Road trip!

The stars aligned this weekend, and we got to visit a whole lotta people we love - Nana and Papa, the Hachtmans and the Smiths (plus Lyndel :). The drive to Iowa City to visit Jared's sister's family is only 3 hours from our new town, so we took a 3-day weekend to have a blast with them. The drive was lovely - we didn't realize how beautiful this part of the country is. Or how smelly. Jared is convinced there are entire farms out here dedicated to stink. Stink Farms, he calls them. Regardless, we persevered and got to Iowa City Friday night and passed out. The next day, we hit the town - it's a really cool place! Although perhaps our tiny town makes everything else look cosmopolitan...

Saturday night Nan gave us adults a REAL treat and offered to watch the girls while we went out and watched the new Harry Potter movie. We all gave it as many thumbs up as possible, and the girls REALLY enjoyed their girls night in :) Nana barely survived, and we're especially grateful to her for the night out!

Sunday we went to church and rested. There was a brief period where all 3 girls were asleep... it was magical...

The girls loved all the Nana attention!

That afternoon we took a quick jaunt to the Mormon Handcart Park.

As we walked up to this sign, Solei cried out - "The Book of Mormon!" We couldn't understand, until she reached up and showed the word "Mormon" to Elisabeth and explained that word meant "Book of Mormon." Dang, they didn't even teach her that word on Sesame Street... she's way to observant. We'd tried to explain about the pioneers and such before we got there, and at one point on our walk, she walked up to a man and told him "My ancestors walked across the plains!" Wow.

Also, the night before, the girls had watched some princess-y Disney movie and when they found a stone bench, they took turns laying down and having the other one kiss them to "wake" them up.

Then Monday, we had a super treat and got to go to Nauvoo and see the sealing of one of our favorite families - the Smiths!

It was an incredible experience and we are so grateful we got to witness it - AND see our fabulous friends again.
Especially exciting was that Solei got so see Sierra again - she talked about it non-stop on the way there. We were lucky enough to get this adorable picture:

I especially liked that THIS was what it took to get that adorable picture :)

One very sweet moment was when Solei and Sierra were playing on the steps of the temple, and Solei told Sierra "You were sealed to your mommy and daddy in the temple today!"

I can't believe the things she actually picks up on... Anywho, we're so grateful that it all worked out and we got to play with all the peeps we love. We need more excuses!

Longest Post Ever

Sorry this is so long in coming. As you will hear, this has been a whirlwind month or so. With all the interviews that I had, I only received one job offer. NUK USA offered me a position as their supply chain manager. In all honesty, this is a miracle for a number of reasons. First, the economy is horrible and everyone who is working should be very happy. Second, this job is perfectly aligned to my skill set and experience and if I do well, there is huge opportunity for me to advance and move on (NUK is owned by a huge European conglomerate called Total and they own a lot of different things). Third, did I mention the economy was horrible?

The bad parts of the job were this. First, it is in Reedsburg Wisconsin. For those of you who know us, we are NOT small town people and Reedsburg is a town of under ten thousand people. Moving from the 8^th largest metro area in the USA to small-town Wisconsin: not our idea of a step up. Second issue was our home in GA. Because we were planning to stay put for a while, we bought a “fixer upper” in the best school district we could find. We had done some fixing upping, but we were far, far away from sell-ready in this market. The though of selling the home in it’s current condition and in the current market was a potential hit we could do without.

Since we were without options (and career-wise this was a good move) we got to work fixing up our home to sell. A photographical presentation is available here (thanks mom): http://monkeyseatbananashome.blogspot.com/2009/06/miracle-transition.html

It was 3 straight weeks of 15 hr days with hammer in hand. Our ward came over one night and painted. We had 20+ people painting away. We had all sorts of mishaps like breaking the water main, cutting the phone line, cutting the cable line, and some paint spills, but the end result was an amazing transformation. Our realtor could not get over how different the home looked from its previous incarnation. So, away went our things into moving boxes and then into a truck, on the market went the home and off to Wisconsin we went.

We must stop here for a minute to say, that we were crushed with the idea of leaving Atlanta and our friends. We had great friends and family close. It really was the perfect situation. We shed tears as we said good-bye and miss our friends terribly. No more free baby-sitting, Our Daughter had to leave all her little friends behind, and just when our ward started getting more interesting – off we went.

We pulled into Wisconsin on July 3^rd after an unpleasant day on the road (traffic was a mess). We got our own little furnished apartment and started to get settled. We’ve tried hard to get into the community and find fun things to do the first week we were here. On the 4^th there was a parade in a local town (a town with just one street and maybe 20 homes). The picture is of a huge cow that they pushed cow patties out the back of. The patties were advertising for the cow chip tossing contest coming up...

We had a blast at the ward 4^th of July picnic. Our Daughter even won the contest for most patriotic outfit (the wife dressed her, I wore my commie t-shirt). We had a slip-and-slide, great food, and talked to lots of great people. The Church is a great vantage point for fireworks in Baraboo (where we live). So we enjoyed that too.

Sunday was nice, we had a nice time in our TINY ward. So small. So very small. The wife already has a calling as a primary chorister and the bishop already has two callings that he wants to give me, but isn’t sure exactly

where I need to end up. Wonderful people.

This week I spent at work and getting settled in. I manage people who have been working for the company since I was literally 2 years old. How do you manage someone who has been in the SAME JOB (not just the same company) for 25 years?? This could be challenging… Working at NUK is a lot better than the last two jobs I had. My boss is logical and progressive in his thinking. He is not overbearing and, more importantly, he is a thousand miles away. The staff at the plant is great, they are doing a great job and really need no “fixing”. The job that I have is actually a little more complex than simply managing older people. My job is to transition the entire supply chain from “Company X” (who owned the plant last year) to NUK (who bought the plant this January). It’s a HUGE job and will take a lot of work from me specifically. On the plus side, “Company X” is still performing the supply chain functions and I just need to replicate them at our facility. AND – this is a huge opportunity career-wise.

So, this week we immersed ourselves in Wisconsin culture. We went to the county fair – where Our Daughter rode her first carnival ride and was scared to tears for all but the first 20 seconds. She screamed that she wanted to go home the WHOLE RIDE. The video is funny but painful at the same time, so it most likely won’t be posted anytime soon. We had funnel cake and saw all the show animals. Best of all, it was a short 3 minute drive from our apartment.

We also went to the outlet malls. They are just 10 miles up the road. You know you live out in the middle of nowhere when you live by the outlet malls…

The Wife and Daughter went to see The Circus World Museum. The Ringling Brothers are from the town of Baraboo, where we live, and they still have a presence here. The Circus World is like a stand-alone circus. The girls saw an elephant stand on a ball (the only one in the world who can do the trick) and a tiger act.

The big event (besides us buyi

ng a car on Saturday) was going to the demolition derby. This really deserves a post of its own, but I’m lazy. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's 2 thousand words worth of pictures. Two words: It Rocked. Demolition derby is a huge thing here. It went from 7:30 to after 10pm (we had to leave to take our daugher home). We sat close enough that the big trucks actually flung dirt on us.

Here's the kiddo playing on a tractor at the fair:

Hopefully the wife will start posting again too...

33 times

We celebrated Jared's 33rd birthday this week with a Nachoooooooooo Libre party and I made this video of the Top 33 Reasons Jared Is Awesome to celebrate his 33 turns around the sun.

Job Hunt Update

So, as you may or may not know, I was laid off a month ago.  We have been very prayerful and have looked very diligently for opportunities for employment.  Our hope is to be able to stay in Atlanta.  Due to some great friends helping out I've had good leads - including options in Atlanta.

Right now, here's where we stand.  I am being considered for a position just outside of Madison WI.  It's a job supporting a newly purchased plant as a supply chain manager.  Yesterday I had an interview with the CEO and if I go to the next step, I plan to be one of 3 candidates who they will interview in person.  I should know very soon.

Job two is in upstate NY, just outside of Buffalo.  It's the same type of role.  I'm not sure where I stand in terms of other candidates, but I spoke with the recruiter extensively and she is recommending me for the job.

Job three is with a global manufacturing giant.  The job is in Houston and would support their Wind Energy division.  It's getting lots of stimulus money and the business is growing.  I fly to Houston next week sometime to interview.  

I also had a phone interview with the SR VP for Supply Chain for a HUGE local home improvement store in ATL.  Hopefully he liked me enough to carve out a place for me.

My in-laws are having a special fast for jobs this month as all but one of us are either unemployeed or on shaky ground.  We are praying for a job that would not make us move, again.  We'd appreciate your prayers.

Vacay

On this, our awesome trip to Colorado, we have done many awesome things. Mostly soak up all the Gamma time we can get.

There has been hiking:



There has been gardening:

There has been an AWESOME excursion to the pool:

There has been a "very first ice cream cone" experience:

He was just as shocked as you are:

And there has been mommy time.

Life. Is. Good.

Happy Mother's Day

Man, I'm glad I got the mom I did:)

a few things....

Most of you are already informed on the comings and goings of our family, but I'm going to still give a recap of a few latest happenings for y'all:

First, a few weeks ago, Jared got laid off. It was a bit of a surprise, but not at the same time. We're excited to be job searching again and have Daddy around all the time. We are REALLY hoping to stay here in Georgia, but the unemployment rate is pretty high so we're keeping our options open.

We're tightening our belts, too. Something interesting I noticed today - the last few months we've been trying a different approach to food storage. We have our 72-hour kits and emergency preparedness stuff, but we were told that a good idea to getting that 3-month supply is to just buy twice as much of your staples and usual foods when you go grocery shopping and you'll eventually have a nice little supply of food you actually eat. We now have a decent amount of the canned veggies and pasta and such on hand, so not having to grocery shop very much has been nice and comforting when you eye every penny going out more carefully. I wondered if we were nuts the last few months when we'd buy a big pile of one item and wonder when we'd eat it all, but now I'm grateful for our small stockpile :)

Oh, and speaking of food, there's a website I like that I wanted to share - http://mealplanningmommies.blogspot.com/ . It's a simple blog some nice ladies out there have where they plan meals and put them all out there - always simple, they give you the cost per serving and even put pictures of every step up! I haven't made too many of their meals, but I love the way they blog and make it all so easy and understandable - and it gives me ideas of my own.

Now, this last weekend was one heckuva whirlwind for us - my brother Quinn got married in San Diego and Jared and I flew out Friday, got there just before the ceremony, then flew back the next (EARLY!) morning and I rushed out to play a gig that night. We knew it was going to be exhausting but we also knew it would be worth it. It was wonderful to go to the temple and be around so much family and celebrate a new member of our family.

She is really, really short compared to Quinn and the rest of the family:

Quinn was really happy:

And I couldn't get enough of how beautiful it was, and mainly how GOOD it smelled on the temple grounds!:

I didn't get any family shots because - well, trying to get my family together to do anything really is like hearding cats. It drives Jared completely bonkers. But it was so, so good to see everyone and feel that happy feeling you can only get when the whole family is together. Our newest sister-in-law - Mara - is actually from Brasil so now Jared has someone to make snarky comments about the rest of us with in Portuguese. He still has to watch himself though - I still know about 4 words in Portuguese and I'm not afraid to use 'em.

Solei is still the smartest, weirdest and funniest kid we know. Her reading vocab has grown and she'll not beg us to help her "build a word." She can spell her name and loves learning new words to recognize - like sun, fun, mommy and daddy, cat, dog, etc., but she keeps begging us to teach her "bum." Weirdo.

Oh, and in case you didn't get the memo, I'm 5 months along now and the baby in my tummy is a dude. Still processing that - but please do NOT try to cheer me up about it - I was an only girl with 3 brothers so the idea of having to deal with a little boy is NOT something I relish. And if you tell me I'll love the boy when I meet him, remember I couldn't really stand Solei until she could talk - not a big fan of the baby stage, remember? Cool thing about Solei is she advances so fast, she is always quickly becoming something I can handle and dig. We do know Heavenly Father gives us no more than we can take, so we're expecting another genius kid (I'm REALLY hoping for a clone of my younger brother Dallin).

OH - and this is good for a laugh. A few weeks ago during Family Home Evening, Solei did something completely unexpected during lesson time and PAID ATTENTION. I was just shocked and realized I had to make this story about Easter and the ressurection good - but was unprepared since Im not used to her paying attention to my stories. How do you explain coming back to life to a 2 year old without her assuming really odd things about death?? I muddled through it and even Jared thought I'd made it as easy to understand as possible, as well as engaging (hey, she was paying attention!) When I got done, I asked her if she understood me, and she nodded her head gravely and whispered to me in a serious voice -

"Daddy's going to kill us."

WHAT?!?! I couldn't stop laughing and Jared was completely befuddled. Now, she adores daddy and knows he's wrapped securely around her little finger, so where she came up with that, we'll never know. But she took comfort in the fact that later we could be ressurected. I think I need to work on my lessons...

And, okay, one more bit of toddler hilarity - today I was standing in front of the silverware drawer that we was trying to open. She told me to move - which I didn't do, and reminded her (for the 74th time today) that NOT how we talk when we ask for something, so she sighed and said "May I PLEASE have a get out of the way??" This time it was Jared's turn to laugh.

And now you're all up to speed! We know we're not the only ones in the unemployment boat, and we're praying for those of you who are with us in that. Here's to hoping for good times ahead!

Deliciously religious!

Need a laugh? Check out these Book of Mormon stories, by a bunch of marshmallow peeps.

Easter dressy

Happy Easter!

Today was just spectacular and a very happy day. Jared spoke in church - wonderfully, I might add, we had pretty Easter dresses to wear (Solei and I, not Jared) and had an Easter egg hunt! It's late or I'd write more, but for now here are some pictures Jared took of our Easter finery:

play dough fun

The weather yesterday was INCREDIBLE! Unfortunately, it was also St. Patty's Day and as a celtic musician I was running all over town and didn't get to spent it with Solei, who spent it with friends and then Nana (she got Chuck E. Cheese for lunch!!). So I felt like there was a little pressure to make TODAY awesome too... but the weather started out cloudy (I don't go outside on cloudy days) and didn't clear up until just now.

So, I improvised. I found a bunch of good homeade play dough recipes here, and settled on the super easy oatmeal recipe - so easy a 2 year old could do it. Allow her to illustrate:

Start with a half cup water, and half cup flour:

One cup Oatmeal:

Mix well

Moosh it up nice and good with your hands:

You're ready to play!!

Some things we did were make a gingerbread man and then poke holes in him:

Make a cat and poke holes in that:

SQUISH IT!!!!

Make a family - with a baby in Mommy AND Daddy's tummies:

Plus lots of alphabet fun, including Solei's favorite word, her own name:

Since she's known her alphabet for over a year now and she has started reading, she gets a bored quick with alphabet stuff so making her own letters (I did make those though:) was a new twist.

Oh, and for some dumb reason, she got really excited about giving mommy a tail:

Long Overdue

I know, I know. It's been forever since you guys did any posts and we want to know what is new with you guys and it's making us really sad that you don't ever write and we are super depressed and can't go on with life. Okay, I get it.

Things have been going fairly uneventfully for the last little while. So, I decided to give you a quick run-down of our weekend, which will give you a good feel for what life is like in general.

Friday night was big. Some friends of ours from the ward invited us to go to dinner and play games at Dave and Busters. We usually don't get invited along to things like that (I blame it on my stunning good looks). So, we PAID for a sitter (more on that later) and went out for a night on the town. We had a wonderful time and since half of the couples (there were 4 total) were still in the pre-marriage stages of thier relationships we felt like we were dating again - at least for a night.

We played lots of games and won tons of tickets (unfortunately a good portion of them were from the quiz game - I apparently am a geek). All the tickets we won got us a small basketball - which would have been just stupid, had we not had a kid at home who now LOVES her new basketball. We stayed out late and when we got home the sitter was still asleep. (By the way, the Wife STRONGLY recommends the snowmobile game).

Saturday morning I was up at 7am for a church basketball game. I haven't played any sports regularly in years and when I have played them I usually either ended up on the ground choking for air or throwing up or both. I'm woefully out of shape. Since I'm starting to get some tasty love handles, I made a goal to play on our church basketball team. Thankfully the team is bad enough that the fact that I have a pulse and know the basics of the sport qualify me for participation. We actually won a game two weeks ago, our first win of the season. Well, that didn't happen this week. In fact we lost by 40 or so points. We actually were in the lead for the first 5 minutes or so, but then we got tired and since only 5 people showed up (you need 5 people to play basketball for all you non-sporters out there) there was no rest. By the time we hit the half I thought perhaps I would die and was seriously questioning my goal to play. Thankfully a 6th man showed up at the half and I was able to sit down for a while. There was no heaving on the ground or throwing up in the bushes, so I considered the game on Saturday to be a success.

I think a mommy roach and a daddy roach loved each other very much in our bathroom a few months ago, because there is always one in there when we turned on the lights. (Either that or their is some sort of super roach that is able to reconstruct itself from the smooshed remains that are flushed down the toilet after I kill it - but occam's razor leads me to believe that there is more than just one).

Because I find finding roaches in my own personal bathroom unacceptable, I decided to do something about it. Now, when it comes to bugs or animals living in my house I am a "no holds barred" kind of guy. So, in order to rid us of this plague, I spend my Saturday cleaning out our bathroom and bug-bombing it. Somehow I managed to get a full trash bag worth of trash out of a room that is 6x8 and is mostly bathtub. I scrubbed EVERYTHING. I even scrubbed the floor with a sponge on my hands and knees. I set off the bug bomb and waited. All that work and only 1 roach came out laying on it's back. So - maybe occam's razor is wrong.

While the big bomb went off, we went grocery shopping. WooHoo! Nothing like taking a 2 year old to the grocery store. When we got home she actually took a NAP!!

Which gave me precious time with my wife, which we chose to use playing with our new toys instead of actually interacting with eachother. You see, we got iPhones.

Yes, the day came where I found such a good deal that I thougth purchasing an iPhone was worth it. Now, for you who know me - I am a gadget FREAK. I love gadgets and I love even more tweaking and breaking into them to make them even more awesome than they are supposed to be. Such is my iPhone. It is AWESOME. Go get one. The only problem is that I can't store files anywhere on the stupid thing and I can't create excel or word files either. Jerks.

Saturday evening we spent at a party for "young married couples" from our ward (or congregation for you non-mormons). We are not sure why we qualify as young married people. The wife even suggested that it might be about time for us to divorce and re-marry to be sure we qualify next time around. We had a good time and got to know some of the people we don't get to spend as much time with as we'd like to.

Papa watched our daughter why were were at that activity and they had a marvelous time. Papa and Nana introduced her to "Curly Temple" as our daughter calls her. She loves watching her. Our daughter is a lot like her as you will see in the below video:

Today was a little crazy. We had a wonderful service today at church. During Sunday the drizzle we had been "enjoying" turned to snow. All the teenagers' brains turned to mush and they went out to "frolic" as on called it. I love the south because it's not cold and it doesn't snow. Today the south failed me.

I invited an old boss and his wife and kiddos over to dinner tonight. We had a great time. I cooked a killer meal and spent WAY too much time cleaning up the house to get ready. The Daughter REFUSED to take a nap at all, even though she was going to take it in her new "rainbow" bed. She now has her own toddler bed, which we thought we would need to transition her into, but no, she slept in the new bed the first night with no problems at all.

Finally, we are also trying to potty train our little angel. We've done a good job of getting her to use the potty, but she doesn't always tell us when she needs to go. The obvious solution is to put her on the pot every few hours, which we do. Unfortunatly that only works for pee-pee. The solid stuff is a little bit less predictable. This week she got her first very own pack of "elmo" brand big girl underpants. This has actually been a big success, generally. She loves that she is wearing them and understands that she shouldn't go pee-pee in them. In fact she wore them all day today up until I caught her grunting. She apparently had to poo, but didn't feel the need to do so on the potty, so Elmo is now kind of a reddish-brown. This is the same girl who stripped herself down on Thursday morning and climed on the pot to do the number two - all by herself. We aren't there yet...

After cleaning up the kitchen, I'm exhausted. I need a nap and a day off. Unfortunately, tomorrow in Monday and I have to be up bright and early for work...

Did I mention that we all have colds and I lost my voice. That makes life AWESOME.

Have a good week.

Suburbs...

The phone rang just a few minutes ago.  It was our neighbor.

She says, "I wanted you to know that I am out in the backyard and there is someone walking through our backyards.  Can you turn on the light in the backyard?  I'm out here with my firearm.  Can you come outside?"

Normally the neighbor asking you to come out into hte backyard because there was someone out there and they were armed would not be something one would like to do.  But, our neighbor is a police officer.

I got the shotgun out of the basement and loaded two rounds.  Tomorrow I'm going to buy the strongest floodlight I can find.  

I love living in the suburbs...

Happy day!

Background: Potty training has been coming along. Usually, it's us sitting her down on the toilet and certain times in the day and she can go like a champ. She has on occasion told us when she needed to go potty, but we usually are doing the directing.

Just a few minutes ago, I was tapping along on the computer when I saw Solei walking around my bedroom stripped down to her diaper. "What are you doing? Where are your jammies?" I asked her.

Solei announced, "I am going peepee in the potty."

Huh? Okay, I ran around to the bathroom to put her little helper seat on our toilet and when I came back, she was sitting sans diaper on her little potty that she'd dragged out into the room and put right in front of Curious George on the TV. Without. Me. And then, on further inspection, I realized she'd already gone potty. All by her blasted self. She didn't even want me to make a big deal about it becayse then she couldn't hear George.

Who would have ever thought urine could make me cry happy tears???

Freebie

I may be behind the boat here, but I found a faaabulous FREE program online called Picnik - a easy fabulous alternative to the expensive and confusing Photoshop. With just a bit of tweaking, check out what I did to this picture of Solei I adore:

There's so much you can do, I want to go tweaking and playing with my wedding photos now! Enjoy!

I'll take credit for this one

Nana to Solei, whole musing over pictures on a bulletin board at church: "Who is that?"

Our genius 2 year old: "Thomas Monson!"

Heck. YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Possibly the funniest 4 minutes of TV EH-VAH!!

Why yes, I am insane. Thanks for asking.

For the last few years I have had two life goals. One was to make cheese. I don’t exactly know what makes cheese so infatuating to me, but I think if I could go back and pick a career again, it might just be making fine cheeses (although I’m not sure I have the patience for it). My first birthday after I was married my wife was sweet enough to buy me a “home cheese kit” which allowed me to accomplish this goal. Since it was mozzarella, the patience thing wasn’t even an issue.

Life goal number two is just as random. After watching about a million episodes of MASH while I was in grad school I thought that watching those helicopters flying around looked pretty cool. Now, I do have this fear of falling. It’s not abnormal, but the same fear of standing on a ledge that I think most people have. Nevertheless, I think that flying in a helicopter would be really cool. Since it seems like an uncommon, yet accessible thing to do, I want to do it.

During 2008 I think I added one (or maybe two) to my list. My new life goal for 2008 is a little time sensitive due to inevitable mortality. My new life goal is to meet Mr T. Honestly, I would have loved to meet Fred (Mr) Rogers before he died, but never had the chance. All the interviews and presentations that I ever saw him give were so loving. Now, Mr T is not Mr Rogers and they are not the same, but if you look around enough, you can find some very touching personal interviews that Mr T has given about his life. He loves God and is grateful for everything he has. A small part of me thinks that he would make a great president (of the USA). He’s loving and tough at the same time.

Now, my final goal is most likely not going to happen for a few reasons. Reason one is that I fear bodyguards and what they could do to me. Reason two is that I am generally a pacifist and don’t typically attack people randomly. Reason three is that I most likely won’t ever get the chance to meet Dave Matthews. Yes, my “non” life goal is to punch Dave Matthews in the nose. I swear he is the anti-Christ and I want him to know that I will not stand for his tacit destruction of Christianity. EVIL I say!

My wife says that I need to keep these “Crazy” things to myself because her friends and family won’t be jealous that she got a great guy if they think I’m insane. Hm….

Budding Photographister

SO - The company I work for makes digital cameras. We started making them for preschoolers. a few weeks ago we sold off some functioning returns that we had and I bought one for my daughter. She LOVES the idea of taking pictures, but most of them come out like this:


They come out like this because, basically, my child thinks that the camera should always face you (she has a career in TV). Well, after some time and some long (and repetitive) conversations, she figured out that the camera goes the other way (most of the time).

So, now we get pictures like this:



Then we moved to a good picture of daddy (from the prospective of Solei of course):
I had to jump into this one:
Here's a close-up of our friend Pascal:
One of the cool things about this camera is that you can superimpose disney charactors on your picure (or just ignore your friends completely as seen below):

Here's mommy! (It took a lot of self control to not post the picture of mommy on the potty that our little girl took).
And FINALLY - she seems to have figured it out!

Awesome.

How to be the world's greatest houseguest

Words cannot describe how fabulous it is having Pascal here! He's the greatest houseguest for a myriad of reasons - let me count some ways!

* He entertains little children with greatest of ease!

* He doesn't get annoyed when certain tired and cranky pregnant people want to lay on the floor and do nothing - he'll just join you!

* He cooks. OH MY HECK does he cook!

*Jared and Mike actually like him. And they don't like ANYONE (except themselves).

* He'll teach your kid to use a climbing wall.

* He'll do this thing where he links all the computers and printers in your house and give you some music files that amounts to about 40-something days of continuous play before a song would repeat itself. YEAH. HE DID.

Only problem is, he keeps agreeing with Jared on all the dumb stuff he says. Like we need THAT. Aside from his obvious poor judgement, we are sure going to miss him. Thanks Pascal!!

the official 4th Year of Insanity video

4th Year from Reva Paget on Vimeo.

It's the annual year-in-recap video! It's shorter than usual because a broken hard-drive took about half of the pictures with it, but I gathered enough to highlight the good times of year 4. Enjoy!

4. Years. !!!!!!!

4 years ago today I went against my louder judgement and said "yes" to being sealed eternally to Jared. A few weeks ago when I realized we were closing in on year 4, I almost hyperventilated, realized how long ago the day was 4 years ago and how much had happened since then. I'm coming to terms with it - just finished out anniversary video (can't post it until Jared sees it first) - and I'm filled with a feeling of peace and joy.

A while back, my younger brother (you should really read his blog, it's HILARIOUS) asked me if this was how I'd pictured my life turning out. Honestly - no. I never expected to be this happy, loved, and have this much fun, all thanks to Jared. Nope, I'm not a rock star per se, but I'm supported in all I do and it makes my exploits that much more satisfying.

4 years - we've lived in one apartment, 2 continents and 4 houses, had 8 cars and 2 scooters, we're on 1. 2 kiddos now, 6 jobs between the 2 of us, and a few haircuts in between. Much love, sweetheart, thanks for 4 wonderful years!!!!


PS - Also - I had an ultrasound yesterday and the baby was DANCING! Wiggling and grooving, it was awesome!!

Totally Random...

Yesterday I filled the tank on my car for less than $15! That's amazing. That'll get me 300 miles or so. Not bad at all. I'm glad that we bought an old Saturn.

Today I came home from Church to find my daughter in the arms of my wife, their eyes linked as my beautiful wife told my daughter a story before nap time. Seeing two people you love love eachother that much is amazing. I feel very blessed.

Friday my wife and I had the chance to see a sealing (or wedding) in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These are very sacred and special ceremonies. We were married almost 4 years ago in the same ceremony in a Temple in Denver. What an amazing blessing it is to be married for time and all eternity, instead of till death do you part. I am amazed how much I am able to love my wife and now our daughter and it brings me the greatest sence of comfort and joy to know that the three of us (soon to be four) will be able to live together as a family for eternity. I'm so happy for my friend who was married and know that she and her new husband will have that same joy and opportunity.

Finally - my headaches came back on Saturday with a vengence. Stress is my enemy. I'm working on massaging my own feet in the "headache" spots and I think it helped last night. I didn't get a headache and was able to sleep through the night. I'm grateful for my wife who loves me and helps me, even when she's the pregnant one...

Do they even make a fish autopsy??

Life has been really random these last few weeks. The wife, who currently carries our next offspring, is feeling the effects of said carriage. She's not the most happy of campers. Just as the holiday ended my headaches started coming back. For those of you who don't know - I get headaches once a year or so that (according to wikipedia) are the worst pain known to medical science. They are called cluster headaches. They were waking me up at 1am and keeping me up half the night. It's like training for a baby again.

So, I've tried everything for the headaches. The medication the doctor prescribes is $10 a pill - after insurance. I need at least one a day. So - the wife insisted that I try something different. So, I saw that melatonin is supposed to help. I started taking melatonin. Reflexology was suggested as a possible cure - so I subjected myself to an hour long foot massage. Oh the horrors. It was a very interesting experience. Look up reflexology on the interweb sometime if you are interested in knowing more.

As the woman rubbed my foot she would hit pressure points that actually hurt. These were tied to areas of my body or metaphysical aspects of my consciousness. Her findings were the following:
I am stressed.
I feel like I don't control my life at all.
I don't participate in anything that I enjoy (no stress outlet)
My creativity is being stifled

So - theoretically she rubbed the headache out of my body. Well - that night I didn't wake up with a headache. Then last night - I didn't have a headache. I think I might be better. I'm not sure I think that the reflexology was 100% the cause, I feel better and that's the most important thing.

Now for something totally random, our Daughter got two fish from Santa this year. She LOVES fish and we couldn't think of anything that she would want besides a fish tank. It was a good gift in theory.

Yesterday I got home from work and our daughter ran up to me and said "Daddy, it's almost time to feed the fish!" Well, I said okay. We went to the fish tank and the tank was empty. I turned to my wife and said "where are the fish??" Well, upon further inspection, I found one partialy sucked into the filter system (I assume he died before the filter got him). The other guy was totally gone - totally. Well, then came the interesting task - to start looking for the missing fish without our two year old understanding that the fish was gone. We spotted the fish on the floor. So, no more fish.

What I don't understand is how on earth did both fish die? One apparently committed suicide by jumping from the tank, the other was just dead. Maybe it was murder-suicide? I never trusted that gold colored fish. He was always a spaz and picking on the black fish. The Black fish was always sickly. There aren't fish autopsys, are there??

Reason #967 Jared is the awesomest guy ever

Today after our meal at the restaurant at Ikea, both of us decided we really needed a hot dog from the food place downstairs. Since lines all over were indecently long, he headed down to get them while I gathered up Solei's stuff and my parents and followed. Just before we got to him, Jared called and said "hey, the line was shorter than I thought, so I'm waiting for you. I already got your weiner."

.... "what??"

At this point, we could see each other, and he smiled big waved his arm at me and called across the lobby "I GOT YOUR WEINER!!!!"

(apparently, he also repeatedly asked the ladies at the food stand for weiners. "Ma'am, are those my weiners?") Sooooo mature.

Also, he actually REQUESTED I get him these jammies for Christmas:



Why yes, they do glow in the dark.

New Child

The wife has spread it all over the internet except here -

We are having another child. The expected delivery date is sometime in Mid- August. We are very excited. This week the eyes, nostrils and ears will develop (week 6).

We are both very excited!!

Strange how things work out

So, I spent the afternoon today visiting a warehouse location in Atlanta that I am considering as an option for my company. When I was convinced to stay with Digital Blue I was told that I could focus my efforts on changing the way our company operated their supply chain. I've spent the last few weeks really concentrating on these opportunities.

This afternoon I came to the realization that I have a once in a lifetime opportunity. I have essentially been given free full control to totally re-create our whole supply chain. It's a big opportunity that I would most likely never have.

Sometimes I think we have to stop and really look at where we are in life and see how amazing some things are.

Reason #863 Solei is a flipping genius

She insists on calling oyster crackers "hexagon crackers". Yes, we taught her what a hexagon was, and no, we didn't call the the crackers hexagons - she just figured it out herself.

We know where the brains come from, but luckily I know she got at least SOMEthing from my genes because she's also emotionally needy and super hott!

Solei-isms for the day

During prayer on lunch: "Thank you for Mommy's toothbrush and bless her toothpaste."

Then after lunch: "Daddy, that was apple-tizing!"

Meeting a girl older than her at the airport:
Girl: "How old are you?"
Solei: " One!"
Us: "No you're not!"
Girl: "Wait, are you 2 or 3?"
Solei: "I'm So1ei P@get!"

sappy video

For anyone who knows my mom and has 8 free minutes, here's the video I made of her first 60 times around the sun:

It's not the best editing job I've ever done, but it was done super fast and it made her bawl her eyes out, so I take it as a success.

So warning - Aaron Paget: it is long and boring to those unaquainted with the lady, so do NOT click on the play button. The boredom you will experience not having known the woman will possibly make one of your eyes fall out. You should probably send me cookies for saving you 8 minutes.

HAPPY 60th MOM!!!!

Imagine you are the awesomest woman ever, approaching your 60th birthday. You don't make a big deal about your birthdays (in fact, you keep your age a secret from lots of people, including and most importantly, your daughter in law). But, your husband has planned a big trip to Hawaii to celebrate and you grudgingly go along with it. Your only regret is that it's over Thanksgiving and you wish you could have your family all together for the holiday, but you know that's not happening since your kids live far, far away.

The vacation is a success - your husband treats you like royalty, wines and dines you and you even go snorkeling and take a surfing lesson! You reluctantly fly home, knowing that Colorado snow and your crazy stressful job teaching elementary school awaits the next day. Your second oldest son picks you from the airport and has a surprise waiting for you when you pull up to the house - he woke up early that morning and shoveled your driveway for you! Tired but grateful, you walk into your house. Wait a second... who cleaned the kitchen....

Suddenly, little figures appear, walking towards you - holding yellow daisies. What are your grandchildren doing in your kitchen?? They are in Atlanta, right?? And Kentucky?? You start screaming. And what is that - is that your son - and your other son - and your OTHER son - and your daughter and daughter-in-law - and your neighbors snapping pictures at you???

.... I don't think I can give the whole scene justice, but believe you me, it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. It's been in the works for a year to surprise mom for her big birthday since Jane discovered mom's real age and decided to throw the ultimate surprise party. Oh, the lies!! Oh, the deception!! With so many people in on it, you'd think that SOMEONE would have messed up and ruined the secret, but by a miracle, it was a total shock!! We didn't even jump out and yell surprise because we were afraid we would give her a heart attack. Heck, we almost did! We came from New York, from Atlanta, from LA, from Kentucky, from 10 miles away. We actually came in to celebrate Thanksgiving together, unbeknownst to mom. Dad knew and kept it all in amazingly.

So yeah, I blew it at the end of NaBloPoMo, but poor Jane and I were doing it together and the biggest thing we were doing we couldn't blog about since mom checks our blogs every now and then (it's been TORTURE!!!)- the last 3 days I've been so surrounded by preparing and spending every waking second with my wonderful family - and putting together a fabulous sappy photo mpongage of my mom's life, I didn't have a second to give to the blogs. I think it's a pretty awesome reason:)