Seven Years

What were you doing seven years ago today? We were moving into our new home! Actually, I don't know the exact date but it was the day after Thanksgiving, 2001. A lot has changed since we moved here. When we moved in it was just me, Brent, and our two little girls. Now we've got three kids in elementary school! Aaaah! How time flies! I remember when we were choosing our house plan we decided to go with this rambler, they called it The Eaton, because we didn't have any plans to move anytime soon and we wanted a house we could live in indefinitely. So this plan gave us a full basement to eventually expand our two bedroom home. The rambler also would work well if we decided to stay here 'til we were old and gray and no longer able to climb stairs. We were thinking waaay ahead. So here it is seven years later and I guess we made a good choice because we are still here and may be here 'til we're old and gray for all we know! We expanded that two bedroom house by finishing the basement and now we have five bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, an art room, family room and the rest of the stuff we had to begin with along with all the other cosmetic changes (flooring, lighting, fence, etc.) Pretty good deal, huh? I think we made a good choice here. What's not to love about our town? You really couldn't pick a better place to raise a family. Right? And I love this house. Every few months I get the moving bug and start looking at houses on the internet. Then I walk through my house, assuming it's clean that day, and I think, this is a great house, I can't leave it! I'm good for a few more months. It's just a passing idea, not anything we ever seriously consider. The kids are happy about that. Who knows, life may take us somewhere else somewhere down the line, but until then we'll be here, happily hanging out in our just right house in our great neighborhood.

Then
Actually this was spring of 2003, the pictures from when we moved in, in 2001, were taken on our old non-digital camera and they haven't been scanned in. But you get the idea.
Look at our cute little plants!

2008
Now with Monster Plants!

She's A Winner!!

So we went to the reflections thing at school tonight and Isabella won 2nd in the Visual Arts category! Awesome artist girl! I'll have to post a picture of her picture when we get it back. She moves on to council or something like that now.

I've Been Tagged...Eights

8 Favorite TV Shows~
1 Grey's Anatomy
2 Gilmore Girls reruns
3 The Office
4 Seinfeld (in all time favorites category)
5 Colbert Report
6 HGTV
7 Situation Room
8 Anderson Cooper 360

8 Favorite Restaurants~
(Really don't care much about restaurants these days)
1 Carino's
2 Bajio
3 Panda Express
4 Quizno's
5 Su Casa
6 Olive Garden
7 Archibald's
8 Leukini's (my kid's made up restaurant,
they make a mean cheese sandwich:)

8 things that happened yesterday~
(How about last week instead)
1 Brent was gone for the week (very unusual)
2 Saw High School Musical 3
3 Stayed up past 2 am about four times
4 Supervised LOTS of homework
5 Volunteered in each kid's class
6 Worked out twice- Denise Austin kids DVD with my kids
(it counts!) and walked with a friend in more beautiful fall weather
7 Brent came home (yay!)
8 Fun date while kids slept over at Grandparent's
(dinner, shopping, hotel)

8 things I'm looking forward to~
1 Christmas (finally getting excited about it!)
2 Getting in great shape again
3 Christmas decorating, getting the tree
4 Seeing Twilight (not a FANATIC but it sounds fun)
5 Thanksgiving
6 Getting organized
7 The new Killers album (mp3? What do we
call it these days?)
8 The Inauguration

8 Things on my wish list~
1 A fun family vacation
2 Payed off house
3 Appliances that aren't messed up
4 Payed off car and a good, high gas mileage car
for Brent
5 More peace everywhere
6 Go back to school and graduate
7 All over self improvement
8 Health, success and happiness for my kids

8 People I tag:
Any eight people who feel like it

Another Quiz

1. Did you date someone from your school? Only friends to dances.
2. What kind of car did you drive? My Stepdad's Mazda truck and a 1977 Chevy Impala.
3. What was the most embarrassing moment of HS? Probably when I asked this guy (major crush) to a dance in an elaborate way and found out he was going with someone else, then avoided seeing him so I didn't have to be humiliated when he turned me down. I was still humiliated.
4. Were you a party animal? Not at all. Not my style and my Stepdad was too scary to even attempt it!
5. Were you considered a flirt? Too shy.
6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? No, no, and no.
7. Were you a nerd? Nerd? Not really. Mostly just blended in.
8. Were you on any varsity teams? Cross Country and Track. Also lettered in drama! Couldn't act at all....
9. Did you get suspended/expelled? Nope, wasn't much of a trouble maker.
10. Can you still sing the fight song? I totally can! "Jordan High School student are we...."
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mrs. Smith, Junior Honors English. She wore the weirdest hippy outfits, was always trying to find the pen that was in her hair, was totally creative and invited us to her cool Harvard/Yale neighborhood home to watch The Great Gatsby.
12. Where did you sit during lunch? Usually hallway or stairwell.
13. School mascot? Beetdiggers (coolest and nerdiest mascot ever!)
14. Did you go to homecoming, and with who? Let's see, Bryan Sorenson, Murray Guy. He hit a car with his Mom's Suburban while we were picking everyone up.
15. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Not high school, maybe the twenties.
16. What do you remember most about graduation? Driving downtown to a loser party after at a hotel then leaving and hanging out at Connie Palmer's (Conehead's) house. I remember it was kind of a downer, I was moving to Arizona the next day.
17. Where did you go senior skip day? We didn't have one but I did end up at Murray Park at least once.
18. Were you in any clubs? Archeology Club, Key Club.
19. Have you gained some weight since then? Are you serious? It's been almost twenty years! Cut me some slack here!
20. Who was your prom date? Jr. Prom was Jeff Wilson.
21. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? Probably, but because of Facebook I'm not very excited. It's taken away the element of surprise.
22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Relax and study hard, don't get so embarrassed by everything!!

Lefties Rule

I was thinking about how I noticed that John McCain and Barack Obama are both left handed, taking notice because I am left handed. I remembered that Bill Clinton was also left handed. So I was wondering what other presidents were left handed. Lefty presidents include James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. I guess Ronald Reagan wrote with his right hand but was one of those who in the old days was forced to learn to write with his right hand. You know, because being a lefty was a sign of evil (or at least thought to be at one time). There were possibly other left handed presidents but they were probably forced to go "right" as kids too. I find it interesting that four of the last five presidents (counting President-Elect Obama) are left handed. This may suggest it is also interesting that George W. Bush is not left handed (no, in my biased viewpoint he definitely could not be a lefty. LOL). Additionally, John McCain is left handed, as mentioned, as well as former presidential contenders Al Gore and Ross Perot. It's statistically interesting considering only 10% of the population is left handed. Is there something about being left handed that makes one more naturally equipped to become president? That's probably a bit of a stretch. I've always found it to be an interesting quirk for myself. Brent has made fun of my left-handedness in the past. The first time he saw me write anything was when we worked together back in "ye olden days" and I was figuring some numbers for the press we were working on. Writing in the way I was with the typical left handed tight grasp on a pen or pencil, Brent walked up to me and in a caveman voice said, "Me write big numbers". I don't write nearly as much as when I was a kid so I've lost the left hander callous on my left pinky that comes from dragging the hand across the paper, also resulting in pen and pencil all over the side of my hand causing me to reach down from my desk and rub my hand on the carpet at school as a method of removal. I was a little disappointed that none of my kids turned out left handed. Brent was just a little too triumphant over that one I think. So does this all mean that when your left handed kid grows up, assuming you have a left handed kid, that he or she will have a better shot at the oval office? Who knows? But it appears it couldn't hurt.

Zoe's Zombie Art

Zoe always does the most entertaining art.

What's Up This Week

Well it has definitely been kind of a different few days. We had fun watching all the election stuff on Tuesday. The kids were counting the electoral votes and checking out which state went to which candidate. The moment when they announced Obama will be the next president was so exciting and I was really touched seeing the reactions of African Americans around the country when they announced it and when he gave his speech. I can only imagine what it means to African Americans. A person's race is definitely not the reason to vote for them one way or the other but it really is cool in its historical nature. After seeing John McCain being funny on Saturday Night Live and his classy concession speech I remembered that I kind of like this guy.
Zoe was home from school for a couple of days with a neckache. It was weird because Noah stayed home a day last month for the same reason. Neither of them had fevers or any other symptoms (so I could happily rule out meningitis, always the paranoid mom) but I keep wondering, what is up with my kids? Maybe they fall asleep standing on their heads every night.
Today is sad because Brent's Aunt Judy passed away after battling cancer for months. I didn't know her as well as I would have liked to and I'm not as good with situations like this as I wish I could be. I feel like I'm too often a little too socially awkward. But I was grateful for getting to know her a little and for the warm, funny woman she was. I really appreciated it three years ago when she came down to visit Brent's mom and was kind enough to spend a week of her time here staying at our house helping Cathy watch the kids while Brent and I went away for our tenth anniversary. I am very glad to have known her a bit and it was fun to see how much she was getting into everyone's blogs when we all started them a few months back. Whenever someone I know dies, which seems to be too frequently, I feel so grateful to Heavenly Father for the knowledge that he loves all of his children and welcomes them back home.
I had a good conversation with my cool, sweet sister in law today (my brother's wife) who was having a little buyers remorse over the election and possible biblical implications (we've all heard those). I am admittedly not a scriptorian and definitely need to work on that but I did do some praying before the election on whether my choice was a good choice for me to make and I honestly believe everything is going to be okay. Unless it's really time for the second coming, in which case I don't believe our future president is the one bringing it on.
I've been reading the last book in the Twilight series five pages at a time. I haven't gotten into this book like the other books. Maybe because I read all of those one after the other over a couple of weeks last winter and because I have such a short attention span I lost interest. I really didn't care much for the first half. I know I'm in the minority here, that seems to happen a lot to me! But it's finally picking up now that the Nessie part is here, etc. Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet. Is there anyone who hasn't read it yet? Brent still asks when the leprechaun is going to show up. He figures if there are vampires and werewolves then why not leprechaun's too? Maybe I'll finally get it finished this weekend.

Yes He Did!

All I can say is, I'm so glad! :)

Cute Halloween Kids