Category: Uncategorized (Page 99 of 118)

Well, it’s official.

Ryan has been frequently traveling to Las Vegas to help some company with their equipment and set up. He’s probably been 4 times in the last two months. Well, this company decided they would like Ryan to be there a little bit more often, and offered him a job as their systems manager.

After a lot of discussion and much back and forth, he’s decided to accept their offer. That means we’ll be soon moving to Las Vegas. (Try to contain your cheers and excitement!) Ryan will start the end of April, and do the commute thing. I think he can go down on Monday and come home by Friday. We’ll be going down after Easter to find a place, and put our house up for sale. Ryan’s got a good friend who lives in Summerlin, which is just outside of Las Vegas, and we’re going to look for a house around there. We won’t have our big yard anymore, but who wants to do yardwork in Las Vegas in the summer. Maybe we’ll get something with a pool, instead.

We won’t be moving until after school is out for sure, and I’ve got my Bells concert June 2nd and 3rd. I’m so sad to have to leave the Bell Choir, but I’m so absolutely grateful that I had this marvelous opportunity for the past year. I’ve made so many new friends and can’t even say in words how much I’ve grown musically.

I know this is a Shock to you. It was a total shock to me, too. I haven’t mentioned anything on here because we were quite up in the air about the whole thing, and didn’t want to say anything until we knew for sure. I mean, we’re not the kind of people who just pick up and move every couple of years like *some people* we know (yes, you know who you are–and I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing!).

We’ve prayed about it and feel good about it. It will be extremely hard leaving our wonderful neighborhood and being so close to family and friends, but now you’ll have a place to stop and visit on your way to Disneyland, right?

You know it’s finally spring when…

**Soccer starts. Even though I’ve only got two kids in soccer this year, I really dread it. For some reason those extra two hours of practice and two games a week just push me over the edge of my driving kids here and there sanity. Thankfully it’s not all year.

**Birthdays. Cole and Megan’s birthdays are 9 days apart, so for a while now we’re in all birthday frenzy mode (if only Megan would decide what it is she would like to do for her birthday, so I can get started on the planning).

**General Conference. I’ve been given 4 tickets to conference this year, so I’m thrilled to take Cole and Megan and Ryan to the Sunday afternoon session. That is if I figure out what to do with the smaller kids.

**Out comes the self tanner. Since I have no natural color to my skin, I am forced to apply my color from a tube. I like the new banana boat self tanner because it is really subtle. If you happen to put it on streaky, it won’t matter (unlike the nutregena foam that I was using last year). The downside of that, however, is that I don’t know if I will ever look any tanner, but we’ll see.

** Out come the capri pants. I actually wore capri pants for the first time on Monday (that’s why I needed the self tanner).

**I begin the search for the perfect sandals to wear all summer. I usually end up buying 2 or 3 pairs of sandals before I find a winner. I still wear the other ones, just not every day.

**I feel the urge to go outside and pull weeds. I did some weeding on Monday, used up the last of my Preen, so I’ve got to get some more, and shredded my hands trying to pull out some obnoxious reed things.

**I also feel the urge to throw things out–watch out, kids, Mom’s going to be going through your closets–I think I’ll start with the 87 pairs of shoes and 28 coats in the mudroom.

**It rains. A lot.

**And, my favorite, the daffodils pop up; and soon (if the deer haven’t totally eaten them) we’ll have tulips.

Well, after all my blabbering on about these singing telegrams, today is finally the day. I’ve written 5 different songs, and I have three duets (thanks to the moms who sing!) and two groups of 6th graders (about 7 in each group) to sing. I’m hoping that everyone does what they are supposed to do and every teacher and member of the staff gets sung to.

I can’t possibly be old enough to have a 12 year old. But for some reason, my oldest child insists on getting older. Cole is a wonderful boy and we are so very proud of him. We love how much he’s learning and growing, and always so nice to his sisters

This weekend has been one constant party for Cole. It started with grandparent’s day at school on Friday, where the 6th grade hosted a day for grandparents to come and see what they are doing. There were activities and treats, and Ryan’s parents enjoyed coming to see Cole’s work at school.

As soon he came home from school, we had to get him ready for his scout campout. He and the two other boys in his troup, plus some leaders and one dad, went to Willow Park in Lehi for their “winter/spring campout”. I’m glad they waited until a warm weekend, so I wouldn’t quite so much. He made it home just fine, though, Saturday around noon.

Saturday evening, he had his bowling birthday party. Eight of his friends came, we played games, opened presents, and had a bowling lane cake (Here’s Paige’s Version), and then Ryan (what a stud) took them bowling. They had a great time! Cole even got his own bowling pin for all his friends to sign and bring home.

Today was his actual birthday, and he got set apart as a deacon and recieved the priesthood, which was a neat experience. His grandparents came for that and stayed for dinner. So, now we’re a bit partied out, but no–Megan’s birthay is in another week, and we’d better hurry up and figure out what we’re doing for that!

Ok, I think I have sung the praises of Kohl’s department store before, but let me just elaborate. I stopped in to Kohl’s yesterday, and lo and behold, I see the clearance racks. Not just 30% or 50% off–no, it’s 80% off! I found a pair of jeans for $4.47! I picked up this darling jacket that had an original price tag of $60, which ended up being less than $8, so I had to get it. Even though John lost interest in the fun little shopping cart stroller and ended up running around hiding in the clothing racks with Jenna, I managed to find several WAY cute items for WAY cheap! We did have a little bit of drama in the dressing room, when John insisted on opening the door and running out while I’m standing there in my underwear, but I managed to muscle him back in and stand in front of the door so he couldn’t open it again until I was dressed.

But here’s the kicker, they don’t just have awesome sales, they have friendly and helpful sales people. I had a coupon for a free trial of lipstick, and since no one was at the makeup counter to help me, I just picked one out and brought it to the check-out. She didn’t know how to use that particular coupon, so she asked someone else, who told her to wait until the end, and then scan it. So, she rang up all my stuff, then scanned the coupon. It still wasn’t working, so she called someone, who told her how to do it. When it still wasn’t wroking, she read the fine print on the coupon (which I hadn’t done) and it said you would get a “generous 4 week sample of the lipstick”, not a free lipstick. Ok, I didn’t want to pay $16 for a lipstick when I had just found all these bargains, so I asked her to take that one off. Since she had waited until the end of the transaction, the lipstick couldn’t be voided, so she had to void the whole thing and start over. Ok. No problem. The manager lady who came over to help her and look at the coupon then said, “Well, since this is taking so long, we’ll just let you have the lipstick anyway.” How nice is that?

So, after using my 15% off coupon that had come in the mail, my total was $60.92. I couldn’t believe it! And that was for 2 necklaces, 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts and a jacket, and a photo album (not on clearance, but it will make a nice birthday present for a certain daughter who’s having a birthday soon!). I love Kohl’s!

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I realized later, when looking at my reciept in disbelief, that one reason the total was so cheap was that when she re-scanned everything to ring it up again, my two children were each holding a stuffed animal that they had picked out. They got rung up the first time, but since they wanted to hold them instead of putting them in the bag, they didn’t get scanned the second time. Oops. I owe Kohls’ another 10 bucks. No problem, I’ll just have to go back (preferrably without those annoying children).

I’m so very sorry that I didn’t pull out of the Carl’s Junior parking lot at the first available opening. It wasn’t that I was putting on lipstick or talking on my phone, I was trying to reason with a 2 year old (hopeless, I know) about why he wasn’t going to get his rootbeer in the car. Perhaps you didn’t here the screaming coming out of the open window of “I WANT MYYYY ROOOOTBEEEER!!!”, so you felt the need to honk at me. Maybe drinking rootbeer in the car isn’t a problem for you and your filthy construction worker truck, but we try to keep it out of the backseat for reasons I would rather not go into now.

And I’m really sorry that I hesitated for a moment at the left turn light on 120th South. No, I wasn’t sleeping, but attempting to fill the Carl’r Jr. Cup that previously held rootbeer with water to give to the 2 year old, so that he would hopefully stop his screaming. That honking really sped me up, though. No harm done, as we both made it through the light with plenty of time to spare.

If you were so annoyed by my driving (as you obviously were), I don’t quite understand why you pulled up behind me when there are two turn lanes to get onto I-15 southbound. You could have quite easily gotten into the other lane and not have to be behind me for one more second.

I guess it was important to you to really make sure that I knew you were annoyed, though. Enough so that you had to honk at me as you were passing me (on the right), so that I would look over and see you flipping me off. I’m sure you were in a great hurry to get somewhere really important, like to your next drywall job, and so you felt you were justified by your rude behaviour.

I’m sorry for you.

Yes, you made me upset–was that what you wanted? Because, really, I’m sure I was just too relaxed with that screaming 2 year old in the car, and the other one who was also trying to tell me 28 things, which were all very important to her. But now I know that you are much more important than us regular folk, and we should all either get out of your way, or make sure not to ever hesitate when turning left.

I’m not used to being treated in that manner, and even though I know I should just shrug off your horrible rudeness because you probably don’t know any better, it still made me feel bad and hurt my feelings.

My only positive thought was that at least I could blog about it.

I went to a little class on bread making today, sponsored by our Enrichment committee. Having never really made bread before, I was quite excited to make these cinnamon rolls and french bread.

I must admit that I *gasp* ate one of the cinnamon rolls. Ugh. I know it was tons of sugar and tons of wheat, but I was baking, and couldn’t help myself. I really have no will power. None at all. But I will not be eating any more, as what was left after the kids came home and had a snack, we gave to the nice neighbor who plowed our whole driveway on Sunday. But let me tell you, it was delicious!