Happy Thanksgiving (take 2)

We celebrated (for the second time this month) Thanksgiving. We had Deni's parents, Donna and Keith, along with Jessica/Nick, Ben, and Deni's cousin, Terri, with her husband and eight kids. With Ryan, Sydney, Deni and I, that makes 20 people at our house. It was a crazy day.

Thanksgiving is an interesting day. You spend hours and hours cooking for a 20 minute feast. I'm sure it is the tradition and all, but it seems like it would be so much easier if you ordered a pizza and call it good. I'm not saying I don't enjoy eating all the food that comes with Thanksgiving, because I do enjoy it, matter of fact, Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Lemon Meringue pie. Maybe next year we will order Pizza and make Lemon Meringue pie.

Ben cooked 2 Lemon Meringue pies. I probably at a whole pie by myself.

Thanksgiving Break

I volenteered to work over the Thanksgiving Holidays (Thursday and Friday). Nothing exciting at work, matter of fact, I had time to catch up on things I had wanted/needed to do. It was quiet.

Deni's siblings (Jessica, Ben and Kati) came up on Wed night (didn't get here till Thursday around 8am or so. Nick, Jessica's fiance, also came up. It was good to have them all here at the house and get to spend time with them.

Two for Tuesday

I went to work this morning and mentioned to Deni that there are 2 new movies that came out today that I would like to see. I talked to Deni around 1pm, she said she didn't feel good, matter of fact, she had been in bed for most of the day and wanted me to come home early to cook dinner.

I headed home about 3:45pm, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. I thought it would be nice to stop and pick up the 2 movies (one of the kids and one for Deni and I to watch) that I mentioned to Deni this morning when I left. So I stopped, picked up the 2 movies and came home. Well when I got home, Deni had already gone out and gotten the exact 2 movies I brought home. Two for Tuesday, I guess.

Our Christmas tree

We put up our Christmas tree tonight. The kids seemed to have fun watching it get put up. We put our lights on, but haven't put any ordaments yet. This might be the earliest I have ever put it up. But it is up and it looks good.

Men Are From Mars

I was reading through some other blogs this last week and came across this. Thought it was funny but true.

Thanks to the infamous John Gray, author of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” men are chastised for wanting to “fix” everything. “Relax!!!” we are told, “You don’t have to be responsible for fixing everything that needs fixing.” Mostly women just need someone that will listen to them and, if they tell you something, it doesn’t mean that the woman wants it “fixed.”

So if my wife says something to me, how am I to interpret whether she wants me to be a listener or a fixer? For example, if Deni says to me, “I had problems with the dishwasher today,” does she want me to empathize with the difficulties that she had or is this a request for me to get my tool belt? I’m so confused.

Since I listen to other peoples technical problems all day long and am paid to fix them, it is hard to switch hats when I get home. I'm always in "fix it" mode, which isn't bad, because it means I'm in listening mode by default. However, wouldn't it be easier if women told us when they wanted us to listen or when they wanted to fix things, life would be so much easier.

Happy Thanksgiving

Since my brother Shane is here for the weekend, we decided to have Thanksgiving Dinner two weeks early. It was nice to have the family all together again, but it sure it loud and busy.

Finally Done

I started this project this fall. As you can see from the before picture below, we had two wind-blown trees and a kidney shaped flowerbed in the middle of our front lawn. Because of watering issues in this area and I needed something to keep me busy, I decided to remove the trees and the dirt and put grass in.

Before:



I was amazed how much dirt was in this flowerbed. I took alot of it to the back to fill in around my garden spots, but also took a very full truckload out to my sister Teresa for her new flowerbeds/garden spots.

Almost Done:


With many wheelbarrows of dirt removal, it was finally flat and ready for grass. I had borrowed a grass cutter a few weeks back. I didn't roll up the grass as I didn't want it to die, but didn't expect it would take me this long to get the dirt removed and ready for grass. The grass I had previously cut started growing roots again, so I had to use a flat shovel to cut the roots again (a big pain) but I finally got it done.

Finally Done:


On to my other projects.

Almost done

I took off work today (and tomorrow) Shane, my brother, flew in today for a few days visit. We haven't seen him yet, as he is spending some time with some friends in SLC, but we will see him tomorrow. I spent all day working in the yard. I have a few misc projects I wanted to finish up before it got cold. Usually, it is cold and snowing at this time of year, but today it was in the 60's. Great day to be outside.

I got the front yard prepped to put grass down, where we had taken the trees and flower bed out. I should be able to get the grass down tomorrow in an hour so so. I also moved a tree from the back yard to the front. I also finally finished the garden grow boxes, with dad's help and moved 2.5 yards of dirt into them. I can feel it in my back.

Deni stayed quite busy today while I was working in the yard. She decided to paint the upstairs bathroom.

Voting day

After I got home from work, I took Ryan with me and went to vote. While I drove over to vote, I explained to Ryan why I was going to vote and how it happens. When we got there, there wasn't a line, so I took time to show Ryan the ballot and explained to him how I needed to fill it out. After voting, I showed him the ballot (where I had put my marks)then gave him the ballot and let him put it in the box for me. The lady taking the ballots was giving out a "I voted" sticker, which I gave to Ryan. He was pretty excited about it.

The election in Spanish Fork for Mayor will be really close. I hope that the canidate I voted for wins, as we really need a change.

Another Monday

I'm glad Spanish Fork has their own cable channel. Most of the stuff is low budget, but the city council meetings, etc are pretty informative.

The city rebroadcast the "Meet the Canidates" last night because the election is tomorrow. We recorded it and watched it together (Deni and I). It was good to know a little bit more about the canidates, so I could make an informed decision.

We let Ryan stay up while we were watching Meet the Canidates. He went in and played in the playroom. It got very quiet, so I went in to check on Ryan and he was in the playroom playing with Sydney's Barbies. When I walked in, he immediately hid the barbies. It was funny. I told him he could play with them if he wanted to.