The Unknown Danger

I had a very interesting experience today! I was doing some housework in preparation for our jaunt to Idaho/Utah and the kitchen garbage was full. I usually leave that chore for Jeff, but it stank, and had about 20 pounds of yucky melon in it, so I thought what the heck, I'll take it out. It was heavy, so my big plan to get it to the trash can was to carry it off the back porch and then drag it through the grass and around the house, thus lessening the amount of hard labor I had to do :) As I picked up the bag to step over some stuff on the porch, something in my shoulder freaked out and I had to drop the bag. I was pretty stunned at the amount of pain, but figured it was some freak accident and not serious--you know, like getting a crick in your neck? So I got to the garbage can and tossed the bag in with my left arm and noticed that it tweaked my right shoulder. At this point I was a little worried that it was worse than I had initially thought, so I went in and put an ice pack on it and called Jeff to tell him that I had hurt myself. He was very gracious and hurried home to make sure I was ok. By that time I was pretty sure that I wasn't, but I didn't want to go to the doctor and have them tell me to stop being a baby. Jeff talked me into it though. We went to the Urgent Care and they did a few x-rays to make sure nothing was broken...nothing was, but some of the poses they had me in were quite painful! The doctor told me things were too swollen to make any definitive diagnosis, so she sent me home with a prescription and told me to come back in a week if it was still hurting since it could be a strained ligament, soft tissue damage, or torn rotator cuff. Right now I don't care what it is as long as the drugs kick in soon. It has gotten distinctly more painful as the evening has gone on. Who knew that taking out the trash could be so dangerous?

Midnight needs to come faster!

So, the last couple of days have been filled with an unnatural hush at our house as people are frantically reading or listening to the sixth Harry Potter book. We have all been getting ready for tonight when we will be joining hoards of other people lining up to get the last book tonight at midnight. I have actually never been to one of these shindigs, so I am excited and a little apprehensive. I have been checking out all of the bookstores to see which one seems to be having the best "party" and I think I have settled on Borders...partly because there is one really close to us :) I am hoping that we can get in, get our book, glow in the dark wand, and poster, and get out so that I don't accidentally hear anything about the book that I don't want to! Sara has threatened to read the last page of the book out loud in the car on the way home, I told her she would have to walk home if she did. She also keeps saying she is going to stay up all night to read it, but I don't know that I will have the ability to do that (come to think of it, I don't think Sarah will either as she is at work most mornings by 5!)

On another Harry Potter note, we saw the movie last weekend. I know some people haven't been impressed, but I think that it is one of my favorites, I definitely liked it better than 3 or 4. I was a little sad that they ignored the Percy story line, and I hate the new Dementors, but I think that I can live with most of the other story line changes. Before I saw it, someone said that there was something in it from Book 6 and they were upset about it. So naturally I watched to see if I could pick it out. I am proud to say that I did notice it--when the DA is practicing someone uses the levicorpus spell. I have to say that it didn't bother me. I know that it is kind of a big thing in the sixth book, but I think that there are enough other spells that come from the Prince to make its loss negligible. Plus, I am sure that lots of people didn't notice it, so if they decide that it should still be a big part of the 6th movie, they can do it without too much squawking from movie goers.

So, I am now going to try to do some other things patiently, without looking at the Internet too much so I don't see what someone who has the book already says....

Rain, Rain Come Again!

Last night we had our first summer rain storm. I don't know if it was an official monsoon storm, but we were thankful for the water. Unfortunately, rain didn't fall for a long time, but the lightening lasted for a couple of hours. The plus side is that the dirt in the lots got wet and so we don't make quite as big of a dust plume when entering or exiting the lot...the minus side...it rained mud. It is a unique experience. Because it is so dry in the valley, we have a lot of dust storms leaving large amounts of dust in the air, so when it rains for a short period of time, the dust gets wet and falls. This morning I went out to my car and it was even dirtier than it was yesterday :)


(and between you and me, that is saying something!)

A traumatizing afternoon...

Well, I think that I can now discuss this subject without breaking into tears every time I think about it...yep, no tears :)

Yesterday Jeff got a new calling. We were pretty sure he would when a member of our bishopric called to see if he could come in for an interview at 12:30 (we have church at 1). So off he went, but before leaving I made him swear that he wouldn't let them release him as a primary worker. After all, when we were first called to be primary teachers they only asked Jeff...over the phone...so I figured they couldn't only release him since he agreed to be the teacher. Plus, there are 8 six year olds in our class! So, Jeff promised, went, and came home about 15 minutes later. He is now the Assistant Scout Master, but he wasn't to be released as a teacher, he made sure to ask (what a good guy!). Too bad someone forgot to tell the Bishop that. We are sitting in Sacrament Meeting and they released him! I'm not gonna lie, I had a major heart attack. Did I mention that there are 8 six year olds in the class? ...I am only one woman. He is allowed to come and sit with me during class time, but I will be left alone in Sharing Time. I was totally upset, and yesterday I literally cried every time someone mentioned it. I am still really worried about how I am going to juggle all those kids...we have a hard time when there are two of us! However, I know that Jeff is totally excited about being in Scouts. Now he will have a whole bunch of buddies to do manly sorts of things :)

One more sad thing...tomorrow is my birthday...28. Sadly, Jeff is in Utah. He had to leave this morning and won't be back until Friday (and then he'll be gone again for the next two weeks!) So, I am pretty bummed. On the plus side, I got a Wii today, and I expect to get 3 games for it in the mail tomorrow. I took the Wii out of the box, but I haven't tried it yet...maybe tomorrow :) I also got a sweet new phone today, but not for my birthday, just because mine is being freaky. It is a mint green Chocolate. I am having a few issues figuring out what buttons do what, but overall, I am really enjoying it! (Don't be sad if I accidentally hang up on you!)

Well, I feel much better about life! I am glad that I have this thing :) Hope that you are all having a lovely day!

A major freeze has come our way! Ok, not really...we are just enjoying that it is only 105 today. We have been baking in 110+ weather the last week, and the swamp cooler has a hard time keeping things comfortable at that rate. When it is 105 and below, the swamp cooler runs at about 78 degrees, which is bearable (as long as you aren't working too hard!) but when it is hotter, the swamp cooler gets it down somewhere between 85-90 degree. We have all been spending a lot of time laying around in the lightest cloths that we own, or at the pool. We have learned a trick for the night, which is when the heat is the worst since it is hard to fall asleep. Anyway, some of us have been taking cold showers at night, making sure that our hair is damp so that the fans that we have going can blow on us and help make things cool. We also get the top sheet of the bed damp which helps cool too. Mini evaporative coolers I guess...funny that it works!

(If I could type a title in...another problem we have to check out...this would be titled "Five degrees makes a big difference")

A side note

For some reason we can't make paragraphs anymore, so we apologize that things just seem to run on and on and on...and on! Hopefully we can figure out what the problem is and fix it!

Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July to our friends and family! We hope that you all had an enjoyable day. We were able to do a couple of fun things. We have passes to the wave pools near us and we really enjoy going. However, sometimes we are a little sad because it is harder to actually swim, so we decided today that we would go to the city pool. It was really fun. Sarah and I both have sunburned faces--not too bad though. I fully expect for mine to be gone tomorrow morning. Jeff however, got it good on his back. I put the sunscreen on him, so I think it might be my fault. He was wearing waterproof SPF 50 though--I don't know how he still got burned! Anyway, even with the extra hot sun (it was somewhere between 115-118 yesterday!) it was nice to be at the pool. I made dinner when we got home--pulled pork sandwiches (thanks Janine for a great recipe!), German potato salad, and some veggies. We also had a flag cake. We played a game of Settlers of Catan and then Whonu (I think that's how you spell it--it is a game by Cranium. It is pretty fun.)

The City of Mesa Fireworks were at Mesa Community College's stadium (which happens to be right across the street from the hospital that Jeff had his surgeries) so we were pretty sure that we would be able to see the fireworks from our back yard. It turns out we couldn't very well. There are a few tall things in the way. I think that if we had sat on the roof we could have, but that seemed a little fool hardy, so we jumped in the car and raced a little closer. We only really saw about 5 minutes worth, the show wasn't very long, so we decided to try to see the ones in Tempe. They were being held at Tempe Town Lake, and a local radio station was playing music that was supposed to be choreographed to the light show. There wasn't a good place to pull off the freeway, all the exits around the show were closed off, so we just drove slowly past, turned around at the airport, and then drove slowly past on our way back. We ended up trying to stop at a shopping center to watch the show, but we couldn't see very well. We were glad that we were able to see some of the show though!

Well, it is now time for me to go to bed so that I can get up in the morning and do all the dishes that are dirty....it is times like this that I really miss a dishwasher!

A major primary hurdle....

Jeff and I were called as primary teachers in January. We are the teachers of 10 very rambunctious kindergartners (5 turning 6 year olds). We are constantly trying to come up with ways to keep them interested in what we are saying...and staying in their seats :) We usually do OK in class--mostly due to coloring and candy bribes. Sharing time is a whole different ball game. We have a couple of kids who are always mysteriously getting sick at the beginning, and some that come in and go to sleep and some that just like to climb on anything that they can get their little mitts on. The kids all want to sit next to Brother Henry because he is nice and lets them get away with stuff until Sister Henry makes him tell kids to knock it off. The kids unfortunate enough to have to sit in the same row as Sister Henry just try to get into as little trouble as possible :)


So two weeks ago we were in charge of sharing time. Sister Henry will admit to being terrified. This meant that the kids in her class would have a little more freedom as she tried to help get the other kids in primary involved. We finally decided on playing a game. It was a weird mix of Jeopardy and that pyramid game show. Basically, we had the teachers choose two kids from their class (the reverent ones of course!) and they were each given a bike horn. The kids then chose a question from 4 different categories. Our kids then read a question and the questionees squeezed their horns when they knew the answer. Our kids were really excited when we practiced the questions in class, and then they couldn't wait for singing time to end so they could get up to the front and talk into the microphone. I was really amazed at how well they did. I will admit that their excitement wained as they didn't get to ask their questions as quickly as they thought they should be able to, but you can't blame them, right?



Brother and Sister Henry were filled with trepidation prior to sharing time, a little flustered as they shuffled kids/asked questions, and then filled with excitement at the prospect of not having to do this again for a year :)