Fence

I went to work today as I was feeling a bit better this morning. By the end of the day I was extremely tired though and I put this off to my not being completely better yet. I wondered if I would be able to drive home because of the tiredness. I took a quick nap and felt good enough to get home.

After arriving home, I looked at the work in progress on our fence. It seemed to be going well. They told me that they would finish it up tomorrow first thing in the morning. It will be good to finally have that up. Bring in a new neighbor and build a fence seems to be the thing to do.

I was still feeling a bit tired after arriving home. After we picked up the kids, I went in to sleep. It seems that is all I want to do these days. I stayed in the room for most of the evening. I hate being so sleepy and feeling like there is nothing I can do. I don't think my wife is happy with it either.

Vegas Trip

Well, I have to go back and try to figure out various things that happened during the last week and a half.

Friday the 18th was my normal day off and was spent in taking care of odds and ends that needed to be taken care of before we left on our trip. The next day we had our kids do some heavier cleaning than normal and we also helped out in this area. My wife wants things to be ready in case others besides her mother would be staying at our house during the week that we are gone. It was also hoped that the house would be somewhat clean when we arrived home later (it was). I then took the kids over to Pam and Annes home, where they would have a party that night and then be driven back home on Sunday when Grandma would be there.

Sunday morning we got up early and got ready to leave. We were out of the house by 8:00 AM and heading to Las Vegas in our SUV. It was a pleasant trip. Not too hot, not too cold. Not very much traffic. Of course, then the one incident happened. We were in Cedar City, and found out that the doors to the SUV can be locked from the passengers side of the car while the keys are in the ignition. When we realized this, of course, it was too late. We tried to call a couple of lock smiths, but they weren't answering their phones. We next called the police who told us to call a towing company who could probably do it. A few minutes later, and $60 later, we were in our SUV with a scratch on the window tinting. Not too much we could do about it now. We continued our trip and had a nice lunch in St. George.

Once in Vegas, we were asked if we would be willing to go to the Rio rather than Caesars Palace for the first night. They were offering an incentive of a free nights stay. Since work was paying for it, that wasn't much of an incentive and I am glad that we didn't do it as it would've been a bit difficult. I registered for the IBI conference and tried to get hold of the others down there to go to dinner. We missed them all somehow, and ended up going to the Cheesecake factory for dinner. It was a wonderful dinner that we were able to share. We saw the whole group watching the statues in Caesars Palace and then a little bit later we saw them outside by the fountains of the Bellagio.

Monday morning came too early and I was off to breakfast. I put some of the breakfast in a bag so I could take it up to my wife. I did this each morning of the conference as it would save us a couple of bucks plus she didn't want to go out to eat without having somebody else there. The first part of the conference was a real waste of time. I couldn't believe they had us sit through a three hour presentation. It was painful. For the rest of the week, I would be going to classes on things that I chose. Some of those were good and some were really bad.

Monday evening, we headed out to the Magruders house. We picked up our twin nephews and went to Kilroys for dinner. We had some good talking with them and then took them on home when we went to talk with Alan and Libby. It was a nice evening sitting out in their back yard and just talking with them.

There was more of the same on Tuesday and Wednesday as far as classes go. They didn't offer enough legal caffeine during any of the times so I had to learn to take my own caffeine to class just to make it through the time. After the conference my wife and I just wandered around the strip (not too far from Caesars Palace) and just enjoyed some of the things going on there. We had a buffet in the Paris (which was quite good) and then on Wednesday evening we ate again at the Cheesecake factory.

Thursday morning, after breakfast (supplied by the conference) we got ready to leave and left by 11:00 AM. We found our way out of Vegas without too many difficulties, although we did end up in a bad part of town for while we filled up with gas. We went to St George where we had reservations in the Ramada Inn there. The rooms seemed to be like staying in your grandmothers house. It wasn't too bad, just not as good as we had hoped for. Thursday evening my wife had a major migraine. The rest of the time there was fun.

We mostly did shopping in St. George. We even went to the Deseret Industries to get some things we needed for our son and his Pioneer Trek that he will be going on in June. We didn't lose any money in Vegas, we lost it all in St George in the shopping spree. But, we had fun. We also saw Pirates of the Carribean while we were there. It was a new release and we were shocked to be able to get into it.

We had about five hours of traveling on Saturday to make it home. Once we were home we did a bit of relaxing before going to my mother-in-laws to pick up the kids. I was also disappointed a bit with the fence posts that went in while we were away. The kids were not at Grandmas house when we got there. They had gone out with Pam and Steve (he came in from Florida) to watch the Pirate show. We did a bit of visiting and then headed on home.

Sunday, we had church. After that, we headed out to the Wachs home again so we could have a nice dinner and visit with Steve before he went home on Monday. My wife took her hair cutting stuff and felt that her family totally took advantage of her this time. She did three hair cuts and didn't receive any kind of renumeration. I guess she did get a massage out of it, but she didn't feel that she was paid for her services. This isn't like her family at all, but it did happen this time.

Monday was memorial day. This is the day that last year we buried my brother. As a family, we went to see Shrek the third. It was an OK show. I had hoped that it would be better than it was. It was the worst out of the three shows (the other two were good). We also got my son another airsoft gun. He's happy with that.

I woke up Tuesday around 2:00 AM. I was feeling quite ill and called in sick to work around 7:30. I felt awful all day long. I was throwing up and having diarrhea all at the same time. That made for a mess. I stayed in my room the entire day and didn't feel like doing anything at all. I slept the whole day away (at least when I wasn't doing any puking or crapping). By tonight, I was feeling a bit better although I feel quite worn out. I'll probably be going to work tomorrow. For now, I need to get to bed.

Sleep Apnea

Last night, I worked with that new face mask. It didn't take me as long to get it all done as the previous night. I was still a bit frustrated with it though. I got it on better and went to bed. I woke a couple of times because my nose was sore. I kept on trying to adjust the mask and finally got it so it wasn't hurting as much. When I woke up, I found that I had a new open sore on the end of my nose (which was what was hurting). I think I understand this mask good enough now that I can probably deal with it. It would be so much better if I didn't have this sleep apnea.

At work, I was able to figure out all the problems of the file I was dealing with. I fixed it up good enough to be able to load it into our test database, and we sent out to Synergy the problems that I had been having. Hopefully they will get it fixed and send us a file right back. Things should be set up to run a bit more automated, though I still have to fix my portion to run automatically.

We didn't do too much tonight. I was finally able to get my white pants back from Lance who had borrowed them over two months ago for a baptism. He gave me a hard time about not getting to the temple with them. I certainly don't go to the temple like I need too. That is one of the things that my wife and I need to work on.

I got my son outside to mow the lawn tonight. I also went out and did all the edging and that kind of stuff. I was a bit tired, but it had to be done. I also talked to Len about our boundary line for the fence that will be started next week while I am not at home. At least we will have my Mother-in-law and the kids at home. They wish they could go down to Vegas with us, but my kids won't make it this year, while my mother-in-law will be going the following week.

My daughter got to go over to the neighbors house and babysit their children for about a half an hour. She was happy to do this, and it gave her a little bit of experience so hopefully when they really need a sitter they will come over and ask her to do that for a little bit of extra cash.

We didn't really do too much else tonight. Just another night of watching some TV and being vegetables.

House Looking

No, we're not out looking for a new house.

Not too much happened Tuesday. My kids did get to Young Men/Young Women and had a combined activity where they played Human Foosball. From what I gleaned from them, they enjoyed that.

Earlier on Tuesday, I went to SleepWell who is handling my sleep apnea. I had to get a new mask. Those things are darn expensive. It's a good thing that insurance is covering it all. I got a new type of mask that just goes in through the nostrils with a tube there rather than a big mask covering most of my face. It seemed to be a good idea at the time, but I had a hard time with it at night when nobody was around to help me out with it (that's usually the case). I did get it mostly taken care of but still had some problems.

Today, I was quite busy at work. I took care of a bunch of things and found some problems with some of the test files coming into us. I'll have to do more research on that tomorrow.

Of course, after arriving home, we got the kids to piano lessons. When we were driving around we saw the Bennets. They have gutted their home and are making their rambler into a two story home. I talked to Darren about this and he said that he couldn't find another half acre lot close enough to them at the right price so decided to build up so his mother could move in with them. We walked through his house to see what they are doing. He seems to be enjoying this process.

When we left there, we went past our old home. The door was open and we could see that some painting was going on. We were pretty sure the house had sold again and we went up to see if the people would let us see what it was they were doing. They were painting it and putting in some wood floors. They had just moved in on Saturday. They were a very nice couple and we only took a little bit of their time up.

We got the kids picked up from piano lessons and headed home. There really isn't too much else going on.

Mothers Day fiasco

I had Friday off with my wife. We went to a nice lunch together and then did a little bit of shopping at JC Penney. We probably spent too much, but it was stuff that we needed. We were looking to see what to get for our parents, although we didn't really come up with a good answer at that time.

Saturday, we worked on getting the kids to clean up the house. They would do more with us out of the house, so we went shopping for our mothers again. We got a plate holder and plates for my wifes mother, and chocolates for my mother. When we got home we found the kids had cleaned most of the house, although there was still more they could do. At least they did all of that.

Around 4:30 we went over to my Mother-in-laws house so we could have a mothers day dinner since Pam and Anne wouldn't be able to make it on Sunday. Anne made the dinner, and boy was it good. I filled up on it pretty well. We were able to visit with Chantelle for a little while and meet her 9 month old baby. It was a good visit.

Sunday morning came. I got up in time to get the kids up to make their mom some breakfast. It was really simple. We got bagels with Sausage and eggs that were premade and you just had to pop it in the microwave for a minute or so. We also got some mini Cinnabons. My wife enjoyed this breakfast.

While my wife was getting ready to go to church my kids were talking about going to grandmas ward because it was earlier than our own, and ours was just too late. There was no way my wife was going to make it to that. There were a few comments and then my wife was quite angry. She finally told me to take them to another ward (that was early) and then to come on home. I did this, and felt kind of silly being in a mothers day meeting without having my wife there. We left a couple of minutes early as they were passing out the mothers day gifts.

Arriving home, I found my wife with a major headache. She was trying to get it under control. I'm sure that this was part of the cause of her getting upset. Of course the kids aren't easy when they get their minds made up for one thing or another.

Time passed, and my wifes headache wasn't getting any better. She told me that I had better just take the kids over to her moms house and then my moms. We spent a few hours at each of these homes. Of course everybody was asking where my wife was. I hated that. I hated that she couldn't come with us in the first place. I did understand that she wasn't feeling well. We got back home pretty late.

Today work got a bit busy for me. I was given a task to do and it took awhile to get it all figured out. I did get it all accomplished and felt good about it.

At home, I saw that my wife was cooking up a Roast in the crockpot, and I went out because I needed to move a sprinkler for a fence that will be going in on our property when we go to Vegas this coming Sunday. I also had to find where the pipes were for the water so they won't hit them when digging for the posts. I just hope they don't mess up while we're gone. I was hot and sweaty, but then that happens when you get a fat old man out there doing physical work.

I watched the move "The Ron Clarke Story" tonight. It went quite late. I did enjoy it though.

Birthday

Going back to Monday, it was my wifes birthday. I was hoping that I could call into a local bakery and have a cake by the evening as I did not plan that out well enough. The bakery opened at 7:00 AM and I was on the phone immediately. They said they could have it out as fast as noon. That surprised me pleasantly. I told them I would pick it up after 4:00.

Work was finally done. I left a few minutes early and had to get to BestBuy so that I could get a few more dollars off of the camera I had bought for my daughters birthday (which was last week). Ten bucks is ten bucks I guess.

I headed to Schmidts bakery and got the cake. It was a white cake with strawberry filling, and was a wonderful cake. My wife was sure she would have to go get this cake later. I had asked her questions which lead her to believe that I didn't know what she had asked for. When I arrived home with it, she told me that it was exactly what she had been craving.

My wifes mother had taken her out for lunch and the kids decided with my wife that we should go to Chilis. I thought we wouldn't be going and had started to trim the edges of our lawn. I only finished the front yard and was called in to go. We had a great dinner and came on home. My wife then opened her only gift from me (which was body lotions) as she had already gotten some clothes for her birthday. There was also a card that my parents dropped off at work.

That card that my parents dropped off was kind of funny. My mom always plans for birthdays and always mails things out so they will be at your home by your birthday. I received a call from my mom saying that with the wedding of my nephew and other things she had forgotten. Would it be all right if dad dropped of the card at work. Of course I told her yes. Dad made a point to tell me that mom had been the one to forget to mail the card as he had made it up in time to get it mailed out. Dad also showed me a memorial he has written to go into the paper on the anniversary of my brothers death. He was dropping that off at the newspaper offices right after he left me.

Well, that's about it for my wifes birthday.

Tuesday was one of those days that I became frustrated. I drove the SUV so I could get it inspected and an IM test for it in order to pay my taxes. I took the SUV up to Big-O tires to get this done. While there I had a single mother talking to me for most of the time. Her father was also by her and talking a little bit. He was helping her out financially and I heard one story about her insurance on her car about six or seven times from him. He can be excused of that as he is 87 years old.

Anyway, I finally went out to see what was taking so long with the car. It was having the IM test done on it, but they could not even get to the computer on the car. It failed in four areas when they were trying to do that. I was told that this happens when the computer has been reset after having the 'check engine' light come on, or a battery failure. None of that had happened, so it had me concerned. They told me that it would reset if I drove the car about 50 miles and then brought it back in.

Well, I went back to work although my mind was on the car and my time at work was almost worthless. I called a few places to see what they would say about this, and none of the places that I called had ever heard of a car that would have this happen to it. I didn't know what I would do at that point in time.

I decided to talk to my boss who has a friend that is a manager at Larry H. Millers Honda service department. He tried to get hold of him but he wasn't available. I headed home a little bit stressed about this. I did stop into a place to get a rock chip taken care of that was in the windshield.

When I arrived home, my wife was coloring Toni's hair. I talked a little bit about this with both of them, and then we got into some other things. For one thing, I had heard that Chad Merica (one of the guys that had to go to court with my brother-in-law) had gotten an extra thirty years for not showing up for prison. I later checked it out in some online papers and found that he only had 14 months added on for contempt of court of which eight months would be served concurrently giving him six extra months posted onto the end of his prison sentence.

Anyway, my wife felt like I over-talked her and this has been a complaint of her about me for quite some time. I keep on trying not to do this, but I can get up there with the best of them.

The kids had Young Men/Young Women, so they were sent on their way and my wife and I sat home and watched American Idol and House.

Today came along and once again, there is work. Work did have an Employee Appreciation Luncheon that was steak, baked potato, corn and a cookie. It was a pretty nice lunch. After all of that, I went and talked to Brad about calling his friend at Larry H. Miller, and we got him. I told him that I would be able to be there after 4:00 and he would have the SUV looked over. This only took them about ten minutes and I had the IM test done. So, it turns out that I stressed over nothing at all. I did go into the DMV to take care of the taxes because I was supposed to have done that by the end of March. I'm only two months late. At least we didn't get pulled over for it.

Tonight, I had both of my kids outside with me mowing the forest (lawn) that we had neglected. We had a lot of grass that needed to be cut, and it was so high, our dog gets lost in it. That took up a good portion of the evening. Anyway, I'm tired now and ready for bed.

Wedding

I took the day off at work so I could go to my Nephews wedding at the Bountiful Temple. My wife and I had a nice drive up there although it was dark and cloudy.

The ceremony went along just great. They got a really good temple sealer that gave them some great advice and also mentioned that they would help both a boy and a girl in their total gospel search. The way it was worded could either be their own children or those of others. It wasn't specific enough to tell. But, he did have a good sense of humor and was enjoyable to listen too.

At the end the sealer let the one side go to greet the couple. My mother turned to my wife when they were almost done so the line could keep on moving. We stood up and headed over and the sealer stopped us and told us to sit down. He had not told us to get up yet. I jokingly commented that I was just being obedient to my mother and he jokingly told her off as well. And for our crime of getting up before we were supposed too, my brother on the other end would go first with us following.

It was cold outside. People were all out there freezing waiting for the pictures. A person from her side of the family said that they should be allowed to get family pictures first because she was cold and our family was bigger and would take longer. We found that a bit humorous, though not too, because it was so cold.

Pictures were all over, and we found that my family was going to go to a restaurant in Provo at 3:00. This wouldn't work for my wife and I as we needed to pick up our kids from school at that time. It was a spur of the moment thing because when a wedding breakfast was created by Karen (my neice - and Alans sister) the mother of the bride didn't want to go to a Mexican Restaurant because that would give her bad breath for the rest of the guests.

The rain started coming down about the time I had to pick up my kids and just kept on coming. We left our house around 3:30 to head to Payson for the reception at a church. We left early so we could get something to eat in Orem or Provo before we got there. We ended up at Mimis Cafe. We had a great dinner. We then headed to Payson.

The reception was quite good. It was in the LDS cultural hall and very simple, but good. We found out that the simplicity was because the mother of the bride didn't want to help out her daughter because she hadn't been given any help for her wedding. The same thing on the dress. It seems if her daughter would not shop in Payson for it, she would not help her in that (Aleca was going to BYU). Also, Aleca had to have all of her stuff out of the house before she married Alan (this wedding sounds like it is off to a good start). Anyway, my family helped to set up the wedding (I didn't help with this because we got there a little later than we had anticipated) and it was our family that stayed to clean it up. Near the end of the clean up we got a little bit of help from her side. My understanding is that Alan also got in a fight with his mother-in-law-to-be the night before all of this. Makes one wonder what that is all about. Also, the mother of the bride has made her daughter feel guilty because she had to give her $1500 for the wedding that was set aside to remodel her kitchen. What makes me wonder about all of this, is why they don't even take into consideration that the other side (my side) is dealing with the death of Alan's father just last year. It is a widow that is putting out some of the money for all of this as well. Plus she gets to put on a reception in North Carolina. Anyway, I guess it isn't my place to complain. Rather, my place is to be the best person I can be no matter what the other people are acting like.

On the way home from Payson, we got a rock chip in our windsheild. That is so maddening. I'll have to put another $20 into fixing that. Hopefully, it won't spread before I can get the vehicle in.

Saturday morning, my wife and I went for our session with the marriage counselor. Not too much happened there. He thinks we are doing pretty good and can wait for a month till we see him again. We will also start going to the marriage seminar that they are holding for about five or six weeks.

On the way home we checked our voice mail and found that my sister-in-law had called so we could get my son to Spider Man 3 with his cousins. We had to hurry home to get him in time. We were told that the movie they were seeing was at Thanksgiving Point. As we were driving him there, we were told that it had been changed to American Fork. Anyway, we got him there in time. We then took my daughter shopping for clothes with the money she had received from her birthday last week. I also purchased a weed whacker for me (this will be my Fathers Day gift). It was a cold blustery day. My wife and I were hoping for some down time together but that didn't happen.

Not much happened today. I did take some lists to church to try and get the Adult Dinner groups going again in our ward. About 25 couples have signed up. I guess we'll have to do the same thing next week to see if anybody else wants in.

Marching Band

Nothing much was going on at work. I had to take care of some of the end of month stuff and it took awhile to get all the information that I needed. It is frustrating to me that Gallegher Bassett is taking longer and longer to get the information to us.

I left work early so I could get my daughter to the Orthodontist. My wife usually takes care of this, but with the car pool and picking up the children she couldn't do it all. The Orthodontist told me that one of her teeth is starting to come down on its own (there was concern that we would have to have another surgery) and that once it was down there is just a few other minor things to fix up. I asked if this was the most difficult case he had ever seen and he told me that it was one of two of the hardest that he has ever had to work with. It has been expensive, so it is good that it all seems to be working out.

Arriving home, my daughter started to play with her new camera. She seems to be enjoying it quite a bit. Later, I took my son to Bingham High School so we could get some information about the Marching Band. It sounds like they are doing quite a bit, but I kept on hearing cash registers ringing throughout. It could be a lot more than this, but it is still a lot. Since my son is new to this and with everything it is going to cost us around $700. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have to be brought out so soon. They will try to defray costs a bit with some fund raisers. I certainly hope this is the case because we are going to need it. I need to check to see if I can make some payments to get it all in.

My wifes back was out of place for most of the day today. She was really in pain, and I wish I could do something more to help her out with that. I tried what I could do by stretching her and massaging her, but none of that seems to have helped us.

I watched a small part of "The Mormons", but it didn't seem as good as last nights to me.