A great 4 years!

We got Shadow four years ago yesterday. I can hardly believe it's only been four years. He's been super fun to have around and has become an important part of our family.

Next time, on time...please.

There is nothing I like more than when a plumber, cable man, air conditioning guy, (it really does not matter who), tells you they will be there between 10 and 12, and then shows up at 2. I like it even better when they do not call when they are going to be late, even when he asked you for the phone number you can be reached specifically to call in case he was not going to show up on time. Yeah, a great way to spend my day. I am extra annoyed because I missed Kathy's show today because he was late. If he called, me, not that upset. Him not calling, me, upset. Oh well. What are you gonna do?

Yeah, it's been a while.

So I have been thinking about updating our blog for a while and since Kathy has come into possession of a couple of 5 hour long movies that, to put it politely, I have absolutely no interest in watching, I figured I would take advantage of this time and update.

There is not much to say. Vacation has been pretty good. We are slowly but surely putting our bathroom back together. The insurance company is taking its time in letting us know what they are going to cover, if anything. I am going to have to make another phone call on Monday. It’s not pretty, but it is functional.

I started and stopped tutoring a kid after a week and a half. Apparently lowering my price and picking up her kid from football practice is not enough for the family. I drive forty minutes to meet the kid at school, he’s not there, so I drive to the house, only to find out that he is sick and does not want a tutoring session that day and I ask to get paid anyway because no one could bother calling me and letting me know is not enough for the mom. Oh well. Mind you, I never met the mom. This was all done via e-mail.

Anyway, ever since we went to Paris and London, I have been getting kind of excited about taking pictures. I uploaded a couple of pictures I took of our lilies when a butterfly decided to land on them. Oh, and one of Shadow hanging out our front window.

Enjoy!

Our Dream Vacation!

We're back! Ok, we've been back for a month but still! Here's the run down on our trip:

Day 1: Arrive in London, take a train, two subways, and a 1/2 mile walk to get to fancy schmancy hotel (I love cheaptickets!). Crash for 2 hours. Take a bus tour and walk around Buckingham Palace, Parliament and Big Ben. Take another two subways and make it back to the hotel in one piece. Total jet lag crash.

Day 2: London Eye--super cool. Tower of London--I LOVED IT!!! We spent 4 1/2 hours walking around the castle and taking a billion pictures. Walked along the Thames and up onto Tower Bridge. So much fun!


Day 3: Quick trip to Westminster Abbey, wasted 36 pounds touring Kensington Palace (they did some weird modern art exhibit inside, it was dumb), walked through Hyde Park (lonnnnngggg walk), checked out of the fancy schmancy hotel, caught a taxi to King's Cross Station....found Platform 9 3/4's (and yes I was the only adult in line to get their picture taken but I had fun!), and then took the Eurostar train to Paris. We were instantly pegged as tourists and accosted by a kid who kept trying to get us to pay him to get us a taxi. We dodged him and had a gourmet meal at McDonald's and then found our own taxi. Got to our not so fancy schmancy hotel and hit the hay.


Day 4: Eiffel Tower! Dream come true! Went up to the second level (the line was HUGE!!) and enjoyed every minute of it. Went to the Arc de Triomphe (it's very big), hopped onto the metro and went to Sacre Couer--beautiful. It was sunset so the atmosphere was relaxed and peaceful. We took the elevator up (Sacre Couer sits on top of a hill about the height of Hill Cumorah and it's just as steep), and walked back down. Dinner on Champs de Elysees (sp) and spent $17.00 on two tiny bottles of soda--eek!




Day 5: Notre Dame, St. Chapelle (cool medieval church with stained glass windows all around), went to Pont Neuf (first bridge in Paris), spent an hour looking for a bathroom, saw the outside of the Louvre because contrary to what was in our tour guide book, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. Visited Jardin de Palais Royal and Jardin de Tuileries, ice cream in the park and laughing at the snotty waiter, Palace de la Concorde (and yes we actually survived crossing the street), hopped the bus to the Trocadero (a building across the river from the Eiffel Tower), got dinner at an Italian Bistro next to the hotel and went to sleep.

Day 6: Boat ride down the Seine. Visited the Louvre--Mona Lisa is just a picture, I didn't find anything remarkable about it, went to Pont Alexander (another cool bridge), went back to the Eiffel Tower and went to the tippy top. It was freezing!!!! but I loved every minute of it. Came down, ate an ice cream crepe and sat and watched the carousel. It was magical.


Day 7: Versailles. A-MAZ-ING. Huge and grandious and just absolutely stunning.
I love the view from behind Apollo's fountain looking towards the palace. It's easy to see why Marie Antoinette got her head chopped off. Everything at Versailles is bigger than life--absolutely breath-taking. Came back to the Eiffel Tower and took pictures of it all lit up and glittering.
















I had a fantastic time and loved everything about London and Paris. The time flew by, I'm already thinking about where we'll go on our next vacation. What'cha think about an Alaskan cruise? Of course, this will be on our 15th or 20th anniversary but you can never plan too early right?

Au Revoir!

See you in a week, with tons of pictures to scrapbook and fun stories to tell!

The Smell of Spring

It happened. A wonderful thing that has quite possibly changed my attitude for the entire day.

Today, it smells like Spring.

I couldn't tell you exactly what Spring smells like, just like I can't tell you how I know what snow smells like--but I can smell it and for the first time in my life I'm so happy to say goodbye to winter and HELLO! to spring.

Take a whiff, you'll smell it too...

Snow Days Rule! Day 2!

Well, the powers at be have decided that the kids needed to have another day off, so we are at home again. The funny thing is I had already been approved for a personal day for Friday because Kathy and I are going to the temple for the Stake Temple day. I will not be back at work until Tuesday. Yeah, I am all broken up about it too.

Snow Days Rule!

My superintendent closed schools before we left yesterday for today, so I’ve known since about 2:15 that I would not be going to school today. Kathy had to wait until yesterday around 6 or 7, I think. Anyway, I am enjoying my day off, although some of my coworkers are predicting tomorrow we will either be off or delayed as well. We will see what happens. I am going to wait a little longer until I proceed with round one of shoveling the driveway. Anyway, here are some pictures I took around 10am this morning. Enjoy!

Good ridden 2009! Hello 2010!

I wanted to share with you all a few pictures from Christmas with Kathy’s family.

This is Kathy's Birthday present. Memories of a Christmas tradition with the Cornman family.



This is Kathy's neice, Morgan. She is showing off her unicorn she got for Christmas.



This is Kathy posing with the fireplace/heater her Dad got for us.



I say good ridden to 2009 because there were many ups and downs, although toward the end it felt like more downs than ups. Kathy’s mother passed away toward the end of June and everyone is trying to get adjusted to what will be the new normal in the family. Fortunately she was very much about keeping the family together, so that is what is we are doing, sticking together. As if that was not enough, in December we found out that Kathy’s father has cancer in his bladder. His treatments are going well, and the prognosis is very positive, so that is a good thing.

Still, let’s hope the bad news goes away with the year 2009.

We booked plane tickets for London and Paris the other day for our spring break in April. We have about 11 days off all together so we are planning on spending most of it in another continent. We are busy making plans to take advantage of every second we have there.

Welcome 2010.