Happy Birthday, Hyrum!

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, Hyrum's 5th birthday was Monday! I can't believe he's already 5 years old. Wow.


Hyrum and Emily helped Mike make a fort in our living room on Sunday. This was quite a feat since our living room is about the size of a shoe box. After Emily went to bed, Mike and Hyrum put pillows and sleeping bags in the fort and fell asleep watching movies. Hyrum loved it! He's about the only one who did. Well, maybe our cat liked it. Hyrum kept waking up Mike every few minutes to kiss him and tell him he was happy, and Mike ended up with a sore arm from sleeping on the ground. Emily was upset that Hyrum wasn't sleeping in the bedroom with her and kept waking up crying. This, along with Mike's occasional trips to the bedroom to tell me he was sore and miserable kept me awake all night too. It's a good thing Hyrum has school in the afternoon!


Monday, after Hyrum came home from school, we went to IHOP to eat and open presents. Now, this may sound odd to you. Why IHOP? Why not Chuck E. Cheese or some other kid type place? Well, IHOP is most decidedly Hyrum's favorite restaurant. What can I say? Pancakes are one of the few things he'll eat. Pizza isn't.

Here's how things went at IHOP. If you want to see all 7 videos in their full version and with full audio, they're posted on my facebook. Someday maybe we'll get a real video camera instead of one that's primarily for stills. Also, yes. I know the music is weird. I like it.




We had a good time at IHOP despite the waiter who intruded on our table far more often than was necessary. I'll forgive him since he gave Emily free yogurt and Hyrum free ice cream. I only wish I had gotten a video of him trying to sing "Happy Birthday to You." I gave up trying to sing along after the 12th key change. Sorry... I have a hard time not slipping back into snooty music major mode sometimes.


Hyrum got Cooties from Grandma and Grandpa Crooks. ~Sigh~ *gets out the shampoo.* We got him a sweater, a shirt and a Simon game.


We're still looking for a new apartment and job. The trouble is knowing which city to look in. Mike applied at BYU-I and ISU, but we don't know where he'll go yet. Problem is, Rexburg and Pocatello are rather far apart. If Mike does ISU, he'll probably try to take as many classes as possible at the satellite campus in Idaho Falls, but he'll still have to go to Pocatello for a few others. So I guess, not knowing where he'll be, Rigby might be the best place for us to live. It's about halfway between Rexburg and Idaho Falls. But do I really want to live in Rigby again? There's a house for rent in my old neighborhood, only about 2 blocks from where I lived. Feels a little strange. Living in Idaho Falls or Shelley would be better if Mike ends up at ISU. ARGH! I just don't know! All that being said, we're rather optimistic. We're just... a little stressed.


I'll update the blog again when things settle down a bit. Or at the very least, when we have some more definite plans.

Again...

For those of you who don't know yet, Mike lost his job on Friday. Due to reasons we've mentioned in past posts, the company was no longer financially able to retain him as an employee. There's good and bad to this. The bad, obviously, is that we have no income at the moment. The good news is that we're planning to have Mike go back to school! This is also good news for me, not because I'll have to work full time after being a stay-at-home mom for 5 years, but because we're most likely moving back to East Idaho. I've been wanting to move back ever since we left. But, ugh... I hate job and apartment hunting. It's especially hard when we live in another city. We'll probably have to take a few days for a trip out there for interviews and to look at apartments and houses to rent. Mike has already looked at both BYU-I and ISU. He has missed enrollment for Winter Semester at BYU-I, and ISU doesn't list any admissions deadlines. So we're waiting to hear back from counselors from each school. We also need to figure out what will happen with Hyrum's school. I really hope that there's another school he can transfer to without having to retest.

We had a good Halloween. Mom came to visit for Tessie's baby shower which was on November 1st, so she was able to come trunk-or-treating with us and the kids. I procrastinated making costumes for the kids, and had nothing for them to wear. I ended up digging out old costumes from years past. Emily wore Hyrum's dinosaur costume that he wore when he was just under a year old. Mike had to literally cram her into it with his knee on her back to get it to fit. Oh well. She loved it! She was pretty upset when we took it off to put her pajamas on. Hyrum also wore a too small kitty costume from 2 years ago. His wasn't nearly as small as Emily's was. It nearly fit him except that the sleeves were too small. He loved being a kitty. Emily enjoyed petting his fur and scratching his ears. Our friend Phil and his daughter Anna visited as well and joined us in a quick door-to-door trick-or-treat around a nearby neighborhood.

I don't have any pictures of the kids in costume. Sorry. What I do have is Hyrum's new school picture complete with a fake "smile" and messy hair. Enjoy!

Look forward to our next post after Hyrum's 5th birthday on Monday! (hopefully)

If only...

Big changes are happening in the company I work for, and, unfortunately, they're not too great. Where to start...

As I may have explained before, the owner owns two companies: Recreation Idaho and Sunshine Recreation. Both companies in the same business, just separated territories: Sunshine in Utah and, well, guess where Recreation Idaho covers. I was hired for Utah's office work and have never been employed by the Idaho division. However, since the owners' health has decreased dramatically over the past year, I have had a significant hand in the office work of both companies.

The market in Utah is very... "different" from that of anywhere else in the country. The people there care very little of quality and everything of price. Which means that a company that sells quality products and service like ours hasn't ever competed very well. My personal belief is that the teachings of "thrift" to the general population in Utah goes a little bit too far. We got the feeling that the idea of business down there is, "If you can't give it to me for little or no profit, you should give it to me at a loss." I know this is stereotypical, but if the shoe fits...

I would be lying if I said that was the only reason the Utah company failed. I place most of the blame for Sunshine's failure on the messenger of our companies profits and values. The salesman in Utah based everything on discounting to make people happy, rather than being firm on if you want it good and want it to last, buy from us. He has single-handily cause the company no success where so much potential lies.

So, now the owner is closing the Utah operation. It's stayed in the red-ink far too long and it's just not feasible to keep the company open while employing 5 employees. Lucky for me, my integral part in the operations of Idaho leaves me still with a job, although the pay increase I received a few months ago will be limited again. Looks like another hard Winter ahead of us.

However, there is one opportunity to all this that presents itself to us. What if... I became the new dealership in Utah? The possibility presents itself to be self-employed in a very profitable business from now until retirement. All the while presenting a good company name that can last beyond the 2-5 year stints that have fated previous operations in Utah. It's the perfect opportunity. The product is an excellent one, it speaks for itself and is the leader in Playground development, quality, and service. There is little difficulty in targeting your market and advertising to your customers, because they're already looking for you.

So, how could I make a difference where others could not in the past? Well, I won't bore you with the details (although the details is what gets me excited). However, I have to present a plan to the regional manager of Playworld and the owner of our company.

we also have an advantage of being able to go wherever we want to. Boise is not a bad place, but there isn't anything we can think of that ties us down here. It's just a community that we've never really bonded well with. It's not fun having no friends, but it is a good feeling knowing that we can up and leave if ever we needed to.

But then, there is also a reality. As much as opportunities like these rarely EVER present itself to anyone in their lifetimes, the timing is not good right now. Typical Playworld dealers need to front $20k in contract as a dealer. We would also need a minimum of $15k for start up business costs... kind of. You really don't need much money for start up costs, but it would be good if we had 1- several months of living expenses while we get things started up and 2- an operating line for those un-paying or delinquent customers. All I would need is a loan-- oh, yeah. Most banks are freezing loans. Well, maybe I can get one against the assets I own-- oh, yeah. What assets?

Were we in the position to make the step, we would do so. But as it stands now, the step is more of a hurdle. We simply don't have the means to do what we want. I'll keep looking for this opportunity again, and more importantly, planning for it when it presents it's beautiful head again. In the meantime, I'm still going to present my plan to the big guys, just to get some feedback and know what is expected in the future.

Posted thoughts

Been awhile since we've posted, so here's something I wrote to Dan awhile back to fill the void:

I saw something strange on my toilet paper package. It said at the bottom of the package, "24 Rolls/Rollos - 1002.0 SQ FT/PIES²"

The first thing I thought was, Why did they have to put .0 at the end of the number? Couldn't they just leave it as 1002 sq ft? Then I saw that they squared "pies." That got me extremely confused! It's spelled PI -- I can't believe they got that wrong. And why are they using PI in a toilet paper roll formula anyway? Perhaps they measure the size of a roll of toilet paper by taking PI and squaring it... but then there is no associated measurement from the actual roll (like radius to figure out the area of a 2-dimensional circle). The actual equation they intended may have been 1002sq ft divided by PI squared. But still -- PIES? Maybe they meant "Plys" as in "Double Ply?" Man, what a really funny typo!


I found out later that PIES means "Feet" in Spanish... Oh, well.

Fun at the Park

Last week, we took the kids to Settlers Park. I had a request to post pictures of us there, so here they are!

Although Emily was excited to wear her swimsuit, she wasn't too happy about actually going in the water. She was a good sport about it though.



This picture is a little deceiving. Although you can see her by the water, she wouldn't go in, but sat on the sides crying.


This is a much more accurate picture of our little drama queen.


She enjoyed riding on Dad's shoulders until....


It's a little hard to see because of all the water, but poor little Emily is still on Dad's shoulders here.


What a mean dad!

Hyrum, however, had a blast!





After playing in the water, we moved on to the other activities at the park. (Settlers Park is such an awesome park!)


They had added a lot to the park since I had been last summer. One of the attractions was climbing rocks. Mike wanted us to see them since he had worked hard on the contract for them. Hyrum climbed some of the smaller rocks, but was afraid to climb any higher. I guess I can't blame him. It would be hard to climb in flip flops.



Mike climbed to the top with Hyrum yelling at him to be careful and come down the whole way.

After the climbing boulders, we headed over to the section with giant musical instruments. You would think that they might be loud and obnoxious, but all the instruments made mellow soothing sounds that echoed over the park and created a nice ambiance as the kids played them. Even the drums! The kids loved this part of the park despite the fact that it's one of the few things that Mike's company didn't sell to them.








One of the things that Settlers Park boasts is one of the largest playgrounds I've ever seen which they call "Adventure Island." There are actually 2 parts to it. A smaller playground that looks like a castle, and a larger one which is a ship. I know that seems backwards, but hey, I didn't design it that way! Both kids love playing on playgrounds. Emily is getting big enough that she enjoys some of the smaller things like climbing the stairs, going through tunnels, and the occasional slide. Hyrum is much more daring, and tries it all! Mike had me stay with Emily on the smaller playground while he took Hyrum to the larger one, so I don't have many pictures of Hyrum from this section. You'll just have to take my word for it that he had a ball and was cute. Also that the ship is is pretty awesome with features like communication tubes so you can talk to your friends on the other side.








Last was swings and, luckily for readers who get sick of me bragging about my cute kids, my camera died. So I leave you with two more picture.

Just for fun

Well, I have nothing new to report other than to say how cute the kids are. But I say that all the time. So I got this idea from my sister-in-law's blog and thought it would be fun. Here's how to play.

1. Leave a comment on my blog that is a memory that you and I have together. It doesn't have to be anything big just as long as you post something. I know there are a few people who read my blog (but don't usually comment) who have never actually met me. Well, you should still have a memory of me anyhow, so post!

2. After you're done, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It should be pretty cool and funny to see what people remember about you. If you leave a comment on my blog, and you decide to play this game on yours, I'll repay by leave a memory on your blog.

Feel free to post about either me or Mike or even one for each. Have fun!