Welcome to harmony's Roundeo.

I guess I'll accompany the album with a quick blog.

We made our way back to Utah, eating at In-n-out on the way of course, and the trip went well, though we were all pretty sick of traveling!

Then I think the next day was my  cousin Ariel's wedding. her and Sean got married in the Bountiful temple on Tuesday January 5th. the temple ceremony was beautiful, always a good reminder of what's most important and to cherish the one you've got! She looked amazing of course! Then we went to Ikea to grab a gift, with Jason & Kathryn and Grama and Grampa Grotegut. That was fun. Jason even treated us to Ikea breakfast, which was kind of funny because it was followed shortly after by the luncheon. They had a delicious luncheon and it was fun to hang out with all the family, and get a glimpse into the future, as another Roundy was there amongst the Groteguts, Spencer's brother Darrell, soon to wed Ariel's sister Marissa. confused? perhaps, but it's pretty cool and we're excited about it.  Grama Roundy watched the kids that morning and then we returned and jason and Kathryn came over and played some games with us. We ate dinner and then we all went to the reception at the Provo Library.

The next day I think we went to play at the Cowan's home, or maybe that was actually the day before, yes, I think it was Monday. We had such a nice time being with our good friends again!

Then Grama and Grampa Grotegut said we could use their timeshare at Snowbird so we did! It was so nice to have a little getaway just us. I forgot our snow clothes, but we managed to play in the snow anyway and it wasn't too bad. The kids loved playing in the hot tub on the balcony and eating icicles that I broke off from the eave. Then we took Spencer to the airport to fly BACK to California to check in at his office and for some event or meeting they were having. And we headed down to play with the Cowans again. This time at Arctic circle indoor playground.

I think Friday is when I got my hair done and then hung out with Marissa and did some shopping. My haircolor turned out fabulous! Love it!! But I made the mistake of trusting the stylist to trim it up and "clean it up" and apparently to her that meant chop it off. I of course didn't say anything and even gave her 20 bucks for it. so dumb. I started off trying to tell myself it was okay, and it was cute and it's not a big deal, etc. but then got progressively more irritated because I've been trying to grow it for so long and she didn't do at all what I said or she said she was going to do! frustrating. It was fun to hang out with Marissa who has always been my cousin but will soon be my sister in law! 

Saturday we went to the dinosour museum at Thanksgiving point with Grandma and Grandpa Roundy. That was really fun, what a cool place! Then they kept our kids while we ran off to meet Brent and Jennie (Cowan) at the theater for Avatar. What fun! We realized we had never gone on a double date the whole 2 1/2 years we lived here in Geneva together. too expensive! We had such a great time. We went to Cafe Rio afterwards and it's just as good as ever.

Sunday was Micah Grotegut's (Marissa and Ariel's brother) homecoming. So once again we found ourselves surrounded by extended family and Groteguts and that's always fun. The meal by Jan was delicious. And that brother of Spencer's was there again of course. Funny that he has the same relation to my extended family now as Spencer does, and that he'll be calling my granparents grandparents, and my parents uncle and aunt, etc. etc.

Monday or Tuesday I took Darrell and Marissa's engagement pictures. They are too cute together and fun! and it got me even more excited about the whole deal. Then we spent the last few days on errands, and having friends visit and being with the family. VeeAnn and her kids came over, Amber and her kids came over, and Jourdan&Rod and their kids came over! We even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Great Groteguts the afternoon before we left, amidst errands and packing. oh packing! It was even more difficult than usual with all the Christmas gifts but we really did pretty well getting most of it in and managed to get to the airport on time and everything!

Of course in all of this there were lots of stories read by Grandma and playing with toys and costumes, and eating and visiting and watching things and playing things, and Lauren and Jennifer came over quite a few times and their kids Addy and Coleman. Our kids played marvelously together and had such a good time. They just love each other!

It was really a busy time and Virginia remarked that we don't really relax on vacation! But we sure do have fun! Thanks for the great stay and for everyone who made time for us!

I'm gonna make this quick and hope that the pictures tell most of the story. We had a great Christmas! It was worth the long flight. The flight went pretty well I think, though it was a bit stressful getting on it. We thought we barely made it, but then actually ended up sitting in the plane for awhile while they de-iced it. And we were also mistakenly charged 300 francs for extra baggage.

We were picked up at the airport by brother-in-law Darrell, and his girlfriend, MY cousin Marissa Grotegut (Mom's older brother, Tim's daughter). They are very cute together (find their roundeo page to the right under Grotegut, or click here.) WE loved playing with Adalyne and Coleman (Lauren, Spencer's brother, and Jennifer's kids). Paisley said several times how she just Loves Addy. We had a relaxing couple of days, very needed, at Grandma and Grandpa Roundy's house, and then headed down to California on Tuesday, stopping at Grandpa Roundy's parents' home in St. George and staying the night with Aunt Maren (mom's sister) and Uncle Kevin.

By the time we got to Cali we were already quite sick of traveling! Then we had to get all of our Christmas shopping and wrapping done, which now that I think about it, is pretty impressive in 2days. We also went to the mall and saw Santa. Geneve said, "ho ho ho!" but wasn't interested in getting too close of course.

Christmas eve day was spent in preparation, including Paisley helping with Mom's famous Christmas braided breads. Which turned out as yummy as ever. We had a simple Mary and Joseph dinner where we ate foods they might have eaten, and we sang some songs and read the Christmas story. We let the kids open a present with pajamas and a book. Then the parents stayed up all night being Santa....oh wait, not this time. It was really quite simple so when I saw that spencer had konked out putting Geneve to sleep, I just put the gifts out and joined him before too long. 

Morning of, kids woke early of course, but had to wait because we thought Brian and Doreen might get there in time, and for grandparents and everyone else to be ready. They watched TV to bide the time. Then they paraded in and we were happy they were all excited about their gifts. Then to the pile of presents under the tree which took us a few hours. Then we ate our yummy breakfast and enjoyed a relaxing day filled with new toys and family. Miriam's family came over too (from Mexico) and we enjoyed their company and their tamales (which I think is what we ate for dinner?).

Geneve was cute opening presents. She got very excited about every present whether hers or not, liked unwrapping, and was especially beside herself with excitement about the new baby doll she got from Grami. She was in rapture!

Other stuff we did in California, we went to the hotel pool of Miriam's family, with Josh and Miriam and Miriam's mom and brothers (outdoor pool, love California!), had some friends over, went to the zoo, and relaxed. We met the mother of Jeff's child, Lauren, which was nice (she was very pregnant at the time). No Disneyland this year, and no beach. We kept it simple and close to home. And we had a really great visit. We really enjoyed each other and being with the family. The kids all enjoy their uncles and Aunts and Grandparents and the other way around!

Oh, we also saw a couple of movies in the states and recently. We saw The Princess and the Frog while in California and loved it! I have been saying for many years that Disney needs to go back to traditional animation and retelling classic stories, that they were overdue for a princess fairy tale, and that it's about time they have a black hero or heroine or story. And Voila! My wish fulfilled. We also saw (whether in the states or here) Avatar, Holmes, and 500 days of Summer. I liked all of these movies quite a lot for different reasons. And I recommend them.

Much more to come, stay tuned! ....Love, Harmony

So, it seems life is always BUSY! I suppose I must like it this way, as much of it is self-inflicted! Anyway, just some things I wanted to blog but haven't. In the month of November we had the opportunity to be in our ward Talent Show (see videos http://roundeo.com/harmony/microblogs/view/4b79170b-50d0-48c0-badc-136ed861e4a8, http://roundeo.com/harmony/microblogs/view/4b7a5aa7-acc8-41ff-a959-4743d861e4a8 ). It was really fun! There was a lot of participation, and I think we have a great ward!

Of course December brought packing and moving, but we also got to meet with Cado's teacher for parent/teacher meeting and go to Cado's "spectacle de Noel" where they sang their songs and also had a "marche" where they sold Christmas decorations and cookies that they made. There were really cute things! We bought a couple. And the songs they sang were also really good. In fact one day Cado showed me one (before the spectacle) and he said "Jesus" in it, and I was like, what? is that from church and he said No it was from school! It made me so happy that they would sing songs about Jesus at their school, and sad that I was so surprised and that I'm pretty sure such a thing won't be happening in California when we return.

Meeting with Cado's teacher was also a great experience and I am so impressed with her and the school. I don't know if there is a per school curriculum here or per city or per canton? or what, so I guess I can't make a generalisation like, "geneva schools are" or "swiss schools are" but I will say that Cado's school is excellent in keeping in touch with parents, in having a lot of order and structure, in evauluating and helping students be their best, in teaching them all subjects and expecting them to do well, in valuing arts, dance, music just as much as reading and math. I have been very pleased.

Here are some things we talked about. She said Cado is great with all the other kids and that he is meeting or exceeding all educational goals. They evaluate their counting, or reading, etc with games or with activities. She shows us these in binders. There is a binder for evaluations, for projects and for all their worksheets. The only thing she said Cado needed to work on was....surprise: Attention! staying focused. We said, yeah, tell us about it! So we had a good talk about it. And she spent a lot of time with us. She said you'll see when you look at his worksheets that he's not completing them. Indeed! When I looked at them, many were half-finished or half-heartedly done, and some not at all, but when you turned them over there were magnificent and elaborate drawings on the other side!

I told her that Cado has some concerns about how he's treated by the other children. For awhile he was complaining a lot about another boy, Loic, and all the mean things he would do or say to Cado. When we talked to her about it, she said she didn't see that there was really a problem but it probably had to do with Cado being very sensitive and wanting to be liked and to please. he would also tell us that kids at school are always asking for things and threatening not to be someone's friend if they don't give it to them, or critiquing his work/drawings. Cado of course always gives them what they want because he wants them to be his friend. Her observations about Cado's personality are that he is "very sensitive. He loves to serve others and is very kind and thoughtful of them. He has a hard time focusing and it seems sometimes there is too much energy to contain. He sometimes ignores direction from adults. He is good at expressing himself, and is very capable of all the work and is not lacking in comprehension in any way." I think that about sums it up. And we were like, Yep! that's Cado! She especially noted how sensitive and giving he is. It's funny. He's a person of extremes. On one hand that is very true, he's thoughtful, he loves to give and make others happy and do what's right....and sometimes he's a little pill and a pesterer and pushes others buttons, or seems greedy and materialistic and selfish! He is definitely impulsive and doesn't think before he acts (hmmm...does that sound like me or what!) He'll do things that are the complete opposite of other things he does and then he himself is upset by it and wonders as he did the other day, "what's gotten into me?" It usually upsets him a lot when he realizes he's done something wrong.  He is very expressive and very sensitive to his environment and to others' words and actions and feelings. He is normally very observant of all of that and doesn't miss anything!

Anway, we had a good talk with her and it was nice that she took time to talk about our concerns. Well, I thought that was it, but she went even further. The following school day, she had started a program with Cado where they had a chart and a progress report for the end of the week and where she broke down his work periods into ten minutes of work, followed by a 5 or 10 minute break. She also had sat down with Cado and Loic and wanted to make sure everything was okay. I was once again very impressed and grateful and told her so. She said she's just doing her job, but I said, No, you don't have to do all of that. You're doing a GREAT job.

I don't know if it was before or after this, but his teacher told me this story: they were doing an advent calender and it was Cado's day to get the chocolate. He asked if he could have two, one for Loic (who has been, according to Cado, anything but nice to him), and she said yes. He gave it to him of course, and actually ended up giving the other one away too. And if you know Cado, he LOVES candy and chocolate and sugar! (perhaps that explains some of his teeth problems!) She says that Cado is well-liked despite his own worries about it, and is always one of the first to be picked and never lacks playmates.

This year in January Cado told me one day that he finished his work before anyone else, and even did such a good job that the teacher held it up for everyone as an example. I could see that this made him feel very good and I of course encouraged it and gave him kudos as well. It's important for Cado to recieve validation and accolades when he does well. We try always to be sure that we encourage and compliment his good behavior because with Cado it goes along way in producing more of the same! He eats it up and it makes him just BEAM! it's cute. It's also cool to see that he recognizes when he is feeling the Spirit when he does good things. He'll say, I feel really good right now and warm! I feel the Spirit!" he'll even sort of giggle and you can see that already at his young age he is really having experiences with the Spirit.

Yesterday he wasn't nice at school and when I picked him up, he told me right away, "no one likes me anymore...they say I'm "mechant" (bad/mean)" I said, "oh?...why?" Then he told me that he had come over to a friend and kicked down her blocks. We talked about it, I tried not to condemn him, but he felt so awful about it, it was like a cloud of gloom settled over him. It took him all day to sort of get over it and forgive himself. We were eventually able to point out how good actions make us feel so good and full of light and make others happy, and bad choices do the opposite they make ourselves and others unhappy. It's fun to watch him learning and growing and try to help his good traits expand and his bad ones diminish! It reminds me too how much work I am still doing and must do on my good and bad, and I readily admit that to my children, that it's okay, we are all working on things.

I guess I'll also wrap up before the states by saying that we did celebrate Escalade, by dressing up and going to a church party. It's a celebration of when Geneva held their own against the French Savoyards.

And the night before our flight Spencer took the kids to the church party where Cado was a shepherd and Paisley was a sheep; and I stayed home and finished packing! It always seems a bit miraculous when it all gets done in time!

Okay...up next, moving on to our Christmas trip...