Economies of Scale

So Copper Hills High School is running a sub-for-santa and charity money drive. The goal for the school is $16k, which they should meet. I upped the ante and told the Student Body Officers and my classes that if $20k was raised I would shave my head. On top of this they are doing a "homeroom" competition.

The homeroom competition is pitting the homerooms against each other. In order to make it fair they are comparing the total raised per student. Thus they take your total money raised in your class and divide it by the number of students in the class.

My homeroom class has done admirably. They have raised $1017.20. Unfortunately here is where my title comes into play. I have 39 kids in my class, and thus the total amount raised per kid is only $26. The first place class has raised nearly $32/student, but when you only have 14 kids in the class they needed to raise only $448. In order for my class to catch them I must raise $240 overnight. But that is to tie where they are today. Not only do I have to raise that much more to catch them, but for each dollar they bring in between now and 9:25 am tomorrow I have to bring in an additional $2.80. And since she charges money to use the hall pass, I am out of luck.

DAMN!!!

////edited to change the numbers for the other class////

Kids Photos

School Photos of the kids can be seen here.

Ooh Be Quiet

Yeah I know it has been a while. I have thought about posting, but find myself too busy lately. Since my last post we have moved, quit Verio, and started teaching. Shrug...nothing too big.

Moving

About mid June we began to look at how best to decide how to make live of a teacher's salary. As we evaluated our options, I happened to check to see what homes were on the market in Alpine, and we found one that was considerably cheaper, near a park with tennis courts, and didn't require our kids to change schools. So we put in an offer, and put our house on the market. By mid August we had sold our house. We moved into the new house August 17th.

Teaching

As if life were not hectic enough while we were moving into our new house I got a call from the Principle of Copper Hills High School wanting to interview me the next morning at 7:45 for a Biology teaching position. The next morning I interviewed, and was offered the job around 9:15 am. Whoa Batman. Needless to say life has been pleasantly hectic since then. I haven't had time to even watch television since school started, but for LDS General Conference.

Quit Verio

Needless to say I quit Verio. Hehehehehehe

July's Electric Bill

So we got the electric bill for last month. It was a bit of a sticker shock--$192. Whoa!!! Then I looked closer at the numbers.

As noted previously our equal payment plan jumped up to $170/month which prompted change on my part. So $22 more than the equal payment plan, really wasn't too bad considering that last month we saved $55. Net gain of $33 during the hotter months of the year.

The consumption numbers for July 2006 were 3019 kWh for the month, averaging 91 kWh per day. For 2007 we cut the numbers back to 1875 kWh and 57kWh respectively. Nice.

So for the hotter parts of the year we have continued cutting our electric use by 38%. The average for the year so far is an average reduction of over 40%...nice.

Power Consumption

Latest power bill came today. I am quite happy. Last year we averaged 75kWh/day. This year for the month of June we averaged 43kWh/day. Yeeehaw.

Power Bill

My power bill continues to stay low. Last year we used an average of 57kWH/day for the month of May. This year we used an average of 28 kWH/day. Sweet.

There are a couple things I did this past month to help as the temperatures began to rise. First I paid more attention to the daily temperatures and kept the windows open during the day as much as possible, particularly if the daily temperature was in the low to mid 70's. Second I opened the windows every night to get the temperature in the house down as much as possible, thus delaying the onset of needing to turn on the air conditioning. Third, we recently installed Vista window film on our house that is designed to reflect incoming heat and UV. With the three above steps of the hot days we experienced during the month of May we did not typically have to hit the air-conditioning button until after 3pm.

Power Consumption Continued

I have now replaced nearly all of my lightbulbs with CFL bulbs. It will be interesting to see how things continue.

The good news is that as of our last bill we have cut our power consumption year over year from an average of 53 kWh/day last year for the month of March (billing month of April) to 28 kWh/day this year. Had we not been on an equalized payment plan our power bill would have only been $68.

America's Favorite Pasttime

Growing up my life revolved around baseball. I was pretty good, and loved to play. In Junior High School my love of the sport wained when I started playing with people better than me and I found myself sitting on the bench more and more. So rather than working to improve myself, I quit. It still bugs me that I quit. I am not saying that I was 'pro' material, but I got a lot of joy out of playing baseball. I still do, but at a much slower pace--softball. It is also fun that my wife loves to play softball as well, and would have been pretty well recruited had she not made it clear to her High School coach that she was going to BYU. Some would say (myself included) that she has a better throw than me, particularly her accuracy. It has been fun getting out in the yard throwing with her.

Well now it is my kid's turns to play America's favorite past time, and for the past couple weeks we have been going out and playing catch with them. We are also sleeping with the foot of our mattress slightly elevated as we break in a couple newer gloves.:

Ky's 10

Happy Birthday to Ky. Today Ky turns 10...how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that the Doctor, much to his astonishment and ours, announced that we were having our first child 1 month early. I can still remember the look of shock and astonishment on Dr. Glenn's face. Priceless. Jen's and my expressions would have been just as classic to see.

Since 5:00 pm of that day Ky has been a constant joy and pleasure to parent. His is an avid reader and will quite regularly get caught up in his reading at night and not turn out his lights at the agreed upon time. He is slowly coming into his coordination, and is getting good at the guitar. Ky is a good student, and I don't believe he has gotten lower than an A- yet on his report cards (though he has come close).

As per tradition Ky woke up to a treasure hunt, which each year gets more difficult. The hint that I came up with was

Ether 12:27, last seven words.

It took him quite some time to find his presents. HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE.

CFL Update

As I mentioned here I replaced a good portion of the lights that the kids leave on with CFL bulbs. This was primarily done out of frustration with the ever north moving cost of electricity costs in my house. This is the first month with all of my CFL bulbs in place. So what did I get for the deal?

In comparison with last year's billing cycle I used 600kWh less this billing cycle than last year. I don't attribute all this to the discontinuation of incandescent bulbs in my house as in April of last year I also decommissioned an older server that was consuming a lot of power while serving out a relatively low visited website (pics.berrett.org. But still each of the past 3 months since having the CFL's in place I have continued to reduce power consumption in the home month over month.

This summer will be interesting in comparison with last summer.

Taylor's Baptism

Well with Taylor's 8th birthday comes his ability to be baptized, and today is the day.

Taylor has been waiting for this day for quite sometime and to watch him today was quite amusing. He was bouncing off the walls with excitement. "I can't wait to be baptized," he said all the way up to the time we left for the church.

Grandpa and Uncle Brent gave the talks on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost respectively. Both were good and well done. Since our Stake does baptismal services only for the ward, Taylor was the only one to be baptized in our meeting, which made it all the more fun.

As we walked to the font, you could tell Taylor was excited and seemed to have a bigger bounce in his step than other days. If I would have let him I am sure that he would have ran down the hall to the baptismal font. After his baptism and confirmation he was really happy and appeared to have a perma-grin on his face.

Heather's Three

Heather's 3 today. We sent her on a treasure hunt for her presents as soon as she woke up. She received:

• A Barbie video--12 Dancing Princesses
• A fairy doll
• Cinderella III DVD

Heather is a fun little girl, and is very much a girl. She loves to dress up as a princess, or take care of her 5 "Hailey" babies. She also does not like to kiss Daddy when he is not cleanly shaven. Quite often when I ask for a kiss I will hear, "No, you're scruffy!"

Happy Birthday Heather!!!

34

Not much to see here...Move along. In the famous words of "Oingo Boingo" "it's just another day.".

I don't get that excited for my birthday. Not sure why. Ever since I had kids I have seen my birthday as less and less relevant. Perhaps it is because I am comfortable with my life and what I have. Who knows, but needless to say I just don't get that excited.

Yesterday my good friend Scott and I went out to lunch at "Wallaby's Smokehouse" at 131 S State in Lindon, UT. It was good, not as good as I remember, but still good.

Tonight we had Pier 49 Sourdough Pizza which was good and Jen made me a chocolate cream pie, which if Jen made a crust from scratch would beat my Mom's pie (sorry Mom).

Jen asked me a couple day's ago what I wanted for my birthday, and to be honest I couldn't think of anything so I told her not to worry. So it was with great surprise that she got me something very good--a 80-hr TiVo Series 2 Dual Tuner DVR. I had been wanting to get one for a bit but couldn't get myself to pay for the subscription service. But since I didn't buy it, and we got a $180 rebate on the box, we bought a 3 year subscription, thus allowing us to purchase the TiVo subscription at the lowest possible monthly price. In looking at the wiring schematic, the cable signal is split inside the box and the output is via either coax, S-Video, or composite outputs. I set it up to output to my TV on S-Video, and split the video cable to my TV and TiVo, thus allowing me to record two shows simultaneously and watch a third if I so choose.

For being just another day, Jen and the kids made it a good day.

Taylor's 8!!

Today Taylor is 8, and he is pretty excited about it. He has been talking about it for quite some time. As per our family ritual he woke up to a bouquet of balloons, a box of donuts, and a clue to his first present. Each present he found had a clue to the next present. In all Taylor got 5 gifts:

• Boy Scout Uniform and Wolf Book
• Green Scriptures and Case
• A Watch
• An Arts and Crafts magnet set (of some sort)
• A Calvin and Hobbes book (he loves these)

Taylor is a great kid--full of life, and loves to tell jokes. He is a bright kid that does well in school. He is very excited to be baptized and to start cub scouts. And Saturday he starts his trumpet lessons.

Love you Taylor, Happy Birthday.

Waste in Washington

I am a regular lurker at digg.com and came across the following article detailing the work that Senator Coburn has undertaken during his tenure as first a Representative and now as a Senator. It is a very good read, and a rather depressing look at the state of affairs in Washington D.C.

Month One

So it is the first Monday of February, one month from my resolution to lose weight. How am I doing? The first 2 weeks, due to illness, I didn't exercise, but did adjust my eating. For the past 3 weeks I have exercised at least 4 times each week--I am working on getting that up to at least 5 days. I feel better. I am eating better, and am generally more happy.

I am somewhat disappointed in that the last 2 weeks I haven't lost any weight, but I need to remember that this is a long term goal, not a one month sprint. I have put into place the eating and exercise regiment that will help me meet my goals (and probably exceed them) by the end of the year.

Total weight lost: 9.8 lbs

Current weight: 279.0

Tightening of the Belt

Yesterday, without even thinking about it, I tightened my belt and low and behold I was able to move it one extra hole. Nice.

Mozy.com

A friend of mine works for mozy.com. The premise of the company is to make offiste computer data backup available to the masses--well for right now only Windows users, but soon Mac users as well.

I tried out their product some over the weekend and am impressed by the concept and the implementation of the client. Looking forward to a Mac client as I don't run any dedicated Windows boxes.

Poor Week

This week from an eating standpoint is going poor. I have for the past three days I have deviated from my 3 meals, one snack regimine. On the positive note I have done weights and cardio each day this week--despite several mornings where I just didn't want to get out of bed.

CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights)

We have our electric and gas bill equalized over 12 months, which makes it easy on the monthly budget. Unfortunately the recent electric bill adjustment jumped our monthly electric payment from under $120 to $170. To put it mildly, this shocked me, and quite honestly pissed me off. So to help reduce our electric bill I am quickly moving many of the major lights to CFLs.

The lights that I began replacing with CFLs were the ones that the kids typically leave on for long periods of time. I replaced most of the bathroom lights (which get left on a lot) with CFLs first. Not only are these left on a lot, but they are also a lot of lights--in four bathrooms there are 22, 60 watt lights for a total of 1320 watts in use when all are burning. Of the 22 bulbs, all but 4 were converted to 13-15 watt CFLs. This change reduces the watts used by nearly 900 watts. All of the kids rooms have been converted to CFLs as well as all the main bulbs down in the basement. In all I have replaced about 41 incandescent bulbs with CFLs.

So am I happy with them?

For the most part yes. Each of the bulbs uses less energy, but puts out more actual light. The light output as well as the energy savings makes me very happy, particularly since the lumen output of a 40 watt CFL is similar to a standard incandescent 60 watt bulb, so in some cases where I had multiple lights per room (such as the bathrooms) I replace some 60 watt bulbs with CFLs thus saving a few extra watts.

I am not happy with the length of time the lights take to completely warm up and reach their full lumen output. Some of the lights also have a slight delay before the lights even put out any light. Those two are the major frustrations. The starkness of the light is a slight irritation to me, but not to Jen. She is mostly frustrated with the two main issues noted above, which is why one of our main bathrooms is a mix of CFLs and incandescent--well those two reasons and price. The spiral CFLs are relatively inexpensive--about the same cost as the halogena lights that I really like. Globe lights, that we have in the kids bathroom, are over $4 a light bulb--nearly 3 times the cost of an incandescent. All the literature (well packaging really) says that we will save money over the life of the bulb. I guess I'll find out.

Fun with Amazon

I love amazon and am a regular purchaser of their services--mostly for DVDs and books. Today Jen went on-line to purchase some gifts for her the cousins down in San Diego, and after purchasing the items realized that she had forgotten to ship it to her sister in California. Unfortunately when she went to cancel the order was already moved to processing. And this brings up my greatest beefs with Amazon.

As I am an Amazon Prime member, I get free 2-Day shipping, thus as soon or within minutes of a checkout being made, the order is locked into the "shipping soon" status, which means that the order cannot be canceled.

So upon searching the Amazon website and then google, I found the customer service phone number, where upon I was told that they could not cancel the order and that once I receive a tracking number to call the carrier and cancel the shipment. I explained that I was very aware of their shipment time-frame and was very frustrated with the immediate change to "Shipping Soon" within minutes of the order being placed. I also explained that I know the order won't be shipped till later tonight, early tomorrow and that they should be able to cancel this order as it was being shipped to the wrong address. She again informed me that the order could not be canceled. This perturbed me to no end, so I asked to speak with her supervisor, and unfortunately after requesting it multiple times had to yell at the customer service rep (I always feel guilty when I have to do this).

The supervisor, probably due to my insistence with the front line rep, immediately premised to contact the order fulfillment center to get the order canceled, and much to her credit the order was canceled.

Now here is the ironic part. Shortly after getting the initial order canceled, I went on-line and ordered the products again and checked out. It wasn't until later that night that I realized that I had shipped it to us, rather than to California. I am a moron, who begrudgingly and humbly ate his crow last night.

Sick Day

Last Thursday (Jan 18) Ryan came home sick after throwing-up at school. He later threw up in the bathroom, unfortunately missing the toilet, so we kept him home on Friday. Yesterday (Sunday) Ky came down with the same symptoms shortly after coming home from church. Unfortunately his nausea hit while he was sitting on the toilet with diarrhea. This resulted in the bathroom floor once again being covered with vomit. Nice.

Well, last night Jen began getting the same symptoms as the kids, and Taylor started complaining about an upset stomach. Heather also was complaining about an upset tummy, but I think her complaints stemmed from the desire to sleep with a bowl in her bed. Needless to say today I took a sick day to help Jen out, and we kept Ky and Taylor home from school just to make sure that no additional clean-up was needed at school. All was quiet from the vomit patrol, and no further sightings were encountered. That was good since I can't stomach the sight nor smell of vomit.

278.8

So as I mentioned here one of my main goals this year is to lose at least 50 lbs. To that end I have begun exercising daily (or most days), limiting when I eat and how often I eat, and eliminating many of the grazing foods from my diet (cookies, chips, soda, and candy bars).

For the most part I have done well in limiting when I eat, and what I eat. I have fallen off a couple times, and mornings after Hailey hasn't slept very well have been tough to get up and exercise. But surprisingly the cravings, and longing for food in the middle of the day have been minimal and readily resolved (ie drinking water, or carefully planning my snack to coincide with the strongest cravings).

Current Weight: 278.8

Ryan, the little man

Ryan will occassionaly do things that strike me as more mature or grown-up than he actually is. Today was just such an occurence.

I was walking past the kids bathroom upstairs when I noticed the light was on. When I opened the door to turn it off (assuming no one was in it) I found Ryan sitting on the toilet, reading the newspaper. I had to chuckle.

Ky, the reader

Each night we have a family routine. We start the bedtime routine around 7pm. This routing consists of: pajamas, brush teeth, family prayers (each kid prays), scriptures, then reading with each individual child. We start the reading process with Heather and Ryan, and then move down to Taylor and Ky.

Both Ky and Taylor are good readers, but after finishing reading with Ky I was struck by Ky's love of reading. After reading a couple of chapters of the book I am reading to Ky, I put the book on his window sill, on a stack of books that Ky is reading on his own. Normally Ky's stack of books is several books deep--books of 200-300 or more pages each. This stack of books are typically the books that he is presently reading, but will occassionally contain a just finished and a yet to be started book. Tonight I am not sure why it struck me since the stack is always there, but tonight it struck me how much Ky loves reading. On the nights when we get them to bed late and put them to bed without allowing them to read on their own, Ky will actually sulk.

Fatty, fat, fat.

I be fat. Yes it is true, I be fat. Some would call it obese, but I just call it fatty, fat, fat.

Since I graduated from High School weighing close to 180 lbs, I have been on a not so steady weight increase. Since I got home from my mission the lightest I have weighed was 205 lbs, and that was a result of me chasing my wife--literally. You see when I first met Jen and began studying with her, we didn't really begin dating for a bit, what we did do is begin running together. Really what happened is she mentioned to me that she ran every day and I volunteered to run with her. So up until we got engaged Jen and I ran 6 days a week, and as I result I dropped down to 205 lbs. This 6 day a week running regimine had a couple other benefits: first it allowed me to meet my wife, get to know her, and get her to fall in love with me (I fell in love much sooner); second, it allowed me to lose enough weight so that I could get an 'A' in my weight lifting class--as grades were based upon your ability to lift a certain percentage of your body weight. But now I digress.

The purpose of this post is to affirm to the world that I am fat. As noted above it is not like I haven't known it. Were it not for the three years in high school all of my life since my early teenage years would have been pudgy--a nice fat roll hanging loosely around my mid section.

Well, to be honest I am tired of it and this post is more about publically recognizing that I have a problem that needs fixing, then about the suddent realization that I am a fatty, fat, fat.

My goal for this year is to be under 235. This would require an average weight loss of 1 lb per week. To make this happen I am doing the following:

• Daily exercise (20 mins cardio, and weights).
• Better eating. Salads or some other vegetable each dinner.
• Limiting my food consumption to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus one snack.
• Not eating after 8pm (2 hours before my desired bed time).
• Eliminating Soda (diet or otherwise).
• Drinking water, rather than milk, when thirsty.
• Reducing the amount of television that I watch.

Starting weight (Jan 2): 288.5

I Suck

Why I though this would be easy, or that I could readily do this is beyond me...in short I suck at keeping a blog, and to make matters worse I feel somewhat guilty about sucking.

To not have written anything since August 23, Ryan's Birthday, is pitiful--considering all that has happened:

• Jen's Birthday
• Hailey's Birth
• Thanksgiving
• Santa
• Christmas
• New Year's

Ryan's 5...

Well today Ryan turns 5 and as such is eligible to go to kindergarten this year--he starts on Aug 30th. Ryan is a fun kid. He seems to have a constant twinkle in his eyes and an infectious smile on his face, but when he is mad or sad his whole face changes. His current mood is readily apparent in his face and countenance. He has an easy going personality that allows him to work his way into any play group without problems. He is a good brother and regularly provides the comfort his little sister needs (though in many cases he is the cause of her needing the comfort in the first place).

He is a mischievous, happy, fun loving kid, and I am proud to be his Dad. Happy 5th Birthday Ryan.

Gotta Fix the Roof...

It will probably not come as any surprise that I have been putting off fixing the roof for some time, at least since last summer. During a wind storm several shingles were blown off and I just didn't want to get up on the roof to fix them. Well this morning I woke up to find that some of the tar paper had blown off as well. Looks like my delay has ended.

Called up my neighbor and borrowed his roofing nail gun, and then went up to Interstate Roofing Supply to get a couple bundles of shingles for the repair. While there I also purchased a few Whirlybird Turbine vents that are supposed to help remove the heat and moisture from your attic and thus reduce energy bills. I figured since I had to be on the roof anyway, might as well try it out.

After I ripped back the damaged shingles and replaced the damaged tar paper I set about installing the turbine. The installation was relatively easy, nothing complicated about it. Once I got it installed I finished up the shingles to the ridge. When I got to the ridge I pulled out the ridge shingles only to find them too narrow to blend with the existing ridge shingles. I installed a couple thinking that it would be fine, but decided that it didn't look to good--a little half-baked. Since I had a full bundle of ridge shingles I ripped off all the ridge shingles and re-did them with the new ones. The repair took me about 4 hours, but having my neighbor's roofing gun helped out greatly.

I think I need to lay down...

So with the family out of town this week and next (see here), I figure it is time to work on the various odds and ends that I left undone when we remodled the upstairs a couple years ago (yes, things were left uncompleted for a couple of years, and yes I have a patient wife). Needless to say I figure it was a good time to get things tied up.

I completed the molding around the windows yesterday and today began tearing off the baseboards that I incorrectly installed, and subsequently didn't complete. In order to remove it without damaging the drywall and paint you have to cut the caulking that seals the top of the baseboard to the wall, then pry the baseboard off the wall. Things were going pretty good, and was on the second to last piece of baseboard that I needed to remove when, while cutting the caulking with the utility knife, the knife released unexpectedly and cut a nice half-inch gash on my left ring finger. Blood quickly spurted out.

I grabbed the nearest cloth, and pressed hard on the open wound--the bleeding wouldn't stop. Dang, looks like I needed stiches. Rather than going to the ER, I went to the local "InstaCare" located 5 minutes from the house. This is an community type emergency like clinic that doesn't deal with the major emergency situations. Basically you go there for non-emergency situations that you can't get to your normal doctor for. I was able to get to see a doctor rather quickly.

Now whenever I am home alone for any extended period of time I eat like crap, and today was no different. I ate breakfast at 6:30 am and then ate a bowl of ramen noodles at around 3:30 pm. It was now 5:30pm and the hunger pains were coming on fierce, which is what I expected since I was planning on eating dinner around now rather than stting in the doctor's office.

Now understand I have a BS in Zoology with an emphasis in Human Biology. I took an anatomy class in college, I dissected various animals for one of my classes, I am very inquisitive when it comes to open wounds, and have been on hand to witness all of my childrens' births via c-section (I even watched them as they made the various incisions and removed my kids from their mother's womb). Not once have I ever been light headed, nor queasy. But today as they were getting ready to numb my finger for the stiches the room began to spin. I remember saying "I think I need to lay down" and the doctor responding that I could just lay down on the exam table behind me. The next thing I remember I am dreaming that Jen is cleaning the pots and pans in the kitchen and I am suddenly waken from what seemed like a very deep sleep.

"You okay?" said the doctor. "Not to scare you but you appeared to have a seizure. Where are you? What was the last thing you remember before passing out?"

I answered the questions quite easily.

"What is your name? Who is the current President?"

"Mark Berrett. Unfortunately it is George W. Bush." I responded. To which we all shared a laugh.

"Though it appeared you had a seizure, you are too coherent and aware of your surroundings to have had one." said the doctor. "But we are going to give you a shot just in case."

I was still trying to get everything straight in my head. How could this be? I had passed out. This had never happened before. I tried to explain everything away. It must have been the low blood sugar coupled with a drop in blood pressure resulting from the cut and my preparing myself for the needle prick. The doctor even agreed with me on this, but yet it seemed he was more consoling my whimpish nature than offering up a legitimate reason for having passed out. Dang that was embarassing. Why couldn't I have passed out earlier or later. Why did I have to pass out at all, particularly just as they were about to poke me with a needle. I looked so whimpy, so unmanly. No! This can't be. I watched my wife's c-sections without a hint of light-headedness or queasiness. IT WASN'T THE SIGHT OF A NEEDLE. Alas I am not sure the doctor or the nurse believes me.

Licensed!

I am now officially licensed to teach biological science in Junior (Middle), and High School. Now if only I can find that pesky first job.

Strike Two...

Well got an email today letting me know that I didn't get the Hunter High School biology position that I interviewed for on July 31st. Somewhat disappointing in that I still don't have a position for the coming school year, but okay since it would have been a 40 minute commute.

So that makes strike two. I had previously interviewed with Lone Peak High School in June but didn't get that job either. But as everyone tells me positions begin to open up in August. Sitting, waiting, wishing.... I'll let you know.

Going on vacation...

well at least the family is. I am told that during the month of August more teaching positions will open up. Couple that promising opportunity with my lack of vacation time upon returning to Verio and the familiy will be spending 2, yes two, wonderful weeks in San Diego while I remain at home working and hopefully finding employment with a local school. As in the past I will drive them down this weekend, fly back on Sunday and then fly back to San Diego on the 17th to drive the family back on the 19th (happy Birthday Rus!). So from Sunday night the 6th to the 17th I will be home alone. Wonder what I'll do.

I'm so Glad...

Today Heather didn't go down for her nap until around 4pm and then slept until 7pm. After we put the boys to bed Heather kept us company as we watched TV. About 9pm I took Heather for a walk around the neighborhood and then tucked her in bed. As I walked out the door and blew her a kiss, she blew one back and then began singing:

Nice way to end the evening.

Me and 13

Of course this is all coincidental but me, the number 13, and girls all seem to go hand in hand. As you may have read previously the coming child is grandchild #13 for both sides of the family. Also worth noting is that Heather was born on the 13th. So in someways it is no surprise that grandchild number 13 would be born a girl.

Oh, by the way the name we are leaning heavily towards is.............

at least for now. Perhaps something better will spring to mind and replace Hailey as the first name.

The Fourth

I like fireworks, preferably ones that I light myself. Fireworks in the sky are nice and all, but unfortunately the displays that I have viewed in Utah are rather poor small productions that always leave me asking "Is that all?" As a result I like lighting off my own at home, rather than fighting the crowds only to be disappointed by an underwhelming public display.

So again this year I got a bunch of TNT fireworks and lit them off for the family. The kids seem to by far like the parachute men the best. They love chasing them down the street as they drift to the ground. Me I like the crackle and strobe type fireworks. My least favorite are the whistlers so I avoid buying them as much as possible. Perhaps it is the pyro in me but there is nothing better than lighting the fireworks and watching them burn in all their colors and glory. What makes it better is watching the reaction from the kids, and this year didn't disappoint.

Free Gas Card

As I entered Costco today my attention was drawn to a sign giving away a free gas card, all you had to do was sign up for an American Express card. This seemed like a good offer until a verified the amount of the gas card. You see I originally read the sign to be for a $50 gas card, but alas it was only $5. You think that Costco and American express could offer something more than 1.75 gallons of gas....sheesh.

Doooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Well after 18 months working towards my teaching certification I completed my last task today at 4:51pm.

I guess not it's time to really begin looking for a teaching job.

11 Years

In some ways it doesn't seem that Jen and I have been married for 11 years, but in other ways I wonder, "Is that all?" We had a pretty low key day, mainly just kicking around the day, taking it easy in preparation for Jen's big surgery on Monday. To get the house in order Jen cleaned the kitchen while I did the laundry.

Dinner was at home, I made steaks and potatoes. Jen made a great chocolate cream pie. Other than that not much else happened.

Eleven years ago was an interesting day--fun and surprising. Surprising in that when we went back for pictures prior to the reception, Jen's mom had the dress and didn't get back until shortly before the reception. So by the time pictures were done all the guests had arrived and gave us a standing ovation upon entrance. Fun...well you understand why.

The past 11 years have been enjoyable, and have gone by rather quickly. I am reminded daily as to why I married Jen...mainly by people telling me how lucky I am. It is hard to put into words my feelings and thoughts on the 11 years, so rather then try and fail, I'll simply say...Love you more.

Broken

Three weeks or so ago, Jen was playing softball when a bad hop smacked into her right hand, and apparently jamming her pinkie and ring finger. A couple days later when she went to the doctor they suspected that one of her tendons broke free, but because of her pregnancy could not x-ray her hand. They recommended that she go see a hand specialist in 10 days, when the baby was more developed, and they would be able to perform an x-ray.

Well she went to the doctor today and she didn't pop a tendon...she broke the bottom bone in her pinkie diagonally along the length. As a result she will need surgery to have 3 screws put in. She can't have general anesthesia, so will have to have her entire hand numbed with a wrist or hand block. The surgery is planned for the 12th (next Monday).

Fun.