Game Day Advice

Fun Fact of the day leading up to Friday's game:

The last time BYU lost four straight football games in the same season, the Aggies represented team No. 4 in the losing skid. They beat the Cougars 58-56 in a wild shootout in Logan, capping a stretch in which defenseless BYU gave up a whopping 219 points in four games.

BYU is currently a 4.5 point favorite.

Map with Directions for parking:



The yellowish star with a red center is the parking lot I would suggest parking in. There are three churches whose parking lots are all connected. I suggest coming in on 600 East and then driving east through the parking lots and parking as close to the star as possible. The red line shows the walking path to the front gate (blue star with red center!). I've colored the section in yellow where I will save us seats. East side, upper deck on the 20 yard line (section 26/27). These seats are ideal as they are the only GA seats with benches. Plus you are sideline which makes it easier to follow the game, and well above the student section so no worries about having to stand.

Since we will be on the east side, the setting sun will be in our eyes most of the first quarter. I suggest hats and/or sunglasses.

Mom and Dad are sitting somewhere on the West side in special senior citizen seats with chair backs. Their section has been colored in red.

townhome update

Working on the inside now, plumbing, wiring, heating and AC

Side of the garages that face the back of the house.

Should be done by the end of Nov

Grandma spent a day fishing with Dale and Don on Palisades. She had fun, not one

fish was caught!

Finished Kitchen Paint

The paint in the kitchen is 98% done - I just have a little spot between the windows to tape off and paint. I like how the color turned out. It really makes the green of the calendar holder and table pop out.

Plus - now that I have finished painting and moving things around I put up some fall decorations.

For Grandma and Grandpa

kitchen table finished!

Rich ran in the Top of Utah marathon on Saturday. He did great and we are really proud of him. Now he is done I have a whole list of things for him to do around the house :)

The table is now finished - here is a little recap of the process.

This is the original table we got for free

I primed and painted the legs a greeny/blue color and then put a dark stain over the paint to get in grooves on the legs. This is the top all sanded down.

This is just after I applied the stain

and here is the finished table - we LOVE it!! Now we just need someone to help Rich pack it back inside the house and I need to find some chairs that I can paint to go with it.

I have started painting the kitchen - here is a sneak peek of the color. I am repainting all the trim too, so I'll post a finished picture in a couple days. It is fun to see some of the projects I have started come to an end.

Passed!

We received the official word today that Brad passed the Utah Bar. So happy about that!

Also, I finally started painting with some help from my mom. Before and afters are up on our blog.

USU Final Call

Alison and I bought our tickets to the BYU @ USU game. No excuses, tickets are on sale. I believe we bought a ticket for Morgan (the smaller one), too.

This is only slightly related, but a really cool story about a former BYU player who found his biological father recently:

Big Events

As many of you know, I've been putting together an application for a position in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Utah State University. As of 10 minutes ago I submitted my application. Now the waiting game begins...

In other news, some of you probably also know that we have been having issues with our oven pretty much ever since we moved into the house (now over seven years ago). After repairing it several times, we decided it just needed to be replaced. Well, it was a single wall oven, but in a base cabinet, and directly below a separate range. A single wall oven starts at ~$700, and a new separate range (which also needed to be replaced) starts at about $300. Neither of those base models look very good. To upgrade to something that would last would probably have been like $1500. This did not seem like a good option. So, instead, on the Saturday before Labor day we made a trip to Sears. There we found a freestanding Kenmore stainless steel smooth surface range/oven on sale for $670. We had to wait around for like 30 minutes for the salesman to finish up with the people in front of us. Perhaps because of that (or perhaps it had nothing to do with it), he checked in his computer and found that he had one remaining unit from last year's model. The units are identical, except the handles on last years model were black, and the range had an extra burner. It was on closeout for $470. We got it.

As a result, I spent all day on Monday tearing out the old unit and breaking down the cabinets. The hardest part was doing it in such a fashion that I wouldn't have to replace all the tile that I'd just done a few months earlier. I used a Dremmel tool I'd borrowed to accomplish that. Once the old one was out, I rebuilt part of the cabinet to make a spot for storing cutting boards or baking sheets. I used salvaged parts of the cabinet I'd just removed. Here's a picture.
I still need to place a few counter top tiles, and build some sort of door for the new storage space. It is nice to have a working oven again.

Here's a picture of the boys having some fun with toothpaste.

Labor Day/Lion King

Here are a few pictures from boating on Labor Day at PineView. As you can see it was a little chilly - 65 degrees I think. But still fun - thanks for bringing your boat down Pat and Dale.

Ty helping Grandpa drive the boat

Kade in the water with Rich trying to get up on skis. He never got up but gave it a lot of good tries - maybe next year!

On Saturday I took Kade to the Lion King with all my sisters and brother. A few of my sisters brought their kids, so it was fun for Kade to sit by his cousins. Our tickets were great - we sat on the main level and in this production there are a lot of animals and people from the show coming down the aisles right next to us. Kade was fascinated with all the animals and sat wide eyed the whole show long. He happily got all dressed up and was excited to go out with the grown ups. When he walked in the theatre he kept saying, "this is beautiful" or "this is so fancy" it was so funny. All the kids were fascinated with the theatre and especially that there were seats above us. My brother in law - Casey, said he saw Trent at the show.

After the amazing show we went to The Mandarin in Bountiful for dinner - one of my favorites!! Kade loves chinese food and was just as excited about eating as he was to go to the show. It was fun having just Kade with me and spoiling him a little.

The kitchen table is coming along - I have the legs all primed, painted and stained. Now I just need to refinish the top and find chairs to paint to go with it. After Rich does his marathon next weekend I am putting him to work to finish up the boys room with the board and batton. The kitchen is primed and I have picked a color - I think. So hopefully we'll have some pictures to show you in a couple weeks. In other news I found Zack like this....

the other day, riding his bike completely naked up and down the sidewalk. I was taking a shower and getting ready so he could have been out there like that for a good 30-40 min. Thankfully most of the neighbors are older and both work all day, or they would really think we were some crazy people. :)

townhouses

Zane turns two and gets a man barbie from Ezri. Look at that face!

Both floors are now all framed in. Dale and Pat walked thru them today, its coming

together very fast. We are excited, I think!

And the gender is.....

Still unknown! I had my 19 week appt. today and so it was just my Dr. doing the ultra sound. The first few images from the front the baby looked very much like a girl - but the images from the BUTT view could had been a boy or just the cord??? We'll have to wait 3 more weeks until I have the 3-D sonogram to find out for sure.

Catfish Fun...and a Turtle

Riley and I went fishing this morning. There are a few small "lakes"/ponds in our neighborhood that we heard had bass/catfish/bluegill, etc. We hit Wal-mart early for some chicken liver and mealworms. Riley's first cast with the chicken liver landed her a catfish in about 30 seconds. Her next cast then brought the biggest surprise of the day...a turtle! Who knew turtles liked chicken liver! We had a lot of fun and with it being less than 5 minutes walking distance from our front door, I see us making many more trips in the future.

Must have snowed in IF this weekend...

cause this is our usual Hebgen Lake weekend, is it not? I am glad it didn't happen this year, as I would have been sad to miss it! Today was the perfect day in Owensboro. Low 80's. Hopefully Fall has officially begun.
Morgan, we are eagerly awaiting some news on the first week of college. For old times sake, take a trip to the Ray B. West building on the south side of the Quad. This was the English building when I was there. Quite horrible. Infested with Box Elder bugs, if I do recall correctly. Check it out and see if it is any better.

Work in Progress

I know everyone, including me likes to see the before and after pictures - but we are still a work in progress so here are some before and during pictures. We got to take the table from the house on Mutton Hollow and I have plans to paint it. I have had a really hard time finding the color of spray paint I wanted to use, but found it yesterday and I am so excited to start working on it. Hopefully Rich can get a guy to help him pack the table out to the garage this weekend so I can start working on it. So here is the before picture....

and I know you can't really tell from this picture and the lighting - but this is the color I am going to paint the table. I think I have decided to refinish and stain the top and paint the underneath. The color is Krylon Tidepool.

Here is the nice, dark red/wine colored walls in the kitchen - I am not a fan.

I started to prime the walls last night - I am so much happier looking and the unfinished primed walls than I am the red.

This is Kade's bright yellow room - not too manly! I have started paint in here. I am doing a really light gray - it looked white in the store when I got it. It is from Pottery Bark Kids and is called Seattle Gray. It looks super cute in their magazine so hopefully it turns out cute. We are doing wanscotting 2/3 the way up one wall with a shelf at the top and the rest of the walls the light gray color.

This is the beach themed room - I pulled down the palm trees and habiscus vinyl flowers on day one - the boys were all disappointed and fighting over who could have them. The tan on the walls is a textured paint - it feels like sandpaper when you touch it. I had to use a hand sander and sand it down - it was a nightmare!

Here is the room after the sand paint was primed and 1 coat of white paint. I had to repaint all the trim in the room and Rich needs to take off the baseboards so I can repaint them because the carpet is so thick it cover 1/2 the baseboard. We are putting wanscotting at chair rail height all around Ty's room and then a gray that is 2 shades darker than Kade's room on the top of the walls.

It makes me happy just to see some progress and I guess I better keep at it while I still have the motivation and energy to do it :) I will post after pictures when I get something done.

A Kentucky Miracle...or disaster, depending on how you look at it.

We have internet!!! We have a new dishwasher! We got the main water valve fixed! But it is leaking again and the plumber is currently here working on it...and we don't have any hot water, so we may also have to replace the water heater. But I am just trying to remain calm and enjoy the internet and the dishwasher :)
I feel like I dropped off the face of the earth...I have so many questions for everyone. I just need to be updated...thoroughly. Ali, have you started painting the kitchen? Are you documenting the process for me?
Buffy, what is your plan of attack with painting? Do you have gold fixtures? I feel like I am in a gold mine. It is overwhelming and I don't know where to start, so I really haven't done much but try and clean. Todd replaced all of the toilet seats. That made a big difference. I don't know what it is about using someone elses toilet, but it makes me feel like I am in a public restroom. We desperately need to get our carpets cleaned and stretched. The owners had strategically placed all of their furniture to hide the fact that the carpet is terribly loose and baggy. Too bad we have to wait to sell the Idaho house before we can really do any of this - It is driving me crazy.
Ooh, good news from the plumber. The pilot light was just out. Phew.
This makes it sound like our house is a real lemon - not really. It is 12 years old and it just so happens that 10-12 years is about when all of this stuff needs to happen. Doesn't help that the old owners didn't seem to have OCD cleaning habits like I do. That would have helped. I doubt the carpets have ever been cleaned. And they are practically (or at least should be) white. Ugh. four kids plus white carpets is never good.
Riley seems to be enjoying school. She gets up and gets ready like an angel, but she can be quite the demon when she gets home. She will say things like, "What? You're telling me that I have to study spelling words for, like, ten more years?" Followed by an hour of moaning and yelling and all sorts of drama, and then, finally, the 30 seconds it takes her to complete her homework.
Sheesh. Seriously, it takes her a max of five minutes to actually do it.
I think I can say that Charlotte is finally potty trained. We went accident free yesterday. I am crossing my fingers today. She has definitely been the hardest so far. I figure we had better get it done before the carpet cleaning :)
Macie has been spending a lot of time with me and Charlotte. She has a preschool screening on the 17th - we are hoping her little speech issues will land us a ticket to free preschool. If not, we need to get her enrolled asap. Preschool here is hardcore. I have found that all day kindergarten changes everything.
Todd's job is going well. I think it is a hard adjustment to make after the serious down time he had at Melaleuca at the end. He worked out a lot. Now we don't work out at all. I have the treadmill in our bedroom upstairs. I used it for the first time yesterday and I think I may have put a little crack in the kitchen ceiling. Oops. I am sure the lights were shaking and stuff. That treadmill is a beast. Add me in my current state and we have some serious impact down there.
Todd got called as the Young Man President. I got called as the assistant activities something or other with my main assignment being to activate the head activities person. Should be fun.
I volunteered to feed the missionaries every week. I figure they are the only other Mormons we know, and they are pretty much obligated to come over when I sign up.
In response to Brad's post about the new Mormon Facebook, the missionaries had just told us about it. They get to sign up and use it too. I feel like every person I meet, I need to tell them first thing...like I need to disclose that I am Mormon, so they don't think I am hiding it. It is weird. It stresses me out. Maybe it is like you said. "Hi, I am Valerie. I am a Mormon. And I am normal. Let me show you." Weird. Doesn't sound too normal, does it? Except that we have been told we aren't supposed to say "Mormon". We are supposed to say we belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is really quite the mouth full. I feel like by the time I get it all out the other person's eyes are glazed over and they are no longer paying attention.
And if they are, they are just staring. Confused. Then you just have to say, "You know? Mormon." Which is followed by their response, "Ooooh, yeah, Mormon."

Well, if you are still reading, I am impressed.
I am sure there will be more tomorrow.