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.

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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.

Lovell Reunion

This weekend we went up to Idaho for the Lovell Reunion. We left Friday afternoon. Zac was home all day on Thursday, so he was doing the laundry for me. On Friday when I went to pack the clothes, we discovered that Zac left a pen in a pair of his shorts, and ALL of my clothes (including work clothes) were ruined. They had ink all over them. Convenient for him, he only had the one pair of shorts in the load. As were were driving up to Idaho, we get a call from our loan officer saying that we can go pick up the keys and move in to our house this weekend. Too bad we were gone this weekend. Then, our cars temperature kept on rising, so we would turn off the a/c and roll down the windows. By the time we got to Pocatello, it was overheating really bad. Oil had boiled over on top of the transmission, etc. So we rode the rest of the way to Idaho Falls with the heater on full blast, and the windows rolled down. Aubrey did not have fun. When we made it to Grandma and Grandpa Parry's house, Tammi came over and let us borrow her car for the weekend for us to go to the cabin and to Uncle George's for the reunion. Thanks again Tammi, it helped out a lot! As we were driving up to the cabin, Zac and I could smell this horrible smell. I looked back at Eric, he had taken off his shoes, and had his feet rested on each side of the head rest by Zac 's head. Zac told Eric to put his feet down, and Eric told him "Not until you smell my feet". Where does he get this sort of stuff?

We went straight up to the cabin Friday night. The kids had a lot of fun playing with Tucker and Thad there. Eric pet his first dog since the dog attack. Everytime he's seen a dog, he runs the other way. Steve and Sharon stopped by at the cabin on Friday night with their dog, and Eric went up to it and started to pet him. All the guys decided to go river rafting with Steve and Sharon. Zac and I didn't end up going, Zac thought that it would be too dangerous. As Dad was going down the river, he thought, this isn't that bad at all. Just then, he was knocked out of the raft into the river. Devin was able to grab his arm as he was falling out. Nice save Devin. Going down the river at 7 am with the cold water didn't sound like that much fun to me. Now, if it was at 1 or 2pm and it was 100+ degrees out, it would be more pursuasive to go down. When everybody was down the river, Zac ran over to George's and played a round of golf by himself. He came back to the cabin to grab me and the kids. As we were leaving, we went to the gate and it was locked. So we ran up to the Chokecherry gate, and it was locked as well. We had a Sheriff behind us, and he tried all of his keys, but turns out he didn't have one to the gate. We finally found a gate at the other end of Chokecherry that was unlocked. I saw a man riding around on a four wheeler checking the gates, I'm sure he was the one who locked them. I didn't find out until later that the keys up at the cabin also had a gate key. That would have been helpful to know earlier. When we got to the Reunion, they were showing slides of Grandma's family. There were quite a few of Mom growing up. They were a lot of fun to see. Stephanie, there were a lot of your Mom as well, Joan is going to give Grandma a DVD copy of the slides, next time you are in Idaho, remember to ask to see them. We had never seen any of these pictures before. Zac enjoyed watching the slides too. He never met Harriett or Sue, and he kept on telling me how pretty they were.

Eric was brave enough to try the kids zip line with the coaxing of Zac. Eric, Tucker and Thad all went and played a round of golf with Zac and Nathan. I don't think they made it through all the holes. They would let the kids drop their ball on the green and hit it into the hole. Eric was the only one who would do this. Tucker and Thad were more interested in the bugs. After lunch the kids went down the water slide. Eric had so much fun going down with Kalli. Poor Kalli had to carry the sled that they rode on every time up the hill, and then Eric would plop down in front. I think Kalli only got a front row sit one time. Tucker finally said that he would go down one time, then he realized that it was fun. Aubrey stayed and played in the bottom of the pool the entire time. She finally got brave enough to venture out into the middle of the pool instead of by the walls. Zac took her down the big slide about 5 times. She loved it. She would laugh all the way down. They had so much fun at George's. When we got back to the cabin later that night, Nathan decided to take Eric, Tucker and Thad on motorcycle rides. Eric was the only one who enjoyed the entire ride. Nathan took them down to the beach, then back up the mountain to the Springs, then back to the cabin. Tucker screamed the whole time. Zac and Devin decided to drive our car back to Provo Saturday night. They weren't able to leave until about 9 or 10 pm. They wanted to leave when it was cooler outside and hope that the car wouldn't overheat. They were able to make it back to Provo by 2 am. When they got back home, they called Dad's cell phone to let him know they made it back alright. Dad then came downstairs were I was sleeping, and instead of talking to me, he put his face about 1 foot away from mine, and touched my shoulder. I rolled over to see his face inches away from mine. I screamed so loud. He was just wanting to tell me that Zac made it home safe. He then thought it over and decided that it probably wasn't the best way to talk to somebody at 2 am. Aubrey was up after that. In the morning we went back down to Grandma and Grandpa Parry's house to get ready for Matt's Missionary Homecoming and Derek's Missionary Farewell. They both gave really good talks. However, the kids were so exhausting from this weekend, that we decided to head back as soon as sacrament was over. They were really good in the car. The fell asleep almost instantly, and didn't wake up until Brigham City. I put in Toy Story on their T.V.'s and by the time it was over, we were in Orem. So they did really well. Aubrey was up at 4 this morning though. Zac was really good about getting up with her since I had to go to work. When I left this morning he was still up with her.

We got our appliances delivered today at our new house! Dad is watching the kids while Zac puts in our blinds on the windows and waits for the delivery truck. They said that they would be there between 7 am and 1 pm. Really? They couldn't narrow down the time frame at all? When they came, they were starting to hook up our dryer, and found out that the builders put the wrong kind of hose. They put a connection for a stove/range instead of a dryer. So now we need to try to get the builder to fix this. I wonder why nobody noticed this before? Zac is going to start moving boxes into the garage. Dad and Devin have this week off to start moving things into the house. We are really excited to finally be on our own again.

My birthday is tomorrow. I will turn the big 25. When we told Eric that it was going to be my birthday, he told me that I need to make cupcakes for my class. He is really set on making cupcakes. Whenever there is a birthday in his preschool/daycare they have cupcakes. On Wednesday, his school is going to Raging Waters, so I will be going with him. He had so much fun on the water slide at George's he is going to have a blast at Raging Waters.
Earlier this week I met the U.S. Attorney. He was finally sworn in. However, my meeting with him couldn't have gone worse. I was sitting in one of the Assistant U.S. Attorney's Office's going over cases when two men walk by in suits. The AUSA said "Hey, you're here! How are you?" So the two men walked into the office. I just turned and asked how they were doing. I didn't even stand up. Then one of the men start talking to me. I interrupt him and say, "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are." He then proceeds to tell me "I'm Brett Tolman, I'm the new U.S. Attorney." It was awful. Then he asks for my name, I tell him who I am. He then says, "I have heard about you about 5 times today already, I hear you are doing great work, and we need to get you on board with our office." (I'm a contracted employee not a federal employee) So hopefully my first impression of me being cold with him won't last. In my defense though, Brett Tolman is only 35 years old. He is the youngest US Attorney. He is tall and skinny. I just thought that they were some FBI agents. That's about it for our week!

5 Years down, eternity to go!

That is what Zac wrote on the card when he brought me flowers for our 5th year anniversary. Our anniversary was on Friday. It was a pretty busy day, we got to CLOSE ON THE HOUSE! Although, we can't move in yet, they told us that it will be ready to move into on Wednesday. We closed a little early because our "lock" was going to expire this week. We won't have the funds transferred until we get our Final Occupancy Letter.

For our anniversary we had Nathan and Bobby watch the kids while we went out to a dinner and movie. As soon as we left their house, I looked at the thermostat, and noticed that our car was overheating. Luckily, they live by a Sears, so we pulled into the parking lot and Zac wanted to loosen the cap on the radiator just a little to relieve the pressure. As soon as he touched it, it came off and tons of fluid came bursting out everywhere. We bought some antifreeze, and ran the heater the whole way to SLC. It was 100+ degrees anyways. By the time we got to Texas Roadhouse, we were so hot. We then went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 at the theater by Nathan and Bobby's house. It was really nice just to have a night out without the kids. Zac bought a thermostat for our car the next morning and was able to fix the problem.

So, Devin finally shaved his beard off. When Eric saw Devin he said "Devin, did you eat your beard?" We started laughing, and now Eric really thinks that Devin ate his beard. Eric even drew a picture of Devin's beard during church and gave it to him. He keeps on telling me that eating a beard is gross. So I found out last week that Eric is bilingual. He knows Spanish. When I was at Lagoon with him, he turned to me and asked me for milk in Spanish. The only word I understood was 'por favor'. Eric's teacher told me what he wanted. She said that he asks for everything in Spanish. Yesterday when I saw him I said "Buenos Dias Eric" He then started talking to me in Spanish, I have no idea what he was saying. Then, Aubrey a couple nights ago, went up to Devin and Zac and said "Olah" and waved at them. She also said, "Where did it go?" It's amazing how fast they learn. Whenever we ask Aubrey to show us her teeth, she pulls the face that's in the picture.

Weekend Recap

This whole past week Aubrey has had a really bad cough along with a fever. Thursday night she kept on grabbing her ears and screaming. So Friday morning I took her into the doctor. She has bronchitis and an ear infection. Her oxygen levels were borderline for having her go to the hospital. We had to get a humidifier for her, and the doctor put her on two different medications. She is doing great now. She didn't cough at all yesterday, and she hasn't been in pain with her earache.

On Wednesday Eric's daycare went to Lagoon. I decided to go with them. When I showed up, they only had two adults for 15 3 year olds! They told me that in all the past years, almost every 3 year old parent shows up, so they've had way too much staff. So this year, they were counting on the parents showing up. I was the only parent. So I got to be in charge of 5 three year olds for the day. I'm grateful I showed up. Eric was really excited that I got to ride the bus with him. The kids had a lot of fun. I even took 10 three year olds on Rattlesnake Rapids by myself. As I was walking up to it, everybody kept on telling me that the kids were going to get wet. Really?! When we got off the ride, they were all soaking, but they loved it. It was so hot out, that the water felt good to them. With the exception of the shortage of adults for Lagoon, I was really impressed with how organized the daycare is. They made every child take a drink of water before every single ride, or they couldn't go on the ride. On the bus ride home, all 15 of the three year olds were completely asleep within minutes of leaving Lagoon. It was great watching all of their heads fall forward, waking them, then they would fall over to the side.

Our house is almost finished. They told us that we would be closing today, but that's not going to happen. Zac and I went out there on Saturday, and they still hadn't poured any of the cement, etc. So it is still up in the air.

Last night we went over to our friends Aaron and Melanie. Aaron is Zac's old roommate (I knew him from when Zac and I were dating), Aaron at the time tried to talk Zac into joining the Utah National Guard with him. He kept on saying how great it is, they pay for all your school, and really, when is there going to be another war? Zac kept on telling him no. Then a couple years later, Melanie moved into our Student Ward, I became friends with her, her husband was over in Iraq for a year. We didn't know that this was Zac's old friend. When Aaron came back from Iraq, we had them over for dinner, and had a great time catching up. Small world. They had a baby right after I had Aubrey, so we were celebrating their son's 1st birthday. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the water. Aubrey was really excited that she got to fill up the pool. Aaron has 2 big dogs, we tried to take Eric over to them, but the dog ran over to Eric and jumped on him almost knocking Eric down. That didn't go over too well with Eric.

Final Walk Through!

So this morning we were finally able to do our final walk through on the house. The builder told us that his goal was to have everything finished by Monday, July 17th. So hopefully, we will be in a new house by next week! He told us to go ahead and turn on the power and water, so that they can check all of the electrical to make sure everything is up to code. Pretty exciting!

While we were there, Eric was playing with our car keys. They have a remote on them to open the trunk, lock and unlock the doors. He was over by the car and kept on opening the trunk, and closing it. I got worried that he was going to slam his fingers in the trunk door when it was closing so I told him to stop. He slammed the trunk closed and asked, "What?" I asked him, "What are you doing?" He then smiled and said, "Trying to get the keys out of the car." Yes, that's right, he locked the keys in the trunk of the car. The car was locked as well. So with the help of some of the construction workers, Zac was able to use door shims to pry the door slowly open, and stick some rebar (is that how you spell it?) inside the car and push the trunk button. This took about 45 minutes. We really need to make a copy of the key.

So this weekend we were finally able to find an entertainment center that we agreed on. Zac and I have two completely different tastes in furniture. This store had real wood furniture for not a lot of money. We bought it unfinished, so we can pick what color of stain to put on it. We were also able to get some barstools for pretty cheap there.

Zac played in the federal golf tournament this past week. The U.S. Attorney's Office hosted it. Zac's foursome was with the Assistant U.S. Attorney, the SLC County Prosecutor, and a co-worker (He was suppose to have Judge Warner on his foursome, but he ended up having a hearing). They came in 2 under par, but the winners came in at 14 under. However, Zac was able to do a lot of networking. The SLC County Prosecutor really was trying to pursuade Zac to work with him during Zac's 3rd year of law school, and he could get hired right on after he passes the bar. They had a lot of fun, and a lot of good food. Zac's hoping he played well enough that he will get an invite next year. It was great for me though, because Zac was playing, they let him "work my shift". So I was able to stay at home without having to take any leave. Zac was getting ready for the tournament, and realized that his golf clubs were actually my Mom's. Zac kept on telling me that there was no way he was going on the course with "Ladies Clubs" in front of all these people. He ended up taking them. Zac took his last final for the summer classes this past Saturday. He got a 98 on his final. He has been doing really well in school.

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend. On Saturday, we decided to let Eric go see the movie Cars. We went with his cousins, Tucker and Thad. I thought that since Eric will sit through a movie at home, he would be good at the theater. Zac decided to stay home with Aubrey, we knew better than to take her. We only made it about an hour into the movie before we had to leave. Eric had discovered the stairs with lights, and really enjoyed standing on the rail that was in front of our seats. Later that night we went to Stadium of Fire. Dad stayed home and watched Aubrey while Zac and I took Eric. Eric was asleep by 8pm on our laps during the whole show. (John Millburn, we saw you looking for your seats. We were sitting below you.)

On the 4th, we went to the parade. Zac's cousin Brian spent the night to save our seats. The parade seemed to go by pretty quick this year. We had a lot of shade, and the kids sat almost the entire time. Aubrey was really cute, she would wave at everyone, and would dance to the high school bands. The provo fire truck stopped right in front of us and turned on their hose. We were soaking wet. This poor kid next to us was asleep on the blanket, and woke up dripping. After the parade, we went to Zac's Uncle Cory's house for lunch and to hang out. The kids loved playing with the slip 'n slide.

At night, we went to Dad's house and had another BBQ with everyone. After the BBQ they decided to do fireworks. (It is only 5:00 pm) This is the way that we did fireworks all growing up, when it was still light out, so that the kids wouldn't have to stay up late. The little boys had a lot of fun watching the fireworks. Dad left late last night to go to NYC to see Justin and Lisa.h Nathan and I had to work early this morning, so it was actually pretty nice to have all the fireworks finished by 6:00pm. Bobby had made really cute matching outfits for Aubrey and Norma, but all of my pictures of them together turned our blurry.