Happenings

Spring is finally here! I swear if it snows one more time...I will "light myself on fire!" With spring comes lots of happenings.

Spring means Babies! Melissa, Darby and I took Haylie and Mikaela to the Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville. I liked it a lot...but I am also a history geek. It's living history! What could be better than that? We saw all kinds of baby animals: goats, pigs, Shetland ponies, cows, and the baby bears from Yellowstone to name a few. Mikaela and Haylie got to ride in a handcart as Ma Melissa pulled them; see cabins, tepees, write with quills and see a sheep get sheared. Mikaela and I won the scavenger hunt...mostly because I know how to read. It was quite fun and who doesn't love Cache Valley? I submit not I!

Softball has started! Booyeah! Business Time is off to a great start. We were rained out of our first game, but won our second game once we got the kinks out. I was playing third and am proud to say, I've still got it! I can make that throw. It is so nice to be back at Sunnyside. We have not encountered Softball Guy yet. We hope to not meet up with him anytime soon.

Spring also kicks off concert season. We saw Train Friday night at Earthfest at the Gallivan Center. They surely do not disappoint. It's safe to say that I am a fan of Train. Erin and I went to see them in October and she wasn't quite sold on them. However, after the concert she became a legit fan...mostly of Pat Monahan. It was an interesting concert, as are most, due to alcohol. I wasn't drinking of course, but the people to the right of us certainly were. Enter Drunk Guy. He is having the time of his life that I'm sure he won't remember. He kept telling me it's okay to let loose. I'm not the most exciting person at concerts. I like to stand, tap my foot and sing along. I am not one for dancing or being touched. He was quite friendly and got me dancing with him. I soon realized that I have no rhythm or sweet dance moves. However, he was too drunk to know the difference. Every move I threw at him, he was impressed. That's never happened before :) Being drunk is so fun! My sisters were in shock I suppose as this is totally NOT my style! But, I did let loose, have some fun and learned some new dance moves. This was a win-win-win situation. Train, letting loose, and dancing - the complete package! Spring is off to a great start. I love the warmer weather and being outside! Tennis anyone?

Cowles Genius Bank and business ventures

Sunday nights are quite the riot when the Cowles clan gets together. This is a weekly tradition with our extended family and one that I absolutely love. While I was in Argentina, Sundays were the worst, because I always knew the family was together laughing about something so stupid and I was 6,000 miles away. But, since I've been back, I have loved being with the family on Sundays and yesterday was no exception!

Most of us in the family are educated...meaning we went to and graduated from college. We have an engineer, a PE teacher, several history majors and a math major. Looking at this list, we have some academic skills and some brain power. Our cousin Jeff, who really is a genius, explained to his teacher a long time ago that he was so smart because he "came from a long line of geniuses." Well, we decided last night to see who in the family could be the top genius and to start a contest among ourselves. Of course, everyone knows that Marilynn and I are the champs of Trivial Pursuit almost every Thanksgiving, and so, of course we are in the running. We submitted the idea of coming up with questions to test our knowledge. Some in the family ousted themselves last night with certain comments that would not be considered at the genius level. We do have such a good time together.

Later on, we were discussing how to launch a math tutoring website. We came up with the URL of mathsucks.com and Marilynn googled it to make sure it would be available. Michelle wants to tutor on-line so, we came up with a business model (of course it was genius!) and the steps to make it happen. We'll see if it comes to fruition. We were discussing how to make this work and how to charge: per question or time? But what if the question takes a long time to answer? Or what if it only takes seconds? Things that need to be ironed out before it can go live obviously. It was pretty funny with all the potential situations.

I heart Sunday nights with the fam!