An Eventful Breakfast

Yesterday morning as Charles was cutting a loaf of hard bread, there was a little slip of the knife and a deep wound in Charles' finger. He was a very good patient as I helped to dress his wound. Thankfully it happened on his pinky on his right hand (Charles is left handed). It seems to be going well and we are keeping everything very sanitary.

January 18th, was our 6 month anniversary! We went out to our favorite restaurant, Goodwood to celebrate! With that we decided to finally print out a few large prints from our wedding to put in a frame we got. It looks very nice, Costco did a wonderful job.

School, school, and more school! My classes have been great fun. I am figuring out how I need to study for my classes. Read the book in one class and pay attention to lecture in others. I just wish there was a standard way to just take all classes, but that would take away the fun of failing the first test! ASL is obviously my favorite class! On Monday we will be presenting our ABC Story, where you have to use the hand shape from the letters in the alphabet and use them to tell a story. My story is about taking care of a baby, changing the diaper and it spitting up on me. I have practiced with other people in my class and they all find it funny.

I feared that my Language Structure (aka grammar class) would be the bane of my existence this semester, but I absolutely love the way that it is taught by my teacher. We go through lots of information, but it all just makes sense. It is possible for a weakness to become a strength.

Charles has started playing in the Stake Basketball Tournament. He has been having lots of fun and doing very well. It is hard though when the games are so late at night. One night when he had his bball game we also had to help sanitize the nursery toys. It made it a little hard, but thankfully we had all of the couples in nursery come and help. Many hands make light work.

Friday Charles went on a hike with his uncle Karl up in Eagle Mountain. They had a fun, long day together. Here is a picture that Charles took while up on the mountain.

So much to say about the last little while...

For Charles’ Christmas present he got a bike for a really great deal. Right as we were leaving, Charles decided to ride his new bike down the stairs, unfortunately he hadn’t adjusted the seat to the correct hight and as he went to sit back, he couldn’t because it was too high. Charles fell flat on his face. I was so embarrassed. Charles thought it was hilarious. We don’t have much room in our little apartment (more to come on that), so we decided to hang it from the ceiling above our lengthwise dresser.

We spent Christmas in Utah with Charles family, but right afterwards we went down to Orange County to be with my family. My brother, David, just got home from his mission and it was great to see him again after two years. We had lots of fun in CA which all revolved around all of my extended family. It is always fun to see everyone again. We were able to do a session in the Newport Temple. I haven’t been inside since the Open House and it was absolutely beautiful.

We haven’t known how large our apartment is, but have kept wondering. One evening we decided that we would finally bust out the measuring tape. It was a really rough measuring job, but we believe that our little basement apartment is about 612 square feet and that’s a GENEROUS estimation.

Charles’ job hunt is coming along, he recently had a phone interview with a company in the medical field. We are thinking of expanding Charles job search to the entire nation because the only thing keeping us in UT is me at BYU, but I can transfer to a school near a new job any where across the nation. Trying to find schools for me with ComD and higher division ASL classes has been a bit tricky, but the search is continuing.

School started for me last week. I will really enjoy my classes this semester which consist of ASL 102, Assessment and Treatment of Articulation and Phonological Disorders in Children, Language Disorders (a follow up course from last semester’s Language Development), and Language Structure (aka grammar). I feel like I am finally a full fledge college student since I finally had to buy a HUGE, THICK text book.

The Great Culmination

Finals finally culminated this semester of school. They were hard and unwanted, but I some how made it. To reward myself I checked 11 books out from the library. Two were John Grisham books and the other nine were the Little House on the Prairie series which I have begun to read aloud to Charles since he has never had the blessed opportunity to read them before. We also started reading "Our Search for Happiness" for an Sabbath day reading.

We really don't like shopping at Smiths because they not only do NOT have the best prices in town but they make you tote around a silly card to get discounts that everyone should get anyway. The only reason we went to Smiths was because they have a self-checkout that takes change--all change, even pennies. So everything we bought was Kroeger brand (the cheapest brand) and we brought almost all of our change. We stood there in line and put handfuls of change in at a time. It took forever. Lines started forming behind us. We ended up paying $13 of the $19 in change. That was fun in a wierd/different sort of way.

This was the first year that I have ever seen a Christmas program that ended early. It wasn't just a little bit early, but 25 minutes early. There were four songs and speaking parts. Charles was in the choir. He did a spoke as the donkey and did a splendid job.


During the choir, the little girl that sits in front of us and is in nursery, turned around and asked where my daddy was. It took me a second to understand that she was referring to Charles. I told her he was up in the choir singing. She thought that was neat.


During nursery this Sunday, I was teasing this same little girl by having the toy she wanted and keeping it away from her. She was quite smart and grabbed at my shoulder and slid down to my hand. She grabbed the toy and backed away while saying, "Neener neener, you can't get me!" It was hilarious.


Also during nursery we had a child begin to strip during singing time and say "Poopo." We pulled up his pants and I was elected to find his mom. Apparently they are in the middle of potty training.

Rice Krispie Wars

This week we:

Cleaned our carpets (with a carpet extractor)
Washed dishes
Tried to sell our BMW to a scam artist
Washed dishes
Cancelled our flights to Dallas (and got an extra $300 of flying credit!)
Reposted our car for sale
Washed dishes
Learned more about ASU's MBA program
Washed dishes
Made a scrumptious pizza
Studied guts out for finals
Washed dishes
Started a political corruption index/blacklist
Made the fanciest snowflake ever created
Oh, and we also washed some dishes


Annette took some pictures of our gustatorial adventures this week. The first is the pizza. It's our first time attempting a pizza and without any recipes. It was possibly the best pizza I've ever had in my life. It had a thick stuffed crust with mozzarella cheese. We had a homemade sauce with all sorts of spices and then, we put our favorites toppings--nothing but meat. We had bacon, ham and pepperoni. We hate it when you buy a frozen pizza and there's three pepperonis so we put on so many pepperonis that you couldn't see the pizza. Annette's picture is below.

One of these nights when Annette woke up and studied from 2 A.M. to 5 A.M., she found an email asking us to bring a dessert to a ward Christmas party. We thought we would make a family favorite from my Grandma Wanda. But our interest was piqued when we wondered if we could make it more Christmasy. We colored the marshmallows and the Rice Krispies and then we dipped them in chocolate. The result was pure and undefiled glory pictured below.

As I was consuming an Oreo recently, I found one that had been put together upside down. It's the first one I've ever seen like that. I wonder if it was a special package--one in a million--one in which we were supposed to win a trip to Cabo but since I didn't call it in we lost out.

Annette was meandering through campus when she stumbled upon a cool snowflake in the Wilkinson Center. She wanted to attempt one herself since it was cooler than the ones she made previously. Then, as is typical of her continuous improvement mindset, she took it to the next level and low and behold we now have the mother of all snowflakes.

Also, Annette wants to post her pictures of our car now that it's cleaned up. If any of you are looking for a Bimmer, we'll sell it to you only if you're local and and for a mere $104,512,674.

Winter Wonderland

It snowed today in Orem. Normally I find snow pleasant, but because of the BMW I curse snow back to the purgatory from whence it came.

Charles' Big Accomplishment: I made a bed foundation of sorts. A few weeks ago we put our king size bed up on cinder blocks and a $12 frame from Deseret Industries. We put some old nasty eclectic boards on the frame because we were too cheap to buy box springs. Please, tell me what the point of box springs are and convince me that they're worth anything and I'll give you $100. The problem with our boards was that our bed was sagging in the middle and it was KILLING my back. Annette has a back of steel so she wasn't bothered. So I spent $35 and built an intricate system of boards that are not only insanely sturdy, but they pyramid up towards the center. WOW. You should see our bed now. I've slept like a baby. It was fun to vacuum up a ton of sawdust.

Speaking of sleeping, there are nights when Annette wants to go to bed at midnight and nights she wants to go to bed at 6 and every hour in between. It's so interesting. She just goes to bed when she wants to--no looking at clocks or anything! I'm cool with that. It's been fun.

We went to an ASL session at the Provo Temple. It was great! I think I got as much out of the ASL as Annette simply because Annette was sitting clear in the back and had a hard time seeing the TV. But it was fun for both of us. I'm not sure if I've ever stated how amazing Annette is at learning ASL. I've rarely seen aptitude for anything like this. I'm glad the Spirit directed us in this matter. She's going to really bless people with that talent.

Annette makes this thing she calls Green Drink. It tastes quite good for being so healthy and for looking like the algae that collects around irrigation drainages. It's made by pouring some pineapple juice into a blender and then cramming a fat wad of spinach in there and blending it up. That's it. Somehow it works. We've made it several times and I imagine Annette will want to put it in our baby's bottles some day.

I have new schooling ambitions I think. I'm still working on the details and I'm still looking for a job, but I really felt the Spirit strongly when thinking about ASU. It turns out that not only is ASU's MBA comparable to BYU's in quality, but you can do 100% of it online. That way I can do an MBA from a top notch school and do it here in Utah while Annette finishes BYU. Of course it will cost as much as financing a trip to Mars, but hey, we can do it. What's $50,000? It's only the scariest amount of debt I've ever considered in my life.

Finals are coming for Annette. She's done well to study even with me home. It's hard to concentrate when all we want to do is talk 24/7. We're always raising the question in our minds, "Should I talk and laugh and goof off with the Spouse o' My Dreams or should I beat my head against books/whateverCharlesdoesallday?" It's a tough choice.

For a good time, click http://vimeo.com/7912759 (hint: it's got a missed tackle)

We organized our office...mostly. It's coming along but it's sure is tedious.

We watched all of the Harry Potter movies again because it's been so long since I saw the first ones that I can't tell the difference between Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, and all the Hannah Montana movies. They all have monsters in them.

Our sink got clogged. I think it was a mixture of me putting potato peels down it and Annette putting a lemon down it all in the same hour or two. We tried for days to get it unclogged and finally we just hired a plumber. You should have seen the disgusting pile of garbage that came out when we were trying to unclog it ourselves. We suppose that it's sludge that's been rotting in the pipes since the place was built over a thousand years ago.

It's looks like we might be having success at selling our car when we put it up for $1,500 less than blue book. We're hoping to find a killer deal ourselves in the switch and we might not have a car for a while if we sell it too quickly.

Ponderings in Palisades

Dear Family and Friends,

As I ponder this week, I am filled with a deep gratitude for a multitude of things.

THING 1:

This might be the most important thing. BYU beat Utah by the skin of their teeth (though we're praying the football players have decent oral hygiene). I'm sure you all know the gory details. BYU went up 20 to 6 and life was great. We thought the game was in the bag, when in typical BYU fashion we collapsed and let them come back 20 to 17 with mere minutes left. At that point I thought Annette would collect on our brand new life insurance policy (which we'll talk about later) when I died of an aneurysm. They tied it, the game went into overtime, Utah kicked a field goal and went up 23 to 20. BYU got a turn to overthrow the wicked Utes and had an amazing play, but it was called back for a penalty. Just when we thought they'd choke, Hall found Andrew George up the middle for a huge touchdown. The moral of the story...storming the field after a victory ROCKS! Annette and I lost all emotional rationale and went screaming down the stands, hurled our bodies over the fences, and went sprinting across the field to embrace our heroes. My sister Angela came, too, but almost got trampled to death when the football players muscled their way through the crowd and came right past us. Annette and I got to beat them soundly on their pads and boy did they smell like they had rolled around in the swine mire. The pictures below are as follows:

Picture 1) Everyone at the football game except Annette who was taking the picture (I look like a dufus)

Picture 2) Max Hall getting sacked

Picture 3) The scoreboard while we were rushing the field. Annette had a devil of a time taking this shot since her body was thrown around because she was in a mosh pit.

THING 2:

This thing is almost as large a blessing as BYU beating Utah (though nothing really compares). I got laid off. It was a dying company and my boss laid me off because he knew his head was on the chopping block and he had to get rid of me before he got it himself. My coworkers were horrified, but I had a sweet assurance from the Spirit as he and the secretary were telling me about it that this was a good thing that was supposed to happen.

I learned a lot working there, but I got to a point where I stopped learning because they were demanding busy work from me. I've always been interested in entrepreneurship and now I definitely know how NOT to run a business. I got to a point where I was stuck in a rut; it was awkward for me to quit or get fired for telling off my boss to his superiors for his indiscretions. I am incredibly proud of how well I performed on the job and for my advancing in continous improvement intiatives with NO INCENTIVE WHATSOEVER from management. I don't doubt that new employment is right around the corner.

How big is that corner? I don't know. Some of my friends have been laid off recently and got new jobs. The fastest turnaround I've seen was five months. The longest turnaround...well, over a year and they still don't have a job. I really think I'll find something good. I've seen some great offers for which I'm not only qualified but perhaps OVERqualified.

Unemployment isn't all bad. An aquaintence calls it Funemployment. It's nice to spend so much time with my wife and make more than two college students make combined. Also, we're SO excited to go see David return from his mission and not have a worry in the world about getting time off. Annette's school schedule is now our constraint. But speaking of school...

THING 3:

Another blessing of getting laid off is that it forces me to get my MBA which I've been dying to get since before graduating from diapers. Some of the big questions now:

Which school do I go to?

Does school reputation REALLY matter?

How much do we want to spend?

How fast do I want to accomplish this goal?

We DON'T want to go into debt (since we currently have none), so how do we accomplish this?

There are all kinds of questions, but we're working through them. I've started studying with a friend for the GMAT and we'll probably take it early December.

THING 4:

We're looking to get a new car. Since we refuse to go into debt, we're looking at trading the BMW straight across. It's now worth $4,000 less than when I bought it a year and a half ago. That's depressing. We're hoping that we can get a car that has more room inside, towing capacity perhaps, and most importantly can drive in the snow. We also would like an automatic since Annette hates driving a manual and downright refuses because it scares the fool out of her.

THING 5:

Speaking of Annette, I LOVE HER SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THING 6:

We finally got a life insurance policy on me. I'm now worth much more dead than alive. There's a self-esteem booster for ya. Annette said she still wants me alive though. I can't imagine why. We'll probably take out a small policy on her, too, once we have kids which brings me to...

THING 7:

ANNETTE'S not PREGNANT!!!! Ha. Fooled ya.

THING 8:

Thanksgiving Day was neat. We went bounding through the woods. My family usually takes a hike and this one was a typical one. It was 6 miles through the freezing cold snow. Annette thought hiking in California was bad. It's better in Utah because your body goes so numb as it enters hypothermia that you don't even realize that you're about to die. Annette made a snow angel as pictured below. I did some interesting things in the snow, but we won't talk about them. She got some other great pictures which we hope you'll enjoy.

Thus it is. The End.

ASl Movie, All About Me

For my ASL class I had to make a movie all about me, so here is what it came out to be. There are no words, just sign, so I provided a transcript below. Capitalized words are spelled out and to just warn you, I wrote my thing out in ASL grammar, so don't think that since I have been in college that my grammar has gone to pot. Enjoy.

Hi, I ANNETTE MARTIN

My family lives in California. I youngest, born DEC 28. Oldest of four my sister COLLEEN. She married 3 children girls. Cute. 2nd oldest, brother, EVAN, intern Atlanta, Georgia. 2nd youngest DAVID, missionary in GUADALAJARA Mexico. Dad mom divorced. My mom, SANDRA 2nd marriage DEC. New husband, LARRY my new dad from Wyoming. I happy for my mom. JACQUES, my dad French, talks French good. I know little bit French enough talk with my Grandma Grandpa from France.

When I short I had 4 dogs, 5 sheep, 7 chickens, 1 goat, 30 rabbits. I love animals. I wish had dog, but no area for dog. I love to draw, paint, but not good, I practice. I like water paint best. I like photograph, I have many many photos. I like sew clothes myself, but time (not) enough, busy. I excited snow My major, Communication DISORDERS.

I married, my husband, he CHARLES. He wonderful husband. I met him 1 year past. When I visit my best friend, ROSE, she introduced him me. We live Orem, basement APT. He finish school. He engineer. He talks German Russian. He now learning Chinese. He smart. We love watch BYU football.

Finished

Little more:

My husband I play with children church in married student ward

I love to clean the house

My husband loves cook bread bacon meat

but I like to eat salad

Now Finished