Our New Boat

A week ago Saturday I went out, by myself, to test drive minivans. I stopped at the Toyota dealership first and tried a 2007 Toyota Sienna. It was nice but didn't have all the options I wanted. I visited the Honda dealership next and drove a 2005 and 2006 Honda Odyssey. Very nice, right price but didn't feel right.
After driving the two types of vans I decided I would rather have a Honda. I know a lot of people with Honda Odysseys and they all love their vans. I took home some information to my dear husband and we thought about it for a few days.
I have been wanting a minivan for a long time but when it came down to it none of the three vans I tried on Saturday felt right. I started looking online for used Odysseys and found one I really liked. I got really excited and called the dealership first thing Monday morning. I scheduled an appointment to see the van on Tuesday when Chris could come with me. However, when I checked back with them that afternoon the van had been sold. DARN!
Back to square one. After rolling it around in his head for a bit, Chris decided that a new 2008 van would be an option. He did some homework and found some tips online for buying a new car. He calculated approximately how much the dealership paid for the vehicle, added about $500 and said he would not take a higher price.
We scheduled a babysitter and headed out to the Honda dealership. Chris drove the '06 and liked it. Imagine our surprise when we went in to discuss prices and the sales manager offered a new van to us at $25 below the price we previously agreed would be a "good price". Before we could commit to anything, he came back and offered an even lower price. The only haggling that took place was with the price on our trade-in, a 1993 Honda Civic hatchback. All in all we got a great deal, stayed within our budget and got a brand new van for only a bit more than the "06 would have been. We are happy.

March Recipe

Creamy Chicken
4 chicken breasts
4 slices ham
4 slices provolone cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup light sour cream
Place chicken breasts in a pan and cover each with one slice ham and one slice provolone. Combine the soup and sour cream. Spoon over top of chicken. Cover, bake at 350 for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, depending on thickness of chicken breasts. Good served with mashed potatoes, rice or noodles.
Optional: the original recipe calls for canned mushrooms. Spoon some over each chicken breast before topping with ham. Sounds good to me but my kids literally gag over mushrooms. It also called for putting the ham and cheese on after the chicken was baked. I found the flavor of the chicken to be enhanced when baked with the ham on it, but the cheese can go either way.

Grandma Heaven Again

I've had my little Lyssy Loo here for a week. We've had fun even though I ended up working five days in a row. Lyssy has been busy helping RaCail decorate for her Junior Prom so she didn't mind too much. Today (Sunday) we went to David and Brittney's baby blessing in the Third Ward, then to the Senior Citizen Center for a Brunch. That was different. They served all kinds of breakfast foods including pancake-and-sausage on a stick--almost like a corn dog. It was good to visit with all of the Messers--everybody except Paul and David. Gary looks really good and is looking for a new job. He said it would be six months before he could apply for disability and by that time he won't need it. So he's ready to get busy. He's still a little weak but willing to try. You should see Tracy. She has lost so much weight she is now smaller than her little daughter, Sarah. Roger was there with his little one-year-old girl. She is a cutie! I took a meal to Joyce yesterday and visited with her for a few minutes. Her eye surgery went well but she is having to keep her head bent over for a whole week. This is like having to strap down a roving antelope for a week. She is losing her sanity for sure. That's all the excitement in this house. How about the rest of you? We love you.

Patches and Pieces, New look!

Hey! Here's our new look at Patches and Pieces. Gone are the dark corners and cottage cheese ceiling. It is so refreshing to have a new look. Many customers just come in and gawk. They even venture to say, "Where is all the fabric?" Well, it's all there, just moved and reassigned to a different spot. I love it!

Dessert Club Response

Ok. I just realized there were replies to the Dessert Club post. Alison, you are on for March. Mom, you are April. You can do any kind of recipe you want. Anyone else want to join?

Generator

Hey, I like this family blog. I'm glad it's working! I loved the videos, posts and pictures.

Last week Chris took a day off. Yes, this is an occasion to blog because he hasn't taken a day off in a long time. Anyway, for a year we have been talking about getting a generator. We are on well water so when our electricity goes out we don't have water either. How do I know this? Our power has gone off several times over the past year for one reason or another and we have experienced the no water.

It took a lot of research, saving and feet dragging to get the job done but last week we finally got it hooked up. The reason Chris took the day off was so he could be here when the electricians showed up to hook it up. It went without a hitch.

After the electricians left we set Tristan up with a movie in the house (Kennedy was at her last day of preschool) and we went outside and hooked up the generator to test it and make sure we knew how to hook it up. It took us a few minutes to figure things out and we missed a step so we had to start over but we got it to work and I actually think I could do it myself. We feel much better knowing that if we were in an ice storm or hurricane that we could still have some power.

Here is cute Tristan on his couch where I found him after we figured out the generator. Isn't he cute? He fell asleep watching "Cars" his favorite movie.

Old man 1year away from 3/4 century mark

Yes we hosted the annual "pooping O the green" party. Sorry but thats what it is. When you use an entire bottle of green food coloring in the "green velvet" cake what do you expect? We had the usual corned beef and cabbage with potatos and carrots, asperagus, green frog eye salad, green punch, and last but not least, the offending green velvet cake with ice cream. It was a wonderful meal prepared by Marilee with some help from the rest of us, mostly Mary W. We had an enjoyable evening and capped it off with the Jazz winning one for the Old Man on his birthday. We also discovered that one of the new favorite Jazz players, Kyle Korver shares a birthday with Dad, aka Grandpa or Great Grandpa.

Video

Ok, here it is. Just know, the picture is much better in its non-youtube form. I filmed it with my new HD camera, and it looks sparkling clean, but youtube makes you condense them a ton. Anyway, here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS9dpYwxY0U
Just so you know, I cut out the actual asking part, he wanted me to just post the intro to it.

It's Birthday, and also Prom, Time.

Happy Birthday Dad. Hope it's a good one.
The big news of our past week was that Josh bit the bullet and asked a girl to prom. Josh sacrificed his collection of empty sports drink bottles (120 of them) to ask her. He made a path in her room with the bottles to a poster that said, "It would ELECTROLYTE my life if you would go to PROMade with me. He hasn't heard back from her yet. I'm hoping she doesn't give the bottles back with her answer.
Josh was also busy this past week helping his friends with their invitations. He helped one friend film a fun movie that I'm sure will melt the girl's heart. Josh was going to put it on Youtube. I'll see if I can get him to post the link to it.

Preschool Drama

Our life has been full of preschool drama the past few weeks. When we started out the year at Hope Creek we learned there would be a new director. We also learned that one of Kennedy's teachers was a woman from our ward. I felt good about sending Kennedy to this preschool and she LOVED the first half of the year. In December both of her teachers quit. This was not something new to the preschool. I think they have on of the original teachers from the beginning of the year.
Even though my friend quit she still substituted there on occasion. A few weeks ago we went on a ward temple trip and ended up carpooling with this woman. She gave me a bunch of information about Kennedy's new teacher that made me uncomfortable about keeping her at this particular preschool.
I wanted to find out for myself what was going on in the classroom so I met with the teacher and that made me feel better. I wondered if my friend was just disappointed that the new teacher didn't continue the same routine and activities as they had done. I was confused about what to do so I asked Kennedy what she thought. Immediately she said, "Mommy, take me out." I was a bit surprised because she has loved having time away from home doing her "own thing". I asked her why she wanted me to take her out and she replied, "Because sometimes Miss Carol yells at us."
That was the last thing I needed to hear. I meant to leave her in her class until the end of March since our tuition has been paid through the end of the month. However, when I met with the director to discuss the situation the reaction I got was not one of support but one of combative behavior. She basically invited me to not bring Kennedy back to preschool. I felt horrible. I didn't want to tell Kennedy that she was never going back to her preschool.
Last Wednesday was her last day. I didn't take her back after that. I am now doing things with her at home and she seems perfectly fine with that.
Next year we will try a different preschool.

Where is everybody?

I keep checking this blog and nobody has contributed for a while. Come on! Let's get going! Actually, I have a little bit of news from the Messer front. Karianne is finally getting a little Grandson and I'll bet you won't guess who is the producer. Yep! Pam! How did I find this out? Well, Karianne came into the fabric shop looking for "boy" fabric. She has been wanting to make a quilt for a boy for a long time and now she gets the chance. Tomorrow is your dad's (grandpa's) birthday. He had a funny question asked today at church. Dale Hollingshead asked him if his birthday fell on St. Patrick's Day every year. "Hello! That's the day I was born and I can't change it!!!!" Duh! We get to go to Ron's tomorrow night for the "green thing". We look forward to this every year. Love all of you.

Garden

We were busy planting last week. A few weeks ago we placed an online order for some fruit plants and landscaping plants. They came last Thursday just as I was winding down a play date at our house. I spent the next three hours placing some plants in our front landscape area. I would have taken a picture but it would have looked like dirt. The roots come dormant and so there is nothing growing yet. Maybe in a few weeks.
Friday we had some much needed rain. It rained all day.Last summer North Carolina experienced the worst drought in history. It seems it could rain all summer and we would not recover.
Saturday was still overcast but we worked out in the yard again. This time we planted 7 raspberry bushes, 20 strawberry plants and 1 rhubarb. Again, I would have taken a picture but it doesn't look like much. We do have some peas coming up in our garden though so I know the growing power is there.
I sure hope all this stuff works or it will be a lot of time and money misspent.

Little Finley

I talked with Ann tonight about Little Finley. Apparently she doesn't cry, just sleeps. Once in a while she will stick out her little tongue and Care takes it as a sign that she's hungry. She has managed to get her to take a few ounces of milk. Alan told her not to do that--it's just prolonging the inevitable. But how can you hold a baby and not feed it? That 's what we mothers do. I'm far away from that baby, don't know what she looks like, but I cry for her. And I cry for her mother and father and think how difficult it must be for them. Maybe I should pray for them instead. Maybe we should all pray for them.

Perpetual Bridesmaids, and Procrastination

I think I jinxed Josh. Not only did they not win their first game, they also lost their second. What a heartbreaker. For the past few years his team has reached the championship only to lose and end up number two, the perpetual bridesmaids. We can't even say better luck next time, because there will be no next time. Unless, yes, there's always intramurals at BYU. Maybe, just maybe . . .
Jeff learned a lesson on proctrastination today. In mid-January he jammed his finger--or so he thought. It was fat and purple. Go get it x-rayed, I said. But no. It'll get better, he said. Fast forward to six weeks later. The finger still fat, unable to straighten, he finally made it to the doctor to have an x-ray. The diagnosis was a chip in the joint. He has to wear a splint and slowly straighten it out. If all goes well, he can avoid surgery. This would have been a lot easier if you'd come in earlier, said the doctor. Lesson learned? We'll see.

Boise, here comes the Snyders!

We found some of Tyff's old clothes that Grandma Mary made, they're adorable on her! We had fun with the hat. Siennah says, "Thanks Great Grandma Mary!"
Well the move is tomorrow, the process has been going for much longer. Mom and I have been up in Salt Lake since Sunday, really really late. Trying to help get the apartment cleaned and packed up. Tonight Brendon brought up a trailer from his work to load their stuff, come to find out that they have WAY more things than we thought and there's not nearly enough room for all of it in the trailer and 2 trucks. So we rented a Uhaul and will pick it up in the morning and finish loading so we can head to Boise. The best part of this for ME is that my job most of the time we've been here, has been to take care of baby Siennah. Mwahaha we are both oh so spoiled. It has been amazing to just play with her and to see her get smarter everyday and keep learning new things. She has the cutest baby giggle and I'm going to go insane without being able to hear it everyday. We've been trying to get her to talk and say grandma, or Lyssa and a few times there's been a little "gamma, or uh uh." It's so adorable to see her try to talk and understand things.
Well I better go help clean, wish this cute little family luck in their new home and new town.

Face Lift

I have been working at Patches and Pieces now for six years. I am a fixture! In that time I have watched it change hands and I am still there. The new owner relies on me for my "expert" advice and never-ending attempt to keep the customer quilts moving through the long-arm quilting machine. We have become comfortable in our roles until a rumbling at the mouth of the canyon upset the balance. Michelle McNeil owns the Rockhouse Quilt Store up there and she has suddenly decided to give Patches and Pieces a little competition. She has ordered megabolts of fabric and is offering classes, block-of-the-month club, retreats, and long-arm quilting with a GRAND OPENING on the 7th of April. (She incidentally offered me a job with a sizeable increase in pay. I decided I couldn't accept her offer in good conscience. ) Jackie cries every day. I finally said, "Jackie, you need to get a jump on her. What you need to do is give this place a face lift and I know just the person to do it. " Of course, I was thinking of Linda Healy and her son, Will. They are the ones who transformed our home with paint and texture. Jackie went right to the phone and had Will there the next day. Today the cottage cheese ceiling went bye-bye and tomorrow the paint begins. We are closing for two days for the transformation. I can hardly wait to see what happens. It will be refreshing. We are planning a "Make-over" sale for the 29th & 30th of March. We can play the game, too!

The annual basket case

Last year I wrote a post on my blog about turning into a basketball basket case whenever I watched Josh play. Well, here we are again. This is tournament week for the rec league, and his team plays for the championship on Thursday evening. At stake, bragging rights among the junior and senior boys of Lehi High. Not much else. So why does it make me so nervous? I sit there and rub my hands together and yell, loudly. You know me. I'm not a loud person, normally, but that was my voice last night echoing through the gym. How embarrassing. After one play, I called out, "Beautiful!" Megyn turned to me. "Mom, did you just say beautiful?" "I did," I confirmed. And she went off into a fit of giggles. Then she had to tell Tamsyn.
Well, hopefully they'll win their first game Thursday, and the embarrassement will end. It's double elimination so if they lose they'll have to play right after. I'm sure Josh will do his best so he won't have to put up with his mother any more than he has to.