Monstrosities and Such

Motorcycle Sold
Ahhhhh. One of the monstrositys of my life has finally been removed. I bought a motorcycle like 2 or so years ago because I was tired of my cars dying and not having a car to drive to work. It finally came to a point where my white Ford Escort died and I decided I wasnt gonna fix it anymore, and bought a motorcycle to take to work instead. Riding motorcycles is really fun. There is a rushing sense you get when you drive around a motorcycle.

It wasnt 2 months before I layed it down. I was turning a corner on state, probably not more than 5 miles per hour, and hit some oil on the road and the wheels slid and down went I and the motorcycle. I did get it all repaired and stuff, but I lost interest in it and we moved away and got a new car blah blah blah and I never drove it really again. I still took it for a spin now and then, but that didnt merit the room it was taking up in my garage. So I offered it to a guy and a really good price and he took it. So now it is gone, and I have reclaimed that space in my garage, and I no longer have to look at a bike collecting dust and feeling guilty I dont ride it and take care of it.

Now if I could just get rid of my brand new, unused, hot tub!

Laying Sod
Woh yeah. Spent last weekend doing far more work than our bodies were designed to do, but we got sod laid in the front and east side of the house. It was 3900 sq ft total. We bought 4 loads of dirt to spread too, which was actually the hardest part. Thanks to Brett, Rusty, Mom, Amy, and Dad for coming out and helping us lay all the sod. Dad helped us design and put in the sprinkler system as well and it is all automatic and waters by itself during the night. HOLY MACREL it is sooooooo nice. The yard looks MUCH nicer with sod rather than dirt. Now I need to plant trees and do the flowerbeds. But we need to catch up our finances.

Savings Depleted
Blah. Why is it that everytime you get some money, and make a few plans, life comes along and takes it all away? It really is a great plan, save some money, get enough to do something, then end up spending it on some stupid emergency and never get to do what you wanted in the first place. It happens 100% of the time. 100%! We have a couple thousand in savings, at least until Rooker decided to drink a bottle of liquid allergy medicine, and we had to make an emergency trip to the hospital, and then our van decided to have $900 worth of problems, and then the car decided to have $1800 worth of problems. This pretty much took care of whatever our plans were with that money.

But you know what? If the glass is half-full, I could say, it sure is a good thing that we had enough savings to cover every single emergency expense that has come our way so far without having to borrow a single cent. And we still have some money left in savings. And we even had enough to do the lawn and sprinkler system. Of course, we are gonna have to not do anything else, but we made it this far on our own somehow.

Death of a Loved One
Yes, my laptop has died. I was working on it yesterday when it up and quit on me. Then the screen started to go black, and now it wont even boot. I personally think the processor got fried. The fans on that thing have been working overtime lately and I have had the laptop overheat on me a few times this last past few weeks, and I think it finally just gave out and died. But it is the perfect time for its death, cause I can send it in to get fixed today and I will be on vacation all next week. So it will be getting repaired while Im on vacation. It lined its death up rather well I think.

Still, its hard being without your main computer.

More Words

Tons of stuff has happened.

Got the front all raked up. Dad/Ben/Eddie/Bryan/Marie/Mom all came out to help put in sprinklers. The girlies just made food, talked about babies, and supervised, while the guys picked up rocks, raked, and sweated. Then afterword we had a BBQ of skewers with beef, sausage, shrimp, peppers, onions, pineapple, and mushrooms. They were sooooo yummy!

Which reminds me. I bought a new grill. It is nice and loooooong. So I can fit tons of stuff on it. I LOVE IT! Now if I can just get dad to buy a new grill. And a new rake for that matter. I know dad likes to get his moneys worth on his tools, but he has the same tools he has had since I was a kid. Sometimes, its ok to buy new stuff. Sometimes it is. Sometimes. DAD!

We are all setup to go on another cruise this coming November. OH MY HECK I CANT WAIT. It consumes my thoughts. When life gets out of hand and kids are rowdy and then house is a mess and I have no lawn, and my cars are breaking down, and the bills come, and my dryer wont dry, and my house leaks a little .............. I just think .......... HEY, in November, Im goin on a cruise!, and all my daily chaos can go jump in a lake!

Work work work. I work all the time I think. We get more and more and more customers. And less and less and less employees. This is becoming a problem for me. I feel like I cant accomplish any "real" project at work, because every 5-20 minutes I get interrupted by a 20-60 minute phone call from a customer with a problem. It makes it very hard to accomplish anything that requires any block of time. Plus, I volunteered to be on call every day for the rest of the month because it forces me to work with and understand our complex satellite network. On call means I carry my cell with me everywhere and after 5pm all calls to the support line come directly to my cell phone. This has made life much easier for Ian, who is the NOC manager, cause he was working WAY to many hours. I generally only get 2-6 hours of overtime per week, but being on call ruins most weekends cause the 2-6 hours is spread out randomly over the weekends and nights. So you cant set a schedule to do anything, so its very inconvenient. But those who dont have to do the oncall dont seem to care much and therefore dont hire any help. Yesterday, Ian took the day off (cause he worked all weekend) so I was the only one here. The only other person who could take phones was so swamped with his own stuff he couldnt take the phones so I could have a lunch. This is a regular occurence. Doesnt that sound just a tad bit understaffed?

You know, everyone has beef about their job, and I could probably continue, but when it boils down to it, I probably have THEE best job in the world. I work with family, I deal with cutting edge technology, I get paid well, my manager is excellent to work with, I get to sit in a nice soft desk chair, I get a nice laptop, and the list could go on forever. The positives outweight the negatives by a long shot. Its funny how long we will remember a negative situation and how quickly we forget the positive ones. How pathetic we mortals be!

My kids are getting big. Well, Crystal gets smarter and smarter, and Rooker gets bulkier and bulkier. Rooker isnt fat, he's just a brick. You pick him up and you feel like you just picked up a bag of hard cement. Crystal on the other hand isnt so bulky, but she is still as wild as ever. The temper tantrums have ceased somewhat, but that doesnt keep her from getting into trouble.

You should hear our bedtime stories at night. When her and Rooker get into bed, I lay down on their floor and say "Once upon a time" and Crystal chimes right in with "THERE WAS A BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG MONSTER DINOSAUR" OR "GIANT MEAN DOG WITH BIG TEETH" OR "MAN EATING LIGHT BULB NAMED CURTAIN". She is very imaginative. The stories can sometimes get quite long. I just put in a few words when she runs out of breath. Usually the monsters eat our houses or cars or clothes or grass or roads, and so we have to find some way to make them stop, by pulling out their teeth, or putting them in a cold fridge, or make them fall into a hole. Then we help them out or put their teeth back in when they say sorry and promise never to be mean again. We do 2-3 stories every night. Ever since she turned 4, she thinks she deserves 4 stories, but I start getting sleepy during the 3rd one. I have even fallen asleep and Crystal will yell at me "THERE ARE MORE WORDS DAD!".

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend was pretty fun. We went down Friday afternoon cause we got bored, and Crystal was super excited to go to Oak City. We got there and immediately Crystal and Rooker when to the playground. Rooker headed over there in nothing but a tshirt and diaper, so Amy had to run and catch him to put some pants and shoes on, the stinker! Then we had some nummy soup made by Aunt Lisa. Marie and Bryan and Jacob all arrived that day as well. Mostly we talked about Napoleon Dynamite over dinner (yeah, we're pathetic) so we put the DVD in and started to watch it, but we all fell asleep 1/2 way through anyway.

Saturday we got up and had French Toast for breakfast, it was sooooo good. I LOVE french toast. The kids again went to the park. We watched the 1st session of conference then went out to play baseball between sessions. It was really fun, we had a good time. We didnt quite have enough for softball (we couldnt cover enough of the field) so we played wiffle ball, but there was alot of wind so it made it hard. We eventually just started playing pegball where you can throw it at them. It was fun. Then we went back in to watch the next session of conference.

After that we ate dinner and went to the priesthood session and then came home. I pretty much went right to bed, I was tired. The early mornings through-out the week really catch up to me on the weekends.

Sunday was basically the same thing. We watched conference and played baseball between sessions. We actually played with a real softball because we had alot of ppl there and it was awesome. Aunt Lisa made a huge thing of spaghetti and garlic bread, it was delicious. Amy and I left right at the end of the last session cause Bailey was getting tired and we wanted her to sleep in the car on the drive home.

Crystal and Rooker absolutely LOVE Oak City, just as I did when I was a kid. They even get a better experience cause they get to stay at Grandma's and Grandpa's house, and they just love their grandparents.

So it was fun. Life sure moves fast with 3 kids. You barely get time to breathe, and then its time for bath and bed. But I wouldn't have it any other way.