Later alligator

This morning we dropped Gwennie off at the vet to have more immunizations and her spay. She's going to be there all day long... poor girl. I know this is very routine, but it makes me nervous to think of someone cutting into her or giving her too much anesthesia, or not enough. I'm sure it will go fine.


The review went fine.  It was actually really good to talk to my boss about stuff, and he was very receptive.  (He asked me to come prepared with a bunch of stuff, more like I was reviewing myself as opposed to being reviewed, but it was still good.)  All of the people I work with really are great people - seriously they are awesome!  For now, I still have my needed and very much appreciated time off.  So... I think I'm just gonna, like, drop off the face of the earth for a short while... so... toodles for now.

The end is near (of the week)

Well, coincidentally, later yesterday, late afternoon, my boss contacted me to set up a review.  (If my blog wasn't private, I might think he had read it or something.)  Anyway, that's tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it.

Last night after work, I took Gwennie down to mom & dad's and she got to run around while I visited.  It was the most I've seen of Alison yet since she's been home, and it was nice to see the rest of them too.  Mom also made no-bake cookies and we watched Modern Family.

Break

I know how bad this is going to sound - it sounds bad to me but I can't really help it, but I am so tired of work lately.  Eeeeeek.  It's because I know how everyone is looking for a job these days and how hard they are to find, and we're so lucky because we get health insurance and stuff, and I even get my own office and the people I work with are great.  There is nothing to hate about this job.  I know I should really just shut up and be grateful.  I don't know.  Like I used to love feeling needed and feeling like I was making a meaningful contribution and being part of something cool.  But I don't really care about that stuff now.  All the motivational drive that I used to have is just gone, has been for quite some time.  I mean, I'd have to be completely, 100% off my rocker to quit and look for a new job, even if part of me feels like it would welcome the challenge.  Couldn't really do that anyway even if I really wanted to, because of the tuition reimbursement contract.  Well, I'm hoping it's just burnout, and that a nice long break will do the trick.  Then I can quit whining like an ungrateful brat.

Well hello, age of technology

What an awesome weekend it has been.  Geoff turned 28!!  He's so old!  Oh well I don't consider him "officially" old until he's 30, so I 'spose he's got a few years yet. 

The Pink Floyd  Think Floyd USA concert was pretty good.  Geoff said it was definitely worth the ticket price, a whole ten dollars.  For a person who only knows a few of their songs, I actually enjoyed it very much.  The concert venue, the Peppermill in Wendover, is way nice - only seats 1,000 people so there isn't a bad seat - but the acoustics were not good.  It could've just been the sound system or the music volume though.  But it was still good.  After the concert, we spent about an hour turning 20 bucks into 80 bucks, then we drove home.  We got home around 1:30 and went to bed.  Fun night!

Gwennie had spent the night at my mom's, so we got to sleep in Saturday morning.  Mom and Dad went to Mesquite to watch Erik race, and we knew she was just in the laundry room with the doggie door, so we sorta took our time picking her up.  We figured she loves the freedom of running around in the backyard.  I think it's good for her, however now she's gotten used to running free and runs away from us when we're at home, but we'll just work on that. :)  It's great that she can go play at grandma's and we're glad they could watch her so we could go to Wendover.  :)

So instead, we made breakfast, then I brought home a birthday cake from The Chocolate (delicious!).  Then we picked up Gwennie and brought her home.  Geoff did a bunch of research and we went to Best Buy and got a blu-ray player and a router so we could hook it up to the internet.  (We tried just getting a thing that would upconvert dvd's to HD, but nothing we tried was working to we did this instead.)  We spent the evening hooking it up and trying it out.  Having it hooked up to the internet is awesome.  Unfortunately, our internet connection isn't fast enough to watch some movies with the really good picture quality, but we can watch any of the instant-play Netflix stuff right on our TV.  This is not going to be good for our TV-watching habits!!  ha ha.  We joked about how far we've come from the days of the box-tv with the missing power button and rabbit ears.  It's like we've joined the age of technology in the last two months (but we'll never get the updated phones and whatever, which is totally fine with me.)  We watched a documentary called The King of Kong, about one man's journey to beat the Donkey Kong world record- it was so interesting!   We also sold the elliptical and got it out of our kitchen.  It is so nice having our kitchen back!  So nice, in fact, that I cleaned everything up and brough the table back into the center of the floor and it feels so good!

Sunday, Geoff went to church - he was teaching in Priesthood - and I wasn't feeling too good so I stayed home so I wouldn't cough on everybody.  I ended up scrubbing the bathroom and getting a bunch of laundry done.  We got a new area rug for the front room and put the old one in the back room.  The ethernet cable wasn't long enough to run it along the wall/ceilings, so we just used some rugs and it worked fine.  And dad gave us some stuff to use along the baseboards.  We spent the day napping, watching movies, and playing with Gwennie outside.  Pretty much a perfect day if you ask me. :)  And the house is clean for the first time in a long time, and it feels sooo nice.

It's the weekend. Bazinga.

Is my boss in his office watching the Big Bang Theory?  I wanna watch TV.  Hmmm I guess facebook is the next best thing? lol.  Just kidding.  Sort of. Anyway.

It's Geoff's 28th birthday tomorrow.  So we are going to a Pink Floyd concert in Wendover tonight. 

Also since he works 4-10's and was home today, he brought Gwennie in to see me at work.  I showed her to my other co-workers who also have and love dogs, and they ate her up!  I wuvs her so much.  She's spending the night at gramma's tonight since we'll be home super late.  Yesterday we decided to let her roam around the house while we ran to Walmart and see what happened.  She didn't go potty inside!  We took her out right when we got home and she went, so she was holding it until she could go outside.  She's such a good girl!

Bring on the weekend!!!

I think I pulled a back muscle during a coughing, choking fit in the middle of the night last night.  That's the third time I've woken up gasping for air in a week. It's weird and gross!!  I wish it would stop.

:(

I don't think I've ever heard of anything more heartbreaking in my life than of what has happened to little Ethan Stacey.  My heart weeps for him.  I hope that he is specially wrapped in the arms of love in heaven right now... and the world will have their way with the perps, who don't deserve to live.

Yowsa

So yeah, my bill for taking the auditing class at University of Utah finally posted - for $1,466.00... for one class!!  I didn't realize it would be so expensive.  So needless to say, I am dropping the class.  No U of U for me, at least right now.  I double-checked UVU's website, and they have actually added an evening auditing class for the fall.  Would've never though UVU would be coming to my rescue... ever.  But, I am going to try and sign up for that.  Except now that I've graduated, my registration status won't let me add any classes, so I emailed the advisor, but got her out-of-office reply cuz they have campus-wide training today.  Sigh... this will happen... eventually.  And if it doesn't, then we've just decided that I'll take any prerequisites at whatever school we end up going to, and I can still take the GMAT in the meantime.  Yes it'll put us back that much further, but oh well. 

The good thing I'm seeing out of this is that I don't have to go to school this summer, at all!  Yay!!  My grateful for today: Gwennie's cute little face.  And chocolate.  Mi encanta chocolate.  Esposa.  Word.

Best ever

I got my hair permed tonight by my awesome cousin, Nat!  Wait, make that permed, colored, cut, and styled for dirt cheap, and she gave me some product too.  She is so awesome!!  I love it too.  We'll see if I can figure out how to do it tomorrow morning, ha.  But yeah.  Seriously, go to Nat for your hair care needs, I can help you get in touch if interested.  She's seriously the best ever. :)

Sundays

She did it!  Has done it for a couple nights now.  I'm so proud of her for being such a good housetrained puppy!  Also glad we get to let her keep the big kennel.

Today we went to church in SF to hear Alison's homecoming talk.  She didn't share any mission stories but instead gave a great talk - it really was good.  Then we had an open house thing at mom and dad's afterward and lots of people came, family and friends.  It was fun.  Mom said the best mother's day present is just having her family all together again (that's not to say we didn't give her real presents, ha).

Today we (I) took a 4.5 hour nap.  So great!

G's: Grateful for a fun week of family and friends, and that my sister has come home safely.  I'm so grateful for my family.  I love them all so much.  They are truly wonderful people!

Smart puppy

We went to Tucahno's for dinner tonight, since Geoff got a birthday meal coupon in the mail.  It was SO GOOD.  I've been craving Tucahno's for about two months.  I love love the mango cod, the bbq chicken, the amazing salad bar, the cheese bread, the fried bananas, the grilled pineapple.  MMM so many things to love.  Now we just look forward to August when my birthday meal coupon comes in the mail! he he.  Okay maybe we'll go again before then, maybe.

Worked last night.  Must work again tomorrow morning.

We've noticed that Gwen hates her kennel lately.  For awhile there she would put herself away to get a treat, but lately she won't even go inside it for a treat.  And oh, she cries.  So Geoff tried putting her in the HUGE dog kennel today.  I thought for sure she would use the far corner as a bathroom, because it's big enough both Geoff and I could probably kneel comfortably in it.  But no, she's held it until we let her out, so far.  She's such a good girl.  We'll see if she can go the night.

Spring has sprunged

Geoff got a gym pass too.  He was pretty amazed that Gold's is little more than half the price of 24 Hour Fitness, and he can go to any of the gyms on the wasatch front with no extra charge.  (No they did not pay me to say that, but they should huh.)  24 Hour was a month-by-month contract with no exit fees, that's why we went with them last year.  But I'm glad he got one, it's more fun to go with someone.  We went the other night.  Probably weekends will be the only times we go together but still.

It's fun having Al home.  Mom and Dad had a BBQ at their house last night and both sides of the families came.  Then we sat around and talked mission for awhile after everyone left.  I brought Gwennie down on my lunch and she got to run around in the backyard for most of the day!  Geoff and Alison talked spanish for a few minutes.  They tried to make me think they were talking about me... sillies.  I can pick out words and phrases here and there, that's it.  Anyway.  There's lots of fun stuff coming up I'm excited for within the next month!  Come summer!

Got kind of behind on the grateful's... will start doing them again.  Right now I'm liking the tree outside the window with brilliant pink blossoms.  It's perdy.

Bien venidos Hermana Jones!

Anxiously waiting at the airport...

THE BIG ARRIVAL

More pictures

These are some missionaries from the same mission that flew home on the same flight- one of the sisters was her companion in the MTC and the mission field.

After the airport, we went to Applebee's for lunch.  Al's friend Shelly (& husband & baby) came too.  Then we went home where she showered us with Chilean souveniers.  She was also released, which was special.  She looked beat, considering all the traveling and excitement, it's been about 24 hours since she slept, but then her friends started calling her on her old cell phone and she was like new again. 

Anyway, it's not weird at all having her home, in fact it almost feels like she never left.  Our family feels complete again. :)

My Marvelous Masterpiece

Okay, pretty sure this amuses me more than it will anyone else, but I came across the very first mix CD I ever made.  It was in my first semester of college, on my roommate's computer because she had Kazaa, the Napster follow-up... I don't think iTunes was invented yet.  (If it was, we didn't know about it!  I use this as an I-stole-music excuse). 

I present:

My Marvelous Masterpiece

1. Blessid Union of Souls - Light In Your Eyes
2. Scarlet - Independent Love Song
3. Donna Lewis/Richard Marx - At the Beginning
4. Bad English - When I See You Smile
5. Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me
6. Information Society - Pure Energy
7. Jennifer Lopez - Let's Get Loud
8. Madonna - I'll Remember
9. Mandy Moore - Candy
10. Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel
11. Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes
12. Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible
13. Our Lady Peace - Somewhere Out There
14. Josh Groban - To Where You Are
15. 8stops7 - Question Everything
16. O-Town - All or Nothing
17. Dido - Thank You
18. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
19. The Beatles - I Will

Snow

We have SNOW!  On May 1st!  Snow, rain, sleet, whatever, it's out there.  We were going to have a date at the Springville art museum and get lunch at the place where Erik works, but it's sort of a stay inside in a blanket and read a book kind of day.  I guess we'll do the date next week.  Geoff is out getting movies and stuff to make lunch so we're just gonna chill for the day.  Maybe do some laundry and cleaning, our house needs it.

We did take Gwennie for her 2nd round of shots at nine this morning.  They had to have one vet tech hold her down while another administered the shot because she's so wiggly.  She let out the most pitiful sounding howl I think I've ever heard, but she's fine now.  In three more weeks she gets a third round of shots plus a SPAY!  I hate to put her through it but it's better for her.  I'm just glad I don't have to be there watching, I don't think I could handle it.  But I like this vet and the techs too, she will be fine.