Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas has come and gone once again. Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I really enjoy Christmas. I like the overall feelings associated with the Christmas season. I am, however, a little burnt out on Christmas music. I am going to delete my Christmas music station on Pandora.com - at least until next year.

I think our children enjoyed their Christmas. We tried to keep it fairly simple this year. One of the best places to shop is a store we have here in Iowa City called Stuff. It is a second hand store that has great prices. We have bought everything from furniture to sporting equipment there. This Christmas we found some really nice shirts for the boys and a lot of books. I firmly believe that you can never have enough books. I also never throw a book away - unless it is absolute trash. I currently have two large book cases that are overly full. I am going to try to learn to make a book case (or two) this coming year.

It has also been nice to have some time off (even though I am sitting at my desk at work writing this - I had to check on something). I have been able to get some stuff done at home that I have been meaning to do. Really that means that I have been able to sit on my rear and read a good book. Our children have loved being out of school. They spend about half their day at the sledding hill and the other half back in the house trying to warm up. It has been bitterly cold here for about the past two weeks but today we are having a heat wave. The temperature is already in the mid-30's and is supposed to get into the 40's.

Wow! The concert last night was very good. There were a variety of performances. The show choirs were great and the string duet they had on stage while the choirs were switching places was incredible. I don't know that I have ever heard to high school aged musicians play that well. They played a piece by Handel that was extremely challanging and beautiful. I was surprised by the amount of talent on that stage last night. I guess I have just been to one too many 5th and 6th grade band performances. The best part was being able to tease Caleb about wearing makeup. He was very cute with rosy cheeks and eye liner. No wonder the girls all like him.

The Iceman arrived

I usually don't get very cold. Actually, I am usually complaining because it is too warm. Today, however, I can barely type because my fingers are so cold. A cold front moved in yesterday afternoon and the temperatures are hovering around zero. With the ever present wind, it is nearly -25 degrees outside. I am tired of winter already. In an effort to save money and save energy, we try to keep the thermostat set at around 66 degrees. In light of the cold outside, I checked the thermostat and saw that someone had it set at 62. No wonder I am so stinking cold.

Tonight is Caleb's first show choir concert. This will be interesting. It is always fun to watch gangly teenagers dance and sing. Caleb has a great voice with an incredible range but he needs to work on breath support which he claims he just can't do. Maybe if his teacher told him he would listen. I am pleased that Caleb is in show choir and hope he sticks with it.

check out this news story

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=75303


I found this news story to be quite interesting. I heard about it on the radio.

I feel that it should be okay to drive in that lane in this situation.

Good day

I had a good day today. Taught Body Step this morning and had a blast. After class, I immediately changed into my swimming suit and spent 10 minutes in the gym's hot tub. I felt wonderful. This afternoon, I spent two hours at the UI women's gymastics meet. It was an intrasquad meet (Gold team vs. Black team). The coolest thing is that a couple of days ago I was asked by the head coach to be one of the "celebrity" judges. It is a whole new vantage point to watch the floor exercise from the side of the mat. Part of the fun is that each team bribes the judges with candy. I got a whole gift bag with mini Snickers and Milky Ways in addition to a bottle of Diet Coke. The gymnasts are incredible. I wouldn't even dare to climb up on the balance beam let alone walk across it. Flips? Not a chance on a surface four feet off the floor that is barely wide enough for my feet. Now is all I have left to do for the day is a quick, 15 minute trip into work to do some cell culture.

Can I borrow your fridge?

You'd think one appliance going out would be enough this time of year, but NO it must be our thing around here to have appliances die.

Our refrigerator decided to quit as well. It felt warm over the weekend, Two days ago I put a thermometer in it. It reads 50 degrees. I took off the back of the fridge and vacuumed the heck out of it. It was dirty. However that didn't help. The thermometer has read 50 degrees and sometimes 52 degrees all day. No wonder why the milk tasted so bad at breakfast. It was nasty.

Problem is, it's a CROSLEY brand. Who has ever heard of that?

it came with the house. We moved here 2 years ago.

It's a newer looking model, but obviously a piece of crap. I called every appliance fixer person in the phone book and so far they all say the same thing

"We don't fix that brand"

Nice. I searched it on the Internet. The Internet will let me order parts. What part do you order? Seriously I haven't been trained in this. The Internet will also let me order a manual. Maybe I should so by the time a week or two goes by and everything rots inside I might have figured out what might be wrong. Meanwhile everything that is worth saving is out on the back deck in the snow.

Unbelievable.

Nothing in particular

Christmas is coming. We have snow on the ground and it is COLD! I know Christmas is coming not just because there is snow on the ground and the calendar says that it is December but because I have my Christmas station back on Pandora.com. It is nice to be able to listen to Christmas carols while I work. I love this time of year. It tends to be a little frustrating sometimes because we just don't have the resources but it is nice none the less.

Life has been a little disheartening around here lately but I am an eternal optimist and am always trying to find the silver lining. I firmly believe that there is good to found in everything that happens - you just have to look for it. Things are starting to settle down and hopefully will be back to a familiar routine/grind soon. I am very grateful for the peace I find in the scriptures and through prayer. I know that our Heavenly Father is very aware of me (and all of us) personally and is very concerned for my well-being. I very much appreciate His willingness to let me make mistakes and am aware how much it must pain him when I do so. As such, I am also very thankful for the atoning grace of the Savior. There is always hope.

December already!

Wow this year went fast. I am still in shock that Thanksgiving happened and is now gone. Only 23 days till Christmas.

New things going on in the last week:

Jason put seed in the birdfeeders and now we have birds of all types visiting our yard (word travels fast).

Our ceiling got the popcorn stuff put on it, so it looks mostly finished (at least more than it has in 4 months). It should look finished, but the taping job Jason did before the popcorn stuff is trying to fall down, so you can see the outline of the square hole. Not sure if it will ever look right unless we tear apart the entire ceiling and re-do all of it. I am dissapointed in the overall look, but really don't want to care about it anymore.

My Mom and Dad visited so we had a traditional Thanksgiving with a pretty table and awesome food. They traveled here from Ohio. Thanks Mom and Dad for making the 9 plus hour drive to be here with us. We appreciate the effort and time you took to be here.

I did a little bit of Christmas shopping. I purchased a large item for Scott, a few smaller things for Alyssa, some items for my friend Rodona, an item for Jared and two items for Jason. This is great for me since I'm a last minute shopper. I figured I'd spend a little bit per paycheck. I only spent $90 so far, so I'm doing well.

Taught a few classes over the weekend at N.D.A.C. that was fun.

Cleaned my Pampered Chef office.

Donated Plasma twice (I'm so grateful to be able to do that again) there was at least a month I wasn't able to donate because of waiting for results of a Protein test. The first two I had taken came back a point too low so I kept getting deferred for longer each time after the results of the test. This was frustrating since the money I make from donating plasma is our extra income so not having any extra this time of year was hard.

Anyway there's your update to our boring lives. Nothing much happens here. Honestly I'm not sure why I even update this since I'm not sure who even reads this thing anyway. I would love to know if you visit the blog. Ok friends and family out there, that was just an invitation to comment!!

Thanksgiving is back on

They are testing the fire alarm in my building right now. It is incredibly irritating. I keep hearing things like, "Attention, a fire has been reported in the building," or, "Attention, a tornado warning has been issued for this area." I know for a fact the fire alarm works well. Just the other day, one of the residents in our lab needed to autoclave something but didn't close the autoclave door well enough, allowing steam to escape. That was enough to set off the alarm. This is the third time that has happened since we have been in this lab - thankfully not by the same person. Ah, it sounds like the test is over.

Our oven emergency is over - at least for now. We found one on Craigslist.com yesterday. It was only $75. It is not in the best condition but it works. Michelle and I were not enthused about having to spend lots of money on a new oven. I am just thankful that it all worked out.

Oven blew up

So much for having a fixed control panel on our oven yesterday as indicated in the post before this one.

About 15 minutes ago I turned on the oven so I could make a special dessert for dinner and our oven short circuited in the control panel and blew up.

It won't turn on at all. Jason took the back panel off to see what is wrong and it's all black back there. It is fried.

Nice. Not sure how we are going to cook Thanksgiving Turkey now.

Maybe we could grill it!

A great day!

Saturday was so fun. Jason and I started out our day with going to our new gym called Performance Health and Fitness in Coralville, Iowa. There was a launch there.

Confused what a launch is? This means as instructors we show off all the new music and choreography in the latest release from the Les Mills company from New Zealand for the programs we teach.

We had two classes, Body Pump and Body Attack. Jason was in both of the launches and I was in the first one. After the class the management staff of Performance brought up smoothies to all the participants in class. Yum. I love smoothies and could eat them every day.

After class we went shopping at Menards (a local hardware store) to find a bracket or something that could fix our oven panel. It has been broken for at least 6 months or more. Basically the plastic brackets that held the electronic panel on the oven front had snapped off and the panel sat back and it was so ugly looking. At least the entire oven hadn't broken but the front appearance of it was really white trash looking. I thought we'd have to buy an entire panel/top of our oven to get it fixed right. We had tried duck tape and all sorts of other fixes in the past many months and nothing was working. It appeared that the front middle was pushed out and it was hard to turn the oven on.

We had struggled to find a solution to get this panel to look nice again and be fixed correctly. Then we had an idea yesterday. After I pulled the oven away from the wall and unscrewed the back of the metal panel to look inside the back of the oven, Jason said he thought a bracket of some sort might work. He measured and we left for the hardware store.

After not finding any type of bracket, we settled for bendable wire and it got fixed. So happy for that, it actually looks fabulous and all brand new again. Love it!

We came home and I made dinner for the children. Jason then took me on a mini date with our almost 14 year old Daniel watching everyone. We went to a restaurant called Jade Sisters in Coralville, Iowa. They make fresh sushi and it is AWESOME!!!!!!!! The two sisters that own this restaurant are so nice.

We ordered some sushi, ate it and went to Pier One. I had a gift card with $6.30 on it from at least 2 years back and wanted to finally spend it. Sure enough the card was still valid (wasn't sure if would be) and I found some fall decorations on clearance and spend the last of my gift card.

Then it was off to get Caleb at work. Caleb is our oldest son who is now barely 15. He works at HyVee grocery store. He had worked nearly all day. While at HyVee we ran into everyone we knew. It took us about an hour to get out of the store, not kidding. It was so great to see so many members from Core (where we used to teach fitness at) and explain to them that we hadn't quit. One member said, "I have missed your classes so much and wasn't sure where you both went." I'm so glad I saw her and cleared up the misunderstanding she had.

Today is Sunday and I love Sunday because we get to go to church and then have a nice long family day. We have nothing on our schedules to take us away from home and it's so relaxing to have this day of the week.

This next week is Thanksgiving and I get to see my parents. What great fun we will have as they stay at our home they haven't seen yet and we get to go shopping and have Thanksgiving dinner catch up on all we have missed for 2 1/2 years. I saw my parents last year at my sister's wedding, but since it was a wedding, we didn't really get to spend time with them while in Ohio. Now we will have them all to ourselves. And the children will get to see their grandparents and make more memories.

I hope all your Thanksgivings are fabulous this week and if you have time please write a comment on a favorite recipe you share at your table. I'm looking for new ideas.

Suggestions to get it out?

Ok so this is one of the silliest things I've done and now I need help.

I took off the receiving air vent last Thursday in our living room, because for 2 years it has bothered me that someone put it on upside-down. So I took it off, cleaned it and then saw all the dust on the inside of the vent.

So I proceeded to put the hose up there to clean the dust out from the inside of the vent. Had I just had the hose, it would have been fine. However I put the duster attachment on the end of the hose and it must have got caught up on something inside the vent and the duster attachment fell off and I heard it drop all the way down the wall into nowhere.


I have no idea where it went. I am guessing somewhere at the bottom of the vent system in the basement perhaps. I don't know. It's gone. I tried holding the shop vac to the top of the ceiling so I had the longest hose and I turned it on, hoping it would suck up the other attachment, but no luck.

I tried a mirror and a flashlight and I don't see the other attachment. Not sure if I'll ever get it back. I'm bummed out because now something I have used often is gone and to get it back would mean tearing apart my vent system or wall or both. Maybe it's in the furnace, maybe it will start a fire. I don't know cause I have no clue where it would go. What would you do to find it?

Jason said it shouldn't case a fire since it is made of hard plastic, but I'm sure if it got hot enough there would be issues. And since it's a duster tool, it has a rounded end of boar hair (tough like bristles which are soft, but durable) at least I think they are boar hair, I don't know what the Kirby dusting attachment is made of, but it's gone. So I put the vent on the right way and moved on to more vacuuming somewhere else.

If you know anything about vents, furnaces or anyway to get things back when they fall down a vent into nowhere, your comments would be appreciated.

Still managing to smile

Another Monday. Caleb actually got to Seminary on time today. He is usually a bear to get out of bed in the morning and then drags his feet until about 6:25. Then he is all in a rush to get out the door because he is going to be late. This morning I actually only had to go downstairs once and he made it up to the shower before 6:00. He was in a good mood and didn't complain once. I almost made him give me a DNA sample to prove he was my normally grumpy teenage son. I guess that makes up for Brenden. A couple of days ago, he was late coming home. I couldn't find him and it was dark and very cold outside. Finally Dan said, "Oh, yeah, he went to the mall with Crystal and Alex." I about went ballistic. Crystal is 15 and Alex is 12. Dan further informed me that they had taken the bus (which means no adult supervision). I now flew to the moon. Brenden was lucky that he was not there. I hopped in the van to go find him at the mall when he comes strolling up the sidewalk. I told him to get in. We drove around the block while I yelled at him for doing something so stupid and moronic. His response was that he didn't ask because he knew we would say no. Darn straight I would have said no. An 11 year old boy at the mall without adult supervision? Holy crap! What was he thinking? I was so mad that I could hardly look at him. He wasn't even the least bit sorry. As such, he has been grounded from life for one month - no friends, no computer, no going outside. He has got to learn that there are rules for a reason and that he is not above them. This whole parenting thing would be easier if there was a good owner's manual. I know, I know, these things will be for my good and experience but it doesn't make them any easier.

Today is Jason's Birthday

Happy 38th Birthday!

This picture was of Jason on his 35th birthday. The sailboat he is holding was one of 35 sailboats that my Dad made for him for that day.

Have a great day Jase!

A smile on my face

We are being blessed with extraordinarily nice weather right now. I am wearing a pair of shorts and a hawaiian shirt to work today. Not bad for November in Iowa. Yesterday was also very nice. I went for a little walk yesterday during lunch and as I walked across the river, I couldn't help but close my eyes, lift my face to the sun, and just bask in the warm breeze coming upriver. The river is quite low and the breeze carried the slight smell of decay that I always associate with low tide. I immediately thought of the Bay area and all the good memories I have of the San Francisco area. What a perfect day! The only reminder I have that it will soon become cold is the leaf pile in my front yard. My maple tree is almost completely nude but my oak tree is being very stubborn. It will hold on to some of its leaves until spring and then, the only reason it will give those up is because there will be new leaves to take their place.

My hiatus from teaching is over. I taught at one of my new gyms (North Dodge Athletic Club) on Saturday and am starting my regular teaching schedule there this week. Our new gym, Performance Health and Fitness, opens on November 15. Once Performance opens, I will be back to teaching 5 times a week. Teaching these fitness classes is truly one of the great joys of my life. I love it. As much as I miss my classes at Core, I am sure that I will forge new relationships that will hopefully be as fulfilling. One of the questions I ask myself is whether or not I am making a difference. I put a lot of work into my classes to ensure that I am presenting the best possible class and there are times, at the end of a long week, that I ask myself if it is worth it. I hope so. I hope that I have been a postive influence on someone. If not, at least I am having fun and staying in shape.

Halloween 2008

Scott in his gory Zombie outfit, with and without the mask. He was making a scary face.

Alyssa was dressed as a cute/ugly/scary witch.

Those were her words for the costume. She wanted it to be an ugly scary witch and yet still be cute.

Brenden the banana. He choose this costume weeks ago and I pondered on how I was going to make such a thing, then Wal-mart sold the costume there. Thank you Wal-mart.





Then there was Jared. His idea after looking at some costume websites was to be french fries. Here he is looking out the arm hole of the french fry box.

Jason made this costume out of a refridgerator box, painted in red spray paint and then some styrafoam cut into long strips and painted a mustard yellow with spray paint. Then taped inside the box.

The box ended up being a little big, but Jared was happy and he said it was exactly what he wanted to be.

Good things happening

With all the stuff that has happened lately to us financially, I have to be so very grateful for all the blessings as well. I'm still heartbroken over being fired from Core, but I'm recovering and I know that the people who knew us, know that we didn't get fired from anything we did wrong.

Core fitness was just forcing out any instructors they think are checking out the new club and making up false reasons to make it look legal. I find it funny that Jason and I never got wrote up in 4 1/2 years and yet they still find reasons to fire both my husband and I. It's really too bad for them that now several members of their club are quitting Core just to join us at the new clubs we are teaching at.

Here are a few awesome blessings this week!

1. We arrived home from Utah in one piece. Our van made it!!! It was a hard drive 20 hours across the country, but the weather was gorgeous on the way home with little or no wind whatsoever. Even in Wyoming, my most unfavorite state of all the states. And the children I swear hate each other now since they were sitting so very close to one another so the idea of even being the same room must be horrible for them. However last night I saw Alyssa (my 9 year old) hug Scott (my 6 year old) so all the fighting must be forgotten now.

2. I have been hired at 2 clubs officially to teach aerobics. Even though I'm not up to a full teaching schedule yet, I will be soon. I am so excited about both, for they will bring so much opportunity and growth to my teaching abilities. The first club is North Dodge Athletic Club in Iowa City. I will teach Body Step, Body Pump and Zumba there.
then Ladies Workout Express, I will teach Zumba there.

3. Today is Halloween and even though my husband doesn't find this day fun, I love it. I love going to the children's parties at school and watching them in their parade of costumes and then serving all the treats I made. I love being a room parent. I love to dress up as well. My costume will be displayed later in another post.

4. Fuel prices are down down down!!!!! Today I paid only $1.92 a gallon. You ask how????
Well the prices are down to $2.19 a gallon in Iowa. Yes they are, what a wonderful state to live in. And because HyVee fuel runs specials and today is one of those days, it is 12 cents off per gallon today with a Hy-Vee receipt. And I had a 15 cents off per gallon coupon. I feel so very lucky to have filled my entire car with fuel for $23.17 Yes it's awesome!!

5. The weather is gorgeous today. So wonderful for Halloween when the children will be out in their thin costumes to have nice high 60's weather to gather candy in.

6. Tomorrow both Jason and I will participate in the launches for Body Step and Body Pump at North Dodge Athletic club. Along with other instructors we will show off the new releases of the programs. Participating in launches is one of my favorite things to do. So fun. Our fitness coordinator asked us to dress up as either a Saint or Sinner. I'll post some pictures of the launch and you can decide what we were.

Independant segregation was kind to Caleb

I know, you are asking, "Huh? What is independant segregation." Michelle saw that title and called me a biology nerd. Independant segregation is the genetic law that essentially governs how we look. Anyway, here are some pictures of Caleb.




Not bad, eh?






That's a nice looking retaining wall, isn't it?




He does have teeth! I haven't seen them for a long time.

Unfairly Fired

There are many things in life that don't make sense and we wonder, what do we have to learn from this experience?

Each experience will only make us a stronger person and how we take that lesson and grow defines us as a person overall.

It's 3 in the morning and I'm wide awake due to all the stuff that happened yesterday.

I was fired from my fitness instructor position at Core Fitness in Iowa City, Iowa yesterday.

I loved that job and taught 6 classes a week. I was there whenever possible and only subbed my class out if I was sick (which was rare) or my children were sick (again rare thank goodness). In the begining 4 years ago I would teach at 5:30a.m. twice a week. I never missed a class ever, even in dangerous weather. I was always there no matter what.

The members of Core that I had the privledge to know over the 4 years that I worked there are very special to me. I taught a variety of classes ranging from
Body Step, Body Pump both of Les Mills out of New Zealand, and also a new class called Zumba (a latin dance aerobic class). Over the years I have subbed for other instructors and met almost everyone in Core fitness. I tried to learn all their names and personally cared about every person. I loved that job.

I have never in my life been fired from a job and never saw this coming. This is a shock to my system and the only reason I can see why I was fired would be becuase my husband, Jason, had decided to leave Core and go to a new gym to teach in November. He gave his 4 1/2 week notice on Monday and I guess the management at Core must have decided to push us both out of there along with other instructors as well.

I had made the decision to stay with Core since I had many classes and didn't want to give them up. Since I have never been fired in my life from any job, I'm not sure how it all works, however I was sure that when someone is to be fired that they are brought aside personally and explained why they are being let go. I was fired by e-mail. In my opinion this is so extremely unprofessional and wrong.

My heart will heal from my sadness, and in time I know I will be moving on to other gyms to teach once again, at least I hope. I am sad and will miss the members of Core.

Here is a copy of the e-mail I received from my fitness coordinator yesterday.

Michelle,


After extended conversations with the owners it has been decided that you will be released from your Les Mills contract and from instructing at Core, effective immediately.
This termination has been necessitated by numerous violations of the Group Fitness Instructor Guidelines you've received. Specific reasons include, but are not limited to:
-habitual and repeated subbing of assigned classes
-inappropriate and derogatory comments, verbal and via e-mail, with
members as well as other employees
Core cannot meet and maintain high standards under these conditions, which is obviously why they are specifically pointed out in the Guidelines.
We do thank you for your past efforts and wish you the best of luck in the future.

Rick, Tracy, Jen, and Brett

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice wasn't it?

Load of Crap!!!

There is a new gym opening up in town. It is called Performance Health and Fitness. Both Michelle and I were offered positions there. Michelle decided to stay on at Core for a while but I decided to accept the new position. The new gym will open on Nov. 15. One of our fellow instructors at Core was hired at Performance to be the new Group Fitness Manager (GFM). When she told the management at Core, she was fired. Shortly thereafter, another instructor was fired. Both terminations were punitive and therefore illegal. The rest of us decided to clam up about our decisions until the time to quit drew closer. Management demanded that we let them know what we were doing so that they could ostensibly get a new schedule made out. Our current GFM assured me personally that they hadn't fired anybody so I felt relatively safe letting them know that I had made the decision to leave.

Today they fired me. And Michelle. And another instructor. The reasons they gave me in my termination email (they don't even have the spine to talk to me in person) were completely false.

I have done everything in my power to leave Core in a very professional manner and this is how I get repaid. There is a limited supply of good instructors in this town and they are burning bridges faster than they can build them. What a bunch of morons.

bad news

Life was working out well lately. Everyone's healthy. The weather is gorgeous. Jason and I are happy. We still have our house and so many other blessings that I can't even begin to name, so maybe I shouldn't even post this complaint, but it hurts and I need to vent.

We took our van into the shop to get an oil change and safety check. I told my trusted mechanic to be sure and check everything because we have at least a 2700 mile journey ahead of us. We are careful with our van and get our oil changes done regularly and checks done as well. So why does this repair need to happen right now and take most of our vacation money? Some lesson obviously needs learned. But what?

Our Left Front Wheel bearing is loose. Unrepairable. I asked, "Why can't it be tightened and lubed up." He showed it to me, it's basically almost broken. The van only has 65,000 miles on it and according to my research it says that those things should last 100,000 miles, so I really was confused. I asked him all kinds of questions about the wheel bearing and it's importance and basically it comes down to this. Something like that can't be messed with, has to be replaced. You don't let something like that go and you don't make a long trip on a bad wheel bearing. It won't last much longer. Along with the oil change, oil filter and another filter that hadn't been replaced in way too long the total repair bill will be over $500

So sad since we had saved $600 for this trip and that's it. We save money for vacations or extras from the money I received donating plasma. We've been saving since we heard about the wedding. Usually when we save something like an unexpected bill comes up and we take that money from the vacation/extras account to cover it. With the children starting school and birthdays all summer (5 of them) all the extra money was drained to zero. So I started it over and we cut out a lot of stuff in our lives, no eating out, no ordering in, no movie renting and we even walked to church to save on fuel. I understand that an unexpected bill is $200 or so and those will happen, not $500 and not now.

I thought we were doing so well to have saved $600. I was thrilled and sure we would be fine since fuel was planned on costing us around $400-$450 and then after I figured out all the fuel costs back a month ago, the fuel has dropped nearly $1.00 a gallon, so I have been even happier lately knowing that we could make this trip and it wouldn't set us financially back and there would still be some in savings for an unexpected adventure.

Just sad right now, and instead of eating something bad for me, which is totally emotional eating and exactly what I want to go do, I need to go make myself busy and either exercise, clean, make dinner or all three.

We have Pumpkins

Daniel

Brenden and Jared

Alyssa

Scott

Brenden

Jared

Pumpkins have butts too!!!


of coarse Jared picked this one for his pumpkin this year, it's in our front window.

Hawkeye Game

It was a beautiful September day and we decided to go to one of the Hawkeye Football games. We thought we were getting a deal at $25 a ticket and technically you are at that price, however multiply that by 8 and it's not so great anymore. We haven't eaten out in over 2 months because of that game.

Because parking is so expensive near the stadium (as you will see in a picture down below),and we live farely close (2.46 miles each way) we walked, and walked and walked to the game.



















However Scott was grumpy about the walk the entire time and so Jason carried him most of the way.






















He was still grumpy when we took our seats at the stadium.















And it began. What a great football game it ended up being. We played Florida International and we won 42 to 0.

It's hard to get a picture of Caleb these days so you have to just sneak up on him and just take one when he least expects it.

Daniel and Brenden

Jared and Mom

Daniel, Brenden, the side of Caleb's head, Jason and Alyssa

Alyssa and Scott

Fun Halftime show by the Uof I marching band. However I have to say I was super dissapointed in them for using Music Stands while they marched. My HIGH SCHOOL band never used music stands, not once. We weren't allowed to even buy them. We memorized our music.

Jason and Brenden

Scott taking a picture of himself.

Jared, Alyssa and Me again. Alyssa still doesn't look happy. I think she was miserable the entire game, just didn't want to be there.














Daniel ducking down so Caleb could get photographed

Jason and I taking a picture of ourselves. We look so cute!!!!!

What a fun day!!

then we walked 2.46 miles back home (not so fun)

500 times

500 Times I've donated plasma as of today!!!! Can you believe that? I never thought I'd keep going long enough to even reach 100 and now I'm at 500. Guess I'll keep going till I hit 1000.

They gave me a $50 dollar bonus on top of the regular amount they pay. Great day!!! Hopefully someone is benefiting from all this plasma.

Bailout? No thanks.

I am not much of an investor - I really don't have the extra to invest but I do have a whole life insurance policy and a retirement account. Both are losing money. I am disgusted. I was going to cash in my insurance policy three years ago but a financial planner encouraged me not to, reminding me that I hadn't recouped my investment yet. Now it looks like I never will. I am disgusted. What is it about banking that breeds this kind of financial atmosphere? This is the second bailout in 20 years. How can these well respected companies have to much disregard for their client's money? Now they expect to not have to deal with the consequences. CEO compensation make me sick. I have realized that the quickest way to get wealthy is to become a CEO, run a company into the ground, then collect an overly generous severance package on your way out. Why do boards and share holders allow that?

Every day I turn on NPR and hear nothing except how the housing market is continuing to slump. More and more forclosures. The kicker is that now it just isn't people who bought outside their means that are losing their homes. If I can support a wife and six children on my salary (which is miniscule compared to that of a CEO), why can't everyone else? Really, how much money does one need? LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. If you bought more house than your salary can justify, you deserve to lose your house. You have no right whining that that is not fair, that my tax dollars should be spent to fix your lack of judgement.

I am not a fan of John McCain but after hearing the whole Democratic party cry for more money to fix this problem, I am surely not going to vote for a Democrat this time around. Maybe I'll write myself in.

Just another week

I haven't had much to say lately. I suppose I have just been too busy. It has been a very long week and I am ready for a weekend. I did, however, get to sleep in until 6:45 this morning. That was quite nice. Although Michelle has also been getting up early all week long too, she let me sleep in this morning.

I guess I still don't have too much to say. My entire week has revolved around work. I have done so many animal surgeries this week that I think I would be happy to not see another rodent for a month. However, I have three more animals to work on this afternoon. I am really hoping that these surgeries work out. They are complicated and the animals are expensive. Marlan and I did three last week and only one mouse lived. Not good odds.

The Hawks play the Cyclones tomorrow here in Kinnick stadium. We are out to prove once again why Iowa is called the Hawkeye state. The Cyclowns are going down.

My trip to Idaho

Here is a picture of Rodona and her family. I went to visit them in July. While in Idaho I was able to do many things I had never done before and a lot more like





Ride a Skid steer or as I call it a small digger thing

I made cotton candy

Rode a horse named Brigham.

Went to Lagoon and rode lots of rides and just had a grand time there.

This picture is of Rodona, McKenna, Garett and Me at Lagoon in Utah.

We went to a place called Outer Limits for our activity for Family Home Evening. It was fun there and we got lots of great pictures with the murals on the walls.

Went to visit where my house used to be in Idaho. We lived in a house that was really run down and very old and very gross and it was the only house left in the middle of a trailor court. The city tore it down and here is where it used to be.

I watched a farm cat kill a mouse. EWE. I thought he was just playing with it.

I saw life size murals on the walls of relative of Rodona's

And the mountains of Idaho!!! So beautiful.

Finally I bought so much at garage sales while in Idaho that I had to ship 3 boxes home. I shipped a piano bench, guitar and a trumpet. Great buys and well worth it!

What a fabulous trip.