Tidbits

Good morning! I feel like my mom when I get up this early. But actually, it's 5:30, which is sleeping in for her. I'll write and go to the gym.

Some more interesting things have been happening.

After a couple of long conversations, Dave and I are seriously considering not buying this house. We haven't closed on it because the seller is a bank that is being foreclosed by the FDIC, so our paper work goes from us to the Credit union to the Bank to the FDIC and all the way back before it's official. We've been living rent free because we qualified for early occupancy, but there's no contract yet. It's been a great trial run, because I love this house, but it's too expensive. I mean, not too expensive to live a regular life, but to expensive to live the life we want to live. We can't pretend that we don't both have student loans and Worldmark, and we still battling revolving balances on a credit card. I just realized that having equity in a house meant nothing to me if we weren't making some serious payments to our loans.

So, we're looking for an apartment. The only thing we'd owe for living in this house is $500 for the appraisal. That's not bad at all in my book. We'll have to see how things pan out, but we don't have any concrete plans as of rigt now.

Now to change gears for a moment. I'm about to go to the gym, but I wanted to give another update. I've been hovering at the 160 mark for a couple weeks now, and been trying to break the plateau. A friend of mine sugggested to start eating as many gross-tasting vegetables as possible, because their low calorie and aid in weight loss. So, I bought some snack baggies and filled then with green peppers, broccoli, celery, (gotta be), carrots and wilted collard greens, which have to be the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. I've also started adding spinach to my protein shakes, which actually isn't too bad, you can barely taste it. I bike the half mile o the gym in the morning, and have started running with the kids to the gym at 9:30 for class. I'm really hoping this will be the week. And that next time you see me, you see me, you'll hardly recognize me! Let's hope.

I'd still like to write about the rst of the fun things we're going to do this summer, like camping, and our races, and concerts, but I've got to go pump some iron, as it were. ;)

The ward potluck.

Greeting from Vernal.

We had an interesting experience at our ward party yesterday evening. It was under a pavillion at a park. The activity was a pot luck and cooking contest for the men. Just as everyone (probably 150+ people) was getting food and starting to eat, dark clouds rolled in and it started pouring. Everyone huddled in close so they wouldn't get wet, but then the wind started blowing 45 mph throug the pavillion. Then it started hailing. I remember looking up into the crowd while my back is being pelted with stinging, cold balls of ice, and seeing parents huddled with crying children, holding plates of food, most of which has blown away, and just hearing general screaming and chaos, and lauging outloud. It was such a comic scene. Eventually people started making a break for their cars, and then the wind died down. We were soaked! It felt like we had just jumped into a cold pool. The whole thing probably only lasted ten minutes, but it will be a fun memory. If the point was for us to bond, I think it worked.

Family Home Evening

Tonight for FHE we decided to start keeping a record of our kids. I have, in the past, through e-mail and my own journal, recorded mile stones for our kids, and we definitely have plenty of pictures, but we don't have them all in one place. So, tonight we got each of them notebooks. Here are some of the things we wrote:

Sarah

Age: 2.5
Favorite things to do for Sarah Time: McDonald's play place, go to the park, paint and sing.
Favorite movies: Shrek, Toy Story, Muzzy, Dora and Meet the Robinsons.
Likes to read with mom and dad
Favorite color: purple
Favorite foods: Milk in a sippie cup, instant oatmeal, hot dogs, Dora Spaghettios, sugar and peanut butter toast.
Loves to have her nails painted, but eats it off her fingers! Yuck!
Loves to dance to the music during the crdits of a movie
Loves to build with legos, take a bath, and Loveslovesloves putting on makeup.
Can do summersaults!
Not potty trained, and doesn't want to try.
Pushes buddy down twice a day. At least.
Has 12 teeth


Andrew Buddy Christan

Age: 11 months
Favorite thing to do: eat.
Also loves: playing with Sarah, Dancing, and cruising
First words (in order): Mama, Dada, Hi, Bye, Hello
Signs: More, Milk, Waves goodbye.
Claps hands to 'If you're Happy and You Knowit'
Can give 5 up to 100!
Randomly dances when cars with loud music drive by.
Walked 10 steps unassisted today!
Eats anything off the floor
Climbs on child size chairs and sits down
Swings one leg when he feels accomplished or happy
Pretends to talk on the phone. Says, 'Hello?'. Uses various other objects as phones.
Loves to color, and pretends he is coloring by moving his hand around when he has paper but no crayons
Has 7 teeth
Goes down the slide (headfirst!) by himself
Plays princesses with Sarah! =)
Makes everyone smile!

school, music, races

Dear Blog and the people who read it,

We are fairing well in life. A lot of things have come together for me this past week. The first is very exciting. I talked with the ladies down at the USU extension, who are going to get me into school this fall! I still don't know how many music courses I'll be able to take (still need to e-mail Mr. Jessop!), but I do know they offer online Italian language classes, which will most certainly count toward a voice emphasis. I've applied, but still need to take care of FAFSA and scholarship applications. We can also breath a sigh of relief because we won't have to pay on my student loans come fall (just in time to start payments on Dave's, though!).

Another fun thing is because we have a piano in our home, I could teach voice lessons! From what I've gathered, there aren't many voice teachers in the area, so hopefully we could make it viable source of income? We'll see how things roll. I plan to advertise in the classifieds and around town, and quite possible start up a website... I'm not sure. Everything is still in the works.

Intejection: I was reading a history of Maine until I got stuck in the seventeenth century (near the beginning =/ ) and now I just want to read To Kill A Mocking Bird because that's all they're talking about on NPR this week.

Body for life is going great. I had a rough spot last weekend because we partied way too much. My free day spilled over into other days a little bit. But, no long term damage done. I'm back on track again. Actually, I've started going to the gym during the day again, too. It feels really good, and I've ended the last few days dead tired around 8. It's turned me into a morning person! I actually am foregoing the Temple tonight because I knew I'd be too tired to focus on what I want to. I'll go Saturday, early morning.

Dave and I were asked to speak on Sunday. I'm to speak on Sacrifice, and I was a little nervous at first because I couldn't think of anything to say. Really, for 3 days nothing has come to my mind when I think of it. Finally, this morning I found a few Conference talks that got the thoughts flowing. But it was a kind of scary couple days. I thought I was going crazy!

So, now that we know where we are going to live for a while, Dave and I are preparing to finish the race season. We still have a 10k, half Marathon and another Sprint Tri to complete before the family Turkey Trot 5k in Draper at Thanksgiving. It's kind of hard living so far away from everything. They had a Tri a couple weeks ago here in Vernal, but it was on my birthday, and a little too close to our move. There are plenty left in the season, but we'll have to travel. If any of you want to race with us, let me know! We could even do it from a distance-- you find a race, we'll find a race, and we'll pretend we ran it together! Let me know!

So, that's all for now. I'm ready for bed! And it's before eight! Silly girl. =)

Birthday

I haven't posted about my birthday weekend yet? It was amazing.


David had Friday, the 25th off from work and told me to make sure my day was clear. After doing my upper body work out and eating a healthy breakfast (of whole wheat german pancakes, which, without the butter qualify for BFL =), he dropped me off at the local cosmotology academy. This is our secret. The service is decent by itself, so when they charge sometimes less than half the price of salons, it's a no brainer. I do like my $35 pedi every once in a while (once every couple years). So, I got a manicure, pedicure, facials, scalp treatment and a hair cut, but don't worry, it was only a trim! It felt fantastic! Got to know the girl pretty well, and I liked her a lot. I think I'll facebook her.

Dave showed up 4-5 hours later, and asked if we could go to Lowe's. I said sure, we had some stuff to return and to Specifically, we had to pick up some decorative light bulbs for the bathroom. On the way home Dave asked what my plans were. I told him I'd probably put Buddy down for a nap.

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For the past couple weeks Dave had been talking about an old piano that a friend in town was getting rid of. She was willing to give it to us for free. Dave seemed kind of put out by it, because apparently it wasn't in very good condition. I expressed that I'd be happy to learn how to restore pianos, but I didn't push it because I know that restoring means money, and time away from babies.
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So, we drive into the garage and Dave asks me to bring in the light bulbs so they won't get broken. I, of course, suspect something, but I try to suppress the inherent Governale gift of seeing through subtlty so I can be genuinely surprised. I walk through the door and notice that the loveseat from the front room is now in our somewhat small living area. Regardless of any supression, I now know that the old, broken piano is in the front room. I'm happy at this surprise, and don't know whether to go see it, or go back to the garage to thank Dave.

After the split second hesitation, I decide to go in the front room, where there is sitting, not an old broken upright, but a beautiful, brand new black baby grand. But, no, it's not a baby, it's technically, by length, a grand piano. Dave walks in the front door to see me in shock. My first thoughts, like a good wife, are, 'We can't afford this,' but I think I had the decency to thank him before I said it out loud. Then, of course, tears come, and I cry into his chest for a while. I think it scared our kids a bit, because Buddy started crying too, and Sarah became ultra sensitive and kept asking if I was feeling sad.

David had set aside the next couple hours for me to play it, which I did, interspersed with comforting confused children, hugging and thanking a happy Dave, crying some more, and dancing around the house like a crazy person. It was pretty awesome.

That night I had figured we were going to see Damn Yankees at the local amphitheater, mostly because I specifically asked to go see it. Every year in Vernal they put on one show on an outdoor stage that runs something like three weeks. If we had moved here a few months earlier, I probably would have auditioned.

So, while we were eating one of our 6 daily meals, I asked if I could open his presents to me and a package from my parents. My dad had given me a strange warning about one of their gifts for me, how they were going out on a limb, and if I hated it, that would be okay, and I could donate it to DI or something. That warning fueled an excitement to open that package. It had to be something weird, unsual or awesome, or all three. I was iintersted...

Dave got me springform pans, and he stacked them and wrapped them to look like a birthday cake. It was cute. He made me a deliciously rich 4 layer chocolate cake with strawberry filling that we had on Sunday. My parents' mystery gift was a flute!! It was perfect! I know have the four most common solo instruments: violin, piano, flute and voice. I could only get (can still only get) about thre notes out of it, but apparently that's normal. I'm excited about the challenge.

We ended the night with Damn Yankees, where I volunteered Dave for the pre-show gag and he won me a baseball. It was the best birthday ever! And it was only day one!

Satutday, my actual birthday, we spent probably 8 hours cleaning and organizing our house in preparation for family to come over Sunday. Contrary to the drudgery you imagine, I loved it. It was like some housewife's fantasy to be able to deep clean every surface of the house in one day and have it remain so all at once. It's a triumph that I'll probably hold on to for the rest of my adult life. ('Remember that one magical day when everything was clean? Sigh!')

Dave's family came Saturday night and stayed for Sunday. They had spent the day in Tooele watching Dave's mom, April, sky dive for the first time. She did great! I saw the tape. I was proud of them for making the 3 1/2 hour drive out to see us. We attended church, ate cake and they didn't throw things at me when I played the piano. I really enjoyed having family in our house.

A few days later, to top everything off, I got cards in the mail, and the family I used to tend for sent me flowers! It was by far the best birthday ever, even though we went to a hot air balloon festival last year.

Thanks to all who were involved! Next year I'm expecting a harp! =)