El Ten Eleven

Lately Rob has gotten very interested in listening to a genre of music known as post rock. His very favorite post rock band is El Ten Eleven, a duo based out of California. You can find them on YouTube here. Several months ago as Rob and I were deciding which 10 songs we would buy off iTunes that month (we limit ourselves to 10 a month - that helps to prevent us from spending tons of money and also insures that we only buy songs we love), we looked up the websites of some of his favorite groups and bookmarked them so we could check periodically and see if they were playing anywhere nearby. About a month ago, El Ten Eleven announced that they were coming to Dallas on a Monday night in March! They aren't very well known at all (around here at least) and were playing in a bar that only held about 50 people. The performance was free, but the doors didn't even open until 10pm and there were two other bands playing as well.

It's spring break for us, so we asked Brittney if she would spend the night (we didn't know what time we would be home) and Rob took the day following the performance off work so we could take turns sleeping. Last night was the big night! The kids were thrilled to see Brittney (and Brittney to see them :) ). Rob and I were able to find the bar pretty easily. It was sort of cozy I guess. It had been a double-wide trailer that was converted into a sort of retro-60's/texas bar. I think we were among the oldest people there (except for the members of one of the bands, who looked like they were at least in their 40's).

The walls were lined with old couches and upholstered benches that were pretty comfortable. They didn't allow smoking in either the bar or the nearby building that they had converted by putting a stage at one end and a small bar at the other. It wasn't at all what I was imagining. I didn't even see anyone drunk. Rob and I didn't really fit in with everyone else, but no one cared. There were a few others like us who stuck out a bit and were obviously only there for the music (and probably just for El Ten Eleven), but most of the people there were guys with longer hair, converse sneakers and button-down plaid shirts. There were other people too - like the 6'3" guy with the mohawk and striped overalls and the girl with bright orangish-red hair, topped by a hand crocheted beret, with a long t-shirt, scarf, black leggings and high heels that were half shoe and half go-go boot.

The first band to play was The Constellation Branch (based out of Phoenix, AZ). They had four members, three guitar players and a drummer. Only the lead guitar player sang. When they started their first song, I thought "this isn't going to be too bad" . . . and then they got past the first stanza. The lead guitar player certainly seemed to be talented and there were parts of their songs that I really enjoyed - very small parts. Rob turned to me and yelled in my ear (necessary considering the volume of the music at the moment and I'm sure not overheard by anyone more than an inch away) that if I ever had any clients with rage issues, I should encourage them to join a band like that one. The lead guitarist and the drummer especially seemed to really get into each song. After the first two or three songs, my right ear, which was closest to the speakers, was hurting and the other one was numb. We were sitting on a couch against the wall, turned towards the stage. For a while I used Rob's shoulder to block my right ear, then discovered that if I put my arm along the back of the sofa and leaned on my hand, I could unobtrusively cover my ear. I thought later that I should have worn my hair down and worn ear plugs. It was even more overwhelming since the venue was so small. We were sitting towards the back of the room, but were still only about 20 ft from the stage.

The second band was Venus Flytrap, from the Netherlands (and for anyone going to YouTube to try and hear these bands, it is not the ladyboy band from Thailand). There were five members of the band, the youngest of which was at least in his late 30's (the first band looked like they were in their early-mid 20's). Several members of the band had gray hair and were in their 40's or 50's. I liked their songs better. They weren't quite as full of rage. There were words I could actually hear and understand, although their songs were a bit repetitive. Apparently once they found a phrase they liked, they stuck with it. They also applied that principle to stanzas of music.

I entertained myself by imagining what their lives were like. The lead singer/guitar player, who was very short, with short dark hair, reminded me of the energizer bunny. When he got really into the songs, he started manically bouncing up and down. I think he had a tall, blonde girlfriend at home, lived in a basement apartment, and enjoyed hanging out at bars with his girlfriend on his arm, talking about his band. The second guitar player was very tall, over 6 ft, and had long, curly gray hair, which he wore loose and head-banged with when he really got into the music. I decided he was actually an accountant with a wife and three children. He wears brown suits to the office, and of course ties back his hair. He takes three months off a year to tour with the band and feels like he is regaining his youth. I think the other band members, led by the lead singer/guitar player tease him for working a "normal" job. I didn't develop life stories for the other members, but I loved that the drummer looked like a character out of a 1950's movie, complete with thick, black-rimmed glasses!

As Venus Flytrap was playing, Rob nudged me and standing next to us was El Ten Eleven! (Not that I recognized them - I didn't even know how many people were in the group.) Rob was thrilled to be so close to them and spent more energy watching them while trying to appear not to be watching them than paying attention to the music (not that it mattered - if you listed to one stanza, you pretty much got the whole song). Venus Flytrap wrapped up their performance and El Ten Eleven started setting up. Quite a few people left the building for a bit (probably to go get drinks or to smoke in the patio area). The couches we were sitting on lined the wall up to the stage and were empty except for us, so we moved closer to the stage. The bands used the couches to pack up their instruments, so we had the lead singer/guitar player for Venus Flytrap's guitar next to us (the clasps were all broken and he used a black leather belt to hold it closed), then the drummer from El Ten Eleven stacked his drums just to the right of us before setting them up on stage. Very exciting for Rob :)

El Ten Eleven's music was softer than the previous bands and I discovered I didn't need to cover my ear. The music had a nice beat and I loved watching everyone around us - a whole room of white people (I think there were a few Hispanics as well) in their 20's standing and nodding in time with each other, usually with one foot tapping as well. Two guys in sports coats sat down next to us, more of corporate America sneaking in to hear the music. In front of us was a couple that were also obviously part of corporate America. They stayed next to each other the whole night and talked between performances, but never touched each other. I postulated that they worked together and he had been wanting to ask her out for a while, so used the show as an excuse. I don't think it would have been more than that as they didn't even hold hands.

The show got over at about 1:30am, so we got out earlier than we thought. Total cost - $2 in tips to the bartender for ginger ales which he didn't charge us for. I was so excited Rob got to see them! We have started working on crossing things off our bucket lists and this was on Rob's :)

The kids had a fantastic time with Brittney (thanks Brittney!!!). The took a few pictures ~

Jack and Beth sporting sunglasses ~


The braid Megan put in Brittney's hair (I didn't teach her how - I think she just figured it out) ~


Meg and Brittney ~


Kylie playing soccer ~

For Priscilla and John (who apparently go through withdrawals when I don't update my blog)

Sorry I haven't posted in the last month. The class I'm taking this quarter has proved to be challenging. It's "Intro to Marriage and Family Therapy" and it's not so much the material that has been challenging for me, but the teacher. My professor seems nice, but I'm not a fan of his system of grading. Different teachers look for different things when grading. This teacher focused on improving the quality of our writing format. I don't mind that he focused on format, but the way he did it was by increasing his standards each week, without telling us first. I would get a 100 on an assignment one week, then the next week he would give me an 82 saying that he wanted indirect quotes instead of direct quotes. It was frustrating, however it forced me to just aim for perfection in every area as I never knew what he was going to be checking that week. I still have two small assignments left and I need to get my grade for my term paper, but as long as I get an 85 or better on my term paper, I should have an A in the class. It was a lot of work though! It was somewhat ironic that this teacher turned out to be such a hard grader. I switched classes before the quarter started as a classmate from last quarter said the original teacher I had was very difficult. I don't know if it would have just been easier to stay in her class, but I'll find out as I have her next quarter. Lesson learned - don't bother trying to avoid something difficult as you might end up facing something even harder.

Other than homework, we haven't been up to much. Beth's surgery has Beth and Jack housebound in an effort to keep Beth from getting sick. Somehow everybody got colds anyway, but Beth's has been mild and we keep pumping her full of vitamin c and echinacea. Nobody except Rob got really sick, just runny noses.

A few recent pictures ~

Beth and Jack coloring pictures sent by Grandma K ~


Love Beth's cheesy grin! ~


Megan was digging through her closet (note to self - don't use her closet to store things in) and found a copy of a glamor shot I had taken just after we were married. She decided she needed a glamor shot and carefully compiled her outfit and picked a pose (note the yellow plastic sandals) ~


The first pose failed to include the fake diamond ring she got from a kid in her class for valentine's day, so we took another ~


Beth was watching and decided she needed pictures too ~




The elders (missionaries) in or ward got transferred out two weeks ago and we got sister missionaries instead. We had the elders over for dinner one last time and took pictures. The kids were not horribly co-operative and so only half of them are in the picture. Good-bye Elders Skeem and Monillas! We'll miss you! (and to missionaries reading this, we do keep track of when missionaries are supposed to get home and expect you to contact us . . . you know who you are) ~


A random shot of Jack, seriously he is the cutest boy on the planet! He has been speaking in complete sentences for quite a while and makes us laugh by picking up phrases. His latest is "I HEARD that!", said in response to anything we say about him within his hearing ~


Beth wrote her name for the first time on a note to Grandma and Grandpa K (and see how good Kylie's writing has gotten)!~


Megan has really enjoyed cooking using the cookbook we gave her for Christmas (and the apron Christy gave her). Last week she found a recipe for homemade lemonade as asked if we could make it. As I didn't have 13 lemons in the house, we had to wait until I went shopping (and even then, we only made half a gallon as 13 lemons are a lot!) Tonight she wants to make "pasta with homemade cheese sauce" which is basically pasta with Alfredo sauce. I think I will have to teach her the time-honored recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo taught to me by my grandfather instead of using the recipe in her cookbook :) I was probably about her age when he taught me :)




For the school open house, Megan wrote an essay about herself, taped the sheets of paper it was written on together and added a head colored to look like her, hands and feet. It was nearly as tall as she was! ~


Here is her essay (censored for personal information) ~

Hi! My name is Megan Rose K****. I have 6 people and 4 pets in my family. My favorite animal is a penguin. My favorite color is rose red. My friends are Paula, Destiny, Connor, and Jose. My favorite food is cheese. That's why people call me "little mouse". I also have a brother and a little sister who are hilarious. I have 1 brother and 2 sisters. They laugh at me a lot. (On one vacation it was for my birthday) My best friend, Jill, and her family came over. They gave me a webkinz platypus. I am the biggest kid in my family. I love to make toys. Once I made a Dora in the box. It was for my sister's birthday. Also, I fix books. I make lots of books at home. One time I saved my brother. My birthday is July 31, 2002. That's when I'm going out and putting little jewels on my feet and getting my ears pierced. I have my own email and a purse. My email is **********. (It's the kids email I say). My favorite dessert is rice pudding. My favorite dinner is mac and cheese. I hope you learned more about me!

(If you want Megan's email address let me know - she loves to correspond by email with people!)

Snow, Part 2, and other pictures

First two pictures from the night Megan made dinner. She graciously allowed Kylie and Beth to help her. Beth dumped the rice in the dish and then made the rice bag dance on the counter. Kylie drank in every word as Megan detailed the process with an imaginative narrative, expounding on her methods as she shaped the porcupine balls.





More details about our snow holiday ~

Jack's favorite part was eating the snow, which he did every chance he got. The picture of him kneeling by the green turtle sandbox (see the first post about snow) was taken between bites of snow off the edge of the sandbox. Beth enjoyed the snow, especially throwing snowballs at me while I took pictures of everyone else and cleaning the snow off the swings. Kylie also enjoyed pelting me with snowballs while I had the camera in one hand and had the other hand over the top so the lens wouldn't get wet (the snow was falling pretty heavily). Megan preferred to aim at Rob and actually managed to hit him with several snowballs. Simon ecstatically joined the snowball fight, but had to be put inside when he kept trying to pull everyone's gloves off and kept pushing Jack down in his enthusiasm. Kylie and Megan were most involved in the creation of Mick the snowman, who Beth insisted should be named Frosty. A compromise was finally reached and Frosty Mick the Snowman was christened.

Rob and I headed inside following Mick's creation, but all four kids stayed outside and thoroughly enjoyed frolicking (used that word just for you Rob!) in what eventually totaled over 13 inches of snow. We not only broke, but smashed the record for the snowiest day in recorded North Texas history. The previous record was 7.5 inches. I believe we have also broken the record for the snowiest winter ever in this area as well as they were talking about getting close to breaking it before this storm. We had already hit 3 inches and it was only February!

Megan and Kylie stayed outside the longest. They built a seat on the back of Mick, resulting in him starting to lean forward at a somewhat precarious angle. Once they came inside, we let Simon back out again. Simon promptly discovered sticks (!!!) sticking out of the snowman and had a ball jumping the four feet to perform an enthusiastic amputation of both arms. He then noticed the carrot nose and attempted to amputate that as well, but Mick's height foiled him. Simon's jumping removed even more of Mick's frontal support and he now looked as though he had a severe case of vertigo. Rob snuck out and tried to fix Mick before the girls saw, resulting in the following . . .



Oh well, RIP Mick! :)

We took it easy that afternoon. I worked on homework, the girls watched tv and Rob and Jack napped.



Megan got tired of watching tv and headed back out. Discovering Mick's demise, she decided we needed another snowman. Simon helped in the creation of this snowman, resulting in the necessity of a second carrot nose (or third if you count Mick's) when he helpfully ran off with the first one.



Kylie joined Megan for a bit, then they both came inside for hot cocoa topped with whipped cream (yes, we went a bit heavy on the whipped cream that day - we had a large container of it that Kylie had been assigned to bring to school for a Valentine's party, which was canceled due to the weather).





We got a phone call from Keith and Dana (Christy's boyfriend's sister and her husband) who live down the street, inviting us over to go sledding. They have a wonderful sledding hill in their yard and live close enough to us for it to be possible to go over there. None of the kids had ever been sledding before (that I remember - Megan may have when she was one or two) and were thrilled at the prospect!

We made cookies to share, then loaded everyone into the minivan. It usually takes maybe 2 minutes to get to their house, but since there are no snowplows and there was already a good 9 inches of snow on the ground, it took a bit longer. We ended up parking on a nearby street and hiking to their house so we wouldn't get stuck trying to get back up the hill on the way home. Christy left work early to join us, but party-pooper Ron didn't want to drive 30 miles to go sledding. I don't know what he was thinking :)

One problem we had was that we didn't have any sleds. They don't sell them down here. Fortunately Keith and Dana have a pool and therefore pool toys. Christy also stopped and bought a huge inflatable pool raft shaped like a catcher's mitt. By the time we had gotten there, Keith had already made part of the catcher's mitt explode by running into a tree, but that made it much easier to drag it up the hill - we just grabbed the dangling pieces :)

We all had a blast! First I took pictures, then Rob and I switched places. Our camera stopped working when Rob tried to use it, so I don't have any pictures of me, but I think Christy or Dana took some :)







The pink raft didn't work quite as well - it had netting in the middle so whoever was soaking in the pool could feel the water. The netting tended to get stuck in the snow. Kylie and Jack got stuck halfway down the hill, so Megan and Rob graciously sledded into them to get them moving again ~







After sledding, Keith and Dana invited us in for dinner - a combination of beans and sausage that Keith had been cooking and a pot roast that Christy made since the plan (before it decided to keep snowing) had been for Ron, Dana and Keith to eat at her house. We ate my oatmeal cookies as an appetizer :)

Christy spent the night at our house and the following day, Rob and I woke up at 5:30am to get Beth to the surgical center. It's about a 20 minute drive, so we left an hour before we had to be there. We slid a few time and passed quite a few cars that had wrecked, but managed to make it there safely. It made me glad Rob spent so much time as a teenager fooling around in his car and making it spin out in parking lots!

Beth's surgery went well. The doctor ended up removing a mole behind her ear too. It would have probably had to be removed at some point and having had a few removed from me as an adult, I would have preferred to have had them removed as a child, under general anesthesia. The reason he removed the mole was that it was covering the area he usually removed the piece of fat from (Beth had a hole in her ear drum and so they fixed it by putting a small piece of fat through the hole to fill it). He came out and asked us if we wanted him to just remove the fat from a different area, but as long as she was going through it anyway, we told him to just go ahead and remove it.

I was really impressed by everyone there! They gave Beth a nasal gel to begin the process of knocking her out, then waited until she was almost out of it. The doctor himself came out and carried her back so she wouldn't be scared as she knew him. He held her while they used a mask to give her enough gas to put her under, then after she was out they put her IV in. They called us back when she started to wake up and she was cuddled on a nurse's lap instead of lying by herself in a bed. It was the best I could have imagined the experience to be :)

Beth's recovery was pretty quick. She slept all the way home, then seemed fine the rest of the day. She did nap for a while and that night complained of some pain. I gave her the hydrocodine she had been prescribed. She got really giggly and very silly. She spent much of the evening laying on my lap, saying "mommy, Mommmy, MOMMY!" and I would say "What?", to which she would say "I love you!" and give me a big kiss :) She spent that night sleeping in our room (I had Rob sleep in another room so one of us would get some sleep - he let me sleep the next day in return) and really hasn't had much of a problem since then :)

One final picture - Kiki did our dishes while she was watching the other three kids (Meg and Kylie had a snow day and were home) and used rubber gloves. The kids thought the gloves were fantastic and confiscated them. Kylie and Jack as "firefighters" ~

Fun Homework!

Yes, I have pictures to post and stories to tell. I'll try to get to that this afternoon :)

I've gotten a few requests to share my assignments for this week. We are studying how context and perspective change a story and are using the story of Cinderella as an example. Last night's assignment was to change the context of the story to see how the story changes. Tomorrow's assignment is to rewrite the story from the perspective of two other characters. I'll leave off the whole analysis part :)

Context change ~
In the modern-day world, a single father with one attractive and talented daughter (Cinderella) remarries a single mother with two chubby and much less talented daughters. The father dies, leaving Cinderella in the care of her step mother. The step mother resents Cinderella’s beauty and talents and openly ridicules Cinderella in an attempt to make her own daughters feel better about themselves. The stepmother excuses her daughters from many chores and Cinderella’s punishments tend to be much harsher than those of her step sisters.

The night of prom, Cinderella’s stepmother refuses to buy her an outfit. Cinderella tries to borrow items from her stepsisters, but they refuse to lend them. Her stepmother grounds her for asking to borrow the items, then leaves to chauffeur her daughters to the prom. After her step-sisters leave, Cinderella sneaks out the window and goes to a friend’s house, borrows a dress and goes to prom.

While at the prom, Cinderella manages to catch the attention of the quarterback of the high school’s football team, but has to leave early to get home before her step-sisters do so her absence won’t be noticed. The quarterback asks her out the next week at school though; they end up dating for the rest of her senior year and running away together the following summer.

Perspective change ~
As Narrated by the Step-mother ~
I was thrilled to marry my second husband. Life with my first husband had been very difficult; he was very controlling and quite a skinflint. My first husband’s death had provided my daughters and me with financial stability and I hoped my second marriage would bring love into our lives. Unfortunately my second husband died shortly after our marriage, leaving me to care for his daughter. Like his first wife, his daughter, Cinderella, lacked tenacity and self-esteem. He had voiced his concerns in this area to me and hoped that the examples my daughters and I set would help Cinderella to become stronger. I learned from my first marriage how important it was not to allow yourself to be controlled by someone else and did not want Cinderella to have to go through a similar experience.

That girl is next to impossible! I tried everything I could think of to teach her to stand up for herself and not allow other people to walk all over her, but nothing worked. No matter what I told her to do, no matter how unfair I tried to make the situation, Cinderella would just do what I asked. As the night of the Prince’s ball approached, I knew how much she wanted to go. I hoped that such a strong desire would finally goad her into sticking up for herself and asking for a dress, but instead she came downstairs in some monstrosity she created from scraps! Obviously she couldn’t go out in that outfit. My girls even showed her how flimsy and tattered it was, but she just didn’t seem to care anything about her appearance.

I was so disappointed that I hadn’t been able to help her that I could barely concentrate at the ball. When the Prince’s footmen came by with the shoe, it didn’t even occur to me to have Cinderella try it on as I didn’t think she had gone. It appears that she managed somehow to find an appropriate outfit and make it to the ball after all! We are so happy for her that she found someone who loves her! Hopefully the prince will take good care of her. She must have found some gumption from somewhere to have managed to make such an impression on him. I hope I helped!

As narrated by one of the Prince’s footmen ~
Having worked for royalty for so many years, I’m used to ridiculous requests, but this one topped them all. Finding a girl the prince decided he was interested in using only her shoe. Does he really think only one person in the area will fit that shoe? The whole staff has been working overtime for weeks trying to prepare for his ball; we were really looking forward to taking some time off. What kind of an idiot spends the whole night with someone and doesn’t even ask what her name is? It’s a good thing the prince is so well liked or I think we’d get a lot more doors slammed in our faces.

We finally found her! That only took six hours of my life. I’m so glad that girl heard us and came in to try the shoe on. What kind of mother doesn’t even know one of her daughters was at a ball? How did they not hear what was going on and come forward? It would have saved us a lot of time and blistered feet. Now we get to go back and clean up from the ball. I guess its all part of the job though. If you work for individuals who are so privileged, you should accept that you work to serve their every whim without considering your own needs. Maybe I should have listened to my father and been a farmer.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful . . .

First a few pictures that were on the camera and hadn't been uploaded yet ~

Random picture of Jack ~


Making Valentine's Day cookies for Family Home Evening ~


Beth in the birthday crown she has worn almost every day since her birthday. She says since it hasn't been anyone else's birthday that it's still hers ~


Megan made dinner by herself last night using her Paula Deen Kid's Cookbook. She decided to make porcupine balls, which are meatballs with rice in them. When the meatballs cook, the meat sort of shrinks and the rice expands and ends up sticking out all over so the meatballs look like little porcupines. We had green beans with it too. It was delicious!


We woke up this morning to screams from Jack's room where Megan, Beth and Jack had been sleeping. SNOW!!! Everywhere!!! School was not canceled for some reason, but we decided to keep the kids home anyway. They haven't missed much school this year and they don't usually get a chance to play in the snow down here. Rob decided to stay home too, but is checking his emails and voicemails from home. A large portion of his clients are on the east coast, so he has only had one client contact him so far today. Good day to stay home! The girls' school is actually sending everyone home early as it's still snowing and we have over six inches already. It's supposed to snow for about another 12 hours, so it looks like we might actually end up with a foot or more!

We started off our snow holiday with oatmeal topped with whipped cream ~


We dug out the snow gear and sorted through it. We had lots of stuff for Jack, some stuff for Beth, a few things for Kylie and nothing for Megan. Granted all the stuff for Jack was girl stuff, but he didn't mind :) We pieced together enough stuff for all four kids to semi-comfortably play in the snow. Megan ended up wearing my boots, which are much to big for her, as we could only find one of hers. Rob even bundled up and all of us headed into the backyard. We had a snowball fight and then Rob and the kids built a huge snowman (about 6.5 ft tall) that Rob named "Mick" due to his slightly crooked nose and smile. Apparently Rob thought he resembled an Irish boxer.


















Simon LOVES the snow. He loves it so much that we had to put him inside while the kids were outside. He kept knocking Jack down and trying to play tug of war with everyone's gloves.


We're making tuna melts for lunch and this afternoon we'll have a hot cocoa party.

Yay for snow holidays!!!

Aren't you supposed to relax on the weekend???

Life has continued to be insanely busy. I really feel like Rob and I have switched roles. He now only has one major responsibility on his plate outside of our family - his job. I feel like I'm working two full-time jobs. We've laughed over the changes recently.

This weekend for example . . . Rob and I have always sort of divided up watching the kids. I get up with them at night, then he makes sure I get to sleep in on Saturdays (and Sundays when we had church later). He would often have to wake me as he left for a meeting or something like that. Megan's first two years of school, I would set out her clothes and he would get up by himself with her and get her ready. They would kiss me as they left, trying not to wake me, then I would get up with the other three a bit later. I think my days of sleeping in are over. Saturday morning I had to leave for a meeting at 8am, so I was up by 7 or so. The house was quiet and everyone else was asleep when I slipped out the door. I got home around 1pm, got bread made and rising in the oven, and loaded everyone into the car to go pick up Rob's car at work (we had picked him up the night before to go to Costco together after work and forgot to pick up his car on the way home). I took Rob's car, ran to the farm to pick up some stuff, then drove home, where I prepared dinner. We had Kora and Bret and their kids over for dinner, which was a lot of fun, then Rob and Bret left to go watch the UFC at Buffalo Wild Wings and Kora and the kids went home. I got the kids ready for bed and worked on homework for a while, then went upstairs and got ready for Sunday. I have a hard time going to sleep before Rob gets home, so I waited up for him. He got home around 1am and then we talked for a little bit, so I got to sleep around 2am. I woke up at 5:45am, rolled out of bed quietly after 6am, and got myself ready for church. I left around 7am. The rest of the family was still sleeping. It was even sort of dark outside. Church meetings starting at 7:30 and then church until noon. Rob and the kids stayed home as Beth and Jack can't go until April due to Beth's upcoming surgery and I didn't want Megan and Kylie to have to sit out in the hall alone for an hour when no one else was at church. I got home from church, spent some time with the family, took a 2 hour nap (3.5 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it!), then got up, made dinner, had our version of a Superbowl party, which involves eating a picnic dinner of fingerfoods in front of the tv, and left for a meeting. Got home around 9:30pm and Rob and I did a project that Kylie needed for school today, then I got to do homework for an hour. This week promises to be busy as well since I have a major paper due for my class on top of everything else. I had not realized quite how slow paced my life used to be!!!

There were a lot of good parts about this weekend though. My meeting on Saturday morning was a Regional training meeting for leaders in our church. There were leaders from at least 100 congregations there. We had the amazing opportunity to have the 1st counselor from the General Relief Society Presidency (which is the presidency over the Relief Society program throughout the whole Mormon church) there, along with a counselor from the General Young Women's Presidency (the girls' youth group) and a member of the General Primary (children's group) Board. The man in charge of our region of the church was there too (LDS congregations are divided up geographically into wards, or congregations, then a group of wards is a called a stake, then a group of stakes is called a region). We got to hear from all of them, then they divided us up by group and we got to meet with the individual over our organization. Sister Allred, the 1st Counselor in the General RS Presidency (see here ~ http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,7928-1,00.html ~ she's the second one down), taught our group. It was amazing to get the chance to learn from her!!! I wouldn't have missed it for the world - it was even worth getting up early for, which anyone who knows me will know means a lot coming from me! :)

Having Kora and Bret and their kids over was fun too! Our kids get along really well, which always makes it nicer as we actually get to spend time talking with Kora and Bret :) After dinner we played a game they had brought called Battle of the Sexes. We divided up into teams based on gender, then competed against each other, answering questions from areas that would be considered to be information the opposite gender would be more comfortable with. For example, the guys were asked questions about cuts of diamonds, spices and fashion brands (among other things). The girls answered questions about military history, monster trucks and guns. Kora and I totally creamed the guys! We made it across the board and all the way back in the time it took them to make it across the board once :) Go Girls!!!

It should be another busy week. Beth's surgery is scheduled for this Friday. I'm not horribly nervous about it - it's a pretty simple surgery. The only real risk comes from the anesthesia, but she didn't have a reaction to it last time they put her under and we are having the surgery at a children's surgical center, so they are used to dealing with little kids. I'm more concerned about keeping her from getting sick for the next two months. I guess we'll just keep her sort of trapped in the house. Poor Beth and Jack (who will stay trapped with her), but hopefully this fixes the problem! :)

Yay Rob!!!

Once a quarter Rob's department has a cocktail hour where the whole department gets together. Four awards are given out each quarter - one to an individual from each team. From what I understand, the awards are for the team member that the rest of the team feels has done the most to help the team that quarter. I'm sure you've already figured this out, but Rob got the award for his team for last quarter!!! His team said that the presentation he gave on how he runs his book of business (the group of businesses he is in charge of) was amazing :) I can't remember if I included this in another post, but the handout he made summarizing his presentation to his team was passed on to the managers of the other teams, who then passed it to their team members. Apparently the whole department is starting to change their approach based on Rob's ideas! Go Honey!!! You are awesome and we are so proud of you!!!

A few recent pictures ~

Beth in an outfit she put together the other day (by the way, she now wears those glasses fairly often - she wore them to Walmart this afternoon) ~



These next two pictures were taken by Beth. I wish they had been centered more as I think they are a great depiction of Jack and Simon's relationship :) Jack loves that dog! He plays with him all day and never fails to say hi to him as soon as he sees him each morning, complete with a big grin. I think my favorite thing they do together though is when Jack cow-tips him. Cow-tipping is a somewhat common youth activity in Idaho (or at least people tried to convince me it was - I never actually saw it done) where you go up to a cow, pull the front legs and back legs together and push, tipping the cow over. I don't know if it actually works on cows, but it sure works on Simon! Jack comes charging at him from the side with his arms spread wide, capturing Simon's front legs with one arm and his hind legs with the other. Simon doesn't seem to mind. I think things like that are why boys need a dog, not a cat. I don't think any of our cats would allow Jack to cow-tip them (even though Harlequin is about the size of a cow) ~





This evening Jack walked to the back door to let Simon out and let out a yell. He came running towards me screaming "SNAKE!!!! SNAKE!!!" Megan ran over, happily exclaiming "It's a worm!!! In our house!!!" Poor misguided worm who thought our house would be a good place to escape from the rain flooding our backyard. Megan carried him around for a while, explaining all about worms. Jack kept his distance. I don't think he trusted Megan's diagnosis. She tried to show him the worm, but he ran to me, grabbing my arm, again saying "Snake, Mom! Snake!" I explained that it was actually a worm. Jack got a puzzled look on his face and said "Worm???" Then apparently deciding that snakes and worms were tarred with the same brush, he yells "Worm, Mom! Worm!" I finally made Megan put the worm back outside, but she requested a picture first ~