EARTHQUAKE!

Apparently there was a 6.0 earthquake this morning.....in Wells NV. Which is pretty far from here. I think about 60 miles west of Wendover which is on the UT-NV border.

But lots of people here in Utah felt it. I think I felt something, but didn't think much of it, and didn't even twice about it until Ron called because he heard it on the radio. I think I heard, or felt, or maybe both, a tiny *bump*, but nothing rattled or anything so I just chalked it up to the usual bumps and stuff we have around here from construction, or when the National Guard is doing mortar training out at Camp Williams.

Anyway...it really got me to thinking that I need to stop THINKING about emergency prep for my family and just GET IT DONE! I have some little 72 hour food kits around, the water, a little bit of food storage, etc....but I need to get my stuff in order! Time to really put together that "earthquake kit" that I have the supply list for...time to get emergency kits together for the family in case anything really ever does happen, and most importantly, talk to my family to formulate and explain the emergency plan.

Did anyone else feel the quake today?

What do you have put together for your family in case of emergency?

Here goes....

I may be exposing a little bit more of my unstable personality than I want to the world with this, but I need to vent.

I do not like our dog....loathe, detest, want to give him away type of "do not like."

He needs a haircut, and since I refuse to blow $40 on the ding-dong, I do it myself. But I hate it. It takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r because I wait until he is covered in long hair and needs to be shaved. I have not had a good 2 hour block to sit and do it. So he is shedding this freaking long hair EVERYWHERE and it is driving. me. NUTS!

He also needs his toenails clipped. He paces through the part of the house he is allowed in, which is on the tile, and the clickety-clickety of his nails is driving. me. NUTS! Oh, and he also whines/moans for no apparent reason. All the time. Like a squeaky door. Maybe he senses my hostility.

He emits a sickening green cloud of noxious gas frequently from his nether-regions that is pretty bad. I may hurt the next person I see feed him people food because it gets worse after that.

He pukes. Pretty frequently in my opinion. Ron always says, well, you should be glad he does it on the tile...HUH? I should be glad I get to clean up dog puke? Oh yeah, sign me up.

In the winter, he poops on the deck, and I hate this behavior. I want to load him up and take him to the pound whenever I see a new pile out there.

I shouldn't complain about him. He doesn't bark, except at birds and UPS men. He doesn't chew things up. He is house trained....except for the gas and puking.

But I don't like him.

Did I mention he sheds....and if I see another dog hair on my kids Sunday clothes in church I might cry?

Anyone want a dog?

Thanks. I feel better now. Maybe I'll go cut his nails so I can cross the clickety-clickety off my list of complaints!

The 4-wheeling beast!

Ron ordered some new bigger and better tires for his 4-wheeler off eBay...you can seriously get anything you could ever want from there...the worlds biggest yard sale. Oh well, they were in great shape and we "saved" a lot of money?! (As opposed to not buying new tires?!) Anyhoo, the poor UPS man delivered them yesterday. I usually love it when the UPS man comes...but 4 tires on your porch isn't nearly as exciting as a typical delivery! Ron was excited though. As soon as he could, he had the 4-wheeler in the garage, jacked it up, and changed those tires. They are big ole' things! He then, of course, had to try them out, and Jared went along. Then he had me come out and take a picture of what happens when you leave your 4 year old on a 4-wheeler near a snow bank...



He was so proud of himself.

On a side note, look at the meltage of the snow!!!! The mountainous snow banks are receding, and is that GRASS I see across the street?! Yes, it is! Just look at that cloudless blue sky. Ah, bliss! Now, I'm not getting too excited....it's only February...I have to gear up for at least another couple snowstorms. But there is an end in sight.

Just ending with a disclaimer that we aren't completely incompetent parents...Jared didn't drive the 4wheeler himself, and it was off in that picture.

This should be interesting.

Well, we(meaning Nicole, Ron, and I) had our appointment with the ENT today. It was determined that, yes, it is indeed time to yank Nicole's tonsils and adenoids. I was hoping, despite the three years of huge tonsils, strep throat infections, and obstructive sleep apnea that we wouldn't have to take this step, but nope....it's time. STINK!

I'm scared for my little girl to have surgery, with an IV, ET tube, and anesthesia...and I'll be sitting in a waiting room somewhere not knowing what is going on. Sometimes it stinks to have medical knowledge and experience....like when you want to know exactly what's going on with your loved one, and you get shuffled off to a waiting room to imagine all sorts of horrors. I didn't realize the extent of recovery either...no school for 7 days, then another 7 of no recess or P.E. The ENT even recommends that her patients have 24 hour parental supervision for a week after, just in case of hemorrhage...including at night. That'll be fun.

No idea when the date is....her offfice manager/scheduler was out sick today, so she'll call when she's back in the office, but it sounds like it'll be late March, possible April.

wow...

Lots of Luv, and WTH was with last night?!

First, HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Second....here's a recap of last night....it has to do with weather...

There was a little storm in the forecast. No one was concerned, just a little wind and 2-4" of snow expected. What happened was not was what anyone expected. Blizzard of '08, and we lived through it. Here's highlights:

• Ron's commute home: normal time 50 minutes...last night 4 1/2 HOURS!
• State Road 92, which Ron typically drives home on, closed....with people out there stranded! Accidents, people running out of gas, slide-offs, dead batteries, cars abandoned in the middle of the road causing a literal parking lot. Search and Rescue showed up late last night with snowmobiles to get the people to a church where family members could come get them.
  
• Neighbor, also one of Ron's home teaching families, is stuck out on SR92 with a dead battery and her 6 year old son. Husband out of town. Ron got past the Highway patrol barricade to go try and save her, but thankfully he found out before he got stuck out there that she flagged a ride with a stranger....whom she spent the next 3 1/2 hours with trying to get out of the mess. Luckily she picked a nice person and not a mass murderer....also a good thing that we don't have many of those in Utah...mass murderers that is!
• School buses full of little kids were stuck in the mess for 5-6 hours. Can you imagine...little kids, stuck on a school bus in a blizzard, no potty, no dinner? The buses finally made it back to the school, and about 200 kids SPENT THE NIGHT AT SCHOOL!!! The parents couldn't get there to get them. That elementary was closed today!
• Our school started two hours late, and AM kindergarten was canceled. Nicole was heartbroken about no Valentines party today, but I assured her she'd do it tomorrow. So sad!
  

All in all, it was INSANE last night! We won't forget this for a while. Right now though...snow melting, sun shining, a beautiful day. Utah winters are nuts!

I had to do it...

Another thank you to OneHM...she inspired me with this idea....and this is what I did!



This is what Nicole will be sharing with her class on Thursday! (Except she will be "holding" a lollipop in her hand!) I hope she likes them...I've already ordered the prints from Costco! And I hope Jared doesn't get mad that his don't have his picture on them...I think he'll still be happy with his Spiderman cards. So tomorrow, add to my list a trip to Costco and the store to get some lollipops!

paper credits: shabby princess amore kit

**Edited to add: Nicole liked her cards, and is excited about them, but DANGIT, Jared is ticked he doesn't have some with his picture. I was sort-of afraid of that. If I were a really stellar, incredible mom, I'd get his done right now, but since his preschool party is tomorrow, and because I'm not a stellar, incredible mom, he's stuck with a lollipop taped to his Spiderman cards. He'll deal with it....he has far too many other things to whine about to stay with this one for long. I promised him we'd do picture ones of him next year. I wish I had done it sooner, because I would've dressed him up in his Spiderman costume, and then he could've had the best of both worlds. I'll be stellar and incredible next year!**

Perspective...

This picture was taken Sunday when Ron got home. I had mostly shoveled, but he cleaned up the sides, and since I had almost given up down by the street, I only left room for one car to enter the driveway at a time. So he cleaned it up and widened the entry into our driveway. I decided to get this photo so you can tell a little better how deep the snow bank is....that one that is almost to the shoulder on my hubby who is 6'1"...the best news is that it's even deeper now. Why, you ask? Because it has snowed every day this past week. Sometimes just a skiff, sometimes 3-4"...but snowed nonetheless. Not to complain about our overabundance of blessings, since we do need the water, but a little bit of a break would be okay. They said on the news that our snowpack and water levels are typically where they should be in APRIL! Eeek! I hope when we do thaw out, it's a slow thaw, or we may all float away!

I can't believe it's almost Friday. This week has FLOWN, and I haven't finished most of what I need to.

I'm in charge of the Spelling Bee and the Presidential Pageant Essay Contest at school. I need to get the essays and all the info to my judges tomorrow. I was still tracking down essays from teachers today, seven of the 13 teachers didn't follow instructions and copy the essays for me, so I have to go do that tomorrow, and, I am still short 3 judges. Sigh. I'll be glad when this is over! :O) My happy thought is that as of February 29th, 2:30 pm, the school spelling bee will be completed, and I'll be done with my responsibilities until next year! That's only 22 days away!

Other happenings this week....
Nicole lost her first top tooth! Finally! She lost her four bottom teeth right after she turned 5...but we've had to wait another year for any more visits from the tooth fairy. This tooth was interesting...the permanent one coming in was pushing it out at such an odd angle, it was pointing out and toward the left until it was almost over-lapping the other front tooth! She was such a snaggle tooth. It was driving me nuts. It was loose, but the front of the tooth was really hanging on, so I literally took it into my own hands and "helped" it out. Just a simple twist and flick, and it was out. Nicole screamed, of course, for about half a millisecond, and then ran to get it in her tooth pillow. I hope the permanent tooth comes in somewhat straight...if you look closely at her bottom teeth, the 2 front ones have quite a space in the middle and overlap their neighbors...I hope her top front ones aren't so crooked....poor kid can't get braces on yet. So odd when her baby ones came in straight and with lots of space that her permanent ones came in crookedy. Oh well....the orthodontist will have a nice vacation cabin when he finishes our family!

Post 100!!!

Well, here I am thinking that I was just coming on to post a little photo about what today looks like, and I see that it's my 100th post! Hooray for me...and all of you that have read through the last 99! If it weren't for my 5 loyal readers, and their occasional comments, I would've quit blogging a while back. So there you go, it's all your fault! :)

Here's a little look outside today. Top is our front walk. I think the kids are praying for a sledding hill in our front yard. I think they have it. Middle and bottom photos are the backyard. The ladder rung just skimming the top of the snow is over 12" high...and doesn't that swing and slide look fun to use?!!



Church was canceled. Well, they did have Sacrament Meeting, but we didn't make it. I hadn't shoveled and didn't realize that the snow was drifted up to 12-14" right outside the garage, and even with AWD, I wasn't making it out. So we stayed home, I put Ellie down for a nap, "Joseph, King of Dreams" on for the others (a scripture based movie! That's good for a primary lesson replacement, isn't it?!) and I went out and shoveled...did I mention there was 12-14" of snow....all the way down the driveway? That was fun.

Beautiful Tribute

My friend Steph shared this on her blog, and I loved it so much, I wanted to share it here.



Thanks President Hinckley, for inspiring us to "stand a little taller", and be better people. We are all blessed to have been taught and led by your example.

i'm here....

What a week. Not only did I have card group....which everyone who knows me knows I wait until the last minute to finish them. Then my sweet little Ellie has picked "something" up...she woke up Tuesday, at midnight, and she & I were up all night with a fever and her feeling awful...it then continued all day Tuesday, and into yesterday. Luckily her fever broke, although we are still having diaper issues....which translates as nasty stuff issuing into her diaper. But the best part was that she went to bed last night at 6 pm, and slept soundly all night! Oh the joy of uninterrupted sleep! I may actually get a shower today, without a 2 yr old following me and demanding to be constantly held! What a fantastic thought! So, I'm off to do that, and catch up on all the other stuff that fell by the way for the last two days...more later!