January 8th, 2009
Once again, I've been very preoccupied, but with the birth of Hannah, I figured I ought to see about updating this at least once at the moment. For most of the news, I'm just going to take what we sent out in our Christmas newsletter and post it here, as written by Michelle,
"We have had an exciting and busy year. It began with our closing escrow on our first and hopefully only home in Escondido. It is a three bedroom two bath house with a nice backyard and garage. We spent a lot of our savings and the first few months making necessary improvements inside and out. Thanks to the help of my dad we got really nice flooring installed and added cupboards to the kitchen. We got most of the rooms painted and bought a beautiful piano. What we could build or make ourselves we did and what we can't afford yet will just have to wait.
"The next exciting thing that happened is our becoming pregnant with Hannah. She is due December 27th and will make a wonderful addition to our family. We plan to have Nathan share a room with her for the first couple of years. He is very excited to have a sister.
"Nathan did well in preschool and started kindergarten in the fall. He is enjoying his class very much. Thanks to our reading scriptures nightly with him he is well above the grade level in reading, but he is still learning many other skills with his classmates. Not long after he started kindergarten he finally got the hang of skipping and swinging. I have been able to help in class until now and have really enjoyed it. In the afternoons I helped Nathan put out a very successful stand to sell cookies and lemonade to the kids coming home from the nearby elementary, middle and high schools. The extra money was very useful for birthdays and we even bought a bike for Nathan.
"Lucas is still enjoying working for the post office in Vista. Shortly after we moved he learned that we could save a lot of money on gas by his taking the new Sprinter train that was finished last year. Besides work I have learned how handy Lucas is around the house. He grew a great garden, has built furniture, done electrical and plumbing work. I have learned how to finish furniture and we have both been inventive in our money saving ideas for the house. For our recreation time we have enjoyed having friends occasionally for a game night. Staying in on our date night was appealing because we had things to do on other nights. For a while Lucas participated in a men's singing group on Tuesdays and then we both joined a Wednesday singing group for the Christmas season.
"What have I been doing with all my extra free time besides fixing up our new house, getting pregnant, helping in Nathan's class and selling lemonade and cookies by day, and singing and playing with Lucas in the evenings? Well add to the list more volunteer work. I have said yes to many more volunteer activities that I had to say no to when I was working. At the beginning of the year I set up a regular play date with another mom in Nathan's preschool class so I was able to attend the temple on Fridays with a friend. I have been a chauffeur to friends that lacked transportation. I also donated a lot of time to help pass Proposition 8. I thank the Lord that my pregnancy has had relatively few challenges to slow me down.
"As you can see it is very easy for us to count our many blessings this year. We have worked hard and exercised our faith and have proven that the Lord does pour out more blessings than we have room to receive."
I'll add to all of this that Hannah Valorie Steimle was born yesterday, January 7th, 2009 at 12:37 am. She weighed 7lbs 15 oz and is a very healthy girl. Nathan is excited to be a big brother, Michelle is more than relieved to be un-pregnant, and I'm glad all of the waiting is over. If you want pictures, we've posted many over on Facebook. Just look up Michelle or her Mom (Marcia Helzer). I'll post some here though, just not as many.
May 4th, 2008
It's been a very eventful set of months since the last time I updated. So busy, that it's been hard for me to remember to take the time to actually update despite the enormous amount of news that we have. I'm sure I'll miss stuff and I'll need to summarize, but here goes.
We bought a house. Yep. Back in January. Three bedrooms, two bath, a front and back yard, and all of the stuff that comes with it. Our purchase price was $290,000 which is pretty good where the median home price is still about $400k in the San Diego area even after all the trouble in the housing market of late.
We've done a ton of work on the place including replacing all of the flooring (other than the bathrooms...we're still thinking about those), repainted most of the rooms, took the popcorn ceiling off and painted that, got and installed new appliances for the kitchen and laundry (well, the dryer isn't new, but the washer is),
built and altered some of our furniture to make them into what we want, and a myriad of other tasks that we've wanted to do for our home. We still have a ton of stuff to do, but it's coming along.
We do have a family garden which is coming along nicely. We have lots of tomatos, three kinds of peppers, string beans, carrots, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, and some kind of squash. :P (I still don't like those much, but ironically, they are growing better than most of the plants) We've started working on our back
lawn in weeding, watering, feeding, and reseeding and hope to have it ready for kids to play on by full summer. We also are planning on tearing out most of the bushes in the backyard and replacing them with grapes, strawberries, and a few fruit trees, but we're going one step at a time.
Nathan turned five years old last week, but sadly, he had a fever for most of the week so he had a hard time enjoying his birthday. We did take him to the doctor, but they just said that we had to wait it out, that there wasn't anything else wrong that they could tell. He did get over it so I guess they were right.
I've been doing much more singing lately than I had been. I was invited to a local mens chorus. It's all a capella, and even though the average age is about sixty for the members of the group, it's been fun. They sing barber shop. I'm still not certain that I'll join them as a full member, but for now it is enjoyable.
Add to that, some in our stake here have decided that they want to make their own musical group, and they asked all of the "really good" singers in the stake to join them. I guess somehow I qualify in their minds. In any case, it's been a bumpy start for that group so far as attendance has been more than a little sporatic. Ah well,
we'll see how that goes. It could be good if everyone decides that they want to do it.
October 28th, 2007
Well, that sure was an...exciting week. Yeah. Well, for those of you who for some reason might not know, we had raging wildfires down here in Southern California. Hundreds of thousands of acres burned. Thousands of homes destroyed. Over 500,000 people evacuated. Among them was James and his family, Chris and his family, and us...kinda.
You see, if you listened to the county of San Diego and looked at their websites, all of Escondido should have been under mandatory evacuation...or at least the great majority of it. As that is where we got our information initially, we took the warning and evacuated. I did post stuff on it over at my forums trying to give updates as I could get to a computer and as our situation changed and that can be found here. But when it comes down to it, it turned out that the City of Escondido had a more
accurate picture of what was going on. So on Tuesday, after I got off of work (yep, still worked every day last week in all the smoke and stuff) I came back to our apartment and did alot more looking on the internet to find out exactly what the situation really was. After determining that, other than air quality, we were safe at home, we decided to come back home instead of staying where we were (I mean, who really wants to stay at their boss' home for too long, eh?) In my opinion, by the end of Tuesday, the air quality was just about as bad everywhere (worse
the further west you went), so we just plugged up the holes, added clean, new extra filters to our air conditioning, and stuck it out.
Anyways, it was an interesting week to say the least. Mail in Vista was only delayed one day (Tuesday had no delivery), but with several carriers who have breathing problems, those of us who could go out on the following days had our work cut out for us and put in alot of extra hours trying to get the mail delivered. In the end though, it all worked out I think.
So what is our status now? The air still stinks of smoke. There air still has a haze over distances with the moon going more orange as it nears the horizon. There is still a great deal of ash everywhere. But everyone is safe and sound, so that's what matters.
We are somewhat worried what effect this will have on our search for a home to buy though. It could halt the price decline that we've been hoping would accellerate and make it easier for us to negotiate a price reduction on the houses we plan to make offers on, which is somewhat frustrating, but as there are still many thousands of homes for sale and not that many by a long shot were burned in the area that we are looking at to buy, we are still hopeful that we'll be able to get into a place soon. In fact, we've found a house that would be just what we've been
looking for, which, if we can talk them down just a little on their asking price, we can afford. If not, there are other, if less desireable, options open to us. In any case, we'll see.
October 14th, 2007
We were putting together a puzzle during General Conference last week which kept me distracted through the day, or I might have remembered that I hadn't yet updated the site. So I do apologize for the lack last week, but I enjoyed conference enough that I'm not really that sorry :P
Le'ssee, work has been decent. I think I've finally gotten into the habit of actually taking my lunch break every day now. I know it might sound silly, but for the longest time, I just would eat as I worked if I ate at all and would just keep working all day while on the clock. Management would still assume that lunch had been taken and deduct the 30 mins every day from my time, so effectively I was giving them 3 hours a week for free, but eh, it's just what I did. So
actually taking my lunch is a good step. Now how have I been occupying those 30 mins as it really doesn't take anywhere near that long to eat any lunch in the USA. Well, I do eat, then I usually read or nap depending on how tired I am. Yeah, it does look kinda odd to see a mailman sleeping at the wheel of the mail truck, but *shrugs*
Michelle has been spending more time looking for possible houses for us to buy. As we are trying hard to stay in our ward boundries, it does somewhat limit our choices, but we've been finding that there are now so many houses for sale that in just a half hour of driving around, we can usually find 10-20 houses for sale in an area we haven't looked at yet. As we look, it's kind of interesting how our focus has been. I mean, a big thing for us is the size of the yard. We
don't want a tiny closet sized yard. We don't want a swimming pool. We don't want a concrete backyard. We don't want a desert landscape. We do want a yard large enough that if we want to expand the house, assuming that we buy a smaller one that might need expansion, that we have room to do so. Also, we are determined to have a garden and still have room for a decent sized play area.
We would like a house in decent shape, but we aren't afraid to work and spend time to make the house into what we really want it to be. We need a minimum of two bedrooms and one bathroom, but if the house is small, we do plan to expand it to fit our expanding needs.
Anyways, this week, Nathan's class studied the letter M. Nathan wants me to tell you that he's learning lots and likes to work and play there. And when the bell rings, it's time to stop and clean up. In class this week, they made pumpkins and Mommy came and helped. And at the end, they gather around "the carpet" and get their backpacks and then they go home. And if they are good, at the end of the day they get a sticker. The sticker goes on a calender at home. And then he does his homework. And that's his school.
September 30th, 2007
Mmmm...another week gone, and this week just kinda flew by. Work, work, work, with little else really. I did get Saturday off, which, though unusual, was not completely unexpected as they had me work every day off over the previous five weeks and they generally like to give you at least one in six. How did I spend the day? I got my hair cut and then played games for the rest of the day. We played the Order of the Stick game which took most of the day, and then in the evening we went to Chris and Cassie's home (Michelle's Bro) and played Settlers of Catan. All in all, a very relaxing day.
As far as our house hunt, apparently some paperwork was misplaced by the people we are working with to get the loan, so Michelle got them our copies of the info again, so we hope to have results from that soon so we can officially look at houses to buy. Of course, with the market moving the way that it is, the longer we wait, the better our options I think. But as we both feel it is the time to look, maybe the perfect house will kinda fall into our lap.
Nathan's letter of the week P at pre-school. He's been doing really well there as far as I can tell. He's been making friends and academically, he's ahead of the game. He already knows many words on sight.
September 23rd, 2007
Fun week, this one was. As you can see, and as I said in my last update, I've been doing some changing and updating to the website. It started with the forums, which after they died due to my meddling with their database needed replacement, but as I got some momentum from that, I just kept going doing all of the other things that I have been thinking about doing.
All in all, it took me about a week to get it all done in the way that I wanted, and there are still some unintended glitches, but I do hope to get it all done in the way that I want soon.
At work, I've been training new employees again. Did one this last week named Othman. He's my age (within a month), muslim, from Iraq (but born in the US), and all in all a good guy. Been really nervous in learning the new tasks though so I'm not certain if he'll stick it out. *shrugs* Ya win some ya lose some. Also, I received a "Star Performer" award from the post office
which is the highest accolade which I can receive in my current position. Came with a $250 check (about $158 after taxes) and I will be receiving a "nice" jacket with my name on it later. Will look good on my resume for when I want to move up in the post office in the eventualities.
Nathan learned the letter "W" in preschool this week. He knows all his letters already and their sounds, but it's nice to have all the extra reinforcement and the social development there. He's really loving it.
We are still waiting for the loan officer to get some last information before we get the preapproval letter to buy a house. I'm rather nervous about it all, but every time I pray about it, before I can even get to presenting ideas of how we might be able to make it all work out financially and the like, I get the answer that effectively says, "Don't worry about it" and "I have everything taken care of" with the accompanying peace you'd think would come with it.
So, I'm still nervous, but I'm confident that everything will work out in the way that it should.
Oh yeah, one last thing. I did forget to put a News Archive button on this version of the site, but I've thought about it and decided against adding one in the main menu. Instead, I'm adding the link at the bottom of the News page. So anyone who wants to access all the old things (pictures, videos, and just general news) can still do so easily enough.
September 19th, 2007
Well, it's been some time, hasn't it? Lots of stuff has happened since the last update, and when it comes down to it, the best I can do is the readers digest version for you as my memory just isn't good enough to give you every detail. In any case, here goes:
We are still trying to have more children but have yet to find that blessing in our lives again. We did lots of thinking and praying over the last few months and have decided that we really don't want to move away from our current ward. We do still want to have a house, so the only course of action which is good enough is to buy a house here in Escondido and more specifically within our ward boundaries. Given the budget we have to work with, the task isn't as impossible as we at first thought it to be. In fact, in the last month, we (read as Michelle with a few signatures by me) have done all that is necessary to get
the loan we'd need to actually buy a house here. In a matter of days, we might have the preapproval letter if all goes well and will be able to officially go looking for a house. It'll likely have to be a fixer-upper, but it will be a permanant home in the place we want to live so it'll be worth it.
We went on vacation to Disneyland in August. We spent three days there and absolutely loved it. To be honest, I was really suprised at how near it is to where we live. It only took us about an hour and a half to drive there. We did take pictures which can be found in the pictures section of this site. I hope you enjoy them!
Also, Nathan is going to school. Preschool, but he's going monday through friday in the mornings from 7:45 am to 10:45 am. His teacher is named Mrs. Munos. From all of the things that I've seen him take home and the way he's talked about it, he seems to really love going to school. Guess he takes after his Dad in that.
Last, as you can obviously see, I've been doing some redesigning of the main website to make it more user friendly and hopefully a bit more tasteful. I do welcome all comments, questions, and suggestions over in my forums which can be easily accessed by clicking on the button on the bottom left of this screen. And keep an eye on the rest of the tabs as well. I have some major innovations in mind for much of the site.
So, till next time!
April 28th, 2007
For those who have not yet heard, at the eight week mark in the pregnancy, Michelle had a miscarraige. I think I took it harder than she did to be honest, but maybe she's just better at hiding it. In any case, it's been about a month since then, and we're just about back to normal now.
Of course, that means that I really have lots of time that I haven't documented in the last while. I mean, we finished that vacation in Arizona with my family (thanks again David and Brittany for hosting us), we went to the renaissance festival over there (got some good pictures and even took a
video of one of the acts there, we've had a few birthdays that we went to including Nathan's 4th, we have been having fun going up to Dixon Lake just up in the hills above Escondido (and about a five minute drive from our place), and other things that I just don't currently remember. It's been a busy time
but sadly, I just didn't have it in me to come back on and update because that meant that I'd have to talk about the miscarraige and all.
Anyways, things are better now and I'll try to get back to the weekly updates again. I might even take some of those back-burner projects and get them completed, so stay tuned!
March 11th, 2007
We're on vacation! We're over at David's house in Arizona, and as he has a nice internet connection, I figured it would be nice to update. So what all has changed? Not a heck of alot. Sure, we're on vacation, but we only just got here! Wait till next week, and then we'll have all the pictures that you could possibly want.
As far as the last week, well...I worked every single day and for once they actually gave me time to do all of the extra things that they've been asking me to do for the office in organizing all of the routes and getting them all cleaned up. I still haven't done any maps because it would be somewhat futile to try to do that without
knowing that the information I have on the routes is accurate. Otherwise I could very easily make some inaccurate maps and cause more problems than I would solve.
Michelle has been doing her best to stave off morning sickness, but it's been kinda hard. She's more nausiated than she was with Nathan, or at least it seems that way, but not enough to actually vomit which is what made it easier to deal with when she was pregnant with Nathan. I mean, she can't just do vomit to get over it like she did
last time. So we've been doing some reading as to what foods can help more and vitamins and the like. Suggestions are always welcome though, so if you want to share, we'd be more than happy to hear what you have to say.
Nathan is doing some limited reading now. He knows all of the primary sounds that the letters make in the english language and can sound out anything that stays within those rules, but more than that, he's also starting to simply recognize individual words even if they don't necessarily follow the rules. We're starting to think that it
might be time to get him into a pre-school.
March 4th, 2007
First of all I want to say...
Yep. That's exactly what it appears to be. We are finally, once again pregnant...that is to say that Michelle is "with child," and I am "with" pregnant woman. Took us long enough, I know, but believe me, it hasn't been for lack of trying. In any case, we've had a fun few weeks going through all of the preliminaries including the first prenatal checks, the "morning" sickness (I wish it only would last the morning), and all of the fun stuff that comes with the pregnancy stuff. Despite all of this, we are very excited and looking forward to our little girl. *smiles* I mean,
we'll be happy with whatever we get, but we have Nathan already and I'd rather that Michelle gets her little girl before we add to the real troublemakers in the family.
As far as other news...let's see, work is the same as always. I'm still delivering mail and enjoying it just as much as always. I still play D&D on friday nights and video games most of the other nights and stuff. Meh, but when it really comes down to it, compared to the first set of news, there is little that I can report. Oh sure, we'll be going on vacation in a couple weeks and plan on going over to Arizona to visit and have fun at the renaissance festival. And we are still pondering and praying about the house-buying that we hope to do in the next few years.
We're looking at Saint George presently as a possible option but nothing is set in stone. Heck, I can't transfer for at least another eight months so it's a moot point anyways. But that doesn't stop us from looking. We'd love to stay down here in southern california if we could find a permanant home that we could afford or somehow double my income to make it so we could afford the atrotious prices that houses are now over here ($500k for a 3 bed 2 bath in Esconghetto? yeesh!) Anyways, we're still looking.
February 11th, 2007
I guess I could tell you all of the excuses that I didn't update in the last few weeks (too tired, visitors, other activities we attended, etc.) but when it comes down to it, things happen and I didn't update. That's not stopping me from updating now though, and that's what counts.
So what happened in these last weeks? Goodness...at work, I almost took that part time supervisor position that they have been after me to take. I say almost, but really when it comes down to it, I did take it, and then after thinking about it for a couple weeks, I decided that I really didn't want to do it for any reason but to make my managers happy. So when the final decision time came and they asked me if I wanted to do the supervisor position as opposed to will I do it, I honestly answered, "No, I don't really want to do it. I'd only be doing it because you asked me to."
With that, they let me off the hook. I'm quite relieved as the position would have had me up at 1:30 am to get to work on time on occations and given me a very irregular schedule. Obviously, I really don't want to do that.
On the other hand, I am doing more at work than I used to do. I still deliver mail on the same route that I have been for the last year, but as I am too fast for the route (I finish 1-3 hours early on my route almost every day) they asked me if I would be interested in using that extra time to help do some long overdue paperwork and maintance on all of the other routes in the office. Basically, a bunch of computer work. To be honest, this extra work is exactly what tempted me to take up the management position in the first place, so it's like I got all the benefits without the costs of what
I wanted from management.
As far as other events in the last few weeks, we've had some friends leave for their missions (in the "other activities" category of things that prevented the updates) and we also had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the blessing of James' new daughter, Anna Dixie Steimle (pardon me if I spelled it wrong). We spent the evening before that sunday with my Mom and Dad. As it was Mom's birthday, we decided to take them out to dinner to Claim Jumper. It was a wonderful meal if a tad slow (wait time on a saturday night was an hour and fifteen minutes just to get a table), but the food was wonderful
and made great leftovers the next day.
Nathan has been providing us with a great challenge this last week. On wednesday, he absolutely refused to eat his vegetables for dinner. He ate his chicken, but wouldn't eat the vegetables. This got him sent to bed with us telling him that he would have it for breakfast. He accepted that but when breakfast came, he again refused to eat his vegetables. This continued for the rest of that day and the day after. Finally, on Saturday evening, we got him to swallow one piece of those vegetables (though I think that Michelle replaced them with fresh ones because she was worried about them going bad) and then he got to eat the quesadillas that he
perfers. And now today we had leftover pizza for a quick lunch which had vegetables for our diet and health purposes, and he ate everything but the vegetables. So he's back in bed again. We're trying other tactics as well, such as taking toys away which he'll have to earn back by eating his vegetables for a week or so to get one back, and we'll be trying to take him with us to our planned social activities, but not let him play (we'll strap him into a stroller) until he eats his vegetables. And we're still trying to think of other things that might work. We'll keep you posted, though if you do have ideas that you want to share, please feel
free to pipe up in the forums.
January 21st, 2007
Another holiday make-up week. I'm almost all holiday'd out. I mean, how many times can I help everyone get caught up after doing all of my own work before I burn out? At least we don't have any real holidays for another month. None that we get a day off for at least. I like the time to spend with my family, but yeeesh. Why do I always have to clean up the mess it causes? Why can't everyone else just do their own work, eh?
Anyways, we had a decent week otherwise. We visited James' family down in Poway to exchange Christmas gifts. We'd have come down sooner, but they have the new baby and Nathan has been somewhat ill lately, so we had to wait until Nathan was well enough. Of course we brought our camera down with us so we also got a picture of little Anna (is that how you spelled it?) which we have permission to share with all of you.
Nathan loves that new Thomas the Tank engine game by the way, I think he's played it every day this week since then.
We've been playing a game this last week a little more frequently. On the PS2 we have Okami. Basically, you get to be a god in the shape of a white wolf who goes around saving the world as she gains in power. It's been fun and the story is good. The puzzles range from mild to challenging to...nigh to impossible. But it's one that I'd recommend playing if you have the system, time, money, and inclination.
January 14th, 2007
Another week, and this one was less eventful than the last few thankfully. I mean the holidays are nice and all, but it's nice to just have a regular week again without having to scramble for anything.
Not that we didn't do anything this last week. We watched two new movies. Friday we went to see Happily N'Ever After in the theater. It was good, but it seems to me that there was tons more that they could have done with the story. It just felt incomplete somehow. I'd recommend renting it once when it comes out on video. We also saw Night at the Museum last week and we really enjoyed that one.
If you haven't seen it in the theater yet, I would recommend it. That's one we might even buy when it comes out on DVD.
Nathan is now in Sunbeams at church. As with just about everything with him, the change has been a seemingly painless process, and he's adapting well. He likes the singing but hasn't mentioned much about the lessons after church yet. But he does go without protest, so I have to assume that he doesn't dislike them.
Also, Michelle and Nathan have been doing crafts more lately. Nathan has learned to cut in a straight line with scissors and really loves playing with glue (not sniffing or eating it). I hear that he might be making Valentines to send out to friends and family this year.
January 7th, 2007
Sorry about missing last week. We had a busy New Year's Eve with company coming over, and the festivities lasted all the way till midnight, so I forgot completely to update this. In any case, Happy Belated New Year!
We've had an eventful two weeks. Nathan has been sick for the last week with a runny nose and cough. It's partially because of our flip-flopping weather (cold and dry one day, then wet, then dry, etc.) and partially because he has some kind of bug, I think. He woke up a few nights ago with a fever and vomiting, but it only lasted the night.
Let's see. I had a three day weekend the weekend of New Years. Thanks to President Ford's funeral on tuesday, President Bush declared that day off for all federal employees and as we always get New Years day off and the day before being sunday (which we always get off), the days just stacked up. So I ended up with lots of time to do cleaning around the
apartment, go and take Nathan to get our hair cut at the Barber, and other more recreational activities. Of course, we did have to pay for it with an extrordinarily heavy week of backlog mail as a result, but the days off are worth it. The funny thing is I managed to take care of all of the backlog on my own route by Thursday and then spent most of the rest
of the week helping out everyone else to get caught up. You'd think that people who have been there longer would know the tricks to get their jobs done in a timely manner, but oh well.
Another interesting development at work is that one of the supervisors has left our office to move up in the world creating a vacancy, so it became a common joke that they'd be drafting me into a part time supervisor position. This prompted a response from me mainly because I knew if I didn't say anything that they would probably be right. I'm not sure
exactly how I phrased it, but I made sure that the appropriate people knew that I wasn't currently interested in a supervisor position and that I was perfectly content to stay a regular carrier at present. I'm hoping that that will be enough.
With the New Year, Michelle and I are being more strict with ourselves again. Firstly, we are being more restrained with our spending which really translates into home cooked meals rather than fast food or delivery and fewer other unnecessary purchases. Also, we're going back on the diet again. I knew I wouldn't be able to stay on the diet during the holiday
season, so I really didn't try. Oddly enough, I only gained two pounds during the entire season which I have alreay lost in this last week of dieting. At this rate, I might even feel comfortable in a swim suit again by summer...or spring really. I'm exercising as well now. At 5 am every weekday I go running with a good friend named Robbie Terrill. Not for too
long or too far (my legs can take it but my chest can't yet -- the first day I was coughing and out of breath for a full two hours after about a half/three-quarters mile -- I've been much better since) but I do imagine we'll increase the distance soon enough. Michelle has some upper body exercises that go along with the diet plan that we're doing and I'll be starting
those soon. We also got the Dance Dance Revolution game for Christmas (I got it for Michelle) and that's turned out to be quite a workout as well in a good fun way.
Church has changed times as it always does with the new year and it runs for us from 8am-11am now. With tithing right after, I'm going to be home by noon each sunday. Choir practice will probably be at 3pm so our evenings will be much more open than they used to be. This will make home teaching much easier on sundays which is when my companion would perfer to do it,
and it also will make it easier to attend or hold family and friend gatherings. Sure we have to wake up at 6am on sundays now, but since I'm getting up at 5am the rest of the week, it's not a problem...for me at least. Anyways, hope you all had a good New Year!
Merry Christmas!
December 25th, 2006
I hope all of our friends and family had as good a Christmas as we have had so far. Yep. I waited to update till today on purpose so that I could get everything I could on this update.
So how did this week go? All in all, it was much tamer than we were anticipating. Oh sure, there was the last minute rush for Christmas gifts, but as far as the mail I had to deliver, it really wasn't that bad. Monday, Friday, and Saturday this week had heavy parcels, true, but the rest of the week I was able to get off early even. Add to it the Christmas gifts (usually etibles or cash) that my customers gave me throughout the week and the lack of training, and I really have no reason to complain at all
Last night we went down to Michelle's Mom's house to have a Christmas Eve dinner with her family (the soups were wonderful! And that bread... *drools* Even Nathan liked that) and enjoyed some of their Christmas traditions such as the white elephant game, the nativity play put on by the little kids, and general conversation. We really had a good time.
And then we had this morning. Today has been a very relaxing day. We've spent the entire day at home partially because we ran out of clean underwear for Nathan (still perfecting that potty training thing) and partially to just enjoy our Christmas gifts. Notable among the things that we have been enjoying through the day was the Leapfrog system that Michelle's Mom got for him, the Thomas system compatable train that can move on it's own that Aunt Chelle and Uncle Joe sent Nathan, and the PS2 complete with Dance Dance that I got Michelle
(for exercise, really :P ). All the while we've been munching on home-made candies and truffles from Michelle's friend Kara.
So without further ado, here is today's pictures and movies (you knew they were coming!). Enjoy!
December 17th, 2006
This has been one of those weeks when I told myself "I'm going to put that on the website" about so many things that I almost don't know where to begin. Um...ok. Brief. I trained two more people this week. The first one was good and the second one made me want to throw him out of my vehicle and scream at him, "You don't stand a chance of getting this down, just give up and put me out of my misery" ...or something like that.
He was very quiet during the first two days when he was supposed to be watching me do it right and learning, but on day three when he was supposed to be able to do it on his own, he just made so many mistakes...anyways, you get the idea.
Let's see...on Wednesday night we had our apartment complex Christmas party. Michelle planned it very well, as usual, but suprisingly, I was able to attend despite the busyness of the year in my job. One of the benefits of my training is that I have been able to go home when we are done (usually), so I was home about an hour before the party even started. I had a good time and the thing that I told myself that I wanted to put
on the website was Nathan's experience with Santa (one of the residents dressed up as Santa Claus for us). Initially he was timid and didn't even want to leave my lap when Santa was in the room, but after fifteen minutes or so of watching other kids going and sitting on Santa's lap, getting their pictures taken (polaroid), and coming away with a candy cane, he decided to try it. I have a digital picture that I took with my camera
of the experience and will try to add it here sometime today if I can squeeze the time out of one of the other things that we have to do.
We also had our Ward Christmas Party on friday which was also great fun. For those in my parent's family, you'll remember the Snapps in Escondido (maybe). Well, Warren Jr. and his wife recently moved into our ward with their little daughter (18 months) and we were able to spend more time catching up with them. Not to mention the activities and entertainment that was there. A hawaiian family which also recently moved in (4-5 months ago?)
put on a wonderful performance of music and dancing. Add to that Nathan's second experience with Santa (a young man in our ward) where Nathan only took about a minute to decide to get in line to see Santa. We forgot the camera for that event though. Ah well.
I'm sure that I'm missing some things...oh yeah, we got our Christmas tree yesterday and decorated it...but we are getting kinda pressed on time so I'll leave it at that. I'll either add the pictures to this section here later or to the picture section...which I will revamp soon. *sighs* So much to do. Later
December 10th, 2006
As you can see (hopefully), there have been big changes to the website this week. I've overhauled the frontpage making it image-heavy and content-light, I've moved the news to it's own page (this one obviously), I've made the movies able to play themselves in the browser without your downloading any extra programs or even the movie file itself (though you can still download them if you like),
and I have much more still to do. This is all based on how much time I have and what I took the time to read in my HTML book this last week, so who knows what will end up changing next. Actually, I do have some plans. I will be adding backgrounds and perhaps even borders and/or columns to the news pages, the Pictures page will be filled with thumbnails which you will be able to click on to
get the full image, and I still have that webcomic in the works (*pokes David*) which I'm (*pokes David*) trying to (*pokes David*) have a really good (*pokes David*) comic book artist (*pokes David*) help draw, when he has the time, of course. All of the other projects which I have talked with others on are still in the works and coming closer to being accomplished, so don't worry, I haven't
forgotten you. Mainly, I'm still figuring out how exactly I'll accomplish the tasks.
In other news, I spent all of the last week training new people at work. The one which I started training last week ended up a near disaster. He is just too careful for his own good (meaning "slow"), and that just isn't going to cut it in the post office. After I finished with him and gave the supervisors my report on him, they told me that it's not uncommon to get people who just don't know
what they are getting into when go through the application process and though they can pass the written exam, that doesn't mean that they will necessarily be good postal carriers. ie:. It's not my fault that he's slow. In fact, the next trainee was much better and restored my faith in my ability to train people. Now all I have to decide is do I like doing it *grins*
Yesterday we went to Michelle's brother, Chris' children's (very posessive, aren't we?) birthday party. It was fun and we saw lots of people there, but unfortunately, Nathan and I had to leave early because he decided he was having too much fun to take the time to go use the restroom. That's been happening alot lately actually. Michelle and I are trying to get him to see that going potty is
more important than watching whatever TV program or movie is on, more important than playing on the computer, more important than playing with his trains, etc, but he's having a really hard time seeing that. Actually, if you have any suggestions for how to impress that importance on a three year old boy, please feel free to post it in the forums or e-mail us or something. We're doing what we
know, but more input can only help.
December 3rd, 2006
Obviously, we have a new family picture up top and that is one of the things that we did this week. We had the photo taken at the Picture People...or something like that, in the Mall in Escondido (North County Fair) and they didn't end up as good as we were hoping them to be, but they were decent enough to put them in our christmas cards as we were planning this year. Our complaint is that the photographer really rushed us through the entire photo taking process and didn't take time to really pose us or anything. In most of the pictures they took of us, our faces
ended up looking fatter than they really are...well, than Michelle's is at least. *grins impishly* What can I say? I love my chocolate.
This week had an interesting twist at work for me. I came in on Wednesday expecting a normal day of doing my route and half of someone else's and got a good hour into it when one of the supervisors came to me and said, "Oh Lucas? You're training today." Initially, I didn't believe that they would have me train a new mail carrier with the minimal amount of instruction that I have received regarding training others in this position, but after consulting with the next supervisors over the one who told me I was training, I discovered that they did indeed want me to train that
day. Dumbly, I accepted it as I accept any of their nonsensical decisions despite the fact that I never agreed to be a trainer in the first place. So I just told myself, Ok, let's make this work...somehow. I did the best I could do in the circumstances that they put me in and the first day went...eh...ok, I guess. He watched me prep my route and I talked at him the entire time to give him all the hints and tricks I could in the time I was given. The second day he came out with me on my route and watched me deliver it "helping" every so often (really, all he did was slow me
down, but you can't expect a new guy to move with any kind of speed). Anyways, day three is tomorrow and all I have to say is that I kind of wish I had told the supervisors that I didn't want to train before they tossed one my way. Can I do it? Of course I can. But the extra 87 cents an hour isn't worth all that extra stress. Ah well, maybe tomorrow will go better.
As fun as my week at work was, Michelle's was...um...more...fun? Her assistant gave her two weeks notice this week and then the assistant's husband called the next day to say that she wouldn't be coming in for those last two weeks. Effectively, that ate up more of Michelle's time until she can get someone to fill the holes made by that sudden departure. I hear that the weekend assistant will be making up the slack and more so this might work out even better than what was happening recently, but eh, we all know it'll work out in the end.
Michelle also went to come Christmas thing in San Diego I hear and wants to tell you about it, so here ya go.
Well Nathan and I got to go the Christmas on the Prado with Grandma Burrell and Julia. We got to look at lots of christmas decorations and try foods from different countries. There were live performers that were singing, dancing and playing music all over the park. Nathan really enjoyed one of the rides and he loved seeing the decorations. My favorite part was showing him a life size nativity diarama set up in the open air ochestra pavillion. We left at about 5:30 and decided to stop and visit Grandpa on the way back to Grandma's house. Julia and I sang for him while he ate
his supper. Nathan fell asleep in the car and he slept at the foot of the bed for our entire visit with Grandpa. He woke up when we got back to Grandma's house and we had a surprise because some cousins were in town and had dropped by to visit. Julia and I talked with them for a bit and headed home just after 7. I got to see a lot of family in just one trip so it was a pretty busy day.
November 26th, 2006
I do hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. Ours was rather nice. I worked every day this week other than Thanksgiving Day itself, so we crammed it all into that one day. We went and I participated in our Ward's Turkey Bowl (flag football) in the morning, we made apple and pumpkin pies in the noontime, afternoon and early evening was spent at Michelle's Uncle's place (thanks for having us over Randy!) with some of her local and not so local family members, and ended the night at home eating the rest of the pumpkin pie and watching movies. A very restful day.
Next morning, I felt almost too sore and stiff to move. I guess I should have stretched before and after those football games. *winces* I'm still recovering from that, but at least now I can walk at normal speed without feeling like people are taking sledgehammers to my legs. Just shows how out of shape I am. I've been trying to come up with a way to exercise consistantly for some time and think I've come up with a couple solutions that should work, but until I'm doing them, I'm not goin ta letcha in on what I'm thinkin.
Michelle and I saw the latest James Bond movie in the theater last night. All in all, I think I winced and groaned more than I smiled through that movie. Way too much sexual stuff. And the new James Bond just doesn't have the class that any of the previous ones had. He seems more like a soldier to me. A good, smart soldier, but still only a soldier. The chase scenes are kinda nifty though. The plot is entertaining. I just wish I didn't have to wade through all of the rest of the muck in the movie to appreciate the positives.
Nathan has a new favorite toy. Michelle bought him an airplane that he can take apart with an electric screwdriver that comes with the plane. He's been taking it apart and putting it back together as often as possible ever since he got it.
November 19th, 2006
Woops! Almost forgot to do an update today. It's been a relatively calm week for me. Yeah, the monday after the holiday was insane (I actually took longer than is officially "normal" for my route which hasn't happened for a long time, of course, I also had four times as much mail as is normal for my route *shrugs*), but after that, the week was rather easy at work. There was one interesting thing that happened though. The head supervisor at our office asked me to consider accepting a promotion. She mentioned three choices: a trainer for new carriers (guess they want more people to
do what I do on a daily basis), substitute supervisor for the clerks, or substitute supervisor for the carriers (a morning to evening position). I told her I'd think about it.
You see, I am really comfortable where I am and doing what I'm doing. I love my job. And while I would feel confident that I would do well in any of those capacities, I'm not sure that I would be as happy in any of them. As a trainer, I would likely get frustrated if I got a dunderhead as a trainee who wouldn't learn what I taught no matter how hard I try. As a supervisor in either position, I would get really frustrated by all of the restrictions I would have placed on me preventing me from making the post office more efficient. Union agreements and other stupid rules they have
often just get in the way, in my opinion...though I'm sure in 30 years when I'm old and tired, I'll be glad they are there. I don't know though. I just don't know if it would be worth it to me to accept a promotion if it meant I wasn't as happy with my job as I have been.
Michelle just turned a quarter of a century this last Monday. Other than that, it's been a regular week at the apartment complex. People moving in and out, noisy neighbors who are suddenly quiet when she appears, and the like. All in all a regular week.
Nathan has been having fun all week learning to dress himself. I don't know how often I heard him say this week, "No. I wanna do it," when I tried to get him going to change his clothes. What sparked this new independance is the new shelf and clothing-hanging-closet-thing (you know, the long pole you hang clothes on in a closet in normal closets? I have no idea what you'd call that)...where was I? Well, last saturday I put that thing in his closet at his level so he could get to his clothes, choose them, and put them on without any assistance. He has another one at our height in there which came with
the apartment that we were using. So as a result, he's not running around in only his underwear or less as much anymore...at least as far as I've seen.
Anyways, that's about it. Sorry for getting to this so late. Choir is taking up more of our sunday mornings now so I have to do it after church now and we have the late shift.
November 12th, 2006
Boy, this has been a full week. With the elections and the last minute cramming of ads that they pumped out to try to influence the votes to Vetrans day (I had it off *cheers*) yesterday and our celebrating Michelle's birthday somewhat impromptuly with her family...it's just been very busy. We've also been taking a more serious approach to the website and the upcoming changes to it which we've been working on. As I said before, we're planning on adding a webcomic to it, but progress on that has been really slow as we work out the how to do it. We've tried a variety
of programs (paint, three versions of Photoshop, a manga drawing program, and in the end, Corel Painter 3) finally ending up with a combo that we think will work well for what we plan to do. We've also bought a tablet to help with the actual drawing as the drawing on paper and scanning was so time consuming as we would have to basically redraw it completely again in the program to make it work in the way that we wanted. I am so pleased with the tablet that I can hardly imagine doing drawing on computers without it.
That doesn't mean that we have all the pages done that we want before we give anyone access to them, but it does mean that you'll probably see them soon.
We celebrated Michelle's Birthday yesterday at Acapulcos (a Mexican restaurant) with her family and had a good time there. The food was generally spicey and barely within my tolerance levels even on the "mild" stuff that I had, but the flavor was still good. I'll put up a few photos from there:
Nathan had a fun week as well. One notable thing was when he went out to fly a kite with Michelle. Even at three years old, he managed to keep the kite up for three whole minutes in the end all by himself. I didn't get to see it with my own eyes, but Michelle took some good pictures and even a couple videos of the occation. And that reminds me, the movies that my camera produces are .avi files which are not readable by the older Windows Media Players. On the other hand, there is a free program that you can install which will allow you to view them. DivX
is a program that I'd recommend for any Windows XP system which doesn't have the codec for .avi files. For Windows 98/ME, use this download for the player. These players should work for all of the videos on this site as well.
As a final note, I've lots of things in mind as possible changes to this website to make it a bit more attractive and user friendly so stay tuned and hopefully I'll have time to do it all soon.
November 5th, 2006
I'm all better now, and it's a good thing too. This week has been crazy at work. With the upcoming election, we are getting hammered with all of the political ads. I think I've even seen four ads for the same individual all on the same day, it's been so rediculous. Ah well. It does mean that I get to have more overtime and, hence, bigger paychecks, so at least it has it's bright side. We'll have plenty saved up for our house when we can finally transfer.
And it couldn't come soon enough. We had a gang related shooting probably less than 100 feet from our apartment on the night before Halloween. We were sitting and carving Jacko-Lanterns in our living room when we heard three loud pops outside. We thought it was firecrackers or something and as we didn't see any kids or teens running off outside our window, there was little we could do, so we went back to our pumpkin carving. About five minutes later Michelle's assistant manager came to the door and let us know what happened. Anyways, we know that we probably won't have
any problems with the gangs ourselves, but it is somewhat worrying to live around.
Nathan and Michelle went out trick-or-treating for a whole half-hour on Halloween. (I was still working till well past dark) He really enjoyed it and I thought it would be nice to share some of the pictures from that here. So here ya go.
To see the pictures in their full size, just click on them. See you all next week!
October 29th, 2006
I'm mostly over my illness. My tonsils are back to their usual sizes, the headache and fever are gone, and I can hear fine out of one ear. My left ear is still a bit swollen in the canal, but the doctor said that there is no infection, so it's just waiting for the swelling to go down that's left. I'm taking motrin to help speed that process along.
Work is picking up again with the coming holidays and the ads that come with them. The coming election is also adding to the load in a greater way. So many political advertisements. It's getting rather annoying seeing how much the ads are going more and more negative towards the competition. If only people focused more on the positive than the negative, but what can ya do?
Michelle and I are back in the ward choir working hard on the christmas program. Our last choir director had to move unexpectedly and our bishop was on vacation, so for too long we've not had a choir, but as christmas is coming up and we really want to have something prepared for that occation at the very least, Michelle took it upon herself to pull the choir faithful together and get started on the music that our previous choir director chose for this season. It's new to all of us so it'll be quite the challenge. I think we'll have to take some songs away from the general
choir and give it to smaller quartets or however many we can get to attend extra choir practices throughout the week. Of course, we still don't officially have a choir director. Michelle is just filling in until one is called, so we'll see what the new choir director decides. Rumors have it that one will be called this week.
Nathan managed to avoid getting sick at all thankfully this last week with both me and Michelle catching to some degree the head problems. He's becoming increasingly independant. He is starting to dress himself completely with encouragement, he likes to buckle himself into his carseat, and is going to the bathroom on his own without reminders better. He's just growing up so fast. We hope to have a sibling for him before too long, but there's only so much we can do about that. When the time is right, I'm sure his brother or sister will come along.
October 22nd, 2006
I'm sick. It started with some outer ear problems and migrated to my tosils causing them to swell and get really annoying. I've had fevers, headaches, dizziness, and a general feeling of blech for the last couple days. I've only missed one day of work so far and I hope to be well enough to go back tomorrow if all goes well. Haven't gone to the doctors yet, but according to the research I've done on the various posibilities of what it might be, there doesn't seem to be much that they could do anyways other than cutting parts of me out, which I see as a last resort. Anyways,
other than that, life seems to be going at it's normal pace.
Michelle and I are working on a project for the site which should be fun when it's completed. It's a comic based on a D&D adventure that I DM'd a while back. She's drawing and I'm putting it together and putting it on the website. The first page is done, but until we have ten pages ready, I don't think it'll be worth reading because the first bit is just basic introductions and the like. In any case, you'll be the first to see it before we get advertising going.
Nathan has discovered the joys of chocolate chip pancakes. He now perfers them to his old favorite, Nutella covered pancakes. It might have to do with the fact that he eats the chocolate chip ones like big cookies and he had to get the nutella ones cut up and eat them with a fork, but it could be the flavor or novelty. Got me.
Wish I had more to say, but the painkillers I'm on don't let me think as well as I usually do. So....I know! I'll share my pancake recepie. Michelle says it's the best one she's ever had, and it'll fill up space.
Pancakes
2 cups flour (I use standard bleached flour usually, but you can substitute whatever kinds of flour you would like to make it healthier)
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp salt
1-2 tsp nutmeg (I kinda just pour it in till I think it's enough)
1-2 tsp cinnamon (ditto)
Sift these ingrediants together either with a sifter or a wisk, then add the following together
1-2 Tbsp Baking powder (depending on how fluffy you like your pancakes and how old the baking powder is)
1 tsp vanilla (imitation or extract in liquid form)
2 whole eggs (minus the shell, of course)
1 3/4 cups milk (any kind is fine)
2 Tbsp Oil (I like Corn oil, but whatever you perfer should be fine)
Mix this together till the clumps are minimal (if you used a sifter, there shouldn't be any clumps) Then you can add whatever you want (ie:. Chocolate Chips, Blueberries, or whatever else you might add to pancakes)
Cook on a medium heat. Makes about fourteen 3 inch diameter pancakes. You can add more milk to make the batter thinner to make more, thinner pancakes if you want.
October 15th, 2006
Can we say, "busy week?" Since we had a federal holiday on monday (Columbus Day, I think), I had that day off, but it was one of those days off that I almost wish we didn't get. You see, since the government is closed and everyone else is still open, everyone else continues to send out mail that we'll still have to deliver within the three day limit for first class and we just have to cram it in with one day less that week. It's really rather annoying, in fact. Reason I say this is that I just spent the last five days making up for that day off. I got my route up to date
by Wednesday, but being that I work faster and more efficiently than just about any of the other mail carriers in our office, I was asked to get a new route up to date each day for the rest of the week. Almost enough to make me want to be as lazy as some of the others who just coast by on as little effort as they can and get away with it constantly. *sighs* But that just isn't me. Heh. I'd get really bored if I tried to do that. You see, it's the challenge of the job, the "how much can I do today?" "what can I do to do better in my job now?" which keeps me happy in this line
of work. Ah well, all's well that ends decently and with a decent sized paycheck, eh?
In other news, Michelle and I went out to see a movie on Friday that we really enjoyed. One Night with the King. Rated PG, based with decent enough accuracy and yet enough artistic liscense off of the book of Esther from the Old Testiment to make it rather enjoyable. It was on limited viewing (ie :. only one theater had it in our area with limited showtimes) so I don't know how long it will be in theaters, but I would give it two thumbs up and recommend it to anyone who likes good clean fun.
Nathan is getting bigger every day. This week we had to get him new underwear because his old underpants were getting too tight and he couldn't get them on without difficulty on his own. This made it much harder for him to go to the restroom on his own and ended up with more accidents than really were normal in his day. All probably because going potty was just too hard to do. He's doing better now with the new pants.
October 8th, 2006
It's sunday again and time for our weekly news. As you see, I've added a set of Forums to the site (see the link below). For those who are less familiar with them, forums (or Messageboards) are an online way for people to communicate in a public manner with many people. You can write whatever you like there and anyone who logs on can read what you wrote. Similarly, you can link pictures/digitized images (another way of saying that you can put them there), have conversations, play text based games, and do lots of other things like that. Lots of Forums/messageboards are used
by companies to gather input from their clients/employees or to let their customers get each other excited about their product, or to let the company answer their customer's questions.
My intent is to give our families and friends an easier way to communicate if we want. I just think that since we are so spread out nowdays, it's hard to pick up the phone or take the time to write and send a letter, but I imagine more of us are using the internet nowdays (it is a part of our progressing socitey after all, and the church itself uses it). So it would be easy enough to add it to your favorites and pop in on a regular basis to keep track of each other. Everything is completely voluntary and if you just want to stop in and read, you are more than welcome to do so.
But I'd be glad for any participation. Oh yes, Michelle decided to use her usual online persona of "Starla," so if you see that name, it's my wife.
In other news, this was the first week of the month so that meant rent time for Michelle. From the first of a month till the fifth of the month, rent is due at Midway Estates and since Michelle is the manager, she has to do all of the extra work involved with collecting and processing all of the rent money. And believe me, it is tons of extra work. I just tend to stay out of the way as much as I can, bring home take out dinners on the worst days, and do what I can to help her on the tiny things I can do. We always survive the week, but sometimes we wonder if we will. *sighs*
It's stuff like this that makes us really want our own home so we don't have to deal with residents and all of that work. Just have to last one more year, and then I'll be able to transfer.
Nathan has been well, but he's been staying up later than usual...well, when he takes his nap later that is. He just seems to be having so much fun in his playtime that he just doesn't want to stop. So he stays up as long as he can till he falls asleep, sometimes in the oddest places. We've seen him fall asleep at the dinner table, while playing his computer, and at random places on the floor. And when he falls asleep, there is no waking him up. I've even changed his clothes completely from play clothes to pajamas without him waking up. The difficult thing though is that
he'll sometimes wake up later at night when his nap is over and then stay up for the next three or so hours before we can get him to go back to bed. Ah well, we'll figure out how to get it to work, but it'd be much easier if both Michelle and I didn't have to work and could take stronger hand in regulating his schedule. *sighs and dreams*
October 6th, 2006
I installed some forums to this site. So feel free to come by and visit for a bit.
October 2nd, 2006
October 1st, 2006
In this update, I finished the links on the side there <--- so you can see some of our favorite online things to do and online sites to visit. I also added some known family website links. If you have a website and want me to link it (and are family, of course), feel free to send me an e-mail and I'll add you to the list.
It's been a nice week *looks at the dates below and above* week and *counts his fingers and toes* three days. I guess a week and a half really. I've pretty much stopped playing World of Warcraft after two years of doing it in most of my free time. Heh. That actually had a great deal to do with my choice to stop playing that game. I just didn't enjoy it enough anymore to justify putting that much time into it. And as it IS such and addictive game (all MMORPGs tend to be that way in my experience), it was a "yes, I'll play" or "no, I won't play" sort of choice.
The net result has been I have had lots more time to do things that I had been putting off for some time *coughs "this website"* and I've been able to spend more time with my real life friends (as opposed to my online friends).
Another thing that I've been doing this last week has been that diet that Michelle has had lots of success on. In fact, in the last week I've managed to lose a total of six pounds on that diet. Just...thirty-four to go for my goal.
Michelle hosted a Foot Party this friday. What it was was a bunch of her friends and ward members getting together (all female I think, I didn't attend as I was babysitting Nathan)to do nice things to their feet with some products that one of them was trying to sell (like a pampered shef party or tupperware). Anyways, they had mounds of veggies, fruit, and chocolate there from what was prepared in our kitchen and it sounded lots of fun (they held it in the party room of our apartment complex and I was in our apartment).
Nathan is well. He did something which made me a very proud father on friday while Michelle was at her party. He has a puzzle with the entire alphabet and was playing with the letters at some time that evening. I was laying on the couch reading a fantasy novel, and then he came up to me and put three letters on the couch next to me. He put them in order and said, "Look! I spell Zak." I looked over, and lo and behold, he had the letters Z A K in order next to me. (Zack is one half of a two headed dragon on Dragontales on KPBS that he likes). When I confirmed that he had spelled
it right and praised him for doing a really good job for doing it, he proceeded to explain to me why it was Zak. That Z made a Zzzzz sound like in Zoo and in Zzzzz...when people sleep, that A made an ah sound like in Apple, and that K made it's sound in some way that I don't remember exactly. I hugged him and praised him again. Considering he's only three and a half, I am very pleased that he's learning so well.
September 21st, 2006
Yes! I have finally updated...err...put something on the site! In this update, we're adding movies that you can download and some favorite pictures of Nathan and friends to the side there. As far as current events go, oh goodness, where to start?
Michelle, Nathan, and I went to visit my family in Arizona in the end of August. We stayed with David and Brittany (thanks again!) and Mom and Dad during the week trip. We spent time looking for a house to move to and had a relaxing time there. Of course, when we came home, we found out that I'm not going to be able to transfer in the Post Office until next March or September (the letter we got said 12 or 18 months from my career hire date I'll be allowed to transfer). So, while we did see some houses we liked, it will be a while more before we can buy a place of our own.
Michelle has been doing a new diet to great effect. It's the Six Week Body Makeover. In the last five weeks she's managed to lose 20lbs and three clothing sizes. She's very happy with the results as am I.
Nathan is three and a half now. He still loves Thomas the Tank Engine, Elmo, and Blues Clues. Lately he's learned how to navigate the internet (within the limits we've set) and enjoys visiting the websites of his favorite "friends."