Evacuation

I had meetings all this morning with USMS, FBI and DEA. We finished at DEA around 12:30 when I was driving back to the office. All of the roads were blocked off, etc. I was able to manuever into a parking spot and we (the AUSA, myself and another paralegal) attempted to get into our building when the police stopped us. Apparently right across the street was a "suspicious package". They weren't letting people in or out of the office. So we ended up going to lunch together, then we still had awhile to burn so the AUSA wanted to go shopping, so I took him shopping. Finally the police brought in their robot to detonate the package, and lo and behold...a TRUMPET. I'm so glad that I missed 3 hours of work for a trumpet! Actually, I really am glad that it was just a trumpet...it was only 20 feet away from my office building.

The Speech

So I had the "pleasure" yesterday of meeting the U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzalez. I don't know if anyone really wants to admit to meeting him with all the controversy that is around him right now with the U.S. Attorney firings and all. He came by my office around 9ish in the morning, and then we had a more formal gathering at 10 with all the DOJ agencies with food, etc. The Utah U.S. Attorney, Brett Tolman (my "boss"), when he was introducing Gonzalez before his speech, starting talking about how great our jobs are, etc., and how he loves to work here, and that you never know how long you can serve as a U.S. Attorney, then he adds, especially these days. All of our jaws dropped. I could not believe he said that in front of Gonzalez. Then followed the nervous laughter. Afterwards we went up to talk to him, and he just said, look, it's the elephant in the room, I just wanted to get it out in the open. His job is probably more secure than ever now in light of the firings. I don't think there is any chance another U.S. Attorney would be fired during the last 18 months that Gonzalez is serving. After his speech, we were "strongly encouraged" to take a picture with him. So I got a group photo with just the asset forfeiture unit with Gonzalez, then we got our individual pictures with him. It will probably be months before we actually see the photos. Either I'm really tall, or Gonzalez is really short, but he was just barely over my shoulder. So during my picture, I somewhat leaned in towards him to make him look taller/me look shorter.

The week

So our week was pretty quiet. Zac finished his last final on Wednesday, but starts his new classes today. He ended up doing the 2 blocks during the semester for classes. He got a 100% on his victimology final. I went to Larkin's bridal shower on Wednesday night and saw Tammi, Debbie and Rozie there. Larkin is going to marry into a great family, they all seemed very nice! I played volleyball for 3 hours on Tuesday night. Eric went on a hike up to Ensign Peak on Tuesday and loved it, swimming lessons on Wednesday, and went on the Heeber Creeper on Thursday. He was disappointed that "Thomas the Train" wasn't the engine this time. Saturday night Zac and I went to Les Miserables. I've had the tickets since February, but I didn't tell Zac where we were going...I knew he wouldn't go if I told him. Before we left, I had put on a dress, Zac looked at me weird, and I told him that he had to wear pants. He grumbled all the way upstairs since it was 100 degrees outside, etc. Then he came down wearing jeans, so I made him go back up and change into dress slacks. He wasn't too excited to go somewhere wearing dress slacks. Anyways, we got up to SLC, I told him where we were going, and I was right...he wouldn't have come if he knew ahead of time. He sat through it with me, and actually somewhat enjoyed "parts of it" but he would never "admit to liking it". I thought it was wonderful though! I love the theater! That was pretty much our week. Nothing real exciting happened, Zac was enjoying a weekend without homework.

Lagoon Pics

My Dad took Aubrey around with Tucker and Thad while Eric and I went on the bigger rides. (Eric was actually tall enough to go on a lot of the big kid rides...his favorite was the Bat.)

2 week recap

I know it's been 2 weeks since my last entry. I got slammed with a ton of new cases at work last week, and the attorney was out of town, so I was frantically trying to get complaints filed, etc, and finding another attorney that would be willing to sign on the stuff I drafted. Anyways, as a recap of the last two weeks...we went to Lagoon for the Parry reunion 2 Friday's ago. It was beautiful weather and the kids had a lot of fun. We brought our camera, but completely forgot to take pictures! Nathan and Bobby took some cute pictures of Aubrey though, and when they e-mail them, I will post them. Zac got his bottom braces on this past Friday. His teeth have been very sensitive....I'm so glad I don't have braces anymore. :) We had Zac's Mom and sister over for a BBQ on Saturday, so it took Zac a long time to eat his steak. That morning I ran 10 1/2 miles. I was hating it for the first half. I ate immediately before I ran, so I was feeling nauseated and had a side ache for the first half. About mile 4-5 I finally starting to feel like running. Speaking of running, we ended up getting 2 treadmills. I went onto Craig's List (the online classified ad) and saw an ad for a treadmill for $30. Along with the ad it stated that they had a higher end model treadmill, and if we could figure out how to turn it on, it's ours for free. So I sent Zac down to their house, (they lived in American Fork) and he picked up the one treadmill for $30. Then he told them that if they wanted to get rid of the other treadmill, he'll take it and try to figure out what's wrong with it. So they loaded both treadmills into the truck. Zac tinkered with it for a little bit, and realized that the fuse was blown. So we ordered a new fuse for $12, it came, and it works wonderful! One of my co-workers has been looking for a treadmill, so I brought the first treadmill to work yesterday, and she paid me $20 for the treadmill and I dropped it off at her house. Not too bad for a treadmill.

Eric's school/daycare went to Dinosaur Eccles park on Tuesday, swimming lessons on Wednesday, and Thanksgiving Dinosaur museum on Thursday. After the swimming lessons, I asked Eric if he had fun. He told me, "I opened my eyes under the water, and I saw a GIRL!" Isn't he a little young for that? When we got home, I realized he wasn't wearing the clothes that I brought for him. Apparently he and a classmate like to trade clothes, including underwear. I'm just glad he's trading with a boy not a girl. I just wash the clothes, take them back to the school/daycare and put it in the boy's cubby. Today Eric is hiking up to Ensign Peak. Hopefully he does alright...it seems like a big hike for a 4 year old.

This past Friday Eric rode his bike for 5 hours, and got pretty sunburnt. He will ride back and forth across the culda sac...not too exciting but he loves it. He is hilarious though. He thinks that he's alone outside, but I check up on him about every 2-3 minutes to make sure he's alright. He will sing at the top of his lungs while he's riding, and since we live on the side of the mountain, it echos. I'm sure my neighbors love the singing.

A weekend of nothing

This weekend absolutely nothing happened. YEAH! I've been waiting for a slow weekend! Thursday evening, Zac and I decided that it was finally time to upgrade our BBQ grill. We've never bought one before, and the ones we've had in the past have been passed down to us. So we went to Home Depot and got a new grill. On Friday I was able to run 9 miles, then came home and did laundry and chores around the house, and went NO WHERE else. Saturday, Zac took his practice LSAT in the morning, I stayed home with the kids, when Zac came home we worked a little bit outside, but spent the rest of the night at home and went NO WHERE. There is an ampitheater a couple blocks away from our house, and Sawyer Brown was playing there. We didn't go to the concert, but we could hear every word that they sang. (It actually got really annoying when we were trying to put the kids to bed), but they did a big fireworks show at the end, so we were able to just sit out on the porch and watch the fireworks. Sunday was the big "split" of our Sunbeams. I actually had one of the Mom's crying because her twins weren't going to have us as teachers anymore. It was really nice though having a smaller class.