Olivia's artwork

Sunday fort

This is what Taylor and I came home to after the baptism we went to at church. They built a pretty good sized fort in an hour.

Bowling

We're bowling at CU. We were going to go to a dance performance but I got the days mixed up. So we went bowling instead. I'm doing really lousy, even with the bumpers.  But everyone's having fun.

Hugging trees

Necrotizing fasciitis

That's what's on my mind. Necrotizing fasciitis or commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria. I think it's the worst disease I have ever learned about. There's a teacher at Westview Middle School here in Longmont that has it and he might not live. My friend was just telling be about it because her son is in this teacher's science class. He just recently went in to the doctor because he wasn't feeling well and they had to amputate his arm and shoulder after discovering that he had this bacterial infection. It spreads so fast and the mortality rate is 73%. If that isn't the scariest disease around I don't know what is.
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Today Karen was out sick again so I had the phones. Again. And I did a QuickBooks training and I have an accounting test I'm still studying for and I have to run payroll tonight and I just figured out I was supposed to file my 944 last Thursday. So why am I blogging? I don't know. Stress relief for a few minutes. Okay, over and out.

Playing in the snow

Valentine's Disaster

So I had this bright idea to schedule a couples massage for me and Taylor, as a Valentinte's present to him. He's always complaining of a sore back and how he needs me to give him a massage. I keep telling him he should go in for one- cause I'm no pro, but he thinks that's weird. I thought if we did it together he wouldn't be so wierded out. So I scheduled one for both of us. I didn't tell him because I didn't want him to have time to come up with an excuse. I just told him I planned something for us Wednesday night and we got in the car and I didn't tell him where we were going. Then we pulled up in front of the chiro/massage office and I told him and he was not happy. I thought I was being so thoughtful in planning this out for him. OK, maybe a little sneaky but I knew he'd enjoy it in the end. But he was adamit that he was not under any circumstance going in there. The office has a glass front so when we pulled up in our van the two massage therapists were waiting for us at the front desk and could see us arguing in the car. For like 10 minutes. It was awesome. Finally I walked in all disgruntled and told them what happened. But I was still getting a massage. So Taylor went home and came back and picked me up. Happy Valentines Day.

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I got a 90 on my first accounting test. This is lame because the two questions I missed I totally should've gotten right. But I am learning a lot from the class.

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I've been swimming laps every few days with the kids. I really enjoy it. I'm up to 12 laps, which is 1/3 mile. And Evan has really come a long way with swimming. He's almost to the point where I don't have to worry too much about him in the water.

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Emi is sick with a bad cold. I think it might be strep. I had Taylor call in some amoxicillyn so hopefully that will kick it.

Making Valentines tonight;)

Exhausted after a long swim

We're at the y swimming laps. Evan's getting to be quite the swimmer.  One of the benefits of taking him swimming right after school is he'll take a nap in the afternoon.
We bought lots of glitter glue today and will be making Valentine's over the next few days;)

Sunday night

We went to our friends the Jones house for dinner today. Well maybe more like a late lunch. That's how Sundays usually are. We eat one main meal then just snack at night. And today was fast Sunday so we were especially hungry.  The Jones kids match up to our kids in age so everyone has someone to play with. And Doug and Karna are really cool people that we get along well with.  We have 3 campouts planned with them this summer.  The picture is of Evan and Owen sliding down their stairs. 
I'm listening to our new noise canceling headphones as I type. They are incredible.  Actually Taylor got them for his office so I'm only testing them out and as soon as he gets his TV mounted above one of his ops, he'll take the headphones.  But for now I get to enjoy them.
Now I'm settling in for some Scripture study. Peacefully,  with my calming music.

I built shelves today

I have wanted more shelf space in our closets ever since we moved into this house. And today I finally did something about it. Taylor was on the Klondike with the scouts.
I built a second level of shelves in the kids rooms and our room.  The kids and I spent some time reorganizing after I finished building them.   It's amazing how much more storage space we have now.
I'm surprising Taylor with a couple's massage for Valentine's day. I scheduled it for this Wednesday.  He has no idea. I'm not sure what he'll think at first  but I'm sure he'll enjoy it. He really could use massage but he's never been before.
I'm pretty sure I aced my accounting test on Wednesday but I'll find out on Monday.

our love story

So my church is putting on this big valentines dance and asking all the couples to send in a picture of when they were married and the story of how they met. I figured since I'm doing this anyway, might as well put it on the old blog for memory's sake. So here it is:

I was a sophmore, intent on studying and not dating because I was waiting for my missionary. Taylor was a sophmore, fresh off his mission and ready to take his mission president's advice and get married in a year. Other than my roommates setting me up on occasional really lame dates, I rarely dated that semester. Taylor was a dating fool, dating a new girl like every other week. I was waiting for him and he was looking for me, but neither of us new it.
It so happened that semester that we were both in American Heritage, probably the biggest class at BYU. My friend Mitch (also in the class) and I and a few other friends decided to start a study group. At some point in the semester, Mitch met Taylor at a math tutoring lab. They got to talking and found out they were both in American Heritage and Mitch mentioned this study group that we were having and invited Taylor to come. Then one night, my friends come over to study and Mitch brings this totally hot guy with him. I could not take my eyes off him that night. I wanted to know everything about him. And the next day I called him to find out if he wanted to come back to our study group the next week. But mostly I just wanted to study him. This was about the begining of December. He finally asked me out right before Christmas break. We went to the Spagetti Factory in Salt Lake then he took me ice-skating. He held my hand when we skated (I think that's why he choose skating). We hit it off really well that night and we've been together ever since. He proposed in March and we got married in June. Twelve and a half years later we're still "hapily-ever-after-ing".
The end.

and there you have it.

Olivia is eating snow in the backyard. This is not a good idea when you have a dog. Speaking of dogs, Jake has not had an accident since the other day and thus is not yet posted as available on craigslist.

Kandy told us yesterday they are planning a family reunion this summer in Chicago. I said count us in. We haven't been back in a few years. I certainly would rather go in the summer than the winter, especially hearing about the storm they're having right now. That'll be fun for the kids to see all their cousins again. We don't live near any family except Taylor's cousin Griff. We do see them every few months and the kids all have near-age matching cousins.

Sad boy

After a grocery store tantrum, I told Evan he had to go to his room when we got home. He drew me this.