late, but still today....

I made a promise to those of you who read my blog and I'm sure all of you have been waiting all day to see what Beckys Blog will say today...... 8am - 9:45 - meeting with Triathlon committee/ 10:15 - meeting with Relief Society ladies/ 11am - indexing..../1:30 nap/ 5pm - Relief Society televised conference/ 7pm-9pm - dinner to CheeseCake Factory with Carolyn and her in-law group/ 10:10 - blogging.

Luckily I had my camera for the best part of the day:

Making sure our left-overs made it home safe and sound.
So, that really is all I can post about today - but I do have a few extra things to add because I know you haven't had your fill yet.
A new 'Karate' game

Go back and watch the second video - look at Jason's hair this time!

Now watch as Jason steals a little sip.....

Wait - that wasn't a little sip........Jason!

my dell and me

It's a little late tonight - but I just had to share my good news! Yes, that is me, hugging my computer. I had a very nice call this afternoon, telling me that my computer parts were in and wondering if he could come over this afternoon and put them in my computer........ummm......yes!!! I had to patiently listen to him tell family stories, horrible computer nightmare stories and boring computer stuff info. In about 1 1/2 hours he was done and left me alone - alone with my computer. Alone to feel its keys and to close and open it. Alone to whisper silly things to it. Alone to let me look at the icons on my screen. Oh, how I've missed my icons, and my favorites list and my, well, my total green Dell. I will be so careful in how I treat it. No more will I unthinkingly pull the a/c adapter out callously - no more will I have it set up in an odd deformed manner just for my comfort and no more will I think my computer is not really my last 'baby' that I need to protect from evil ones ......ie: anyone other than myself.

So, tomorrow starts another day for the mundane life my computer has to put up with: Looking up recipes, indexing 100's of names, seeking out mapquest, finding cheap flights to San Diego, you know, the normal day to day stuff. But here I am, staying up late tonight, touching, typing, teasing, tabbing, even tormenting my keys, because I have missed them so.

I will be blogging tomorrow, you can bet on that, but about what, I do not know. I shall try to find something interesting - more than my Alford tag, but don't hold your breath - just come back again tomorrow. Right now my keys are telling me how much they have missed me too.

Ahh....it's nice to be missed!

Wow! A week has gone by....sorry. I still am dealing with a slow computer and it's really not fun. First of all - a belated Happy Birthday to my sister Trudy!! I think we are all done with the counting of years, just have a great coming year!!

Everyday this week we have had a volleyball game to attend. Monday - Katie - Eastern Arizona. Their team played at home but is about 15 miles away so it feels like an away game.

Tuesday - Shannon - Desert Mountain -away - north Phoenix. Wednesday - Katie - Scottsdale - home. Thursday - Shannon - North Canyon - home. Tonight will be Katie again - away at Mesa Community College. It is not only money exhausting, but if the games are close with long rallys, it is also physically exhausting. Of course this is nothing like watching a wrestling match where I am tense from the moment they start until the whistle at the end. Now I know why Carrie and Doug never gain an ounce of weight. Tension weight control. If you ever want to lose weight - just go sit through any wrestling match.

I was a little Susie Homemaker yesterday. Along with laundry - (even though I don't have as many kids at home which was my many loads of laundry excuse - todays only excuse can be - I sweat when I watch VB games), I made homemade applesauce. Mom, thank you tons! I will have to say that when she was telling me how simple it was, I was sure I wouldn't remember her step-by-step instructions. However, I replayed her vivid instructions back in my head - peel, core, cut apples - boil until tender - put in blender - add sugar - add cinnamon (I think she also said nutmeg, but I don't care for that spice so I deleted that). It actually turned out really nice! Now, if any of you know if any of you have made the strawberry applesauce? I'd like to give that a try. My box of apples is dwindling though so it might be next year. Today I have to pick up some peaches which are way out in Queen Creek. That's like driving to Carries. So, Susie Homemaker must come out again and do something. Dang it. Any good peach ideas send my way.

Computer Outage.....

So, my computer went down for the count. Actually, it worked fine except in a few areas - areas that I wanted fixed so I let my compter lady, 'Geeks For Hire - Vicki', take my laptop with her to her home and work on it whenever she can. I do this thing called indexing and I am addicted. They updated their program the first of September and ever since then, I haven't been able to get on. I called their 'helpful' elder/sister's computer specialists and they tried to walk me through downloading, unlocking my firewall, adding another version of Java, all to no avail and I could tell something was not right with my lovely green Dell. So, she has it for who knows how long and THEN I have to send it in to the Dell repair center for a new motherboard. I have had 2 installed already and they can't figure out why my power cord doesn't fit in tight enough to keep the computer powered up; we have to 'jimmy' the cord into the most contortionisht (DeWitt word) ways just to keep it on and powering. Crazy. Although, I will not speak bad about my computer - I have loved it!! And would buy another one just like it, if that were in the budget.

Yeah!! I went bike riding this morning. I scoured the countryside for things to take pictures of and all I found was this: Interesting right?! I think each of you need to make a story up about it and share it on my blog. Also, I wore high heels to church this Sunday. That was a high note for me (get it - high note-), sorry Dad joke. It has been nearly 9 weeks since my little accident and I always had to go to church in my flipflops. They are lovely flipflops but just didn't always to with the outfit very well.

Also, to not make my blog too boring, I am going to attach some old pictures that are here on Doug's computer. Shannon and Allan in a city of Mesa after school sports group.


And a funny pair of older siblings there just to tease them.

additional videos

Sorry three more videos. I was afraid to add them to the last video in case my computer spazzed out on me. Shannon chillin' with BOB;

Lukas playing on the mattress that his Daddy had told him he wasn't supposed to do it. I had to take secret film of him while Brian was gone somewhere.

Lastly, Allan was playing around with Lukas when I heard some banging going on. I went to find out what had happened.

So this was our fun in Nevada.

More Labor Day info.....

I love Brian, Celynda, Lukas and Brook. I love being around them. I love the fun we have with them. I love the home they live in. Just love feelings all the way around. EXCEPT....Chief. Now, I love Chief too, but not as much as the rest of the things mentioned above. Although we worked hard all weekend, when we wanted to sit down to rest or visit or sleep, here is what we got:

I think he started to get a little self-conscience when I kept taping him. Poor little fellow. Even when he was sleeping he made noise:

Oh, wait, I'm used to that noise:

Love ya Doug!!

Make sure you go and see my last 2 blogs. I added 3 this morning.

Post Labor Day....

We got home around 3pm on Monday. Shannon had volleyball practice from 4 -6pm on this day so we had to leave Henderson early to get back to Mesa in time. Katie was not able to come with us on vacation because of her practices....or maybe she just wanted us gone. Hmm...my bed did feel slept in. But she seemed really happy to have us home.

Later Carolyn and family came over and brought ribs to barbecue! Yummy!

No, that's not a beauty mark on Katie.....it's part of her rib'ness'.

We had a little dance partyand then we all went swimming. I can not tell you how badly I wanted to have my camera at the pool. My girls were doing this synchronized swim, dance, follow the leader type thing and it was hilarious. What made it even more funny was that Allan would jump in from time to time and do his take on the girls moves. A slightly more manly type of move, but he tried whatever they threw at him....Step-Pop, Step-Pop-Pop....I think you all get that move. If not check Carolyn's blog. We were really missing Jill here.

Labor Day Laboring.....

Here's one of the reason's we went to Henderson!!!

Laboring....

Bedroom paint color before..you can't really tell, but it is green.

Pink, pink, pink bathroomEven the ceiling!

Behr Castle Path....50% lighter.....grey/tan....much better!

More laboring......

Doug being OSHA safe....

Lukas' Bearded Dragon....Playtime allowed.

Swimming party at the end of the Day!!!

Eight rooms - two hallways.......less than 12 hours. Much labor on this Labor Day.

Mom's good buy

Thursday morning Mom called and asked where this store was located that I had told her about. It is really just a dump spot for contractors who haven't used all of their inventory and need a place to sell it. Thanks to Jonathan and Jill, we had heard about this place - Al's Building Materials back in November last year. I have since made a trip out here with my son Jason who was looking for matching doorknobs for his home and knew that they would also have kitchen cabinet handles for a pretty fair price. I needed to go out there too, to look for a new bathroom vanity, so off we went.

As you can see Mom has lots of cabinet door and drawers, I think it was 27 in her kitchen alone! Right now she has the 'open just by grabbing the edge' style and she felt like they were getting a little gunky, so she wanted to put handles on them. She also wanted to look for ones to go in her bathrooms.

So, we went hunting. Now these pictures, bless camera technology, make the store look pretty light inside, but I can tell you we almost felt like we needed a flashlight to see into some of the shelves we had to dig through. We are hunting and hunting, And guess what? She found close to 40 handles! At least enough matching ones that will go into the kitchen and then another couple of styles to go into her bathrooms! What a find! I had to ask what they would charge us and the 'cashier' said 75cents each. Mom, purchasing with cash, go even a deeper discount. So, for 40+ handles, she only paid around $32. (I'll have to have her fill in the full details in a comment, so be sure you read those). Here's the neat packaging they send your purchase home in.....

I looked on Home Depot and Lowes to get a comparison of prices and the ranged from $1.09 up to $3.69 (some even over that).

Looks sweet!

Funny side story. We had already purchased the 'loot', left the store and headed home - first stopping at a JoAnn's - when we started talking about Mom doing a blog about her neat find. She was sad she hadn't brought her camera - but guess who did? So, we went back to Al's and shot this video and the pictures.........too funny! Wow, ignore my scary eye look here.....