Spring Break Recap

Spring Break is over. It is April 3rd and it is snowing outside. Go figure! I cleaned up my little yard a bit and planted pansies (that are now covered in snow). Molly and I spent lots of quality time together. We visited the double T's. We hung out at the DMV. We got the kitchen table cleaned off and threw most of it in the recycle bin. We also cleaned out 3 cupboards in the kitchen. We fixed dinner for Grandpa. We slept in until 7:00 almost every day! Hooray for days off. (And, of course, we went to Disneyland!!)

Unfortunately, a few more of my spring break projects included cleaning my house, and finishing some school work. That, of course, did not get done. School work has been left until Sunday night. Housework . . . keeping up on the laundry, dishes, countertops, and bathrooms is all I can seem to manage. One of these days, I might get the rest of it in order. Before Molly was born, I prided myself in having a fairly tidy house . . . no more.

I also spent a good deal of time over the break talking to a couple of realtors and a couple of financial guys. Thank goodness Molly had some long naps and I was able to do this. Selling our house is going to be quite an obstacle. We are in good shape to purchase a new home, though, except for the whole selling of this one. I've come up with a 6 month plan and James has agreed to come on board. In the next 6 months we will:

1) without touching our savings, try to tighten our belts and put as much extra money on our current loan as possible to help cut the difference between what we owe and what the realtors thing we could sell it for.

2) lightly nudge (or pester like crazy) our current HOA board to get our complex FHA compliant. Right now we are not and this is why the other homes that our for sale are not selling. I e-mailed the presidente on Friday, but of course have not heard back from her. I'll call her this week.

3) keep our fingers crossed that at least one of the other homes sells in the next little while and then ours will (there are currently 3 on the market and and 4th with a for sale sign up, but not actually listed).

For the rest of the month of April I am also going to keep myself busy doing the following (all of which have deadlines by the end of the month and all while James is gone for 2 weeks for Annual Training):

1) Finish my final project for the most stupid class I have taken yet at USU.

2) Finish THE final project for my Master's Degree. I am building a curriculum of online games and activities to match the Algebra 1 curriculum. I've been creating the project all year, but I have to do the final write up and report on it before the end of this month so I can walk at graduation (maybe), even though I still have one class to finish in the summer.

3) Finish my portfolio that is also a requirement for my pending degree

4) Finish my part and help Annie and Emily with our booth for the BYU Women's Conference - "Social Technology - Good, Better, and Best."

5) Teach the temple prep class to a couple in our ward - first lesson is tomorrow (and maybe we should actually go to the temple since it's been a while, but our recommends expired and we can't meet with the bishopric until Tuesday).

Phew! I hope I make it! If I do, we'll celebrate Molly's 1st birthday, wrap up the school year, and have a great summer!

General Conference

Primary General Board Meeting

• Study the scriptures and have personal experiences with the scriptures in order to better teach them.
• The focus of primary is teaching the individual to lift up the family

Saturday Morning Session

• New temples in Fort Collins, Colorado; Meridian, Idaho; Manitoba, Canada
• Keep the Sabbath Day Holy, including proper dress.
• Be humble like the little children.
• Do Good. Serve Others.

Saturday Afternoon

• When others make mistakes and offend you, just let it go.

Sunday Morning Session

• Be ready to do the Lord's work on the road to Damascus, don't be afraid to talk to your friends and co-workers about the Church
• Marvelous blessings often come on the heels of great trials, you will never be asked to go through trials that are beyond what you can handle
• Help the needy, take care of the sick, feed the hungry
• Go to the temple! Some people have to work in a nickel mine for 4 years to be able to go. You don't have to do that, so you should go to the temple often.

Sunday Afternoon Session

• Love your spouse and tell them how much you appreciate them
• Pay your tithing
• You have to do and be. Do things, but also be who you should be all the time. Do is an activity, but be is what is in your heart all the time.
• Repent!
• Appreciate general conference and love the prophet.
  

Spring Break!

It's Spring Break for Murray School District! Yippy! I get the whole week off to work on my "to do" list. Here are a few things going on.

Disclaimer: After rereading this blog post, it sounded super negative. Sorry. I am very grateful to have a few days off. It is just sometimes overwhelming because I have more things that I want to accomplish during the week than are sometimes possible.

• Today we spent more than 2 hours at the DMV to renew my license. That was great fun. Molly was pretty good for the first hour and a half, then cried and fussed for a half hour, then finally conked out on my shoulder for the last 15 minutes. The DMV is the MOST inefficient place I have ever had to go. We think schools are bad? When are the documentarists going to focus on this terrible institution? I was watching each worker at their stations and all but 2 of them managed to waste 5-6 minutes doing who knows what before calling up the next person. In my number category (the C100's) it took slightly more than 1 hour to go from C120 to my number, C140. What a joke!
• I would like to get my yard (as little as it may be) in order this week, but I need slightly warmer weather. I need to buy some pansies, too, because I wasn't on the ball enough to plant them in the fall. Also, the lawn is super long and needs to be mowed.
• I contacted a realtor and mortgage guy today about the possibility of selling our house. It is possible, but there are obstacles. Right now, similar homes are selling for about $10,000 less than what we owe. We are not going to short sale and we are not desperate to move, but we do WANT to move. Molly needs her own bedroom. Our stairs are steep and are becoming steeper the closer Molly gets to them. I would like a garage (my car got broken into again last week). I would like a yard. I would like a basement that has a corner to put junk in that needs to be put in a corner, but not thrown out. I would like to have a room big enough for Molly to use her walker without crashing into furniture or walls or other crap because THERE IS TOO MUCH CLUTTER IN THIS HOUSE! I'm open for suggestions and ideas to solve this conundrum.
• Oh yeah . . . you want to know a good way to de-clutter the junk in your car? Have someone break into it, luckily get scared off, and leave all of your stuff lying in your carport for the police to then put in your trunk. Leave it there for a day or so because you are super busy and then hurry and bring it all in the house to clean out your car so there is a place to put your luggage on the way to the airport and then find a large metal rod in the trunk with the stuff, but throw most of the stuff away and that's how you de-clutter, but then you are grateful that they didn't actually use the large metal rod because you may have had to fix a window and you don't want to do that again.
  
• I am going to the General Primary Board Meeting tomorrow morning. It should be good.
  
• We are supposed to teach temple prep classes to a couple in our ward, but we need to set up an appointment with them (and we should probably go to the temple ourselves . . . now that I just wrote that, I think our recommends may have expired this month . . . better check on that).
• My mom is out of town, so we took her Wednesday night spot to have dinner with Grandpa tonight. It was fun! I don't usually volunteer to take meals to people because cooking is not really my forte. We had barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, chips and dip, and salad. I guess it was okay because Grandpa ate one and a half sandwiches.
• I only have 2 days left of my vacation and I have a lot of things to do, still. Maybe I should spend less time blogging and more time cleaning my house. Or . . . I could just hulu last week's new episode of the office while I reread this post and then go to bed. That sounds good!
  

D-Land Report

We went to Disneyland!!! It was great!! Here is the report.

I've been to Disneyland many times. It's quite a family tradition. James has been twice now and Molly has been once. James was worn out from literally running from ride to ride every morning with Willie. I am worn out from taking care of Molly for 3 days without having a place for her to just roll around on the ground. Oh well. It's a good worn out. Disneyland is just the type of place that you need a vacation from the vacation when you get back. Lucky for me, I am on Spring Break this week and Molly and I are just chillin'.

So, what else? We stayed at the Sheraton Garden Grove. It was very nice. We spent 3 days in the park, mostly hopping between both parks. We've got the fast pass, baby swap, and park hopping down so well that Willie wants to write a book about "cheating the system at Disneyland." I personally did not stand in any line for more than 20 minutes and I don't think anyone else did either.

I don't think I've ever been there in March and it was still pretty crowded. I don't know that it's ever not crowded except for the first couple of hours it's opened each day. James and Willie got there super early EVERY DAY! Since my mom, Molly, and I didn't make it quite that early, the two of them were able to have our Magic Morning passes on the last day. Willie knows the total, but I think the two of them rode Space Mountain 20+ times. Neither of them were feeling very well yesterday and I think that might have something to do with it.

Molly was an angel. She had a few moments of hunger and tiredness, but overall was just perfect. She took good stroller naps and loved the rides and shows she did do. She literally held perfectly still for like 3 minutes at a time during Captain EO. She was mesmerized by Peter Pan and even giggled going up and down on Dumbo. She tried to escape on the Merry-Go-Round and fell asleep on It's A Small World. She was neutral to Pirates of the Caribbean, but got a little antsy just because it is such a long ride. Most of the rides, she just sat and looked around at everything, taking it all in. She's a good girl.

My only complaint about this trip is that, as anyone who's been knows, the food inside Disneyland is way expensive. I was anticipating that. However, it seemed liked everything was just so much more expensive than before. Plus, the food as always been pretty good and of a very filling quantity for the price you pay. This time, though, it seemed more skimpy, not as good, and more than ridiculously overpriced. Oh well.

There were more highlights . . .

• The Baby Center - we visited it often because there is no warm water in any bathrooms in DLand (believe me, I tried most all of them) and it was very nice and friendly. I've never had reason to use it before, but would highly recommend it!
• Ruby's Diner on the Huntington Beach Pier - We left the parks on Sunday afternoon to head to this place for dinner. It was a bit chilly, but pretty fun! I had a delicious milkshake that tasted wonderful.
• Plane Ride Home - Molly was a bit of a screaming bear for the first 25 minutes of the plane ride TO California, so I was a bit nervous about the return trip. But, she was really good. She played and was easily entertained for most of the way. She became kind of a maniac for the last 15 minutes or so of the flight, but once in her stroller she quickly fell asleep.
• Elliott and Wyatt entertained Molly quite well. She giggles at them. Wyatt usually likes to pick fights with her, but Elliott is very caring and watches out for"little Molly."
• Iced Milkshakes - After a rough evening Saturday night trying to find food (and a moron mustached kid at Red Robin not knowing how to do his job and seat people), we went back to our hotel restaurant and asked for milkshakes and fries. They said they would try. I think the shakes were made of milk and ice in a blender, but they actually tasted pretty good and we appreciated the effort.

• My parents and the rest of my family are great! Here's to the next trip!

Oh . . . one more thing. Did you know that Disneyland even has it's own Mickey shaped clouds?

Jimmer Neutral

March Madness is upon us. I watched the first half of the BYU game yesterday. Yes, Jimmer is good. No, I don't love him nor do I want to jump on any bandwagons and convert to BYUism. But as an avid basketball watcher, yes he is good and BYU played well yesterday. Yes, they've now made it one game farther than I had them on my bracket, but I also had them going down to St. John's and not Gonzaga (even with John Stockton's 12 year old son playing for them). So much for my bracket.

In other news, I was glad Butler pulled out a win. I wish West Virginia would have done the same over Kentucky. I wish that Michigan kid (and I don't really like Michigan) would have dished the ball off to someone else or been able to score that last bucket to knock of Duke, but oh well. I don't like Duke, Kentucky, or BYU for that matter. If BYU ever played one of those teams, it might be the only time I'd cheer for the Y . . . no, I take that back. It'd probably be the only time I'd cheer for Duke or Kentucky. I'd hate to think that BYU could actually beat one of those two teams (though this year I haven't been impressed with either and BYU could maybe even take them). Such is basketball . . .

Then there's our Utes. What's happened to them? I have no idea. The only thing that makes Jimmer mania worse is that it is salt to the gaping wound that is my Utes. I don't miss Majerus, but I miss his style of basketball. Hard nosed. Fight 'til the end. Defense wins ballgames. Fundamentals win ball games. I'd like Utah to hire the Butler coach, but since that won't happen, I think Utah needs someone like him.

Chris Hill, if you are reading my blog, I think it's time to go local. Find someone who knows how to get a few of those good, solid Utah kids to play and put them in a position to do their jobs. Find someone who doesn't necessarily look good on paper, but who has something invested in the program and in the school. Jeff Judkins. Kerry Rupp. Alex Jensen. I think it's time to invest in the past to prepare for the future. Maybe even Michael Doleac is looking for a job.

That's all. When do I blog? Molly milestones and avoiding homework. Option 2 is the matter of the evening. Good bye. Time to get back to work.