Eric's Birthday

So a happy belated birthday to Eric. The reasons for the delay will be on the next post. :) Eric had his 5th Birthday! I can't believe how fast time flies! He had some neighbor kids, cousins and my Dad and Grandpa Powell over for his birthday party. We started at our house with some cake and ice cream, then headed over to Jump on It for the rest of his party. The kids had tons of fun! Luckily, it was right before bed time so after jumping around for an hour, they were definitely ready for bed! Eric won the lottery with some water guns, he is ready for summer!

So, I haven't posted these pics of Eric playing coach pitch yet. He absolutley loved playing this year. His last game was this past Saturday, and already he is asking when we will sign him up again! But this time he wants to play of the "dirt field" like the grown-ups.

And last but not least, Zac wanted me to post a picture of the retaining wall that he is currently working on. He still needs to build two more rows of cinder block before it's done (which hopefully will be tomorrow.) After the cinder block is finished, he is going to put matching stone on top of the cinder block to coordinate with our house.

I know, I know...

I haven't blogged in a long time. Sorry. I have been so incredibly busy that the thought of blogging hasn't even come to my mind. But after five different people called asking if I was okay...I probably should start blogging. I don't even know where to begin...

Eric started coach pitch (a month ago) and LOVES it! He does really well hitting the ball and running around the bases. Zac has taken pictures, but I don't have the camera with me to load them. Next time. :) He only has 2 more games left in his "season".

Zac's sister Barb moved in with us about a month ago. Zac hasn't quite finished the basement yet. We passed our second inspection, and he has been hanging drywall most nights trying to get it done. In the meantime, we had to put Eric in Aubrey's room, and Barb is sleeping in Eric's room. The kids are FINALLY starting to go to sleep alright. Bedtime usually took me about 5 minutes, but since they are in the same room, it has been 1-2 HOURS. On the weekends, Zac and I try to work outside as much as possible to try to get our backyard in. Zac is currently working on another retaining wall out back. He is actually pouring the cement today. We have transplanted a big tree in our yard, and my garden is looking wonderful! I even have the yellow flowers on my tomato plants. I'm pretty excited about that. My neighbors all had their "view" of how well my garden would do this year, so I'm glad that my tomato plants have almost grown out of their wall o' waters, while theirs are only 2-3 inches high.

I went to South Carolina for a week for a seminar. This was the first time I was gone that I didn't have to find babysitters for the kids every night while Zac was in school. (on a side note, Zac got straight A's this semester.) While I was in SC, I ended up going kayaking again. It was wonderful! We were out on the river for about 4 hours, and at the end it was getting dusk, and the fireflies came out and were flying around us while we were kayaking. I had never seen them before. Everytime I am in South Carolina, I want to try their BBQ. So we took off to the "Best BBQ in South Carolina". I ordered my plate, and the food came and the BBQ sauce was yellow. Hmmm...I knew there was a mustard base BBQ sauce, but I thought it was just colored yellow, and still tasted like BBQ. No. It was the nastiest thing I have ever tasted. (i am not a fan of mustard) It was like they just poured French's Mustard all over my pulled pork. GROSS. I will not try South Carolina BBQ again. When I came home from SC, Barb told me that she never realized how much I do with the kids. I guess one of the nights the kids rooms stunk so bad because Zac hadn't given either of them a bath. In the morning, he just took some baby wipes and wiped down both of the kids and sent them to school/daycare. Are you kidding?

So Barb went to her friends ranch this past weekend. His family has a "buffalo farm" where people pay them money to hunt their buffalo and elk. Barb came back with a cooler full of buffalo meat. Hmmm. Zac was really excited about it. I decided I should try it. We made buffalo burgers last night, they actually were pretty good. (Although I made Zac chopped up an onion and put tons of seasoning salt on it before he made the pattys.) We have 14 more pounds of ground buffalo left, some steaks, and roasts. I'm actually pretty proud of myself for eating the entire burger, it just grossed me out to think about what I was eating. Mind over matter.

I am still trying to run 4 miles every day at lunch. It is getting difficult. I am starting to getting a little big...it is now more walking than running. My problem is I get charlie horses in my calves at night, so when I go out at lunch, the first half is uphill, and my calves are already rock hard and aching from the charlie horses the night before. I have definitely popped out now. 2 maybe 3 weeks ago, people still didn't really know I was pregnant. Now, the whole world can tell. :) I almost have to retire the "rubber band trick" on my jeans and just suck it up and start wearing maternity jeans. This little girl is completely in my ribs all the time. I honestly think my ribs are bruised. It really hurts when she kicks. So that is a big recap of the last month. :)

Las Vegas Week

I spent all of last week in Las Vegas for work. I didn't really do much while I was there besides go to work and out to dinner with some co-workers. I'm not much of a Vegas fan. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. Wednesday night, my co-worker drove some of us out to Lake Mead and we ran 6 miles. It was a wonderful run! We were able to run through the old railroad tunnels that ran along Lake Mead. We went up to the Hoover Dam after and did a little tour, etc. It was great running in tunnels...who knew? The kids had Dad or Barb babysit them during the night while Zac was in school. When I came home Friday, I had put my luggage in my bedroom and headed back downstairs to go through some things. Aubrey was very quiet upstairs for about 20 minutes. Then she came to the top of the stairs with some of my makeup and Aubrey was asking me if she could open it. I came unglued. I thought that she had been playing in my expensive makeup, and she knew better. So I ran upstairs and she starts bawling. I went into my room and she had COMPLETELY unpacked me! She put everything away in the right spot. AMAZING. Between sobs she said, "Mommy, I really missed you, and I don't want you to go again, so I unpacked you!" I felt SO bad for jumping to conclusions about the makeup, etc. What a doll.

Sunday we went up to Zac's Aunt's house for conference. They had a lot of little dogs running around, and Aubrey got nipped on the hand by one of them. They had a great time playing. Monday night, my Grandpa Powell at his assisted living community were holding a "celebration" of sorts in honor of him. He really wanted all the grand kids and great grands kids to be there. we showed up and saw Dad, and he took Aubrey around with him. Little did we know, but we all had a part in the program. Dad had to give a biography of sorts of Grandpa, my Uncle ended up playing the harmonica, a cousin did a dance, and all the great grandkids sang 4 songs, led by myself. I had a hilarious 90 something year old sitting next to me who was feeding me one-liners throughout the entire program. At the end, the director was telling everyone how many comments she receives about how nice Grandpa is. The lady next to me (and not quietly) says to me, "Your Grandpa is really pleasant. The rest of the men in here are mean." Aubrey has lately become REALLY attached to my Dad lately. Everytime we leave she goes nuts! Last night, she again started bawling that we were leaving my Dad, and as we were driving, in between sobs she is YELLING "I want Grandpa, I love him SO MUCH." over and over and over.

Speaking of Dad, he came up to my house on Saturday and we planted my peas, carrots, beets, and tomatoes. (I already planted some onions). Hopefully the tomatoes won't freeze...I have some extras in the house just in case.

Pink or blue?

We had our ultrasound today and we are having another.......GIRL. I guess it's the season for girls! :) I am still being induced on August 8th, everything is looking great, and the baby is completely healthy. Aubrey was really excited, Eric is really disappointed. I knew only one of them would be happy. He will get used to the idea.

Just before they announced what gender the baby was, Eric was sitting quietly in his chair, watching the t.v. with the ultrasound, Aubrey was running around screaming wanting to go home. They said it was a girl, and Zac and I just looked at Eric and Aubrey and said, GREAT. Granted, when Eric was three, I'm sure he would have been running around screaming too. We are excited to finally know. My neighbor told me that she had a couple dreams that I was having a boy, and Zac felt like I was having a boy this entire time, so we were a little surprised.

I took Aubrey to Great Clips and had them cut off 4 inches off her hair. She has never had a haircut, and the ends were looking straggly. They cut some layers into her hair and it turned out great! It is still goes to the middle of her back. I would post pictures, but work has banned that, so I will have to wait until the weekend at Dad's house. ;)

Aubrey turns three!

For about six months now, all Aubrey has talked about is how she is going to get a Cinderella cake for her birthday. Luckily, Bobby's Mom is very talented, and created this wonderful Cinderella cake for Aubrey. She was absolutley thrilled! She took princess cupcakes to daycare/school in the morning, and when I went to pick her up, her teacher said, "Aubrey has been really excited it's her birthday today, and I REALLY hope you have a Cinderella cake, because that is all she has talked about." We just had her best friend Katelyn come over for some cake and ice cream...nothing fancy. Maybe next year I will actually do a party for her, they are just a lot of work.

I have been really excited to have my garden this year. Dad has been helping me get the right seeds and roto-tiller for the garden, and we went shopping around for some good top-soil. We found a great garden blend soil for an amazing price, so I went ahead and ordered 15 cubic yards of it. Zac, being the frugal guy that he is, found out the delivery price to Eagle Mountain, and decided he wanted to pick it up himself. The problem with this is that our truck only will hold 1 1/2 cubic yards per load, and Zac is going to have to shovel it out by himself. He took off the entire day to do this, I called him in the morning asking him what load he was on, and he said, "Um...they are going to deliver at 2:00" Thank goodness! They delivered the load right where I wanted the garden, and Zac was able to smooth it out for me before I got home. Dad came over and we rototilled in 10 bags of compost and some fertilizer. I am just waiting a week or two to let the soil settle a little before I plant. The garden ended up being ~20 ft x 15 ft. This picture does not do it justice for how big it looks. Dad came back and measured his garden, and mine is bigger...I hope it won't be too big. :) Dad has started my tomatoes and onions in his greenhouse shed, so hopefully my crop will be great this year. I'm not sure what kind of border I want around it yet, but I have some very "helpful" neighbors who let me know their opinion of what would look best.

The building permit finally came in for our basement yesterday, so Zac is busy again in the basement. He has finished the framing and electrical, and today he is working on the plumbing for the bathroom. We have to have the 4-way inspection, then we can put the installation in, have another inspection, and finally get the drywall up. Zac has already installed the pocket door from the bedroom to the bathroom and it looks great! He was able to get a great deal for a steel door for our cold storage. And good ole Zac, he "found" a roll of carpet pad on the freeway. So what does he do? He pulls over and shoves it in my car. It is enough for the bedroom. Does this really surprise anyone? I swear, just when I think Zac couldn't get any more frugal, he finds things on the side of the freeway. The only thing we've had to buy for this basement so far is the doors and the plumbing. He had all the wood, electrical, and can lights for the basement already from his "finds". He found a great deal on dry wall also. They are normally $7-8 a sheet, and he has been going around Lowes and Home Depot for weeks now, and they sell the sheets that have a corner damaged, etc for $2 a sheet, so he had picked up enough now for our entire basement. Our neighbors tease him saying that we could build something today, but if we wait a week or two, Zac will figure out a way to get it for free.

New Endeavor

So along with my new federal job, I got a call from EOUSA (Headquarters in Washington D.C.) asking me if I would join a working group. They told me that they consider me an expert in the field of asset forfeiture, and would like me to train around the nation. I would also being writing manuals and attending meetings twice a year with the other 5 members of this group. After getting more info from them, I decided that I couldn't pass up this opportunity. It is great experience and huge networking for my career and Zac's future career. I will be going to D.C. a lot to train and get to be in some important meetings. I hated to ask this, but I needed to know what the bare minimum I was required to do, since I am having a baby in August. The bare minimum is attending two meetings and train at least once in the year. So they are letting me do the bare minimum for this year (and hopefully next) before I really get into this. It is a HUGE compliment to me to only be doing asset forfeiture for three years, and have them consider me an expert. I talked to my office about it, and they were thrilled, especially my asset forfeiture attorney. Hopefully it will work out for the best. :)

So Aubrey had a little bladder infection a couple weeks ago, so I got her on some antibiotics. She broke out into a terrible rash, fever, etc. It was on a Saturday, so I took her down to an Instacare by our house, and 5 hours later discovered that she is allergic to her antibiotic. She is better now, but she sure did not feel good.

We signed Eric up for T-Ball starting in April. He is really excited, he tells pretty much everyone he sees that he is playing T-Ball in the Spring. I am definitely ready for Spring. I went with Dad to the garden nursery and bought all my seeds for my garden and a roto-tiller. I will have some top soil delivered to my house as soon as this darn snow melts and my ground is dry. Every day when I get home I get a little excited to see that the snow has melted some more. I started grow some herbs indoors, and the kids wanted in on the fun, so I let them start some watermelon and sunflowers indoors.

Zac is getting closer on the basement. We went to Lowes to grab the rest of the wood and a pocket door kit, and they had 80 lb bags of cement on sale. We need 100 bags for our retaining wall. So we inquired a little more, and come to find out, the bags that were outside were only 50 cents!!!! They were originally ten dollar bags. What a steal! Zac was able to load up the truck, but we had to do a couple loads to get the cement. The bags did have little rips on the top, etc., but we were able to stack thems to that nothing leaked out.

Eric's Ski Race

On Tuesday Eric had his big ski race. Zac and I drove up to Park City Mtn Resort and watched him and the other kids at his daycare ski. He did amazing! I could not believe how fast and good he was! He went around all the flags going down, and even got a medal at the end. He was cracking us up, because he was wanting to go faster so he would bend all the way over to get more speed. It was great to spend the day up with him and Zac in the mountains. It was beautiful with the temperature in the 50s.

STRANDED

This was the worst commute I have ever experienced in my life. I couldn't even make it home. They closed EVERY road going into Eagle Mountain!! Nobody could go in or out of the city. Zac went home at 3:00 yesterday, and said it was horrendous, then he attempted to go to school an hour later, and couldn't! There were tons of accidents, and they completely shut everything down. My work let us out early also, however, I decided to stay to try to wait out the storm. I stayed till 5:00, but the news was saying there was another 2 good hours of this. It took me 3 hours to get to the point of the mountain, by which point they still hadn't opened up the roads to Eagle Mountain, so I called Dad and told him we were heading his way. He finally made it down to Dad's around 9 ish and the kids were SO READY to get out of that car. I had Eric complaining for the past hour about him needing to go potty, but there was absolutley no where to stop! So we spent the night at Dad's (thank goodness I HAD a place to go!), and we heard that they finally opened up the road at 1 am but only for a moment. I woke up at 4:30 this morning, and the news said that it was STILL closed! So I couldn't even run home this morning to change. It's going to be a great day! :)

Baby No. 3

It's true. You may have heard the rumors. We are having Baby No. 3 on August 8th. How do I know? The doctor has already scheduled me for induction on that date (unless it comes earlier, which I am not counting on, my babies are always LATE!) Back when I didn't know I was pregnant, Aubrey jumped on me while I was laying down and Eric screamed, "Aubrey! You're going to squish the baby!" I told him, "Eric, Mommy doesn't have a baby in her belly." He would comment to me several times after that, "Mommy, your baby grew a lot last night!" etc. I was starting to get a little upset. I didn't want him going around telling people that I'm pregnant when I'm not. But, sure enough, I finally took a test after being almost 2 weeks late, and it immediately came back that I'm pregnant. I just gasped and Eric said, "what mommy?" I said, "You're right Eric, I DO have a baby in my belly." Then he said, "No mommy, you have TWO babies in your belly." So I have been just a little concerned that I might have 2. It would be shocking considering that twins don't run in either of our families, I wasn't on fertility drugs, etc. But reading into it, there is about a 1 in 85 chance that you have twins without having those other factors. I finally heard the heartbeat, and THANK GOODNESS there is only ONE baby. :) Unfortunately the doctor's office only takes one ultrasound, so I don't get any early pics of the baby. I will have my ultrasound in March to find out the gender, etc.

I have been SO SICK. I think I forgot how sick I get. I throw up at least 2 times a day on a good day, on average about 8-9 times a day. Dad was able to find some of Mom's zofran, and I take that during work hours, but I try not to take anything at night or on the weekends. If you are one of the lucky ones that don't even feel quesy during pregnancy, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!!!!! I am trying my darnest to NOT throw up all over you while you are gloating about how amazing your pregnancies are.

Zac dropped a headstone on his hand on Friday and broke 2 of his fingers really bad. It completely smashed his ring finger, it looks nasty, so I will not post pictures for the squeamish. It is his right hand also, so he is learning how to do things differently. The doctor told him it would take about 5-6 months to heal. That seems like a LONG time for some fingers! He is doing alright, he even took a contract law test later that night and scored a 100% while taking percocet. That's about it for us this week!

I am federal!

So a handful of people know that behind the scenes story about me becoming a federal employee. Back in August, FBI pulled me out of court and told me that they wanted me to be their head paralegal for the chief counsel at FBI. A week earlier, ATF came and wanted me to join their team as well. I wasn't looking for a new job, but they were saying that they better get me before somebody else does. I am currently a CONTRACT paralegal, which means that I work at the USAO, but I do not get the same benefits, pay, etc. So my ultimate goal was to eventually become federal. So I went ahead with the application process with FBI and they gave me the job. I told my current work about it, and they "freaked" out. They immediately posted a federal paralegal spot the next Monday, and I applied. I told FBI that I couldn't accept the position quite yet, etc. This was all in November. I wanted to stay where I was, I hate change. So FBI kept on coming up with better offers, higher recruiting bonuses, a higher step, etc. I went and talked to my boss here at work, and asked him what they can guarantee me. I needed to know if I turned down the FBI if I pretty much had this position. They said they can only 98% guarantee me the position. So I official turned down FBI right after Christmas. I felt bad that I kept them stringing along for so long. I knew their background checks were extreme and long, so I wanted them to start on their other person.

In the meantime, I don't know if my work was mad at me for thinking about leaving or what, but they made me jump through HOOPS to get this position. I was used to FBI jumping through the hoops to get me on board, not the other way around. Up until yesterday, I really thought I shot myself in the foot, I was really depressed and frustrated, Zac was ready to sell our house and go to law school out of state, etc. They finally called me in and told me that I have the position. WHEW! Come to find out, the other candidate that was giving me a run for my money, ended up accepting the position at FBI that I turned down. What a small world. I am just grateful that I got it. Zac is quitting his job in a couple months, and we really need good benefits, so we will finally have it. :)

Idaho Weekend

I know it has been several weeks since my last posting. I completely got out of the habit of taking pictures too. I left the camera at home this weekend while we headed up to the cabin. We didn't get up to the cabin until 11:30 pm on Friday night. Luckily Nathan had rigged up the snowmobile with the sled so we could bring everything up quickly. The kids had a wonderful time playing in the snow and sledding. Since we didn't have much gas for the snowmobile, we made the kids walk up everytime they went sledding. They still did it. It snowed nonstop while we were up there. Zac, Nathan, and Devin were constantly shoveling. :) There was a pile about 8-12 feet high of snow, so they decided to make a snow fort out of it, complete with a window where Devin could have someone pass him mountain dew.

This past week I lost the diamond out of my wedding ring. It just slipped out. I noticed that it was gone while I was at work, and absolutley could not find it. We called the jewelers, and luckily they told me that they would replace it for free since it was guaranteed to never fall out. It only took them a couple days, but they got it in and it looks better than ever! Eric started skiing a couple weeks ago with the daycare/preschool. He goes up to Park City Mountain Resort every Tuesday and Thursday. He absolutely loves it! It counts how many times he falls, then gives me report when I pick him up after work. Aubrey can't go until she's three, so she will start next year. I feel like there has been so much that has gone on, but I just cannot remember any of it right now. I guess this is why I should post every week. :)

A brand new year

What a busy Christmas! We started it off by having Zac's Dad, brother, sister and her boyfriend stay with us to celebrate Christmas. Zac's brother Matt is being deployed to Qatar in a couple weeks. The kids were OUT OF CONTROL the entire time Zac's family was here! I think they could feel the excitement of Christmas in the air. They definitely got spoiled this year for Christmas. I think they got every toy they ever wanted (except for a flute and a toy bunny which they surprised us with that on Christmas Eve while sitting on Santa's lap). I think I over did it while everyone was out, because as soon as I got back to work, I immediately started to have the fever chills, etc. I was sick with a cold before they came out and it never went away. So I have laid around the house this entire holiday weekend. It was actually really nice to not HAVE to move. :) Zac kept the kids away from me for most of the time.

I just want to extend a special thank you to Zac's family. They all have finally made him see the light of how much of a PACK RAT Zac is! All weekend he was cleaning out the basement, and we have a good truckload to take to D.I. and several to the garbage. Then Barb called and let us know that she was hoping to move to our house in April. So now, Zac is REALLY pushing on getting this basement finished! HURRAY! I have told him so many times about his horrible pack rat habit, but until he heard it from his family, it didn't sink in.

Work has been pretty laid back. I was suppose to be doing a big trial this week, but I just found out that the defendant decided to plead! YES! Zac is wrapping up the loose strings on his law school applications. GET THOSE IN!!!!

On a side note...I am SO GLAD we didn't go to the cabin this year. Sorry for those who did. I heard that the sledding was great though. ;) Also - I saved pics from Barb's blog from Christmas, but for some reason the only one the will show up is Aubrey's picture....

Christmas a little early

We celebrated Christmas at Dad's house yesterday and opened the cousin presents and presents from Dad. Eric was SO EXCITED. He has been asking for magnetix every time we've seen Santa this year. Guess what he got. Aubrey got a Dora bed set, and she made us break it out as soon as we got home to sleep on it. Eric played nonstop last night with his magnets. Devin got us a movie and came over to watch it last night. Eric stayed in the kitchen during the entire movie playing with those magnets, and loading and unloading them into it's carrying case.

Thursday night was an awful commute home. 3 1/2 hours!!!! I'm guessing there was a bad accident or something on Redwood Road by Camp Williams, but by the time we finally started moving, there wasn't even a cone anywhere. We had been stopped for hours. I would have turned around, but I kept on thinking that it takes a 1/2 hour extra to go the other way, and we will start moving in about 10 minutes. Then after 3 hours I decided I've already invested way to much time in this, and there is no way I'm turning around now. It was so bad that a lot of people were out of their cars walking around in the freezing weather.

I am almost finished with Christmas shopping, just the Idaho cousins left, which I have to get before Saturday since that's when Dad is going up to see Justin & Lisa. It will be a great feeling to be finished! We are sending out our neighbor presents tonight. Zac is making treats hopefully as we speak. :)

Temple Square

After work last night Zac and I took the kids up to Temple Square to look at the lights. As most of you know, Eric is obsessed with trains. So we parked at my work and took Trax for 1 1/2 blocks so that Eric could ride on the "train". He was SO excited. He had a smile plastered on his face the entire ride. The lights were absolutley beautiful. Aubrey thought the temple was Cinderella's castle. We went into the vistor's center and saw the Christus. I have to say I absolutely LOVE the innocence of little children. As pretty much everybody who reads this blog knows, that there are murals of Jesus' life on the walls as you walk up to see the Christus. Eric was just looking at it and stopped at the one where Jesus is being crucified. He just stared. Then we made our way up to the Christus and he was really confused as to why Jesus had holes in his hands and feet. I explained it to him, and he took off running back down to the mural of the crucifixition. He looked at me and said, "Why were they so mean to Jesus? I love him SO much!" He just stared again at the picture while I was talking to him. This morning during prayers he thanked Heavenly Father for Jesus to not feel the pain of the nails anymore.

After Temple Square, we let the kids ride TRAX again back to my work, and then headed up to the Pie Pizzeria. They were extremely good the entire night, even with it being SO COLD.

$50 please!

To be honest, I don't recall how we got from point A to B so quickly. After Sunday dinner, all of us were sitting around talking. Nathan's mustache got brought into the conversation, about how he curls it smaller during work hours to make it more professional and such. Here's the part I don't recall, if we talked about if he was ever going to shave it, or if Devin volunteered to cut his for $50 dollars. I asked Zac and he couldn't remember either. It all happened so fast. One minute we were talking, the next Devin says, "I would cut my hair for $50." and Nathan stated that he would too. The next thing we knew Dad was gone and back with $100, and handing Nathan and Devin $50. So everyone headed out to the garage and Bobby cut Nathan's mustache off, and Dad cut Devin's hair off.

Before pictures:

Nathan wanted to save the "curls" from his mustache.

Norma was so cute, she kept on looking at Nathan weird and rubbing his face.

Devin's hairy arms. Eric and Aubrey were at the bottom of the chair sweeping up all of Devin's hair.

the AFTER pictures:
For some reason, they both wouldn't really smile for me.

AHHHHHHHHH. They look normal again. :) (And $50 richer.)

Another Meet & Greet

So on Thursday I got to meet the new U.S. Attorney Michael Mukasey. I had another photo op, and again, I am a whole head taller than the U.S. Attorney. There will probably be another U.S. Attorney with the new president, here's hoping that they pick somebody who is a normal size! :) I'm not really that petty, I just thought it was weird that the U.S. Attorney's are so SHORT. Usually men in power are tall, at least that's what I thought the standard was.

We got up our Christmas tree and decorations, etc. Those dang cats keep on sleeping in the tree though! They have broken almost all the branches in the center of the tree, and keep on taking the ornaments downstairs. I only have 11 more christmas cards to make and then I will be sending them. I am BEHIND this year! I usually send them off the day after Thanksgiving! Nothing really went on this week. I got to interview people for the data analyst position in my unit. Luckily there was someone that I thought would be good, so I had her interview again with the U.S. Attorney, and he liked her...so in 6 months I will finally have some help. It's ridiculous how long those background checks take! That's about it for us!

Newspaper Article

So the Deseret News got wind of our lawsuit against the HOA, and ran an article about it. The link is:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695230156,00.html

They left out a lot of information about the case that would be very applicable to the story (like they never put anything on our title, we never signed anything, etc). The only problem is that now the builder is aware that we will be going after them if we lose this case. (Which the Judge has been on our side so far.) The HOA never filed an Answer to our Complaint, so we filed our Default Judgment last week...we'll see how that turns out. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids got their school pictures back finally! Last week I was in South Carolina for work again. There really is nothing to do out there after work. It was actually colder there than in Utah when I was out there. I was really disappointed. I didn't bring a coat or anything since it's usually in the high 70s this time of year. It was kind of an interesting trip this time. I was with the same people that I've been with for the past three years out there. At night we went to a mexican restaurant, and it was "Tequila night". So one of the instructors bought me some shots of tequila. I looked at him a little weird and said, "You know, you don't need to use me as an excuse if you wanted to drink more." And I handed him the shots. They had absolutely no idea that I was LDS?! We then got onto the topic of our church, and everybody with our group completely thought that polygamy was a choice, and that Zac has just chosen for the moment just to have one wife. WHAT?! They also had no idea about the word of wisdom, etc. We talked for about 3-4 hours about this (granted, by this point they were pretty drunk). Then we went outside because the city was having their "lighting" ceremony where they turned on the lights on the big Christmas tree. It was freezing outside, so they wanted to head inside a bar/grill. I had six different guys buy me drinks while I was there. The group I was with was loving it because they got free drinks. Zac on the other hand said, "Wow, I guess there isn't much selection in South Carolina!" RUDE! The next day some of them came up to me and said they felt so embarassed about how ignorant they were about our religion, etc. At least I got to clear some things up. They didn't even know who those "young guys wearing an Elder tag" were. My flights were awful to and from. There was so much turbulence. On my way home, my flight didn't even leave until 6pm (usually I am back in Utah by this time). I was able to get on an earlier connecting flight, and got home at 12:30 am instead of 2:30am. Zac said the kids were really good for him, and we had a lot of babysitters step in as well at night while Zac was in school.

We had Thanksgiving dinner last night. Justin and Lisa stopped in on their way down to St. George, so Dad decided to have it one day early. Lots of great food and always fun to see everybody in the same place. I don't think I saw Eric stop running the entire day. He was hooked to Andrew's hip. Andrew really does a great job of playing with the kids.

"This is so gay!"

So Zac turned the big 30 this weekend. I decided to throw him a SURPRISE birthday party on Saturday evening. Adults only--I didn't want a bunch of kids running around everywhere, and not being able to enjoy the evening. We had so many close calls with Zac finding out that I'm surprised he didn't know about the entire party! On Friday I went to a party store and bought a lot of balloons, decorations, etc. As I'm driving home, I see Zac coming the other way! The entire front seat is balloons. So I hurry and pull off the road, call him, and he tells me that he got off work early for lunch. YAY.......I call my friend and tell her I am stopping at her house to drop off the balloons. The kids were really excited. After we dropped them off I told them not to say anything to daddy or they will be in "big trouble". So Eric runs into the house and goes straight up to Zac and says "Daddy, I'm not going to tell you!" Zac goes "Tell me what?" Eric "I'm not going to tell you that we stopped at Karen's and gave her your balloons!" Then I walk into the house and Eric is SO PROUD of himself "Mommy! I didn't tell Daddy about the balloons!" I was able to lie my way through the balloons on the spot. On Saturday, Zac decided that he needed to go to school to work on a paper all afternoon. GREAT! This couldn't be more perfect! So he left at 1 pm the party started at 6 pm. I was working on his birthday cake (which is a recipe I had never tried before) and when I went to flip the cake out of the pans, the cake CRUMBLED! So I grabbed both kids and ran for the car to go to Smith's to buy a premade cake. No carseats. Zac had left them in his truck. So I run the kids over to a neighbor's, get the cake, and finished cleaning the house. The kids went to a friends house for the evening. Zac calls me at 4:40 and says, "Hey I wasn't going to call you, but I'm almost home and wanted to talk...." WHAT?!! I tell him to hold on, I've got another call. I call his sister, Barb, (who is the decoy for the night) and tell her to call him NOW! he's almost home! So I hung up on Zac, and he called back a couple minutes later telling me that there has been a change of plans, his sister is stranded at the mall. Then Barb calls me saying, "We're not there yet! We are hitting every red light, and the guy in front is driving really slow with his hazards on!" So now Zac could make it to the mall before Barb. Luckily she got to the mall, ran inside and Zac called her a minute later. Whew! Now it's 6pm, and only 2 people are there. WHO SHOWS UP LATE TO A SURPRISE PARTY?! Apparently almost everyone! I am frantic calling everybody, and they all told me they were running late, or waiting for the babysitter, etc. Zac then calls me and tells me that he is stopped on the freeway. WHEW again! Pretty much everybody shows up, and we see Zac coming up the road. We all hide and when he opened the door we did the corny jump up and yell "Surprise". The first words out of Zac's mouth, "This is so gay!"

We had a great time playing games and eating, etc. At the end of the night Zac said it was a great party. He was so funny though because I told him that Barb was the decoy and he said "Oh man, I kept on teasing her saying, do you know what tomorrow is? It's the most important day of the year..." And she played dumb. Then I told him that they were suppose to stall him by talking about Garit's new projector in his apartment. Zac's smiled and said "We did! We talked all about the projector. In fact, when I called you and said I was stuck on the freeway, I lied. I thought that you would be mad that I stayed so long talking about a projector!"

In other news, we finally got Aubrey a big girl bed. We got the bed Friday night and she loves it! She has even gotten up in the middle of the night all by herself to go potty. That's about it for our family this week!

So Tender

So this past weekend, Dad was coming up the stairs are heard this:

Andrew: "I miss Grandma"
Tucker: "me too"
Thad: "me too"
Eric: "me too. She would always hold me on her bed and play with me."

I couldn't believe it that Eric remembered that! He was only 19 months old when Mom passed away. There weren't any adults around (as far as the kids knew) when they were talking. They didn't see Dad until he rounded the corner.