This is a quickie

Just a quick note to let y'all know what's been happening here in West Valley. By that I mean not the stuff you hear on the news about someone being killed. For those of you who are familiar with my TV house (thanks, dad, for the name, the weight of it really makes that the most appropriate title), it has now become a tv stand. I spent an hour or so on our balcony (which is not much larger that the tv house) with a power saw on Saturday and made the tv house into a much more manageable tv stand. For those of you wondering why on earth I have a power saw, I will offer the simple explanation...I like power saws. A more detailed description for those of you who don't know why I ended up with a worm-drive Makita circular saw can be provided if enough people request it. Anyway, here's a picture. I'm planning on using the sides of the top section to make doors for the former bottom section (now it's the only section). We think it will help baby-proof the whole thing (for those of you thinking I'm alluding to anything here, please understand that I own several Disney movies that I have only watched maybe once simply because I want my kids to have something to enjoy...I'm a planner, but I feel I must explain myself so that nobody jumps to any major conclusions. We wouldn't blog about having a baby before we had actually told you either in person or over the phone). Anyway, we're super excited about how open our apartment feels now (even though it's still kind of small). You should all come over and see it sometime.

We had a pretty fun ward party this last weekend. We were told that we could show up at 6:00 to mingle before dinner, but that dinner would be served promptly at 6:30. Well, at 6:45 when the only people there were the elders' quorum president's extended family and us, I said to myself, "Self, if they have extended family here, why shouldn't I invite my sister who lives so close and I never do anything with? Hmm, maybe I will." It was good to see you, Charisse and Kory (by the way, we should hang out more).

Anyway, I said this would be a short one, so let's not make a liar of me. Here's to power saws and lasagna (ooh, and garlic bread too).

It's all grand, and it's all green

Where should we start? How about Easter? We went to California, and we enjoyed warm weather, sunshine, and the works (we’re not sure what the “works” are, but we enjoyed them). We got to see the Broadway musical, Wicked. We thoroughly enjoyed it. For those of you who haven’t seen it, we highly recommend it. For those of you who have never heard of it, we recommend you get the CD and spend a year or so trying to figure out the story line by listening to that. It makes it so exciting to finally see how things fit together. We also had Easter dinner with Michelle’s family. It was a good trip, and fun to visit with those of you we saw.

Michelle has become quite the gardener. She planted seeds, and they grew! Granted, we haven’t seen any fruit yet, but it has only been a few weeks since they were planted. So far they’ve grown really, really big. Some of them have been transplanted twice into bigger containers. We’re hoping for a plentiful harvest of lettuce, sweet peas, and cucumbers (mmmmm). Brian bought Michelle dirt for her birthday (well, technically it’s soil), and she was so excited to get it. She wanted some planter boxes for the balcony, so it was a good birthday.

Brian is excited to share the news of a new addition to the family. Yes, you guessed it, we finally replaced the Taurus! We now have a 2002 green Honda Civic. It had just under 80,000 miles on it, which qualified it for a 4 year, 48,000 mile warranty. 200 miles later and it would have only qualified for a 2 year warranty. It’s so nice to have a car he’s sure will get him to work and back every day. Brian had a birthday too. He got The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull. He hasn’t read it all yet (in fact he just started), but when he finishes, he’ll let you know how good it is.

Still no word on school, but around this time next month we’ll know if Brian has been accepted to U of U. Keep praying for us so we can go to the right place.

My wife makes these turn out better

So basically I'm really new to all this blog business, but with all the hubbub (sp) I think it might just be time to move on from the antiquated world of the e-mail and allow you to view carefully edited and embellished moments from our life at your leisure (pronounced British style like "measure" with an "L"). Michelle is still at school/work right now because she has SEP's this Wednesday and Thursday (for those who don't know, SEP's are today's politically correct way of saying Parent Teacher Conferences and SEP stands for Student Educational Plan or something similar). Having said that, I shall not endeavor to write too much, which, in keeping with the opinions of many of the literati of the age, will only serve as yet another dismal reminder of how people of our day have failed to improve or even maintain a healthy level of imaginative focus (hee hee, that was fun, but too many sentences like that one and nobody will ever want to read our blog. I'm not even sure I understand what that's supposed to mean, so go ahead and ignore it). Basically I need help to write a lot.

I can tell you that things are going pretty well for us. Only one more graduate application remains, but we won't know until about the middle of May where we will probably go. It's a little frustrating at this point, but there's not much we can do to speed up the process.

I've just been given new responsibilities at work. Using a method of breaking jobs down into individual steps and analyzing every step to see what's necessary and find the most efficient way of doing things, I was able to cut the amount of time it takes to do my job in half. Instead of letting me have that time to myself and still paying me the same amount (yeah right) the powers that be at my company have decided to have me break down every job in the shop systematically until every process we know how to do is thoroughly documented. This will hopefully help improve efficiencies and provide training materials for new hires. Looks like I have to keep working all day like most people do. Bummer.

I got one of my favorite compliments yesterday from the new sales manager at work. He was up in my office to get some information from me so he could sell some more work when he noticed the picture on my desk of Michelle and me at the beach. He asked if she was my wife and I (very proudly) said yes. He then looked at me and smiled, saying, "You should have gone into sales." Anyone who would like to compliment the beauty of my wife, I will gladly accept the compliment. Michelle will probably be mad at me for putting this in, but she really is pretty.

Anyway, since I've already written too long, and I have an appointment to go to, I'll end. I'll upload the picture I mentioned a little later so you can all agree with the sales manager from my work. Thank you, and good night.