Go Jazz!

The Jazz beat the Clippers last night 121-101. Hooray! This definitely made up for their poor showing against the Clippers in February.

This win was a result of which of the following:

a) It was Jerry Sloane's birthday yesterday and they were all anxious to get to the "hoe-down" that was being held after the game (Jerry's words, not mine)
b) Boozer and D Will are great ball players
c) President Thomas S. Monson was among the crowd, cheering the Jazz on
d) all of the above

I'll let you decide.

Zak's Quiz Results

This is what Zak came up with:

Which Peanuts Character Are You?
	You are part Schroeder. You are brilliant, ambitious, and brooding; you tackle tasks with extreme focus. People don't always interest you as much as other pursuits, though, so you can come off as aloof.
	You are part Snoopy. You have a vivid imagination and lead a rich inner life. Everyone likes you, but some don't understand that you may just be of another species.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Hogwarts House Would You Be In?
	The Sorting Hat would put you in Gryffindor. You are bold, passionate, and brave. You have a highly-defined sense of right and wrong, and you are not afraid to speak your mind or fight for what you want.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which 24 Character Are You?
	You are Jack Bauer. You are an aggressive and heroic figure. You think rules are only for kids, and try to break them at least once everyday (or hour). You like to get help from others especially your best friends. To complete a task, you are willing to do whatever it takes - be it the right way or the wrong one. Also, you could totally kick Chuck Norris' a**.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Looks like we are pretty closely aligned... except for the Snoopy-other-species thing. Who'd've thunk it? Also, I'm quite impressed that Zak is Jack Bauer. He's the coolest.

More Quizzes

Okay, these are fun. You guys should really try some of them.

Which Hogwarts House Would You Be In?
	The Sorting Hat would put you in Gryffindor. You are bold, passionate, and brave. You have a highly-defined sense of right and wrong, and you are not afraid to speak your mind or fight for what you want.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?
	You are part Hermione. You're a bookworm always in search of answers. When pressed, however, you can always be counted on to put away the books and help your friends.
	You are part Fred and George. You're a joker at heart, but when push comes to shove, you know what's important.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which 24 Character Are You?
	You are Bill Buchanan. You are a law abiding citizen and in your world, rules are the driving force behind anything and everything. Your leadership charisma is something talked about by others, and instead of doing things differently you do different things. You have an uncanny knack of staying calm in tense situations and your tone is testimony to that. Keep the cool attitude and you will surely overcome the most perilous situations.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

I have to admit... I was hoping for a little more Jack (who wouldn't want to be like Jack Bauer?) or Chloe (she hasn't died yet through six seasons). But Bill is pretty stinkin' cool, too.

Which Peanuts Character Are You?

I saw this on my sister and brother-in-law's blog and thought it was fun. This is me:

Which Peanuts Character Are You?
	You are part Sally Brown. You may not be the most ambitious person, but life isn't supposed to be hard! You are relaxed and easy-going, but you can hold your ground when you want, too.
	You are part Schroeder. You are brilliant, ambitious, and brooding; you tackle tasks with extreme focus. People don't always interest you as much as other pursuits, though, so you can come off as aloof.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Thanks to Dave for helping me figure out how to put it on my blog!!

Our Saturday Getaway

Zak and I decided to get out of Logan on Saturday and go see my grandma in Murray. We met my sisters Carolyn and Nicole at our grandma's place and had a nice visit with her. She gave all of us hugs as we walked into her room and when it was Zak's turn to hug her, she said something like, "Oh, now here's the one I like!" What a cute grandma. At the end of the visit, we gave hugs again and she asked Zak, "Do I get another one?" I thought it was very sweet. And he's such a cute boy that I had to include the second picture!
After our visit with Grandma, during which we covered the basics of Jazz basketball, the impending remodeling of her assisted living center, and how everyone else in the family is doing, Zak, Carolyn, Nicole, and I went to Taco Bell. It's the one thing that could possibly qualify as a pregnancy craving, although I think that's overstating the matter. I don't crave it really, it just always sounds good. Gross, I know. But I have heard of grosser cravings.
Anyway, here is a funny story about our Taco Bell visit. We all ordered and went to sit down. Carolyn and I immediately decided we needed to use the restroom (can't imagine why), so we were gone when the food came. I ordered two Baja steak gorditas because they are the best thing I've had there. I unwrapped my first gordita, added some mild sauce, and dug in. In between the conversation, I made it through the first one and went to unwrap the second one. As I opened the the wrapper, I noticed that half of it was missing! It looked like someone had taken a couple of bites out of the gordita. I looked at it and said, "What in the world?" as I looked around the table at my sisters and husband. I was beginning to feel a little grossed out that someone behind the counter might've been snacking on my food before putting it on my tray. I was debating on whether or not to march up to the counter and ask for a new gordita when Zak started laughing. He had taken a couple of bites and re-wrapped the gordita because he wanted to try what I was having -- he has never eaten a Baja steak gordita before. When I realized that it was fine before he got his hands on it, I felt much better. For a minute there, I wondered if there had been something wrong with the other gordita I had just eaten and wondered if I just hadn't noticed it. Whew! A narrow escape. Zak makes me laugh!
After lunch, we went to the Gateway Mall to check out the maternity section at Old Navy. This is the only observation I have to make about that: I don't think that people should wear tube tops as a general rule. What in the world makes anyone think that a tube top during pregnancy is a good idea? I shudder to envision all the many mishaps that could ensue....
After our quick stop at the mall, we went to Layton and visited Zak's sister Britt and her husband Kurt. We got to see their son Ethan, who is so very cute and getting bigger all the time. He'll be crawling pretty soon, which is exciting! He is such a happy little boy and smiles a lot. We also got to see their new pug, Remy. He's pretty darn cute, too. It was nice to hang out and talk with Britt and Kurt, and also very nice of them to take us to dinner at Lee's Mongolian BBQ in Ogden. It was a great little place and Zak and I loved it! It is definitely a place we'd like to eat at again. We headed home after dinner, fully satisfied with our fun Saturday getaway.

I Love Music

Sometimes you're just having one of those days, you know? I'm having one of those days today, and I needed cheering up. So I plugged in my headphones and set the player on shuffle. It's amazing how much better I feel after listening to some great songs. So thanks, U2, Neil, Fleetwood Mac, and so many others... Styx, John Denver, the Beatles, Keane, Paul Simon, Chris Isaak, Guster... I could go on forever. I'm glad talented people have made and continue to make good music for the rest of us to enjoy.
Maybe it makes me feel better just because it takes my mind off of things. Or maybe it reminds me of happy times. It doesn't really matter to me -- as long as it keeps working!

Big Muscles and Squished Bread

I love that life with Zak is never dull. He always knows how to cheer me up. A few nights ago, he was sitting on the side of the bed flexing his muscles for me. He wanted me to admire how huge his biceps are, which I obligingly did. To be even more macho, he flexed and then punched his biceps. He did this several times until I was suitably impressed, and then we went on with getting ready for bed. He finally admitted a little later that his arms both really hurt after hitting them so hard. What a funny kid!

Last night Zak was having a few slices of bread, again just before bed. He could live on white bread and water. I know white bread isn't very good for you, but he hates wheat bread. So what're you going to do? Give the man his white bread, I say. Anyway, he likes to crush it up into a hard ball and then sort of nibble on it. I'm not sure why there's the fascination with squishing the bread up first... whatever. Anyway, he thought it would be funny to see if it bounced off my forehead. Answer: It did. Several times.

I wish that I had some pictures to share with you on this post... but I don't. We have purchased rechargeable batteries for our camera and have even used them in the camera to take some pictures, but Taylor is now borrowing our camera for a school project, so it'll be a bit before we have it back and will be taking pictures to post.

In Case You are Wondering

There will be no nudie pictures (or any other kind of pictures on this post)…but to the satisfaction of all, our baby is a boy! Yep, for those of you who didn’t already know, I am pregnant and we found out on Thursday that our little baking bun is definitely a boy. We are both really happy and excited about the news.
I feel a need to explain the first line of the post a little bit. Zak and I co-authored this post and that was one of his contributions. He really doesn’t like naked baby pictures. And technically, since the baby is naked in the ultrasound pictures, Zak didn’t want to post any of them. He has vowed that there will be no naked baby pictures of our children.
According to Barb, our little guy looks like me. Zak says, “Hopefully it’s okay for him to have a girl face on a dude body.” I think our baby has a great profile. Very cute. And that’s enough said about that.
The current due date is August 1st, but at the ultrasound we found out that we are probably one week further along than previously thought, so that date might be moving up just slightly. In any case, we are hoping that our baby doesn’t take after me in that regard. I was due on September 28th and born on October 13th.
Zak is really looking forward to having someone he can wrestle with. I am not much fun anymore now that I fall asleep at 8:30 or 9:00 most nights. He says he’ll give our baby a break for the first few days after birth, but then he’d better be ready to rumble. I’m thinking there may be some maternal intervention should Zak try to wrestle with our newborn. (I’m just kidding, I know he wouldn’t do that.)
We wanted to share the news with everyone – have a great weekend!

Hanging Windows

My brothers-in-law Rhett and Burke say on their blog that they when they look at blogs, they just want to look at pictures, not read. So even though I am putting totally random (and not always very attractive) pictures on my blog that I get from Google Images, hopefully it is more fun to read my blog because I now have pictures.
On Saturday morning I had the choice of staying home by myself and doing laundry or going to work with Zak and his dad for a few hours in Smithfield. They needed to hang some windows on one of the houses that his dad is building and I said I would come and offer whatever help I could, though it probably wouldn't be much. I don't think I did turn out to be much help, but I can say now that I have helped to hang windows.
Naturally these windows above look nothing like the windows we hung in the house on Saturday, but that's mostly because the house is framed in, but that's all. It's nothing by 2x4s and plywood and cement at this point.
All I had to do was hold the window in the opening while Larry and Zak measured and got it square in the opening and then Larry put screws in so I could let go of it. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to hold the window in because they were pretty heavy (Zak said they were pretty light compared to other windows... yikes!), but luckily I was able to hang on to them.
I also got to use a staple hammer (who knows if that's really the right name for it) to attach some insulating stuff along the bottom of the window openings. It was pretty fun! And pretty cold. I was glad to get back in the car and go home.
The Jazz played the Nuggets on Saturday night and it was a fun game to watch! They beat them 132-105. We were impressed that they went into the half with 70 points or more. They were finally playing really well together and we're hoping that they're going to keep it up for these next four road games! Go Jazz!

The Countdown is On!

Zak has 30 days of student teaching left as of today! At his request, I made a paper chain similar to this paper chain pictured above, but I didn't take a picture of my paper chain. It's so much easier to search Google Images to find what I need than to actually take a picture, put it on the computer, and then save it to my jump drive. I am so lazy when it comes to things like this. My lovely paper chain is made of construction paper in a pattern of yellow, blue, orange, red, and brown, and is hanging by the door in the kitchen so that Zak can rip a link off every day when he walks in the door. It's the simple things in life that make you happy, right?

His last day is April 24th, so he's got 30 days left in the classroom, obviously not counting weekends and Spring Break. I thought I would post about it so that you can all celebrate with us when the day arrives. He is also happy about the timing of the ending of student teaching for another Very Important Reason, which is that Mario Kart for the Wii comes out on April 28th. It has bikes!! The game is going to be his you-made-it-through-student-teaching/graduation present. I am sure that he and his brothers will have some late nights, starting April 28th. I think he deserves it! He has worked really hard this semester.

I should mention here that he does like student teaching. But it's a countdown to graduation (which has been a long time coming -- I am so proud of him!!) as well as a countdown to the end of student teaching. Graduation is May 3rd and 4th.

About the student teaching: Zak has some students that are really responsive and participate and like his lessons, and he really enjoys that part of teaching. It's the ones who disrupt class and don't show up and don't turn in their assignments that make it less fun... but that's all a part of teaching! We talk a lot about his lesson plans and what he wants to teach, and I am constantly amazed by the cool ideas that Zak has to make learning more fun for the students. He is already a great teacher and will be fantastic wherever he ends up teaching!

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In other unrelated news, our furnace stopped working on Wednesday night while we were sleeping. We woke up very cold on Thursday morning (it was about 5 degrees above outside) and heard our landlord banging around in the basement, trying to fix the furnace. We figure our neighbor called him to come and fix it. She is in her seventies and doesn't deal well with the cold. This is our "ant advice" neighbor. She's a nice lady, even if her advice doesn't work.

The furnace seems to be working okay now after a visit from some heating/cooling technicians, although we had to put the thermostat on 80 last night in order to get it to run. But better to be a little too warm all night long than to be freezing, in my opinion.

I am looking forward to the day that we can move! I think we've put in our time in this place -- it's been 3 years and 8 months, and it's definitely time for a change. Where and when we move will depend on where Zak gets a teaching job -- so we hope that we can find out within the next few months where that will be!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Our Battle with the Ants

If all ants were as nice-looking and seemingly pleasant as this little guy with his cup of juice or whatever (plucked from Google images), I wouldn't be so annoyed with the species in general. However, due to the fact that they have been positively swarming in my kitchen and bathroom over the last week, I'm feeling less than friendly toward ants currently.
We have had ants off and on the whole time we've lived in this house. But it has never been as bad as this time. If we had batteries in the camera I would've taken some pictures to share. Alas, we do not have batteries in the camera. I keep forgetting to buy them. And when I do, Zak usually needs the batteries for far more important things, like powering his Wii-mote so that he can conquer all the galaxies in Super Mario Galaxy.
Sunday morning was just about the limit for me. The ants were having some sort of swingin' party on the kitchen floor. They were everywhere! I put down ant bait traps with poison in them on Thursday and I guess that was all the invitation they needed to come out and play. At that point, all I could do was get ready for church and just leave it. I knew that the poison would work sooner or later. It was actually working quite well by the end of the day yesterday.
This morning as I crunched into the kitchen (wearing my flip flops, of course), I noticed that the floor was absolutely littered with ant carcasses. There was also a mass grave in the bathroom by the tub.
Thankfully I had enough time before leaving for work this morning to sweep out the kitchen so it is now carcass-free and to vacuum the bathroom floor (since it is carpeted-yuck) and get rid of all the little crunchies in there.
At one point last fall our neighbor recommended talking to the ants. She said to just very reasonably and calmly explain that this was our home and that they weren't welcome there, and that they needed to leave and go back outside where they belonged. She assured us that they would leave very shortly after this one-sided conversation took place. Regret to inform, this is not the case.
But, remembering that conversation with the neighbor last fall, Zak got down on the floor Saturday night and informed all the little ants that if they didn't get out of our house very soon that they were all going to die. I feel that our method was more effective than the neighbor's. What do you think?

One post script I feel that I must include: We are not dirty people. In fact, I am a compulsive cleaner. I may not vacuum every day, but I do it at least twice a week. And I sweep the kitchen floor regularly as well. In fact, I scrubbed the kitchen floor on hands and knees last Wednesday. I guess the ants decided they would rather stay inside and not freeze instead of going outside and freezing, since we're still getting snow off and on. I guess those ants learned their lesson this time...