A Bit of New News

As of March 1, we will be living in some new digs. It is only about 1/2 block South of where we are now, but it will be a lot warmer for us. Our landlord is in our ward and we are quite excited about the prospects. She has a huge garden in the back and seems very excited to have us. Her name is Vola and she has a dog and a cat that seem friendly enough for Hallie to play with. Vola told us that we are awesome today. That makes ya feel good.
Today was busy as most Saturdays are. We left for Weight Watchers at about 7:30 am, then went grocery shopping at SuperTarget in Centerville, drive to Village Inn in Sandy for breakfast, went to Maxine's to do her monthly shopping, and finally got home about 3:30 or so. We turned around and did two loads to the new apartment stopped by B&D burgers for dinner and arrived home close to 6:00. Hallie read a bit in her textbook and then we have spent lots of time looking at maps that came in the mail of Montreal. Yes, for those of you that don't know we are going to Montreal in April for 8 days. Mike is attending a confrence with the University of Utah and they are paying for him to go. Hallie is tagging along as that is what she does best. Mike already wants to learn French. We are both very excited really to go. If you know us well enough you know that we will be of course staying in a bed and breakfast. Hallie spent about 5 hours last Saturday checking out all of the b & b's in Montreal. We finally found the one we think we will like and is a good price. A friend from the U will be staying there with us.
Hallie's brother Riley will be moving in with us on February 18th and we are looking forward to it. The two of us are happy to have an immediate member of the family so close to us. Hmmmm, maybe Hallie will have to have Sunday dinner ready for the three of us. Could turn into be a great tradition. If you call eating on the couch Sunday dinner, then there we go. Well that is really all the excitement from the twins here in Salt Lake City. Bye for now.

Just Plain Ill

I am sitting here watching the Bush Parade and I am coughing my head off. I have been sick since last Friday. The doctor on Tuesday said I have an ear infection and an upper respitory infection. The medicines that the dr. gave me definitely helped me sleep through the night. I went back to school today after missing two days and it was a lot of work. I will be home for a few days until I have to go to work. I am not looking forward to it in the slightest oh well. Last week at Weight Watchers I lost enough weight to put me back where I was this past June. Cross your fingers everyone that it keeps going down. Especially since the goal is Hawaii in October.

It Is A New Year

Well we stayed up and watched a bit of Rockin Eve with Regis. It was O.K. Then hit the hay till it was time for the Rose Parade to start at 9am. Pretty good parade this year. Sat around most of the day, and tried to start a puzzle. Mike did most of it. Yesterday I actually helped with a funeral in our ward. On Tuesday I help with our Primary Pianist funeral. So we will be busy once the week starts again. We are counting the minutes away until the Fiesta Bowl starts and we can cheer the Utes to victory. Everyone here is so excited about them getting to a bowl game. It is time for the decorations to come down soon. Not excited to realize school starts on the 10th. Oh well hopefully I can make it on the Deans List next semester also. Hope you have fun reading our blogs.

Hallie's First Attempt

This is my first attempt at writing on this journal. Hopefully all will enjoy these frequent updates that Mike and I put up on this site. Mike and I visited This Is The Place Heritage Park on Friday December 17. It was decorated beautifully and it was fun to eat soup out of a bread bowl. For those of you who don't know what This Is The Place Heritage Park is let me tell you. It is a place where they have moved or recreated pioneer homes of prominence in Utah. During certain times of the year they have reencactors dressed pioneer outfits. It is quite fun to go there. When we went on Friday there were Christmas tress everywhere, lanterns lit along the paths, and bonfires to keep warm. For the past two weeks we have been going to concerts at the ZCMI mall. The local radio station has had mini christmas concerts. They have been quite fun. I throughly enjoyed the day that they had three brothers from Nova Scotia who played celtic music. Mike got everyone to clap along. What a stud. If I can find the tickets for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert then we will be going tomorrow morning. We are looking forward to going, but Hallie can't seem to find them. Start thinking good thoughts for me. Well I guess that is all the news for now. Chat with you later.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Mike, always the big kid at heart, was pretty stoked to see the trailer for the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory coming out next summer. Mike has been a Roald Dahl fan for as long as he can remember, ever since he found a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the family library, and he now has his own hardbound copies of Dahl's children's books and grown up short stories.

Christmas in California

This is a picture of us about a year ago at the Grove in LA. We were able to spend about a month down in Cali last year, which was really nice. This year, work has obligated us to stay home and make the best of it here.

Springtime in Washington, DC

Hallie really likes this shot of us at the US Naval Academy. We went back to the Washington, DC area in April 2003 so that Mike could take the oral portion of the US Foreign Service Exam. We also got a chance to get reacquainted with Mike's extended family who live in the area. While the test was a bust, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.