Freaky Family Frenzy Full of Feisty Formative uh…Youngsters

I never was very good at alliteration. This week ranks up there with some of the most crazy and different weeks in history. I do believe that the two World Wars and perhaps the flood that only Noah survived were more eventful.


My sister Allison and her husband Chris wanted to go work for a week at the BYU Bookstore during Textbook Sellback. I volunteered to babysit. I get there around 7:00 am and leave around 7:00 pm. They have four little kids; John, 5; Tanner, 4; Will, 3; and Brooke, not quite 1.


I’d forgotten what it’s like to be a kid, but BOY do I remember now! You NEVER stop doing something! I do have a better appreciation for mothers who claim that they get little done outside of maintaining the house.

You feed Brooke her bottle, change her diaper, answer endless questions, pick up toys, put Brooke in her nap, change Will’s diaper (as you attempt to potty train), break up fights, get them dressed to go play outside in the snow (finding missing glove…30 mins), let kid back in 2 mins later to potty, send kid back outside, snack time, can’t miss Dinosaur Train on TV, feed Brooke another bottle, change diaper again, play Wii, keep track at least half-heartedly of who’s turn it is next, pick up toys, do dishes, fetch toilet paper for child screaming from the toilet that it’s out, fetch kids out from under Christmas tree, clean up urine off of floor from potty training accident…


I’m not complaining. I did have Annette help for a couple hours each day. She’s studying for finals and has a part time job so she just helps when she can. Through all of the mayhem, I did find time to do at least one out-of-the-ordinary home improvement project. Day 1, I pulled the broken water filter off of the kitchen sink that the last tenants installed. Now the faucet doesn’t blast you in the face when you turn it on past a dribble. Day 2, I cleaned out the vacuum which had clogged filters and was past full. That was a couple-hour endeavor. Day 3, I replaced all of the burned out light bulbs around the house. I didn’t realize the house could be so bright. Day 4, I cleaned the stovetop which burst into conflagrations the night before. Somehow stuff spilled past the unit and under the stovetop. It might have been my fault. Day 5, I plan on cleaning the tub and behind the toilet. I don’t blame my sister for not wanting to clean those two things because really the landlord ought to deliver a new tub and toilet. They’re beyond what a good cleaning can really do. I might at least bring new caulk to put around the bottom of the toilet. Day 6, I plan on putting back up door molding that fell off. I just need a few nails and some spackle. This is another one of those projects that the landlord should probably be responsible enough to take care of, but probably won’t. Day 7, I haven’t figured out yet.


For our next blog…it looks like we might be getting callings. We have a meeting with one of the bishopric counselors on Sunday. I’m hoping to be the ward jester. Well, really, I want to be the ward webmaster since there are no pictures of the ward members online. How in the WORLD am I supposed to get to know this ward in a reasonable time span without names and pictures??!?!?!?! If I wait to get to know people the conventional way, I’ll never get to know/serve people fast enough before we move into the 10,000 square foot 10 acre ranch we have our eyes on.

The Martin's New Digs

Yes, we have moved...again. And at times it feels like we make nomads look permanent. We are now at my Uncle Karl's house. He has split the house in between the top two floors and the bottom two floors. He only has one kitchen and it's on our side, but he's rigged up a kitchen-like area that works for him. He has the laundry machines on his side, so we'll probably just do our laundry at my parents' since Annette is almost always in the neighborhood. We really did get the better end of the bargain and we hope that Karl can handle his makeshift living arrangement. David Hatch (Annette's brother) is the only person who's come to visit us so far, but since our place still looks like the inside of Shrek's nose, it's probably for the best.


In other news, Annette got in her first car accident. Some overanxious driver hit the person behind her which drove the car into Annette's. They all pulled over and Annette saw that there was no real damage to our car and she bid them adieu. They probably hit our towing package which would have left a really nice mark on their car. It was dark and she was almost late for a ward dinner group so she didn't survey their damage. She was thrilled to finally be in a car wreck where (A) she was the driver and (B) in which there was little to no damage. She has now experienced what a 3-5 mph impact feels like. It's a surprising jolt!

Speaking of the Beast, it's at a new and somewhat significant mile marker. 180,000 miles! The proof is below.

What else? We bought a Christmas tree! Annette spent a good deal of time putting it up and making it look as good as it can. It's not a super special tree, but it was a super deal and if we use it for more than two years, it's probably paid for itself. I'm sure Annette will post a picture of this at some point.

Last but not least, it's exciting that Annette only has two more semesters and she's DONE! We're both excited and anticipating celebration. Thus it is. The End.

I LOVE DOGS ! ! ! ! ! !

Anytime I hear of dogs being the best pet ever, I just have to shout it from the roof tops... or from our blog.

Charles found this article and told me about it.  It is titled "Canines Improve the Lives of Diabetics: Talented dogs trained to recognize low blood sugar can help diabetics live a more fulfilling and healthy life."  It is all about these dogs that are trained to detect the low blood sugar levels of people with Type I Diabetes.  They said that the dogs can detect it quicker than some machines.  The place they are trained is called Dogs4Diabetics  I think the dogs are so special and amazing.

Here are two stories from the article:

"Kathy was over at a friend's house, and a car pulled up to the curb.  A woman came out with a black Labrador.  Kathy, 'a sucker for black labs,' started to pet the dog, but instead of wagging its tail happily, the dog just stared at her intensely.  It made a strange motion, jumping into the air and back down, and then kept staring.
"'Are you diabetic?' the dog's owner asked.  Kathy said she was and the woman told her that her blood sugar was dropping.  'My dog is trained to detect dropping blood sugar.'  Although skeptical, Kathy went inside and tested her blood sugar.  And sure enough, it was at about 40 mg/dl (Mornal is in the 8- to 100 mg/dl range.)"

"On a recent airplane ride, Odetta [the dog Kathy got for herself] grabbed with her mouth the special black cloth strap (called a 'bringsel') that hangs from around her neck, and nudged Kathy - her signal that something was off with Kathy's blood sugar.  Kathy's blood sugar was fine, but Odetta wouldn't give up.  She started to alert with more urgency, even standing up and walking in the plane aisle to get Kathy's attention.  Something was wrong, so Kathy asked the man sitting next to her if he was a diabetic, and sure enough, he was - and his blood sugar was dropping.

If I was a diabetic I would love to have a dog like this, too bad I'm not.  I guess I'll just have to get a dog anyways.

Life lately

Charles' had a great birthday party.  There were lots of people that came and it was lots fun.  If you weren't there, we wish you were.  A few people brought gifts and it was funny that most of the gifts involved food.  People sure know Charles.

I taught Relief Society Lesson #20 on Baptism.  It went quite well I think.  I noticed that I teach similar to my mom; we must be related.  One woman said that I brought life to the Relief Society.

Charles and Angela (Charles' little sister) played a musical number in Sacrament Meeting, I Know That My Redeemer Lives.  Charles played his viola and Angela played the piano.  It was very beautiful!


Charles taught Elers Quorum on Elder Uchtdorf's "You Are My Hands" and did a wonderful job!


I am currently taking an English class at BYU and we were assigned groups to write a 20 page paper together.  Unfortunately my major (Speech Therapy) didn't correlate with anyone else', so I am in a group with two biologists and one public health person.  To pick a topic we all had in common was quite difficult, but one of the girls mentioned the idea of epidurals verse natural birthing.  Out of all the topics presented, that was the one I related to the best since I am a female and will someday have a baby.  So our group decided that we would research it out.  We have come up with lots of information and pros and cons to everything.  I have been able to talk to my sister who has done both, but if anyone else wants to share their experience and to have the chance of being quoted in a 20 page report, you can contact me and I would love to know all about it.

So I had an ingenious idea that I got from a friend and am now going to share with you.  About a year ago, my friend and I were presenting in class and as we were sitting there waiting, I saw that her slip had a thick chunk of lace at the bottom.  I asked her where she got it and she had no idea.  Since that moment, I decided that I was going to get six inches of black lace and attach it to one of my slips.  By doing this, I could then have the lace from the slip sticking out from under the dress to lengthen the dress.  After thinking about it for a year. I finally accomplished my task.  I got some lace fabric, doubled up the lace and hand-sewed it onto the the bottom.  I was nowhere brave enough to machine-sew a lace material on to a stretchy material.  The slip looks quite nice and whenever I wear it to work, I get a lot of compliments and show them what I did.  I guess you could buy a slip with thick lace on it, but it is at least $30 for it and since I already had a slip that was a had-me-down from my mom and the lace wasn't too expensive, it was by far cheaper to do it myself.


This last Monday was quite a day!  As I was driving to school, my car wasn't driving right--not too weird, just didn't feel right.  After about two blocks, I pulled over.  The Holy Ghost told me that I needed to check the tires.  I was kind of surprised because Charles just checked my tires the Friday before.  I looked at them and sure enough, my front right tire was was almost all the way flat.  I drove home and asked my mother-in-law if she could drive me to school.


On Monday as well, Charles called me during the day and told me that he lost his job.  I am not really too concerned about it.  I know that Charles will do great things!
(Charles' Commentary: I prayed that morning with more fervor than I have in a while that something would happen with my job.  Either I needed this job to turn into something great, or I needed to lose it so I could start learning and growing in another company.  I was SHOCKED that I lost it, but praying still helped cope with the shock.  It's rumored that my boss lied about me to his boss which is how he got permission to lay me off, but I hope for his sake he didn't lie and I give him every benefit of the doubt.  Everyone at Merit Medical loved me and I loved them...excepting my boss who didn't seem to love me.  I had just given the aforementioned Elders Quorum lesson in which I urged people with all the conviction I could muster that we need to love everyone regardless of how they treat us, and I guess in a way, being let go from Merit relieves me of a trial in my life and at least I can say in good conscience that I tried to love and serve him to the best of my ability.  I could talk about the lessons learned for hours, but I'll let you get on to Annette's more interesting material.)

The other day while I was at work with nothing to do, we talked about "Hoarders" a show on A&E.  I had never heard of it, but it was fascinating to hear about how these people hoard things for way too long.  They kept telling me all the crazy stories of people and how they will collect the weirdest things because of things in their past.  They said that most of the children of these people say their parents love their things more then them.  One child actually called social services because he would rather be a foster child than live in the filth.  I was quite intrigued, so I googled it and it was absolutely disgusting, but so interesting.

Shoplifter Thwarted

It was Monday, I had just gotten to work.  Another associate and I were on the floor while the two managers were in the back doing some important paper work and such.  There has never been a time when four employees were all on the clock at the same time, it just NEVER happens, except this one time.  My associate was helping another customer and I was casually putting clothes away when an older woman about 60-70 years of age, who looked upper middle class walked in.  I greeted her, asked if I could help her find anything, and then told her about all our wonderful sales.  She was one of those customers that didn't want help.  I let her alone and continued putting away clothes when suddenly I heard a hanger whack wood.  I turned and looked and saw an empty hanger where our last leopard sweater was hung.  I thought it strange for a old woman to pull a sweater off of a hanger like that.  Only men do that, and in a women's clothing stores, men hardly even touch the clothes.  The old woman wasn't trying on the sweater and walked away from the area with out it in her arm.  I suspected shoplifting!


I approached the old woman who was meandering aimlessly around and again asked if I could help her find anything.  She responded with, "Where is your sale?"  Kind of an odd response since I had already shown it to her.  I watched her closely as I straightened the clothes  as she continued to wander.  She went back to her original area of the empty hanger.  I though, "Oh good, maybe she is going to ditch whatever she was going to steal."  I watched her closely and could see through the rack what she was about to do.  As I watched her hopefully become a good person again, I was appalled!  She did not take it out of her purse, but put it in her purse!  Apparently she had not taken it the first time, probably because I turned and looked when the hanger banged.  She was now stealing it!

I could not let this happen!  I approached her again and asked if I could assist her.  Corporate doesn't want lowly associates accusing people of stealing, so all I could do was pester her with questions till she changed her mind about stealing.  She refused help, but I could see it in her eyes that she knew that I knew.  I beelined to my associate who was helping a customer and interrupted her, which is not supposed to happen.  I whispered in her ear that the lady over there was shoplifting.  My associates reaction was perfect.  She gasped and said, "NO ?!?!  What do we do?"  Her voice and expression was enough to scare the old lady because now both associates on the floor knew her crime.   I ran into the back room where the two managers were working and told them there was a lady shoplifting.  They ran out and now with four employees on the floor, the lady knew she couldn't steal any more.

 So she started trying on the sweater.  The sweater was a size large and she was obviously more of a size small.  Corporate always puts out fliers for the back room the associates can read about shoplifters and how to spot them.  On the latest flier that I read last Tuesday, it talked about how shoplifters will grab clothing with no regard for size.  It was just one more clue she was trying to shoplift.  One of the managers approached the old woman and asked if she could help her.  The old woman responded that she would buy the sweater.  I thought, "Yea, she is trying to amend her wrong!"

The manager helping her asked her name at the cash register as we ask all of our customers.  The old woman said, "Eloise, but there is a 'u' in there."  I though, "That is really strange."  The old woman wrote out a check, but since we do electronic checks, it was immediately denied.  The manager asked for a driver's license.  The old woman pulled out her wallet to look for it, but could not find it.  The manager could see the wallet and told us later that there was NOTHING in the wallet.  No cash, no credit cards, no ID, nothing but the check book.  She had obviously stolen the wallet from the true Eloise.  Its a good thing for Eloise to have frozen/canceled her checks and credit cards.  The manager told her she could not purchase the sweater without ID.  The old woman was frustrated.

She put her purse on her shoulder, but she did not do it like a normal person with both straps, but only used one strap.  She used the strap that was farthest away from her, that sure makes it convenient to shove things into a purse, now doesn't it.  The manager noted that she had missed a strap, the old woman became flustered and just shoved the entire purse into her armpit.  When the old woman did this the manager saw that it was completely empty!  No normal woman ONLY caries an empty wallet in her large purse.  The two managers and I all stared her down till she left the store empty handed.

A little bit about us

BYU WON!!!!!! Yea, now they are only 2-4!  We have been watching all the games at Charles' sister's house because she is the only one with cable.  She has two little kids and on Saturday while we were there we were in charge of babysitting them while their parents went out.  It was fun to teach their kids about football.

Charles is almost done with his second class for his MBA!  Two classes down, a million more to go.

This next Saturday is Charles' birthday party if you want to come!!!

In my Hearing Science class our teacher looked in everybody's ears with a camera thing and projected it onto the screen for everyone to see.  It was disgusting, but very cool at the same time.  Apparently I had ear infections as a child even though I don't remember any because there was a small spider web shape on my eardrum.  There was one girl who had lots of ear infections and it looked as though a white worm was coiled up in her eardrum.  There was another girl that had had her eardrums replaced as a child and when I looked at it, I wasn't sure where the eardrums were.  There was so much scar tissue and such, it looked awful.

Charles still doesn't know if his job is permanent.  But soon he will have worked there so long he can start applying for other jobs in the company.

Finally cooling down here in Utah after it was 90 at the beginning of October.   Yea!  Since all of our winter clothes were used to cushion all of our breakable things like dishes.  We will see if we stay warm this winter.

Dinner with cousins because Aunt Quenta came into town.  It was LOTS of fun to hang with everyone!

For Charles' birthday,  his friend, BJ gave him lots of fruit and mberry which is this little pill thing that after it dissolves in your mouth that it will make everything taste sweet.  It suggested eating such things as lemons and cheese.  We were both quite excited at trying this new thing.  So on Saturday Charles and I both tried it out.  Charles went first.  After it completely dissolved he stuck three slices of lemon into his mouth.  It was supposed to taste like lemon aid, but it was just as powerful as regular lemons are.  So it continued, he tried other things with no change.  I decided that I would try it because maybe that was a fluke that it didn't work.  I went through the same steps and when I had my chunk of lemon it did nothing.  Well, there are more in the package, maybe we will do a little bit more research on maybe why it didn't work.  Maybe we will try it later.

I LOVE Toblerone chocolate!  It is delicious!  The other day when Charles was at Maceys he saw a bar of Ferrara chocolate.  He decided that it looked similar and I might enjoy it as much as Toblerones.  It was yummy, but I think that my first love with Toblerone chocolate will always hold fast.  Maybe in the next life there will be something that is even better, but for now, it is as close as I can get.

Over a month ago Charles lost his wedding ring.  Fortunately we had boughten it off of ebay for about $30.  We looked and looked and finally gave it up as being lost forever.  We went back to ebay and bought him two rings.  We figured he would now have a spare incase he looses the other.  There may or not be an old saying about once you buy a replacement or ask for help you will find it, but it holds fast and true.  Once the rings came in the mail, Charles' dad found his original wedding ring.  Now Charles has three wedding rings to choose from each day.  The nice thing is that although he has three rings, we didn't even spend near $100 for all of them.

Tribute to Charles

Charles is such a wonderful husband and I am excited it is his 30th birthday!  Here are lots of pictures of Charles over the last year of his life.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Charles!

Haircuts all around . . .

On Saturday, Charles' dad, Tom, cut my hair into lots of layers.  I just love how my hair is now!

Charles' hair has been getting as long as mine, so I cut it down to the nub.

Charles is not talking about any of BYU's last few games in which they have lost everyone.  I am glad that we didn't buy All Sports Passes this year. (Now Charles Talking) BYU Football is like the seasons.  They have seasons when they're great and seasons when they're not so great.  The goal is to minimize the bad seasons and maximize the good seasons.  I've already hunkered down for this winter.  I'm just praying that summer will come before next August. 

Charles still doesn't know if his job is permanent even though the second deadline has come and gone.  Charles will probably stay a temp until the day he starts his own company.  I can't wait! (Now Charles Talking)  I'm not going to attempt too much until I've finished my masters degree.  But you all just wait...big things will happen in my professional life.  I hope.  In the mean time, I'll just write a book or something.  If anyone has a good idea for the title of it, scream.

General Conference is as wonderful as always!  Hearing the words of the prophet and the apostles is such an amazing thing to know how to become better.

During conference I finished sewing our Halloween costumes!  I can't wait!

We ate out at Sam Hawk for Charles' friend's, BJ, birthday.  It is DELICIOUS Korean food and I recommend that if you are ever in need of food in Provo, go there!  I LOVE it!  (Now Charles Talking)  When Annette says the Korean food is delicious, what she really means is that it is so hot that it could burn the corrosion off of your battery terminals.  In fact, it just might burn through your whole battery.  She has quite a tolerance to spicy hot foods that I could only dream of having.  But, it does have good flavor and if you're a masochist like me, you'll eat it anyway and enjoy the tears streaming down your face.

Random thoughts by Annette

I have decided that everyone should work three genres of jobs in their lives.  These three genres are food, sales/retail, and menial labor.  I have worked these three types of jobs and think it has built my character... 

...it has given me greater respect for those people who do it.  I understand them better and have compassion on them.  I think about how I could make their job easier and less awful whenever I interact with them.

This Saturday Charles and I went to DI for a fun outing in the morning.  I REALLY like DI!  There were a lot of really neat things there.  Charles has always wanted some glass mixing bowls like what his parents have, so while we were there I saw a bowl that looked exactly like the one his parents have.  Charles was so excited!  He ended up getting four bowls that are similar and all stack nicely.  As we were picking them out, a lady started telling us all about them and how they are from the 60's, she must be a frequent DI shopper.

As well when we were at DI, I saw all of the goblets.  I have always loved goblets and since they were so cheap I got eight of them.  We also got our friend's birthday present there, they were salt and pepper shakers in the shape of a barrel with wooded handles with "Idaho" written on the side.  They were really cute.  I think I will be doing more of my shopping at DI for everything from now on.  I am still a little bit sketchy on the clothes there.  I did however get two sweaters there, one for me and one for Charles.  The sweaters are part of our Halloween costumes that I have started to think about.  I am proud of myself for figuring out our costumes before the 31st.  I don't know if I should let the entire world know my fabulous idea though, but I'll give you a clue...

ER Visit and fun things like that

I know, I know, everyone is thinking that we like to visit the ER and just hang out there.  Unfortunately I was the patient in intense pain and scared I was going to die.  I had woken up with pain and then after taking a shower and throwing up my body went numb, started shaking uncontrollably with my muscles constricting and I could not do anything.  Before the worst started I called Charles to come home NOW.  He came home saw that I was completely pale, so he rushed me over to the ER at the BYU Health Center.  I threw up again and and they gave me an IV and a shot for pain.  They took a blood and urine sample.  They said that it al looked normal and they would only know more information if it happened again.  They hypothesized that I was simply dehydrated, but I am quite a bit skeptical of that.  Others have hypothesized of an ovarian cyst, I was talking to one of my friends during lunch and she said that the exact same things happened to her, including the convolutions.  But with her they actually had her go to a real hospital where they did more tests.  But I feel better now and surely don't want it to ever happen again to know why it happened.

As well on Saturday, Charles helped his sister with a fundraiser that she put on on Saturday.  It was a large yard sale and bake sale and since we have a vehicle with a towing ability and have friends with a trailer, Charles spent a lot of time hauling donated things to the fundraiser to be sold.  As well he would haul items to people houses if they couldn't.  He provided a great service to the cause.  They said it was pretty successful, but because they had SOOO much donated, they will be re-holding the yard sale again next Saturday.

Charles' coworker had a little party in which we attended.  It was interesting.  We were the only "true Utahns" there, as she put it.  It was an interesting experience to be around a bunch of people that were drinking, but it really didn't feel like we shouldn't be there.  They are used to the Mormon culture and didn't even think twice about us not drinking.  Most people that do drink and aren't used to Mormons, think it is absolutely strange that people wouldn't at least drink socially.  We did leave once the hard alcohol came out and they started taking shots.

Our Life as it is Now..

I finished my Summer classes and am now starting Fall semester with Hearing Science, Speech Anatomy, Biology 100 (yes, I know that I am a senior, but I really just haven't wanted to take this class), and English 316.  I am pretty excited, I have never had a semester with so few classes and am excited to be back in school.  Other good news that recently happened was as work.  I get payed $10 an hour, but my boss told me that this year they were doing 3% raises for people who have worked there since February 1st, unfortunately I didn't get hired till February 4th.  She didn't know if I would get the raise.  I thought, no big deal, what my salary would be $10.30 an hour.  So on Friday when I looked at my pay check I saw that my hourly rate was $12 an hour!  Wow I don't know how that happened, but I hope that wasn't an error on their part. . . I guess we will see next Friday.  Could they take it away if they made a mistake?

My baby, I mean my computer, recently went to the hospital, I mean the Apple Store, in Salt Lake for a simple repair on the hinge.  Since it was still under warranty it was fixed for free, but when I got it back the screen no longer lit up hardly at all when I turned on the computer.  So we rushed the baby to the ER, sorry, I mean we dropped my Mac back at the Apple Store again.  They said that since it was  their fault it completely broke and was not repairable that they gave me a credit for a new computer, I did although decide to upgrade to a MacBook Pro, 13".  It is so beautiful!!!  Now I have a new baby (my computer is my temporary baby till we have a few of our own, but before that I have my Mac)

On Sunday Charles and I substituted for a primary class of ten year olds.  I forgot what ten year olds are like, short attention span.  I think we did a fairly good job of teaching.  We got through all of the scriptural material about half way through the class and then spent the next half of class applying it in our lives.  It was hard to tie some of their random comments into the lesson, but I think it worked out all right.

On Friday my Mom and Larry came into town and took us and all my cousins who are hear at school out to Brickoven.  It was a fun dinner with everyone!  It was fun to hear what everyone was up to and such.

Change for the better . . . ?

So most of you know that we have been waiting on a home to close, well although we pestered the lending company three times a week for the last three months to make sure everything was in order to make sure that at least that area of this entire thing was fine, well on Thursday (I think) they called and told us that "Oops, we realized that we can't give a loan to a person with a 'temporary' title, if you want this to go through would you mind asking your boss to make you permanent?"

Let's just say that their little mistake was REALLY BIG!!! When Charles talked to them for the very first time he told them that he has a "temporary" title on his job title (due to the economy it is just easier for companies to do such things) and asked Veritas Funding (I don't normally like to use the names of companies on our blog if they have they pay a company to search for their name on the internet because I usually don't want them to find what I am writing, but I don't mind if they find this) if that would be fine. We didn't even want to look at houses if having a temporary job would hamper getting a loan. They have it in their notes on May 11th about all of this. They knew and still didn't say anything.

Charles called up a few other loan agencies to see if it is at all possible to get an FHA loan with a temporary title and all of them said that there pretty much is no way to do such a thing. Veritas should have told us that in the very beginning and saved everyone a lot of time, money, and grief.

Since we are only a few days away from closing and were hoping to be moved into our new home this weekend our landlord obviously had new tenants ready to move into the place that we were living so we had to move out. We are now living at Charles' parent's home. We hope to figure something out soon. If anyone has an extra chunk of money that they don't know what to do with, we wouldn't mind :) I do feel worst for our friends, Ben and Rose, who were planning on moving in with us and now they don't know what to do either.

We feel like we are kind of in limbo right now any suggestions are welcome call or email either Charles or me, I have more time at the moment to take phone calls and such though.

Charles's MBA requires a lot of time, but he is doing fantastic. He is working diligently, I am so proud of him!

I am done with my classes and think I did pretty well in them and am slightly burnt out from school, but that might just be the stress from not having a real place to live.

I am so thankful for Charles and his amazing attitude though all of this and sure hope things will happen quickly. My greatest hope is that Charles' boss will decide tomorrow that he should be permanent, I hope he has a big heart (mostly since after 90 days you are typically made permanent and Charles has been their a bit over 90 days).

I am now looking for place to rent that are large enough for two couples to rent but with cheap rent and no long contracts, aka I am looking for a house that people can't sell, but are looking for extra income with tenants that are willing to move out at a moments notice.

Lately... Just a Bit Crazy

So I started writing this a while ago, but here it is anyways....

Charles started his MBA and has been quite busy. I guess until we are both out of school we will either be at working or studying. I a sure that we will time to do things, but it will probably be kept to a minimum.

I have to favorite holidays, 4th of July and Christmas. Once one is done I start getting excited for the other. I am especially excited for Christmas this year because that will be our one breath of fresh air from schooling. We will have our little breaks between semesters, but I don't know how many of those will actually over lap.

4th of July, packing, and the Deaf Ward

The 4th of July was so much fun with lots of huge fireworks, family, camping out on the parade route, family, watching the parade, and family gatherings and games.  I definitely loved the family part of the holiday as you can imagine.  It is always my favorite part of every holiday


We have had Charles' little sister Angela over to our house to help us pack up our things and help us clean.  She is so helpful and I am so glad that she is willing to help us.  We are both so insanely busy, I more so than Charles, and hardly have time to even make real food, so to have Angela help us move is very helpful.  It is hard to know what to pack up when we aren't moving immediately I am always trying to figure out what we can and can not pack up and get ready.


For my current ASL 202 class we have to have to do three experience things, so today, Sunday, we went the the Deaf Branch in Lehi (it is very close to where we will be moving soon).  I saw three of the four ASL teachers I have had.  There were many things that I learned.  It was neat to see that the Sacrament prayer still had to be signed word for word with English grammar and not ASL grammar, it consequently had a lot of finger spelling in it.


For Sacrament Meeting there were two interpreters that traded off, it was neat to watch them interpret for those who were hearing in the congregation.  For all of the announcements, Sacrament prayer, and one of the talks they had been provided with a copy of what was to be said.  I can definitely see the purpose in doing such a thing.  On the talk that the interpreter did not have a copy it was much more difficult for them.  Since ASL does not have the same grammar structure as English it is hard to translate things quickly.  For Sunday School there was no interpreter so I tried to interpret for Charles so that he would understand what was going on.  It was very difficult!  It was hard when I knew the meaning for a sign, but not a specific word.  It was difficult also since they sign SOOO fast!  It was always easier once I knew the general outline of where they were going with something, such as a story from the Bible.


Singing in church is a bit different in a Deaf Ward, sine there can be many different ways that the song can be translated, they have a person in the stand, where the chorister would be, but instead of conducting the song, they sign their translation so that all people sign together the same thing.  It was neat to hear Charles and one other woman sing during the songs, I was signing, or at least trying to.


There was a man in the Branch that was both deaf and blind, so there was a deaf man, one of my former teachers, who sat next to him and resigned all that was being said while the deaf and blind man loosely held onto one of his hands.  The deaf and blind man also had a really pretty, big seeing eye dog with him.


After Sacrament meeting was over, we were simply observing people and it was so adorable to see a man signing to a young boy who was maybe a year old and the little boy seemed to completely understand everything that because he was totally responding.  It was SOOO cute.  I am bound and determined to teach my children to sign when they are so young so they can be as cute as him.


In the Deaf Branch, the Deaf people obviously have immediate family who is hearing, usually children.  It at first shocked me how loud Sacrament Meeting was, but then soon realized that it was the children of Deaf parents that were being so loud.  There parents couldn't hear them along with most of the rest of the congregation, so they were never reprimanded for being too noisy during church.  You could tell which people were hearing because their children weren't loud.


It was such a neat experience to learn more about the Deaf culture and to have more practice interpreting and learning more words, most of which related to church things.

Picnic in the Park

Blogger was messed up last week.  Here goes nothing.

We went up the canyon last week with my extended family and had a picnic.  I ate until I looked like a walrus and then we went home to see the USA get beat by Ghana in the World Cup.  The pain of overeating is always exacerbated by losing a game that only happens once every four years.  The following is a picture of Annette and me looking amazedly at something.  I wish I knew at what.

This is our nephew Martin Stubbs who apparently came down with a Emergency Room style sickness right after our picnic.  Probably due to whatever was on his finger pictured below.

Since I'm not the one that took these pictures, I'm not sure why this holds significance other than Annette did a great job of contrast in this one.  I'll let you all decide how these leaves remind you of the omniscience of God.

This is a picture of Beauty and the Beast.  We went to the Traditions Ball at BYU a couple of months ago and I think we blogged about it, but is another picture.

We bought a fridge this week similar to the one below.  We bought it because it's similar to Grandma Hatch's fridge which has the freezer on the bottom.  This makes sense since one gets into the freezer far less than the fridge so why would one want to destroy their back needlessly by perpetually stooping to get into the fridge?

The townhouse---the government said they would accept our offer, but they haven't give us the paperwork.  Until that happens, we're not getting our hopes up too high...I hope.  I locked in a interest rate of 4.375%!  That's about as low as President Faust's was in his day.  Wow!

Oh, and yesterday I played tennis with my dad and two of my sisters.  I'm hoping that if they continue to practice that they'll be able to beat those Williams sisters next year.

Well, we love you all.  Thank you for being amazing, supporting, helpful, informative, and loving. ;)

HAPPY FATHER"S DAY!!!

We want to wish all of the Father's a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

I finally finish all of my classes and took all my finals.  I am happy that my math class is finally over, but very sad that my ASL 201 class is done.  But on Monday I start Anatomy and my ASL 202.

This Friday Charles and I bought a couch, as pictured below.  We got it for a cheap deal off Craig's List.

Rose and Ben Hall are now officially married for time and all eternity.  They were married in the Salt Lake Temple.  Charles and I left plenty early to be able to make it on time, but of course there was one little section of traffic that took an hour.  We were consequently late to the temple, but Charles was able to get in just as the people were filing into the room.  I unfortunately forgot to bring my temple recommend and got to wait for everything to be done.  The reason that I forgot it was because I don't like hauling my purse around and since I wasn't doing work in the temple, I obviously don't need to remember it.

Rose was such a beautiful bride and we are so happy for her.  She had a beautiful reception at Ben's parent's home in Tooele.  We are so happy for Mr. and Mrs. Ben Hall!

After the reception we picked up my cousin Brent from the SLC airport because he will be talking a class at BYU.

I forgot to mention that on Memorial Day after going to the Zoo we spent quite a bit of time in the Salt Lake Cemetery looking at graves and finding all of the prophets' graves.  It was so much fun.

Spring Semester at BYU is coming to a close for me.  Things are finishing up, it is very bitter sweet for me because I am very excited that I will be done with my math class, but very sad that my ASL 201 class will be ending.  My teacher for ASL was my absolute favorite ever and I wish that class would never end.  She always had the best stories to tell us and taught us so much about ASL.


We finally got the specialized license plates for my car.  In Russian, our cars now say "Beauty" (KPACOTA) and "Beast"(3BEP6)

Charles was very excited about the FIFA world cup and was distraught when we only tied England.

We went and saw the Orem SummerFest fireworks.  It was lots of fun and I can't wait to take photos of the ones for 4th of July.

We watched "Arsenic and Old Lace" recently.  It was still as it was when I was a kid and watched it.

Memorial Day and the Townhouse

For Memorial Day we went to the Zoo with his family.  There were lots of people, but it was lots of fun.  It is funny how quickly little kids can look at animals.  I could have sat there and starred at some of them for a really long time.  Here are some photos for you to enjoy.

Here is Charles looking super excited to see the animals

The new baby elephant

Giraffe 14 feet tall, tongue 1 foot long

Camels that are loosing their fur 

Creepy bats

Charles and I went to the townhouse again last night to see it again.  We took some photos of the place and talked to our immediate neighbor who happened to be outside.  Here are the photos from it along with the floor plan (I do understand that the levels don't look like they match up, but they are supposed to) and numbers where each photo was taken with the direction it was taken so that you get a general idea of everything.  (If you go to the actual blog you can click on photos to make the larger)

1 (Right of kitchen)

2 (Kitchen Left)

3 (Living Room)

4 (Entrance)

5 (Looking upstairs)

6 (Master Bedroom)

7 (Master again)

8 (Master sink)

9 (Master rest of bath)

10 (Master closet)

11 (Two bedrooms and bath)

12 (1st Bedroom)

13 (Bath)

14 (Going to unfinished basement)

15 (Living Area and bed and bathroom)

16 (From bath area)

17 (Storage room)