How I love to have my husband home!

So here's an apology for all of those who actually read this weekly :) I started reading a series called "Twilight" if you haven't read it, and you enjoy science fiction/fantasy, this is one for you. I couldn't stop reading and everything in my life came to a halt. Thank heaven's my husband and child are perfect because they both gave me time to read (naps, and nights). Anyway, I finished them yesterday, so everything is perfect now. The 4 books were really good.

Okay, back to last week:

I have to admit that before Jason left I was really excited about the prospect of sleeping through entire nights, of cleaning up Alisa's toys and not tripping over them five minutes later, and of being able to work as late as I wanted without the guilt of knowing that Jason was home alone.

And all of those things were dead on . . . until Sunday, two days before he was supposed to come home. After that day and the next I could concentrate on nothing else. I just wanted him home. I jubilantly left work at 12:10pm and drove without a care down the snowy streets to the airport. It's really close to work so I wasn't worried about time (since he was supposed to land at 12:08).

He didn't end up getting off of the plane until 12:35. Luckily for him I had just been to the library and had checked out book number one in the hatefully addictive Twilight series. Thus I was completely content to sit and read for as long as it took to get him there.

It was a blast having them home. Alisabeth was super excited to see me, and Jason was too . . . needless to say. Here are some of the trip highlights.

He nearly filled the 2G memory card in the camera :)

Here's the slideshow!


Alisabeth took a trip to the zoo in Tucson. . . finally.

Notice, she's trying to feed the animals some leaves she found. She spent quite a while doing this according to Jason.

Here were her favorites, she loved watching the otters swim and play.

They also visited the Desert Museum as a family. This is Nancy and Samuel. They are Jason's brother Bryan's wife and their oldest son.

My daughter the fearless.

Can you tell she wants one of these for Christmas?

She loved everything.

All of the cousins seemed to enjoy their time together.

This is Bryan with their daughter Melanie. Aren't they both so cute! This was the first time that their family was able to come to the US because of Visas, so not only did they survive the long trip, but they had lots of fun while in Tucson.

These last two are for Jason's dad. Jason has been welding in his class and wanted to show his dad some of his very first attempts. These are simply melting metal to metal without adding anything between them. I think their pretty good for first time tries.

Snow tires and other winter secrets

I don't have much time for writing this week because I was invited to dinner and have meetings. Everyone seems to think that because my husband is out of town I suddenly need a lot of extra love and support. I guess they're right.
This week was good. I worked, and oh it was nice. I'm basically the queen of Trust tax returns. Last year I did over 200. This year the pile is high and growing. They are the first things in the door because the banks usually control them and keep the records accurate so Jan 1 they can print them out and ship them off.

About Thursday is when they finally got our cubicle up. Previous to that I was stealing offices from others :)

Friday the snow storm began. It is expected to last until Tuesday and has dropped a total of about a foot on us in the last 3 days. I felt bad for my husband as he drove white-knuckled to the airport that morning. We were running late and the snow removal crew out here isn't the best so needless to say the 1/2 hr trip lasted about an hour. Once I dropped him off I headed back to work which was only about 10 minutes away. I was lucky. There was no one on the road so I drove with reckless abandon. Even when I slipped the snow was deep enough to stop me before I went too far so I didn't mind the drive at all. Saturday was another story altogether. It was snowing hard and had snowed all night. It was horrible outside. Luckily my co-worker drove us in and back.
But that morning after leaving the temple parking lot I had a brush with death that sealed the deal. (Okay so I wouldn't have died and I probably wouldn't have even gotten hurt.)
As I was headed down the slope from a high parking lot to a lower area the little car in front of me freaked out because she didn't know how to drive so she stopped dead in the snow at the bottom of the incline. I was 1/2 way down the incline and a little ways away and tried to stop, but my car didn't want to. So I thought . . . if I don't do something I'm going to hit her. So I turned my wheel thinking that at least I would go into the snowbank beside us.
No use. The car continued forward until I was inches from her bumper. Finally the boy convinced her to at least move out of the way so she pulled forward about 5 feet and stopped again to switch places with the young fellow. Meanwhile I was just sighing in relief and stopping the urge to curse her.

So here's what I've learned so far, for those who know correct and add as needed:
1) DON'T HIT THE BRAKES
2) Don't turn the wheel if you start slipping, hold it steady.
3) Don't go 50 in a 50 m/h zone
4) DON'T HIT THE GAS WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN.
5) When your tires are spinning no amount of additional pressure on the pedal will move you.
6) If you want to stop later, start stopping now.
7) Driving on bad tires is like walking up to a policeman and punching him in the face. . . just don't do it.
and finally. . .
8) Driving 5 feet away from the vehicle in front of you is a good way to see if God has a plan for your life, or if He's done with you.

I love you all, thanks for reading this week.

Week 3 and counting. . .

I can't believe we're in 2009 and everyone is acting like it's just another day at the office. . .
Okay so I do it too, just one more day in the grind, but this year is going to be amazing. I'm gradutating. . . granted it's not until December but still. . .



We had a wonderful week full of surprise and fun. Alisabeth learned a few new tricks and Jason learned a few new pieces of irrelevant data. (Like the fire from a piston firing travels at 40-90 miles per hour. And if there are problems it could be as fast as 10 times the speed of sound. . . . . . . . . . . .)



We'll start with Alisabeth shall we:
She learned the joys of having parents around.

We can give her slow rides around the house. . .

Or hold her while she cooks dinner. . .

Jason had a good time. In his welding class they practise straight lines. . . he got it closer than some of the students. He was also able to spend $140 something on all the gear for his class. Everything from a sparker to a specialized jacket. Ah the joys of school. He is really enjoying the glorified english class known as Business Communications. The teacher is really a stickler and so far he's failed all of the little "Where does the comma go" type tests, but the teacher is good at explaining and i guess she's interesting. I hated that class.
We've also been really blessed these last few weeks. Jason posted a note on the local internet bulletin board that he would be willing to fix minor car problems and he's had like 4 calls this week alone. All very needed since we spent a little too much on unnecessary things during Christmas. He's even had a few repeat customers. . .

As for me. Well, last week wasn't anything huge, but I got a new calling. We got a call from the Bishopric on Tuesday that they wanted to see us Wednesday in their offices. On Wednesday they released us as nursery workers and called me to be the 1st counselor in the Relief Society. For those readers who are not "Mormon," the Relief Society is the women's organization in the church. Each group has their own local presidency. So basically I am the first assistant to the President. I am called the Education Counselor and will be dealing with making sure lessons get taught and the schedule is set. I am excited and nervous. There are over 70 women in our group at various stages of early marriage and I just hope I can be a good assistant to the new president. It's going to be fun.

That's about it. I start work on Monday and am really really excited for that. I probably won't bore you with all the details of completing trust tax returns which is probably what I'll be doing this year.

Anyway, see you next week.

Whew!

What a trip! School started today, we got back last night and our apartment looks like a couple of tornadoes were fighting over the last cow!

We were supposed to wash our carpets and install a new heating system while we were gone, so we moved all of our furniture out of the way and got everything up off the floor. . . we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble. They only cleaned the walking areas and anywhere where furniture had been was left untouched. Also there was no new heating unit :(

Our trip went rather well though considering. We were five minutes too late for our connecting flight out of Salt Lake. We should have arrived home at 1:30 at the latest and instead got home at 6:30. Ah, how I love to travel. Not only that but because they took 40 minutes to get the luggage out our friend parked illegally and got us a $50 ticket. (I am still trying to figure out how a 3 terminal airport can take 40 minutes to get a small plane emptied and over to the baggage claim. Then again I shouldn't wonder too much since they had us wait for 20 minutes so they could de-ice the plane sitting at our gate . . . instead of just moving it 10 feet so we could get off the plane. . .

But we're home, and safe and we had a great time. That's all that really matters.

The following are a few highlights:

Enjoying time in Tucson. We spent most nights with my mom, and our evenings and days everywhere. This was the combined dinner so everyone could see everyone.

Alisabeth learned about fans for the first time. Being in Idaho she'd never seen a ceiling fan before so they fascinated her the entire trip.

This was Christmas at the Liddeke home. Alisabeth was enamored with the little dogs and spent the afternoon chasing them around just trying to pet them . . . just a little!

All Sonja's grand kids. Alisabeth was less than happy to be included here because there wasn't a parent nearby, but a gentle hand from Sonja kept her in line :)

We had a hard time keeping her out of her presents though. She was spoiled rotten, from letter blocks to bath toys to really cute outfits, she got it all here.

Then it was off to Florida for some good old fashioned fun. Again a new experience for her. She had never played in the leaves before so I raked up a few for her. (notice the clear spot behind us :p)

We also got a great chance to reacquaint ourselves with out cousins. . . second cousins. . . once removed? They were a lot of fun.

Then I got a new camera. It shoots normal pictures, but it also has really cool features like black and white or sepia.

Or you can focus on a specific color and it will highlight this in the pictures, you can even set how sensitive you want it to be. Less means it picks up the color you want within any variation.

Christmas was a blast with tons of people and presents flying everywhere!

Then I learned a new feature on my camera. Changing only one color to match any other color you choose. Suddenly my cousin went from doing okay to winning drastically :)

Alisabeth stole her cousin's new baby for much of the time there and spent a great deal of time giving it the bottle and then taking a sip herself then giving it back again :)

Once we returned to Tucson she learned how to drive . . .

And was even kind enough to offer a ride to her cousin who's older by 2 months but still hasn't mastered this feat.

Jason bought a new B-B Gun and spent a great deal of time perfecting his aim on pigeon butts with his brother Kevin.

For some reason this picture refuses to be the right direction, but it represents our early celebration on Jason's 24th birthday. The old dog. His sister got him an awesome gift! It was a remote control fly. It's pretty darn cool and he's been enjoying it, I got him his present when we got home of new pants.

We got to visit our old landlord in their new house. It was a nice place and Alisabeth loved it immediately. They're really great people.

And let us play Carcassonne with them. It's an addicting board game that I'm hooked on. It's strategy mixed with a healthy dose of luck and skill. I haven't come close to winning yet . . .but one day I'll get it and master it. . . then Guy and Naomi will have to watch out. . . just kidding you guys.

My mom also gave us a Walmart gift card to use for our birthday presents this year, Jason immediately blew his on computer gear. Here is pictured his new router and heat pad for his laptop. Oh what a happy boy he is.

My choices were much more elegant (yeah right). I've been wanting a shower caddy for a long time to get the soaps and junk away from Alisabeth, so I finally got that, and then I got another long-time want, a soap dispenser. It holds up to three types (shampoo/conditioner/body wash) and dispenses with the push of a button :) I was so excited that I got them at 4:00 and they were installed by 5.

Alisabeth also got a bit of a change. She is similar to me and doesn't like to be confined so we decided to try an open bed for her. It's a bit early age-wise I think, but if she can handle it I'm all for it. Last night was her first night and she did great. Today she took two short naps and got up with very little fuss because she could get up without us having to come in and let her out. I think she likes it and I enjoy her being able to do it. We'll have to see if it lasts.

That was our three week vacation in a nutshell. We got to do a lot and enjoyed it all.