The great sprinkler explosion of 07

First, let me apologize for the little javascript alert that's been popping up on my blog. I was running some tests for some script I wrote for a client. I didn't realize the code was affecting my blog- it was supposed to just be my own website that no one looks at anymore. Anyways, I got the code to work and can now market it to clients to save them a couple thousand bucks. I'm pretty excited about it.
So, all sorts of excitement around here. First, more new pictures here. Second, my parents sold their house, at long last (after 8 months on the market- apparently no one needs a six bedroom home anymore)! Yay! I'll miss that house, but I'm happy for my parents.
We had some yard fun this week. Kenny has been reshaping the dirt outside our door so we could make a proper lawn out of it.
He had noted the sprinkler system looked fragile so he was working very carefully around it. He needed to move some dirt so he gently dug it out under the sprinkler pipe, which was about half an inch beneath the surface.
I was being lazy, inside, watching TV. All the sudden, Kenny opens the door and screams, "Get me a flathead screwdriver!". Didn't seem like the type of thing to question,s o I start running in circles thinking, "if I were a flathead screwdriver, where would Kenny put me?" I finall find the righgt toolbox and grab 10 screwdrivers or so, hoping that the bunch included the one kenny needed. I open the dor and run out, only to find myself in six inches of water, rapidly heading for my poorly-sealed front door. When Kenny had lightly brushed the pipe to move some dirt, it just burst. Suddenly Kenny had the equivelant of a dirty firehose on his hands, so powerful the two ends of the pipe couldn't be brought together. Mind you, this is all happening at the top of a retaining wall to keep our dirt/house from falling onto our neighbor's lawn.
Fortunately, the oldest daughter was home upstairs and helped me get the water turned off while Kenny wrestled with the hose. The result:

So, we've got it all back under control and finally have a walkway and grass seed down out there. Kenny's also working on a dog house for Lucy. We take her to puppy school each monday night, where she embarrasses us by being the most playful, energetic, hard to control puppy there. She did, however, get "lay down" faster than anyone else. She's a good dog. Kenny has so much patience with her. Me, I just clean up the pee and poop without complaining. Training for motherhood, right?
Anyways, we're preparing for our trip to Houston next wednesday. I'm sure I'll have updates then.

For Shame

Alright, alright. Today I realized that it has been a month since my last blog post. I don't have a great excuse, other than I've been busier at work. In other words I can't justify spending company time blogging. Then I get home, and want to be anywhere but in front of a computer.
Anyways, news from may- this is the recap I sent my sister-in-law for the monthly family newsletter:
-We went to Hogle Zoo for the first time and really enjoyed it.
-Lucy hurt her paw really bad at Kenny's work and limped and cried for about a week. She's all better now.
-We discovered that Lucy loves to go down playground slides and have been exploring the parks around our new home looking for bigger slides for her.
-Kenny's birthday went great. We threw a big party- 18 or so people came, and at any moment we had probably 6 video games going on various TVs. It was a lot of fun.
-Kenny got a pair of prints from his favorite artist, Brom, for his birthday. They are currently getting custom frames and we have eagerly cleared space on our wall to display them proudly.
-Kenny sold his vespa! While it will be sorely missed, we just weren't using it anymore and Kenny got a great price for it. We were able to spend some of the extra money on some new games and clothes for both of us.
-We're enjoying teaching the 6 year-olds in primary- they love to see Kenny's drawings and sit on my lap.

I'll just leave it at that for now. I'll try to be better about mor blogging, but don't hold your breath:).

Be careful what you wish for

Last week we got a call that the Bishop wanted to meet with us- surprising, considering he had met with us last Sunday as a welcome-to-the-ward meeting. So we figured, yay! we get callings. We mused all week about what callings we might get. I asked Kenny "How would you feel about a primary calling?"
"Are you kidding?" he says, "That would rock!!!"
Yesterday morning we got set apart to be Primary Teachers for the Valiant 10 class. :). We're quite happy about it, and to be in a ward that's so on top of things.
Other happy news-
Kenny looks quite handsome with his beard. And his usually-upset neck skin is happy and relaxed, which he is quite excited about. I just have to get used to the pokey kisses.
We saw the opening showing of spiderman 3 on Thursday night (technically Friday morning). It was good- definitely on par with the other spiderman films.
Saturday, we started our new role-playing group. I get to be a superhero with mind tricks and invisibility and stuff. Kenny is the group healer. I've never done an RPG before, so this is a whole new level of nerdiness. We had a lot of fun, though. However, it was the longest that Lucy had ever been left home alone- 7 hours. The poor thing. She had made quite a horrifically stinky mess of the bathroom and then walked all over and tracked it over her whole portion of the house (bathroom, laundryroom and hallway, fortunately all tiled.) So I had Kenny keep the now very-excited-to-see-us puppy entertained while I cleaned up (gag) and mopped the whole back of the house. Kenny was sweet and mopped the front half later in the day in preparation for company.
Then, this week, Kenny's parents are coming to town. I'm really excited and yet pretty scared- I'm thrilled whenever I get the chance to be with Kenny's family, as I feel we haven't had much of a chance to connect yet. But at the same time, I'm scared because I know I haven't always met up to expectations. They mean a lot to Kenny and I and I just want them to break whatever barriers there are and be able to act like family. I think the plan is to go out to dinner with Kenny's mom and dad (and little brother) on thursday or friday, then on Sunday we'll go up to Logan to visit the rest of the family in the area- I'm pretty excited about that, because I've already spent time with Margie and Bryce and their families and feel comfortable with them and have always had a good time in the past. Kenny always loves the chance to talk to Bryce about video games, and now we can introduce our puppies- they are pet-cousins, after all.
All in all, lots going on right now, mostly all good things.

A very long post after a very long delay

Finally, things feel like they make a little more sense again. This has been a very hard month for us, but a very exciting one too. Last night we got most of our boxes and things organized and our home is making a little more sense. Also, Lucy finally slept through the night last night with no accidents or mid-night whimperings. This is VERY exciting.
We got to officially pick up the puppy a few weeks sooner than we had originally anticipated, which was great. She is such a sweetheart, and so smart. We are VERY glad to have an all-tile floor, but she's definitely getting better about the potty-training thing by the day. She's also learned the commands "sit", "no", "drop it", "fetch, "come", "potty", and "ouch" (aka "stop biting so hard"). We finally found Kenny's camera after the move so we can start taking pictures and posting them.
So, we stretched the move over a two-week period. It sounds nice and more relaxing, but really it just means in the end that I had twice the amount of time to worry and stress and feel guilty for whatever relaxing we did manage.
The new place is working out great. We did have to buy our own fridge, washer and dryer, which was unexpected but will be a good investment in the end. It is really hard for me to spend that much money without having it all planned, though. But now we have our own appliances and someday when we have our own house we won't have to start from scratch.
Kenny has been working so hard on "fixing up" our place and making it more our style. In truth, Kenny has REALLY amazed me the last few weeks. He's dealt with finals (and did fairly well), moving, work, and has been the main keeper of the puppy- mostly because he's home more than I am. He even brought me roses yesterday:)- seriously a husband couldn't be more perfect. We had a slight incident the other evening because Kenny lost his temper at the puppy- one of the few times I've seen Kenny breakdown. I wasn't mad at all- it was just Kenny being mad at himself, which is hard to watch. We ended up concluding that Kenny was just exhausted and needed to force himself to relax. He slept for a long time then woke up just fine.
We went to our new ward on Sunday for the first time, and I'm pretty excited about it. The Bishop seems really cool- we had a good chuckle about my "calling" in my last ward (aloha committee member) and how he was going to give me a REAL calling (which I would be fine with.)
Oh, the other big news is that my department at work is going through some major re-organization to account for the major growth this year (my department plans on doubling to keep up with demand). With the new re-org, I have a new boss (Adam, a very nice fellow who works remotely from Chicago) and only 3 team members- 2 of which are more on the business side and one who is more on the tech side (like me). The four of us will specialize in Financial Services and work only with Fin services clients. I love this. It's going to be great to focus on one problem set and be able to really get ahead of the game. It also opens up a lot of career opportunities (a remote new boss means someday working remotely from home may be a possibility.) I've also been getting lots of compliments from those who work above me and it's been very flattering and self-esteem boosting (even though they are often in the form of "you are the most patient/best at handling clients so we're handing you these dreadful clients who need to work with someone like you"). Too bad all I still really want to do is go home and be a mom. Soon enough, soon enough.
My sister Lori moves to Houston tomorrow. I don't even want to think about it, or I'll break down. Lori and I have been really close. I'm just glad she'll be online all summer so we'll still talk all the time. I think it's what the move represents that bums me out more than anything (growing up, separate paths).
Well, I need to not make this blog too long, so I'll leave you with those more important updates. Hopefully now that things have settled we'll all get back into the blog thing again.

A Long post about a short and exciting weekend

The first week of April went quickly enough, and this last weekend was really great. On Friday we went to a Charity Ball at the Provo Library. It was a fancy affair- I got to wear my homecoming dress from senior year of high school. My sister Lori did my hair up and did an amazing job. It isn't very often that I like anything about my hair.
There was a live auction- we bid on and won a paragliding trip for $120. Kenny really wanted it and I figured, hey, we have the money, and his birthday is coming up. It may be the only time I actively participate in a live auction ("120 going once, 120 going twice… sold, to the lady in the blue dress!"). So that was fun. Afterwards we had Ben and some friends over and played games.
Then Saturday was also an exciting day. We got up fairly early and started packing up some of our stuff that we won't need for the next two weeks. We got up to our new apartment and got out own set of keys and everything. It definitely needs some work- one can tell that a cat got locked down there accidentally without a littler box. After attacking the walls with Mr. Clean pads and leaving the windows open, it's not bad at all. Kenny was really good about getting right to work with the cleaning and stuff. He also took care of some spider webs for me. We'll have to get some anti-ant spray- Kenny has this whole ant-phobia going on. My sister Lori came up to see the place and gives it her stamp of approval, which makes me happy.
Then we drove out to Saratoga Springs (middle of nowhere, on the Northwestern corner of Utah lake) and picked up our puppy for the day. She is now 7 weeks old and as cute as a button. We drove her back to the new apartment and played with her all day, doing a little bit of cleaning on the side. We were torn between naming her Lucy or Rosie, but our new landlady decided for us that we couldn't' name her Rosie since one of our landlady's daughters is named Rosie. So Lucy it is. Lucy Rose Underfoot.
At first she was pretty timid and hid in the corner but after things calmed down she had no problem playing with us. We took her for a few short walks and tired her out. We got three good puppy naps in- one where she slept on Kenny's arm and the other two with me. She only piddled on the floor once (hooray for tile)- seems like she is well on her way to being potty trained. We'll have some pictures once sister Lori gets them to me.
Then yesterday, of course, was Easter. I made Easter crepes (we died them pink to make them extra eastery) and put together a nice little Easter basket full of candy. We hardboiled a dozen eggs, but apparently we aren't egg experts. Both Kenny and I remember something from last year about knowing the egg is done when it floats. So we waited for them to float. And we waited. And waited. After almost a half hour, they still didn't float and our place REEKED of eggs. So we gave up and dyed them:). We then hid them from each other in the apartment- 6 each. I've had more practice hiding eggs- it took Kenny a bit longer to find the last three. It was a lot of fun. We also went folfing- I even let Kenny do all 18 holes! Mostly because he was on a role- a couple of his throws were phenomenal. We joked that he sucked what little skill I had out of me because I was throwing horribly, even for me.
We also watched Iron Giant (one of Kenny's favorites) and Alice in Wonderland. All in all, one of the best weekends I have had for a long time.

Bored at work (and general news)

One my main goals at work is to help as many clients as possible finish their implementation of our software as quickly as possible- the faster, the better, for both my company and theirs. Hwoever, getting clients to actively work on it for up to a month at a time is REALLY difficult, and I'm horrible at laying down the law and saying "look, we have a month to do this, then I have to sign off the project". But I'm learning. Finally, last week, with my manager's help, I was able to sign off on 12 projects, bringing my client load from 22 to 10. While this is very thrilling and I'm really very happy about it, it means I now have nothing to do. At all. Every day this week has been a real struggle to figure out 8 hours worth of stuff to do, and almost more importantly, who to bill that time to.
And of course, the whole time, I have this sweet little beagle puppy running around in my head, just waiting to be picked up and brought home.

Oh hey, I have good news! Kenny and I don't have to be homeless next at the end of next month- we can start moving some of our stuff into the new place in a few days and can officially move in on the 22nd or 23rd. Lori Swan (my coworker/future landlady) apparently got news from her current renters that they are moving out at the end of this month (march) and the place will be empty in april. This is happy news for us because we can now move in whenever we want and we can house the puppy a week sooner (now it's just a matter of not getting the puppy before Kenny is done with finals, or else studying will be very hard).

Let's see, other things of note:
-Kenny and I watched "I am Sam" the other night and Kenny really loved it. I had seen it before but still enjoyed it. In fact, Kenny liked it so much that afterwards he was in one of the best moods I have seen him in- and he wanted to watch ANOTHER movie. I've NEVER known Kenny to watch two movies in one day.
-we are going to a charity ball in a few weekends.
-we commenced spring activities last Saturday, with some Frisbee-golfing, ultimate Frisbee and tennis. It felt great to get out and be active again.
-It snowed today. 4 inches or so on my car. I'm pretty bitter about it.
-I get to baby-sit for a lady in the ward on Friday. I volunteered to for a Relief Society service auction. Kenny is planning on working, so this will work out nicely.

Changes

So Kenny and I have been married for over 7 months now, and I got to thinking the other day about the many ways we have changed each other o rubbed off on each other. All of the following are true statements that would have been false 8 months ago.

-I get excited/envious when I see a puppy
-Kenny gets excited/envious when he sees a baby
-I don't watch chick flicks anymore
-Kenny goes out of his way to watch movies
-I'll try any recipe Kenny requests (minus spicy ingredients, since I don't handle those so well)
-Kenny no longer does his homework 3 days before it is assigned
-I will no longer buy more than one candy bar during any supermarket trip
-Kenny shows interest in french things
-I love to Frisbee golf
-Kenny pays attention to actor's names and has gotten fairly good at the "what other movie has that actor been in" game
-I read comic books and am actually interested in the fates of Spiderman and the x-men
-Kenny enjoys sleeping in past 9 am (mostly for the cuddling)
-I now go to bed before 11 pm almost all the time
-Kenny shaves almost every day (Or else I won't kiss him)
-I no longer eat roasted garlic triscuits (Or else Kenny won't kiss me)
-Kenny watches movies like hamlet, braveheart, and boondock saints
-I'll watch movies like "iron man: the cartoon" and "titan AE"
-Kenny now technically owns goldfish
-I enjoy walking around malls (without buying anything)
-Kenny cares about politics (at least a little)
-I'm willing to camp out in the walmart parking lot for 38 hours for newest Nintendo gaming console
-Kenny likes Joni Mitchell