Family Pictures

We got our family pictures back about a month ago, so I am finally getting around to posting some of them. The girl that took the pictures took ~300 pictures, and she gave us the c.d. with the pictures on it, along with preparing a DVD with the pictures set to music.

Finally!

I forgot my password about 3 weeks ago. I have been e-mailing the blogger requesting my e-mail. They FINALLY responded today. My office is currently being re-painted and carpeted, so I moved into a temporary office. But, on my computer it would automatically sign me into my blog, so I never typed my password, but by moving to a new computer, I needed to type it in, and I still have no idea what it was. They finally let me change it. I apologize for lack of blogging.

We have had a very busy month! I didn't know that the blogger would e-mail me back today, so I didn't bring my camera to work to post pictures, but I will on my next entry. I went to South Carolina for a week for work, and Zac got to stay home with the kids. I left on Monday, and returned home early Saturday morning. Zac went to a party on Friday, and our friends commented on Aubrey's wild hair. Zac told them that I did her hair, and they said, didn't she leave on Monday? It's FRIDAY. And, haven't you given the kids baths? Zac apparently doesn't do baths. Nice to know.

When I got back on Saturday morning, Zac's brother Matt came into town that night. He is in the Air Force and was able to take some leave for Thanksgiving. He stayed with us for 1 1/2 weeks. We put him in Eric's room, and made Eric and Aubrey share a bedroom. I never realized how possessive Eric is of his room until he wasn't able to be in it. When Matt left, Eric went upstairs and looked in his room and started screaming "Mom! Come look! Matt's stuff is gone! My bed is back! I want to go to bed!" He was so excited. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad's in the morning, and at Zac's uncles in the afternoon. Zac's Uncle Wayne just got a new pool table, and Zac came upstairs and asked if we could get a pool table. I said that's fine, not thinking that this was a realistic possibility. The next day, I was Christmas shopping with my Dad, and Zac rented a truck/trailer to haul his Mustang from my Dad's house to ours. When I got back home, Zac also went up to his Aunt's house and picked up a pool table. His Grandpa Nielson had a pool table, and apparently his Uncle Randy just got it re-felted and new pockets put it, and they gave it to Zac for $1, so now we have a pool table.

Matt left 2 Wednesday's ago, and on Thursday, Justin and his family came out to Utah. Eric had so much fun playing with Andrew and Madison. We ended up doing Christmas on Friday, exchanging cousin presents, and Dad gave us all our presents, so they had a lot of toys to play with this past week.

On Saturday night, our friends has a hot chocolate open house for the neighborhood. We grabbed some of our friends and went and had a good time. As we were leaving, we needed to stop by our friends house that was across the street. Eric was walking with his hands in his pockets and started to go up the stairs. Just then he fell and smacked his face into the cement. He immediately started bleeding from his nose. There was so much blood. Our friend ran some paper towels to us, and they were just turning red. Luckily Eric didn't hit his teeth. But he has a big scrape on his cheek, and two big scrapes on his forehead. As soon as we got the bleeding to stop, he fell asleep immediatley. So now we were worried about a concussion. So we tried to keep him awake for as long as possible. He seems to be okay now, but the side of his face that he hit the cement was the opposite side of the dog bite scars, so now his whole face looks red and scratched up.

On Monday, Justin, Lisa, Devin, Dad, Andrew, Madison and I went skiing at Brighton. It was such a great day. There were hardly anybody at the resort. We never had to wait in line to go on the ski lifts, and it was rare that we would even see anybody as we were going down the slopes. Dad hadn't been skiing for ~32 years but we talked him into coming. On his second time down the hill, he had a horrible wipe out. I was behind him and just saw skiis going off, his glasses shoot off along with his lenses popping out, and he was doing somersaults in the snow. I stopped by him, and he was bleeding on his face from his glasses cutting him. His frames were completely bent. As soon as Justin got down to Dad, I started chasing after his prescription lenses that were going down the hill. He is fine, but is really sore. His knee swelled up really big that night. I couldn't believe how fast Andrew and Madison learned how to ski though. Andrew was going down the slope faster than me and Lisa.

Justin left yesterday back to New York, so I'm trying to get the kids back on their regular schedule. Eric started crying last night though because he wanted to play with them, and he thought that they had moved into Grandpa's house. Anna was adorable this trip too. I can't believe how much she had grown.

Nightmares

Eric has been having nightmares for the past 2 nights now. It is the same dream over and over, and he is hysterical when he wakes up. It takes me at least 1/2 hour every time he wakes up to calm him down. Monday night, he woke up 6 times with this nightmare:

Superman, Spiderman, and Batman are all riding Thomas the Train and they fall off a cliff.

I try to explain to him that Superman is strong and can fly, so if they fell off a cliff, he would save them all. Eric will calm down, but wake up an hour later with the same dream. WEIRD.

Zac's Birthday

Zac's birthday was on Saturday....he turned 29. Zac had to go to school in the morning, so while he was at school, Eric helped me make Zac a birthday cake. Eric picked out some Scooby Doo decorations for the cake, and he put the candles on it. When Zac came home, we lit the birthday cake, but there were so many candles on it, that Scooby Doo caught on fire. Then Zac asked Eric what present he should open up first. Eric says "The movie Daddy, open up the movie!" That is the last time I am taking Eric shopping with me for presents.....I didn't think he would remember what we got Zac. Zac had all of his neck ties in a box when we first got the kittens. The kittens thought that it was a secondary litter box, so all of his ties got ruined. Eric helped me pick out some ties at Mr. Mac. I couldn't believe how expensive ties are! We also got Zac the newest season of Scrubs that came out on DVD.

On Friday we had a movie night at our house with our friends. Zac hooked up a DVD player in Eric's room for the kids to watch, and we brought down our couch from the front room and put it in our family room so that we had plenty of seating available. We had 2 families come over and eat dinner, then we watched Nacho Libre. It was a really good choice of movie because I could go upstairs and check on the kids, and not have missed anything in the movie. The next time we do this, we definitely need an adult present upstairs with the kids. We had 6 kids upstairs, and when you would go upstairs, they would sit and watch the movie. The second you sit down in your chair downstairs, one of them would be screaming/crying.

Saturday morning after we made Zac's birthday cake, Eric, Aubrey and I went to the Stake Young Women's service project. I was the only leader that showed up, and I only had one girl show up. They decided that they wanted to pick up garbage for the next two hours. Eric actually had a really good time trying to find garbage. He found a piece of rebarr (spelling?) that was bent in half and Eric thought he would use it as a hammer to find more garbage...at least that is his reason for taking the rebarr with us everywhere. It was cold and wet though, it rained almost the entire time. Aubrey fell asleep on me 1/2 way through. That night Zac's sister Barb and her boyfriend came over and watched the kids so we could go to dinner and a movie. We ended up going to Porter's Steakhouse in Lehi. It was named after Porter Rockwell. Then we went to the movie theater. It has been so long since Zac and I had actually gone to the theater, that when we walked in, we did not recognize one movie name. We actually left the theater and thought about going home because Zac didn't want to waste $15 on a movie that we didn't know anything about. We finally went to a different theater, in hopes that we would see a different movie that we would know about, and ended up watching "The Prestige". It was a good movie, but pretty dark. Eric was so funny that night when we came home. Barb had put the kids to bed, and Eric was asking for me. Barb told him that if he closed his eyes and went to sleep, that when he opened them, Mommy would be home. When we got home, Zac and I went in to the kids bedrooms to check on them before we went to bed. Eric had the covers off, so as I was covering him back up, he opened his eyes and smiled and said, "it WORKED!" All day Sunday, he kept on telling me how Barb told him to close his eyes, and then Mommy came.

Zac's made a little bit of progress on the sprinkler system. He's hardly home to work on it, but he told me that he's almost put all the sprinklers in today, he just needs to fill in the trenches now. I will be so glad when that is finished.

Halloween!

Zac and I wanted the kids to carve their pumpkins on Sunday night....they were both asleep by 5:00 pm for the night, so that didn't work out. So on Monday night, I attempted to carve the pumpkins with the kids for Family Home Evening without Zac. (Zac is in school until 10:00) They actually did pretty well. I made them clean out their pumpkins, and I let Eric carve his pumpkin with my help. Aubrey's arms by the end of the night were orange. Eric was really excited to see the pumpkins lit up. When I put them to bed, Eric had to run outside, and blow out the candles, to put the pumpkins "nite nite".

On Halloween, the kids went to daycare during the day...when I went to pick them up, Aubrey had her hands full of candy, along with a sticky face, and Eric's class were hitting a ghost pinata. Wow, 2 pinatas in one weekend! Eric's class had made the pinata in the morning, and now the kids were all hitting it. The ghost wouldn't break. So the teachers stepped in and started hitting it. It still wouldn't break, so they started having the parents hit it....still it's not breaking. Then they told me it was my turn to hit it. With one swing, the whole thing broke open and candy went everywhere. Eric started squealing and shouted "Wow! That's my Mom!" It was so funny, he was so proud of me. :) As soon as we got home we all got into our costumes and headed for Nathan and Bobby's church. They were doing a big chili cookoff dinner, and then the trunk or treat indoors. Eric absolutely refused to eat. He told me that his tummy hurt. Then they had all of the kids sit on the gym floor while they were presenting awards. Eric was laying down on the floor. Then they had all of the kids line up while the parents arranged the chairs in a circle to pass out the candy. Eric wouldn't lift up his bucket and he walked with his eyes closed. At one point, the line stopped, and Eric fell forward onto Thad and laid his head down on Thad. Aubrey on the other hand was having a great time. Zac would make her lift the bucket as high as she could. He wouldn't let them put candy in it unless she lifted it. He kept on telling her "You have to work for it!" We were out of there by 7:30. Eric was sound asleep before we even made it to the car. When we got home we took his temperature, and he was 103. I stayed home with the kids yesterday. Eric's fever was down to 102. He pretty much just watched cartoons all day. Around 3:00 his fever finally broke and the havoc on the house begins. Aubrey and Eric were upstairs while I was cleaning up downstairs. After about 20 minutes, I realized they were being too quiet. So I went upstairs to check on them. They were in my bathroom, and had taken a whole role of toliet paper, and got it soppy wet with toliet water, and had wet toliet paper on the walls, bath tub, shampoo, toilet, sink, floor, etc. It was EVERYWHERE, including their hair and clothes. I took them downstairs and made them dinner. I got the toliet cleaned up when I started to hear the kids laughing downstairs. I ran downstairs, and Eric and Aubrey got a hold of the mustard bottle, and there was mustard everywhere. Zac came home for lunch, and left out a 2-liter bottle of soda also, and the kids had poured that everywhere as well. So I cleaned up both kids, and cleaned up the mustard and soda mess, then it was time to go to Enrichment. When we got back from Enrichment, the kids went right to bed, and I forgot about the mess in the bathroom. Zac actually got home early last night, he came in right when I was putting the kids to bed, and walked straight into the bathroom. I hear him go "What happened in here!" Kids are so much fun. At least Eric is feeling better. Although, this morning when I was getting the kids ready for the day, Eric asked me where we were going. I told him that I was taking him to school, immediately he says "Oh mommy, I'm sick." He is already pretending to be sick.

Sunday

I forgot to write about Sunday. The kids did two really cute things. The first: We got to sacrament a little late, and the spot that we sat was by our friends that hosted the Halloween party. They have two kids, Zack and Katelyn. Eric and Zac sat next to each other playing quietly. Just then, Zack's grandparents showed up. Eric turned to me and said, Mommy, I will be right back. Then he quietly walked out of our row, and went to where Zack's grandparents were sitting. Eric walked up to Zack's grandpa and gave him this HUGE hug. Then he sat next to him the entire sacrament. When he came back to me, he said, "I love Zack's grandpa. I love my grandpa too, but I really love Zack's grandpa."

Later that night, I was playing the piano. Aubrey usually likes to sit next to me on the bench and pound the keys while I play. But last night, she sat by me and just SANG the entire time. It was so adorable. She probably sang for a half hour before she got off of the piano bench. I really wish my Mom could have seen that. I would sit next to her on the piano bench almost every night and sing with her.

A Halloween Weekend!

Hopefully this blog publishes this time. I loaded on all the pics and wrote everything, then it did a "time out" and wouldn't let me publish. So here is my second attempt at loading the pictures and re-writing everything. So on Friday Zac started the sprinkler system. He rented a trencher to dig the lines, and was able to get that finished in the morning. But, who knew that we had so much garbage in our dirt? Apparently the builders just threw their garbage on our property, and then would bury it instead of picking it up. I could not believe the stuff that Zac was pulling out. Eric was really excited to help daddy in the yard. When he saw Zac with a shovel, Eric had to run inside and grab his toy shovel. Aubrey just enjoyed seeing how dirty she could get. She would sit in the trenches and watch everybody work.





Friday night we had our Halloween party at our friends house. Eric had so much fun. They played put the sticker on the pumpkin, and Eric came in second place. Zac thought that the first place kid cheated. hahaha Zac is so competitive. Then the kids tried to see how many baskets they could make in the hoop, and Eric won that game. Last but not least, they had a witch pinata. Eric had a blast to be able to hit something as hard as he could with a bat. He had no idea that candy was inside the witch. When the pinata finally broke and the candy spilled out everywhere, he squealed and started to fill his bag as full as he could get it with candy. He told me the next morning that he dreamed about picking up candy. I won the best adult costume, and I got.......candy. :) On Saturday night our ward had it's trunk or treat. Eric got the hang of things really quick. He was running from car to car trying to get as much candy as possible. He kept on going to these 3 people because he liked the candy that they were giving out. They finally had to tell him that they wouldn't give him anymore.



For an update on our HOA drama. We found out that our neighbor just got a promotion to be in charge of the HOA. This makes a lot of sense of why we are all getting hit with the fees now. He is trying to look good. I contacted the Title company, loan officer, city, builder, builder's agent, etc. and found out that we are not on the HOA according to all of their records. I had them all draft letters stating that we are not a part of the HOA. I pulled our Deed of Trust, and there is a spot on it to mark a "X" if we are part of a planned community, and it is not marked. We got our entire neighborhood fighting this, except for the neighbor that turned us in. I am having everybody else get their paperwork lined up, then we are turning over all of our claims at the same time to the HOA attorney. We have a really good case, and I really think that we will win this. I have enough evidence stating that we are NOT part of it, that I don't see how they CAN argue that we are part of it.

Our week

This week again was very crazy and busy! I have not had a moment to breathe at work this past week. We won the 3 volleyball games on Thursday, the tournament continues this Thursday to see if we are still in the running. At least we're undefeated so far. The new car is driving great, every day Zac and discover something new that it does. I guess we should just read the drivers manual instead of "discovering" new features. For Zac's class on Thursday I got a Special Agent with the DEA to speak to his class. Turns out that he is really good friends with Zac's teacher (who is a retired DEA agent). I surprised Zac by coming to his class to listen to Zac's little speech before the agent. When I got to UVSC, the other people in Zac's group were coming up to him. They were all girls, and they had NO IDEA that Zac was married. I then said, we have two kids too. ZACHARY! He never wears his wedding ring because he's not allowed to at work, so it's not a habit. But please, you can share a LITTLE bit of your personal life with people at school.

Friday night Zac had to serve dinner at the Presidential Ball at UVSC. They gave all the servers pizza for dinner, while they were serving lobster to the guests. He didn't get home until the wee hours of the night. Since Zac was going to be gone all night, I dropped Eric off with Nathan, and Bobby, Aubrey, and I went to a home decor show up in SLC.

Saturday we got a letter in the mail stating that we owed Home Owner Association fees, and that we needed to get our yard in now, or they will charge us $50 a week for every week that it's not in. WHAT? When we signed up for the house, both the builder and the real estate agent told us that we were NOT part of the HOA. When we closed on the house, I made sure that there was no mention of an HOA, and there wasn't. We never signed anything. So Zac had the builder fax over the paperwork to us showing us the agreement that we were NOT part of the HOA. Then yesterday, we get a letter from the HOA's attorney! So I brought everything in today to have one of the AUSA's look it over to see what needs to be done.

So, regardless, Zac has decided to put the yard in this week and next. He is renting a trencher to dig the lines for the sprinkler system on Friday. He has mapped out where we need all the sprinkler lines, etc. While we were doing this, Aubrey tripped and scraped her face up against one of the rocks on our rock wall. She was a trooper, and didn't even cry. It's not that bad, it is now scabbed over. We have to take the kittens in this week to get their stitches removed. They are so good with the kids. Aubrey will carry them around just holding on to their neck, and they don't fight her at all. This Friday we have a Halloween party. Zac was going to go as Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. He bought a stingray and everything. He was going to sew the stingray onto the front of his shirt, etc. Anybody that he told thought that it would be too soon to poke fun at that. So Zac decided to can that idea. We will have pictures with us in our costumes. We are also hitting 3 wards trunk or treats. I don't know why Zac wants to get so much candy. He doesn't really even eat that much candy. Eric is so excited to carve pumpkins. He has picked out the design that he is going to do, and told me that this year HE gets to carve the pumpkin....we'll see.

We got a car!

We ended up getting a new car. Zac came to my work the day the car broke down, and he somehow was able to get the car started. He drove it home, and we started looking for new cars. We found out that our car needed a water pump, so Zac got it replaced, so that the car would drive well for us to trade it in to the car dealership. We got a 2006 Chevy Impala. Zac was able to talk the salesman down $7000 off the listed price, and then we traded our car in for $3000 so we got a pretty good deal! It is so nice to drive a reliable car!

Life has been too busy lately to post. Last Tuesday is when Zac finally got the car, and I had Young Women's that night. Wednesday I ended up going to that US Marshal's house, the one who told me that he loved me, for scrapbook night. Small world. My really good friend hosts a scrapbook club, and she was having her kitchen remodeled, so she was having it at her friends house last week, which is the US Marshal's house. It was a little weird at first, but I made him watch Eric and Aubrey. On Thursday, I had volleyball and a "modbod' party to go to. We are starting the tournament next week. So far, we have won all of our games, so hopefully we can keep this trend up. Thursday during work was Brett Tolman's swearing in ceremony to U.S. Attorney. It was a really big deal. There were news cameras everywhere. Sen. Hatch spoke along with several of my co-workers. Apparently Brett is really good friends with Jenna Elfman (she is an actress, she played Dharma on the tv show Dharma & Greg). I sat by her during the reception. She was extremely nice. She is TINY though. She is the same heighth as me, but probably only weighs 95 - 100 pounds.

Friday I had to baby-sit our neighbors son the entire day. (I didn't know it at the time, it was only suppose to be for about an hour) Kind of frustrating, because Eric and Aubrey took a 4 hour nap at THE SAME TIME! Which never happens. It is a rare occassion that Eric even takes a nap. BUT, I couldn't do anything with that free time because I had to watch the 15 month old boy, who is EXTREMELY clingy.

We finally got a family picture with Aubrey in it on Saturday. I know it's horrible that we haven't done a professional picture yet. Our really good friends sister is a professional photographer, and she met us in Provo Canyon. Her favorites are the candid shots. She had the kids playing around everywhere. Hopefully they turn out good. Aubrey was a little pill though when it came to "posing" for the family picture. She absolutely refused to look at the camera. At the end of the shoot, the photographer told Eric that he is one of the most handsome little boys she has seen, then she turns to Aubrey and told her that Aubrey is Sassy. The photographer will make a CD with all of our pictures on it, and we can print what ones we like. She ended up taking close to 250 pictures. Then, she also makes a video with our pictures to music. She did all of this for only $50!!! We have seen her work on several of our friends families, and she takes wonderful pictures. We couldn't ask for a better price. At kiddie kandids you would wait for 2 + hours to take the picture, then have to spend $15 a sheet! It is crazy how expensive pictures can be. Zac has a REALLY hard time spending any money on pictures, because he always got them for free from his Dad.

Eric is such a sweet talker. Sunday morning at around 6:30 am, Eric came over to my side of the bed. He wanted me to get up and play with him. I told him to go wake up his Dad and play with him. Eric then said, "No, I don't want to play with daddy. I want to play with you." I asked him why, then he said, "Because Mommy, you are my best friend!" I had to get up after that. I have been horrible at taking pictures lately. We should be getting our family pictures back soon, and I will post a bunch of those. I will also recruit the help of Zac to get some pictures of the kids.

Horrible Luck!

As many of you know, we have had problems this summer with our car overheating. After the big Idaho overheat at the Lovell Reunion, Zac put in a new thermostat, took it into the shop and had the radiator flushed, new transmission oil, etc. It was working fine....although I never turned on the a/c. On Sunday on our way up to Zac's Aunt's house, Zac decided to turn on the a/c just to see what it would do. The car started to overheat almost immediately. So we turn the heaters on full blast, etc., and the temperature went back to normal. We didn't drive the car until yesterday when I took it to work. On my way to work it started to overheat, so I turned the heater on full blast, and the temperature went down. The same thing when I came home last night. But this morning, the car did the same thing, and it was fine until I got off on the 900 south exit in SLC. I had to stop at the 800 S stoplight to turn left. The needle was buried in the Hot section, and the check engine light came on. I was able to make it one more block to the day care and pull in. After I got the kids situated inside eating breakfast, I came out and the car will not start. Luckily, 2 girls from my work take their kids to the same daycare, so I just waited for one of them to come, and caught a ride to work. The problem is, how am I going to get home tonight with the kids?!!! Zac has school that starts at 4 and he usually doesn't get home until 10-10:30ish. If we were to take the bus, the furthest it goes is Lehi. There isn't a bus that will go to Eagle Mountain. Zac is on his way up to the daycare to check out the car himself, but if the engine has blown out, what's the point. We need to get a new car. So now, the other question. How in the world am I getting to work tomorrow? What a nightmare!

Conference Weekend!

We had a great week this week. It started off on Tuesday night with my first night going to Mutual. The Secretary in Young Women's name is also Heather. When I walked into the room, the Young Women's President said "Oh Heather! I'm glad you were able to make it!" Then all of the girls (who's backs were facing me because they were working on a craft project at tables) started yelling "Heather! It's Heather! Yeah Heather!" Then they turned around and saw me and said "Oh, it's the WRONG Heather." Wow! They really know how to make someone feel welcome :) I ended up getting Zac's awful head cold. And now Eric and Aubrey both have it. Zac and I got our Halloween costumes this weekend, but Zac's was a little to snug on his body, so he is going to exchange it for something else.

On Saturday morning, our friends had a "Conference Crepes Celebration". They had a couple families over to their house on Saturday, and had made crepes for everybody. They were delicious! They want to start making this a tradition for us for every conference. Saturday night, I took the kids to the park to play. The park is only 2 blocks away. But in Eagle Mountain there is a park every 4 blocks, so everybody is close to a park. I was meeting a lot of new people, we all had kids about the same age, and they were all playing really good together. They wanted to set up a playdate for the kids, and right then, Eric dropped his pants around his ankles, bent over and went POOH in the middle of the park. I couldn't believe it! All the parents started laughing. I was horrified. I ran over just in time to save Aubrey from stepping in it, and told Eric that we do not go pooh outside, only in the potty. As I was walking back to the bench, one of the parents says to me "Uh, he's not finished." I turn around and he was peeing on a tree! When I got back to the parents, they said "Maybe we will rethink this playdate." Then they laughed and said they were joking, etc. I still can't believe that he did that! Well, they definitely won't forgot who I am.....or Eric.

For Sunday, we went up to Zac's Aunt's house for the afternoon session of Conference. Everybody brought some good food, and the kids were really good. Although, I finally had to move the calderon that was filled with candy. At one point in the afternoon, Aubrey had four suckers in her hand open and gooey. When we got home, Eric's pockets were filled with candy. We forgot to pat him down when we left. He kept on pulling out candy the entire night.

We are getting the kittens declawed, spayed and neutered today. We have had it with their claws. They will attack us in the middle of the night when we are sleeping. I was putting on my flannel pajama pants at night, and they have a ribbon at the top. One of the kittens thought that I was playing with him, and jumped up my leg to try to get the ribbon. He was hugging my leg, with all of his claws deep into my skin. He then slid down a ways. I was bleeding for awhile after that. For some reason, they really like to attack Zac when he sleeps. He has scratches all up and down his arm. So this will happen this morning at 9 am. I couldn't believe how expensive it is to declaw a cat! Some places wanted $400 per cat! I shopped around throughout Utah and Salt Lake County, and found a place in American Fork that will do it for only $60 per cat. It's still expensive, but better than $400!

A Very Sick Week

Tuesday morning my work did a tour of the Federal Reserve Bank. We got to go into the money vaults, and were surrounded by over a billion dollars. I brought Zac along because he was interested in seeing the bank. Then we went to where they destroyed all the money. They even gave us a $200 sample each, but it was shredded. Because Zac was at my work, we went out to lunch. As soon as we got back from lunch, I immediately felt sick. I lasted until the end of the work day, picked up the kids and went home. When I got home, all the orders from Pampered Chef arrived, so I needed to go deliver them, and then the Bishop called and wanted to see me. So I ran over to the Church real quick, and got my first calling in the ward. I am the new laurel advisor in the Young Women's. Then I had to run down to Provo to deliver the Pampered Chef stuff to some girls. On my way back from Provo, the sickness hit me again. I was up the entire night. At 4 am I woke up Zac and made him call into work to have him stay home with me. My fever got up to 104.5. AND our thermometer usually runs about 2 degrees cooler. On a healthy day, it says that I am 96 degrees, not 98.6. So I really could have been 106.5. It was horrible. Zac took care of the kids until 2 pm when he had to go to school. The fever peaked to the 104.5 while he was at school. The kids had been fighting, Aubrey spilled milk everywhere, then dropped a glass cup, and it shattered, etc. I was feeling horrible so I started to cry. Eric immediately ran over to me and said. "Mommy, do you miss your mommy? (I do, but that's not why I was crying.) Daddy will come home from school, and will take care of you okay? You will feel better okay?" He then gave me a hug, and from behind comes Aubrey screaming and hitting Eric, Eric moved out of the way so she also could give me a hug. Eric is growing up so much. I told them that they would make Mommy feel a lot better if they stopped fighting. They were good the rest of the night. I stayed home on Thursday and Friday as well. The fever just wasn't breaking. Zac's boss let him take 1/2 days on both of those days, but he then had to leave at 2 or 3 to go to school, and doesn't get home until 10 -10:30 pm. So as nice as it was of his boss, it only helped me out with the kids for a couple hours.

Saturday morning, I woke up and had no fever at all. I ended up going with Bobby to the Women's Conference in Salt Lake. We went out to eat before the conference started at the Blue Iguana. My work is close enough to the conference center, that we parked there so we didn't have to pay for any parking. Bobby didn't wear very good walking shoes, so by the time we got to the conference center, she had blisters. So on our way back to the car, we took trax to the Gallivan Center, so that we would only have to walk a block. Trax was full of the women from the conference center. There were young girls sitting everywhere, and all the elderly women standing!! I told this one lady that she could sit down (Bobby and I got on Trax before everybody else, so we had seats.) and I would stand. She sat down and immediately started to cry. She was so grateful. She had told me that normally she was alright, but for some reason, that day she didn't feel like she could stand at all, and when she walked into Trax and saw that all the seats were taken, she didn't know what she was going to do. Bobby also stood, but there were no other younger women standing!

Zac had this paper due in his Saturday morning class. So Friday night we were at Dad's, Zac was finishing writing it down on paper, and I was typing it for him. His teacher likes to receive assignments via e-mail. When Zac got home from him class on Saturday, he told me that he had written the paper in the wrong style. SO, when Bobby and I were driving home from the Women's Conference, Zac wanted me to stop at home, grab his paper, and retype it that night and resubmit it to his teacher. So I went to Bobby's parents house and retyped it. I got home late that night.

Well, this week wasn't really exciting. I'm just glad that so far the kids and Zac haven't gotten what I had. I start going to mutual again tonight, we'll see how that goes. :)

The Weekend

Thursday at Eric's school/daycare was "red day". So I dressed Eric all in red and he had to bring in a red snack. So he took some strawberries. When I went to pick him up, he ran over to me and yelled "GO UTES!" with his hands making the "utes" sign. His teacher said that he had been screaming that all day. What?! When we got home Eric did the same thing to Zac. So Zac yelled back at him "GO COUGARS!" and put his hands in the shape of a "Y". So now Eric is shouting "GO COUGARS" a lot.

So on Friday we had our progressive dinner. It was suppose to start at 5:30, but we were waiting on a couple from Provo, and they didn't get there until 7:30. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of good food! Although at the end I asked them who's idea was it to mess up EVERYBODIES house instead of just one? We ended up have 16 people in total, 8 adults and 8 kids. Zac made a homemade cheesecake and got great reviews. He is starting to experiment with his cooking, and added a little cinnamon to the cheesecake, and it really made a huge difference. His boss' wife works at a candy store, and cuts caramel, so Zac got some caramel from her and melted it and drizzled it all over the cheesecake. During dessert Eric told me that he didn't feel good, and then he put himself to bed. He was up pretty much the entire night with a 102 fever. He is doing better today, he doesn't have his fever anymore, but he still doesn't really have an appetite. Aubrey was so wound up though. I think she ate some dessert off of everybodies plates. Everybody was leaving around 10:30-11:00 pm and Aubrey was dancing to the music, and running around the couch screaming happily. I have never seen her so hyper. Then we put her into bed and she would scream and laugh at herself. I have no idea what time she finally fell asleep. We are going to do a girls night on Thursday with all the girls that were at the dinner, and all the guys can get together to watch the kids. That worked out really nice for me. :)

On Saturday I had a friend call and say that they were going to stop by to see the house on their way up to SLC. When they finally got to our house, their "stop by" was four hours! Zac was at Kohl's with his sister Barb calling me wondering where I was. I finally kicked them out, and met Zac and Barb at Kohl's. She is having an "Associates Day" next week where she gets an additional 30% off the price. So we grabbed a lot of clothes for the family and gave them to her to put on hold until she can buy them at the discounted price. We finally got the rest of the furniture that we have ordered for the house. We bought it all unfinished, so we could put the stain on the wood to match our furniture, and it was a lot cheaper that way. So Zac and I have been staining our dresser this weekend as well. I got my stuff for Christmas cards this weekend too. I know it's only September, but it takes me forever to get them done since I work. I use get one or two done on the weekend until it's time to send them out, and this way I'm not stressed or trying to hurry to get them all finished in time.

Our yard

Zac was able to rent a back hoe this past Saturday. We only had it for 3 hours so he didn't get as much done on the yard as he would have liked. I wish I would have taken a before and after picture, because he made a lot of progress on the yard. Zac had made a rock retaining wall, and pretty much leveled off the rest of our yard, and then he put a lot of dirt above the retaining wall, and leveled that off too. Eric sat outside for almost the entire three hours just watching Zac work on the back hoe. And as modeled in the picture with Eric, he found his snow boots. We only had one neighbor come over to ask Zac to work on their yard. Zac only spent 1/2 hour on their yard because we had to get it back. Zac almost rolled the back hoe twice trying to get the big boulders for the retaining wall.

This week in volleyball I tore a muscle in my shoulder on my first serve. I didn't bend my elbow at all when I served, and I hit the ball
hard. Right when I hit the ball I heard a 'pop' sound. My shoulder hurt so bad. I couldn't believe I hurt it on the first serve. I still played for the next two hours, but I didn't spike the ball or serve it overhand. By the time I got home, it was throbbing. I couldn't lift my arm at all to even get undressed. The next day I couldn't even brush my hair with my right hand unless I tipped my hair over. It's getting better, but it is still really tender. My friend rolled her ankle trying to get the ball. She also did this within the first 10 minutes. She almost passed out right after she rolled it. It might actually be broken. It is still really swollen, and there is bruising all along the ankle. Zac was making fun of us saying that we are getting OLD because we can't even play for ten minutes without getting hurt. This Friday we are getting together with four families in our neighborhood to have a progessive dinner. This is where you have the appetizers at one house, the main course at another, etc. We are in charge of dessert. It should be fun. We all have kids around the same age, so at least all the homes will be kid friendly. We are all from the BYU married ward down in Provo. It's nice having people that we already know move by us! Eric made his first friend in the neighborhood. This little boy is 2 months older than Eric and his name is Zac. Eric is having a really hard time calling him Zac. When my Zac came home for lunch on Friday, Eric went up to him and said, "Daddy guess what? I played with you today!" He is a little confused. The only problem is that the little Zac is also a little autistic, so he REALLY likes to hit. His Mom was telling me that on a good day, he will only have 30 tantrums, on a GOOD day!! I don't recall Eric ever having 30 tantrums on a bad day! When they were leaving our house, little Zac wanted to keep our book. I let them borrow it. Then later in the day, I took the kids to go get the mail and Eric saw little Zac. He screams across the street "Hey friend! Do you have my book?!" Little Zac screams yes, and runs inside to get it. Before I knew it they were both running up the street into our house, and playing in Eric's room again. Aubrey has been really cute lately. Anytime she hears any music she will stop whatever it is that she's doing and start dancing, even if the music is only playing for 10 seconds. And anytime you ask her if she wants to do anything, go outside, have a bath, etc. She will smile really big and say, "YEAH!" As she is running towards the door, bathroom, kitchen, etc. She has been really happy lately.

In the picture with just Eric in it, our lot goes all the way to where that port a potty is. Eric is standing on top of the rock wall. Zac obviously has a lot of work he needs to do still on the wall. He is going to put in some rock stairs to the top of the rock wall. This was what he accomplished in the three hours. The pictures really don't show just how much work he actually did. Zac also sealed our garage floor this week. And he has started to build cabinets in the garage. He finished two cabinets under the window, he just needs to put the doors on them. And all of the materials have been free. The builder told us that whatever they don't use on the new homes, we could have. So Zac has been over to all of the sites every day trying to see if he can scrap some wood.

Devin's Concert

Last Saturday Devin's band did a benefit concert for cancer. We had Zac's sister Barbara watch the kids for us, and we had our date night. (Thanks again Barb!) We went out to Texas Roadhouse, then went down to Provo to watch Devin's band. I was really surprised to see Nathan there. We got there early enough that we got 2nd row seats, and we could all sit together. I took some pictures of the concert, but I used Dad's camera, and for some reason the pics won't load on his computer at home, so I will need to bring his camera into work so I can load them on. Devin did great! He even had written a song about Mom. They have 5 people in their band, "Red Spectre" and the third Mom just got diagnosed with cancer. The band has never sounded better. Zac was really impressed with them. The last time Zac heard them play was at the battle of the bands when Devin was in high school. Devin had passed out tons of flyers at UVSC trying to get a larger crowd. They were able to donate all the money to the American Cancer Society. Even the owner of Muse Music played during the concert, and he donated his money from the night as well.

On Sunday we went to Jeff and Sarah's baby blessing. I couldn't believe how much hair their little girl has! It was nice to see some people from Idaho. Thad had his 3 year old birthday party on Tuesday. As we were driving to Nathan and Bobby's Eric was telling me who was going to be there, then he goes, "But not Andrew and Madison. They are too far away. They need to come NOW!" He screamed that last part. It was really random, I hadn't talked about Andrew and Madison with him for awhile Usually its right after Justin and Lisa leave that Eric will constantly ask me where they are, but we haven't seen them since Spring, so it was completely out of the blue. Thad's birthday went well. By the time we left Eric had grape soda and frosting in his hair, but both kids had a lot of fun. Bobby had made an individual pizza for everybody there. She put in a lot of work to this party. Eric last night told me he needed to go back to Tucker and Thad's because he needs more cake.

So we finally named the kittens: Buster and Maebe. Zac picked out the names. We got the 3rd season for Arrested Development on DVD, and that is pretty much how we spent our weekend. We had Devin come over on Sunday, and we watched the entire Season. That show is so good, it is all one-liners.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the PRESIDENT

Coming into work today was horrible. They basically closed all the streets in downtown. I finally got to work, and the police had blocked off our road for the motorcaid with the President. I heard a police officer say that he was coming in 5 minutes, so I ran to my office and grabbed my camera. If you look really close, the picture of the black SUV has President Bush waving to us. My camera has a 3 second delay, I'm really sad that I didn't get the pic of him where he was about 10 feet away from me. They were going really fast though, it was hard to get a good picture. He was on his way up to the Church Office building to have breakfast with President Hinckley. The US Attorney was in one of the SUV's as well, probably wondering why his employee is outside taking pictures. :)

We have connections

So I had a one-on-one meeting with the U.S. Attorney yesterday. It went really well. During the meeting, he asked me what Zac's goals were. I told him that he was pre-law, etc. He asked where Zac wanted to go to law school. I told him hopefully BYU. He then told me, if he wants to go to BYU he will go to BYU. He then said that he will personally call the Dean of the Law School and get Zac accepted to BYU Law school. He also told me that everybody tends to do what he tells them. So we are pretty excited about that. Zac is a Junior this year at UVSC, so in a year when he applies for law school, the U.S. Attorney is going to write a letter of recommendation, and call the Dean, and he wanted me to make sure that Zac wrote his application essay on gravedigging. He was very adamant about that. I'm not sure why.

I have a mandatory meeting in my office this week. The rumor is that Pres. Bush is going to be there. About an hour ago, Condoleeza Rice asked the AUSA that I work for to come and meet him about one of our big cases. So he took my camera and went down to the Grand America Hotel. Zac wants to photoshop me into the pictures. I tried to reason my way into going, since I have done all of the preparing of documents, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I didn't wear the best outfit today. I wore pinstripe pants with a blue shirt, when if I was going to meet her, I would have worn a business outfit. I didn't have court today, so I wasn't too concerned with the way that I dressed today. But I did discover today that I have really nice skills at picking out a matching tie to a suit. The AUSA ran to me frantic because of the call from Condoleeza, and he needed to know what tie worked best. So I found one that would look suitable. As he was walking back from meeting with her, a homeless man with three teeth pointed at him and said, "Wow, that is a REALLY nice tie!" It was great.

Tonight I am going to our new Stake Center to help unpack boxes. We get to officially start meeting there Sept. 17th. But I thought with my great skills of unpacking boxes, that I should go over and help. I found out last night that our ward has over 800 people in it! WOW! Last night when Zac and I were putting Eric to bed he asked for a drink of water. Zac was too lazy to go downstairs to get him the purified water, so he filled up the drink in the bathroom and gave it to Eric. (We have soft water in the bathroom) Eric took one sip and said, "Ew, this is gross! What is this?" Who knew that you could tell that much of a difference of bathroom water v. kitchen water. Zac laughed all the way down to the kitchen to fill up with the purified water. Eric made Zac drink some of it before he would drink it. We made the kittens spend the night in the bathroom last night, and I woke up this morning to the whole role of toliet paper on the ground. They completely unrolled it, and it had rips throughout. They will now spend the night in the garage.

We got kittens

So I finally broke down, and let Zac get kittens. Zac is a huge cat lover, and I have allergies. BUT, because Eric is so scared of every animal ever since his attack, I decided on Friday night that we could go get A kitten. When we got there, Zac turns to me and says "Can we get 2 kittens instead of one?" So we did. They are still too scared to play with us. They hide out in the closet, under the bed, or on Zac's night stand all day. Then at night, they cry. Actually, last night was the first night that they didn't cry. Either that, or I was too tired from the past 2 nights to wake up to their crying. Zac is putting a cat door on the garage door, so we will have their food and litter box, etc., in the garage. We need to get them both of them declawwed and fixed this week. We ended up getting a boy and a girl.

Volleyball was so much fun last Thursday. We had a professional player giving everybody pointers on things. It was great. They catered it to everybody's skill level. However, I didn't realized how sore I would be afterwards. It has been a LONG time since I've played volleyball.

Our a/c guy showed up on Friday. He was suppose to get to our house by 1 pm and he showed up at 3:30 pm. Then after 3 1/2 hours, he tells Zac that they have the wrong part, so he will be back on Monday. So hopefully he will show up today. Although, nights have been cold enough lately that we haven't even used the window units.

So I am hosting a Pampered Chef party this Friday at 6:00 if anybody is in the area! Bobby is going to be the demonstrator. I walked around our neighborhood passing out invitations trying to get to know the people around our block. Hopefully we'll have a good turnout. Bobby is going to make homemade cream puffs and a harvest chicken salad. They both look so good. Zac had to approve the menu first of course, because he would be eating the leftovers.

So here are the much anticipated pictures of our house. Our camera doesn't zoom out at all, so these pictures don't really do it justice, but you'll sort of get the idea of what it looks like. We still have a lot more decorating, etc. that needs to be finished. And Zac didn't want me to take a picture of the garage until he was finished building shelfs, etc. (But pretty much every garage looks the same right?!) For some reason, all of the pictures have turned out a little blurry, but on the camera, they look fine. Our front room looks a little scarce right now, but Zac is putting in a fireplace (Hopefully by this winter). We already have the fireplace, and Zac needs to pick out the slab of stone that we want to set the fireplace on. (It is a woodburning stove) The picture of our log bed, is the bed that Dad cut with the chainsaw so that we could get it upstairs. Our bathroom still needs to be painted, that's why we don't have any decorations in it. When we got into the house, the builders had cut a hole above the toilet. The drywallers came and fixed the hole, and we are still waiting on them to finish the job by painting.
Here is our kitchen:



























The stairs leading down go to the basement. It is completely unfinished. We have our washer/dryer downstairs, along with our water heater, etc. There is enough room downstairs to add two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a cold storage.

:







































That's our house!

I got an award!

I got "Employee of the Quarter" yesterday for the whole United States, which is a pretty big deal. They also gave me a bonus check, but they took more than half of my bonus for taxes! It came with this REALLY nice plaque with the president's signature. I just need to find a place in my office to hang it! It has been crazy at work this entire week! I haven't been able to eat lunch all week (or update the blog). On Tuesday, there was a huge take down, but I had to get the seizure warrants prepared, the attorney and DEA agents were all in my office standing behind me as I was typing away and getting all the info, during this process, I'm shoving a spoonful of potatoes in my mouth because I was starving. Hopefully today will be a slow day. I had a new U.S. Marshal tell me that he loves me. It was a complete accident, but he won't live it down. He was leaving a message on my voice mail, and at the end he said "Alright, I'll talk to you later, love you." Then he realized what he said. On the message, only about 20 seconds of it was regarding a case, the next two minutes was him back peddling. I had a FBI agent in my office when I listened to the message. We all laughed so hard. I told the Assistant U.S. Attorney about it, so we called him and gave him a hard time. Funny thing is, if he would have pressed the # button, he could have re-recorded his message. He told me that he was too flustered to even think of that.

Eric is officially potty-trained. He refuses to wear diapers anymore. We didn't have any accidents during church on Sunday, and this week at daycare. (Which is where I really worried that he would have his accidents.) He is even waking up in the morning dry. What a relief. Aubrey still wants to use the potty everytime she sees Eric on it. Aubrey is learning sign language at the daycare. Luckily I know sign language, so I knew what she was asking for. It is really cute. When she says "please" she will rub her stomach with both hands. (Instead of rubbing the chest with one hand.) She is getting so big. Zac put her in nursery last Sunday. I told him to try it, but stay with her. She doesn't turn 18 months until September. But Zac just dropped her off and came back. She did really well. Our ward is so huge. Last Sunday (and we weren't late) we had to sit on the back row. And by the back row, I mean our chairs were up against the stage in the gym. There were people standing along the sides of the walls, etc. It is too big. It's hard to get to know people when there are so many people.

Tonight starts volleyball season. I am really excited. Zac gets home from school just in time for me to go to practice. This is ward volleyball, but all the girls that I am playing with all played volleyball in highschool, so it's not the typical ward volleyball.

Zac started school yesterday. He's got a busy schedule. He only has Friday's off again. And he won't get home everynight until 10 pm, (except for Thursdays and he's home by 7 pm)and he has school all day on Saturday. So far his classes are going really well. His class last night is to help the students take the LSAT and get into Law School. They even are having him write a "pre-law review" which one student from the school will get theirs published. Zac is really excited about this. Zac has also gotten our entire front yard ready to put in the sprinkler system. He is going to rent a backhoe for the backyard. Because we are on the mountain, our yard is going uphill. He is going to dig it out so that our yard is flat, and he will put in a big retaining wall. Our neighbor across the street is a landscaper, so that is going to be really helpful.

That's about it for our week. (And Lisa, Dad and I really tried to watch you on the game show, we just couldn't find it. I even went down to Provo to try to watch. Sorry.)

A/C didn't come

So the a/c guy ended up cancelling. He was suppose to come in the afternoon, and he called Zac and said that he had already been working for 12 hours, and he was too tired to come over, and that he will be doing this other job until Sunday, so could he come over sometime next week!! So we will be spending a lot more time in the heat. We would go with somebody else, but he quoted us $400 less than everybody else.

Zac sent me some pictures of the house that he had to send our insurance lady. So even though I've posted the outside of the house, these pictures are without the big dumpster in front of it. I will post the interior later.

On Monday, Zac stays home with the kids. He was working downstairs, and it got really quiet, so he went to find the kids. He found them in the bathroom. Eric was on the big toliet, and Aubrey was on Eric's potty. They both had their pants around their ankles. Eric was kind enough to take off Aubrey's diaper. But they BOTH went potty! Aubrey is only 16 months! And last night, it happened again. Eric was using the bathroom, and Aubrey started crying pulling at her pants, so I took off her diaper, and she ran to Eric's potty and went to the bathroom again! I hope she keeps this up! It will be nice not to have any kids in diapers!

We are getting a/c today!

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the house up yet. Zac has the camera at his work, so pictures will be soon to come, if Zac remembers to bring the camera home. We are finally getting our air conditioning installed today! Last week one of the Assistant U.S. Attorney's was really nice, and brought over two window a/c units to my house to let us borrow until we got the central a/c installed. The guy was suppose to come last Friday to install it. But Eric was playing with our cell phone battery charger, and broke it. We had the phone plugged into the charger, thinking that we were charging the battery, when it wasn't working at all. So on Friday I get a call from the a/c installer and said, "Heather, I will be there at---" The phone died. We don't have any way to charge it. So I waited all day Friday and Saturday, and he never came. Saturday night, Zac and I went and got 2 new cell phones. (We were going to do this anyways) Instead of doing a home phone, we went the cell phone route. We were able to call our a/c guy back, and he is coming this afternoon at 3:30.

We are starting to get rid of a lot of our boxes of stuff. It's nice to feel sort of settled in. I I am very decorative challenged. I have a hard time decorating. I am a really good copier if I see something that I like, but I am not creative. I even had Zac's sister, Barbara, come with me all day last Tuesday trying to get some decorative things. We probably went to 10 stores.

I am really surprised at how well the kids are adjusting with the new house. They go to bed early and without any problems. Neither of them will cry, they will just go to sleep. It is so nice! My parents would always make us go to bed when it was light out, and you could hear AND see the kids still playing outside. I am now doing the same with my kids. When I put Eric to bed, he tells me about all the kids that don't have to go to bed yet. I think it's so funny. We went to our new ward this past Sunday. They have FOUR nurserys!! Gospel Doctrine was so full that people were standing along all the walls, and they have FOUR Gospel Doctrine classes. During Sacrament, the folding chairs went all the way back to the stage in the gym. I couldn't believe how big our ward is! I am the Sixth Heather in the ward. Hopefully they will split the ward soon. I hear it is in the works.

Last Thursday was my work party in Park City. Zac and I were able to buy a lot of stuff for the house at the outlet stores. We even did a little Christmas shopping for the kids. We left the kids at daycare so that Zac and I could go play. (Eric had a field trip to Wheeler Farm that day as well.) My work provided all the food for the day. Zac and I went and did the Alpine Slides, and I tried really hard to talk him into the Zip lines....but they were too dangerous. Ever since we had kids, everything is TOO DANGEROUS. When I was going down the alpine slide, I hit a potgut. I didn't kill it, but it made me tip over. When we went back down to the park to eat lunch, there was a guy who is skinnier that Zac, wearing a white baseball hat, shorts, etc., and had 4 kids crawling all over him, Zac turned to me and asked me who he was married to. And I said, That is the new U.S. Attorney, Zac just looks at me and goes WHAT? I just said, I told you he really does look young, It's not my fault that I mistook him for an agent. Speaking of which, earlier that week, I had one of the AUSA's come and tell me to grab my purse we're going to lunch. So I headed over with a group of about 15 Assistant U.S. Attorney's and the U.S. Attorney. I was the only paralegal in the group, we went to Olive Garden, AND they paid for my lunch. I sat right across from the U.S. Attorney and he just teased me the entire lunch. He thinks that this is the greatest story, about how I thought he was an Agent or Intern. Every time he sees me, he reintroduces himself to me. Even at the work party, he brought his entire family over to introduce me to them. Before he had a chance to speak, I turned to Zac, and said "Zac this is Brett Tolman, our new intern." I was just being stupid, but Brett thought it was the funniest thing. Oh well, at least he knows who I am.

Eric's daycare went on the Heber Creeper yesterday (that's a train for the non-locals.) When they were coming back to SLC on the bus, Eric had fallen asleep. But the bus is so bumpy, that on one of the bumps, Eric woke up. He was really angry and bit the kid (who also was asleep) that was sitting next to him. He bit so hard that it punctured the skin all the way around. His teacher told me about it when I picked him up, and I had to fill out paperwork on the bite. I put Eric and Aubrey in the car, and by the time I left the parking lot, he was asleep. He was asleep for the night. This morning he came into my bedroom talking happy, etc. Then I started to get him ready for "school". He started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "I can't go to school, I hurt somebody really bad!!" I asked him how he hurt him and he said that he bit somebody really hard. I asked him who he bit, he didn't know, it was just somebody, but he knows what he looks like. So I told him to tell "somebody" that he was sorry and give him a hug. Then Eric started crying again and said that he couldn't go back to school, that everybody hates him there now and that the teachers don't like him. Now this was my actually first "Parenting" experience. I am really glad that Eric feels so bad for what he did, it just really caught me off guard. Eric hasn't ever really gotten into much trouble before, and when he has, he's only shown remorse in the moment. I had to talk to all of his teachers this morning, and when I left, he was alright. Although, I had to trick him into going to school. He refused to get in the car, so I told him we were going to Daddy's work (Zac had left something at home.) So we got to Zac's work, Zac came out and brought the kids some doughnuts. Then when we were pulling out of the parking lot, Eric asked if we were going to Grandpa's. I just said No, and kept on driving to school. As soon as I pulled off on the exit, Eric knew right where we were going, and the whole drama of the bite started all over again.

For your address books, here is our updated address and phone numbers:

3997 East Clark Circle
Eagle Mountain, UT 84005

Zac's Cell 801-368-6169
Heather's Cell 801-376-7457

I will post the pictures later.

We moved in!

On Tuesday we had that huge wind storm. I came home from work and the power was out. The police had told Dad that the power would be out for 5-7 days! There were power poles on the ground everywhere! Luckily, the head of Provo Power lives across the street from us, and we got the power back on within 7 hours.

On Wednesday, I went to Raging Waters with Eric and his preschool/daycare. They wouldn't let Eric ride in the tube with me, they made him get his own tube, he fell right through the hole. So I ended up renting a double tube so I could stick my feet in the hole, and have him sit on my feet. Eric had on some water shoes, and they made him take off his WATER SHOES on the water slides?! I couldn't believe it! He fell asleep while we were in the wave pool. Those waves rocked him right to sleep. So I stayed in there for about an hour before I finally woke him up. I got so BURNED.

Thursday, I had the POD delivered at our new house. Zac and I both had to work, but Dad and Devin unloaded everything out of the POD, and all brought over all of our stuff that was in the garage and the basement. It was great. Do you think Dad was a little anxious to have us out?

On Friday, I dropped the kids off at Bobby's and Dad and I got up to my house at about 7 am. We brought the trailer and made several trips from Zac's work to our house. (Zac's boss let us store most of our stuff in their shed.) We pretty much got all of the boxes out, there were some heavy items left. But at 2pm Nathan and Devin showed up, so now we also had the use of the truck. We got everything emptied out of Zac's work. We tried to put our canopy log bed up the stairs, but there was no way it was going up, so Dad took a chainsaw to the bed. :( It looks good though.

On Saturday, we had our LAST load! Dad wanted all of the guys there to lift the piano into the trailer. We got everything completely out of Dad's house, and Saturday morning, we were officially moved in. The kids were having so much fun rediscovering their toys. I can't believe how much stuff we have to unpack! Dad was able to install our microwave above our stove, and Zac got our washer and dryer hooked up. I started to wash everything. By the time it reached 6 pm, I got feeling really sick. I threw up 5 times that night. Plus, we didn't have our a/c installed yet, so it was 96 degrees in our bedroom...it was awful. I put the kids in the tub and turned on the water. Turns out, that they never hooked up our water heater. So the kids took an ice cold bath. They really did not enjoy it. Zac started working on the water heater for about 2 hours with no luck. So I also took an ice cold shower that night to try to cool off. It was the worst night. I still felt sick yesterday, but Zac was unpacking most of the boxes. He even stripped the stain off the dining room table, and re-stained it. It looks brand new. In the evening, we had some of our new neighbors come over. We asked them about the water heater, and they said that we needed to turn on the HEATER for 10 minutes, and then try to light the water heater. WHAT? But it worked. It was awful though, the house was so hot anyways, and then we purposefully turned on the heater. I think the kids have eaten around 20 popcicles this weekend.

SO, I asked Zac, "When are we getting our city garbage can?" He looks the other way and slowly says, "We're not." WHAT?!! HE decided that he will haul all of our garbage away to his work to save us $11 a month. ELEVEN DOLLARS! For those of you who don't know, Zac is the most frugal person I have ever met. He is willing to put dirty diapers, milk cartons, you name it in his car to save us $11. We will see how long this lasts. Other than that, we are slowly getting our house put together, it's a slow process, hopefully it will be finished soon. AND the drive to work today was great. I got here in record time.

A Flat Tire!

Last night as I was coming home from work I got a flat tire. I was on the point of the mountain in the fast lane going 70 mph when I heard a 'POP' and then the car behind me honked their horn. The car immediately shifted its weight. I didn't see anything in the lane that I could have ran over. I hurried and got over to the emergency lane to discover this massive hole in the tire! The worst part is that I am at the top of the point of the mountain, AND this is the only day that I didn't have the cell phone. (Zac had it because the delivery truck was going to call him.) AND yesterday was the first time it was pouring rain for a month! I decided that there was no way I was walking all the way down the point in high heels and in the rain. Plus, with it raining, it was hard enough to see the lanes, let alone a person walking on the side of the freeway. So I turned on my hazards and drove about 10mph in the emergency lane until I reached the Highland/Alpine exit, and coasted into the gas station. If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. So I went to the payphone and called Zac to come help me. As soon as he left the house in Provo, I realized that Nathan just lives a city away, and I'm pretty sure he knows how to change a tire since he worked at Big-O for all those years. But it was too late to let Zac know. Zac had never seen a tire with a huge whole in it before. I was lucky and didn't bend the rim for driving on it. Zac put on the spare tire and off we went to Provo in the pouring rain.

In other news, Zac is picking me up for lunch today to celebrate my birthday. We were going to go out this evening, but Dad had the kids ALL DAY yesterday when Zac was at the house, as soon as Zac got home from the house, I called him about the flat tire, so Dad had the kids for most of the evening as well, and I didn't want to make him watch them again. It's nice that Zac's work schedule is flexible as long as there isn't a funeral. Eric was pretty disappointed that we didn't make cupcakes for my birthday. I worked late yesterday also, and by the time I got home it was 7-7:30pm, and I was exhausted from the day.