Happy Birthday Megan!

It's true. Megan is getting older (read "more attractive"). I know what you're thinking. You're saying (aloud), "Nathan, that's great and all, but what's in it for me?" Well, faithful readers and blog stalkers alike, let me answer your question: that just means that Megan is now even more fun to hang out with and more fun to talk to since there are now more things to talk about than ever before. I know you can hardly believe it, but it's true. Megan is better than ever.

This past weekend I took a whirlwind trip from Indiana to Arizona to see my brother's farewell talk, er, last sacrament meeting speaking assignment before leaving on his mission to Taiwan. Let me define "whirlwind":

First, get up at 6:30 a.m. ET on Saturday morning to be ready to leave by 7:15 a.m. in order to be at the airport at 8:15 a.m. for a 9:00 a.m. flight. Fly for 6 hours and arrive in Arizona at 12:30 p.m. MT. Laugh at what happened to your sister's luggage from her flight earlier in the day; her suitcase looks like a piece of cardstock that got stuck going through a paper shredder. Rehearse musical number for the non-farewell program at church the next day. Eat lunch with the family. Go bowling with the family. Play Mormon bridge with the family until 12:30 a.m. MT--which is 3:30 a.m. ET. Oh, and by the way, do all this with Max with you since he's a lap child and could travel for free and enable Megan to get a small reprieve.

Next, wake up at 7:00 a.m. to get ready to leave for church at 8:20 a.m. so you get there in time to rehearse the musical number one more time. Realize you don't have keys to the car to get to church. Miraculously, have a family friend who came down from Phoenix arrive at your house just in time to pick you all up and take you to church. Sing in the program. Listen to Craig give a very impressive not-a-farewell-but-just-a-regular-speaking-assignment talk. (Did I mention it's not a "farewell"?) Leave church early so you can go home, change, eat and load up your bags. Go to the airport. Fly to Houston. Have a 3-hour layover in Houston with no other flights leaving for Indiana until the one you're booked on. Have your flight delayed 1.5 hours due to mechanical problems. Arrive in Indiana at 1:15 a.m. ET. Drive home and get in bed by 2:30 a.m. Oh, and by the way, do all this with Max with you since he's a lap child and could travel for free and enable Megan to get a small reprieve.

Then, wake up less than 3 hours later before 5:00 a.m. to catch a 7:00 a.m. flight to D.C. for work. Drive back to the airport and park in the exact same parking spot you left just 3.5 hours earlier. Use the flight time to D.C. to prepare for a meeting you have at 1:00 p.m. with a VP at your client.

So, let's recap. 1) Megan is awesome. Happy Birthday! 2) Max and I had some good father/son bonding time. 3) Mr. Webster apparently defined "whirlwind" incorrectly. 4) I had a great time with my family in Arizona. 5) I'm so tired...so very tired...

Summertime and SPF 25

It has come to my attention that I have been booed. Boo noted. Now, let's move on.

It's summertime. That means that Megan and the kids spend as many hours participating in water-related activities as time and patience allow. Take the 4th of July (the actual 4th of July, not the 28th of June) for example. Megan's parents set up the Slip-N-Slide in the back yard and Ali and Kaitlyn (as well as their cousins Grant and Gavin) took turns zooming down the plastic on miniature rafts trying to get enough momentum to slide off onto the grass. The warning label on the box said that the Slip-N-Slide wasn't intended for use by adults and that serious injury or death could result. I'm glad it's safe for six-year olds but too dangerous for the over-18 crowd!

The neighborhood pool has also become a favorite destination. Now that Alison knows how to swim, she working on perfecting her underwater handstands, her flips off the side, her diving down to the bottom, her floating, and her sinking. Kaitlyn is gaining more and more confidence in "swimming" with her floaties on. Max is learning to splash in the kiddie wader pool. Megan is perfecting her lifeguarding and multi-tasking skills.


Megan is the S.P.F.--Schizophrenic Project Female. My "honey do" list is ever growing and contains such items as "remove extra planks from blinds," "plant grass seed," and "organize garage." I had thought that my list was pretty comprehesive. Surely, I thought, if I were able to work on the items on the list I'd be a good husband in deed. Strangely, various and sundry items that aren't even on my radar have suddenly surged in importance. Yesterday, while I was in the backyard pitching the wiffle ball to Alison, Megan thought we should start picking all of the rocks out of the grass-dirt. Today as I was getting ready to blog, she started ironing the curtains and needed a hand. I'm pretty sure that my "honey do" list has invisible ink. Seriously though, it's been fun making our house a home together.

Oh yeah, and I didn't have to travel this week. No boo there.

This Week's Excuse

So, I missed blogging yesterday. I can't be held responsible. I was on a flight from Indiana to Chicago. And, I didn't have access to a computer. And, I spent the time after church packing and getting ready so I couldn't do it then. Plus, it's society's fault. (Seriously, sorry. I'm posting now.)

Well, I've officially started working post-MBA school; today was my first day. It was incredibly fun just hanging out at home, working on projects for the house, making it nice, and spending time with Megan and the kids. Unfortunately, our savings wasn't going to support that lifestyle much longer. So, back to work it is! Since I'll be traveling a bit, we've invested in a pair of web-cams--and may I just say, it is awesome. Virtually awesome. What a world we live in when we can still do our evening bedtime ritual virtually! It's great to be able to still see and hear and be a part (read: "still able to reprimand the children") of things even though I'm away.

More picture forthcoming complete with stories from last week "soon."

The Big Reveal

Drumroll please! Megan's new calling is...Sunbeam Teacher! And, Kaitlyn will be in her class. Megan starts next Sunday. It was a bit of a surprise since she just came from Primary in the last ward. But, she's going to be great!

Additionally, we also finished the front room painting project I mentioned last week. Here is a picture of the room before we did anything to it.


We learned from painting our "big red wall" at our Utah house that you have to give the kids a chance to paint under your supervision or you will get unwanted help when you're not looking (although Max was still somehow able to get a hold of a stir stick and paint his pants in 15-seconds of inattention). So, here's a picture of the room during the process, complete with helpers.


Finally, (drumroll again please), here's the "big reveal" of the finished product.

The video came out a little dark, so here are some regular, non-video images for your viewing enjoyment:

Over the course of our 3-ish weeks in the new house we've hung 18 sets of 2" blinds, painted 1 room, built 1 scrapbooking desk, worked on 1 general home repair to be blogged about in detail later, painted 1 desk and 1 bookcase, assembled 1 bookcase and 1 leather chair, and had 4 ceiling fans and 1 overhead light installed. Megan has starting calling me a work-a-holic. I didn't realize that MBA school got me addicted to workahol. Actually, I've been thinking that I need to start work just to get a break from vacation.

Ok. Enough about the house projects. You're probably as tired of hearing about them as I am tired of doing them. Let me regail you with some stories about the kids.

A couple of days ago Alison asked me for any "spare parts" that I had lying around the house. I was able to come up with some Scotch® tape, a hanger, a single 2" blind, a popsicle stick and some clothespins. Using her McGyver-like ingenuity, she was able to create the following "invention":


(Note the camera in front which she added and the "Smile!" sign in the back.)

Kaitlyn, of course, wanted to be just like her older sister and demanded that I help her to create her own invention "just like Alison's." As I took her picture with her own (which I guess she can claim as her own since Ali hadn't filed any patents yet like I asked) "invention", she loudly exclaimed, "Happy Invention Day!"


Happy Invention Day indeed.


Finally, last night we enjoyed a wonderful fireworks celebration sponsored by the city in the park for the 4th of July, or, as the people of Indianapolis call it, the 28th of June.


The kids felt cool that we let them stay up until midnight, even though they all crashed within 4 or 5 minutes of getting in the car to go home.

"Honey Do's" and House Projects

First of all, we love our new house. Love it. It was built in 2005, but the people who built it should probably never have been given a mortgage in the first place--it apparently went into foreclosure within the year. After that, some investors bought it and never lived in it. So, we're the third owners, but it's basically a new house. The downside is that there is so much that we want to do to it--no thanks to HGTV for giving us dozens of ideas that look really fast and super easy on a 30-minute TV program but that are a little bit more labor and dollar intensive to pull off in real life.

Our maiden project was working on our cheap Sauder computer desk because we figured we could ruin it without feeling too bad.

Here's the before:

Here's the after (with new paint job and new hardware):


Feeling encourgaged we decided to do the same thing to a cheap bookshelf--but with white paint. We left it outside in the backyard to dry. Unfortunately, that pesky, unpredictable Indiana rain managed to sneak up on us while we were out and by the time we got home to rescue it the damage had already been done and the wood-like composite material was all warped.

Feeling discouraged we decided to hire out for our next project: installing electrical wiring and ceiling fans in each of the four upstairs bedrooms. When you hire good professionals it's amazing how well things turn out.

Somewhere in there I built Megan's desk from the last post. She ordered and assembled some stackable drawers as well as a desktop from Target.com. However, the desktop didn't fit or match at all and there was no way to find one that did--even after much Googling. So, I took some measurements, went to Home Depot, picked up some melamine, dowels, braces, screws, and footers, then had the melamine cut to the dimensions I wanted, came home and screwed it all together, and then ironed on some melamine finish over the cut parts. Voila! New matching desk. Let's take one more look:


Now, our house project budget is dwindling, but we're in the process of painting our front room (where the successfully painted black desk goes). I've been stingy with the photo-posting because I want to show everything when it's all done and together; you need the "big reveal."

In other news, today on our first full Sunday in the ward, I had to substitute as the Gospel Doctrine teacher and Megan was extended a calling. (Guess what it is?) Talk about a speedy "welcome" to the ward!

Ali wants to introduce herself to all of our neighbors, Kaitlyn fell asleep eating cereal at the table after church, and Max has got a little cold.

Still Here

Since it’s been 23 days since we last blogged, some of you may have wondered if we survived the move from Virginia to Indiana. The answer is “yes”—we survived; some of our possessions, however, did not.

Due to Megan’s negotiating prowess and sucker-punch smile, we were able to pick up our 26-foot Penske truck (plus car towing device) on Friday night at closing rather than first thing on Saturday morning as originally planned. We thought we would take advantage of these extra hours and get the boxes all loaded so that when the kind volunteers from church showed up all that would remain to load would be the two-man sized items. In about 2 hours we had built the most beautiful box-wall at the back of the truck that you’ve ever seen. I doubt any Level 10 Tetris masters could have done better. As we called it a night, I had to move the truck to a less middle-of-the-street location. I considered tying everything down, but then I decided against it given that I only needed to move the truck about 100-feet around only one corner. Megan also had the thought to tie things down, but opted not to vocalize it. As I gently pulled the truck around we heard a faint tumbling sound like the sprinkling of pixie dust in the back of the truck. I was sure it was nothing, but decided to open up the back—just to see. To our horror, the whole box-wall had tipped over and we found the box of glass cups broken, as well as spilled contents of other boxes all over the place. Kaitlyn had prayed that morning: “…bless that we will have good ideas...” If only we had listened to them!

Besides all that, we only suffered major stains and discoloration on our white dressers, washer, dryer, couches, chair and ottoman from the furniture pads we rented; we are currently learning how fun the claims process is.

The first night we were here the sirens sounded to indicate a tornado warning. The next day’s headline: “Tornado Rips County.” I thought to myself, “What is this place we’ve moved to? What have I done?” So, after only two days with our surviving stuff in our new home, we decided we needed some perspective and drove to Nauvoo. (Either that or we had planned the trip a month ago to see my brother, Craig, perform in the BYU Dance Ensemble, I can’t remember.)

In Nauvoo, we were reminded of all that the early members of the church went through for their faith. Max learned about Joseph Smith’s face…

..and Grandpa’s face.


We all learned about the Martyrdom at Carthage and felt those special feelings of gratitude when pondering about Joseph and Hyrum.



However, Kaitlyn especially learned about the statues in front of the Visitor’s Center.


We were able to see Craig dance and were highly impressed by his mad dancing skills and red pants. We had no idea that Craig could do such amazing multi-cultural maneuvers! After seeing him perform, the girls danced around everywhere for days.


My sister Michelle and Alison were buddies all week (except, of course, at night when they had to share a sleeper sofa bed and Michelle learned that Ali likes to sleep perpendicularly).


We gave Nauvoo a pretty good touring and were impressed that the members of church sacrificed for five long years to build a temple that they would only ultimately use for a few months before leaving essentially everything behind.



Considering what they lost, our uglified furniture from the move didn’t seem like such a big deal after all. It was probably right about then that we got a phone call from Megan’s parents informing us that Indiana had just received record rainfall (about 12 inches in 10 hours) and that they were experiencing the worst floods since 1913. We quickly got online, hoping to find that the flooding was in some far-off town, but instead we discovered that a road only 6 miles from our house was two feet underwater and that our very area was greatly affected. Fortunately, the key to our new house that we left with Megan’s parents didn’t work so we were able to worry all weekend long until we sped home on Tuesday. But, we were blessed and our home (and basement) were dry and safe.

When we went to church on Sunday half in the congregation were wearing yellow t-shirts and jeans, and we were informed that there would only be sacrament meeting. (“What is this place?”) After sacrament meeting we were to form work teams (along with members from two other stakes who came down) to go assist people in the areas which were most affected by the floods.

My group drove to a neighborhood about 45 minutes south of us which was situated between two lakes. Most of the homes had walkout basements to the lake. One of the residents told us that the water rose one foot every five minutes until the water level rose about 16 feet and filled their basement to the ceiling with water! The waters had receded, but everything in every basement in the neighborhood was totally ruined. So, we spent the Sabbath moving muddy, wet debris from basements that now smelled like fecal material into huge heaps the size of 26-foot Penske trucks in front of people’s homes.


I again felt deeply grateful that we were not affected and was completely humbled by the experience. A little stained, but completely functional furniture really doesn’t seem so bad after all. So, what lessons can we learn from this collection of experiences? Never own nice stuff. And, I guess there is that little bit about the things that matter most being the things that can’t be taken away…

Next post? Remind me to tell you about the many, many house projects we’ve tried to get done before I start my new job. But…check out this custom scrapbooking desk that I built for Megan!

By The Way

I apologize for the sporadic posts over the past month or so. So, now that we're about good and settled into the new place I promise to get back on my regular Sunday Evening Post schedule if you promise to keep leaving comments--precious comments.