Penguin Sledding!

We went sledding at Bicentennial Park today and had a lot of fun! Santa (Ezra) got us some penguin sleds for Christmas. It just snowed, and there isn't much snow in the forecast right after Christmas so we got to open that present a little early. 

If you haven't seen the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon, not the horrific movie) the excitement of penguin sledding will probably be lost on you.

Groban, Vivint, Wedding

First, I can’t believe Ezra only devoted ONE SENTENCE to my exciting birthday news last week. We’re going to a Josh Groban concert!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am. In 2007 he was in Utah when I was in Oregon, and he was in Oregon when I was in Utah. I would have gone then but circumstances were not in my favor. When I heard he was coming to Salt Lake City again, and the same week as my birthday, I told Ezra I would love to go. I tried not to mention it much after that because I knew tickets weren’t cheap, but he did it! I’m so excited! I’ve already got work requested off and my boss told me to have fun (thanks Carla!), so now I’m just hoping Ezra will be able to get work off.

That’s the other exciting news. It’s somewhat bitter sweet. Ezra got a job at Vivint! It’s full time, better pay, and includes benefits. We’re super excited, but this means he will be leaving the Provo City Library. We met at the Library and it’s been wonderful being able to work together. When we talk about work, we each know what the other is talking about. I won’t be able to see him when I drop stuff off in tech services anymore, or go say hi when I’m on a break. It’s going to be sad, but we think this new job is just what our family needs right now. He will be working both jobs for the next two weeks, so things are going to be a little crazy for a while, but we’ll figure everything out. I’m so proud of him!


Apparently the weather in Provo yesterday (Saturday) was pretty crazy with lots of rain, wind, and flooding. We unfortunately missed it all (we love storms) because we were up in Logan. One of Ezra’s best friends, Ryan, got married to an amazing girl, Christina. We were so happy to be there and support them. The weather tried to get stormy during their reception (the sun was shining and the weather was great at the temple) but it sounds like they were spared the brunt of it, thank goodness. Well, nothing I can say tops the news and happiness that goes with a wedding, so I think that’s all I’ll say for today.

Congratulations Ryan and Christina!

late late incredibly late

Sorry about that...

It has been a busy week (or two) with much drawing taken place.

I am posting for both weeks as penance for not having posted on time last week.

We went to the final taping of the second season of Studio C at BYU's TV studio on campus, hilarious by the way.

 Here is a picture of the line waiting to get in, we get there over 2 hours before it starts to be able to get good seats.  And yes, the line does indeed go up the stairs and twisting all over the place. Each time we go we arrive earlier and earlier and yet we are almost always in the same spot in line.

We received this cheesecake key lime pie for Pi Day/St. Patrick's Day from Bob and Cindy Anne, it was delicious!!  It was so good that we ate it rather quickly, but we enjoyed in immensely.

 Allison and I both have been doing great in our classes by getting As.  It will be nice when summer comes and I can focus more on my art.  I still feel like I need to improve so much, but at the same time I feel like I am learning twice as much as the previous day, everyday.

Even though spring is here, we still get snow... but it was mostly gone by the end of the day even though it was still snowing into the afternoon.  That is Utah weather for you, we will probably still be getting snow here and there until May. 

A lot seems to happen each day, but everything is so minor that it isn't that memorable, to put in a weekly blog, but on campus a couple days ago I did overhear a girl talking on the phone and she said "...and... is it still looking like it's edible"  I can only imagine the other side of the conversation.  For things like that I miss being on campus more often.

Late Post

Superbowl Sunday is over and ... Yeah didn't watch it. But this post is late, which is my usual habit for the weeks that I post.  There are so many things that I can keep up on  and yet there are tons that I always forget about or don't put up there as a priority.  Sorry to you our loyal followers, you are a mighty 9 people.

Classes are up and rolling without a hitch for both Allison and I.  She of course is doing great, and I am putting both my feet into the mix and getting As on my quizzes and tests so far.  Here's to a great semester.

I've had this open on my computer since Sunday and it is now Friday night, Allison will tell you on Sunday about our date today I'm sure.  A lot has been keeping us busy.  We watched all 10 episodes of Taken, the Sci-Fi original series from the early 2000s before they changed their name to Sy-Fy....  anyway, it was good and kept you interested.  Before that we were watching Boy Meets World, and finished all 7 seasons in a few months.  Now Allison will start reading the Provo Library Staff Book Club book to me as I draw.  I'm not much of a reader and I tend to like listening to novels more than reading them.  So this little arrangement we've got set up works well for me, hopefully her voice holds out so that she can get through The Round House by Louise Erdrich.  Which, bytheway, every time I hear the title I think of the martial arts move called a roundhouse kick. But that's probably just me.  We'll let you know how it is.

Peace, and enjoy the Lightning snow.

First Car Problem Ever

As boring as last week was, this week made up for it, so it’s a long post, sorry. First, I have never, EVER had a major issue with my car. I got it in November 2005 and it was already about two years old. It’s always run great and aside from regular maintenance I’ve never had to take it in to get it looked at. That changed this week.

Tuesday: When we left the house everything was great with the car. I dropped Ezra off on campus and I drove over to the library. When I parked at the library I pulled my parking break, as I do every time I park, and it wouldn’t lock into place. So I texted Matt, (my brother and the best mechanic I know) and Ezra to let them know what was up.

Wednesday: I called the dealership where I take my car for routine maintenance and made an appointment to get it looked at. They told me it would probably take half a day so I made the appointment for 9am the following day.

Thursday: Hello freezing rain! Thankfully I have a covered parking spot so the doors weren’t frozen shut. Ezra and I headed into town about 2.5 hours earlier than usual so that I could take my car to the dealership. We didn’t have any issues with the freezing rain until we made it to the dealership parking lot and I lost traction for a second. No damage done. They took my car into the shop and we sat down and started doing homework. Fifteen minutes later the guy comes out and says I need a new parking assembly. The nearest one is in Michigan. It would cost $450 not including tax or labor to install it. Great.

I texted Matt a lot more and asked him what he thought. At his suggestion, I didn’t order the part through the dealership and am looking into independent mechanics this week. I have an appointment to get my car seen again tomorrow (Jan 29th) so hopefully this guy (who had great ratings on Google and was recommended to me by a friend) will have something a bit more positive to say. I’m hoping for something like, “oh it’s just this small part and I can have that fixed right away.” I’d like the grand total to be under $200, but I think that might be wishful thinking. We’ll see.

Friday: First thing in the morning we went to donate blood. I love giving blood! Ezra didn’t have any problems but my iron was too low. Oh well, maybe next time. After that we went up to Salt Lake to meet a guy that bought something of Ezra’s on eBay. We met at the Salt Lake Public Library (first time I’d ever been there, it’s so huge!) and then once that was taken care of we visited Ezra’s mom and sister’s family who also live up there. We left around 5:30-6pm before the fog got really bad. I heard that by around 9pm it became so thick you couldn’t see the car in front of you.

The smog and light fog really darkened the sun in Salt Lake by 5:10pm.

Saturday: Work as usual. After work we went to a taping of the first episode of season 2 for Studio C! It was so much fun! I even got a t-shirt (which I’m wearing right now)! Definitely something we’ll try to sign up for again.

Sunday: A pretty normal Sunday. One exciting thing happened: I finally got my sewing machine out and started playing with it! I had some major frustrations for a little while with thread getting stuck in my bobbin case but Ezra fixed it for me. He’s amazing like that. :-) Maybe this week I’ll find some time to start working on my first sewing project, an apron.
 

My wonderful sewing machine!

The pattern I'm using for my first project. I'm doing the apron on the left.

So that was our week! Next week will hopefully be back to boring. The only major appointment we have is for me to get my car looked at.

After such a crazy and stressful week, here's some cuteness.

And some more cuteness. I feel better already.

Really Darn Cold

The temperature around here has stayed around… really cold (-2F out right now, and the high today is 8F). We got some weather alerts on our phones about a storm that was coming in on Thursday. Well, we didn’t get out of work until 9pm and it had already snowed a bit. The roads weren’t too bad but when I tried to pull onto our road my car lost traction and I was stuck. Ezra got out and gave me a push until I managed to get far enough out of the snow to regain traction and make it up our road. Friday we didn’t have to go anywhere, thank goodness. So we stayed home and enjoyed watching the snow fall while being warm inside. Saturday when we left for work I lost traction briefly pulling off our road and onto the highway, but that was the only time and it didn’t cause any problems.

Saturday after work we attended our first ever Staff Book Club. We’re going to be reading Round House by Louise Erdrich. It won the National Book Award this past year so I look forward to digging into it. I promised Ezra that as I read it I would read it out loud to him since he’s not one for sitting down and curling up with a book. This way we can get through it together and both talk about it at our next book club meeting.

I finished my first online grad school class Friday! I think it’s funny that one week after having access to the class I’m done. Okay, so I’m not officially done. There is one assignment where I have to attend a collaboration session and all the sessions last week were already full, so the soonest I could attend was today. My session is tonight at 5pm MST. Once I attend that I’ll be able to finish the assignment and then I’ll really and truly be done with Libr203. I look forward to starting my other two classes next week when they become available.

Well, that’s all the news from our neck of the woods. Hopefully next week will be a little more exciting.

Crazy week, but back home

We got back home to Utah to a ton of snow.  Our car was half frozen shut in the airport parking lot.  It was a good thing that we didn't need to fill up the gas tank since that was on the side that froze over.  We went back up to Salt Lake two more times throughout the week.  Once to help my (Ezra's) mom move into her new place, the next for Edward's (Ezra's nephew) birthday party.  It was fun and it is good to be back in the swing of things.

School starts back up for both Allison and myself.  It is an exciting time and stressful too.  We live farther away from BYU and the Provo Library now. I feel sometimes trapt with all the snow and distance.  It takes longer and is more difficult biking in these conditions (not to mention the deadening cold morning wind on your face as you ride a bike hurrying into work before the sun comes up.... eek, yeah, we've been driving lately).  This is just the beginning of snow though, maybe I should get some studded bike tires...  and a face mask.

We are, on the plus side, halfway out of the dark.

Icicles hanging from our house.

The poor plants have become encased in ice.

Neck deep in the middle of moving and needing to get ready for vacation

We have spent the past week and then some packing and moving and moving and packing, not to mention cleaning, there has been a bit of that too.  We really like our new place. And it wasn’t until the third time we were here (when we started moving stuff in) did we see it in the daylight and realized that it is pink.  But that is okay.  It is our pink elephant of a house (cottage? So we have been told, don’t ask).  It reminds me of my aunt and uncles old place when I was really little because it has this awesome 70s wood paneling.

We can’t seem to find a spot for our lovesack though; it is just huge and devours anything it is close to.  Also we think we have figured out how to solve any drought problems Utah may have in the future, every time we tried to move a load from one house to the next, it would start raining or snowing. Very inconvenient, but skiers, snowboarders, and those that like campfires in the summer… you are welcome.

We will be leaving for vacation in a few short days and am very excited to see our families.  Allison has a new nephew to meet and we are both in need of some good ol’ Pacific Northwest goodness. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Snow

This past week a few interesting things have happened to us.  The first was the Provo Library had me make a backdrop for a few display cases on the second floor.  It was fun to work on and I will be working on another in a little bit for December too.  The other thing that happened was SNOW!!! And like typical Utah fashion we got about 8 inches in one day, and then it stopped and we probably wont get anymore til Thanksgiving.

Allison has been typing up a storm since the first.  Working on a story for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Where as I have been drawing more and more lately.  Both are good, except that I let her see my work, she wont let me read any of her book.  But I do understand, I don't exactly like it when people peer over my shoulder when I am drawing.  Next week I might show off my head and all my bald glory.

Hello November! So thankful!

Refrigerator: We’re getting a new refrigerator! It’s going to be delivered on Wednesday this week, and we are so excited! It’s brand new, from RC Willy, just down the road from us. It’s the same place we bought our bed set back in May and we’re really happy with them. Best part? It’s free! To us at least, the land lord is paying for it, thank goodness.

Plumbing: So a while back a plumber came to fix a leak for one of our neighbors. Right after that we noticed there was water springing up in our back yard. Literally, springing up, directly outside our bedroom window, it sounded like it was raining. Ezra looked at it that night and sort of touched it and it stopped springing, and started just sort of flowing out, as though a sprinkler head had broken. We assumed it had something to do with what the plumber was doing earlier and let it go. One night about a week later I came home and the water was off. I found out that our local manager didn’t know about the leak in the yard until one of the other tenants told her. The water was turned off so they could do a quick patch job while they waited for the real part to come in. It came in this week and they fixed it… but suddenly the water pressure in our kitchen sink was shot. I emailed the manager again and when she let us know about the fridge, she told us the plumber was coming back on Tuesday to fix the water pressure issue. YAY! Next week is going to be so awesome!

French Bread Pizza Soup: Best thing ever! On Thursday I was flipping through my cookbooks trying to decide what to make for dinner. I kind of wanted pizza, but didn’t have enough time to make the dough for the crust, and I didn’t want to order out. I decided that soup sounded good and so was looking through the soup section of a newer cookbook I got. For one reason or another I kept vetoing the soups I found, and then this little gem showed up. French bread pizza soup! It was so easy! A couple cans of diced tomatoes, a couple cans of tomato soup, red pepper, green pepper, garlic and spices. I cooked it on the stove, then ladled it into oven proof bowls (that we got for our wedding!) put a slice of French bread in the middle then sprinkled mozzarella cheese over the whole thing. Broil it until the cheese is melted (just a couple minutes) and that's it! It was so good! And healthier than regular pizza! Ez said, and I agree, we have to do that more often than order regular pizza, it’s so much cheaper, better, healthier, and makes so much more!

Minor news: It snowed last night. Just a bit. It was all gone by the afternoon. We went to BYU’s Divine Comedy taping Saturday evening. BYUtv might give them a TV show so we were there for the filming of some of the skits. It was a lot of fun. J

Yep, that’s the news. Looking forward to what’s coming this next week. Later!