Another Angle

Yesterday, Travis spent the afternoon putting together a MySpace page for himself and for our family. I'm more of a blogging kind of person. I think the MySpace is more for single people, but since a lot of people from Kohl's are on the network, Travis thought it would be fun to put himself and our family on there. He is such a funny guy and had me laughing pretty hard at some of the things he put down. I especially like all the captions under his pictures.

So, if you are interested in seeing our family from a different angle~Travis/MySpace style, here is the address. http://www.myspace.com/cougswsu

Oh, and for those who I've talked to that were asking if the boys are liking "Stuart Little", they are loving it. They are not happy when I close the book for discussion. They want to keep on reading. I love that!!!! Maybe some day we will watch the movie, but I'm not a huge fan of Geena Davis, so, I don't know. I like letting them come up with their own "movie" in their minds.

Oh, and also for those of you asking about the Supervisor position at Kohl's~not gonna happen. My boss is leaving and they wanted me to take her place, but Corporate won't let me because Travis is also a supervisor. Two people can't have security passcodes that live together. Oh well. It's okay, because that way I'm not committed for a really long time~so if I need to quit, or just want to cause they finally find an executive spot for Travis, I can with minimal loss.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it! (o:

My First Tag

So, apparently, my little cousin Heidi tagged me. I've dreaded being tagged cause it looks like a lot of work, but this is a nice and small one that provides a fair amount of information, so I will happily oblige. I'm supposed to tag 5 people, but I don't know that many people that have their own blogs, so if you read this and you have a blog, tag yourself. (o:

Okay~here goes.

10 years ago....Travis and I were living with his parents. His sister had passed away not even a year before. I was working at KinderCare and wondering if I would ever have any kids of my own. (it only took 3 more years)

5 Places I've Lived...Aberdeen ID, Fort Lee VA, Hanscom AFB MA, St. Peters MO, Rexburg ID, and currently, Kent WA. (I know, that's more than 5~and I even left out a couple)

5 Things on my List to do Today...1. Start reading Stuart Little to the boys 2. Do 3 pages in boys math workbooks 3.Clean the living room 4. Do laundry 5. Go to work

5 Jobs I've had...1. "worked" at the Experiment station, only I think we enjoyed ourselves too much~at least the first half of the summer. Once I started working in the wheat part, we worked hard~but I sure had fun learning all songs from Les Mis the first half. (Thanks Shauna~I still think of you when I hear Eponine sing) (o: 2. Worked 2 summers at Wendy's 3. Teacher/Supervisor at KinderCare 4. Receptionist for California Closets 5. Adset Team at Kohl's

10Years from now... I will not be working at Kohl's. (o: Travis will be a District Manager for them though. (and 46!) I will be totally stressing out trying to get Joseph graduated from high school and trying to learn all the high school math before I teach it to Spencer. (can we say tutor for the teacher) Connor will be terrorizing everyone still. I forsee three strapping Young Men wrestling, belching, and farting. I see myself in the center of it all loving every minute. (o:

That's all. So, I know Shauna and Stephanie have blogs and read mine. What ya say girls? Tag, you're it? (o:

Real quick in other news~we went to the library yesterday to see what the ducks were up to since spring is right around the corner. We got to see some serious dating going on. Male ducks were chasing each other around and quacking their dominance. It was interesting. I took a cute picture of the boys, so here it is.

The Dollar Tree

One of my co-workers also works at the local dollar store~The Dollar Tree. She told me about how much stuff she gets there that is really good quality. Yah, whatever. Yesterday, I decided to take the boys to the dollar store to buy a few things to give them something to do while I am at work. They like doing fun and different things with their dad while I'm gone, plus Joseph has been very sad a lot lately while I've been gone. SO~we go in to this big old dollar store and it was the end of the world as we know it. I swear I could have easily spent hundreds of dollars there if I wanted to. It's amazing the things that you never knew you needed until you see them and they are only a dollar!
"Oh look at this cool bbq meat baster!"
"I just can't do without this giant plastic bowl."
"Do we need any new tools for our tool box?"
"I'm sure these picture frames could frame something~especially if I ever decide to develop the thousands of pictures I have saved on the computer."
The boys got some pretty cool stuff, and in the end we spent $30. Now, that may not seem like a lot to some people, but for us, it is quite a bit. But they got some really cool stuff. Joseph got stuff for his car wash. Stuff like soap, sponges, toothbrushes. You know, cool stuff that you can clean every hotwheel in America with. Spencer got Lightening McQueen stickers, a giant calculator, some new sunglasses, and garage sale price stickers. (they have numbers on them~that's all that matters) Connor just got a truck and some bubbles. He didn't really care for any of the other stuff. We also got some crackers, hot chocolate, a couple of cool mugs for the hot chocolate to go in, some tape, a bucket of foam animal stickers, gel pens, clicky pencils, and I even got a hard cover book for Travis about President Bush! (o: Life is good. Even as I type this, I can't believe that I bought all that stuff, but it's for the greater good. The boys have been in heaven since yesterday. The entire place smells like handsoap and everything is labled nicely for a yard sale. He even put a sticker on me. I'm worth $10!

So, for all of you out there who are in need of a lot of cool stuff that you didn't know you were in need of, head on down to your local dollar store. It's all fun and games until you have to swipe the card. (o:

Correction!!!

Last night when Travis came home he excitedly told me that he had found out that the Last Horse Standing wasn't a district contest, but a Regional contest and we won! They had no idea it was involving the entire region of stores, but it did and we were the best! So, now I am really really really proud of Travis and our store. Woo hoo!!!

Last Horse Standing

As most of you know, Travis's job title is Customer Service Area Supervisor for Kohl's. He is in charge of all the customer service, including being in charge of employees at the registers and even cash office, plus driving the employees to get people to sign up for a Kohl's credit card. Every day they have a certain goal number of credits they need to get. This is a very important goal to reach each day, as credit is a big money thing with the company. (Travis would do much better at explaining this sort of thing, but since he's not here, you will have to just be happy with me) (o: Our district had a credit competition last week. They called it Last Horse Standing. All the stores in our district were involved. It was sort of a sudden death kind of game. Every day that the stores made their credit goal, they were still in. If they didn't make it, they were out. Travis worked very hard, pushing his people to make their goals. He even went down and got credits himself. Guess what? We won! Our store was in the running against one other store for three days before we knocked them out. The prize is $200 in our party fund. Pretty cool prize, but the best prize of all is that we accomplished such a big goal and beat out all the other stores in our district. And my Travis was the leader of our pack! Since I am on the adset team, I did not participate because we are there mostly when there are no customers, but I helped design a game that Travis used to help motivate everyone during that week.

Anyway~I am very proud of Travis and our store. He excels in everything he does there and really is a very valuable employee. Now, if they would just get an Executive spot open so he can take it and move up. He's ready and waiting!

In other news, well, there really isn't a whole heck of a lot of other news. I got stuck for an extra hour and a half at work last night. Since we are the last to leave the building we have to arm the alarm. It was almost midnight and my supervisor couldn't get the alarm to arm. We called the alarm company and they told us a bunch of things to do, none of which worked. I called Travis and he gave us ideas and phone numbers and tried to help us out, but to no avail. We ended up having to have one of our Executives come to the building (she was thrilled to have to get out of bed) and come and fix it. The problem ended up being in the cash office~where none of us have keys to get to. Needless to say, my supervisor and I got to know each other a lot better while we sat in the wheel chairs by the front door waiting for the exec to come. (we sent everyone else hoome, although there were only 6 of us in the first place) The worst part was that Joseph is going through a phase where he really misses me while I'm gone. He talked to me on the phone at midnight, crying because he couldn't sleep without me being home. When I finally got home at almost 1:30am, Travis was sound asleep on the boys bedroom floor (per Joseph's request~isn't he an awesome dad?) and Joseph was sitting up waiting for me. Poor kid~he could have been asleep so much sooner if I would have been home on time. Oh well. It was a nice little adventure for me. Good old Kohl's! (by the way~that's not a picture of our store~just a visual aid)

Brown Bears

This weekend we had a couple of sunny days, so we took the boys out for drives and did the most exciting thing in the universe~Went through a car wash!!!! It was just the one at the Shell station by our house. We took pictures while we went through it. Extremely exciting! Joseph's greatest ambition in life is to own an entire chain of Brown Bear Car Washes one day. One of the trips that we have to make when we go on our little excursions is to visit the Brown Bear in Seattle. Just between the city and Ballard they have a very large car wash. It has fancy flashing lights and lots of curtain brushes. It's very exciting. We took the camera with us and recorded the car wash running so that we can watch it over and over at home. (o: Joseph is working at saving all of the money he earns to pay to go to this very fancy car wash and wash our car. Here is a picture of him and the bears at the Seattle car wash.

Travis has really wanted to snap a picture of our family with the city behind us for a while. Yesterday we went for a nice little Sunday evening drive. I carry the camera with me in my purse, so he hurried and snapped this photo while the sun was still out. It was almost sunset. He was so cute. Once he decided to do it, we couldn't get to the photo spot quick enough. Of course the draw bridge had to go up and there was an accident on one of the side roads, but we made it and it turned out very nice. I especially liked how the sun reflected off of his Seahawk shirt. Kinda cool. (the Hawks are kind of heavenly) (o; For all of you out there who think it is nothing but rain here~there you go. Beautiful!!!

In other topics, here is a picture of Nate and his family. Don't get many of those, so I have to brag when I do. Aren't they all so cute! Also, I will not be posting about my other brother and about the far away place that he is because it's just not safe. (hence the deletion of all pictures of him in that place) We still love him lots and support him entirely!

A Big Old Slacker

I haven't done a whole heck of alot the past two weeks because we have all been so sick. It sure doesn't take long for the place to turn into a disaster! Plus, the kids have gotten completely out of any sort of regular school routine. When I said we HAD to do some math work today, Joseph ran from the room screaming. Fabulous. Of course, he kind of does that anytime I mention math, but still...I'm a slacker.

Because of illness, I don't really have tons to report. Travis and I have been totally into "The Office" lately. I bought him a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt at Kohl's. We thought it was awesome. Most people don't get it, but I suppose enough people watch The Office that they made shirts and sell them. Then again, I was working last night and a t-shirt in Young Men's caught my eye. It said, "Don't Swallow Your Gum!" and it had a stick man walking with a pink bubble coming out of his butt. Made me laugh. (o:

Okay, gonna go now. I have a ton to do and so I better get moving. If we do anything spectacularly wonderful, I'll be sure to let you know. Otherwise we are going to clean out under the bunkbed. Yikes!

Connor Update

For those of you who have asked how Connor is doing~I took him to the doctor today. He has a nice little ear infection. The doctor said that he probably had some infection in his body, just looking for a nice place to settle. It finally picked a spot. He hasn't ever complained about his ear hurting, so I think we caught it in pleanty of time. He and I went and got him some of the good old pink medicine. He has had two doses of it already and he seems to be feeling better. It's 11pm and he's still awake and looking happier than he has in a while. (thanks antibiotics) (o:

As for the rest of us~we are doing okay. This cold was a nasty one, but we are all finally looking to shake it for good. (especially now that we have Connor getting treated) So, thanks to everyone for asking and showing concern.

Mr. Carwash

Okay, I know that I already posted today, but I took this picture of Joseph and I had to post it. He even posed! He's such a crack up. Plus~do ya love the outfit? The joys of homeschooling. He couldn't find a clean pair of jeans (cause I've been washing bedding), so he put on pajama bottoms. Hey, at least he's covered!

Joseph has been fascinated with car washes for years. He has always said he wants to work in one. Down in the valley (we live on the hill), they are building a brand new Brown Bear Carwash at the Chevron station. Joseph has been loving watching the whole process. The other day, he went with his dad to gas up the car and he went over to get a closer look at the work they are doing inside the wash. A nice man, we believe the manager in charge of the building of it, came out and talked to Joseph. He told Joseph all about what was in the different boxes that were there and Joseph got to ask some questions. He was, in his words, thrilled. Yesterday we drove over to look at the progress and got to watch them weld some of the inside parts. Fabulous! So, needless to say, in true Joseph form, he has talked non-stop about Brown Bear car washes. He has decided that when he grows up, instead of working in one, he wants to own a whole chain of them so he can have lots to visit and watch. Sounds good to me. In the playroom, he has also constructed his own car wash for his animals vehicles to pass through. He used old Kohl's signs Travis brought home, towels and a squirt bottle. The Kohl's signs are a kind of styrofoamy plasticy kind of material, so it doesn't soak up water. Anyway, that is what the picture is all about. Oh, and to the right of him is the train table. Full of elaborate car washes, gas stations and fast food joints that they have built. I'm a cool mom cause I let them draw on their lego's to help make them more authentic looking and Travis is the cool dad that prints them logo signs to hang.

There you have it. Our creative child who wants to be a car wash trillionare. (o:

The Nuclear Option?

Okay~around Christmas time Connor caught a cold. It was fairly mild. He passed it onto his brothers, but again, it was mild. Then after New Year's, Connor's cold came back. Still not too bad, but he passed it on to his brothers again. I went around the place spraying door knobs and toilet seats with Lysol. Then, Connor's cold came back~again! This was about 2 weeks ago. It was not so mild. It worked it's way into Joseph. Then Travis. Then Spencer. Then Dawn. This was a cold with a fever. Not so much fun. I can't remember the last time I had a fever. I didn't know how to operate. I was miserable along with everyone else. Mom's are not supposed to get sick! Just not fair.

Here's a little side story to all of this. This weekend was when Travis, Spencer, and I were down for the count. We couldn't even go to church on Sunday. Connor and Joseph, however, were feeling pretty good. So, we told Joseph to please help keep Connor occupied and out of trouble while we laid there like dead fish. He took Connor into the playroom and played with him all day. They watched some of Connors favorite dvd's and just had a good old time. I was very proud of Joseph, but afraid that it wouldn't last, so in the afternoon I told him that if he kept doing such an excellent job taking care of his brother, I would pay him a whole dollar!!! **wink**He thought that was fantastic...until...Daddy offered a whole dollar from his wallet as well!! Joseph couldn't believe his luck! So, he watched his little brother the entire day and when Connor went to bed, we paid our little slave, I mean son, $2!!! He thought he was the richest kid in town. He's got it all tucked away waiting for the day mommy says that she's healthy enough to go to Wal-Mart!

So, anyway, once the fevers all broke, I took every piece of bedding I could get my hands on and threw them in the washer machine (this took a whole day), and every dish got tossed in the dishwasher. (hello gigantic hot water bill) I used an entire can of Lysol, and aired the place out. Now it's just a wait and see. Did we build a good enough immunity? Did I kill enough of the germ? Or am I going to have to call Iran and ask to borrow some of their plutonium? We'll just have to wait and see.

Another quick, and, I think kind of humorous, side story. Yesterday I went to my eye doc to get new contacts. I had a slight fever when I got up, but refused to miss this appointment, so I took some tylenol and headed over there. While in the waiting room, my fever broke. I was sweating like there was no tomorrow. I think the doctor thought I was nervous or something. He kept asking me if I was okay. When I stood up, my backside was soaked in sweat. Good thing it was raining (SHOCK~rain in Seattle!). I just hoped people who saw me thought it was the rain. Okay~that story wasn't as funny as I remember it. Guess you had to be there. (o:

The Hinckley Challenge

Stephanie sent me this site and I decided to take on the challenge. Visit the site if you want to take the Hinckley Challenge and read the Book of Mormon in 97 days. www.hinckleychallenge.com.