Mesa Trip

Last Friday I got an invitation in the mail to Amber's "Sip and See" for her new twins.  As I looked at it, I was seized with an irrepressible longing to go to the party.  I placed the invitation on the table in front of Craig so he could see it and sighed loudly.  He asked what all the noise was for and I said, "I wish I could go to that!"

After just a couple minutes, we were talking seriously about whether I should go.  Leave the kids?  Leave Craig?  Forget about Saturday cleaning and errands?  Blow off attending church in our ward?

I left.  Bless Craig forever for his support and love.  Not many husbands encourage their wives in their crazy scheming the way mine does.

It was so fun.  I surprised Amber ("What are you doing here!!!").  I surprised Tonya ("I didn't know you were coming!").  I surprised Rae (You're here!!").  I surprised Reese ("AUNT SUZIE!!!"). I surprised Dad ("Well geesh, what are you doing here????")

It was the best.

Went out to lunch with Amy.  Went to the Sip and See and saw the twins.  Saw Reese.  (How I miss Reese!)  Went to the Women's Session with Tonya and Amber.  Went out to dinner with Dad.  Went to Tonya's church to see her primary program.  Had family dinner and Dad and Rae's.

It was the best.

Barn Update

Two weeks ago, our contractor Mark was hoisted up on the bucket of the backhoe and took this picture of the barn.  It shows the center well for the turn table.

This week I took these photos.  The walls have been poured and are up about five feet from the ground.  I didn't realize until these walls were up how BIG the barn is!  It's kind of intimidating.  I thought we were building a nice, little, cozy milk barn.  Only 90 feet by 90 feet, right?  That's not too big??  It's gigantic!

Hayes's New Job

You see who that is behind the counter checking those groceries???  That's HAYES.  Yep, he is the newest cashier at Stokes Marketplace.  He went into Stokes to fill out an application last Monday and was hired on the spot.  He spent three days training and now he's good to go.  

Today I went up to Stokes and took these photos on the sly.  It's so fun to see him in action.  And it's so fun to have him out of the house, being industrious.  He comes home and tells us funny stories about little old ladies complaining about the price of produce.  I keep hoping that now I can get a percentage off my groceries, but so far that's a no go.  :) 

Brigham and Joseph

This is Joseph Beutler and Brigham Campbell at the sacrament table today.  You are NOT supposed to take pictures in sacrament meeting.  I realize this.  But I was sitting in the chapel before sacrament meeting started and I looked up to the front and saw Brigham and Joseph sitting there together and it touched my heart.  I snuck my phone out of my bag and quickly took a pic before anyone could see me.

Brigham and Joseph have been best buddies for the past seven or eight years.  They are remarkably alike.  They have the same build and their personalities and interests are quite similar.  When Brigham was in the eighth grade musical, he had a body double for a scene which was played by Joseph.  I was so confused how Brigham seemed to be in two places at once, and then Brigham told me after the play that it had actually been Joseph on the stage.  

Brigham and Joseph are both happiest when in front of the computer.  They are both so so smart but both lazy about doing their homework, thus they both don't do very well in school.  Last year Joseph failed English and Brigham failed Health.  Brigham says that as long as he can remember, his teachers have a really hard time telling him and Joseph apart and often refer to them both by the wrong names.  

Joseph is the oldest son of my kindred spirit friend Aneesa.  It's wonderful having husbands and children who are such good friends, because it throws us together even more.  

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were best friends back in their day.  These are their two modern counterparts.  

Field Trip

Last week I had the nice problem of figuring out how to get a few beds from the Franklin County Medical Center to my classroom.  I had contacted the maintenance guy at the hospital about whether he had any old beds that still worked that he would be willing to donate.  All the beds in our classroom were either falling apart or didn't work or both.

I knew that if I had to recruit help to go load up the beds in the back of a truck and drive them to the high school and then unload them, it would take the good part of a day.  So I hit on an idea - why not call it a field trip and have the students push them over?  It's only four blocks from the hospital to the high school!  Let the young, strong, healthy high school students do all the huffing and puffing!

So that's what we did.  It worked like a charm.  I drove them over to the hospital and we located the beds that maintenance had saved for us out in the parking lot.  The students pushed them down the street while I followed in my car to make sure they were safe.  By the time we got back to school, they were all red in the face and sweaty, and I was cool as a cucumber.  I am a genius.

This one is for Dad

I talked to my dad yesterday.  He said that he had figured out how to use the Facebook and wanted to know why I hadn't posted more pictures of the new barn.  I figured that he had a vested interest so I am acquiescing to his request.

This huge blue thing is the pump that takes the cement from the concrete truck
up and over the wall of forms to the inside.  It's a lot taller than it looks from far away.

So those are the pictures of barn construction today.  I thought things were going pretty well.  When I got home from teaching, I went to find Craig and he was outside with all the construction crew.  He seemed in pretty good spirits and said things were going well that day.   A couple hours later he came in and said that the Waikato guys had been there and had started yelling about how things were wrong, that the pipe was placed in the wrong spot, and where are the plans, blah, blah,  blah.  Craig said that he threw the plans at the guy and said that if he wanted it done right then why wasn't the equipment dealer there during the pour?  I hope he was exaggerating because it sounded pretty heated.  

Most of the time I try to avoid the site.  Whenever I go outside I try not to even look over there.  The problem is that my yard currently looks like this:

because we are putting in sprinkler pipe and landscaping around the house.  There is nowhere to go that is orderly!  Even when I try to escape inside I run into this:

Someday life will return to normal, right? I hope so.