Foyer Rat

This is to officially declare my position as a foyer rat. Now I shall explain. We often refer to people who hang out at certain locals "rats". Like a gym rat or a mall rat. I am a foyer rat. And not by my own choice. Levi can do church for about 2 hours or so then he needs to stretch his legs. So I get to take him to the church foyer to stretch.

We had a wonderful trip to Logan to watch our good friends bless their baby. It was spiritual and wonderful to watch. The highlight for me was not as spiritual but rather humorous. I had taken Levi out into the hall to wind down and I ran into an aquaintance from highschool with her daughter. Levi tried to crawl over and steal this little girls purse in the which she snatched it back, wagged her finger at Levi and said no no no. I laughed.

Levi is now crawling and getting into everything. I had to dismantle the electric guitar so Levi wouldn't drool or smash any of the equipment. While it is sad for me to have to move the equipment until such time as I can get another room, ie a new house, I must sacrifice for his development. It is fun to chase him and he is starting to play back with me more so that makes it worth it. What can I say I love my boy!

Nett has tried to get me to watch the Masterpiece Theater version of Jane Austen's Emma. I just can't watch all of the "girl drama". It is just to much. The plot also moved too slow for my taste and the apparent lack of any action didn't help. I will say at least I tried.

I am enjoying all of my callings in church. I love working in scouts. It is hard for me when I only have one and I grew up with up to 30 something scouts that went through with me. But we are making good progress so my scout will enter the deacon's quorum well pepared.

Reflections and Learning

Where to begin, where to begin. So the new car works very well. December was a crazy and anti-productive month for me. I quit looking for a new job hoping that I would get a call from one of the many I had applied for (yeah right). We set up the christmas decor and got all ready for Levi's first christmas. I learned that you have to be older than three to get really cool toys. I also learned that they still make cool toys even though all of the focus is on electronics such as Wii and Xbox.

We had some fun with our families for christmas. We had the Hancock family party on the 19th of December where we all got gifts from Grandma. The next day was the Squire family christmas party full of food and good talking. I enjoyed both. I also learned how much I dislike working the holidays. I had some instances at work that were unfavorable and made me angry. Thanks to an awesome coworker who switched me I was able to enjoy Christmas with the family.

This year is (hopefully the last for a while) that we had to split. We spent Thanksgiving with my folks so we got to go to Nett's home for Christmas. We had a wonderful time watching Levi open his presents and have his first christmas. We all got wonderful gifts and had a great time enjoying others open theirs. Levi would help a little when we opened his presents. He loved all his toys but then would appear a little upset when we would take it away to give him another present. He never quite caught on but he had a good time.

Then comes New Year's. The most wonderful of Lazy Holidays. I didn't have to work eitherNew Year's Eve or New Year's Day so we went south and spent the weedend at my parent's house. We got their and had a grand time playing guitars and just chit chatting about life. Our good friends Beau and Amber Andersen had a New Year's party. They had a small turn out, but the fun was playing games, eating and talking together. We wasted half a box of matches trying to ignite some fireworks and just had a great time.

New Year's Day we slept in and had fun. We took Levi on his first sledding trip. He didn't know what to think and got to ride down with mom and dad. He did get a little cold towards the end but we enjoyed riding. I can hardly wait until next year when he will understand a little more.

We also had the opportunity to go to the baby blessing for Nett's brother. I learned from this experience that it is not ok to play peek a boo in the middle of the sacrament service expecially during the passing of the sacrament. This little girl was doing just this about 3 rows in front of us and it was making me laugh.

The past year has been one of major adjustment. I survived my first year of mariage and my first 7 months of fatherhood. I may just make it a little longer. I am still trying to rectify the work situation and hopefully that will improve other aspects of our lives. The church thing is progressing well. I have 4 callings and it takes some of my time and I consider it time very well spent. Lucky for me the callings are not time consuming.

Hectic Pair Of Weeks

What a pair of weeks we have had. First off the new car. We decided not to trade in our piecer saturn in case we ever do decide to fix it and have two cars. We also decided to pay my sister Missy and her wonderful family a visit. Grady works at a car dealership and was able to help us obtain our new wheels. It is a Toyota Highlander. We are pretty excited. It is easy to get Levi in and out of and has plenty of room for other important things like guitar equipment. Levi did really well on the long car rides until we had to leave Gunnison for Salt Lake. He didn't like that last bit and it took us a little while to get there but we made it.

The next week was horrible for me. The sad thing is I like thanksgiving. I like the food and pie but I especially like being with family. First off because I work in a hospital I obviously have to work on certain days especially holidays. The worst part of it was that I asked in advance if we could request certain shifts on the holidays we had to work. I was told yes. But dumber heads prevailed and I was put on a shift that wasn't what I had asked a month and a half prior. The bosses screwed up and I ended up having to leave the festivities early to be to work. It made it worse because they changed my schedule at the last minute due to an error on their part. I ended up having to tell a coworker that we couldn't play in the turkeybowl at church because of this.

On a good note I have another calling in the ward. I am the only leader for the 11 year old scouts. It is fun to look back and teach them stuff that I loved learning when I was their age. Sadly I think that it is a throwback to a bygone era.

The other beef I have with work is they keep losing paperwork. I requested this weekend off to go and watch the BYU vs. Utah game. Instead I got to work and have my wonderful wife and sister send me score updates via txt message. It sounded like an ugly game. And as fun as a rivalry is I am dissapointed in a certain player who shot his mouth off. That is not the way to represent.

GGGOOOLLL!!!

So I spent last night living in the past listening to RSL on the radio because I don't have cable to watch fox soccer channel. It was a boring 2 hours until the end. No score and of course the exciting dramatics of winning on PK's. However the real stories of the weekend involve Nett.

First is after the game was over I turned on the news to watch the highlights of the game I couldn't watch on tv. Nett was getting frustrated with the news editor who decided to invest more time on stupid screaming girls who got to meet some no name people in a popular movie series. Then we got maybe 30 seconds of highlights. Stupid news anchors.

The next one was this morning. We got up and were driving to church. In our neighborhood there is an old sinclair gas station that has been shut down since I can remember. Some guy was out at this run down gas station trying to put gas into his truck. He may have been drunk. We were laughing at him as we drove by.

We have also come to the decision to buy a car. We have had the blessing of borrowing our inlaws pathfinder but we need one of our own. So off to the land of hell and high water to buy a car. Hopefully I will have more luck with this car than I did with the last three I have had.

Day of the Dead

I think halloween is a really screwed up memorial day. Instead of paying our respects to the dearly departed, we celebrate all of the names and other things we said or thought about these people. For example, devil woman, smart @$$, vampire, ding bat, and other stuff. I love halloween though. I love making my own costume by either buying or making accessories to fit a profile.

However we need to back up a little bit. My first week of "Cation" was spent dejunking the house. It took a week when Nett was working 4 hours a day and during that time I had to take care of my boy. We got a lot accomplished and the place looks better than it has since I moved in. It probably was my fault. When we move it should be fun to find some things we thought were missing. Nett was happy and has loved the ease in which it is now to clean up the clutter which has been cut in half.

Saturday, Holly hooked me up with a ticket to Real Salt Lake's last home game. I am a big fan and I enjoy going to the games. Rusty and Brockton came with us and enjoyed it even though they got a little cold. I was excited because the boys got to see two really good goals pretty close. If it had been warmer I think Nett and Levi would have come to the game with us.

Sunday last week we had an awesome time with some good friends of ours, namely the Gronemans (Derek & Tawni) and the Carters (Steve & Vanessa). We had some killer grub and played our game "Match Mate". It is like the newlywed game. We learned some things about our good friends and we all had good laughs. Thanks guys. We will definitely need to do this again soon.

The next week was bizarre and tough. I though it was my last week of rest and relaxation for my "cation". Nope I was gravely mistaken. Nett's supervisor at work took a much needed vactaion with her family to Hawaii. So the work load increased for one of Nett's coworkers and not much else. Then Nett's other coworker got sick with flu-like symptoms. It turned out to be something other than the flu but she had to stay home for a while. So Nett got to work hard. She worked for a while, came home, worked some more, came home and did a third trip usually. I got to try to entertain Levi. I am getting better at it but I am not very good with non movers. I mean those children who cannot move themselves from one place to another. So it has been a long week that way.

The only break we got was on thursday. Our good friends the Andersens came up to visit. We had again good grub and a great time visiting with them and taking them to see the Salomon Center. We got to watch the IFLY machine with the instructors putting on a show. We also stopped to watch Flowrider, the indoor surfing place. It was really fun.

Yesterday we got to dress Levi up as tigger. It was fun. Me and Nett took him trick or treating up and down the street where Nett's sister lives. The little kids went with us and we got some good candy. We also had a murder mystery dinner that Char (Nett's sister) put on. It was really entertaining. I got it right on from the start. We had some great grub and good times with Nett's family. We only wish that we could have been able to visit with everybody a little longer.

Here are some pics.

Levi as a Pumpkin (BLECH!!!)

Levi wearing Steven's shaggy wig.

Levi as Tigger with Nett the "Angel"

We have our little Tigger and the "Angels".

I am goin' on a 'Cation

What a week we have had here in the clan. Levi is still teething his one tooth and it bugs him like mad so he in turn is practicing sharing and letting us know when it hurts or bothers him. What a nice kid. Next lesson moderation in all things.

Nett is swinging between work and taking care of us boys. I don't think they ever mentioned to her that the hardest thing in the whole world would be taking care of a family. She never mentioned a young women's lesson or a young single adult lesson on family life. See when a man gets married and becomes a husband nothing really changes except he now has a date every weekend for the duration of the marriage (eternity seems long now doesn't it) and he has to be smarter with all of his assets. This is harder for others that for some.

When a woman gets married she reaps the benefit of knowing who her date is going to be on weekends for the rest of her marriage (again eternity) but she gives up a lot. Now if the couple adds a child the wife is really in trouble. Now she gets all sorts of things like teething babies and a grouchy husband who's job is the pits and has two kids to take care of. Lucky for her one of the kids is usually old enough to help out.

I married a wonderful woman. I can't say it enough. She makes me happy and makes me enjoy comming home. Having Levi has only increased that desire to be home.

I am still on the hunt for a new job. I haven't heard anything but I am hopeful that something better will come our way soon.

We had the opportunity to have my inlaws come and visit on their way home from Portland. We had a great visit (I happened to get off work early) and topped off the visit with shakes from Artic Circle. We also got to visit my folks down in South Jordan. It was short but we had a good time. I was working on recording some music with my brother Chris. It was tedious but I enjoy it. Even if I only got one song done.

I also had another soccer ball mishap. The first was accidentally using a cat as a goalie at the inlaws durring conference weekend. The second was trying to score on my brother and clipping some ladies ear. I did apologize and had a real hard time not laughing. Guess I need to work on the shooting again.

Lord I was born a ramblin man.....

So it has been a few weeks since the last post and blah blah blah blah blah. The first weekend We had birthdays down at Mom and Dad's. It was fun. We made brithday cards for Chris and Dad on the computer and I will say they turned out pretty darn good. Nett keeps getting mad because I don't use my "creative side" enough. We were out shopping and found a shirt that says "If my music is too loud you are too old." We thought it was funny and would fit Dad really well for his next gig.

The next weekend was of course general conference. I enjoyed the talks that I heard. They were good and I can't wait to get on the internet and spend hours downloading them and preping itunes to play them. Nettwill think it was time well spent. We had a great time down in Gunnison with the inlaws. The food was good and the company was better.

Levi has had some interesting changes. First at the Squire's house Levi was awakened by the screaming of young female cousins who don't know when to shut up and probably never will. We brought him out to mingle about 10:30 on saturday night and Levi's cousin Savannah was sitting next to us on the couch. Levi looked at her (she is a pretty young woman) and his bottom lip rolled up and started to quiver. We asked Levi if she was scary beyond reason and he started to cry. We laughed with her and he quit. As soon as the laughing stopped the crying began. Poor Levi.

Levi is also getting his first tooth. It is a little white bump on his lower jaw and you can see it if his tounge gets out of the way. He isn't hurting too much with it anymore but we can definitly wait for tooth number 2. Especially since he has begun rolling over on his own. He thinks the best times to do this are on mom and dad's bed, when he is laying next to the coffee table or in his crib. So we have to watch him ever so diligently now that he is moving. We are now starting to try to baby proof the house. Bye bye guitar equipment.

We also had the priveledge of babysitting for Nett's brother in SLC. We had a fun night though eating pizza and playing Burnout 3. J likes to crash the cars and then if we did good enough blow up the smashed car at the end. I think I want this game now. I don't know yet if it will be allowed.

Well we are certainly hoping for some drastic changes in our life soon and we pray for the big ones (job, location) every day.

I think I have wasted enough time now so back to the music.