend last week. It was fun!

It's so fun to be close to family! Matt lives about 2 hours away, and Maia is 3 hours. They both came up last weekend for the 4th of July. It was really fun to see them. Maia will be coming to stay with me next week while Kendall goes to Brazil for business. I'm excited to spend some time with her. I think Colleen will come down and spend Thursday with us too.

It's also been great to move back to some of our old friends. The Greens (our friends from medical school) live in Pelham NY which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. Valecia and I took the kids swimming at a great pool in Westchester last Friday. Then She volunteered to take the kids for a sleepover so justin and I could have one last night before the baby comes. She is amazing! I love good friends! Justin and I jumped on the chance and took the train into
Manhattan. We wanted to see a broadway show, but were too late to catch the good discounts and too cheap to spend much on plays we didn't know much about. Instead, we went out to dinner and a movie, a comedy show we had to walk out of and people watched on 42nd street. It was fun. Then we spent the night at the Soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmens club in the VIP room. Saturday morning we woke up just in time to make it to the 10:15 temple session. Interestingly enough, we saw Glenn Beck at the temple. I almost went up and spoke to him and begged him for his autograph for my friend Kelly who loves him, but decided that might be inappropriate at the temple. It was a really good experience though, and reminded me of the importance of going to the temple and doing what's right. It was kind of funny, because all Friday night we kept missing everything we wanted to do because we were just a little late, and it was hot and crowded and noisy. Walking around (which I usually love to do in Manhattan) was kind of painful and annoying being so pregnant and though we had a great time, I kept wondering if it was really worth all the money we were paying for the hotel and other activities. Then we woke up kind of late on Saturday and I thought for sure we were going to miss the 10:00 temple session, which we would of if the session was really at 10, however, the session was at 10:15 and we made it just on time to get dressed and hop into the chappel. We also happened to see Glenn Beck and just the whole atmosphere of the temple was amazing. I kept feeling so blessed to be able to be there. Maybe it was just the stark contrast of the tawdry 42nd street night and the peaceful, clean beauty of the temple and the atmosphere around that area. I really started crying, I felt so blessed to be there. Justin also ran into our old stake president, and everyone was so kind to me because I was pregnant. It was wonderful! After the temple we went to a nearby cafe for lunch and ate outside. It was beautiful. It really reminded me of the importance of temple attendance and the blessings we get there. Then we headed back up to Pelham to pick up the kids and go home. It was a wonderful weekend. I'm so thankful for Valecia who was willing to take care of the kids. They had a great time too playing with her kids and getting "all sugared up". (yes Valecia they told on you! You are the best!)