Wandering Thoughts

Jr2's favorite meal

2012-02-09T21:10:00.003-05:00

Jr2 loves sweet and sour meatballs and they are soooo easy to make. He eats 5 - 7 meatballs every time and will even eat them when they are leftovers (He's not a big fan of leftovers). Here's the recipe.

meatballs, about 5 each (we buy them at Sam's club)
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 can pineapple, chunks or rings, with about 2/3 of it's juice
2/3 bottle barbecue sauce (so far Kraft original has worked well)
some green pepper slices (about 1/4 a pepper, but more or less to taste) (we freeze the rest) (optional)
Basmatti rice (optional)

Put the meatballs in a sauce pan. Dump in the rest of the ingredients. Stir. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 20 - 25 minutes. While it's cooking, we cook the rice in a separate pot (the rice cooker actually).

Jr2 even licks his fingers and makes mmmm noises. Sr says his taste buds might not have fully matured yet. I say they have. Jr3 says she wants some too. Jr2 is willing to share (at least the rice).

I should be sleeping...

2012-01-23T23:15:00.003-05:00

I should be sleeping. Everyone else is. Since I'm awake, here is an update on everyone.

I went to weight watchers this last week and weighed in. Only gained 1-2 pounds. Since I haven't been in a month and have been eating whatever I wanted, that is not bad. I have decided to do things in steps. For example, last week I exercised 3 times. This week I am trying to exercise 3 times and drink all the waters I am supposed to every day. In a month or two I will be to the point of starting to track my points. Small steps.

Speaking of steps... no, Jr3 is not walking or even crawling, but I think I will try and enter an official 5k sometime this fall. I guess I better keep up the exercising.

Hubby is working hard and being an excellent help with the kids. He is trying to get in some schooling in those rare spare moments.

Jr1 is enjoying physics and once he even called his dad for help.

Jr 2 is in a new class at the day care. When I asked the other day what he did, he said "Play". He seems to really be enjoying this class. He is also picking up all sorts or new words from his mom and dad, such as "Gross" and "Booger" and "Book". He loves Gordon B. Hinckley's "Stand a Little Taller". I think because it is his Dad's, is just the right size for his hands, and has water-marked pictures in it. He has also been enjoying the "Gobble, Gobble, Moo Tractor Book". Right now all his toy animals like to run, especially over the top of people, with a lot of force. They all seem to say "Moo" as well. Potty training is currently a thing of the past and will have to be revisited at a later date.

Jr3 is also learning new words. She has "Hi Dad" down pretty good. She is now working on "Bubba" and "Bye-bye". She still takes after me when it comes to food. If she's hungry, she's cranky and nothing will change that except for feeding her. Otherwise, she is very good natured and sweet. She and her bubba like to play together some and she is learning to hold her own. She can already pull hair better than her brother, as he has found out a number of times. She loves jumping, especially on her toes like a little ballerina.

Now for a funny story. Since I can't think of one, I guess you all will have to post some of yours instead.

A few photos from VA Beach and Williamsburg

2011-11-11T14:15:00.008-05:00

Since I'm home sick today and loo hasn't uploaded any pictures recently, I've decided to take matters into my own hands...

Tom Sawyer, er, Jr2, took his first walk along the beach (at VA beach back in September). So yes you're right, Sr isn't very timely at uploading pictures either!

Jr2 says, "look dad, all the free sand we can eat!"

family at the beach

Jr2 asks, "did you know that the sand gets really, really wet and splashy here mommy?"

reflections

family at williamsburg, of course libby is being camera shy again!

No biting!

Traditions

2011-11-09T21:18:00.002-05:00

I know you all want pictures of the kids. Too bad. Today is my anniversary and we celebrated with a new tradition or two.

My favorite is we pulled out the book of our wedding pictures and looked through them and remembered our wedding day together. Then we showed a few pictures to Jr2 who amazingly recognized Mommy and Daddy when they were skinnier and even hugged one of the pictures.

Then Sr bought me some flowers. But not just any flowers. Some flowers similar to what was in the wedding bouquet (but a smaller and cheaper arrangement due to budgetary concerns). So I cleaned off the table and put the beautiful arrangement in the middle for us to enjoy.

Jr2 also made it through the day without biting, so he got to vacuum and eat sherbet. Then he had a tantrum once he had to stop vacuuming. Jr3 enjoyed watching Jr2 vacuum and didn't mind the tantrum. She also enjoyed reading the halloween book Aunt Roo sent. She is quite fascinated by it.

Overall, though, I'd say we had a pretty good day.

Names

2011-06-23T12:11:00.003-04:00

So, the name search for the baby continues. We have it narrowed down to four names. We have definitely decided on the last name. O.K. so that was never up for debate so it was easy. As for the other four names, don't be surprised if we can't decide and just end up using them all.

I feel cheated

2011-06-13T23:40:00.004-04:00

So, when following everyone's blogs I look at the list at the side and see when they were last updated and their names. If it is one I haven't read yet I go read it. I already knew that just a thought's didn't always update correctly. Now it turns out that North of Nowhere is not updating properly either. I missed out on three posts. Well, o.k. I just read them later than I would have liked to, although I did know a lot of the information from phone calls. However, the phone calls did not contain the lovely photographs.

In other news, Jr1 is now with us for the next 3 weeks. Things are going fairly well other than the fact that he is having to sleep on the couch downstairs since the air conditioning upstairs does not seem to be working and so the upstairs is running around 91. We will need to look into that.

Jr2 still loves brooms. He thinks sweeping is lots of fun. He also thinks throwing things on the floor is lots of fun. Unfortunately he is not yet good enough at sweeping to sweep up the things he has thrown on the floor.

Sr is having fun learning all about his CPAP machine. It is helping him feel more rested, but it does annoy him.

I'm just mostly tired and can only handle Jr2 on my own for 1/2 to 1 hour increments. After that he has me worn out enough that I need help. Fortunately some ward members came over and helped me out this weekend while Sr was off getting Jr.

I think that is all the non-excitement going on. Hopefully things stay non-exciting.

Walking

2011-04-07T10:49:00.003-04:00

Jr2 has started walking. It just took a little extra practice with a toy lawn mower to hold onto. He still isn't confident in walking by himself, without holding on to someone or something. However, he will walk with the toy lawn mower and basically be carrying the lawn mower as he walks. I guess it could be called the training wheels of walking.

As for talking, his latest word is "Elmo" as we watched the introduction to Sesame Street this morning. He has also said "Tuck" (truck) and "Nanana" (banana). It seems his favorite things seem to inspire the words more than things he doesn't like. His exciting (gross?) phrase of the week was "I go poop". And he had. Of course, that could have just been a proud parent translation of something else.

A few pictures

2011-03-27T20:39:00.004-04:00

Over Christmas

Our overachiever back in December.

November

September.

Here are a few pictures from newest to oldest.

Concert in the Park

2010-09-19T17:51:00.004-04:00

Friday we decided we needed a break. So we made last minute plans and off we went. (That's what you get for cleaning the house all Labor Day Weekend.) We took a look at the internet to see what we could find reasonably close, since we had Stake Conference starting at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Boy, did we luck out!

We found that a town in North Carolina named New Bern (after Bern, Switzerland) was celebrating its 300th anniversary. They were having a concert at Tryon Palace (the old state capital, I think) on the lawn. The North Carolina Symphony was playing and the concert was free! Even better, you could take children. For the hour and a half before was bring a picnic time. We tried to get the picnic, but we ended up totally missing the picnic and being 1/2 hour late for the concert. (Big surprise, huh?)

Anyway, we took our camp chairs. The lawn was full, so we had to sit in the shaded garden off to the side. It was even better than the lawn. Liam loves the outdoors and he loves music. So he had trees and flowers and birds to watch while listening to the symphony. Plus it was shaded! Then there were fireworks at the end that we got to see a bit of. We timed it about right. We got to hear most of the symphony, see some fireworks and then that was about the end of Liam's energy level. The bath after was pushing it a bit much, but much needed.

The other big excitement is Liam has his bottom two front teeth poking through now. Hopefully this means the teething won't be as painful until the next set decides to come.

LizaB Pictures

2010-06-13T15:11:00.005-04:00

Here are some pictures that LizaB took while visiting thanks to Moos request (thanks LizaB and Moo). There are more. I might post them later. If I get around to it.

Feet

The thinker

Aunt Amanda and Liam playing

A few baby pictures

2010-05-18T21:28:00.006-04:00

Ok, Ok... Here are finally some baby pictures.

In his cute froggy outfit he has already outgrown.

With Grandma

With Gran

With Mom

With Dad

Mom's Book and other fun

2009-12-14T17:56:00.004-05:00

You have probably all seen it already, but if not Mom has out a new book. It's a family record keeper that helps you organize all sorts of details. Birthdays, immunizations, etc... I've been wanting one for years. If you haven't seen it, check out http://marysgreathouse.blogspot.com/ for a contest, more information and links to her site about it. Her site for the book is familyrecordkeeper.com

In other excitement, we finally finished unpacking the downstairs boxes Saturday. This partially involved repacking some of the items into other boxes and moving them upstairs. We also put up some outside lights and a bit of Christmas decor inside. Most of Christmas is purchased and ready to go. We still need to finish up the present for John and Cynthia's family, wrap everything, and mail those items that need to be mailed, but we're getting there.

Dottie Pic (Second Post Today)

2009-10-10T17:59:00.003-04:00

Here it the picture of "Dottie" a few weeks ago. Instead of a "Where's Waldo?" this is a "Where's the..." nose, head, arm, etc... Good luck and good guessing.

New Copier / Fax Machine

2009-10-10T14:12:00.002-04:00

No, I don't have a new copier / fax machine, but I sure do want one. It seems like every couple of weeks we need to fax something. The drugstore in town has a fax you can send things from. However, they are only open M-F 9-5. Things seem to frequently come up outside of those bounds. Plus, I don't think they have a copier.

The office store in Fayetteville does copies and faxes, but they charge a bundle. I don't think it would take too many faxes to save back what you would spend. I did just find out the local Piggly Wiggly does copies and faxes. I'll be finding out today what they cost today (Greg needs something copied and faxed to him on his business trip). If they're cheap, it might work o.k. -- as long as I stick to daytime hours. It's a pretty scary place after dark.

I just might have to check out the day after Thanksgiving sales for some good deals. Or not.

In other news, there really isn't any other news. Just boredom. I need to get me a sitting hobby that does not involve staring at the glow of a computer screen. Maybe a new sewing project.

Any ideas?

Visitor and Temple Trip

2009-08-22T10:09:00.003-04:00

So, for our big excitement, Maryland came down to visit for a few days. We didn't do too much. Went to Fayetteville and did a bit of shopping. Read books. Watched some TV shows. Played solitaire together. Just generally hung out. We did go to a baptism while she was here. Since I was already playing the piano, she got the privilege of conducting the music. I think we might need to start a conducting class. The church has a good one. Her visit was a fun and relaxing time.

Today we will be taking the Spanish-speaking missionaries to the temple. We are going to try and sneak in the session with them. It's a Spanish session and Spanish speakers get first dibs. However, if it is full then they said we could go do sealings. I'm hoping the session is full. Sealings are a lot of fun to do.

I'm Still Alive

2009-07-22T20:59:00.004-04:00

I don't have much of interest to say. I'm relief society president and I'm still alive. Maybe Sunday when I get trained I will learn more and become more stressed. I had my first presidency meeting tonight. It was fine.

I have been watching a lot of hulu. Catching up on "Lie to Me". I've just started "Doc Martin". I haven't made it through an entire episode yet, so we'll see. I quite like "Eureka" -- a quirky SyFy show. Yes, it's got science fiction, but the main character is a sheriff that is not a nerd like the rest of town, so that helps a lot. Also a mystery show called "Castle" is a bit interesting.

I'm currently working on a "Get to Know You" form. I know some of you are great at coming up with interesting questions. Please feel free to let me know of any interesting questions (for the "Get to Know You" form specifically).

Mormon Radio

2009-05-24T18:19:00.002-04:00

I just noticed that the LDS church has a new radio station at www.radio.lds.org and I included a widget to it on the side. It also has a number of programs that they will be doing especially for this station and that you can listen to as podcasts (rather than having to remember what time they will be on at). I checked out one called "Into All the World" that will be having interviews with stake presidents, mission presidents, etc... from all over the world. They only have one program so far and it is an interview with the stake president from Rome, Italy.

Greg and I get to speak in church next Sunday, thus I am following in Cynthia's footsteps with this post. However instead of avoiding housework I am avoiding my talk preparation. I guess I better quit avoiding and start doing so I can properly enjoy Memorial Day tomorrow.

We're here

2009-05-13T10:01:00.002-04:00

We made it safely to our new home in NC. We got in at one in the morning yesterday. We then got up way too early in the morning (6:45) and got ready, took the call from the movers telling us their estimated arrival time, went to one of the local grills for breakfast, got our trash service, etc all set up, bought a doormat at the local hardware store (met two of the city councilmen there), went to the pharmacy to give them my prescription. Then we were on the way back to the house for a moment.

The movers called just as we were driving up and they had just gotten to the house. We then unpacked and helped them unload a bit (i.e. moved a few boxes to the garage after they had unloaded it, so they could keep unloading larger items). We also flipped on the breaker to the hot water heater. (No hot water is one large reason I hate camping.)

By this point we were exhausted, since we had gotten about four or five hours of sleep the night before this also. But instead of sleeping, we went and gave the builder a key so he could change the locks, went and set up our mail service, had lunch at the other local grill (this one is run by members of our branch). Then we came home and got cleaned up using our hot water! Then we took naps!!!

We then made sure the internet was working so I could work today (I'll be doing that momentarily). Next we drove to the Raleigh airport to get Bubba's car. It's a pretty nifty trip. I'll have to write about it later. Then we took ate dinner at a sub shop, took a nap in the car and came home. We passed out around 10:45 pm.

This morning I am currently sitting on the back porch listening to the trees blowing in the wind and the traffic passing on the highway in front of the house. It's like a cross between being in the canyon and being at the farm all in one.

Well off to work.

It's a House!

2009-05-06T20:39:00.003-04:00

We now officially have a home in North Carolina. We will be leaving Florida on Monday and the moving van will get to North Carolina late that night. We will either unload the stuff that evening or the next morning.

If it weren't for Mom and Dad we don't know if we'd have the house quite yet. We didn't have bank accounts with east coast banks, and a signature is required to wire money. But being on the east coast, it is hard to sign things out west without mailing the papers. Needless to say, this could make things take days. Luckily Mom and Dad were still on an account or two of ours and were kind enough to provide the needed signatures. The story is longer, so if you want to know the full boring story you will have to call and ask.

The branch is excited to have us there. They already have us scheduled to speak in Sacrament Meeting the last Sunday of the month. We are excited to be in the branch. They seem very friendly.

Well, I'm off to avoid packing.

End of Beginnings

2009-03-12T20:53:00.000-04:00

I’ve now been to Mississippi and Alabama, but it was in the dark, so I’m not really sure what they look like. The interstate did have some cool bridges and go along the Gulf of Mexico for quite a stretch there.

When we checked into the motel in Florida, the front desk clerk saw our credit card and asked if we were from the west. His girlfriend (or former girlfriend) was from the area and hated that bank. Oh well.

We got to the Tampa area around the end of rush hour. Lots of fun in a big truck. But we made it and the new ward was here to help us unload, so we actually got to sleep on our own bed that evening.

Moving to NC and Beginnings Continued

2009-03-12T20:34:00.003-04:00

So, we just found out that we will be moving to NC sometime in April. In preparation for the Florida to NC drive, here is the next section of the first journey out to Florida.

New Mexico was voted the worst roads in the nation on this trip. Not that we’ve driven the entire nation, but their roads were really bad. They had a lot of potholes they hadn’t filled in. However, the potholes they had filled in were even worse. They just dumped a pile of lumpy asphalt in the hole and left it. It looked like a mound of black grits or something. The interstate was much better once we reached it.

Oklahoma was a nice state. The people and roads were good. Texas was also lovely. It took a bit getting used to their freeway entrances, but it’s a good place.

Louisiana is a different state. It is very different from what we are used to in many ways. For one thing, the speed limit there is 70 mph. Don’t get confused by the signs. Sometimes they say 70. Other times they say 65, 60 or even 55. This does not change the fact that everyone goes 70. In 70 mph zones they don’t speed. But, they don’t slow down any for the other zones, either.

This was also the first time I can remember seeing a bayou. No wonder Kermit was able to survive the big city. Those bayous are definitely on the creepy side. It was also interesting to be on a bridge driving over land. Based on watermarks on the pillars holding the road up, I assume that it is not always land that is visible. When the land is visible, it is probably not usually dry enough to drive over anyway.

Baton Rouge was the first major city we hit at rush hour. Somebody else hit it that rush hour, too. Traffic was at a crawl. There had been an accident. And quite the interesting accident. The front car had it’s hood munched up a bit. The rear car had its front left corner munched down into the ground and the rest of it was sticking into the air at about a 45 degree angle. I’m not sure how they got like that. Maybe other cars were involved and they had already been hauled off.

Another interesting thing about Texas/Louisiana is the gambling. Louisiana has casinos. The casinos like to advertise in Texas near the border. However, at the bottom of all the billboards is information on who to contact to get help with your gambling problem.

Just the Beginning

2009-02-21T13:10:00.003-05:00

I thought I would post all the excitement (real and imagined) from my recent trips across the country. Not incredibly exciting, but much better than talking about the joys of coding.

This is the first installment of our first trip across the country. This trip took place in a 26' Penske truck.

Packing sure is a lot of work. Who would have thought that throwing a bunch of things in a bunch of boxes would take so much work? The problem comes in when you decide you don’t want it thrown in, but carefully packed. At that it might even be nice to know what is in the box (or at the very least what room it came from).

So, we were to leave for Florida on Friday morning. When Friday morning came, we still weren’t packed. We called in reinforcements. They called in more reinforcements. Eventually at 8 p.m. we were all packed up and ready to go, almost. After getting some drinks and snacks, we were ready to go.

So we pulled out at around 9 p.m. and made it to Price that first night (originally desitnation: Albuquerque, NM). Part of this lateness was also due to the fact that we were woken at 5 a.m. with a car horn going off. Make that a truck horn… Our truck’s horn. It eventually quit about 5:30. They sent someone out to look at it, but he didn’t know what was wrong. We didn’t want to drive a truck without a horn (what fun is a road trip if you can’t honk at all the crazy drivers that are trying to kill you). So, the company sent out a new truck and movers to move the items from one truck to another. This turned out to be a blessing, since they were able to fit all the things into a much smaller space. As a result, we got to take much more stuff with us to our new apartment in Florida.

Driving a big truck was a new experience for Bubba and I. Bubba had driven farm tractors. So had I, if you count going 5 mph in a straight line. They told us that the truck could go up to 75 mph, but we shouldn’t go over that. Maybe unloaded the truck could go that fast, but the fastest it would go for us was 70 mph. This only occurred on fairly level ground when the pedal was floored.

The section of the drive from Price to Monticello is definitely not level. At a few points, I think the truck was down to 35 mph on some of the hills. Slow, but still faster than a horse-drawn carriage. Thanks to Dad for pointing out that I-70 might be a bit steep for a big truck.