Easter and Other Stuff

Alright, I know it's been a while since we've posted a new blog. I'll try to keep it short.

I've been really proud of Mike lately with school. He has been really dedicated and working hard to get good grades. Mike has changed his major. He was struggling with some of his programming classes and not enjoying it as much as he was enjoying his math and physics classes. He spoke to his astronomy teacher who recommended he try nuclear engineering. Mike has been really excited about this idea, and even more excited about the prospect of $150k - $200k a year to start. They'll even provide tuition reimbursement for him to get his Masters and Doctorate. I'm mostly happy that he can finish his degree in nuclear engineering quicker than he can finish in computer engineering. I really miss being home with the kids.

This leads me to my next topic. My job. Shortly after I came out of training, two more classes came through with 22 agents each. Those 44 agents were congratulated, given graduation certificates, and as they were eating their cake, were laid off and sent home. Of course, the rest of us started to panic about the security of our jobs. Center Partners assured us that our jobs were safe, but there were signs all around that Capital One might cancel our contract at any moment. The end result was a cut in hours for the entire product group. Every day I wish more and more that I had signed on with the Sony account. I'm currently looking for another job, but I don't dare quit at Center Partners until I have another job lined up. The economy hasn't hit East Idaho as badly as it has other areas, but jobs are still scarce.

The kids are absolutely adorable! Hyrum is doing so well in school. He can read entire books by himself with only minimal help. We're so proud of him! He'll be ahead of most of the other kids in that area when he starts kindergarten. His speech is still a little behind, but he is making huge progress every day. His teachers want to have him see a child psychologist and have him tested to see if he's border line autistic. We've been wanting to have him tested for a while, but with all the moving we've been doing the past several years, it's been tough. If he is diagnosed, we'll have a lot more resources available to help him with his speech. Of course, we hope nothing is wrong, but it'll just be good to finally know. He continues to excel academically.

Emily is bottled sunshine in convenient travel size! She is such a happy child! Emily is very funny, and she knows it. Although she loves being girly and wearing jewelry, dresses, and carrying purses, you really can't call her ladylike when she'll drop the whole facade to stand on her head or pretend to be an animal or sing a silly song to make us laugh. She is also very smart. She knows most of her letters, several numbers, all her colors, and shapes. She must think that she needs to make up for all that Hyrum doesn't say by jabbering all the time. She speaks very clearly and in full sentences, and even expresses complex ideas. She loves to sing primary songs, and can say prayers all by herself. She thinks she can spell as well as Hyrum. And although she can spell Hyrum and Emily correctly, all other words are spelled "H-I-J-K-O-O-O-O-P!"

Ok, so both my kids love to sing, and they sing very well. But every time I try to get a video of them doing so, they decide to goof off. I love the part where Hyrum gives the camera an exasperated look after Emily's high note solo. He wasn't happy about being upstaged.

I must say that this Easter was the best I've ever had! On Saturday, we took the kids to my work for an egg hunt. Emily was an egg hunting demon! Hyrum was a little too timid to pick up very many when there were so many other kids who wanted them too. I swear, that kid is too gentle for his own good. The kids ended up with quite a haul. They each got a blow up Easter Bunny (which they both love and won't let out of their sight for too long), several pinwheels, finger puppets, bottles of bubbles, foam gliders, stickers, whistles, and of course, too much candy. I think the kids were a little disturbed to find out that the Easter Bunny is actually a red headed chain smoker. (actually, she's a coworker, and a very nice lady.)

After we came home from Center Partners, we dyed and decorated eggs. We had a kit with glitter pens and foam stickers. The kids loved it, even though Hyrum looks so serious in his picture.

Then Mike and I had a babysitter over to watch the kids while we took advantage of a 50% off coupon to a grand opening of a new restaurant in Idaho Falls. The place was called The Hard Hat Cafe. It's supposed to be really great food, but we'll never know. We had a reservation for 7:25, but still had plenty of time to enjoy the construction decor while we waited an hour to be seated. After being seated, we sat. And sat. And sat. Nobody waited on us for about 45 minutes We brought it to the attention of a waiter as he passed by, and he informed the owner. The owner came to our table and apologized and promised us that he would send a server immediately, but that the food would still take 30-45 min to cook. We had already kept our poor babysitter much later than we had intended. We decided to leave and picked up Jack In the Box on the way home.

On Sunday morning, Hyrum woke up first. He waited patiently for nearly an hour for Emily to wake up because he didn't want to go see what the Easter Bunny had brought until he could share the excitement with her. When she finally woke up, it took Hyrum a while to convince her to go to the living room with him to see their baskets. She was probably too young to remember last year, so she's fairly new to this whole Easter thing. However, the moment she came around the couch and saw her new pink and purple tricycle, (exactly what she had asked for. "Mom, I want a PINK bike!") she threw aside her blow up Easter Bunny and ran full speed to check it out!

Hyrum got a new fire station Lego set. Hyrum is a mad genius with Lego! He can build anything! He patiently waited until he was sure it was ok and he had permission to open it. We gave him the go ahead, and he went to work building a fire truck. Then he brought in his old set and introduced his new Lego fireman to his old Lego dock worker. "Oh, hi! Nice to meet you! I have a new truck. Want to come for a ride?" "Sure, that will be fun!" Later, he told me they were friends. (love my kids!)

Before you think we spoil our kids from the size of their Easter stash, it wasn't all from us. They also got new, very cute hoodies and an Under Dog video from my mom. My Grandma Sears gave Hyrum a book and Emily a blanket with zebras, monkeys, and tigers (her favorite animals) on it and gave them both bendable Easter Bunnies and lots of goodies. Mom helped me buy an Easter dress for Emily too. (although I still need to pay her back...)

After church... Oh, that reminds me! Mike and I have new callings. Mike is a ward missionary and I am a Sunbeams teacher. Anyhow, after church, we came home and had an egg hunt in our back yard. Hyrum was much more aggressive at home than he was at Center Partners and beat Emily hands down in the number of eggs found. That night, we had deviled eggs which is the only Eastery thing we had for dinner that night. We had Easter dinner and watched Conference with my mom and Sherwin the week before since they were in Oregon for Easter.

This weekend, we've finally been blessed with some beautiful weather. Mike was able to take the kids out to ride their bikes while he worked on the Toyota. I was sick in bed. *cough cough*

Pictures

There are 10 types of people in this world: Those that understand binary and those that don't.

I told you that just to say this; There are two types of blogs: the updates where we actually say stuff, then the ones where we just flood with pictures and give them an accompanying caption.

Without further ado (I should use "ado" more in my life)--

I have always loved this picture, but hated that it was blurry. Like Angie's "6 things that make me happy," I'm sure most of you agree that your children's smile can light up your world.

I have this picture of myson and Em on my Google Phone. You have 3 desktops you can swipe to. Swipe to the left and you only see myson, swipe to the right and you only see Em. Keep it in the main middle screen and you see both of them. It's very useful for when you are mad at one of your kids, you can just swipe them out of the picture!

I took this picture on our Ward wall. 1- so everyone can know our address (although you don't need the 'H' in the apt #) and 2- to show everyone that our ward thinks that Jay is married to myson.

Making Valentines!

And the pose.

You know, you would think that a 3 megapixel on a brand new 'revolutionary' phone would have a decent camera. That is not the case, however. It's still a good phone, but part of me wishes I waited for ver2 to come out first.

Updates

° School is in for Mike. School is a lot more work than Mike thought it would be and is thankful that he doesn't have a part-time job. However, the lack of income has made things quite tight. It will work out, however, because of that tithe law. Mike is taking Java, Trig, Astronomy, and Business Statistics. An interesting variety of classes, but until he gets on course for his Major, it will have to be that way.
Do you remember me complaining about how much I made at my last job? Well, that raise was well worth it. It shot us into another tax bracket (for the first time in my life) as I made $35k last year. Nothing exactly to brag about, but we've never really been that successful. Too bad about the lay off!!! Now we'll have to settle for a stint at school in hopes of landing a $250k one. Grrr.

° Work started for Jay, and she just got out of training with an unjustly, horrible schedule. She scored 100% on her training exam and was given quite possibly the worst shift they have, while others in her class did quite bad and was given early shifts, including 4-10's. This is going to make the daycare quite expensive. I've urged jay to try and find someone to talk to to find the method of their madness and perhaps petition for a better schedule. They never did give any options to select your preferred shifts, so it's as if they just assigned schedules randomly. We hope all goes well, and I'm sure it will, as long as we continue to be obedient and enjoy the temple. However, there has been talk about looking for other open positions in the region as well.

° Speaking of, we've finally gotten back to the temple. It had been so long... we estimate about 6 years or more. We just took the close proximity to the Idaho Falls and Boise temples that we never attended. And you wonder why things weren't working out for us in the past?...

° Myson LOVES school, of course. We spoke with his teacher and they didn't seem too excited to be getting another kid, as their actions spoke louder than words and left him out of 2 weeks of school to do "paperwork." When we met, we helped him learn his teachers' name (Mrs. Hayes & Ms. Welker). She just said, "Oh, don't worry about it. The other kids just call me teacher." In the interest of respect, we wouldn't have that -- but we didn't have to try anyway. We met her on the Friday before he would start Monday. He had already memorized her name and let us know the whole weekend before.

° Em has started what we call "preschool," which is really daycare but she doesn't want to go to daycare (even though she calls it that when she leaves). She is the most adorable thing that we know of on this Earth (but she's also 2 right now, so she's also very difficult). One example: Myson brought a teddy bear to school as an assignment for bear week and Em would not go to daycare without one as well. So we let her. As we were leaving when I went to pick her up, we were interacting with her and the attendants and they asked, "What's the bears name?" To which she replied, "Bear Haddox" quite matter-of-factly. Very cute. There are a million more examples which need cataloging, but I'm horrible at memory, so we'll let Jaypea do that.
She's also potty-training, which I was just reminded to talk about as she said "Ooooh. Big poop" as she currently sits on the toilet. She was doing so well her first week, but then got in a pattern of not caring and just letting it all go onto the floor. I tried to make the thing positive, but after 3 days of non-stop cleaning of the carpet, I let her know the law. After that I didn't need to discipline anymore. She's knows what right and wrong now and she gets Hello Kitty! stickers for doing a good job.

° For Deedee, the move to Eastern Idaho was just another move. Since she's been through so much she doesn't make a big deal with them anymore. However, she does get motion sickness, so we had to buy some powdery stuff you mix in her food to calm her down. It worked quite well. So far we love Shelley. The people are all very friendly and the city is shut down on Sunday's which helps us observe the Sabbath a bit better. They only have 2 decent fast food places which means it's easier to get sick of them and not go to them.
Although I am switching to BYU-Idaho next semester (upon approval), we will still live in Shelley do to the proximity to the kids' grandparents and the cheapest daycare prices I have ever seen ($2/hr/kid).

° Dan came home from Afghan- and I can't wait until he's free to take phone calls. I'm excited to talk to him again but I really want him to spend as much time with his immediate family before we get to converse again.

° Great Britain has abolished the use of the apostrophe on all their street signs do to it making things too confusing. I wish the English language would the same as a whole because I suck at it. I signed up for an English class for the very reason to improve upon this, but then I did just one assignment and felt myself sick to the stomach the moment I got involved. Hence, that was dropped and Statistics was added (because it was the only interesting online class). Anyway, I brought that up because instead of making corrections on this blog, I'm just letting it go. For instance, I began the blog in third person, now I'm in first. How fun!

° I have a test at 2pm which I have not studied for... That gives me 1½ hours to do so. Enjoy the blog and please comment. We'd love to hear from you!

Let's Review Part 3: Jessica's Birthday etc.

My birthday was December 31st. We had my mom and Sherwin over for dinner. I made salmon, and Mom made a cherry chocolate cake. Mom and Sherwin gave me towel racks for the bathrooms and a step-stool so I can reach the cabinets in the kitchen. We watched an old movie called The Court Jester and played pinochle.

Mike gave me my "present" the next day. I knew he was up to something because he kept secretly taking calls. Sometime between 5:00 and 5:30, my friends Lezhai and Melissa came with their families. Shortly after, Dan and Carissa and their girls came. Finally, Sandi came with her husband Nathan and daughter Annalee. In all, we had 9 adults and 11 kids. The kids went off to destroy our play room while the adults ate and chatted. Lezhai and Darnell had to leave early because their daughter wasn't feeling well, and they had to pick up their two boys from the movies. The rest of us played a great game of Cranium. Mike and I used to entertain a lot, but we haven't had friends who were into parties and games since we moved to Boise. It was a lot of fun to do that again! The only down side is that we left our vacuum in Nampa by accident and can't clean the chips out of the carpet.

Mike's niece Caryssa will be attending BYU-I this coming semester. We went to Rexburg on Saturday to help her move in. I can't believe how much that city and campus have changed. We'll be glad to have her nearby, and plan to have her over for dinner sometime.

Saturday the 3rd, my brother and his wife had a baby girl. Congratulations, James and Tessie! She's beautiful!

On Sunday, I found my Aunt Zelma (She's really my grandma's cousin, not my aunt) is in my ward. She was so excited to see me there since she hasn't seen me since I was very young. Still, she knew who I was immediately. I guess my grandma tipped her off that we were moving out near her. She seems to be a very positive, bubbly person. I've been told she is a very talented person. It was nice to meet her.

Next Monday, I start work, and Mike and Hyrum start school. I'm a little apprehensive about how all our schedules will work out... or not work out. Wish us luck!

Let's Review Part 2: Christmas

Christmas Eve we took a break from our unpacking to spend the evening with my extended family opening presents to and from my Grandma Sears and eating pizza and junk food. We had a really great time. On our way home that night, we needed to stop at my mom's house to pick up some of the stocking stuffers we had left there. We could see that the roads were already starting to drift over a bit, and the thought crossed my mind that maybe we should spend the night at my mom's house. I brushed aside that notion, and we went home.

I must say, I love Christmas. I love it even more after this year when the, "You'd better go to sleep or Santa won't be able to come," threat worked so perfectly. There was not even one peep from the kids that night. In the morning, the kids looked in their stockings and played with the toys from Santa while we waited for word from Mom and Sherwin about if we could get through the roads to their house for breakfast and presents. The news wasn't good. All the roads to my mom's house were completely closed, and there was little hope that the snow plow drivers would want to take time away from their own families on Christmas morning to clear the roads. Eventually, one of their neighbors shoveled out a corner, and Sherwin was able to get through in his truck to pick us up. We packed an overnight bag for our family, anticipating the possibility that we would have to stay the night.

Christmas breakfast was great, and soon we were opening presents. The kids had a great time. Hyrum is just the right age to really enjoy it. Among their mountain of presents were dishes (which go perfectly with the kitchen Emily got for her birthday), Legos, a race track, walkie-talkies, and a fridge toy to help Emily learn letter sounds and help Hyrum spell 3 letter words. Hyrum is now a spelling pro, and Emily knows nearly all her letters. Mike got me a NintendoDS Lite, and I got Mike a computerized telescope. The snow continued to come, so we spent the day playing with the kids' new toys. After they went to bed, we adults played board games.

The morning brought visitors in the form of stranded drivers on their way to work. Someone who was obviously mentally unbalanced had told them that the best way to town was through those country roads. The driver called a cab, which of course, couldn't get through the snow. However, they were able to get out with a truck, and soon the plows came through to clear the roads. Mom was able to get to work, and Mike and I were able to return home to our lonely cat.

I was able to play with my DS right away, but Mike has had some trouble with his telescope. It has been too cold, windy, and cloudy to use it much since Christmas even though he has taken it out nearly every night. He hasn't been able to train the drive or set it to the alignment stars yet. The telescope has an on board computer that will search out stars, planets, and galaxies for you once it is aligned correctly. It has just been entirely too cold to stand to be outside for that long, and the lenses freeze and fog if we're out too long. However, we did get one video (there's also a camera that fits into the lens drop in) of the moon a couple nights ago when we had a clear night. It's not super great. The best part to view through the lens without the camera is the line between the dark and light side where the shadows define the craters well. However, the camera went out of focus and began shaking at this point in the video. Mike tried to adjust the focus as we filmed, but that only made it worse. There was also junk on the lens. Probably fuzz that fell off our gloves as we switched to different magnification lenses and the camera. It looks so much better through the telescope than through the camera. Mike added music to cover our geeky sounding voices the camera had picked up while we filmed. By the way, the camera/telescope isn't panning. That's just how quickly the moon moves in magnification. When the on board computer is turned on, it'll track objects across the sky gradually so that they won't move out of the viewer.

Ta da! Ok, not the best video... We'll take better pictures and videos when it gets warmer. Maybe we'll post a picture or video of one of the planets. The telescope can supposedly see Jupiter at about the size of a dime.

Let's Review Part 1: Pre Christmas

I said I would post again after Emily's birthday on December 6th. Well, if you didn't notice, it's now January 6th. So now I have to go back over a very eventful month and try to remember it all. Sadly, I never had the time to make Emily's birthday video, so pictures will have to do. I also don't have any Christmas pictures or pictures of my own birthday. Sorry. It's been a really crazy month.

We had been in East Idaho until 3 days before Emily's birthday, so we weren't able to plan much. Emily loves anything pasta, so we took her to a local place in Meridian called White Water Pizza and Pasta to open presents. Among her presents were bottles for her doll and Dora and Boots figurines which she loves to hug.

She also got a Dora umbrella, a doll stroller, and a mini stove/oven play set from my mom which is now her's and Hyrum's favorite toy. I didn't take many pictures of our trip to White Water, but took several videos. However, my camera was dying and the videos turned out badly. I'll see what I can do to clean them up. Maybe I'll just take new videos of her playing with her presents or something so I can make a video for her.

Mike and I finally moved out of our apartment in Nampa on Saturday, December 13th. We had planned to move out on the Thursday before, but U-Haul did not have our reserved truck in time so we had to push it out for the weekend. Lucky us -- It started a light snow as we loaded the final boxes in the truck. After cleaning the house and vacuuming the last Easy Mac noodle off the dining room floor, we drove out of Nampa at about 5:30pm. We got a call from both my mom and my step dad while stopped at a gas station in Nampa. They both warned that we shouldn't come because of a bad storm. However, everything was packed. There was nothing left to go back to, so we pushed forward. The roads were icy from the first snow of the year and many Boiseites had no clue how to drive in it. This was the cause of 12 accidents beyond the Vista exit which left us at a dead halt for 1.5 hours. Once it started going again, it was by no means fast. I think our average speed was 35 mph and at one time I topped it at 45 mph to pass someone. By the time we got to Mountain Home, 3 hours from when we left Nampa (normally a 1 hour drive), we took shelter in a Best Western and waited out the storm that night. It continued to storm all night, but the roads were mostly bare by the time we got away from the Mountain Home area. They got bad again around Pocatello and increased in severity all the way to Shelley. We got to Shelley white-knuckled and exhausted.

There was a little time between when I arrived in Shelley and when Mike came with the U-Haul. I took that opportunity to shower and unwind from the drive since, as soon as he showed up, we had to hit the road again to go to my Aunt's house in Firth for my Grandma's 90th birthday open house. I adore my Grandma Page and was so glad we were able to honor her in that way. My dad was also at the open house. I haven't seen my dad since the summer I was pregnant with Hyrum. He got to meet Hyrum and Emily for the first time ever. Once they got over their initial shyness, they loved him.

Monday started a week of madness. We had gone ahead with the move from Nampa because we were supposed to have our apartment by no later than Tuesday. U-Haul had agreed to let us keep the truck a few extra days for free when we let them know of the situation. The truck would be due back on Wednesday. However, on Monday, the apartment manager told us our application was rejected because we would make too much money with Mike having a part time job. This was a load of bull. Her numbers were all speculative. There was no way Mike could make as much as she assumed he would while going to school full time. She returned our holding deposit to us, and we began the search for a new apartment. We looked all over Shelley and Idaho Falls the following few days, but nothing looked as good as the apartment we had originally applied to.

On Tuesday, Mike went back to the apartment office and begged the manager to review our application, saying he wouldn't be making that much at part-time. He even went as far as to tell her he wouldn't work if it came down to getting the apartment or not. Living in Shelley was a priority to us because child care in Idaho Falls is twice as expensive as we can get in Shelley. The manager agreed to look over the application again, but said she couldn't promise anything, and told us to keep looking since our U-Haul was due back the next day.

Mike tried to follow up with her on Wednesday, but she was screening his calls, and wouldn't answer. We called U-Haul and told them we needed to extend the rental on the truck at a rate of $40/day.

Thursday, Mike finally got a hold of the manager who told us that she had been up all night working on our application and didn't foresee any problems. Worst case scenario, we could move in Friday morning at 10:00. This was great news because if Friday came and went with no apartment, we wouldn't be able to sign a lease and move in until Monday. Keeping the U-Haul over the weekend would be very costly. The apartment manager had already deposited our $300 security deposit check (without giving us keys or a lease).

10:00 came and went with no word. Mike called at 11:00 to ask what was going on, and the manager told us that the compliance manager had rejected our application because she needed a slew of ridiculous paperwork. For example, she saw that we had a foreclosure on our house, but for whatever reason said she needed proof that we no longer owned the house. We didn't have this paperwork. She also asked for proof that I wasn't a student because I had student loans. Well, duh. Of course I still have student loans. That doesn't mean I'm going to school, just that I did at one time. She also wouldn't accept my letter of hire from Center Partners even though it supplied all the information she needed. We were so sick of the run-around they were giving us, and took matters into our own hands. I went to Center Partners and was told that they couldn't fill out the paperwork the apartments needed because I wasn't yet an employee, but that they could send a letter to the management with the exact same information that was in the letter of hire that they wouldn't accept before. We asked HR to go ahead with that, but had little confidence that the manager would accept it. We had no other choice. We also called my student loan holder who said that they could just look online to prove that I wasn't a student, but that no documentation existed on the matter. In the end, Mike and I had to sign an affidavit saying that we no longer owned our home in Ammon and that I wasn't a student. If they had just asked us for this information a month before, when we started the application process, we could have spared ourselves a lot of headaches.

We sat in the apartment office for 3 hours waiting for the compliance manager in Seattle to approve or disapprove our application. She kept sending emails back to the apartment manager asking for different documents, explanations on the documents she had received, and explanations on how the apartment manager had figured our income. By the end, the apartment manager was as fed up with the compliance manager as we were. Finally, a little after 5:00 pm, the compliance manager gave in. The apartment manager told us she wanted to go home, and didn't want to go over the lease until Monday, but gave us a key so we could move in and return the U-Haul.

Unfortunately, it was too late to return the truck without being charged for the day, so we kept it over night and moved in on Saturday. I'm pretty sure it was well below 0° on the day we moved. Because it was so close to Christmas, we were unable to recruit any extra help . Mike, Sherwin, and Sherwin's son Dale unloaded the truck themselves while Mom and I stayed home with the stomach flu. By the afternoon, we were feeling a bit better and went to the apartment to unpack boxes.