Saturday sessions of General Conference

So what do you all think of General Conference so far? I'm enjoying it, and Summer isn't being fussy (just when she's tired or hungry) so I've been able to take notes like usual. We stayed home and watched it on the internet today, and are going to our Bishop's house tomorrow for both sessions with lunch in between. I'm looking over my notes from today and the concepts of service and scripture study have been my little jab in the butt reminders so far. Elder Hales' talk about scripture study is the one I think I will use for visiting teaching in November.

It's good to see people posting again. I know we're all busy, but wow. This was a dead zone for awhile.

Jared, I couldn't get my comment to post on your Christmas traveling string, so I'll stick it here ... Yes, I know it's FOUR TIMES as expensive for your whole family to travel instead of just you. I have a family now too. But you did start the conversation by saying "discussable possibility" for travel this Christmas - it sounded like it might be an option. For the record - you're welcome to visit us here in DC on your own if you want, but it just wouldn't seem right to me without all of your family. So while it will be a long time between visits, I'd rather you save up the money to have everyone come together. And when Adam graduates from school and gets that fat paycheck from a law firm, then we'll be able to travel again.

Hello?

Hi, everyone. Life here is, as usual, fairly busy. But here's a run down of some things I've done.

First of all, I've decided to write my Civil War paper on guerilla warfare. I had planned on doing something involving our ancestors, but this looks more interesting. So, Adam, do you have any books on the subject? I'll be in the D. C. area next Wednesday. There is a temple trip, so classes have been canceled so people can go. So I signed up. (I already told Trina about that.)

My other classes are keeping me fairly busy. In my performing arts class, we had to watch "The Marriage of Figaro." And I went to the forum this morning -- there are forums every Friday. This one was about tolerance. In German, we're learning to talk about the weather.

There is going to be a history honor society, and I will be joining it.

'Tis the Season...

I was just thinking about Christmas.  Wondering what kinds of presents I'll give people, stuff like that.  No, I'm not asking for Christmas lists here.  Actually, I'm wondering what kind of travel plans people are making.  We haven't made any yet, so if someone were to decide they wanted to come to Houston for Christmas or even Thanksgiving, well, you can.  If you let us know that's what you're planning.  Because if we're not expecting anyone, we'll likely head off to Dallas just like we normally do.  But since we haven't made our plans yet - we're notoriously slow with finalizing travel plans - you can still influence our decisions at this point.  If someone wants us, or more likely just me, to come to you, that may also be a discussable possibility.  So tell me... who's visiting whom this year?

Nothing but good times

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted or put up pictures or anything for a while. I've been very busy with work for one thing. It's going well, it's just busy. Also, at night I'm trying to spend as much time with Laurel and Stevie as possible. With my spare moments, I'm trying to watch as much television as I can. Okay, that's not entirely true. But I have been working on the Beers Reunion DVD. I'm about to send a final call for contributions. I think it's coming together well, but it has to be one of the more challenging creative projects I've ever worked on. It rivals the Stevie-D for difficulty, not least because Stevie is around to try to turn off the computer and play on the keyboard for this one.

Laurel is doing well. She's at YW right now. Stevie is into everything. But he's still the cutest baby in the world. Tooth count = 3.25

Thanksgiving where?

Don't know where I'll be on Thanksgiving now. I was going to be in Williamsburg, but that trip was canceled. We can sign up for the D. C. trip, but the only thing I want to see in D. C. I don't think is on the itenerary. (Hmmm, what could that be?) This sucks. I wanted to go to Williamsburg. Maybe if I got a job there next summer . . .

hey

Looking good with your page, pop. You too, mop. That's funny . . . pop and mop. Are you going to add any clips from your movies, or are they there and I missed them? anyways, Amanda and I went to the doctor's office Friday and heard the babies heart beat. Amanda has gained 1.5 pounds since August 11. Or maybe August 30th. I am not sure if they weighed her then.

sincerely,
Nathan

More updates

Dad has been working on his page for several weeks and has most of it done so he decided to put it up. He has reviews and pictures of several of his movies under the FFF section. Some of the links may not work but most of them should. He's worked real hard on this so let him know what you think.

Love ya,
MOM

Changes

I've made a few updates to my page. I answered the latest question and I changed my "What's New" page again. Dad has been working hard revamping his page. He should have at least part of it up soon.

Since no one has been on here much lately, perhaps it's time for a new question: What are your food preferences and how did they come about?

Life here at home is busy, between work and church I'm kept hopping most of the time. I really have no excuse, though, for not posting on the blog. I love you guys and hope you are all healthy and happy. I'd write more but I need to get ready for the R.S. broadcast.

Love ya,
MOM

back to school

So I decided to go back to school, and get my Associate's degree. I only need two more terms through Chemeketa, and classes start on Monday. I just ordered my books. Ugh. It isn't as bad as Emily's $500, but it was straight out of my account, so it hurt pretty bad - a little over $200. All of my classes are online, and for the first week it's going to be very stressful, because I won't have all my books right away, and we're moving at the end of the week, and we won't have the internet at the apartment yet, so I'll be spending a lot of time at the library. October will go better, because I'll be used to studying, and I'll be able to use the internet at home. It will be so much nicer, since there are so many different things to do online for my classes, and be able to send things into my teachers, and trying to do homework at home. So if you don't hear from me for a few weeks, that's why.

The good news is, I was showing my teacher some of my artwork, and a different teacher walked in - she saw my portraits, and got some Christmas ideas in her head - so I might have an art project to do this year. It'll take up even more time, but for the amount of money I can make off it, it's totally worth it. Hooray!

AND it's Friday. That's always a good thing.

Funnies

My kids are hilarious.

One day after having talked about how mountains are formed (you know, plate tectonics, plates pushing together, etc.) I mentioned to the kids that fossils of sea creatures have been found near the top of Mt. Everest. I asked them if they knew how that could be possible. One student repled, "Flying Fish." Another thought that maybe a bird had carried them there.

Yesterday we were talking about common and proper nouns. I had the kids name proper nouns for me. When I got to one student he spread his arms out and said very loudly, "Hallelujah!" I told him that it wasn't even a noun. And he said, "Oh, wasn't there a place called Hallelujah?" He thought about it for awhile and then realized that he had meant Honolulu.

-Tawnia

hello?

Is this thing on?

rice cereal ... yummmmm

We had our first attempt at Summer eating food yesterday - it didn't go over too well. The first time it touched her tongue, she made this wretched face. We tried for 5 or 10 minutes to get her to eat - we're not sure if she swallowed anything, but if she did, it probably came right back up when she spit up after we took her out of her chair. (She was in the bouncer - we don't have a high chair yet.) It was rather amusing. Yes, we took pictures. She wasn't in a very good mood today, so we'll try again tomorrow.


I had a Primary meeting last night with a member of the Primary General Presidency - it was really good. The topic was about teaching from the scriptures - there were techniques of how to teach children from the scriptures, and of course a lot of encouragement about how we need to learn the scriptures ourselves if we're going to teach from them. Sister Lillerth (or something like that - she's the 1st counselor) referred to a recent New Era article by Elder Bednar about studying the scriptures. Of course this is a subject we've heard ad nauseum since we were in Primary - this time, the emphasis was on how hard we must work at studying the scriptures. I'd never heard it put quite like that before. The article is online at http://www.lds.org/gospellibrary/pdfmagazine/0,7779,593-8-1,00.html# in the April 2006 issue. I encourage you all to read it, and make time to read the scriptures regularly. We read together as a family every night (yes, we do it with Summer), but we're definitely lacking in our personal reading. That's our focus to improve on right now.

Good-bye, Kitten

There were several reasons why Rebecca and I had to send the kitten away. First off, the landlady's collie hated him. He went ballistic when we brought the kitten downstairs. So he was stuck in our room all day. Kinsley found someone else who could take him, so he's gone now. At least now it will be easier to study without him distracting me, pouncing on my shoes, batting at my pens, or chewing on my papers. And I won't wake up early in the morning with the kitten running back and forth over me. Will I miss Iggi? Not really. I'll still see him every week; he's the mascot of our Dungeons and Dragons group, so I'll see him just about every Saturday night. And besides, classes are keeping me so busy that I don't have time to think about much else. I spent today writing a paper for my Civil War class. I hauled my laptop up to campus to do it.

stay at home status

To get this out of the way right at first - after almost 2 weeks, no, I don't miss work. I don't even think about it.

Well, it's taking a lot longer to do my "I'm staying home now" projects than I had figured. But my epiphany this past Sunday was "Who cares about the projects. You're staying home to be a mommy and raise Summer. The projects will get done eventually." So there you go. I'm of course going to keep working on things and set deadlines, but if I don't meet the deadlines, I'm not going to get bent out of shape.

Summer rolled all the way over from her back to her front on Monday - for the last couple of weeks, she was able to make it most of the way over with her torso and hips, but her shoulder would get stuck. Now she's made it through - she still gets stuck sometimes and starts yelling, but most of the time she can make it all the way over. She also does some kind of weird rotation when she's lying on her back - she'll stay on her back, but pivot to a 45-90 degree angle from where she started. Once she's on her stomach, she's doing better at getting her head up but still doesn't last very long. The last couple of days, I've gotten down on the floor with her and put toys out in front of her to get her to reach for them. Friday is her 4-month checkup (and shots), and I'm going to talk to the doctor about starting her on solid food.

An extra thing to throw into the mix is it looks like my visiting teaching partner is going to pay me to clean her apartment regularly. We had a Relief Society thing on Saturday, and Beth said something about paying me to do her errands for her during the week. (We were talking about her lawn mower, because Adam usually takes care of it for her.) A couple of people looked genuinely interested ... which I think is a little funny, but totally makes sense. In this city, it's very common to work 12-hour days, plus the commute, and the only time you can do any errands is on Saturday - but you don't feel like it because you're tired but you have to. Anyway, after that conversation, my visiting teaching partner (who is new in the ward and I've just barely met her) asked if I'd really clean her apartment for her - she used a housekeeping service in New York, and wants someone here too. Oooookay ... so I'm headed over there Friday or Monday morning. What the heck. It's a little bit more money for just a couple of hours every week or 2, and I can take Summer with me.

More pictures

I've added pictures from our trip to San Antonio last weekend to my page.  We spent all day Saturday at Schlitterbahn water park, so there were no pictures from that day.

Get a Clue

Last night I went to mom and dad's and had dinner and played games. We played two games of clue. Amanda did it both times (meaning Miss Scarlet was the murderer). But Colonel Mustard discovered it both times, meaning I won both games. I don't mean to brag...oh who's kidding who? Of course I mean to brag. Of course I just got lucky that I won the second time, because mom and Amanda had two of the things right, they were just trying to figure out the weapon, so I had to wait a whole round of turns before I could make an accusation. But enough about boring games that most of you weren't there for. School is in full swing now, and I am still trying to figure out a good schedule for me to get everything done that I need to get done. We'll see if I can find something that works.

See all ya'll later.

love,
Nathan

computer cookies and buying plane tickets online

The Washington Post has a consumer awareness blog on its website, and had a post this morning about computer cookies when you buy a plane ticket - or really, anything - online. Here's the gist of the blog post:

When you're looking for plane tickets online, you look at various airlines to get the best price. You decide the one you want and go back to it, and the fare has jumped. It is suggested that before you go back to the website of the plane fare you want, that you clear out the cookies cache in the computer. A cookie is the tag that a website associates with your computer - it knows how many times you've been back and forth to it ... unless you clean out the cookies. Airlines deny making fares jump for people who have been to their website multiple times, but more most of the time, if you clear out the cookies, the airfare will hold at the lower level.

So next time you're buying plane tickets or anything else online, and the price takes a jump after you've looked it a couple of times, clear out the cookies before purchasing and see if it goes back to the original lower price.

I did not know this and thought it very applicable, especially after Jared's plane ticket fun this past summer when getting their tickets for the family reunion ... so I thought I'd pass it on. (See? The Washington Post does have useful stuff!)

Original post if you want to look at the whole thing (you may need to do an online Post subscription, which is free):

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2006/09/cookie_monsters.html

first week at home

People at church this past Sunday kept saying, "So how does it feel to be a stay at home mom?" And really, I had no answer. It was still just the weekend and I hadn't really been off work yet. Now it's Thursday ... I'm thinking "It's Thursday? This week is already mostly gone?" It's felt like a bunch of Saturdays in a row to me so far, and I haven't thought about work at all.

I am getting a lot done but I still have a long way to go. I'm doing a ton of cleaning and organizing, which has been neglected or done only partially since I got pregnant a year ago, not just the last couple of months (even though that's been bad too). I'm also working on my medical transcription - so far about 3 hours per day, which is LOADS better than the 3 or so hours per WEEK that I'd been doing. I've made a serious dent in things this week. I'm finally halfway to the midterm. Good thing it's a self-paced course. That's about it, along with of course taking care of Summer. We got to go to play group this week - some of the other stay-home moms in our ward organized it last spring, and now we can go too! Yay!

mindy at work

After posting a couple weeks back about how crazy and hectic my life is, it has considerably lightened up. I put in my two weeks notice at Macey's that week, and they had enough new hires that I was able to have that Saturday be my last day. No more driving up to Provo, and having to worry about who needed the car. School started the next Tuesday, so I didn't really get a break, but I suddenly had my afternoons free, so it felt like a break. My evenings are still filled up with FHE, tap, institute, and ballet, and then hanging out with people on the weekends. At this point I'm not looking for another second job, but if something fall into my lap then I'll probably have to take it. As it is, my first job is going great. Although I was very hesitant about working with the sixth graders, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. They can do so much more than first graders, they generally have attention spans .. it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I'm already rather attached to my class, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year with them.

To answer Mom's question, I hope that my future children will be determined - to work hard, to be happy, to be close to the spirit, and to help others.

Kitten

Here's the story. Last week, a guy we know (Dave) found a stray kitten outside his house that started following him around. He showed the kitten to his girlfriend (Kinsley) who immediately fell in love with him. She named him Iggi (pronounced like E G). He's a seven-week-old gray and black tabby with four white paws, and he's very playful. Unfortunately, she lives on the fourth floor of Main and so cannot keep the kitten, at least not until she graduates in the spring. And Dave is leaving for his mission to Utah, so he can't keep him.

This is where my roommate Rebecca and I come into the picture.

My landlady said the kitten could stay with us if no one else would take it, and no one would. So now we have a seven-week-old kitten in my room, often chewing on my shoes. He also likes playing with a pom-pom and a ball of yarn. He has to stay upstairs because one of the landlady's dogs hates him.

In other news, classes are keeping me pretty busy, though I did spend some time on Saturday with some friends (since this was Dave's last chance to hang out with us). I spent most of Monday doing reading for my Civil War class, but the teacher said we should have less daily work this next week.

School

Well, my life has been pretty busy the last few weeks... and when I'm not busy at school, I'm at home without any internet access. So that's my excuse for not posting.

School has been in session for two weeks now. I have 25 students this year. 16 girls and 9 boys. They are good kids, probably even better behaved then I had last year. It is nice to see my kids from last year though, they always get really excited to see me... even though they usually see me at least once a day.

I took the low level of kids for math, so my math class is moving pretty slow... even though we're full. I have a lot of extra help during math and it's really nice. We also have at least 40 minutes of prep everyday. I like that a lot. I am able to actually get out of work at a decent time if I actually utilize my prep well.

Oh, and they made me the "team leader" for the year. Which is silly, since one of the other teachers has years and years of experience on me. But the administration decided that they wanted to rotate who was the team leader each year... so it's my turn. Yippee (said quite sarcastically.)

Outside of school I am still taking tap and ballet with Mindy. It is a good stress reliever. I am also trying to stay social within my new ward and old ward. This week I actually felt much more part of the new ward then I ever had before. It was nice.

Anyway, I came to the school (on a holiday even) in order to post a very important question.

I was asked to teach the relief society lesson in two weeks. And the lesson just happens to be on my favorite topic, ha ha, not really. The lesson is from the Wilford Woodruff manual. It's on Marriage and Parenthood. So here is my question for all of you people who are actually married. What experience (or experiences) most prepared you for marriage? And what most prepared you for parenthood? I may call and get more specifics from people, but there are the basic questions. Sorry, my single sisters, it doesn't really apply to you.

I hope you're all doing well. I am, I'm just to busy to let you know that. I do love you all and I'm looking forward to coming home at Christmas. I fly home on Dec. 23rd.

Love,
Tawnia

Stuff from Jared

I have also made some updates. I added several pictures to the movie site, if anyone wants to go see them. But enought about that. Let's talk about the important stuff.

Brooke is doing really well in school. They get behavior grades every day, and so far she has two weeks of straight A's. She has alot of fun and says her teacher is really nice. Bryan is doing really well too. Last week we had a couple of birthday parties for kids in his playgroup. Michelle and I started a new program today to encourage the kids to do their chores, and so far it seems to be going well. Brooke and Bryan earn stickers by picking up after themselves, and helping with dinner, and clearing their dishes, and things like that. Today (the first day) they both earned all their stickers. The house is just as clean right now as it was 24 hours ago. At the end of the week they can trade in their stickers for prizes.

Tomorrow we plan on going to the zoo (yep, another free day) and we'll be meeting some friends there too - the family that took care of the rats and frog while we were reunioning this summer. Next weekend we have a company picnic at Schlitterbahn, a big waterpark just outside San Antonio. We're going to go see the Alamo and the Riverwalk while we're out there.

I guess I can be the brave soul and answer Mom's question first. What I hope for my children is that they turn out to be just like their mother.

Updates

I finally finished all the updates on our trip to DC. I've also changed my "What's New" page and updated my 100 page under the travel section. Since I'm posting a new question you might want to make sure you've seen my answer to the last one. I didn't get any takers on that one. Our new question is: "What do you hope for your children and grandchildren?" Even if you don't have any yet, you can still answer the question.

I hope you are all well and happy in your new adventures. Every day is a new adventure so don't think you're not having any.

Love ya,
MOM