We’re still alive!

Hi, family!  I finally got around to sending some news from Louisiana.  It’s been fun for me to read what’s happening with all of you who have posted your news.  I would like to read news of my siblings, too.  In case any of you don’t know, I work at Teche Electric Supply in Baton Rouge, and three of my children work with me:  Doug is the warehouse manager and over about 10 people, Kim is in purchasing, and Tara works in the warehouse under Doug as a receiver.  Doug still lives with me but is looking for a house to buy.  He’s done an amazing job getting this warehouse organized.  We had just moved into the building we are in a couple of months before he came to work here, and it was in total disarray - not just with material not having places yet, but there were no procedures or rules in place.  He got it organized in quite a short time.  Ryan and his three children live with me, as he and his wife got a divorce last year.  Ryan works for an electrical contractor in Baton Rouge, and they think very highly of him.  I believe he is next in line to be promoted to being one of the guys who runs projects.  His kids are Paisley, age 8 (almost 9), Rhagen, age 7, and Jack, age 2, (almost 3).  I can’t believe how fast they’ve grown up!  Lisa has been a school teacher for about 6 or 7 years now (I never can remember) and does an excellent job.  She teaches at a school that has a very high percentage of black children who have really bad home lives and therefore, are frequently discipline problems.  She had trouble with that the first couple of years but has learned how to deal with it.  She now has children who absolutely adore her.  She recently separated from her husband, but they’re good friends, so it will be okay.  I never thought they had anything in common, so it didn’t surprise me, although it saddened me.  Lisa’s kids are Sadie, age 6, and Dominic, age 1 (2 in Nov.).  They look just like their father.  They’re beautiful kids, but I sure would have liked Lisa to have a child that looked like her since she’s so pretty. Tyson works at another electrical supply in Inside Sales.  He recently got a job offer to go to work for Siemens Energy & Automation (the gear manufacturer whose products we sell), but when he told his boss about the offer, they gave him a huge raise to keep him.  Two weeks ago Tyson married a cute girl he’s been dating for 2-1/2 years.  Her name is Hannah, and she’s really a sweet girl.  She fits in our family very well.  Tyson has a son, Chandler, from his first marriage.  Chandler is 7, will be 8 in October, and is very tall for his age.  He is taking after his dad and is really a good kid.  Kim has done a great job since moving to purchasing in December.  She does the purchasing for four branches.  Her baby, Kaelyn, will be 10 months old next Monday, and is just so precious.  She has recently figured out how to do like an Indian sound, patting her mouth with her hand while making noise.  She walks around furniture, and Kim is looking forward to her walking and getting into even more stuff!  Tara has been working at Teche for almost 3 months, and it was wonderful getting someone with a brain to do the receiving.  She picked it up so fast.  It’s nice to have her work here because before she came here, I only got to see her usually for a short time every couple of weeks or so.  She was working as a waitress before, and she stayed at her boyfriend’s house most of the time.  Now she is here with me at work, and she broke up with that boyfriend so is back home.  Most days she eats her lunch in my cubicle, and we get to talk.  So I love having so many of my children around me every day.  As for me, I’m not real happy with my job, but I’m dealing with it the best I can.  I do have quite a bit of freedom and perks here.  I just don’t feel very respected by the manager.  Anyway, besides work, I usually go to the temple every Tuesday evening and play volleyball every Thursday evening.  I just went back to the temple for the first time in over 20 years in January.  It makes me feel so good to be there, so I try to go every week.  I have to make up for a lot of lost time.  Well, that’s about it for our family for now.  I keep praying that my kids will have the desire to go back to church.  I was told that when you go to the temple, your children are blessed.  I’m trusting that’s true.  So, everyone, take care!

Amy’s Blog

For any who are interested, Amy just started up a blog yesterday so that she could post information about her adorable little daughter. She’s only put up one post so far…but it can only go up from here! She posts to it at her job, so it probably won’t be updated every single day. Here’s the link: smileymylie.blogspot.com. So there you go! Enjoy!

P.S. Bryson and I are having troubles figuring out how to post pictures (yes, even my Computer Science major of a husband). I think it’s because we have Vista because I’ve read the how-to and it doesn’t seem that hard, but what my computer does doesn’t match what the how-to says it should do. If anyone else out there is also running Vista and has posted pictures, let me know because it’s driving me crazy!

T-Ball

Thought that I shoudl post something about my little family since I haven’t yet so here it is.  Sorry for those of you who read my blog too.  It is the same.

During the summer here everyone plays baseball or softball and this year they decided to let four year olds play t-ball. They play t-ball for three years, 4 yr old, 5 yr old, and 6 yr old. We only have 10 games every Monday and Wednesday this month. I decided to take some pictures of Ashton playing. He really seems to like it and actually plays instead of doing airplanes in the outfield, like his dad use to do. The first couple of pics he is playing short stop   and then he was the last one on his team to bat so he got to run around all the bases like a home run. He even slide into home with his shorts on because his dad told him to as he rounded third(Cortney was the third base coach).

  The last pic is of him the next inning playing first base. He didn’t quite get the concept of not going after the ball but going to his base and waiting for people to throw the ball to him. But he does have a couple of more years to perfect his t-ball game. About our second game with the twins running wild, I realized that in about 3 years Dylan and the Twins will be playing t-ball and Ashton will be on coach pitch and then the next year. I think Ashton will be in the league where the players pitch, the twins will both be on different coach pitch teams and Dylan will still be in t-ball. I guess I will camp out at the park all summer long every night.

Hicks update

We have felt impressed that we should move back to Michigan.  Charlie was the one who first felt the inspiration and we’ve been praying and pondering for a few months now.  We have decided to follow the Lord, even though we don’t really know why yet.  Charlie doesn’t have a job in Michigan yet, but is applying for them and we are hoping something will work out.  He will also start his masters program this fall, probably at Eastern Michigan.  We are going to stay in a friend’s house.  They moved to North Carolina and haven’t sold their house in Michigan yet.  We hope to be able to help them sell it while we are there.  This is an interesting time in ours lives, to be relying on such blind faith, but I know the Lord has a plan for us.  I just wish I knew a little more about that plan though. 

Family prayers

Trish emailed me yesterday and told me that Brandee has broken her wrist and may need surgery.  Mary doesn’t have insurance yet because she just started a new job.  Trish asked me to pray for Brandee that she wouldn’t need to have surgery.  I just thought I’d pass the news along for the rest of the family to pray for as well.

Kurt’s wife, Heather, and her family have been going through some rough times with illnesses and deaths.  Would you keep her and her family in your prayers as well?  Thanks!  Love you guys!

Mother Teresa update

I guess I should answer this since I am one of her only children living in Ephraim that checks this blog.  My mom is doing okay.  The first week has hard because she was just tired and worn out.  This week she has gone back to work half days because of being tired but I think other than that she is doing good.  I will talk to her and see if she would feel up to getting on the blog and posting.

Aunt Terrie

I was just wondering if anyone knows how Aunt Terrie is doing since her surgery. 

Update

Hello family! So, since Amy doesn’t have internet and my dad’s so busy all the time, I guess it falls to me to keep the family updated on our status. As you probably all know, Amy had a baby on March 25 at exactly 1 am. Labor only lasted four and a half hours! Amy did great once she got the epidural :) I attached a picture…she is the cutest little girl and therefore provides innumerable photo opportunities! But I limited myself to only one picture. They named her Mylie Nicole (name was chosen before Miley Cyrus was popular), which made me feel so cool. I’ve never had a baby named after me before :) The baby blessing is on June 8. Sacrament meeting begins at 10:50 am. Call my dad if you want to know how to get there.

So I’m still up in Rexburg, just working full time until Bryson finishes school next April. After that we’re hoping he gets an internship with the Church in SLC and I can finally move back to Utah! He’s going into computer programming, same as my dad (which is kinda creepy), but I didn’t know that until after we started dating. It’s a pretty good field right now so I don’t mind too much. It’s just really ironic. Currently, I work for an organization called Orphanage Support Services. We are a non-profit organization that sends volunteers to Ecuador to work in orphanages. It’s a pretty good job–not high paying because it’s non-profit, but a good job even still. And for those who are wondering (because everyone always seems to be) we are notplanning on having kids until Bryson graduates and I get some health insurance…

As for my dad, as I mentioned, he’s pretty busy because he’s currently working two jobs. He works at one job four days a week for ten hours, which leaves him Fridays to work at his other job. He still manages to find time to see his cute granddaughter quite often, though. His Mazda just died, even though it’s only eight or nine years old, so he had to buy a new car–a silver Corolla, just like his favorite married daughter (that would be me).

So I guess that’s all for now. I’m not sure whether I’m actually going to post very often since life doesn’t seem to change much in my neck of the woods. Just thought everyone may enjoy an update.

A Few Things

This is the best picture I have of Paul and his new bride Brownwyn at their reception on Saturday.  They were married Friday April 25-this past Friday.  I don’t have any pictures from the wedding, we weren’t invited.  But if Karen or Deena gets on, I’m sure they have pictures galore and ones better than this.

The other picture is of our baby-I took it yesterday-he is 3 months old!  Eric picked out his onsie, I think it’s clever.  He is getting so big-between 15 and 16 lbs we figure.  He smiles and laughs and we have a good time, most of the time. 

Confusion, insanity and hope…….

It is rare that I get a minute to do anything but work and do things at home, but I threw over everything tonight and decided that I really should get on this blog.  I agree wholeheartedly with Shirley that I would like to see other families, especially our two computer geeks (kendall and rick) give us some news.  I know Amy’s baby blessing is coming up and there are many other things going on that we would love to hear about.  Maybe if we all e-mail them and overwhelm them with e-mails, they will finally get the message.  Trish, Mary, Sue, Judy….are you listening?!?  Anyway…..work is insane as always.  Glen is busy trying to get annual reports and quarterly reports done for the office.  Emily is busy studying for her finals at Snow for this semester.   She will graduate in December and then is thinking possibly of going to Southern Virginia University.   It is a good liberal arts school and she really would like to graduate in English, teach it and then be an author on the side.  She has about a billion notebooks full of stories.  We’ll see.  We are encouraging her to leave Utah, though.  We think it is a good idea to get out and enjoy other states and meet people outside the church.  It does wonders for your perspective.  One bit of news from our arena—-for several months now, my health has been going down hill.  Mainly because I can’t control the stress that I am under at work, mainly because there are some people at work who are not doing their job and we end up working 10-12 hours a day.  Anyway….Dr. Bob (Armstrong) and I discussed this and basically he said if I want to live, then I need to do something drastic and so we decided that I need to have lap band surgery.  So on May 5th, I will have a lap band put into place.   I actually am very excited for this as I do have the exercise bit down, but now the eating.  Food has become an escape so this will help immensely.  It is also the safest and fastest.  It is outpatient surgery and I am home that afternoon so it will be good.   The mortality rate for gastric bypass surgery is about 1 in 25 for women over 50 so I wasn’t ready to accept those odds.   Anyway…..this will be interesting because I can only 1/4 cup of food and for the first two weeks, all I can eat is liquids and then a little thicker liquids that I can suck through a straw—think blended vegetable soup.   So, we’ll see what happens.  I will keep everyone updated on my progress.  Hopefully it will reverse what is going on.  Well, I better go pay bills or they will come and turn off the electricity and then I can’t blog anymore.   Thanks, Sarah for helping me get on and I will try and get Emily and Glen to write something too—-are you listening the rest of you husbands!!!