Letter To Kim

This is a letter I wrote to Kim that I figured could double as a blog entry.


Well my friends it is time for another Ukraine update.

The Ukrainian government has issued the following statement in preparation for the upcoming European Cup:



"A unique oracle hog, a real Ukrainian pig and a psychic that knows the mysteries of football," astatement said. "Every day at 4 p.m. it will predict the result of theupcoming match."

I’m sure you are thinking the exactsame thing as me, what is the pig’s name? Psychic animals are usually named. Paul the German Octopus was the most famous of animal oracles.

He correctly divined the outcome of all 7 of Germany’s games in the 2010 World Cup and the final match between Spain and Netherlands.   The mollusk was clearly gifted with second sight because the odds of guessing all 8 games correctly is 256 to 1.

Don’t feel too bad for the Ukranian pig if it answers incorrectly.  Not all psychic animals have had the same track record.   Magdalena the two headed tortoise with two brains was fairly successful predicting Slovenia’s hockey games but received little acclaim due to her habit of choosing the clear favorites.

Heidi the Cross-eyed opossum while easily the funniest one to look at only had a 67% success rate of picking the Oscar winners.  Seriously she looks hilarious.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is I’m a little bit afraid thatI’m going to be fired.  There have been some subtle hints and my office manager has had me show her how to do different parts of my job.  You see the Nevada Legislature passed a new law that has made my job temporarily obsolete.  It is unclear if what I mainly do is going to start up again.  That means my work load has dropped and so has company revenue. Since then I’ve mostly done paralegal work but since I’m not really a paralegal I ask as many questions as I get work done.  We’ll see. I might be worrying for nothing. 

The above mentioned scenario has had me keeping an eye on job postings for accounting students.  90% are in casinos.  Do any of you have strong opinions about whether or not it would be a conflict of interest to run numbers at a casino?  I’m leaning towards not a conflict.  I mean casinos have movie theaters, shows, restaurants, accommodations as well as gambling.  It’s not like I had to quit working at the shoppette just because we sold cigarettes there.  Although the church encourages its members not to gamble it is not declared outright to be evil like word of wisdom stuff.  Let me know if you have strong thoughts.

Anyway I’m coming up with great sobs tories to slip in casually at work conversations so that they’ll feel too bad to let me go.  You see if they have to fire someone I’m the obvious choice.   I’m the only one in the office without a car payment much less a house payment.  Luckily Hilary’s car is in a funk and the repair shop can’t fix it.  I’ll try to milk that for all it’s worth. 

I’ve taught Primary for the last time.  I’ve been replaced.  I’ll get to go to Elders Quorum.  It’ll probably be my 4th or 5th time in EQ since moving into the ward.   But not this Sunday.  Today(Thursday) we will drive up to Utah to chill out with the fam.  I think we’re going to rock out to Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites on  the drive up. Usually on these three day weekends I forget to write you Kim but not this week.

Dune Bashing in Dubai

Here is a short video from our Desert Safari in Dubai.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day
I wanted to give a short shout out to the awesome mothers we know.  Our mothers are awesome, our sisters are great mothers, and Hilary will be a great mother herself someday. 

I got a new appreciation for how much work Hilary does around the house on Thursday.  Hilary's birthday was Saturday so I thought I should make her a cake.  She didn't get one last year because I've never thought of making someone else a cake before.  I've never really felt like it was my responsibility.  Well Thursday was my chance to surprise her.  I took my last final that morning so I got to come home right after work, and Hilary left for Enrichment.  I bought some candles on the way home and as soon as she left I began working.  I preheated the oven, mixed the cake mix, put the cake in the oven, emptied the dishwasher, prepared a rice and chicken meal for myself while loading the dishwasher, ate my dinner, took the cake out of the oven, spent 12 minutes looking all over the kitchen for where we keep toothpicks to test whether the cake is done, end up using a match instead, take the trash out, begin washing my dishes from dinner, find toothpicks while putting stuff away, wash the pots and pans and George Foreman from my dinner the night before that I left sitting out and cleaned the rest of the kitchen, and finally I frosted the cake.  I put the candles in and lit the candles because I heard Hilary's car pulling into the garage.  I had intentions of cleaning most of the house while she was gone.  I had about three hours but I just barely managed to clean the kitchen and my back was KILLING me.  It still hurts.  I had no idea it would be so much work.  Not that I've never helped out in the kitchen before but that was way way taxing. 

Anyway long story short is I have a new appreciation for the draining experience it is taking care of a house and doing thoughtful stuff for the family.  I'm sure what I did is nothing compared to what our mothers and sisters do with houses full of kids.  So thanks for being awesome everybody.

Thanks to Mom Hart.  It's really nice having a wife who is so much more awesome than me.  Thanks to both of our moms for doing a great job raising us and the good things you taught us.   Mom, I promise you taught me to have a good work ethic despite my above complaining.  I recorded myself singing a song for both of you.

Homemaker Hilary

With my current job I have a lot of free time in the evenings.  And with Brian in classes until pretty late a few days a week, I have to find things to keep me busy.  I've tried to do a few crafty things lately.  Here is my first attempt at a yarn wreath.

I am planning on making another one that is more summery soon.  My next project was another kind of wreath... but this one is made out of toilet paper rolls. 

 

My goal is to one day be as talented with crafts as my mom.  But that will probably take my whole lifetime, and still may not be achievable.  We were lucky enough to have my mom come visit us over the weekend of April 20th.  It was a quick trip, but also very productive.  Here are some of the things we got done that weekend:

I found a cool idea on pinterest to help with organizing measuring cups and spoons.  Here is how it turned out:

 

My mom also was nice enough to make me a really cute skirt.

 It took her no time at all, and I love it!

I think the biggest endeavor of the weekend was our bed.  Brian's uncle gave us a beautiful four-poster bed when we got married.  We have been using it without the poles, though, because two of them wouldn't screw in correctly.  One of them had the screw broken off inside of it, and the other didn't have a base to connect the pole.  It took some creativity at Home Depot, but we were able to improvise and get all four poles to work.  We also had to buy two long, skinny strips of wood because we only had two to connect the poles at the top and bottom of the bed... but we also wanted to connect the sides.  Then we had some fun with fabric, and now we have a princessy-canopy bed.  You might think it's kind of silly, but I like it. (And Brian says he likes it, but I think he's just letting me get my way.  He is so nice to me.) Here it is!

It was great having my mom come visit!  :)

Brian has one more day of classes this week and then finals on Tuesday.  Then he has a whole three weeks off from school before he starts summer classes.  And I only have 7 and a half more weeks before summer vacation!