Mcleods daughters

yes, I'm addicted. I just am. They showed Seasons 1-3 on the We channel a few years back and now I've been catching the current season.

I've just got to rant.

If Mcleods daughters was to be taken seriously, then the crime rate in Australia must be out of this world. A few episodes ago the girls were kidnapped when they knocked on a farmers door in order to get water for their overheated radiator. Last week Rose fell and is now in a wheelchair and should walk after a lot of rehab (and in this episode tries to kill herself due to not wanting to live without walking). The week before that Rose narrowly escaped being date raped after being given a drug. The preview for next week shows Rose being held hostage at Drovers Run while some random guys search the house.

These episodes are 4 in a row. (kidnapped, date rape, accident, hostage). I can swallow all of this happening over maybe 1 season, but 4 in a row? Come on! seriously!

What happened to this show being about relationships? Family and romantic.

I still like the show, but am just finding it a bit hard to swallow at the moment.

so much to say

Heres the Readers Digest version of what I've not felt like posting about.

The day we got the occupancy permit for our home, my husband decided to move in. This was Mid-December. The next day I awoke to find that I had herniated a disc in my back. Lovely.

After much pain, and after trying a visit or two to the chiropractor, I decided to visit my normal doctor and get the good pain meds. My real doctor was out of town for 2 weeks, and so I had to go to another doctor. He prescribed a pain med, anti inflammatory, and a muscle relaxant. I was in bed for a week and things seemed to be getting worse. One day I forgot to take my pain pill (hey, I was on 3 different pill schedules!) and ended up in the ER because I was in so much pain. The sad thing was that after I got there, they made me wait so long to get in, my pain pill FINALLY started working. Although it was making me very nauseous. Anyway, the ER doc prescribed me a heavier hitting pain med for emergencies like that one where the pain was just awful. I never ended up taking it, but held on to it just in case.

By the next Wednesday I was spending more and more time out of bed. I still had 3 or so relapses, but was doing all right. I started going to and have since graduated from the physical therapist. I also started going to a chiropractor who practices kinesiology, and acupuncture. It was ok. I don't know how much it actually helped. And, this guy has since turned his practice over to another guy who is just awful. So I'm thinking about going to another chiropractor because about 2 weeks ago I had another setback and am having major sciatic pain again.

My husband has been a real trooper and has supported me through it all. He is going to school, working full time, and helping with the kids and doing dishes and laundry.

Since spring arrived we have been working hard. I think this might be what has been leading up to this latest setback.

We've had grass planted, planted trees, planted a garden, planted shrubs and flowers, etc, etc. We've been very busy.

We've also been very busy helping my parents. They are having my sisters wedding reception in their yard in July and of course they have to whip everything into shape. We haven't actually done all that much, but we have helped out.

My hubby and Dad work together really well, and help each other out physically, and with coming up with solutions.

Anyway, we are also Wolf leaders in our ward and are having a lot of fun with it.

C has a new friend who she has play dates with.

C and A are hard to keep from Grandma and Grandpa's house. If they see Grandma or Grandpa, they always have to say hi and go and see them. I think G & G might finally be getting tired of it. Last week Grandma started talking about rules at Grandma's house.

I'm sure there is more, but that was the basics.

more pictures!

Tile in the entry way and 1/2 bath


Tile that will be under the fireplace


My dream kitchen!!




My awesome laundry room


I'm looking forward to a soak in this!!!

Life goes on

So we got the final-ish move-in date from our builder. Now we've been told that the final inspection will be the first week in December and we should be able to move in after that.

So a bit of a delay just like everyone else warned us about. Lets just hope that it doesn't get moved again. Again, its very nice not to have to be out of the house by the end of the month. We would have had to live somewhere for 2 weeks and that would have been a pain.

So my Dad called with one of his occasional updates yesterday. Since he lives next door to the new house, and just retired last week due to his back getting worse, we are lucky enough to get these updates from time to time.

He said that the tile backsplash was going in and just about done. They were also working on the tile entryway. The sinks had been dropped in, and the plumber was hooking everything up.

Earlier this week the cabinets were finished up (my kitchen rocks!) and the linolium went in last week. The painter still has a few places that need touch up.

I can't believe how quickly things are going!!! But not quickly enough for the original finish date of Thanksgiving that our builder originally gave us. Oh well.

The house has been on the market for one week now, and not one call. Its going to be fine though. We have been very calm about it, and I feel comfortable about things. We are going to be fine.

Interesting development

The offer on our house fell through on Tuesday. Talk about the bottom falling out. Everything has changed.

The home under construction is coming along well and we should be moving in around Thanksgiving. That will make selling this home a little bit easier.

We are still in a little bit of shock.

Anyway, we put our house back on the market today. Its nowhere near ready to show. Its a stinking mess. The carpets need to be cleaned again and the bathrooms need a good scrubbing. The whole house needs to be picked up and vacuumed. The dishes need to be done.

I need to start packing.

And we are talking in church on Sunday.

I feel a little slammed.

Why do they do that? Why do they ask you to speak in Church when you are under a lot of stress and have a whole bunch of things to do. Oh yeah, lets write a talk and then stress about giving it. AAAHHHHH!!!!!

OK, enough of that.

They finished painting our new house on Monday or Tuesday and they put down subfloor and linoleum yesterday and today. They also got the well hooked up to the house on Tuesday, and inspected on Wednesday.

Things are just coming along swimmingly.

In a way its nice not to have the stress of having to be out of the house by a certain date. That way I'll have a bit more time to do the final cleaning. And if the house was to be delayed, we would have had to find somewhere to live for a little while, so I guess its good not to have to stress about that.

The thing that really stresses me is potentially having to carry this home through the winter into next summer.

I sure hope someone is looking to buy a home during the holidays. Cross your fingers for us.

Our Front Door


Front door from the inside. Front room to the left, 1/2 bath to the right.


We have 4 bedrooms. The closets in 3 bedrooms look about like this. The master has a walk in.


Our dream pantry!!!


The cool trench that leads from the well to the house.

Nancy Drew "The Creature of Kapu Cave" walkthrough

So, this game was a bit of a dissapointment. It was to short, to easy, and was it just me or did Joe Hardy look like he had a bad comb over?

However, it was a New Nancy Drew game from Herinteractive, so its better than nothing right?!

Herinteractive releases 2 games a year. One in July and the next in October. I would like to take this time to suggest that they may want to space these releases a bit. I've found that both games never excel. Usually one is awesome, and the other is ok. Maybe if they space them a bit, they'll have more time to concentrate on each game. Another thing they could do is introduce a 3rd release per year. I know I'd buy them. They could release in April, August, and then in December, just in time for Christmas. The only person who wouldn't like this would be my husband. He enjoys the easy birthday gift that the October released game brings.

Onward with the walkthrough!

So start the game, look through Nancy's room if you want. Its basically the same as last time. Click on the ticket when you are ready to go.

Watch the movie, talk to big Island Mike, exhaust all conversation topics and then go shell hunting. Find the beach by walking around to the back of Mikes place and following the path to the beach.

Surprise! On the beach you run into Frank and Joe with his bad comb over (shame on you for ruining his hair Herinteractive!)

Listen to them and then look for shells. There are only 5 places on the beach you can find them.

Click on the small pool in front of you, go forward once and click on the wet spot on the sand, go forward again and click on the big rock in front of you.

Now turn around. Go forward once, and in the lower left hand side of the screen is a cairn. or pile of rocks sort of like a trail marker. click on that. Now go forward twice more and click on the log to the left of your screen.

OK, now time to go and make an Aloha necklace. Go back to Mikes place and find the outside necklace making area.

Flip through the necklace examples to find the Aloha necklace. Then simply string the beads so that it looks like the necklace in the picture.

Give it to Big Island Mike and he will give you the keys!

This is the last time I will say this. Always and forever, exhaust ALL conversation topics when talking to people!

OK, as soon as you click on the jeep, a GPS screen will come up. And I was hoping to be able to drive this jeep! Anyway, in my opinion, the GPS screen is cool, but after you've seen it come up 3 times, it gets old. They need to shorten it just a bit.

Anyway, choose Camp Quigley.

OK, once there, explore! And of course, pick up everything that is not nailed down.

Near the jeep you will find a winch and a panel with lots of numbers on it. In front of the tent you will find a tape recorder.

Rewind the tape and listen.

go into the tent and explore. Find the Clipboard, the radio with no power, the note with the radio frequency from Dr. Quigley.

Check out the table with the microscope on it. Strange that the radio has no power, but the "Formula" machine does???!?

Also check out the green box with the strange lock on it. Push the buttons and hear a familiar sound. Rewind the tape and write down the order you hear those sounds. Herinteractive was nice enough to "Name" the sounds also, so write down the "Blah"s and the "Blee"s correctly.

ok, now that the box is open, read the notes about Professor Craven, notice the phone number at the end of the notes, get the hook, and the pass.

Call the number. Whether you try and be Dr. Kim or try and be yourself, the lady hangs up on you.

Lets fix the jeep. Use the winch and the hook, you should be able to get it out.

Look at the panel with the numbers. This time Nancy will recognize it as a solar panel and tell you that some of the cells are missing.

Lets go and see if those lovely people at the Hilihili research center have some extras.

Whether you use the pass or not you end up in front of Professor Craven getting yelled at. Don't worry, he calms down.

When you ask for solar cells, he asks you to get some seeds. They are downstairs. Or should I say down a ramp? Anyway, look around all you want. Despite the high security, no one is around, and you won't get stopped.

Once you've found the plants that need harvesting, look to the right and find the card that describes the seed you are looking for. Its easy.

Once you are done, bring them back to the Professor and he will instruct some guy to put the cells in your vehicle.

Back to Camp!

Lets fix the Solar panel. If you are familiar with Suduko, this should be fairly easy. If not, just remember that in each of the 4 squars, there should only be numbers 1-9. In each row, there should not be any numbers repeated. When the lights are all green, you are done. Just keep messing around with the numbers if you don't understand Suduko, and eventually it will come together.

Now hook it to the winch and wind the winch so its back in the tree.

Lets go call Dr. Kim.

Turn on the power and figure out how to input the frequency found on that note from Dr. Kim

Pick up the microphone on the table to talk to Dr. Kim.

Call Joe and see if he can help.

Now we are playing as Joe.

Go talk to Big Mike.

He will send you fishing.

On the way to the beach, live through the earthquake and talk to Pua at the surf shack.

Now head down to the pier and start fishing. Click on the fishing rod and then the bait each time you want to catch a fish. Watch your bobber. When it dunks down below the water, click on your rod. It will show you the fish that you caught. Some are dang ugly!

As soon as you have caught 6 of the Ulua, you will run out of bait. That really stinks because all these fish are worth big island bucks (from Pua).

Go and give the Ulua to Big mike.

Leave, once your around the first corner you hear a car leave.

I'm going to bring the rest of these fish to Pua so I can get some big island bucks.

OK, now that I'm $9 richer, lets go check out big mikes office.

There is nothing on the desk to see, just look at the calendar. There you will find a post-it and the key.

Once you get into the locked cabinet, you will find a map. Now you know that Dr. Kim is at 3 finger rock. Joe calls Nancy and leaves a message with the coordinates. Then he gets clobbered.

Now as Nancy, you know where to find Dr. Kim. plug those coordinates into the GPS and get going!

As you are going down the trail you will see colored flags marking other trails with plants at the end. At each plant take a colored baggy and collect a sample. This will save time later.

once you get to the end of the trail, look up and click on dr. kim to talk to her.

She sends you back to camp for her clipboard. Hop in the Jeep, go back to camp. The clipboard is in the tent. Hop back in the jeep and head for 3 fingered rock (really should have been called 3 toed rock in my opinion)

Give the clipboard to Dr. Kim. she will tell you that the first page is missing. Now you have to gather all the data and analyze it according to the instructions on the clipboard.

Back to camp! Look at the clipboard and find instructions. You will need a microscope. If you look at the one in the tent, you will find that the one there is broken.

Lets go to the Hilihili! Don't worry, they'll let you in. Just push the white button for assistance.

Dr craven will give you the microscope part, but needs you to fertilize some plants first. The plants are down the ramp and on the right side of the room.

The first time I did this puzzle, I just kept pushing buttons and solved it pretty quickly. This time I made a chart and figured out what each color would do. Either way works!

Talk to Dr. Craven again and he will give you the part you need.

On the way out you hear him firing Mr. Fiderman.

Back to camp!

Fix the microscope and pour the contents of the red pouch on it. If you read the clipboard instructions you know that you need to seperate and weigh the frass (pictures on the clipboard), count the seeds and count the insect parts.

Also note that you are missing 2 colors of pouches. Those are at kapu cave but dr. kim hasn't told you about them yet.

One thing on the clipboard that you have to do is identify the plants that the samples were taken from. Lets call Joe and see if he can help.

Playing as Joe, lets go and play some of those games in Big Island Mike's office.

The Wiki Tiki game is just for fun. You can win a sharks tooth that can be made into a necklace and exchanged for Big Island Bucks.

The other game is an informational game. You will need more bucks to read everything. You can catch fish or make necklaces. Either way is pretty easy. Don't forget to ask Big Mike about Franks accident and pick up the paper on the ground.

When playing the informational game, don't forget to take notes while looking at the plants!

Lets go talk to pua now. Hey, she's renting snorkel gear!

After talking to Pua, lets round up some bucks. You can make necklaces or catch fish if you have any money left for bait.

However you do it, once you have $30, rent some snorkel equipment.

While you are earning money, you will hear Pua and her father arguing. You will want to talk to both her and Big Mike about it.

Once you are able to rent the snorkel equipment, go down to the sand where the big wet spot is. You will be able to enter the water there. There are 5 places to collect shells down there, and at the end you will find a dark hole where an eel lives and won't let you through.

hey, we forgot to call the pawn broker. Lets do that.

Now lets call Johnny Kuto.

OK, now its time to talk to Big Mike.

Now lets go talk to Pua. On the way, Johnny Kuto calls you back. Nothing.

Pua tells you about the chart in the courtyard. Lets go talk to Big Mike to find out his favorite flavor of shave ice. You'll need money for this one.

Go and talk to Big Mike. He'll tell you to guess his favorite shave ice by making them and bringing them to you. This is sort of fun. He will tell you how many flavors you have right. But it could get expensive.

After you get the right answer, you will be able to open the box in the courtyard. you will find a strange map and Joe will call Nancy.

Ok, look at the clipboard. the first page of directions has the coodinates for Kapu cave. Lets plug in the coordinates and check it out. Also, collect the samples there.

OK back to camp to analyze the new samples.

Once you have the clipboard full, turn on the Krolmeister Formula machine and put your clipboard in it.

Now we need to take the results to Dr. Kim.

The first time you talk to her she'll tell you about the webs at Kapu cave.

The next time, she'll get excited about your results. the nice thing about this puzzle is that she'll tell you which color has the wrong data.

Make sure you exhaust all conversation topics with Dr. Kim. She may finish a conversation, but if you try and talk to her again, you'll find that you have more questions to ask.

OK then, off to the Hilihili! Dr. Craven is asleep so now you can check out his thingeymajig. Be sure to hit the settings tab at the far right in order to turn off the sound. Also, check out his lab coat near him.

Remember that Fiderman guy who got fired? Well, I bet his locker would be a good place to find one of those protective suits! Write down his combination and his employee number.

When you get in the room with the plants, go left and then all the way to the back of the room. You will find a room with a computer in it. This is where you'll figure out what plant to take a sample from.

The HH3333 is right outside the door to the office you are in, and to the left. very easy. Get a sample, and get out.

Getting out is a bit of a problem. Review these directions, don't pause a lot, and you should get out just fine. If not, you'll just have to try again.

R,S,L,S,S,S,L,S,L,S,R,S,L,S,S,R,S,R,S,S,S,R,S,L, at door, and leave!

We're out! Back to camp.

You'll need to go into the tent and put the plant sample in a test tube. When you click on the table to use the test tubes, you'll find that they helpfully put the plant sample on the table for you. Just put it in a test tube and squirt in some liquid from the bottle in front of you.

They also put the Red sample on the table in front of you. By clicking on it, it will put some of it in the test tube in front of you. Do the same with the liquid.

OK, back to Dr. Kim!

Talk to her and then take the canopy samples from her pack. Back to camp!

once you analyze all those canopy samples (using the test tubes and that liquid) then its back to Dr. Kim!

OK, after taking the ring from Dr. Kim's pack, lets go to Kapu cave.

There is only one place where anything can be put in Kapu cave. Find it, Its on the main statue.

I hope you took notes from that map Joe got out of the box in the courtyard. You'll need it now.

Put the pictures in the order listed on the map. If it doesn't do anything, play with the block on top, second from the left. That always works for me.

OK, so lets go into this cave filled with lava. The first 2 jumps you take, you'll make. Don't forget to look at the statues you are passing. The 3rd (or so) statue you see, you'll be able to pull his tongue out. This will make a ledge come out of the wall. Take the ledge. There is no other way over. But once you use the ledge it will disappear and you will be stuck.

You'll come to a lovely puzzle. Basically its one where you find the right sequence and you solve the puzzle. Only problem is that when you push any wrong rock, you die. And you get to second chance it for the next try. Lovely, eh?

For all you cheaters, here's the answer. Center top is #1, second from the left on the bottom is #2, the big button in the middle towards the left is #3, and the very left middle button is #4. This will cause you to slide down a tube.

The next puzzle is fairly easy. You are going to put the turtle laying eggs story in order. Use the domino style tiles for it.

When you get the puzzle right, the head will sink and the eyes will look right. As soon as you can, click on the right arrow. Otherwise you will get squished.

Now we go back to Joe.

OK, after we hear the message from Nancy, Joe says we should go and see if the eel is still there under the water. Get out your list of animals from that map again. Make sure you have them in order and handy. You will need to choose the right directions according to that order while Joe holds his breath.

Lets go!

What I'd like to know is how Joe can say "Whoa" every time you choose a direction, without drowning!

Once you get there and the rock breaks the bridge, you are again, stuck. Climb the bridge 'ladder'. Explore the cave and you will get to a statue thingey where you can push a button. Push it and go in. Look around and find the canisters. Then Big Mike shows up. And then Nancy shows up! Wow, lets have a party!

I'm not sure there is anything to this next puzzle other than dumb luck. Just keep trying and you'll make it. Though I have to laugh at Nancy's instructions. Like Big Mike can't hear them also! Ha Ha!

I'm disappointed in the lack of a big finish on this one! And, hey! I wanted to make some more necklaces!

Anyway, the next game looks good.

Looking forward to it in 9 STINKING MONTHS! Man Herinteractive, could you possibly produce more games, or at least put them out every 6 months or something?

Just plain weird

So our realtor called me this morning and our conversation went something like this:

"Did you show your house?"

Me "No"

"Well that's really weird because we just got an offer"

Me "Are you kidding?"

Anyway, our Realtor received some random offer for our house today. Full price, site unseen. We do have to give him a fridge (I'm not giving up mine! We'll have to buy a new cheap one) and pay a large part of the closing costs. But a full price offer.

Turns out it was an investor. So we might just be able to rent back for a month until our house is ready.

Anyway we signed the papers and our realtor will fax them over tomorrow.

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!! (Well nearly)

How about...

WE'RE ABOUT TO ACCEPT AN OFFER ON OUR HOUSE!!!

Thats a bit more accurate.

Here's hoping that everything goes well and it doesn't fall through.

Houses!

In the nearly 3 months that our house has been on the market, we have had exactly 5 people show interest in SEEING it.

3 of the 5 have actually seen it.

I'm doing ok, but the fact that its been at least 2 months since someone has looked at our house could start worrying me around the end of October.

Until then, I refuse to stress over it. If I do, I will totally lose it.

In the meantime the new house is doing great. We have windows! We have electrical! We have bathtubs! We have the SOAKER TUB of my dreams!

This week and last they have been working on inspections, electrical, and getting quotes on siding.

Things are going well. We are still happy about our builder.

We found out that the cabinets that we chose and everything with that came to just $100 more than our builder budgeted, and he's ok with the overage.

We're supposed to meet with our builder tomorrow to discuss the siding. I always look forward to those meetings because it feels like we're getting inside information!

I'm still in the primary presidency, and hubby is still ward clerk. These callings keep us busy, and I don't know if that's a bad thing or not. I think it keeps my mind off of the house not selling.

C is becoming much more responsible. She helps out a lot and doesn't make nearly as many messes as she once did. But A is making up for them with her own!

Grandpa

I was just looking at an old picture of you and I realized that I miss you.

You died when I was only 7 but I still remember your smile. Your gentleness. The dimple in your chin that I and even my children have.

I don't remember much else.

All my other memories are of your funeral, or were supplied to me through stories from my Dad and other family members.

I wish I had been able to get to know you. You look and sound like such an awesome man and grandpa.

Grandpa, just know that I can't wait to spend time with you again.

pictures of the new house

Did I mention that we have the best builder ever? My hubby and I were just admiring the gables and roof and just everything about our house and we realized that most of it was because our builder is so awesome. He designed our house for a great price. He took all of our suggestions and also led us away from things that would have looked bad, and made suggestions about what would look good.

In all, at this point, we are extremely pleased. If you need the name of an AWESOME builder in the Boise Idaho area, let me know. I have the best builder!!!

Oh, and here's a picture of the 2 cutest kids ever! My husband and I marvel that we could produce girls this cute!!!

Life

So lots of things happening... And lots of things not happening.

Our house is still on the market. In fact we are coming close to 2 months without one person even coming and looking. In a way thats good, because I think we might avoid having to move twice, but at this point I think I might wet my pants if someone called and wanted to actually see our house. (yes, we have been doing lots of advertising, and have lowered the price by 5k so far. We're the lowest priced in the neighborhood)

Our garden is doing ok. Its just starting to produce green peppers though. That is really annoying to me. Here it is, starting to get cold and we're just starting to have a harvest.

BYU's first game was on Saturday. They lost. My husband made he wonderful gameday homemade pizza. It was awesome. Why is it that homemade pizza is so much better than the stuff they deliver? He used 100% whole wheat flour for the crust also!

The home we are building is almost past the framing stage. You can actually walk through and see the rooms and windows and where things will be and how big the rooms are.

I'm really excited about the kitchen and the pantry. The bedrooms look awesome, the garage looks huge, I love the master!

The only thing I don't like right now is the fact that the framers seem to think that just because we're building on an acre, they can spread out that wide. We're finding nails and garbage nearly to the back of the property. That ticks me off. We're doing our own cleaning mostly because my husband and Dad (who lives at the ajoining property) wanted first dibs on the extra wood and supplies. Thats ok with me.

Dad goes around the property every day or so and picks up garbage and scraps and hauls them over to his house. The framers should be done today or tomorrow, so he's going to take the truck over there and really load up. Of course he's not taking anything that our builder may be returning for credit or anything.

Mom's happy with it because Dad built some shelves out of the scrap and she's been able to organize some food storage that really needed it. I'm happy because my husband will be able to do the same.

When they poured the cement for our foundation, something became clear. The house was on more than a slight incline. Its a slope! the back corner of the houes has a foundation of almost 5 feet! Makes me wish I'd realized it and then we could have talked about an unfinished daylight basement or something. But it was too late for that. So we've settled for a couple of crawl space access points that will make it possible for us to store a lot of food storage down there. This is where my husband will be building the shelves.

I'm starting to get nervous about living so close to my parents.

Nancy Drew : Danger By Design Walkthrough

Ok, you may remember from some of my earliest posts that one of my guilty pleasures is to play Nancy Drew computer games. Well, I just got another one in the mail a few days ago.

Well, I decided to try my hand at a walkthrough.

Here it is! If you find any errors, please let me know.

Also, No part of this or any post on my blog may be reproduced in any form. You may however link to it.

Rather than just giving answers, I’ll try and guide you to the answers. We’ll see how that goes.

We start out in Nancy’s room. I’m not sure why they chose to start here, but ok. Read the case file and if you would like the scrapbook and How to be a detective. When you are ready to start, click on the airline ticket.

I’m going to choose the Senior Detective level.

Once Heather sits down at her desk, talk to her and exhaust all topics of conversation (as always).

Before going to see Minette, search the room.

Read the notebook in your desk drawer carefully. There are solutions to at least 3 puzzles in there.

On the computer you’ll figure out that Sonny Joon from the Secret of the Scarlet hand is making a special guest appearance (sort of).

Read the e-mail, and make note of the things you need to do on the to do list.

Click on the game portal. You need a name and password. They are in Sonny’s notebook. I will give you one clue. Minette’s best friend of sorts is a dress form named Carol. That is your username. That is all. Oh, and don’t play the game yet.

OK, lets fix the plotter before we see Minette. On the last page of Sonny’s notebook there is a letter about the plotter. Read the letter, and the shapes on the bottom of the page will help you solve this puzzle. If you correctly fixed the plotter, it will no longer let you get a close up view of it.

Now that those things are done, lets go talk to Minette! But wait! Answer the phone!

Ok, Now go see Minette.

Talk to her and at the end, she will ask you to brew her some tea. Go over to the tea brewing area on the other side of Minette’s room.

Nancy will basically tell you how everything works. Click on the white recipe card looking thing on the table.

So Minette’s favorite color is red today and then she chooses the number 10. So read through all the conditions and add the called for herbs. I will say that the herb doesn’t have to meet all the conditions, just one of the conditions. What I did was figure out a condition (grow in marshy areas) and go through all the herb descriptions and write down those herbs. Then, I figured out another condition and did the same thing. You will find out that 2 herbs will appear twice on your list. I just added those once.

The total number of herbs is 11 (only counting the 2 herbs that appear on your list 2 times, once)

As soon as you finish with the tea, go to the outer office. Minette will let you know immediately if you got it right or if you have to try again.

Once you get it right, she’ll call you back and give you money and a bag and tell you to go to Pont Neuf to buy stuff that’s just like her old stuff.

Go back to your computer and make a note of all the other errands you could run while you’re out.

Talk to Heather.

Try to leave

Get the letter, take care of it, and then leave.

Lets go to Pont Neuf first. Look at the cross thingy in front of you. Read the inscription.

Next check out each of the venders in the park. Lets start with the one with the wrap on her head. She’s to the left.

One thing to note with Venders – you can haggle with them. You can try half price which they will accept most of the time, but if they don’t accept it, then the only choice you have is to pay full price.

Ok, back to the vender with the wrap on her head. She has one item of the four that Minette is looking for.

Now lets go to the vender with her back to you the whole time. She has 2 items that you will need for Minette.

Now for the vender in the middle of the park - he has only 1 item for Minette. But surprise! He also has a way for you to make money. You can paint reproductions for him. I always do the Mona Lisa painting because it’s much easier than the other one - although the other one is nice for a change now and again.

By the way, don’t forget to look at everything in the park.

Now on to Place Monge to talk to JJ Ling.

Talk to JJ, and don’t believe her! Get the envelope from her, and as always, exhaust all topics of conversation. Look at everything in the room, and also be sure to read the paper on the table now and every morning.

Now lets go to Rue Du Bac.

Dieter will say he doesn’t have the time to make the prints, so it’s up to you. The binder with instructions on it was hard for me to find. Click on the fish tank and to the right on the shelf is the binder. Read it and take notes. Dieter won’t let you take it into the dark room.

Don’t forget to search the room. You can borrow the digital camera right now if you want. You won’t need it until later, but it’s fun.

Now for the dark room. The hardest part here is the fact that you have to do this in complete darkness. And if you miss the tray and knock something over, you have a huge explosion. The easiest way to do this is to get a post-it and mark your screen where the switch and trays are. Be very careful not to do anything to harm your computer screen. Do this at your own risk!

Ok, the slides. You would think they would make things easy and you would develop 4 slides and voila! They would be 4 different slides. Well, it’s not that easy. I developed 3 and then kept developing the same ones I already had. Just try and look at the slide before you put it in the machine.

After you are done, talk to Dieter some more.

Now its time to go to Hotel De Ville

Talk to Jean Mi and give him the prints. Order something when urged to. I’ve had just about everything on the menu. It’s all chicken and hamburgers and ice cream.

Talk to Jean Mi some more and he will give you Hugo Butterly’s phone number. Fat lot of good it will do for you.

Ok, now back to the office.

Answer the phone for another blast from the past.

Ok, so we need to create some outfits. These outfits are weird. I’m not sure how to give hints for this. Just read the outfit guidelines on the white card on each page and try lots of combinations.

First outfit clue - The 3 items of one color aren’t the color green.

Second outfit clue - 2 items in this outfit are furry.

Third outfit clue - Both items on her head are yellow.

Talk to Heather some more and give her the envelope from JJ.

Go and try to give your items to Minette. You’ll find out she’s playing a game.

Go and talk to Heather. She’ll suggest you try and log in as Minette and get the high score so that Minette will quit playing and get back to work.

Login to the game portal using the username and password found in Sonny’s notebook. Keep playing until you top the high score of 1000. Yeah, this game is a pain. Everyone looks alike!

After you get the high score, go talk to Minette and give her your stuff.

Go to the outer office and now you are running home to see why JJ isn’t answering the phone.

Ok, once you get home talk to JJ.

Now we have 2 problems. We need to find mint and find out how to substitute for brown sugar.

First go to the kitchen cupboard and find the molasses. Get it and put it on the island with all the other ingredients.

Now we can solve both of our problems by going to the park.

Ok, we’re going to spend a lot of money on things you may think we don’t need. But we’ll need them later in the game.

First vendor – lady with a blanket on her head. You’ll need to pay full price for the mint. Buy the mint, the stake, the string, and the Ichi-Do book. Be sure to read the book carefully before you swim later in the game.

The second vender – the lady whose back is always to us. Buy the flashlight and the dictionary.

The 3rd vendor – the man in the middle of the park. Bring lots of money to this one. Buy the wetsuit, the pie tin, the cookbook and the book about codes. Try and buy the black box also.

When you leave the park, Nancy will make you go home because it’s getting dark. OK, I guess JJ can sleep outside Minette’s studio J

Next day:

Read the paper and then go over to the cookie ingredients.

Chop up the mint on the cutting board to the right. Be sure to read the recipe card and also the cook book to find out what the substitution for brown sugar is. Also don’t forget about the dictionary if you need help with figuring out what some of the ingredients are.

Mix the cookies up, click on the cookie sheet and when the cookies are done JJ will call.

Now to the office. As soon as you go inside, you will need to get the phone.

Get the note next to your computer.

So you need to go to the park and buy a stuffed parrot.

But what’s the hurry? Heather is gone so it’s time to check out her desk and get a closer look at the Dodo box.

At Heathers desk, the only thing to do really is look at her portfolio.

The Dodo box contains a great puzzle.

My hint here is that if you look in Sonny’s notebook, it will be much much much easier. I spent a lot of time on this puzzle before I realized that.

You have to solve the first puzzle on your own. OK, and the last one. But the middle one is very hard and it’s solution is in Sonny’s notebook I promise.

Read all the letters in the box.

OK now off to the park to buy a parrot!

After you talk to the lady with the hood, the game makes you go right. You see Dieter, and after he runs off you get an article and a clock gismo. Take them and continue shopping.

Buy the parrot from the man in the middle of the park.

Now lets go to Dieter’s and find out why he ran off?

He’s in the dark room. Knock on the door and talk to him.

He leads you to another puzzle on the wall over to the right of the fish. Put the clock gizmo on the wall.

This puzzle only gives you a certain period of time to solve. But it’s really easy. Just remember that the clock in the middle is the one you put in and maybe you should make the rest of the clocks look like that one.

Follow the passageway until the end and click on the leaves. You’ll find another puzzle. The answer is in the article about Noisette you got from Dieter.

Read the book.

Now back to the office to find something bugging Minette.

While searching for bugs, find a letter behind the first lady’s dress and a note on Minette’s desk.

This is a good time to search Minette’s room. Look at the first ladies desk and also those paint splattered round things.

You’ll have all the bugs when the box is full.

Now it’s time to use your calling card to call Lynn Manrique

Red Left… Green – as always, exhaust all conversation topics.

Now, lets go and talk to Dieter again and ask some more questions.

Alas! He is to busy and wants us to take some pictures for him.

Get the list off of his desk and use your dictionary to translate.

OK, so I can’t keep you from just looking down and seeing my list.

Stapler – Look in your office
Spider – Look around Dieter’s apartment/office
Candle – in the same place Zu tells you to leave a note.
Skull – in the same place Zu tells you to leave a note
Cross – look in the park
Teapot – where have we made tea lately?


OK, off to the park to release these bugs. Also to take a picture of the cross.

Now back to the office to take a picture of the teapot and stapler, and to make a few phone calls.

While you’re taking pictures in Minette’s area, why not ask her a few questions.

Also, click on the dress and she’ll tell you a bit more about it.

Next, talk to Heather and give her the parrot. She admits to sending the letter.

OK, now its time to call ZU. His number should appear when you pick up the phone.

Now lets go to see Jean Mi to ask about the photo in the magazine in Minette’s area.

Uh Oh, you have to help make parfaits before he’ll let you see the photo.

Be sure to use the parfait instruction book on the ledge in front of you. And ding the bell when it’s done.

OK, now we get to look at the photo. Notice that there is an arrow on each round thing and it is pointing to a particular roman numeral? Write down those numbers!

Next we go to talk Jing Jing into writing Zu a note.

Well, she won’t because she’s afraid that he will steal her identity.

The answer to this one lies in Hangman. I will tell you that there is no way to get her to agree to it, so you’ll have to trick her into it.

Now off to Denfert Rochereau or the Catacombs. Make sure you have 5 euro because that’s how much it costs.

Take pictures of the skull and candle. Then leave your message for Zu in the skull.

Well that’s all of the pictures. Lets head back to Dieter’s.

Talk to Dieter and give him the pictures. Ask about Noisette and he will give you a postcard type thing.

Combine the postcard with something in your inventory and then use the Red left….green clue.

It’s to late to do anything now.

Call Zu. He tells you how to get into the catacombs. Cool

First though lets look at that clue you got off of the post card. Open up that book that you got from Dieters place. On the last page of that letter is a symbol that is referred to as the cross of Lorraine. Have you seen it anywhere else? It’s the same cross you took a picture of in the park.

So we’re off to the park.

Click on the cross to get a close up view. You’ll notice that you can push the numbers now. Use the number that you got on the post card.

OK! Another puzzle. Make note of the clues here. They have something to do with each of the pieces of art in the park.

Go and do the mouths first.

Next do the windmill thingy. When you get it right and turn away, a squirrel will jump on the handle and make it move.

To solve this puzzle you will need a few of the things we bought from venders earlier. I will tell you no more however.

Now for the fish. That one is simple. Just push the red button!

Follow the path down, get the key. That is all there is to do here.

Can I just say that the next sequence made me a little dizzy. And can I also say that to make the tunnel that long was unnecessary and just a time waster. At least you don’t have to use it multiple times like the tunnel in Danger on Deception Island.

Just a little more criticizing. Can I just state how unlikely it would be that a secret tunnel would stay secret when it’s located in the middle of a city park. Thanks. OK, that’s all. Back to the walkthrough.

Lets go to the catacombs now. Hope you remembered your wetsuit. And to read that book. I bet the people at HERinteractive had a lot of fun putting that book together. The guy’s fro is awesome.

Click on the skull to reveal a red button. When pushed an entrance to the catacombs is revealed.

If the police approach, you can hide in the side rooms.

From the entrance you want to go across the board to the other side and then go to the very last entry on the right. You will see a pool of sorts just waiting for you to dive in!

OK, first lets go and get that bottle of whatever it was for the vender in the park.

Dive in, go into the large room with the three tunnels on the far wall. Choose the tunnel to the far right. Go through the tunnel, go right and then go straight towards the fan. The bottle is sitting right in front of it.

Now go back to the beginning for air. Also, because that’s where my next set of instructions start.

Ok, we’ll have to stop for air halfway or so. S = straight, L = left, R = right.

Go into the large room with the three tunnels on the far wall. Choose the tunnel on the lower left. Go through the tunnel and then go R, S, S, S, S, S, L, S, L, R, S, S, L, S, S, go up for air, then back down and go S, S, S, L, S, S, S, S, L, S, S, R, S. Then climb up the ladder. Check out the box and find that you have another puzzle to solve.

This one can be solved using a map of Paris, which coincidentally you see every time you go somewhere. It also talks about this a little in the letter in the book you got at Dieter’s place.

I really over thought this puzzle. I finally gave up and cheated by going to a forum. But it’s really easy if you look for those words that were in a different color on the plaque thingy, on your map of the city. I just finally got this to work for me. When I ‘saw’ it, I was feeling quite stupid.

Anyway, back to the underground plaque thingy. Swim to it, input your code, and if it’s right you get another thingy.

And after you get out of the water, you know why I wanted you to read that book.

OK, so lets go back to the office and check in.

Hey what is that thing on Minette’s door? Another puzzle to solve! Basically each fuse thingy needs to have either a color or shape in common with anything else that is connected to it.

If you fail, a yellow paint bomb goes off and ruins Minette’s entire collection.

OK, once that’s gone and you’ve thrown the bomb away, go into Minette’s area. Mysteriously, she’s gone. Anyway look at the center pole in the middle of the room. Click on the strange indentation in the metal. Look familiar? That’s right. Put the similar thing on it and a panel opens. Rotating color things. This puzzle, like the others, is impossible without the solution.

Lets go to the park and get the M380. There is a code in the book we got from Dieters that we might be able to decode with it.

Once you’ve traded for the M380, look at it in your inventory. Click on the lower portion. It opens a compartment with dials that look just like the things in Minette’s office.

Set the dials correctly and then type in the code from the book found at Dieters, under the picture of the M380.

Voila! The solution to the puzzle in Minette’s area. Use the dictionary if you need help with what color is what.

Lets go back to the office.

Solve the puzzle in Minette’s area by using the solution we just found.

Hey look a door in the floor!

Go down the stairs and see what’s there. Use your key in the door.

Read the letter in the box. Pay attention because Nancy only reads it out loud once and the darn thing is in French.

Make a note of the roman numerals on the bottom of the last page of the letter.

Uh oh, the door locked behind you.

Look at the lock.

Another puzzle.

This one you will need to decode before you can put it into the M380.

Cher ami, where have you seen that before?

Check out the letter in the book from Dieter’s. Both the picture and the letter have a clue for you.

Check out the codebook and read page 8, 9, and 10. If there are any letters in the number that is your Cher ami, just drop them.

Once you have the message decoded, grab your M380 and change the dials to match the numbers from the bottom of the letter in the case.

Type them in and voila! French numbers. That’s ok. Just use your dictionary to tell you what the solution is.

Ok, now that the bars are gone again, lets go upstairs.

You overhear a conversation.

Try to grab the dress.

I sure hope you read that book on Ichi-Do. Well, if you didn’t just take notes. She says a specific phrase just before she does a specific move.

Hope you had fun! I sure did!

for sale

Our house is now on the market. It's actually been on the market since about noon yesterday.

No calls yet. but keeping the house this clean is driving me insane. and it's driving the kids crazy (I'm cranky and keep after them to keep their toys picked up). On top of that I've got this nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that I don't think will go away until at least one person looks at our house.

but at least I can say that for the most part I can get the house ready and leave in 15 minutes.

Of course this doesn't count mornings. Mornings, with getting the kids up and ready and also making beds, cleaning up after breakfast, I'd be comfortable with an hour to get all that done.

So here's hoping the house sells quickly. I'm still hoping for an investor so that we could rent back while the other house is being built. But at this point, I would take almost any full price offer. (give me a week, I'll change it to 'any offer') :)

We've got almost everything ready for the first hole to be dug. Our builder went down for the building permits on Wednesday and came out of the county building sounding about the same way I feel after going there for anything. Hopeless.

Anyway, he thought there was a ton of more unexpected things to do, but after sorting through what I had already done, we found that all we had to actually do is e-mail one guy for the new street address and apply for another permit at the fire department. The addresses I had in hand the next day, and hopefully the fire department thing will be resolved by early next week.

The worst part about the whole visit to the county is that while our builder was telling me about all these things we still needed, he said that we should be breaking ground within a month.

Um. no. Next week is more like it. Probably the week after (since we are still waiting on the fire department access permit) but I refuse to let him alter our July 1st starting date by THAT much.

I plan to keep pushing him until things start happening. He will find that I'm going to be checking on him a bunch. Not so much that he will hate us, but enough to help him realize that the best thing for him is to finish our house!

Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers that someone will come see our house!

Land owners!

We're land owners! Wahoo!

I filed all the paperwork to split the lot and give us ownership of the land.

We now have 1 acre of land!

Our house plans are nearly done. Our builder is awesome. I wish I knew how to put house plans online.

We've got a 4 bed, 2 1/2 bath, large kitchen with an island, huge pantry, storage room off the huge garage, covered back patio. A total of 2187 square feet.

I feel blessed that we were able to work with a builder who also was able to draw up plans for us. I'm sure we've payed for a it in our costs somewhere, but it feels good to work on plans with the same guy who will be building your house. I feel like he's really been able to concentrate on our house and our dreams for it. He's also been able to keep us on track as to what would look good and how to get what we want in our house along with what would look nice. I highly recommend our builder. If you're looking for a builder in the Boise/Meridian/Nampa/Kuna etc. area, I've got the guy for you.

I'm also the proud owner of a septic permit almost. That only cost $300 smackeroos. I just need to get them

Oh and the access permit. That was only $25, but don't forget that you have to buy a bid bond. Which basically means this... you get a bid for some asphalt work for x amount ($1,800 in our case) Then you go down to the highway district and pay them the $1800. Then the person does the work. Then the highway district comes and inspects it. If the company does a good job, then the highway district refunds your money. If they do a bad job, then the highway district takes your money and fixes it. So this could potentially cost $3,600. I'm not sure how picky the highway district is, but the company I've chosen seems very professional and I'm confident in my choice.

I can say right now that I'm frustrated what a pain this whole process has been.

I am also frustrated at this moment by hubbies family.

His sister has planned a family reunion.

Strike one - wants to have a family picture taken where the kids wear white shirts and the adults wear black shirts.

To elaborate. We don't own shirts these colors, and in the kids case, white shirts are very impracticle.

Strike two - The men go golfing while the women (and kids of course) do pedicures and manicures.

Not something I enjoy. I'd rather do something else.

Strike three - we have to go to Roaring Springs.

Don't look good in a bathing suit. The kids aren't old enough to enjoy the expensive experience. I can't enjoy myself because of course I'm with the kids while hubby is probably out playing. I'm sure he'll take his turn, but I'd rather have the kids not there and be able to enjoy myself with him on the rides.

We could talk about cost, we could talk about the fact that none of these things is something I especially want to do. We could talk about the driving back and forth - 45 minutes both ways - and cranky tired children who don't want to get in the car the 3rd day. We could talk about how I've sworn to my husband that I don't want to go.

Also, the whole thing will cost around $160 - $170. For that kind of money I want something besides cranky children to show for it thanks. A trip to a resort, something. Something besides black shirts we won't wear again, and white shirts that the kids will stain soon after (or before with my luck) the picture is taken.

Sorry for the negativity. I'll get over it. Just like I managed to get through Thanksgiving.

Have I told you about our street naming dilemma? :)

I'm about to have a nervous breakdown

We've been working on simply owning the land that our future home will be built on.

Can you say headache?

From not being able to split the lot, to easements, to surveys, to acknowledgement letters, to renaming the lane to putting up street signs, to quit claims.

This is the biggest headache. As of about 10 minutes ago I was ready to call the whole thing off.

I received the acknowledgement letter from the highway district. It said that we would have to pave the lane and put a stop sign in. My first thought was of some asphalt quotes for our home owners association. What we had quoted was much smaller than a lane, and was quoted at $16k.

We don't have that sort of money and I don't intend to go that much further into debt for this stupid thing.

I should also mention the the county planning and zoning people told us that since the lane already existed, we would not have to pave it.

Upon further review of the letter, it struck me that they were referring to to "one lot plus the new lot". Well there will be 3 lots on this after all is said and done. So I'm crossing my fingers that this is a big mistake!

I'm really crossing my fingers.

If we have to pave the lane, I'm pretty sure we can't afford this. I've already been worried about financial stuff and this would be the straw, you know "The last straw" or the "straw that broke the camels back"

Pray for us.

sorrow

Hubby's father passed away yesterday evening.

I'm not ready to say much more than that.

We're all a bit numb.

Thoughts going through my head:

What am I feeling?

Why do I feel so normal at times, and at other times, so emotional?

How is this going to affect hubby?

How is this going to affect our relationship?

How is this going to affect hubby's Mom?

How is this going to affect the family?

I'm tired of all these emotions. When I say tired I mean my body is tired. This has truly been a rollercoaster ride.

We are blessed to be an eternal family.

I think I'm over it

I think I'm over blogging.

I've had lots of news the last few months, but no desire to post about it.

This has become my place to rant.

I don't want anyone to think that that's me though. I've got a great life, just need a place to rant occasionally.

Anyway, a quick update.

A is walking, C is a cutie who is becoming very helpful with her little sister.

Hubby is working away at his job and school. He should be done with his upper division classes by August-ish. Then he has to clep around 30 credits, and then he has to take one last class, and voila! I'm hoping to have him done by next January.

He did have a bit of a scare with his job. The company was going to open a division in China. But that seems to have not taken off at all. He has a great guy at the head of his division of the company who is great and had a special meeting to update all the employees about what is going on. There were a ton of depressing rumors floating around and this guy planned a meeting for everyone (held 2x to accomodate all the shifts) and told everyone EXACTLY what was happening and not happening. He managed to clear up all the rumors, and hubby came home from work very positive and not worried at all. We even started dreaming about a new house again!

I'm glad that scare lasted only a week. The China thing might still happen, but on a much smaller scale that would not affect hubby's job. Also, he was just given a huge new project that will give him major responsibility. So he's even feeling more valuable to the company.

I also want to mention that hubby's boss is great. He's very open, relaxed and a great supervisor. The only problem with him is the fact that he can be raunchy. He'll send out the occasional raunchy joke, and going to lunch with him is awful. He basically sexually harasses the waitresses to an embarrasing degree. Hubby tolerates what he must and deletes the rest. Lately he's been skipping out on the group lunches.

He's been skipping because of our New Year's Resolution. We decided that in order to live a longer and healthier life, and in order to more enjoy our kids and grandkids, we needed to start a diet and excersize program.

We've been exercising since Jan 1 and eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Our day starts early. Hubby gets up at 4:30 to work out for about 45 min. He runs on our treadmill and sometimes lifts weights. Then he goes to work.

I don't know his exact schedule, because I get to sleep until 7! I get up, walk for 26 min on the treadmill and then shower if there's time, and get the kids up. We have breakfast and then around 10 we have a snack. For breakfast we're eating fiber cereals and hubby eats oatmeal occasionally. Snacks are from 100-200 calories.

Hubby comes home from work around 11am He works out/lifts weights. Then we all eat lunch together. We usually have sandwiches. The kids love pb&j and we have turkey.

Then hubby goes back to work and the kids and I watch Zaboomafoo. Then the kids take naps. That's when I get started again. I'm still changing things around with my 2nd workout, but right now I'm doing another 26 minutes on the treadmill and then 30 minutes on the exersize bike. Then I have about and hour to myself and then the kids get up again!

We have an afternoon snack and then I usually let them watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. C loves it! Just like I did when I was a kid. We sing the theme song together!

When hubby gets home from work, he does more time on the treadmill and then we eat dinner. I've been experimenting with the "Lowfat" recipes in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. They're pretty good!

Then we usually watch a little tv and go to bed. Once the weather warms up I hope that we go to the park and play in the backyard in the evenings.

So anyway, this is the big thing in our lives right now. By the way, Hubby has lost 38 pounds! and I've lost a less impressive 14 pounds. I don't know why it's harder for me, Maybe because I dont' run or lift weights but it can be depressing. I just have to remind myself that we all lose weight differently. And I've been noticing that clothes fit differently so, I have to be happy with that.

But anyway, Go us!

My needs

Google your name + needs. So it looks like this "Me Again needs". Quite entertaining!

Me Again needs ... help
Me Again needs ... an organ transplant (who knew?)
Me Again needs ... a theme song
Me Again needs ... to get a life
Me Again needs ... an adoptive family (really?)
Me Again needs ... a fresh start
Me Again needs ... a loving home (well, ok then)
Me Again needs ... independence
Me Again needs ... very little help with daily tasks
Me Again needs ... a makeover (Hey! I'm trying over here!)
Me Again needs ... a new environment
Me Again needs ... to find the truth


I am slightly disturbed at how many people are using my name for their pets names.

Oh well.

I won't take credit for this. I found it on someone elses blog and found it entertaining.

I could tell you the poop story instead, but members of my family found it too distirbing, so I'll spare you. Lets just say it involved massive amounts of poop and a bathtub. And my two kids. We'll leave it at that :) .

I'm freaking out!

So we have an overabundance of nursery kids in our ward. That is where I come in. In the Primary presidency, I'm over the nursery and the sunbeams. I thought it was a great idea because at the time C was in the nursery. She's now going to be a sunbeam! and A will hit the nursery around Feb/March.

Well at this time we have 27 kids in the nursery. We've been told at the stake and ward level that we need to have only 10 kids per nursery. So that means that we need to have 3 nurseries. By the end of the year, we'll have around 42 kids in nursery. (we have a young families ward) So by the end of the year, we'll need to have 4 nurseries.

The problem is that we don't have room for that many nurseries.

So we've been searching for answers. We thought maybe we could switch one of our nursery rooms for the bigger YW room. They weren't all that excited to move though. And they would have to use the kitchen for a classroom. We would have to help them move the piano every sunday, and also buy them pictures for the walls out of our budget.

Also, the YW pres is harder than hades to get a hold of. So for the past week, I've been trying to talk to her. I finally cornered her Christmas day at church. She wasn't excited about the idea at all. She wanted me to solve all her problems. That's how we came around to the list of things for us to do above. I told her I would call her monday, but wasn't able to before FHE time came around.

I also wanted to put it off until I verified that this was our absolute last resort.
I went to the church and listed all our current classrooms, and how many classes we had. I also was able to look a little more into the possibility of using 2 classrooms that we already have. They have a divider and would be a perfect nursery. But that would leave us short a classroom. I talked it over with the Primary Pres and we discussed a few things. Anyway I called up the Sunday School Pres. and was able to find out that they had a classroom that no-one was using. So Voila! Solution.

The funny part was that I haven't been able to get a hold of the YW pres to tell her the heat is off, for now. Come fall when we hit 40, I'm not sure what we'll do. Maybe we'll have to up the limit to around 14 in each nursery. That's better than the 20 each that we were carrying at the end of this year in each of our 2 nurseries.

Anyway, now I need to call a few people to finish this thing off.


I'M SICK OF PHONE CALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It drives me crazy

It drives me crazy that we can have an argument about whatever, and then he'll just go to sleep in the middle of it.

I hate that when I get so upset that I leave the room he never follows me. It's like he could care less.

The thing is, he is normally very caring. Why can't he see that this would make a big difference to me?

Tonight we were arguing about where to go for Thanksgiving. My family is huge and normally has to reserve a church building for our meal. This year, it looks like it will be a small gathering for a change and my parents decided to have it at their home for a change.

I would like to go. My husband wants to go to his parents. To be fair, it is our year to go there.

I hate this whole your parents my parents split the holiday thing. I really just want to stay home (at OUR house) and enjoy the holiday.

In the middle of the argument I threatened this. He didn't have any comment.

He says that I don't show any enthusiasm to go to his parents house at all. Ever.

I do though. There are things that I don't like about it though. I will admit that.

First off, his parents live in a doublewide. No big deal. We have a small kitchen and living room to hang out in. But to stay there for long periods of time can be claustrophobic. Especially since his father is an invalid and has huge sores on his legs that smell. I guess being around that smell is something I don't look forward to. His dad lives in the living room. That's also where everyone eats. Tne kitchen is just to small to fit around the table. Their house is also the reason I will never like the smell of Febreeze again. Febreeze mixed with smelly mediciney smells aren't very nice. And don't get me started on the bathroom. Lets just say that I make every effort to go before we get in the car to go to their house.

I also don't look forward to keeping C and A out of what they are supposed to stay out of and confined into that small area. I don't mind it for Sunday visits.... I wonder how long we would stay for Thanksgiving? 4-6 hours? It was only a few years ago that we were there... Why don't I remember? Did we leave early to get in some Thanksgiving at my parents?

His parents are very nice people, and I don't mind talking to them at all. I don't mind talking to any of his family.

But I was trying to explain this concept to him earlier. If I have a choice of course I'm going to choose my parents. That's my home. That's what I'm familiar with. Unless you had a horrible childhood, that's what you do. I tried to explain this to him and he totally didn't understand.

ARGH.

He thinks I have something against his parents, their trailer, etc. He says, "Why do you even mention the smallness if it doesn't matter?" Well that would be because it's slightly claustrophobic. But I can handle it. No Big Deal. FOR HIM I WILL DEAL WITH IT!!! He doesn't get that though.

ARGH!!!!

This whole argument started when I said that he seemed to care deeply where we go for Thanksgiving, so I said we'll do what you want to do, I don't care about it as much as you seem to. Then he got all argumentive. I still don't understand why.

I hope whoever might stumble upon this blog won't think that we argue all the time. Only occasionally. And it's true what they say. The 3 things you will argue about in a marriage are family, money, and sex. So far, family is a big hitter in our house.

Whoa, it's been a long time

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Ok, enough of that.

Lots has happened in the last few months.

For one thing, I sort of lost my desire to blog. Life is going to fast and I want to get off!

The primary program is this Sunday. The neighborhood association has asked (well they didn't ask, they just did it) me to be the beautification committee head. I've been having play dates with 2 of my neighbors twice a week (Tues & Thurs) and a primary pres. meeting on Wed. Friday seems to be the only day I stay home anymore.

It's crazy.

I'm now a year older, and A is now 1 year old. C will be 3 in a few months and my hubby is going to be hitting the big 3-0 soon. We're all getting so old :) !

Well, the phone is ringing, so I should go.

Bye!

Bad Dream

I just had a really bad dream.

I was staying on the coast, in a little town where my family would vacation while we were growing up.

Someone I knew came and got me. They took me to one of the houses that we would vacation at. Although I didn't recognize it. We had a conversation as we walked over about how it would be nice for me to be able to vacation there again.

Turns out this lady was from another branch of the family. These were all people I didn't know. As soon as I arrived I remembered that I had left my kids at the motel.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about them, but since it was around 6pm, maybe they were sleeping? Then I remembered that I had been engrossed in a book all day and must have forgotten about them.

The person that brought me over, wanted me to meet everyone before I left. I agreed, but was in a hurry. I met about half before I just said I had to go.

As I was leaving the house, Somehow it was a motel or something? Anyway I saw C sitting on the floor playing with another little girl. I was surprised and then all of a sudden She was 50 feet away and in the middle of me and this other lady who was claiming to be her mommy. I yelled at the lady that she was my child and then she said that she was hers. C of course came when I called for her. the lady said something like oh well and ran away.

Then somehow she had a guy with her. I chased after them and caught the guy. All of a sudden my hubby was there and I was yelling at him to call the police on a cell phone. He was trying, but kept saying stuff about the service. I was pleading with someone to call the police as I sat on this guy and wouldn't let him up. Then I realized that I didn't know where A was.

the guy said that they had done a little number on A. I don't know what that meant but I couldn't leave to go look in the motel room for her fast enough. I told hubby to sit on the guy and not to let him go. Hubby wasn't taking me seriously. Not until I told him to sit on him again.

Then I was looking for my key, I asked a employee who was right there if they had extra keys. They did, but I didn't know my room number. Finally I grabbed hubby's bag and took his.

I didn't get to my room before I woke up.

When I woke up, I was so disturbed. I thought I heard noises in the kids bedrooms, and had to go make sure they were ok.

They were.

Of course I can't imagine going back to bed. I'm too worked up.

A will wake up in about an hour.

I should probably go and lay down though. Otherwise today will kill me.

I hate dreams like this.

Why am I so paranoid?

About 9 months ago someone broke the window out of our car and stole some things from inside it.

Right before I fell asleep last night I was thinking about how we had left a portable television in the trunk of our car that was sitting in the driveway.

About 5 hours before bed someone doorbell ditched us. I think anyway. I was kind of slow getting to the door (thought it was a salesman) so maybe they just left. But when I went outside I didn't see anyone, and when I went to the upstairs window I didn't see anyone anywhere walking away, or to another house.

I wonder if the dream was because I still feel victimized about the window being broken out of the car thing.

Here's hoping that when we buy and build on that acre, that I'll feel somewhat safe. (crossing my fingers). The acre wouldn't be on a street. Its off of a back street, behind another house. People would see this other house, then walk down the lane, see ours, walk down the lane a bit more, and see my parents. I want to build the house in such a way that its not easy to pick it out as new(new means rich to some people) We want a nice country style laid back house. But one that will match with the other two homes near it. They both have a pinkish brick outside. I wonder how expensive brick is? That's the way I would love to go.

Every few months or so, in our neighborhood, we have a rash of those car burglaries. So can you blame me for being paranoid?

the dog(s)?

So last Saturday night I stayed up until 2am working on a project for Primary. chair covers.

I haven't been up that late for a while. I was tired and a little punchy. Well, I went downstairs, and got ready for bed. It took me forever to relax to the point where I might fall asleep. All of a sudden there is a "whumpa whumpa whumpa and then what sounded like our back gate opening and closing really fast.

That freaked me out. My first thought was that someone had run down the side of our house, went through the gate, and was now in the back yard. So of course I had to go to the back door and peak out. I looked and looked, and finally put the back porch light on. I didn't see a thing.

I got back into bed. I was freaked and didn't want to go to bed with potential robbers trying to get into the house.

Then there was more commotion at the side of the house (which by the way was right next to my head because of where our bedroom and bed are situated)

Then there were more running sounds and a crashing sort of sound, then a high pitched, noise. I woke up my husband in a panic.

He agreed that there were some strange noises coming from the side of the house. He thought it sounded like a dog whining. We both went to a window or door to look out. Neither of us saw a thing. But the high sound was still coming from the side of the house.

So we think that it was most likely a dog whining. There are some dogs in the house behind ours. So the thinking is that some dog was in heat, another dog tried to jump our fence to get to the dog and hit the fence instead.

So somewhere around our neighborhood a dog owner is trying to figure out where his dog got hurt.

The toilet... again

So C tells me she has to go poo poos. So I tell her to go sit on the potty. She has done this before with no problems. She was starting to grunt, and I urged her to go in again. She went into the bathroom and I heard her moving around. She's done this plenty of times before with potty, so I thought she made it onto the potty. Hubby goes into check on her. I hear a horrified "Oh NO!!!"

C had pooped in her panties, and pottied. The potty was all over her and the floor. The poop seemed to be contained in her panties. Hubby was able to get her out of those. Whats funny is that when she sees the poop she panics and wants out of them as soon as possible. So here's how it went down. Hubby gingerly grabs the panties and stretches the leg holes so that she can easily get her legs out. She pulls one leg out and then sees the poop. She couldn't get away from it fast enough. Unfortunately for hubby, one of her legs was still in the panties.

PLOP

You guessed it. A nice big pile of poop on the floor. Fairly contained. A lot of it too. Imagine a medium sized, somewhat slushy, snow ball and picture it dropped on the floor. That is about what this looked like. Anyway, hubby grabs the panties, grabs some more dirty clothes, and puts it all in the washing mashine for a wash. In the meantime I get to mop up potty and poop and give the kid a bath. Why Oh why?

I love the fact that hubby helps so much around the house, but when it comes to the kids, sometimes I feel like I'm the only show in town.


Argh!!!

Anyway, it all cleaned up well, and I can't wait to clean that floor like crazy. YUCK!


We went out to my parents new place tonight. They have 2 horses, 3 goats, and 2 bunnies that they "inherited" from my brother and his family. C is thrilled because she got to pet the goats and help feed the horses carrots. She loved picking and eating blackberries also. What she didnt' like was when she walked to close to some rose bushes and they kept grabbing her clothes. She would panic and start crying. So I would help her get untangled. She did it two different times. She also fed some bread to the bunnies. I doubt they will eat it, but she had fun!

The Toilet

So I've got the kids fed, A is in bed. All that's left is C. I've got her in her bedroom, I'm changing her into a pull-up for her nap and I ask the fateful question. "do you have to go potty?" She says "nooooyes" I ask her again. This time the answer is yes.

I bring her into the bathroom and as she lifts the lid of the toilet she says " umhgj fjaefjlkew (gibberish) comb" I only understand Comb. Oh no I think. I'm going to find a comb in the toilet. Great.

Sure enough. There are not one, but TWO combs in the toilet. I grab the nearest fishing tool (my crochet hook) and fish them out. I liberally soap everything including my hands.

Just another day in this Mom's life. :)

By the way, C just told me that she is done. She didn't go potty. But now she's in bed.

YAY!

and on and on and on

My Reggae Name http://www.irielion.com/israel/reggaename.html
Sheba Nancy

My Mormon Name http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/mormon/
Heavenly Melanie AldaVern

My Smurf Name http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mule/smurfgen.html
Fictitious Smurf

My Matrix Name http://matrix.orb6.com/name_generator.php
Eos the Glitch Chaser

Here is my Indian Name

Abigail Blackhearted Barnstormer

And my husband's

Johnson Blue Velvet Jackal

For your's, go here http://www.aspalta.cbc.ca/deaddog_asp/aininfo.asp

C's
Delphinia Neon Chicken

A's
Charlotte Unhesitating Weasel

My Sister L's
Naomi Makeshift Scallion

My new nephew's (Who was born 2 days ago and is as cute as a button)
Randolph Antibiotic Hyena

I could go on forever! But I won't. To much fun!

Whoa

So life has gone crazy in the last month. It seems like forever since I last posted.

We're in a bit of a houseing dilemma.

Hubby's Dad had to go to the hospital. He is quite overweight and has poor circulation in his legs. He is a veteran, so he gets to take advantage of the veterans services in our area. Such as monthly doctors appointments to monitor his health. He has poor health, I'm sure they don't do this for every veteran unless needed :).

Anyway, because of his being overweight, he spends most of his time sitting. He has back problems (never has seen a chiropractor.um, ok?) that have caused lying down to be painful, so for about the last 15 years he has slept in a recliner. This has caused bedsores all over his legs and backside.

These sores were getting really bad. They admitted him to the hospital, and then to a care center. He should be at the care center for something like 4 weeks.

So this got hubby and I thinking. His parents live almost 2 hours away from where he has his monthly doctor visits. Is it time to think about moving to a home where his parents can live with us?

So we thought about this, and started looking at possibilities. But when we approached his parents, they said, thanks but no thanks. They are quite comfortable where they were. Also his Mom is working and didn't want to commute 45 minutes every morning. I guess she doesn't want to deal with early retirement? Anyway, They make as much if not more than we do, but have a lot of debt. So hubby also offered to help them get organized and out of debt, but they refused that also. So hubby has organized a meeting of some of the siblings tonight to discuss the situation and see if we need to do anything, or if we should just leave them be.

Can I just say the debt thing drives me nuts. According to hubby's Dad it's all his wifes fault. She is always buying things. That leads me to say, um, ok, so you didn't tell your wife after this many years of marriage that she should cut down on the spending? Being a victim is ok I guess, but for over 25 years? At this point I say its both their faults. In my book its not ok to play victim for this long. I'm not explaining myself well. But hopefully you get the gist.

But the whole houseing thing got us thinking. The land and home prices around here are going up. We would like to buy around an acre, so that means what we can afford is getting smaller and smaller. So I've been anxious. So I've been looking.

Meanwhile another situation is going on. My brother, who runs a picture framing business (although it's much more than that!) decided that he wanted to do something else for awhile. I'm not entirely sure of his reasons, but that isn't really my business. So My parents, who also own a piece of this business have offered to run it for a while. So they are going to sell their home, and buy my brother's home (the business is run in his back yard). Their home is on 2/3's an acre and my brothers home is on 2.? acres. My parents are getting older (mid 60's) and were having problems taking care of their 2/3's an acre. So my brother's land was worrying them. So they heard we were looking at land and approached us! They want us to buy around an acre. So yay! C and A love Grandma so this will be great. But it needs to happen quickly. We want to pay fair market value to avoid any bad feelings, and the land prices are going up up up!

The other thing that's great is that if there is something we want to do (such as a huge garden) and there isn't room on our land for it, Mom and Dad are ok with us doing it on their land. Of course we wouldn't do anything permanent, like a shed on their land, because we would want it on our land in the event of either of us selling our home down the road.

The other thing that makes this great is that Mom and Dad are planning on a mission in about 2 years when mom retires from her job. So at that time, we would be here to watch over the house, and maybe the business. I'm not sure if they will have anyone stay in the house. We'll see in 2 years. And the thought of working the business makes me nervous. But my sister L lives near and has a lot of interest in the business. So it could all work out.

It could all explode too.... so I just try not to think of it. :)

We're going to go look at a home building company today. They say that they can build a home more efficiently than other companies. They only build 7 designs. This makes me a bit nervous. But they also say that they save money without cutting corners or using inferior materials. That sounds good. But we won't make any decisions without a LOT of thought.

crossing my fingers!

Nobody Likes Me, Everybody hates me

Guess I'll go eat worms!

I've e-mailed several people and had no responses. I think I'm developing a complex!

If you happen to have received a plea for help from a somewhat random person that you sort of met one time at Lon's in Provo, please answer their e-mail. The dang family website needs your help!

Primary wipes me out

Totally.

We rotate conducting and sharing time. Every 3rd month I conduct, Every 3rd month I do sharing time, and then I get a month free.

This month I've been doing sharing time. I show up 30 minutes before church to help set up the primary room, and get everything out for my lesson. Then I get to enjoy Sacrament meeting. Then comes 2 hours of primary. We do opening exercises first, until 2:40, in the chapel. then we send the sr. primary to class, and the jr. primary to the primary room for sharing time. Then at 3:20 we do a switcheroo.

By the time its all over I'm ready to take a nap or something. Yesterday, I helped put everything away in the primary room, and then went out to the foyer where Hubby and C and A were waiting. I sat on the couch and couldn't find the motivation to get up and go out to the car. It took at least 5 minutes and a fruit snack for me to get moving again :) Then when we got home, hubby said he had a headache, so I made dinner, we ate, and after a plethura of chocolate, I came out of my tired place.

I can't wait for next month. It's my free month. I plan to enjoy! Also, I think I'll find ways to help the other women in any way I can so that they don't get wiped out.

Well healthwise, I've developed - well - something under my left eye. It's a series of red bumps. One day I think it's gone, and the next its inflamed again. At first I thought it might be skin cancer because my dad gets spots on his face that he has to get frozen off. But he said that when you touch a spot of skin cancer it burns like crazy. This doesn't. It is just sore. It's not pinkeye. My eye is not pink at all. My sister suggested it might be a allergic reaction to something. she said try Cortizone. I've tried that, somewhat irregularly. I can't tell if it has helped at all.

I'm thinking about going to the doctor. Problem is I don't really have a regular doctor. just an OBGYN. We do go to a big building full of doctors for the kids pediatrician. I could go to a GP there. But I hate going to the doctor when its not necessary. Not worth $20 for them to say It will clear up on it's own. It hasn't cleared up on its own for about a month now. I'm not sure what do do.

Any ideas?

This looked fun

Found this in one of the blogs I read.

ten random things about me:
1. Maturity-wise I feel about 18, even though I'm well into my 20's
2. I have a weird lump on my foot.
3. I'm 5'6" and always wanted to be taller. But it was for the best. Hubby is 5'8".
4. I'm currently crocheting my way through a baby blanket pattern book.
5. I'm trying to find a market to sell my blankets.
6. Hubby doesn't like the way I drive, yet it was the first thing he ever complimented me on. It was the night he first asked me out though...
7. I'm about to crochet my second BYU themed blanket. On a baby blanket!
8. I haven't been to one of my hubby's softball games this year. You try chasing a 2 year old around for 1 1/2 hours. Its horrible. Did that last year. No thanks.
9. I don't drink enough water and am secretly scared that I'm going to be sick because of it.
10. I'm fat

nine places I've visited:
1. Hermosillo, Mexico
2. Canon Beach Oregon
3. Pheonix Arizona
4. Manti Utah
5. Payette Idaho
6. West Yellowstone Idaho
7. Idaho Falls Idaho
8. Salt Lake City Utah
9. Boring Oregon (seriously! They even have "The Boring Burger"


eight things I want to do before I die:
1. Have grandkids!
2. Be successful in some sort of stay at home buisiness that doesn't involve a pyramid scheme of some sort
3. Help my children gain strong testimonies.
4. See my children meet their true loves and marry.
5. Be a good parent
6. Be a good helper with school work.
7. Be a good wife!
8. Have a huge garden!


seven ways to win my heart: (Hubby! Please read!)
1. a back massage
2. A foot massage
3. A back scratch
4. comb my hair
5 hold my hand
6. change some diapers
7. make dinner

and just a note. Hubby does this well. He is always helping me with #6 & 7, but if I could have my perfect world I would have to do less of them. :)


six things I believe in:
1. The church
2. That the Lord loves all of us. Even if we're 3 year old kids who are pests and won't sit down or be still during sharing time.
3. There is no baby cuter than A, and when C was a baby, she was the cutest. Now she is the cutest toddler :)
4. I love my hubby
5. you have to really love soccer to watch a game in spanish (when you barely know any words in spanish)
6. The best invention was a car adapter that allows you to watch movies/play games using your car's power. I don't know if those dvd players use it, but our little tv/vcr combo does and it's great. As long as you don't mind listening to 5 hours of the Bear in the Big Blue house potty video.


five things I'm afraid of:
1. Spiders
2. The unknown.
3. burglary
4. falling down (the reason I really can't skate or ice skate)
5. the scale

four of my favorite items in my room:
1. Any of my books by Clair Poulson
2. the Mrs. Pacman console (Mappy!!!)
3. Any of my books by Betsy Brannon Green
4. all of my books!

three things I do everyday:
1. Change at least 2-3 diapers
2. Make at least 2 meals (as long as cereal counts)
3. Kiss my hubby

two things I'm trying to do right now:
1. Trying to finish this list so that I can hold A
2. Listening to a soccer game in Spanish that hubby is watching :)

one person I want to see right now:
1. Love to see my Mom. She is C's absolutely favorite person.

The Opposite Sex

So I'm watching a June Allyson film called "The Opposite Sex" on TCM. About 30 minutes into the show I realize that I'm watching a remake of a film I saw just last week - "The Women" - on TCM. How's that for coincidences? The worst part is that I still watched the whole thing. There was nothing on, and the baby was taking a nap on my lap. I didn't want to disturb her, and I had to watch something. but it was mildly entertaining. :)

"The Secret of the Old Clock" is coming out tomorrow. From www.herinteractive.com . It is a Nancy Drew computer game.

I was a huge fan of the Nancy Drew series when I was a kid. So these computer games are a great way to relive my childhood :)

This company publishes 2 games a year. I usually buy them as soon as humanly possible. but this time, even though I would like to, I'm not sure I even have time to play it if I were to buy it. We'll see.

C is now mostly potty trained. She finally got it while we were in Utah for a family reunion. The thing that did it for her was being able to use a big girls toilet. Go figure. We're still working on the poop thing. I think that's because she has a hard time sitting for very long on a toilet. And she doesn't relax enough. both of these things are necessary for pooping. I'm toying with the idea of reintroducing the potty chair. I don't want to go backwords though. I'm sure we'll figure it out. Right now she usually waits until she has a pull-up on.

A is almost crawling. she mostly goes backwards, but is slowly figuring out going forward. She crawls "catapiller style". She gets up on her knees and then lays down. This pushes her forward about 4 inches at a time. Occasionally she will roll. she's in the experimental stage :)

Oh, and I just wanted to say "Bernard for Heisman!"