Happy Easter

Since I took down my Easter decor yesterday (and when I say "Easter decor" I really mean the darling two bunnies that my mom gave to me during her visit here), I thought it was time for an Easter posting.  I generally try to keep my postings in the same month, but I generally fail at this.

We had the great annual Mano Family Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday.  We got up early, had a few practice runs around the house and when I was satisfied that Ryan could compete with his well-experienced Mano cousins, we put all our eggs in the basket and waited for the event.

True to tradition, we started off with the first hunt for the little ones.  Ryan did respectably well, gathering all his eggs with a little help from his mama.  Too bad for him that his mama doesn't let him have candy yet, but luckly Auntie Linda filled several with our favorite crackers!

I love this picture of Darin and little Samantha.  I love the serious little face of hers juxtaposed to Darin's well, umm, goofy one.  Samantha will bejoining the competition next year!

Next up was the big people egg hunt.  I missed the video of the start when all the teenagers and adults take off at neck-breaking speed in search of the golden eggs.  But I did get plenty of pictures of a cute little boy.

So, although it's a bit (ahem) late, Happy Easter!

mom's 70th birthday bash

My mom turned 70 last month! We were lucky enough to have her in Utah for her big birthday week. We had been planning and scheming for weeks about how to best celebrate 70 years for the woman who means so much to us. How can you possibly show such an amazing woman how much she means to each of us individually and as a family?

We had a small family dinner with the three Utah kids - Janelle's family, Trent's family and mine. It was a fairly informal evening, but we had plans. We weren't sure how we were going to pull it off yet, but we had a big surprise party with both Mano and Inouye sides coming to our house on the weekend.

But on Friday, the day before the big party, we heard from Gary that Racquel's water broke at 32 weeks and they were at the hospital. Long story short, mom decided to fly home right away and so dad said, "ummm, have you talked to Natalie about their plans?"

One thing about me, I am THE worst person to pull off these kinds of things. I can't lie. I start smiling and stuttering. So I had to spill the beans, but only because dad spilled the beans.

But it was a good thing, because mom helped us cook and clean for the party on Saturday. And true to form, I don't know how we would have pulled off the party for 55-ish people without her help.

Trent put together a couple of games with Carolyn trivia questions. My favorite Jeopardy answer was: When mom and Auntie Gerry went snow skiing, they couldn't get on or off this.

Question: What is a tow rope?

My favorite Jeopardy category was "Peta Alert". I'll save those stories for another birthday. But before I end, I can't resist re-posting my all-time favorite picture of my parents.

Happy Belated Birthday, to my lovely, charming and fantastically funny mother. We love you and love you and love you and love you!

ten minutes to midnight

That's what time my watch alarm is set for these days. At ten minutes to midnight, my watch beeps at me telling me to log off my server at work in time for the nightly back up.

Ten minutes to midnight. Who does that?

I do. Several times a year. At tradeshow time. I work on the server until midnight, log off and then work some more until about 2 or 3am. This show has been particularly busy and I'm not quite ready. And I depart for High Point, North Carolina tomorrow night for TEN days. It could be worse though. It could be 11 or 12 days and it probably should have been with all the work we have to do, but ten days is about all I can bear to be away from my boys.

I've been home now for almost a month because of two cancelled trips and it's been wonderful. And once again, I nominate myself for the Mother of the Year Award.

The great thing about my job is I get to work at home so Ryan, Tony and I are together quite a bit. The bad thing about my job is I have a ton of work to do so I don't get to spend as much quality time with Ryan as I would like. So lately, Ryan's been watching a lot of "shows" as he calls them. I never thought I would win any motherhood awards, but one thing on my list was Ryan would not watch TV - except for maybe Baby Einstein during which Ryan would sit on my lap and i would point out the different animals to him. But alas, real life doesn't always work out that way. And lately, Ryan and Yo Gabba Gabba have spent some quality time together.

Yo Gabba Gabba is slowly growing on me. I even find myself singing "I am so happy, happy to be me" in a high cartoonish voice. DJ Lance or whatever his name actually reminds me of my brother Trent. At least his dancing does. Have you seen Trent dance? Well, just watch DJ Lance and there you have it.

So even though I may not win the Mother of the Year award, I'll take my busy days at home with my Yo Gabba Gabba watching baby boy. Who, as you can see, is more of a boy than a baby these days!

So have a lovely ten days...I'm going to try to post a few things while I'm gone, but if I don't, now you know why.

See y'all later!

lovely oceanside

I mentioned before that we spent the first week of March in Oceanside, California for Tony's birthday week. We bought a week at a condo at a charity auction for Southern Cross/Eagle-Condor and with our free flights, it was a great deal!

The condo was a short walk from the beach and we went with a simple agenda. Sleep, exercise on the beach, sleep, go to the San Diego Zoo, sleep, play on the beach, relax, read and more sleep.

And we did just that. It was wonderful.

First, some pictures from the zoo. I guess we tend to spend birthdays at zoos. First Ryan's first birthday and now Tony's. I tend to spend my birthdays either on a plane to NY or at the NY Gift Fair, which is another type of zoo altogether.

The zoo was amazing and we could have spent a couple of days there. Ryan was captivated by all the animals and so were we.

There were some silver back gorillas that were amazing - we couldn't stop watching them. But we were equally captivated by the lions, tigers, bears, elephants and everything else. By the end of the day, he was zonked.

When we first put Ryan down on the sand, he wrapped his legs around Tony's and didn't want to stand on his own. It was quite funny, but it made for a heavy boy. But after a few days, we couldn't keep up with him. I loved watching his cute little bum run along the sand.

With the exception of Ryan discovering his terrible two scream, it was an amazing trip. When I got home, I told my friend Marcia that Ryan was a big challenge on this trip and it would take a lot for Tony to talk me into another vacation anytime soon. She just replied, I love it. She was happy to see, as only a good friend can be, that Ryan wasn't all easy all the time.

But screams or no screams, he's still a pretty fun kid and we wouldn't trade him or our vacations for the world.

Next up...mom's big 70th birthday party.

warning: insomnia induced blog posting

It's 5:26 am, but I've actually been up since 3:32 am. I know that because I woke with a start from a disturbing dream and looked at my clock by my bed.

After tossing and turning for an eternity, I decided to get up and get some of those thoughts that have been whirling in my mind for the past two hours down on paper.

First off, where did March go? March was pretty much a blur as it whizzed by. A quick re-cap with a possibility of further elaboration at a later date:

First week: lovely vacation to Oceanside, CA in a condo a short walk from the beach to celebrate Tony's birthday week (yes, week!).

Second week: Mom came a couple of days after we got home and stayed for her big 70th birthday AND my new little niece (Gary and Racquel's daughter) was born on Friday, March 16th.

Third week: A quick trip to my home away from home, High Point, NC. The HP Market is coming up in April and we are launching a new branding campaign and new catalog for our new company, Mr. Brown.

Fourth week: Back at home, but this time, with a lovely new deck!

Oh and a couple of other honorable mentions: We sent in our adoption application and were approved! A flurry of paperwork has already begun! We started working on another business development and met with several different consultants. And did I mention our new Mr. Brown catalog? We put that together in a record month's time - complete with new logo, concept and Mr. Brown branding.

So that, in a nutshell is my March. No wonder I can't sleep.

our first anniversary

Leap year is a funny thing. It makes today our first anniversary of our first date...February 29, 2008. Six months from today, is our fourth wedding anniversary. That's right, we were married six months to the day from our first date. With that kind of dating/engagement/marriage speed, you would think we fell in love at first site and couldn't bear to be away from each other for even a minute.

But that wasn't actually the case.

We actually met a year before we started dating - a mutual friend had a dozen or so single people over for dinner and we were both there, but we were also both dating other people. We met and had a nice chat. I remember thinking he seemed like a great guy but probably wouldn't be interested in a girl like me. Tony remembers thinking why can't I meet a girl like her (although I never quite got that because he JUST DID!).

Fast forward about a year and we both found ourselves at one of those painful, not-so-speedy, speed dating dinners. It was a deal where we sat boy/girl/boy/girl around a dinner table and the boys had to switch tables after every dinner course.

I had just broken up with an old boyfriend a few DAYS ago and wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to meet someone new. But imagine my surprise when I found Tony sitting next to me at the beginning. He said he saw me and made a bee-line for me. I didn't remember who he was. But after a short minute or so, I remembered his conversion story to the LDS Church (which would make for a fabulous blog posting!).

Anyway he asked for my phone number and we dated on and off (mostly because of my travel schedule). Truth be told, it was a bit of a rocky beginning. At the time, I was an anonymous contributor to a blog for single, Mormon women in the dating world. Someday if I'm brave enough, I'll fess up to that blog address. But for now, I found this posting after we had turned the corner and were really liking each other. Actually, if memory serves me right (which it rarely does these days), we were already engaged (it was so fast, it was a bit of a blur really). Anyway, here's that posting from July 23, 2008.

"that sweet spot"

A new favorite sport of mine is wake surfing. For those not familiar with boating or waterskiing, you basically surf behind a ski boat on the boat’s wake. If you have just the right combination…a big wake, the right board and a bit of magic, you can find that sweet spot on the wake, let go of the rope and literally surf for as long as the magic lasts. When all those elements come together, it’s amazing. It makes me smile and it’s a smile that stays on my face for a very long time. Tony and I spent a lovely week houseboating at Lake Powell in June. He learned to wake board, ski and surf all in one week and most of all, he gained an appreciation for my sport of choice.

Tony was with a houseboat full of my friends and family, he was in my element – not his, and he was learning brand new sports in front of me. And he did great.

He wasn’t even intimidated to be dating someone who was better at a sport than he is (which is behavior that I find somewhat troubling in men). We had a couple of very minor kinks to work out during the week which actually felt very healthy. We can see things differently, discuss them and still like each other.

There’s nothing like going on vacation and being around each other 24 hours a day for a week to really get to know each other. All in all, it was a great trip that I didn’t want to see end.So now we’re both back in town and we’ve found that sweet spot. We’ve found that groove where things fit together, there’s a bit of magic and we can just let go of the rope and ride the wave.


Happy anniversary to my dear husband. Four years later, we're still riding that wave!

Be Mine

During my single years, I attended a multitude of church "firesides" - inspirational meetings with inspiration talks by inspirational people. And that's what they were to me. Inspirational.

One talk that I will always remember is by Suzanne Harwood. She talked about being single versus married and she told all us single adults that the ONLY disadvantage she could see we had from NOT being married is we didn't have someone in our lives to focus on besides ourselves. She said the greatest blessing of having a spouse and/or children is having the constant opportunity to serve them. The gist of the message is there is happiness and fulfillment in serving others.

I've always believed that a life full of serving others is a beautiful life. My parents are amazing examples to me of this. My dad is home in Pleasanton hard at work organizing the next two Special Olympic activities. My mom is home helping my dad and probably the young women and her friends and co-workers and anyone else around her who needs anything.

They are the greatest examples to me of love and service. And my siblings are not far behind them in the good works and service they do for their families and those around them. I could write a post on each of my siblings and the amazing things they are doing in their worlds. And then there are my grandparents. Don't even get me started on my grandparents.

Valentines Day this year has been a good reminder to me of what it means to love others and to be loved. Especially because I am in North Carolina this week and away from Tony and Ryan. If I've learned anything with all my travels, it's that absence does make the heart grow fonder.

A few months ago I had a bit of a dull spot. I was feeling sorry for myself because I didn't have any time for myself. I was either working or taking care of Ryan or cleaning the house. Tony is amazing in how he tries to allow me to have my own time, but I was feeling like I just didn't have any freedom. At least not the way I had freedom in my pre-motherhood and pre-marriage years.

So on this day-after-Valentines Day, I'm grateful to have such wonderful people in my life. People who love me, who are always there for me, who do so much for me. Even when I go through rough patches where I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm grateful I don't have the luxury to be too self-absorbed and too selfish with my time (although I certainly do try!).

When I see the familiar Valentines Day phrase, "Be Mine," I'm reminded of what that really means. To "be mine" isn't about possession; it means you are mine to serve, mine to appreciate, mine to love.

And how grateful I am that Tony and Ryan are all mine.