Back to Eastern Idaho

I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd do a quick catch-up of what we're up to. Aaron's been dealing with a crisis at work recently that has to do with their biggest customer and a product that isn't turning out well when it gets put under the heat lamps in their stores. He woke up Saturday and decided that the only way to make sure he's done ALL that he can to resolve the issue is to drive to Idaho Falls where their seasoning company is located and work on things himself. (Keep in mind, this is Research and Development stuff- a job he was taken out of a year ago and is still being asked to do anyway. They're just now getting around to hiring someone to take over, but Aaron's been doing two jobs and only getting paid for one since last March. IRRITATING!)

Anyway, Sunday morning we got up, packed and drove the 5 hours to Idaho Falls and spent the night with Grandma Bobbie. Aaron's Aunt Judy was also here to take care of Grandma after an eyelid lift surgery she was having the next morning. Grandma figured it probably wouldn't be such a good idea to have us and the kids around while she's trying to recover, so yesterday we got a hotel room to stay in for Monday and Tuesday nights. Last night we met up with Todd and Kristen and had some dinner, then tonight we'll drive up to Rexburg and make Todd wait on us at Frontier Pies. :)

We plan to head home in the morning, arriving in time to make our chiropractor appointments, my baby appointment right after that, Scout meetings for both of us that evening, with enough time left in the day for me to get things all ready for the preschool Valentine's Day party I'm in charge of on Thursday morning... hopefully.

Right now I'm sitting in a dark, quiet hotel room while the kids take a much needed nap. I always hate being in hotels with them all day because I'm so uptight about the amount of noise they make. I'm constantly shushing them and telling them not to run or stomp or have any fun whatsoever. It's not fair to them and it stresses me the heck out. Finally around lunch time we headed out. We went over to Ross to look around, then to the mall because I had an Old Navy gift card. The entire time I was wishing it was warmer so they could go play somewhere. Bless Aaron for getting transfered- I forgot how miserable winters are here! Snow blowing right in your face, bitter cold wind cutting right through your clothes- it sucks! And for some idiotic reason the only shoes I packed are backless, so I'm constantly getting freezing snow on my heels.

I considered taking the kids to a movie after their naps, but there aren't any matinees at the cheap theater. So I may take them back over to the mall and let them play on the little indoor playground there. Poor things, I know they're going stir crazy. Me, too, as a matter of fact.

Just a Quick Update

For anyone that might be following our little Greek tragedy, Rachelle and I are back in our apartment after spending 5 weeks as refugees thanks to the water damage and mold in our bedroom. It was a rough time, thanks primarily to the jerks doing the work, but that is all behind us now and we are really happy to be back home. Molly is happy too. She was getting a little stir crazy in that hotel and believe it or not, she was acting crazier than usual. Oh, speaking of Molly, she is going to be a "dog" instead of a "puppy" this month - we are going to celebrate an entire year of not killing her on the 18th. She gets a trip to the vet and a cheese burger.

Good luck on taxes and watch out for zombies. Love you all.

Keith

Molly and her new collar.

Simple pleasures.

p.s. B and D , I want more pictures of Zoey.

Poor swolly rolly polly Zoey

We just got back from a visit to the vet with Zoey. Actually it was our second visit of the day. After we got home the first time, we noticed that her eye looked a little red and puffy. So we called them back and they told us to bring her back in. By the time we made it back there, her whole face was swollen up like a balloon. Apparently she had an allergic reaction to one of her vaccines. They gave her a couple more shots and sent us home. It doesn't seem to bother her too much, but she sure looks funny.

Before:


After:


Her lips feel like a chicken fillet.

Just an update - not much to say

Dad here. Just to let you know we're all still alive down here. Mom and Kimberly have gone up to Orem this weekend to do some shopping for Kimberly to get ready for her mission. She's only 2 1/2 weeks away from the MTC! They're staying with Taylor and Daniel and will be back Monday some time. We managed to talk Grandma into coming out for Kimberly's farewell (it wasn't too hard). Grandma flew into Salt Lake this weekend and will ride back down here with Pam and Kimberly on Monday. So that will be fun to have her here for a little while. Don't know yet how she's getting home - we'll wing it when the time comes. I hope I get to drive her home - I could use a few days in California. Jennifer didn't go with them because she had a cheerleader commitment on Friday night and a paper to get written for school that she knew wouldn't get done if she went on the road trip. I'm pretty much doing the same old thing. Couple of grooming trips up on the mountain each week and holding down the fort here at the park. Life is good. I sure enjoy reading about how all of you are doing and keeping up with you through this blog. It's fun. Keep up the good work and take care of yourselves. I'll add a picture I got of the moonrise up on Cedar Mountain last week. Love, Dad

Update

So, I thought I would try to give everyone an update on our lives. First, the happy stuff. Rachelle and I have decided that we are going to hold the wedding in Winston Salem, NC in a nice little bed and breakfast. The date is going to be Saturday night, October 3, 2009. We should be able to accommodate anyone several days before that, so we can all have a nice time. We will of course let everyone know as soon as we find out more information and all that good stuff. Here is a link to the bed and breakfast: http://www.shaffnerhouse.com/

In other news, Rachelle has been working on a project that is centered around the Sundance Film Festival. The project is called Deconstructing Sundance (www.deconstructingsundance.com) and the idea is that they use advanced algorithms and other technilogical wizardry to predict the winners of the festival. Anyhoo, Rachelle has gotten a lot of press for it and the New York Times even blogged about it. Check it out. http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/the-bagger-at-sundance-weaponized-spam-analytics/

Life is still a little crummy right now, what with the problems we have been having in our apartment. When the leak first happened, I never thought we would be living in the living room for as long as we have. They found mold in the ceiling after ripping up the walls and the carpet, so they had an abatement crew complete with suits and masks in here to clean everything up. When everything is said and done, we will have been living on the living room floor for over a month. On the bright side, it has been kinda fun goofing around on the floor with Rachelle, kinda like a really long slumber party. She is supposed to paint my finger nails tonight ;) We are trying to keep our heads high and remember that this too, will pass.

Ramblitudes about nothingness

Well today is the last day of my 3 weeks of vacation. It feels a little strange. Obviously I don't really want to go back to work, but it will be nice to fall back into a regular routine. I don't think Zoey is going to like spending that much time alone, but she'll just have to learn how to deal with it. I hope everybody's week will start out better than last week did.

Since no post is complete without some kind of picture, here's a photo of Dena and I at the NC State basketball game that we went to while we were in NC for Christmas. They have the center court section of the original Reynolds Coliseum floor on display at the RBC center where they play now. It's neat.

Can I contribute?

Since the theme of our family's blogs for today seems to be one of how generally crummy our Monday has been, I thought I'd share ours. Well, Aaron's. The other day he was flossing his teeth and a big chunk came flying out of his mouth. No, not food- tooth! Well, at least it looked like tooth. Couldn't really tell if it was tooth or tooth-colored filling, but anyway it left a pretty good sized hole in his molar. Of course, with it being a holiday week, not one of the dozen dentists he called were open for him to get have it checked out. Luckily it wasn't super painful (though he did have to use a leftover Vicadin that first night) and he was able to make it through the weekend.

Since the pain was tolerable he was starting to think that maybe it wouldn't be a big deal. Today he got lucky and found a great dentist near his work who had a cancellation and could see him right away. Well, turns out it was kind of a big deal. What fell out had been part tooth, part filling, which had been covering a rather large cavity that either hadn't been fully cleared out before being filled in, or had developed a crack which allowed the cavity to grow while being nicely protected. Whatever the case, he ended up having a surprise root canal and spent about 3 hours in the dentist's chair today. He has to go back again later to have a crown put on.

Oh, and in the middle of this, while he's sitting there with metal and crap in his mouth, his boss kept calling him (he had to go to the dentist in the middle of the day) so he finally answered his cell only to learn that a MAJOR situation had developed with a product for their BIGGEST client. He had to go back to work after the dentist to try and sort things out so they wouldn't lose this customer (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say what company it is, but you've all shopped there, and probably still do on a regular basis. MAJOR company.) He's still not sure what's going to happen with the work thing- it's kind of out of his hands now. But I'm glad he was at least able to get his tooth worked on. Is it okay to be thankful my husband got a root canal?

As for me, I'm bummed because my camera died and I hate not being able to take pictures. :'(

Long Day

Around 3am last night, Rachelle and I woke up to the sound of rushing water over our heads. At some point during the night, a poorly installed pipe finally gave way and water from the bathroom in the apartment upstairs flooded down into our bedroom. The water was pouring down from the smoke detector and a patch of ceiling that had already experienced some previous water damage. First of all, I hope none of you ever have to wake up to this because it is not one of those things you expect when you go to bed and it sucks. Looking back on it, I'm sure the whole scene was pretty comical, us running around looking for something to hold the water, tripping over Molly, freezing from the water falling everywhere. Anyway, I don't know how much water actually got in on us, but between the two holes in the ceiling, the water running down the walls (that I painted not 24 hours before this little fiasco) and the water flowing around the electrical outlets, it ended up being quite a bit. We filled a 47 liter Rubbermaid bin in less than 8 min. from one of the holes in the ceiling. So now we will be sleeping in the living room with all of our belongings for the next 5 days so the carpet can be ripped up and the floors dried out. If this all sounds like a rant just to get people to feel sorry for me, that is exactly what it is. Bring it on!
Other than all that crap, things are going well and we are trying to remember that the whole thing could have happened while we were gone or something much worse like that. All in all, it is more of an inconvenience than anything else. Just remember to mind your pipes boys and girls.

A new family member

Dena and I have been considering getting a dog for a couple of years now. The investigator that is handling our break-in told us that a big dog is one of the best things we can have to protect our house so we pulled the trigger and got ourselves a big dog. Well, she will be a big dog anyway, she's pretty tiny at the moment. She is a 9 week old Boxer puppy that we have named Zoey. She's a cute little girl and seems to be pretty sharp. She handled the 8 hour drive from NC to Huntsville without a peep (well she did growl once). She seems to be pretty smart and is getting along great with the cat. We took some video over at Jenny and Clay's house tonight, I'll try to get that from him soon.

Oh by the way, I think only Mom and Dad know them, but our friends Jenny and Clay had their baby on Sunday. She's a beautiful 7 pound, 1 ounce baby girl named Molly Addison.

Mission Call

Many of you may already know, but Kimberly got her mission call last week. She has been called to serve in the St. Louis Missouri Mission and will be entering the Missionary Training Center on February 4, 2009. Only about 6 weeks away. We thought you might like to see her reaction when she got the call.

So who was excited? We're proud of her and she's pretty pumped about getting ready to go. More to come when we know more. Dad and Mom

Happy Holidays!! (for realsies this time)

I hope everybody has a lovely Christmas, I know I'm enjoying it. We got packages from Kanab and Rexburg today.

And for all you folks stuck in freezing, snowy weather I thought you might like to know that I just went for a jog in shorts and a t-shirt. That's right it's an amazing 70 degrees here in NC. SUCKERS! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Time for a new look

I thought I'd spend some time changing things up a bit around here. I hope nobody minds, but I was just getting tired of looking at some random desert scene and thought it could use a little more personal touch. I hope you all like it.

Sorry to spam, but...

... I wanted to let Mom, Dad, Kimberly, Bryce & Keith know that ALL your gifts arrived today. It was so much fun to open the front door and see this pile of boxes waiting for us! The kids and I tore into them and they placed the presents under the tree.

Every time Hakan would put a present underneath, he would say, "Happy birthday TO you!" I haven't gotten any gifts wrapped yet, so the tree was looking a little bare underneath. Not anymore! Thanks guys!!


(P.S. Mom- when I pulled out Hakan's doll and said, "What's this?" he shouted, "My BAAAAAABY!!" and gave her a big hug and kiss. I didn't realize he'd missed her so much. Thanks for including T.O. 7 with the gifts.)

No go

Thought I should let everyone know that Aaron will not be flying to Pittsburgh today. Earlier this week he had a phone interview with a corporate guy and the man he'd answer to (if he got the job), and shortly afterwards he got a call from the recruiter saying that they think he's too young to start up a new plant. Bah. He was pretty bummed for a couple of days, but I think he's okay with it now. I wasn't as disappointed as I expected to be. I guess this just wasn't the opportunity we've been praying for. Anyway, now we know and can stop wondering where we'll be in a month, etc.

Happy Holidays Everybody!!

So I came home from work this afternoon to find a strange silver Cadillac in my garage with somebody frantically trying to get into the car. I pulled up close to find out what was going on and he rammed me in reverse, pushing my car back about 5 feet. He managed to get out and drive through my yard out to the road and away. My TV is in the garage right now, my 2 laptops and a camera are gone. He didn't seem too interested in any of Dena's jewelry or anything in our closets or underwear drawers. He was probably disappointed to find only love letters in the safe that Dena keeps under the bed. I'm still pretty frazzled, especially when I considered what might have happened if he hadn't gotten away and was cornered.

I would post some pictures, but like I said the camera is gone.

Thankfully we haven't found anything missing yet that is irreplaceable. Even all our data on the computers (photos etc.) was backed up to the desktop computer upstairs (that was left untouched). It's really a strange feeling and I hope none of you ever get to experience it.

Oh, and he didn't take any of your Christmas presents that we had laying out on the table either, so you guys are all OK.