We have been working on getting things ready for Cheryl Smith’s wedding. That is why were staining decks and landscaping and getting the house put together. She’ll be having her rehearsal dinner here at the house this Friday. We also are putting our study together so Chad and I can hang out still when I start up online classes through BYU or at least all the times he’s working on the computer for fun. So we got a new desk set up and a new filing cabinet. It looks great and we’re really happy with it. It makes me happy every time I walk in the room. We don’t have papers lying on the floor like before. I walk in there all the time now.

We got a laptop finally. Last Monday morning we showed up at the store when they opened and they sold us their display model. The sale had started the day before and they had already sold all 33 laptops they had in for the sale. It was a huge blessing to be able to get the laptop for use with school and stuff.

We were supposed to go on an overnight hike with the Young Women in my old stake as chaperones, but not enough girls signed up so we got to stay home and work on the house. We ended going to this children’s theatre and watched a short little detective spoof. We had thought we were going to Gulliver’s Travels but we showed up at the wrong theater. Oops! The play we saw had been written by one of the 13-year-olds in the troop. It was good, as far as it went. Elisa and I get bored easily though, so we didn’t stay for the whole program. 🙂

My parents are building a shed. Since this is my dad’s day off we are going to go help pound in nails and put up siding. Then we’ll have Mom’s meatloaf, as requested by my younger brother Daniel who is no longer a vegetarian. Isn’t life grand?

Elisa and I spent all Saturday pruning our tree and staining our deck. They are both looking really nice, though you can’t tell how big of an improvement it is. We went on a couple early-morning hikes and jogs. There’s a girls’ camp hike that’s coming up that we are preparing for. It’s been fun because before I was sleeping in until 8:30 every day, and now I sometimes get up earlier than that.

I think the only other thing we were doing is planning our honeymoon. We are trying to decide which of the Greek islands are worth visiting. We’ll only have a week or so for all of Greece. Some of the places we are thinking about are some well-known names like Crete and Mykonos and Patmos. (I knew of Mykonos because that’s the name of a Greek restaurant in D.C. and Bellevue. And Patmos is the island where St. John got exiled and then wrote Apocalipsis). Ooh, and Santorini the one with all those white houses built up on the cliffs perched over the blue water.

The deacon’s quorum was fun again today, partly because we had three boys. We were talking about how God is the father of our spirits. One of the boys asked about the controversy of evolution vs. creationism. He’s only 12 years old too. I think that was the first question that I really wanted to know the answer to, back when I was in 7^th grade and we studied biology the first time. So I told him that I’d bring him a candy bar for asking such a good, hard question, and I promised to bring the declaration, “The Origin of Man,” that the First Presidency put out in 1909. It’s an interesting document because it says that man was created with a plan and a purpose, not randomly and haphazardly. But other than that one hard and fast declaration, it leaves the door open for people to believe all the other aspects of evolution.

I have been working on applying to the General Studies Major through BYU independent study. It will definitely test my self discipline but it will be so nice that I am pursuing a degree again. I’ll be happy to have the flexibility with all the tentative plans to work abroad or finish a doctorate with Chad. That’s all my exciting news.

Ooh! We were able to put the bed together. It is absolutely terrifying. I was so scared to sleep on it for fear it would collapse in the middle of the night. Chad decided to prove his handiwork by full-out leaping on to the bed over and over again while I cringed at the sight. It didn’t break. But when he finally convinced me to try diving full force onto the bed, he admitted it was a bit scary to watch. No fatalities yet.

Well, let’s see, what have we been up to… we’ll start with yesterday since that is all I can remember at the moment. We went out to Black Diamond, an old mining town. That happens to also be where my Grandma Sophie lives. So, we had some really good BBQ at this restaurant and then Gramma and I took Chad to Old Town Black Diamond. Gramma has been taking my family there for ages. We saw their old jail and an old bakery and also a little museum that used to be part of the Pacific Coal Company. My Grandpa had donated his old flashlight collection, and Gramma wanted to show it to Chad. We saw some old coal cars and really old money and old tools. I couldn’t figure out how the flashlights fit into the history of Washington. 🙂 Basically, everything was old.

We are both having fun with our callings. Chad helped me draw a poster and cut it into puzzle pieces to hide under the kids’ chairs today. They put it together and we learned about the song “Search, Ponder and Pray” and that it is the same thing Moroni talked about in his promise in the Book of Mormon on how to get a testimony. It went really well. Chad seems to be really good with the Deacons. I told them that every time they asked a question that I couldn’t answer I would bring them candy. The idea is to get them to participate. I got asked when the church was organized, and who won the first Super Bowl, and who shot Abraham Lincoln. I owe a bunch of candy next week. It’s a small price to pay for getting them involved. (I could answer most of the questions, BTW.)

After all sorts of issues with purchasing a bed frame, they are refunding our money and leaving the incomplete bed parts with us. So we got some wood and screws to try and piece together what we have. If it works, we’ll have actually gotten two beds for $8.41. This means we got them for 99.5% off regular price. It is a great deal, you just have to go back and forth trying to purchase them and then try to get the right parts many, many number of times for four months.

I finished up some baby books for the babies. They turned out a little homely but they will be fun for Kindin and Sophia, I hope. They look really cool. There are little pockets everywhere for family pictures, and buttons and zippers and stuff.

I guess this week has been kind of uneventful. We spent most of our time looking for deals on laptops only to find they were not as good as advertised or they were out of stock and on backorder. I do not really remember what else happened but we sure are having fun.