The Carroll's

Five Months Of Samantha

2012-01-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

I decided that I was never going to really catch up so instead of always being behind I am going to do one blog of the first five months of Samantha in pictures.

These first pictures are from Samantha's newborn photo shoot. (they are unedited but still really cute!)

The picture Sean wanted the most at the photo shoot was Sammy holding his Aggie Ring. For his birthday I decided to edit the picture to make it blank and white except for her Maroon bow and gold Aggie ring. It is in his classroom at school.

Here is Samantha in her first Month of life

Bathtime!!
One Month Old Today! September 15th.Spending time with Grandpa Bear. (Great-Grandpa Carroll)
Falling asleep on the couchHanging out with Aunt Lisa
BABY BLESSING!! Samantha's Great-Grandma Maxwell knitted her blessing dress and blanket. Her Aunt Shantelle made her bow. She looked beautiful.Two months Old today! October 15th
Falling asleep froggy style.
For Halloween Grammy Maxwell bought her a lady bug costume. Adorable.
Sean went as Captain Hammer at school. (another teacher went as Dr. Horrible). Here is Sean saving the day and rescuing the little lady bug.
Sammy likes to put everything in her mouth. Here she is chomping on her tummy time pillow
Three months old today! November 15thCaught in the act. She likes sitting in her bumbo, and loves even more reaching for everything on the counter.
At school the teachers had a door decorating contest. Sean took this picture, got it printed as an 8 X 10 and put a santa hat on top and jingle bells glued to Sammy's hands. The caption read "Christmas Carroll with a little jingle."At the ward Christmas party Sammy got to meet Santa for the first time. She did great!
We got the most amazing opportunity to be Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Santa came in and sang silent night to baby Jesus.Here is her pretty purple dress she got from Great-Grandma Brewer.
Four months old today! December 15th
Hanging out chewing on my bow!
Christmas night..... so tired, good thing she got a pillow pet from Great-Grandma Kunzi
Christmas time in Cedar City.Hello!! Five months old today! January 15th
First time eating rice cereal.
So that's pretty much whats been going on with us for the last five months.

Introducing Baby Samantha

2011-12-30T11:24:00.000-08:00

Samantha's due date was August 18th. We were really hoping she would come a week early because Sean was getting ready to start the new school year. My doctor stripped my membranes twice and we were hopeful but she did not come a week early. My doctor said that we would schedule a c-section if she was a week late so we just had to wait and see when she was ready to come. On Sunday the 14th, Sean decided that he would take the Subaru to school the next day. My sister Shantelle had barrowed it and had her car seats inside. Around 10pm we headed out to move them. As we came upstairs Shantelle who was in the kitchen turned and asked if my water broke. No, no it had not. She came outside and helped us move things around. As we stood outside talking, i felt some water gush. This happened three times and so i interrupted the conversation and said "um, either I just peed my pants or my water broke." The three of us spent the next 20 minutes trying to decide if it had. It is not how it happens in the movies!! Ultimately we decided that it would be better to go to the hospital now and be sent home than having to get up at 3 am in the morning and going. So, we loaded into the car and headed. On the way we saw Sonic and I really wanted a Diet Cherry Limeade but Sean said he would go get me one after we got checked in.

We arrived at the hospital and got checked in. They decided to do a check to see if for sure my water had broke since I wasn't completely sure. As I was laying on the hospital bed, the rest of my water came out. Yep, I was having a baby!! Having not gone through this before and having my only reference being TV, I was expecting her to come pretty soon. But, I was only dilated to a 3. The night passed, the morning came and went, and the afternoon came and went. I slowly progressed throughout the day and had lots of drugs pumped into me.

Finally around 5:30pm I was dilated enough to start pushing. So with the aid of the nurse and Sean, I had my legs in stirrups and pushed with the contractions. The epidural was starting to wear off so I could tell when the contraction was coming. After about twenty minutes of pushing, the doctor joined us, got everything ready and we were ready to go. It was really cool since I had the epidural and was not screaming the whole time. The four of us all chatted during the contractions and pushing. Sean and my doctor literally had a 20 minute conversation about sci-fi/fantasy books they were reading. Finally it came time to do the final pushing.

I have to say it was the most incredible experience of my life. It was so intense and hard to push harder but I gave it my all and then all the sudden we heard a cry. The doctor took the baby and plopped her on my stomach. Sean had already decided that he did not want to cut the umbilical cord but we didn't mention that to the doctor. All the sudden he was handing Sean the scissors and saying to cut here. Sean hesitated but the doctor told to go for it so he did.

The baby nurses were there and did there thing with her real quick and handed her back to us. Here is her first picture.
Here I am just admiring her. I can't believe she was there. 20 hours of labor and I now had this bundle of joy.
The nurse was nice enough to offer to take a picture for us. Here is our first family photo.Daddy's first moments with his little girl.My mom got off work around 5pm so instead of going all the way home she came to the hospital and hung out and waited. She is Sammy's first visitor.
Here she is sleeping. I took this one with my cell phone for facebook.Sean took this one with the cell phone while she took a nap laying on my chest.Here's a couple of pics of her in the basket cart thing they have them in. After a few hours they took her to the nursery so I could sleep and they could bathe her. When they brought her back she had this cute purple bow on.
We had a few visitors in the hospital though I forgot to take pictures of everyone. Shantelle and Josh came that night to see us. Throughout labor Shantelle kept texting us funny quotes. It was awesome. The next day we also had visits from Katie and Dave Collier and their girls, Celeste, and pictured below my Aunt Cindy. Sean was a little stressed the whole time because he was supposed to be in school at teacher meetings. Monday night he slept with me at the hospital but tuesday night I sent him home to get a good nights sleep because he was headed in to work Wednesday. He went into work and then came a picked us up from the hospital. Here is Samantha in her go home outfit. It is all newborn size clothes and were giant on her. Guess I need to get some premie outfits for a couple of weeks.Our family photo as we get ready to go home.

2011-12-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

For 4th of July this year we headed up to Idaho to spend the weekend with Ryon, Jana, and the kids. It was extra awesome because everyone from the Brewer fam came up as well. We had a house full.... 12 adults and 11 kids!! We had a lot of fun!!

One of the really cool things we did was go to an airplane museum. Of course I did not take any pictures. There were a bunch of vintage planes from WWII and stuff like that. All the planes were still working too!!!

We also attended the Rexburg parade, which was awesome. I just love parades. Again, no pictures.

One of the funnest things we did was the giant water slide. Ryon's inlaws have been doing this for years. They take giant roof tarps and drape them down the hill on Ryon's yard. The first picture shows about 3/4 of the slide. At the top of the hill is an old rusted slide that you have to climb up. There is a hose tied at the top and away you go.
Here is Sean going down the slide.Being 7 1/2 months pregnant, this was definitely not the attraction to do.....but I decided to do it anyway. Only twice though. Celeste, who was 3 months pregnant did it too!! Here I go!
Here is Sean almost taking out Justin at the half way point
Some of the kids were not up to going down, but Brayden proved fearless and went down multiple times on his own. He loved it.Half way down the run we had another hose. Here is Paige having fun watering the slide.
The guys all decided they needed to have a competition going down the slide. Here they are going down one after another. Here they are at the end.
Here is a video of the guys competition, you'll notice at the end that Shantelle tagged along but does not have the body mass to make it as far so she cheated a little.

Utah Renaissance Faire

2011-12-28T23:16:00.000-08:00

Back in Texas, Sean and I were introduced to the Texas Renaissance Festival. It was one of our favorite things about Texas. The Texas Renaissance festival is one of the biggest in the country. If you don't know what a Ren Faire is, well, Lets just say that people dress up in period clothing, walk around at different booths and many Ren Faires have shows based on Shakespeare or jousting or anything you can think of. We were excited when we found a Ren Faire here in Utah. This faire was in Ogden.

Here we are in our costumes.

Sean actually made the green dress I am wearing!! (Yes, Sean does the sewing in our house, and is dang good at it!!) As you can tell, I am very pregnant at the time. Over the years we bought different things to add to our costumes like belts, boots, cups, and even weapons. We definately enjoy ou One of the attractions we wanted to see was the full contact joust. Now in Texas, the jousting they did was all choreographed. It was kinda lame. If one knight was supposed to fall off, he fell even if the other guy missed. We had low expectations.

Before the jousting started, they had a troop of girls that did horse vaulting. The horse would trot in a circle while the girls jumped on and off and did tricks. Here are a couple of pictures of them. They were pretty cool.

Next came the jousting. Little did we know that we were about to see the coolest thing ever!! This jousting troop is called the Knights of Mayhem. They are currently working at making jousting a recognized extreme sport. This first picture is of Charlie Andrews who is the leader of the troop and current world champion in jousting. I took so many action shots. Here are a few. They actually had two different sets of jousting and we were on different sides for each.

Here is a video that I took of a hit. Yes, this is Charlie being dehorsed by his opponent. So awesome.

Journey To Utah

2011-11-22T23:15:00.000-08:00

As promised here is our funny little adventure to Utah. We closed on our house in Texas on December 29th. One of the things we wanted to do before leaving Texas was it visit all the LDS temples in Texas. We had been to only the Houston temple. Our plan was to leave right after the house closing and travel to Dallas which was a 3 hour drive. After doing a session we would drive to Dublin, TX, the home of the first Dr Pepper factory and of course do one last tour! That night we were going to stay in a bed and breakfast in Dublin then head off to the Lubbock tx temple. We were going to miss the San Antonio TX but it was way too far out of the way. After going to the Lubbock temple we were going to continue on our way to Albuquerque NM. We would drive until we were tired and get a hotel room near the Albuquerque temple. The next morning we would do a session and continue on to Utah. Sounded like a great plan.

First things first. The closing happened but we were not quite ready to leave. We had to go by a couple of places and then we had some friends give us a gift certificate to our favorite restaurant Sodalaks Beef Masters Grill. We absolutely love this place. Great Texas cooking.

We were going to go the night before and got there at 9:05pm....they closed at 9. It was one of the things we wanted to do before we left. So we did our final things and waited till 11am to go to lunch. It was super tasty! Well, this meant we did not have time to go to the Dallas temple since it was already out of the way. Its ok, we still were going to go to two temples neither of us had gone to. So we headed straight to Dublin.

We pulled into Dublin, checked in at the bed and breakfast which was so lovely. It is called the Patrick St. Bed and Breakfast. The lady who owns it was great to talk to. This was the house she raised her children in and converted it into the bed and breakfast.

Here we are standing in front of the house.
Here is a picture of our room. It was very lovely.
Sean and I love dublin Dr. Pepper, and its lovely cane sugar!! We had to go to the soda shop/factory one last time. and headed to the factory.....closed at 5pm. it was 5:30pm. Really? So we made the decision to go to the factory in the morning.....they opened at 10am. Here is a picture of the soda fountain counter. We got ourselves some Dr Pepper for the drive!!Outside the factory there is a lot of Dr. Pepper stuff around. They throw a really big party each summer marking the birthday of the factory. Here we are sitting on the stage.
This is our favorite place to take a picture, by the giant Dr. Pepper can.

Since it was Christmas time they had these giant Christmas cards outside, we just had to take some pictures.

Lastly we took a picture by the statue of the original owner of the factory.

We left Dublin and headed to Lubbock TX to be able to go to our first temple since this was a temple trip. As we pulled up into the parking lot, we were surprised to see the gates shut. I wipped out my phone and looked up the temple hours online. Sure enough on Thursdays they are only open until 11am. It was around 2pm. So instead of going to the temple we took a few pictures and headed on our way. At least we still had the Albuquerque temple.The plan was to keep driving until Albuquerque. We looked up the schedule and there were sessions up until 12pm. We were going to drive close and find a hotel so we would be sure to make a session.

Around 7pm we hit Santa Rosa, NM. I needed a break since pregnancy and traveling were not agreeing with each other. We stopped at the truck stop which had a restaurant inside. Sean had a bunch of grading with him he needed to get done so we sat and graded while we ate. As we were sitting there, we overheard a trucker and waitress talking about the road closure. Sean asked them what they were talking about and sure enough the highway we were taking had been closed about 3 hours previous due to a winter storm. Since the road had been closed for so long, all the hotels in the area and surrounding cities were all booked. Luckily for us (and I say luckily very loosly) the city set up an emergency shelter at the old middle school gym. Everyone was provided with a lawn chair, sheet and shelter blanket.

Here I am grading Sean's tests while sitting on my lawn chair.

We estimate there were about 50 people who stayed at the shelter. This is another time that pregnancy did not agree with my surroundings.

They provided us with sack meals that consisted of a container of apple juice, an orange, two pieces of white bread and some mystery meat. One of the mystery meats was some sort of turkey patty. The other was a cup of chicken stuff. I could stomach the bread but the meat, not a chance. Did I mention that today was our 5th year wedding Anniversary? Yeah, they say you should make number 5 memorable.....it was.That night was rough. The doors into the gym were heavy so every time someone went through they slammed shut. People started leaving around 5am in the morning. We were sleeping near the door and each time someone went through there was a draft of cold air and a slamming noise. At 7am I finally got up and we decided to get on the road. The roads were pretty bad. Here is a shot out the car window. The worst part about it, we were in my car, a 97 geo prism. This is not a vehicle made for snow, or hills.We ended up not going to the Albuquerque temple. First of all, we did not have any chance to shower and get ready and spent the night on lawn chairs. Second, the road conditions were really bad so we did not want to chance prolonging our driving into the night time.

We continued on our way, having some moments of tense white knuckle driving. We decided to stop in St. George and stay with Sean's brother Patrick where we were able to get a hot shower and a soft bed to sleep on. The next morning we got up and finished the drive to Lehi.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

So I am going to jump ahead of my back tracking and post about Halloween!! Mostly because I can't access the pics right now for the next post and I have pics from Halloween.

Ok. So for Halloween Shantelle and I decided to host a Halloween party for my side of the family. It was our first annual Minute to Win It Halloween Party. It was great. Everyone was able to come! Ryon and Jana were going to be in town so it worked out perfectly. We set up a photo session station so everyone could dress up.

Mom was a clown and dad was a magician.
Ryon, Jana, and family are "travelers". They came down from Idaho and did not have time to prepare costumes (they are headed to Mexico for family vacation the next day).
Justin is a dead pirate, Ali is Cleopatra, Paige is a cute witch, Meg is a cat and Ty is a dog.
Shantelle, Josh and Family were from Peter Pan. Josh is Captain Hook, Shantelle is Wendy, Brayden is Peter Pan, and Brooklyn and Brynlee are Tinkerbell.
Here is my cute little family. Sean and I dressed up in our Renaissance costumes as an homage to the Texas Renaissance Festival we miss. Samantha is a cute little lady bug.
Celeste and Nate are sports players and Sadie is a little Minnie Cheerleader
Here are all the cousins! Top Row: Brayden, Harrison, Samantha, Hannah, Paige, Carson
Bottom Row: Simon, Brooklyn, Ty, Sadie, Meg, Brynlee

We all had a blast. Some of the games we played were:

Ready, Set, Hike- Hike 10 toilet paper rolls into a bucket

Face The Cookie- Starting with a cookie on your forhead, get the cookie in your mouth without using your hands in 1 min.

Spare me- Using a wrapping paper roll, shoot down pins with a golf ball

Bubble Blow- Blow a bubble and using only your breath, blow it across the finish line. Get as many points in 1 min

Defying Gravity- Keep 3 balloons in the air for 1 min

Caddy Stack- in one minute, stack 3 golf balls on top of each other and have them stay for 3 seconds.

Suck it up- Using a straw, transfer M&Ms from the table to a balanced stick on a bowl, stack as many in one min.

We had so much fun and the boys got really competitive. Most of the games had kid alternatives so the little ones like Brayden also had fun. Nate was our overall winner!

Welcome Back to Blogging

2011-11-01T19:44:00.001-07:00

So if you look at the blogging history for our blog, you can see that we have not blogged in a really really long time. And, we definitely don't blog often. I want to change this. Since we have Samantha I want to be able to chronicle pictures of our beautiful family more than just uploading phone pictures to facebook. So, I am going to start at the beginning.

I was born September 22, 1983.....just kidding. Let me start at the beginning with little Samantha.

Let me start a litte further back. For those of you who don't know, or need a recap, Sean and I now live in Utah. Last September, Sean decided to look for a teaching job out west. He spent a few days working on his resume and then got on a teacher website and saw a job posting at a charter school in Lindon. It turned out that his college bishop was the brother of a board member for this charter school. Sean made a phone call then got a phone call for his resume. Later that day, he got a call from the school and a scheduled skype interview the next day. The interview went really well and since they needed to fill the job immediately, he had a job offer that Saturday. A week later he was moving to Utah. He moved into my parents basement while i stayed in Texas to sell our house. Sean flew out for Thanksgiving with his Mom and we painted two rooms in our house. We were lucky to be able to sell the house December 28th. Sean flew out December 22nd and we packed everything up, closed on the house, and got in the car to drive to Utah. Our trip back to Utah is a story itself....but that is for another blog.

So, you are probably wondering, how is all of this "starting with Samantha". Well, it was the week of Christmas, just a few days before Sean flew to Texas, that I decided to take a pregnancy test. I didn't really think that I was pregnant, but I was "late" and had one in my drawer. I took the test, hopped in the shower and after the shower I looked at the test. Two lines. I was shocked. It hasn't ever looked like that before. I took a picture and sent it to Sean who was already at work. He immediately called and said "who is he?". We laughed and were both pretty speechless. (if you are trying to figure out how....remember Sean visited for Thanksgiving). I told Sean that on my way to work I was going to purchase the more expensive pregnancy test, the one with the digital read out to be sure. The first time I took it, I got an error message. Had to wait another hour. Took the test again, and yes, I was pregnant!!!

Here is the ultrasound picture the doctor did at our 8 week appointment. The baby is growing!!That is all for now, next blog will be our funny journey from Texas to Utah.....while 5 weeks pregnant.

Because You asked

2010-08-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

So Funny Story. Apparently I have been neglecting my blog and don't update facebook enough. Below are two notes I received from a very concerned sister asking that I update:

"Celeste Fisher Rachelle Brewer Carroll:

Dear Mrs. Brewer Carroll. I see that there are some "recent" (as in not at all) albums of your farmville. As un-interested as I am in those (but I still love you), I am hoping that you will make an album with real people in it. Preferably with you and your husband. I would appreciate it, if you would do this as soon as possible. If this does not work for you, there is another way. If I remember right, (which I do), you have this thing called a BLOG that has not been updated sine February. Would you so kindly update that as well so I could feel like I know a little bit about what is going on. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I expect you to get to work.
Sincerely,

Mrs. Brewer Fisher"

Followed by

"Celeste Fisher Rachelle Brewer Carroll:

Mrs. Brewer, I see that my last inquiry did not make an impression on you. I am not sure if you understand the importance of my previous message. I assume that you received my message, due to the activity on your current need to get bricks for a school house. I truly am grateful for the hard work you are doing in order to give back and build a school, but many of us are in need of an update. This will be the last "sincere" message I will send before the messages will get more severe. I recommend that you get to work on your facebook albums, with again, pictures of you and your husband and maybe throw in a few of you dog. As well as getting to work on your blog. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Celeste Fisher"

So because you asked, here is an update complete with pictures of sean, me and the dog!!

So the most exciting thing going on in our lives right now is that you can buy Dr Pepper made with sugar at the store!! YEA!! Dr pepper is having their 125th b-day celebration by selling select cans of Dr Pepper with sugar!! YUMM!! Its so good. Anyway, they have 6 signature cans right now for the celebration. Right now we have 4 of them.

Sean--

Recently Sean graduated from Texas A&M and received the coveted Aggie Ring. Here it is. The Aggie Ring is a great tradition here! It is the most recognized school ring in the world!!

Sean currently wears his hair spiky. I like it a lot!!

Sean cut himself shaving this morning! Ha Ha!

Sean is very obsessed with yellow shirts. Everywhere we go he is usually in yellow so we buy him new t-shirts any time we see a good one. This one says "I'm Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am" So totally Sean.

Rachelle- Now about me....well

I recently got my hair permed. I really like it. Here it is, I like it. This is my hair wet before I have diffused it.

Here is my poor scabbed leg. So the mosquitoes out here love my blood. My blood is their form of crack cocaine (twilight reference). Since I am allergic to them they get really big and itch for two-three days. I try not to itch them but they usually turn into bleeders. The other day I had 4 big band-aids on to keep me from scratching.

I also like the color yellow. Here is my cute yellow toes.

What more can I say about me. Oh yeah, we have the cutest little puppy. Ok, so he is not a puppy and not little. I like to call him puppy though. This is Doc thinking that he should be able to lay on the coach too!!

Here is another shot of our crazy dog. He likes to play a game by himself where he lays on his back and tries to pick up the raw hide he dropped. Then he tries to chew on it up side down. So cute.

Well, I think that is all for now!! Hope this satisfied the need for an update :)

Rachelle's Birthday

2010-02-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Sean made a pretty awesome Favorite cake for me for my birthday!!

He made me a tennis court!! It was awesome! He used sweetish fish upside down to make the tennis court and used mini gummy bears as all the players and line judges. He also used sprinkles for all the audience members.

Inside the cake Sean made this delicious layer of melted reeses peanut butter cups and butter cream icing mixed..it was to die for!!! He also colored the cake so it was purple and green!

Becca's Birthday

2010-02-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

Becca's Birthday was this last September. Here is her favorite cake:

We made a mario cart race course incorporating her favorite things!! One of her favorite things is the game mario cart. Also featured is her favorite candy sour watermelons used to edge the court. There are also reeses peanut butter cups inside the cake.

For the course we used orange sandy candy. We entitled the course "mario cart- race for a cure" because Becca is very supportive of autism research and the autism foundation.

Lastly her favorite sports team is the Dallas Cowboys so it was only right that they sponsered the race!

Time to Update.....

2010-02-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

So I have finally found some time to do some updates. There will be a bunch of blogs because I have taken a bunch of pictures and want to put them up!!! I am going to try to do them chronologically, but if not, you'll get over it!!

Sean's Birthday

2009-09-07T11:06:00.001-07:00

We had a great weekend and were able to celebrate Sean's 1st Anniversary of his 29th birthday!!

We started the evening with going to first Friday. This is down in downtown Bryan where the first friday of every month there are bands playing and activities. We had a lot of fun at the soda fountain that has dublin Dr pepper shakes. YUM!!!

Next we headed to Carino's for dinner. This is Sean's favorite restaurant, mostly because they have Italian sodas that have free refills!

The best part of Sean's birthday was the prochector party back at our house. Sean built this screen using a sheet, two 2x1x8 wood., a staple gun and chain to hang it from the ceiling. It was pretty awesome!!! We had lots of fun all weekend playing mario cart, Dr Mario, and rock band!!

Sean also got a couple of birthday gifts

Cold weather biking pants (since he is biking to work 4 times a week)

Bike rack

and bike rack bags so he no longer has to use his back pack.

Now no birthday could be complete without a Favorite Cake. Here is Sean's favorite Cake!! Let me explain the elements!!

First we have Seans signature personal theme "I am a Beacon" Sean's favorite color is yellow. Also we have his favorite catch phrase.....you'll have to read that for yourself

This is Sean being a beacon

And this is his beacon candle. Standing guard of his beacon candle is his killer bunnies (I used army men and topped them off with bunny gummie heads!)

Sean also loves biking! With his new job he is biking to work 4 times a week! (This is a motorcycle but it had to do since I could not find a miniature toy bike.)

The last element on the outside of the cake is Sean's Cranny. If you don't know Travian, this won't make sense. This is like a "nook and cranny" a hiding place!

Lastly, the inside of the cake. Sean requested a checkered cake. It turned out cool! The layers in between the cake is whipped cream with crushed up 100 grand candy bars. It was a great success.

New additions to the family

2009-08-05T22:55:00.000-07:00

My Fish Tank Saga
By Rachelle Carroll

So, as you all know (or may not know) for Christmas last year I got a 20 gallon fish tank which I love!!! I started with my Beta whose name is Burtus. Then I got Zippy (zebra danio) and Tangy (red wag). Next I got Benjy (African frog) but he died shortly after I got him. Next I got Bubba (black balloon belly molly) and Calypso (electric green danio) and Sunny (orange burst danio). Then my problems started. First Tangy started to get sick. I kept checking the water and I could not get the ammonia levels to stabilize. Tangy died. Then, Calypso started going crazy, like swimming erratically and diving head first into the rocks, she died, shortly followed by Sunny and Zippy. At this point I was at a loss of what to do. I tried to stabilize with what I had and for a while I thought things were getting better. I was having an algae problem so I purchased an algae eater and named him Gus Gus......long story short, for the past two months I have had only one fish, Burtus my beta. (I apparently can't keep things alive, I also failed at a bonsai plant and bamboo and those are supposed to be easy!) By the way, betas are awesome and have a crazy will to live......needless to say its been a big empty fish tank and crazy for one fish.

So fast forward to two weeks ago, I finally decided I was ready for new fish. I purchased a balloon belly molly that is black and gold, her name is Goldie. Here's a couple pictures of her.

We also got another fish, which was Sean's first fish, he was a dalmatian molly named Sebastian......I say was because yesterday I went to feed them dinner and found him dead. I was so distraught thinking here we go again. Luckily Sean is good to take care of this for me since I cry every time (seriously, I cry).

So anyway, today we had some friends over to watch a movie and while Sean was helping Michael get a drill he was going to borrow, Stacie and I were chatting in the kitchen just looking at the tank. I saw a flake moving at the back of the tank.....and then it started swimming up....odd. I started looking closer and, well, it was a baby fish. A baby dalmatian molly to be exact. Apparently, Sebastian was actually a Sabrina and was also a live bearing fish. I called Sean and we all sat there staring at the fish. Now, what to do.

Let me back track to a week ago, my beta Burtus was not having a good time sharing the tank and started nipping at Goldie's tail, so I had to isolate him. I had this net contraption, which incidentally is used for baby breeding, but I put Burtus in there. So, now that I needed it, I moved Burtus to a fish bowl, Sean and I rounded up the babies, and Goldie is now Queen of the tank.

All in all we counted 12 fish. TWELVE baby fish!! It is insane.

We did some research (all the research to be exact) and it turns out that first, it is common for the mother to die due to child birth, so this one I didn't kill (yea me!) and second, we can feed them crushed fish flakes and peeled peas, cucumbers, or romaine lettuce. We will see how many survive!!

Any suggestions for names?

New Skittle flavor

2009-05-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

So I was in the checkout isle at the grocery store and was looking around and was amazed to see a new color of skittles. Now I must say that Blue package skittles are m,y favorite but they are hard to find, but, seeing this new flavor I had to try it!!

WOW! I loved them. You have to try them!

Its also amazing how something like skittles makes you miss a friend. These skittles make me miss Joni who now lives in Connecticut. She loves skittles, but more than that, she LOVES her skittle combos. She will eat skittles in certain combos because they taste better. Her favorite is original red and yellow skittles eaten at a 1:1 ratio! These new skittles had to be inspired by her!!

And the Answer is........

2009-05-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

I must say that Nate was the closest to getting the full name of our dog Doc correct. He guessed Dublin Dr Pepper Rex Sean Carroll. Here is the answer:

D.Doctor P.R.S. Carroll=

Dublin Doctor Pepper Rexington Sir Carroll

Doggy House

2009-05-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

Sean is so great and built Doc a dog house. He started working Wednesday morning and it was complete enough so Doc could have somewhere to sleep the first night. It was in the garage but at least it was his home.

The house has a doggy door that we can latch shut. This came in handy most of all while the doggy house was in the garage. Today we moved the house to the backyard but we will still lock him in at night so that he gets used to going there to sleep.

As you can see Sean made the house so one side of the roof hinges up so we can get into the house if we need to.

We got him this cute pillow (which is obviously Dr Pepper red!!) which we think he likes. Right now we have to give him a treat to go inside, but once he is locked inside he is really good. he doesn't bang against the door or the walls.

All in all it turned out great. As you can see there are strips of plastic covering the door, this is so if it is raining and we are not home to shut the door, inside is pretty protected. We also stapled a strip of the same plastic on the top of the home so the water won't get in at the hinges and can still be opened.

Introducing........Doc

2009-04-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

Now most people who know Me and Sean would probably be shocked to find out that we adopted a dog. But he gave me googly eyes and I was hooked. Here is our lovely story of obtaining our new dog Doc.

Sean and I have discussed pets before, decided we weren't pet people and figures that when our kids begged long enough then we would get a dog. A few months ago we started joking to each other that we should get a dog. Then we realized that we both secretly wanted a dog in the near future.

The last few weeks we had gotten more serious about the idea. Sean has always wanted to own a lab and so we did research. We both decided that we wanted a chocolate lab (the colors are yellow black and chocolate.) Now chocolate labs are the most rare and were going to be the most expensive, we decided that any color would be fine.

On Saturday we decided out of the blue to go check out the shelter that was right up the street. We were walking around looking at the dogs and that's when we saw Rex. What a pretty chocolate lab!! We couldn't believe how pretty he was!!! Well, we asked about him and found out that he was picked up Thursday and had a tag with a number on it. They had tried to contact the owner but did not get a response. The shelter has to wait 72 hours before they can adopt a dog so we decided to put our name down.

Unfortunately, someone else had already done so as well. The other person was waiting for authorization but would have it by monday. We were distraught but told them to put us down anyway. We went home and spent the whole weekend thinking of this dog rex.

Monday afternoon Sean called me and said "Guess what, we got Rex!" The women who was in front of us decided to get a different dog and Rex was ours!! They even heard from the owner who surrendered their ownership. Sean went in Tuesday and did all the paperwork and Wednesday he went to the Vet (who is a good friend from our Bryan ward) and was neutered. We picked him up at 5pm. Now, we did not like the name Rex, he didn't seem like a Rex to us so we decided to rename him, his new name is Doc.

We brought him home (which might I say we will need to work on riding in the car) and introduced him to our roommates dog Max. They sniffed and decided they were ok. Now the vet told us that he was probably going to be quite out of it from the meds and that he may not even want to eat. Well, Max proved that wrong. They had lots of fun playing.

All in all it was a great day today. Sean built this wicked awesome dog house that I will blog about tomorrow (don't hold your breathe though).

Here is a fun trivia for you. The dogs full name is D. Doctor P. R. S. Carroll

can you guess what the letters stand for?

First you were all like "whoa", and we were like "whoa", and you were like "whoa..."

2009-04-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

So this is like such a "must live in Texas" moment. Today we found a turtle (and by we, I mean Sean and Becca, I on the other hand was at work!) It was so cool. It was just randomly in our yard! We don't know how it got into the yard, don't know where it came from, and don't know where it went, but I do know I had a really good dinner!

Not the turtle, Sean made barbecue chicken with pilaf rice! It was delicious.

That is all.

Snack in the Dark

2009-03-12T08:34:00.001-07:00

So....what do you do when the power goes out and you want a snack..and not just any snack, you want chili with frito chips. We had left over chili in the fridge (and on top of that it was Nalley's chili!!)

Side note: so in Texas, they do not sell Nalleys chili anywhere! it is my favorate canned chili but for three years I have not had it at all. I had to find a new brand, Wolf, that is good but not as. Well the other day I was walking in the store and BAM Nalley's chili. They were giant cans only but I couldn't resist!!!

Ok, back to the story!! You may be wondering why the power was out. We don't know, we were just sitting watching American Idol results and it went dark! The power was out for about an hour. So, here I was in a candle lit room and with cold chili. My wonderful husband got an idea. We happen to have a cast iron skillet. He got it out, assembled some candles and glasses and set it up. The lighted picture was actually taken in the dark, Becca's camera happens to have a really bright flash!!

So, we let the chili warm for like twenty minutes and it was perfect!!! YUM!!
We are also thankful to grandma who sent us a wind up light lantern (though we forgot where we put it and it took ten minutes to find and get out of the box.....but it was nice to have. We played cards by lantern light until the power came on. It was great fun!!

Greetings from Texas where its warm...cold.....warm....cold......

2009-01-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

So we are mostly enjoying the weather hear but it is quite odd. One day it will be around 65 in the morning and get up to 75 during the day. then the next day it will be 40 in the morning and high of 60 in the day. Each day when I get to work I have to change the heating/cooling unit from heat to cool and then the next day it will be 63 in the office when I get there and have to put the heat on.

Last weekend it was really nice outside and I planted my front flower beds!! Yes flowers!! I never knew this but there are certain flowers that you plant in jan-feb that bloom in the spring and then hibernate in the summer. It is really cool! (i'm a little worried the cold front will stunt their growth but we shall see)

Sean started school again this last monday, his schedule this semester leaves him a good amount of free time so he doesn't think he will be too stressed out. He is doing his research project this semester so that will be quite time consuming. For his project he took a lab that is taught in the Organic chemistry lab manual. He felt that it was insufficient and does not teach the topic as well as it could be taught. Originally the topic was covered in the organic class period and the lab was just application, but they no longer teach it in the classroom so that left the lab inadaquite. Sean has rewritten the lab and will be trying it out. So what he is doing is he wrote a prequiz that he will have all the students take to see what their current knowledge is on the topic. Half the students will then take the new lab and the other will take the already existing lab. After the lab sean has a test to test their knowledge again. After doing the data if it turns out that the lab he wrote is much better, the school will most likely incorporate it from now on. Its way exciting.

As for me, I was called to be the young womens camp director!! I am so excited!!! We had a retreat with the stake this last weekend with all the leaders and got to find out the theme, which is BE ALL YOU CAN BE, and about what the stake has planned. THere is a ranch out here that is ran by a very devout christian, its called Messiah's ranch and has cabins (air-conditioned by the way). They have gone ehre the last 2 years and have loved it. THis is where we are going this year. I am way excited and already have plans for it all!!

So thats kinda us, love you all!

My Fish Tank is Growing..and Glowing

2009-01-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

I love my new Fish Tank and have enjoyed getting more and more fish as the weeks have gone by. Right now I have 6 fish and 1 frog. Here are all of my fish

Burtis- Betta
Burtis is the grumpy old man

Tangi- Red Wag Platy
Tangi is all over the place-as long as that place has food

Zippy- Zebra Danio
Zippy is like a little child that won't hold still and has to touch everything. He's a hard one to get a picture of

Bubba- Balloon Belly Molly
Bubba is in a world of his own. He doesn't Really pay attention to the other fish, just mosies his way around.

Bengi- African Dwarf Frog
Bengi likes to hide in the castle all day, but sometimes he likes to spread out and float from the bottom of the tank to the top, then catch the current from the filter and float down.

Sunni- Orange Burst Glofish
Even though Sunni is a top tank area fish, she likes to roam around the bottom and go in and out of the plants.

Flash- Electric Green Glofish
Flash

Let me explain the glofish. They are actually just like zippy. Zebra Danios. They have been scientifically altered! Scientists createdthem to track bacteria in drains. People were so fascinated by them now they sell them. We have a black light on in this pic, we couldn't get a good pic with all the lights off and just the black light, but you can see it kinda glow in this one.

Once in a Life time....

2008-12-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

(So this is Rachelle's first blog on our blog)

You may or may not have heard this yet, but President Bush came to Texas A&M on Friday to speak at the graduation commencement. Our friend Paul was graduating and since his family was not able to come out for it, he and his wife invited us to go with them. I must say that it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

We left the house at 8:30 am, parked and had to go through security at the door. They had metal detectors and also you had to stand spread eagle and be scanned by the metal wand things. They allowed cameras but you had to turn it on to go through security so they could verify that it was an actual working camera. Paul sat on the floor with the rest of the grad students and we were far up to the side.

As we were waiting, on one side of the stage 10 cadets dressed in white lined the stairs to the stage.

First they announced the board of regents and A&M staff that came on the stage. Next was announced "The former First Lady, Barbara Bush" Big applause. Next "The 41st president of the united states George Herbert Walker Bush." and finally as the whole audience waited in anticipation,

"Please welcome the 43rd President of the United States, George Walker Bush." The audience exploded in cheers. I must say I was so overwhelmed. Never in my life did I believe that I would be able to be in the same room as the President.

The commencement started and the Cadet Choir Sang the National Anthem (how cool is it that I was looking at the same flag as the president as we sang the National anthem)

Next Barbara Bush, who is recently home from the hospital introduced her husband (he's a former aggie and a great support at A&M, he comes to all the home games and his presidential library is here). Former President Bush got up and said "My son said to keep it short. So without further ado, the president of the united states!" Seriously, 3 sentences!!!

President Bush is hilarious and inspiring at the same time. His biggest message to the graduates was about determination and service. He shared a story with us about a soldier he met in a hospital. He had lost both his legs but told the president that he was determined to run again. President Bush told the man that when he was ready to run to let him know and he would run with him. President Bush related that 6 months later he got a call at the oval office and it was this soldier who told him he was ready to run. He came to the whitehouse with his steel legs and they ran around the white house. Bush said "and I'll tell you, he left his commander and chief in the dust"

He also talked about service. Texas a&m is a school dedicated in so many ways to service and he told us all that service makes us better people. He talked about how his dad was a man who was able to have values and be in politics and told us that we should all strive to do service, whether your in the military or a school teacher.

The best advice that he gave was "Listen to your mother and do what you think is right even if it’s not popular,"

A couple of the funny things he said:

*"Mom, I haven't had a chance to thank you for this, thanks for my gray hair."

*A and M has a tradition around their mascot Reveille which is an actual dog. There is a cadet unit whose job is to take care of reveille and she goes with them to class. It is a standing rule on campus that if Reveille barks in class, class is immediately dismissed. Bush was referring to how cool he thought this was and he said "That would have come in handy at a few press conferences."

Overall it was just amazing to be in his presence and to hear his great words of wisdom. This is the last commencement he will give as President. To be there and to witness this will be something that I will always remember and cherish!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot such a cool part. Afterwards, Sean Joni and I were waiting by their car waiting for Paul to join us. Well, Airforce One landed in Waco because the airport here is too small and he was helicoptered in to college station on "Marine One". Well it turns out that the helicopters were like 200 yards from where the car was. All the sudden a big helicopter flew overhead that said United states of America on the side.....then a couple minutes later 2 MORE helicopters that looked just like it flew over head. If that wasn't cool enough, two massive Apache helicopters flew over top. They were so big. My camera was out of memory so I was able to get a picture of one on my cell phone as it flew away!!

This was one of the coolest days ever!!!

Rachelle

The really good pictures are from news articles, and the long distance ones are from my camera.

If you would like to read the entire speech, it is posted on the white house webiste. here is the link to the speech. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081212-4.html

Hallelujah, the prodical blogger returns

2008-11-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

It seems like every time that I get on to blog, I am saying sorry for not blogging for so long. Nobody even checks this any more would be my bet, but hey, it is still fun anyhow, and I figured that an update would be nice and what not. So, here is what is going on with us. We had an interesting halloween. We like halloween, and if you would like to see all the really cool decorations that Rachelle made for this year, check out her really cool creativity blog.

http://www.creativecompilation.blogspot.com/

We had a bit of a get together fiasco though. We were going to have a few friends over and get some jack-o-lanterns to breath fire. So, Rachelle was going to pick up the pumpkins right after work on friday, and I was going to get the dry ice that you need for good home made root beer. Needless to say, Rachelle tried 9 store to no avail, and I tried 3 and got the same result. So instead we just ended up eating the good food we made, and played Dr. Mario all night. It was still fun, especailly due to the dressing up.
Yeah, so needless to say, both Paul and Joni looked good, but their pet bumble bee looked awesome. I got a little hungry though, and had to open up the jelly belly's to get a snack.
So needless to say, that was a fun night.

We also have taken up a new fun hobbie. Plus, we also picked it so that we can get in shape. We bought road bikes. So, most of you know that I have been a mountain biker for years, and I have never really even considered being a road biker, but around here, there isn't much mountain biking to be done. So, we got Giant OCR1 road bikes. They are really nice, but were the '08 model, so we got a really good deal. Plus we got some really cool hoists to put them in the garage, and have some room to actually walk around.

They are basically the same bike. Rachelle's has a different seat, toe clips as opposed to my clipless. And then we have her headset is set positive, and mine is set negative. We both have cyclocomputers, and then I have a saddle pack to hold the tools that we need in case we have any problems on the road. We have been a few rides, and Rachelle is really starting to get the hang of it. It took me a while to realize how much I know about bikes. I love bikes. So, needless to say, I am really happy about the fact that we are now bikers, and I have to say that we look really good in biking clothes.

We also went to the TRF, which is the Texas Rennisance Festival. It is the larges ren fair in the country, or so I am told. It was, as usual, a blast. We of course dressed up, as usual.
It was fantasy weekend, so we did the fun colored hair. We got me a rapier, and Rachelle a stiletto. Plus we also got her a Bodice. Next year we want to get her a dress, and me a good frog for my sword and possibly a dagger. Man, I love dressing up. It is just fun. Well, other than that, we are just working from day to day, and trying to stay caught up with life. We are having fun, and Rachelle is finally starting to like Texas a bit, but we still hate the fact that there are no mountains here. Oh well, life is still good, and oh yeah, we finally got our bathroom fixed. Maybe I will blog about that later, but then with my record, who know how long that will take.

Hope you all are doing awesome.

A day in Hell

2008-07-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

So, it has been an interesting couple of weeks. So to start with, on the fourth of july Rachelle and I decided to take a nap. We heard that there was some dripping coming from the wall. It was a little odd, so we went into the bathroom next door. There was some standing water on the floor. Earlier that week I had cleaned up water on the floor that I thought had come from the toilet. So, I replaced the wax seal because I could find no cracks. Well, that was obviously not the problem because it came back, along with dripping. So, I decided to cut a hole in the wall to find, and hopefully stop the problem.

I found the problem, and got a bucket under it to catch the water, and called in a plumber. I got up in the attic with the plumber, and low a behold, he could not get up to the location to fix the problem, so he just told me what to do to fix it. It was the A/C condensation drain. On my way out of the attic, I lost my footing, and the sheetrock that is on the ceiling is not a very good floor to use when in the attic, which I found out the hard way.

About 3 hours later, it started leaking again. Thankfully I had a bucket handy. So due to the fact that the plumber didn't seem to keen to be there in the first place(despite the $300 we payed him) so we got him back the following tuesday. So he cut out the P drain and found more junk in the drain than in any A/C drain he has ever seen in 26 years of plumbing, and this problem is not uncommon.

So, next we had an A/C guy come check our our A/C because it wasn't working to well as it stood. Each day, it went up to around 80 in our livingroom. So when he checked that out, he found that the main component of our A/C unit, the condenser was just about shot. So we decieded that we would change that out as well, because not having A/C in the summer in Texas is like being in Alaska in the winter without a furnace or really good stove. So we decided to get it replaced, and that night, the temp never went below around 75. So we called the next day, and they said that they could come the following day and set it up. That night was pretty much torture. Rachelle can't really sleep when it is hot, and it was around 80 in our house all night. Well the next day they were supposed to be here by 9 AM. Well, they finally came around 11:30. I was supposed to go to Houston with my friend Brandon. I took the time to go out to lunch with him, but couldn't really go all the way to Houston with guys working on my house. So came back home and did projects at home while they worked. It started getting even warmer. By around 3 or so, I figured that I was descending into the jaws of Hell itself.

And it only got warmer as the day went on. They had to change one of the ducts, and so it was open for a while, plus the intake was in the attic, meaning that for a while, the attic was cooler than the house.

For a while, there it was alot nicer outside the house with the nice breeze blowing. Needless to say it was a long couple of weeks. So, there you go, my life so far over the past couple of weeks. Life is good, as ever, and that is kinda the way life goes...

And two blogs in one day. Man, that must be some sort of record.

Memory, memory, anybody got a memory

2008-07-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

Memory game! This is a fun one so participate or I'll poke you in the eye. (These are the words of my friend who convinced me to put this on my blog. What can I say, I value my eyesight!)

1. As a comment on this post, leave a memory that you and I (or Rachelle) had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

It's about Freakin' time!!!!!! (a life update)

2008-06-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

So, I am alive. Not by much, but I am alive. So here is the scoop. I have a very different perspective on my time here in texas, and here is why, Everything has changed. I have changed my degree to a Masters in Chemical Education. So yeah, pretty different than a Ph.D in Chemistry, but it is a much better option. So here is the when, the why, and the what the heck.

Well, I switched to Masters about 2 months ago, and have just been really busy and I am just now getting around to telling everyone. It took a good couple of months to switch, and a trip to the temple to make sure I wasn't making a bad choice, but it is now done, and I am in the thick of my new degree.

Why, because I recently admitted to myself that I hate research. Don't get me wrong, I dig playin' around in the lab, but research is just to much for me. It can get really, really discouraging. Needless to say, a 10 percent success rate on reactions is pretty good in chemistry, and I was not diggin' that. Well, I have always wanted to teach, and I came here to get a degree so that I could do just that. So, switching to chem ed means that I will still be able to do that, I will not have to kill myself doing something that I hate for the next 3 or so years.

So what does it all mean. Well, it means just this:
I will be done in one year
The research I do will be an educational project, and will be done in the fall/spring this year
I will be taking classes again, and I am now
I will no longer be stuck in a lab all day
I can tutor more, which means a little more money
I will still be teaching labs each semesters
I will teach in High School or community college instead of a university
I will now retain more of my life because I will no longer inhale braincell killing chemicals all day
Overall, I am HAPPY.

I have been a bit less happy than I used to be due to hating research, and once I admitted that to myself, I have new life. Man, I actually like waking up and going to school in the morning. Well, ok, so I still don't like waking up, but I like going to school.

Well, I have been taking a class this summer, an educational technology class, online. I hate online classes. I have never really liked the idea of an online class, but now I know from experience that I am not a fan, and it is even worse because it is summer. I have had to learn more about excel, I learned filemaker pro (a database program) inspiration (a content mapping software), and I am now learning dreamweaver, (a webediting program). And all this in just 4 weeks. It has really kicked my butt. I have also had to teach lab twice a week, and do the labs as well, so I have been quite busy. Rachelle has been alot happier due to the fact that I am no longer miserable.

So, all in all, we are really busy, but happy. It is a good life, supposing I survive this class.

NOOO! Not summer, anything but Summer!!

2008-04-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

For the past month, the weather here has been awesome. I love the whole 70-80 degree thing, and the nights are pretty cool, mostly around 60. It has been really quite nice. Relaxing in the awesome hammock is the coolest, and working in the yard is not torture. Oh the great spring weather in Texas.

But, this morning I woke up to something quite disturbing. It was warmer outside than it was inside at 8 in the morning, which can mean only one thing. Summer. (if you listen carefully enough, you can hear a piece of me dying) I hate Texas summers. They are hot, they are humid, I am sticky, and there is no relief unless you have air conditioning. The shade is the same temperature as in the sun. It is just wrong. (more dying)

I have only one hope, fall. It is now only a short 7 or so months away. I now begin the long trek through summer, and hope that dehydration does not take me before I get to fall. It very well may, and I may welcome it, it depends on how hot it gets this year. I pray for rain. Please, if you call yourself friend, pray with me.

The epic battle continues

2008-04-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

I have finally gotten around to putting music on my blog. Do I dig, it? Well, it doesn't really matter, because I do not have speakers on my computer at work were I normally check blogs, so it does nothing in respect to my own listening experience. Not to mention I am usually listening to my sansa when I am at work any way. So, I really did it for you, my dedicated readers (all three of you), so I hope you like it. I am more than willing to change the playlist to suit your own fancy, so go ahead and fill me in on the changes you want.

There is one part about the music that does bother me, granted, it has nothing to do with the music itself. I use Mozilla Firefox for all my web browsing needs. I am well aware of the fact that most use Internet explorer, and I used to be one of them. I have been converted by firefox. It is awesome, and I love all the features it has, not to mention it is way more user friendly than explorer. So, I use it almost exclusively. There are two things that firefox does not due the way I like it. First, the music on blogs overlaps onto the posts, which makes it really hard to read at times. The second is launchcast radio. It is only compatable with explorer. I hate both, so the battle continues, will I use firefox because it rocks, or will I use explorer because everyone else does. Well, most of you are very aware of the fact that I do not always do what everyone else does, so I will stick with firefox, unless I am using launchcast, which is pretty seldom anyhow.

I would also at this time like to encourage all of you to go ahead and try firefox. It is awesome. Plus if you like to listen to music while you are online, you can also put on foxytune which allows you to change your music (track, pause, volume, etc.) right from the bottom corner of you browser. Man I dig computers!!

A Bet Gone Really Wrong.

2008-01-31T09:14:00.000-08:00

Many, if not all of you are aware of my peanut allergy. Many of you are also aware of my aversion to peanuts and any peanut containing concoction. Well, I have recently learned the history of how peanuts have come to be a food item. It began long ago as a bet. Centuries ago, there was a tribe of people that lived in a region where peanuts would grow wild. One day, one of the children of this tribe bet another child that he would not eat a peanut. You see, long before this, the peanut was periodically eaten when there was nothing else to eat, but when a chieftain ate one and died, they were seen as the devil's food. (they are grown beneath the ground anyways) So, a bet to eat a peanut was quite the bet. Well, this child decided to take his friend up on the bet, ate one, and did not die. So, this practice of eating peanuts became a show of strength and the lack of fear. Those with a peanut allergy would die, those without it would survive. From that point it became more and more extravagant, having to grind up the peanut and eat the paste, or mixing it with other equally deadly foods. Later when explorers saw this, they tasted the peanuts, and peanut butter, and due to the fact that they were delirious from their adventures so far, they recognized it for the protein it contained and convince themselves that it actually tasted good, and from there it was all history. So the next time you sit down to eat anything containing peanuts, remember that you are eating the devils food that is only food because of a bet gone wrong!

One more barrier passed!!

2008-01-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

So, I recently found out that I passed my fifth cumulative exam. As a graduate student in chemistry at Texas A&M, you are required to pass 5 cumulative exams. These exams are given the second saturday of each month, and there are test from each division of chemistry. (organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, biological, and sometimes nuclear) You have your choice of which to take, and so you can look them over, and take one of them. Granted, once you are there looking at the tests, you have to take one. Generally, people will take the one from the division that they are in, but it is not required by any means.

Well, the professors write them, and hence have to grade them, so it tends to take a long time to get results back from a cume, but just the other week, I found out that I have passed my fifth. You are allowed to take 15, and you have to finish by the time you have been able to take 20. Yeah, kinda strange, but that is how it works. Well, due to the fact that I was gone one semester, I had until February to pass five. I passed my fourth in september, but the cumes from Oct. and Nov. where just not my cup of tea, or perhaps they were cups of tea, and I just prefer hot chocolate, I am not quite sure. But alas, the cume from December was a good one, and perfectly suited for someone from my research group. Needless to say, I Aced it like a mad fiend! It was a good feeling to not only be done, but to finish it out with a good solid A.

Since we got back from our christmas vacation though, it seems as if we haven't stopped. The few nights we don't have anything going on already, we plan nights with friends. While in the end this means that we don't really have any free nights these days, we are sure having alot of fun. In fact, the other day, the Moores came over and we had a rematch game of squabble seen it. It is one of the many versions of the poplular game Seen It. Yeah, the movie game. This one is basically guys vs. girls, or as the box states, Chick Flicks vs. Guy Picks. The first time we played it was a couple of weeks ago, and the guys won. And in the rematch, we won yet again. Plus to top it all off, we won by shouting out The Princess Bride before the girls could get it. (nice work Paul) Needless to say, we have been having a blast.

I have also started a new D&D gaming session with a few people I know from school. In fact, there are two guys that I know from chemistry, and then their significant others. Sadly one lives in San Antonio, so she can not often come to play, but the rest of us have alot of fun. I hope it continues to be as fun as it is now. We stopped playing for some time because it was no longer fun, but hey, people change, and your life changes. It can't be helped, and even if it could be helped, I am not sure I would want it to.

Rachelle has also picked up quite the project. You see, there are quite a number of dancing groups here on campus, and so they decided to get together, and do their own little 'So You Think You Can Dance' competition. Granted it is just each group showing off their own style, and then doing one of the other styles also. Well, Jackie, one of the older students in our lab is in a group that does traditional mexican dances. They happened to draw ballroom out of the hat, so Jackie asked Rachelle is she would choreograph a number for them, so she is. She worked with them on Sunday and will work with them more tonight and thursday night, and then the competition is on Friday. She has had alot of fun putting the number together, and I had some fun with this fun little program called audacity. It is a freeware music editing program that I found, ans so far I really like it. I took the song that Rachelle is using (Short Skirt, Long Jacket by Cake) and cut it down to about 2 minutes, and slowed it down by about 10% or so. It was alot of fun doing it, and plus it is now perfect for the number. I hope the routine works out like Rachelle wants it to.

Well, there is much more I could talk about, but I am out of time, so until I post again, I hope you all have a freakin awesome January (and February as will if it comes to that)

You Say Slacking, I say effectivly doing other things!

2007-12-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

ok, so perhaps I have slacked a little. My posting has gone from ever other month, to every third. Will it improve? you ask, perhaps it will now that we actually have internet at home now. Oh, how I really love having the internet at home, and oh how I have missed the glory of the great information age. Granted I have had internet at school, but how much do you think I do at school, that isn't school? I would answer that question, but that would give far to much away, and allow the mocking to begin.

So, what have I been doing you ask? Well, school really. My life is research. I could talk for quite some time about the success and failure of my reactions and the direction of my projects, but I see little point in doing so. That is the monotony of life, and I revel in the excitement of life, which exists on a number of different levels. The highest level is home. I love being home with Rachelle. We talk, watch TV, work of projects, and clean. No matter what, the house never actually seems like it stays clean for more than a day or two. Rachelle really has been pushing for us to keep it cleaner, but what can I say, we both hate cleaning. The great thing is that I love to have people over to visit, so that forces us to clean before they get there. Oh well, clean or not, I love our house.

We also have alot of projects that we do, particularly me. I love projects. One of the more recent ones would be the stump. What is the stump you ask, well, it is just that, a stump. It was cut about to the level of the ground, but not quite. So, when Rachelle was being so kind as to mow the lawn when I had to come to work on saturday, she ran over the stump, and it fought back. Sadly the lawnmower was the one that lost. A bent crank, and a new engine later (again, thanks Paul for hauling my lawnmower to and from the repair shop) and I decided I needed to dig out the stump. When I say dig out, I mean with a shovel, an axe and way to much sweat. It is now sitting in a hole with a mote around it due to the rain we have gotten, and I can't manage to get out there to finish digging it out. I think next time I will wait for the fourth of July and just use a few M80's on the thing.

I have to also say, that Rachelle does the most amazing job of making our house look festive. She really like decorating for pretty much every holiday, and I love it. We don't have much in the way of Thanksgiving stuff, but she is working on it. But, now that it is the Christmas season, the house is just full of christmas stuff, and I love it. On my next post, which may be later tonight, I will put up pics of the cool christmas tree and what not. Life rocks, and so I hope you all dig it as much as I do.

Progress? Well, I am still alive, is that progress?

2007-09-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

The semester has again begun, and the dread of having a much fuller schedule has fallen upon me, but suprisingly enough, I am not as stressed as I expected. Life is quite good, and chemistry is ever progressing. If you really want to know more about my chemistry though, you will have to come to my group meeting. It is thrilling each and every week.

So, life. What should I say. Rachelle and I own a house now. Yes, you all know that, but I am still excited about it. Plus I feel that I have neglected you all in telling you what owning a house is like for us. Well, I get to mow the lawn, which is a very gratifying thing for me. It is my yard. Don't get me wrong, I "loved" mowing the lawn for my parents growing up, but this is OUR lawn. Oh the glory.

Plus, we finally painted our front room. It is awesome! Actually, we painted it, and then sponged it with a darker color. The base is a light blueish gray color, and then we sponged to opposite walls with a really cool dark blue. Man I love it. It really makes our family room feel like home. We still have alot of work to do on the bathrooms especially. They have really bad wallpaper, and worse wallpaper underneath. Oh well, the glory of owning a house is also all the work you get to do to make it better, and make it your own.

So, more important things must be mentioned. I will post pics of the house at some point, just not yet. But I have to say, our new ward (well, kinda new, we have been here a few months) is awesome!!! Don't get me wrong, our old ward here in the area was great, but the Bryan Ward is just cool.

We have neighbors for the next year, roughly, Mike and Mindy Williams. They just had an adorable little girl. It is quite exciting. It is really nice to have someone in the ward so close, the only sad thing is that Mike will be getting his Degree in Mechanical engineering in May, and they will be running away, but we still love them.

Not long after we moved into the ward, there was another couple that moved into the ward, Paul and Joni Moore. We also hang out with them fairly often. In fact I happen to have a pic of the four of us, on the phoof of course.

Actually, you can see the pimped out superawesomecool paint job if you look behind us. Man that looks good!

Needless to say, this pic was taken a while ago, and I told the Moores that I would put it up, and I finally have. Sorry about the whole taking forever thing, not to mention the whole not bloggina for 2 months. Man I suck. We shall see if I can get better at that.

"Potter Stinks"

2007-07-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

However sad it may be, I have considered getting a badge like unto that made by the slytherins a few years ago that reads "Potter Stinks".

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the fictional character of Harry Potter, but the latest installment in the series that came out in the theaters not long ago deserves a good amount of criticism. In reality, I am somewhat of a Harry Potter fan. I started listening to the books a few years ago when I had to do alot of driving, and was sucked in rather quickly. I have each of the current six books in mp3 format on my computer, one I actually payed full price.

Despite the fact that I am not always a fan of the way J.K Rowling writes, and I feel that she showed quite a bit of her lack of experience in the first two books, her characters have not been the only ones to grow. She has grown a lot as a writer over the course of this series, and I am awaiting the final installment with bated breath.

The movies on the other had have serious issues. The changing of the castle grounds bothered me in the third movie, but I dig the new grounds. Also, the changing directors is driving me crazy. They all have to have their own vision, and hench have a tendency to change things that aren't broken. I would complain about the new Dumbledore, but the is kinda a pointless argument.

This brings me to the newest Harry Potter movie. I give it zero stars, two thumbs down, and rate it around 1 on a scale from 1-10. Needless to say I did not like it.

**NOTICE**
If you have not yet seen the newest Harry Potter movie, and wish
for me not to ruin anything, stop reading now!!!!!

Well, what can I say. It was only two and a half hours long, shorter than many of the "epic" type movies coming out these days. This is not in and of itself a problem, but the movie was lacking, and putting in a few extra things might have helped. Which brings up the next point; if you have read the book, the movie was lacking, and if you haven't much of it was ambiguous, and the story progression seemed to be more of an amorphis blob than a flow. Key characters were left out, which is going to make the next book, and more than likely seven, completely confusing as if it wasn't already.

Ok, so my major issues with the movie are:
The dementors both don't fly, and they are cloaked
Aunt Petunia did not receive the howler that she should have
There wasn't enough of Tonks
Dumbledore did not make Harry take oclamency the day he saw Aurthor Weasley hurt
It is O.W.L. not owl (like the nocturnal bird)
Fred and George would never disturb the actual O.W.L's(they don't care about grades, but they know others do)
Fred and George would never even leave unless quidditch was taken from them, which wasn't mentioned
Umbrage did not make the entire class write with their own blood
The final fight scene was absolute crap
It did not show any of the side rooms in the department of mysteries
Neither the Death-eaters, nor the order of the Phoenix turn into a crazy mist to fly around, and if they did, why didn't the Death-eaters just fly by Harry and take the prophecy?
Sirius was hit with a stunning spell, and fell into the archway, not the killing curse
The fountain of magical brethren took no part in the final fight with Voldemort
Ministry officials just randomly started showing up and happened to see Voldemort

Ok, that is enough. There are more issues, but I have not the time nor the patience to continue enumerating them. I am sufficiently frustrated as it is.

Needless to say, I love the Harry Potter books, and a very excited to get my pre-ordered copy of book seven, but I may not even see the next two movies, it was just that painful. So I guess I should change my badge and make it say "Warner Brothers Stinks"

Oven Door Pasta

2007-06-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

I made a new dinner the other night for my dear wife. We had been having a great day of relaxing, after all, it was Sunday. A lazy Sunday afternoon, is there anything better? I contest that there are few things that are. Well, it was one of those Sunday afternoons, but the afternoon was receding, and the evening was soon approaching. I decided that my wife should get the chance to relax, so I would make dinner. It had been a long week.

So, I went to the kitchen, and soon decided on a frozen pasta that we had purchased from Sam's Club. We would have purchased it as Cosco, which we both prefer, but the nearest one is far to long of a drive. So, I took the pasta out of the oven, and read the instructions. Two hours in the oven. ok. "Hey sweetie, how hungry are you? Not very? Could you wait two hours until dinner? Ok, then I will bake this pasta."

The baking began. Periodically I checked on the pasta, and it all seemed to be going ok. The time was drawing nigh, and I suddenly realized that I was supposed to take the foil off the top when there was ten minutes left for it to bake. I quickly went into the kitchen, and started to try and get the foil off. I apperently did a very good job of getting it on when I put it is the oven, so I slid the cookie sheet that the pasta was on out a bit so I could get a better grip. The foil was infact attached far to well for my purposes, but the added tug I gave the foil was sufficent to change the center of gravity of the cookie sheet. Yeah, you guessed it, the whole thing came spilling down onto the oven door. I saved what I could for dinner, but my emotional state was beyond repair by anything but time.

So, from hence forth and forever, lasagna will no longer be called by that name in my home, It will be called Oven Door Pasta.

Getting a little High

2007-05-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

There is nothing better about owning your home than making changes. It not only makes it feel more your own, but you can do whatever you want with out asking anyone, well, except your spouse.

So this past weekend we painted in our new house. We painted the master bedroom a really nice tan color that brings out the brown in our comforter, which is really awesome. We also painted the bedroom that is going to be our den. That we painted a really cool chocolate brown that has mahogany undertones. It is the most calming color ever, and it is going to make for the perfect den. Now all we need to do is get rid of our old trashed desks, and get some that will actually look good in a great brown den. I can not tell you how high I was by the time we finished. In the middle of painting, I had to run to the school for a review session, and I got a headache because I left. Man, withdrawals after only 5 hours of painting!

The house looks great, and we are starting to decorate a little bit. We don't move in until this saturday, but we have already moved a lot of stuff. In fact, we are finding it hard to make lunch in our apartment because we have moved most of our kitchen supplies, and a good portion of our food. But as of today, we are having lunch at our house too. I can not tell you how excited I am to be living in our new house. It is just the greatest feeling. Granted that means that I have a lot of projects that need to be done, including wiring the house for surround sound, mowing the yard, removal of about 10 old tree stumps, and a whole lot more. Eventually I will get them all done, hopefully before I graduate, and we leave Bryan forever.

Oh the Joys

2007-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

So, the time has finally come. Rachelle and I are only days away, minutes if you want to count up to 3000. The anticipation is beginning to overwhelm me. I can not help but think about it each minute of each day. Even when all the members of my research group are getting drunk around me (we had group meeting at a bar on Friday) I still think about it. My boss thinks I am more excited about this than I was about getting married! (he is wrong, but in his defense, I am really excited)

So what is it you ask. Why is it that my life is engulfed by this event? What could be so great? What is deserving of me keeping you in suspense so long? If it is this important, why have you not written a blog about it already?

There is a very good answer to all of these questions. Actually there is two. The answer to the last questions is quite simple, I am LAZY!! Yes it is true, I am really quite lazy when it is something I do not have to do. But that laziness is finally overcome by the lack of a desire to do work right after lunch, so hey, whatever works right.

Ok, so I think that I have kept you in suspense long enough. Rachelle and I are buying a house. We close on the house on Wednesday the 18th of April. Yes, just two day away, or less if you are not reading this within 10 hours of me writing this.

So, I can sense that you wish me to tell you about this house, and I would be more than happy to do so. It will be ours. That is the most important bit of information. It is a 3/2, just under 1500 square feet. It was built in 1980, and has had only one owner. The yard is awesome, and it is pretty close to both work for Rachelle, and school for me. It also comes with the washer, dryer, refrigerator, and has a two car garage. It is pretty much perfect. Yeah, I love it, and I always will, to say the least. Man it rocks.

We are pretty dang excited about it, and I would like to point out that we will have a guest bedroom so that all ya'll can come visit!! Feel the glory of owning a home with us. Yeah, it rocks.

Digital Blasphemy

2007-03-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was looking for cool wallpapers the other day, and a friend suggested that I check out digital blasphemy. I have to say, it is one of the coolest sites. It is all computer generated images, and there is about 10-15 that you can download for free. Man it is cool. Ya'll should check it out. I have linked the page.

The Great and Mighty

2007-03-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

Many great and mighty people have come before me, and shown me the way through life. I have learned much from these great people. My parents, teachers, friends, friends parents and many others. The one that has inspired me today is Cardine.

She is an ever so fabulous person. A little crazy (or alot, she does taxes) and that perhaps is one of the reasons that I dig her so. The degree of her insanity is nowhere near that of my own, but there are few in the world that earn that distinction, and most of them are in a home generally called the crazy house.

Cardine has inspired me. Yes it has taken some time for me to realize the degree of inspiration, and more importantly what to do with such inspiration, but I have finally done it. I set up a blog this week. I have failed to keep in contact on a regular basis with those whom I called friends in my past life (you know, the life I had before I was married, and still living in Cedar City). On the other hand, I do get updates from Cardine through her blog periodically (it is only periodical due to my lack of looking at it regularly) and so I know she is still around. She on the other hand probably has no idea that I am still in good health(despite all the chemical fumes).

So this is my answer. I will follow in the footsteps of those great and mighty people who have come before me and seek to regularly post on this blog.

I bid you now a very fond adieu, and may those great and mighty guide you as they have me.