Of Mice or Men

Yesterday I had a fun time with my sister Katy. We went out to lunch and had a great time. One of the things we talked about was how she was glad she had a cat to get rid of the mice. Speaking of mice last night I had an adventure with one. I was watching a show when I look over at the furnace and catch sight of a mouse running behind it. I told my husband and he starts looking for it. Then he decides to try and catch it and he had a pretty clever plan unfortunately the mouse had moved before he could put it into play. He looks around for it some more but it seems it had disappeared. Meanwhile I am on a couch keeping my feet off the floor. Maybe I'm scared of mice but I just say it's because I don't want it running over my feet. So I go back to watching my show. A little while later I see it run into the kitchen. Abe grabs the stuff to catch it meanwhile it was about to escape so I threw something in front of it to scare it backwards a little. I actually ended up hitting it but it worked just the same. We finally get it trapped into a corner and almost got it caught but it managed to escape and run under our fridge. By this time its bedtime so my husband blocks off a path to our bedrooms and we go to bed. That's the last that we saw of it. I hope it's smart enough to leave the house. Oh the joys of owning a house. It almost makes me want to get a cat, but not quite.

Education Week

Can I tell you that education week is like a little bit of heaven? I learned so much during the week and had a lot of fun with my aunt, and mom. We would share desserts and go to classes together. I got to spend some time with a couple of my nieces and nephews and that was a blast. They are at such a fun age right now.

I would love to write down everything I learned but that would make for a really long blog that no one would want to read. So I will just pick my favorite class, it was Brad Wilcox's on the Atonement. I never really thought about some of the things he explained. The spirit would be there to let the things that he said really sink it. One of the things that struck me was the difference between the Savior's role and the role of the Redeemer. I always thought of them the same but he said that the Redeeming role was a renewing, refining, perfecting role. Not only are we cleansed from our sins but through the Savior we can be changed as well. This may sound familiar but it really struck me this time. I think he was also the teacher who said how even our best isn't as best as we can be without Him. If that made sense. That when we are filled with the spirit we are better than we would be without it. I could go on and on but I'll leave just those two things. And I'll tell you that if you ever get a chance you should go to education week, because it is life changing. I have a whole bunch of new ideas to try. And I am excited about the future. Anyway that is my enthusiasm for education week and hopefully it wasn't too overbearing.

5th Anniversary

I just had the best anniversary ever. I was spoiled so much by my wonderful husband. So to tell all about it, Thursday night we drove to our hotel and then went to a late night movie at an IMAX. First time I ever watch one of those and boy was that screen big. We saw Inception, I liked it, but it was one of those movies that kind of leave you hanging. I love going to movies. There is just something fun about watching a movie.

On Friday, we went to lunch at a Greek bbq place. It was pretty tasty. We went bowling and that was great. I hadn't bowled forever. I won all three games. But I got progressively worse so did Abe. Then we walked around a mall and I got to drool over some chocolates as well as get a free sample to eat. We went and got some yogurt. Then we ended up at two different D.I.'s where I got to spend some money on books. I love getting books. That's why D.I. is so great. Then at night we went to a Jack Johnson concert. For those who aren't familiar with him he is the one who wrote the music to the movie Curious George. We had a little traffic trouble on the way there so to avoid it on the way back we left a little earlier. Abe was really sweet and got us hotel rooms that had a big jetted tubs. So any down time I had fun taking a bath.

Saturday, we switched hotels and in the morning Abe bought me an hours massage. It was really nice and relaxing. First time I ever got a professional one. Then I got more spoiled by a play. The Pirates of Penzance, one of my favorite plays. I love the music and they did a good job. It was at a Hale Center Theater so it was a round theater. I thought it would be tough because of the small space but they used it well. They even started the play by raising a ship right out of the floor. The singing gave me chills because it was so good. I really enjoyed watching the daughters this time. Usually they aren't anything special but this time they were fun to watch. After the play we had a late lunch at a Belgium Waffle place. It was like Denny's but tasted better. Then we went back to the hotel and watched a show called Top Shot that was a shooting competition. It was interesting to see the different challenges. They had them shot sling shots, bows, as well as the different type of guns. Then on Sunday we went to church and then came home. It was a good trip. Hope you all are jealous.

Modesty

Gwen will sometimes say the strangest things. The other day we were driving and she said that she turns like a doggy, mommy turns like a monkey, and grandma turns like a doggy too. If any of you can tell me what that means I'll be really impressed since I have no clue whatsoever. She has been really enjoying drawing lately. The other day she kept drawing spiders. Of course she doesn't know how many legs they have so hers had about a hundred. They were really cute. And finally today she decided to wear all her clothes backward. It looks really funny but she loves it. She is also wearing a tank top today. I told her to put something under it, I said it was immodest and she said. "I like immodest. It's my favorite immodest." The way she said immodest was without the im but I knew what she meant. What to do with her?

Dying of Boredom and Depression

This is one of those nights that the only thing to make me feel better is make a big batch of cookies. My husband is trying to make up for lost money by working two jobs. He doesn't go in very often for the second one but when he does I feel lonely. It doesn't help that I keep forgetting when he is going in so it's a total surprise to me when he never shows up for the dinner I made him. Well it was a delicious dinner without him. I decided to experiment with curry. The recipes I've made before all came from a recipe. This time I just took a few ingredients from around the house and put them together. Sometimes it's a little scary doing this but it turned out well. The only thing that could have improved it was more curry.

Now just to make you all jealous I'm going to tell you what I'm putting in my cookies. Other than chocolate chips I have nuts and coconut. If I get really crazy I may start putting in stuff like broken up candy bars. But I may not do that since I already experimented with dinner. Wish you were all here to share them with me.

Potty Training trauma

So I thought I was pretty much done with potty training but it turns out that Gwen has reverted. I feel like I have to start over or something. I'm almost tempted to just put her back in diapers and call it quits, next time she can potty train herself. I would rave on about how upset I am about this but I'm sure that no one wants to read about it, so I'll change the subject.

I just got back from a trip visiting my family. It was a lot of fun. It was very relaxing. The next fun thing I have planned other than my 5th year anniversary is Education Week. I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll come back from it uplifted and ready to handle life again. So I should have a lot of fun in a few weeks. If things go according to plan I'll also be taking some classes this fall. So we'll see how it goes.

A Nice Surprise

Yesterday Gwen wanted to bring her pajamas over to Grandma's house so she could sleep over. Grandma said it would be ok so Abe and I had the night to ourselves. He took me out to dinner and afterwards we went home. I was thinking we would just watch a movie or something but he told me that we were leaving again. I asked him where but he wouldn't tell me. Turned out that he bought tickets for a play. I love to go and watch plays. It was Pride and Prejudice. I was excited to see what they would do with it. They did a good job for how short they had to cut the book. There was no big scene changes the action led from one scene to the next quite quickly sometime in the middle of a sentence. Example night time Caroline Bingley says "I hope Jane recovers so that we don't get a visit from... (morning) Mrs. Bennet how good it is to see you." My all time favorite character was Mr. Collins. The actor who played him was good. He talked in a smarmy voice and it was just hilarious how he played it. But this is one of those things that you just had to be there. It was a wonderful night.