Where to start? Well for a birthday present we got tickets to go to a dinner theater to watch Indiana Bones (an Indiana Jones parody). It was great and we had a great time.
Michelle is doing great she has just started an at home job doing costumer service for a website called Baby to bee, where new parents can get free stuff. I do not know much about it but I think that everyone should take a look. Anyway she is liking that, it reminders her of her last job at Meleuluca or however you spell it. The people for the website are really impressed with her phone skills and how she talks to people.
She is also babysitting a kid in out ward he is 2.5 years old so he plays well with the kids. So with the jobs Michelle is willing to do she is the money maker and I am very grateful for her for willingness to do this when I am going to school.
Speaking of school I started my dental hygiene school. So far it is review so I think in a few weeks it will get crazy. There are 60 of us total and 3 of us are guys. The cool thing is is that I am the tallest one of the bunch and here in a week or so you can see the picture on ucdh.edu under class pictures. There are a lot of the girls that are married which is nice. All of the guys are married. There are 3 to 4 of us from Rexburg and 9 or 10 from Idaho.
Scott is going to the potty in his potty when he tells us and Kyle is starting to get the idea also because he is asking to sit on the potty, so the end of diapers is in sight. YES they are about as bad as gas right now!
Well also this month up at temple square we started hanging up Christmas lights on the trees and now I know why they start so early. It takes a very long time and lots of lights for each tree, just a small tree takes a person 1.5 to 2 days just to finish it and around 3000 lights on the tree I did.
Well I am off once again like others to start homework once more. We will talk to you all later.
The Hopes
Monday, September 8, 2008
2008 August: Bates
August: Bermuda Triangle of Weirdness.
Where to start. I guess I'll start with the Normal stuff.
Orianna has been growing great (I know, I need to post all my new photos... I will get to it soon). She is a very happy baby that loves to laugh and she is very smart. Every time she figures something out you can see it in her eyes. She just recently realized that she can affect other objects when she touches them. So she has been hitting her toys, and pulling blankets, and laughs her head off that she can move things. But, she does get very angry at all the things that are out of reach.
Tamara and I have been fixing up our house. We painted the living room and have started to paint the kitchen (but we still have many holes in the ceiling to patch first).
Ok, now for the weird stuff.
So, as many of you know, Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) was planning to build a road on top of our home. Our city council fought it, and the decision was postponed until 2010 or 2011 (depending on when they complete the 1st 2 phases of their "master plan"). All of our neighbors received constant letters from UDOT informing them of what was going on (since August of last year). We never received a single letter. Then (quite suddenly) all of our neighbors sold their houses to UDOT (literally, all our neighbors. Our closest neighbor is now 4 houses away). We still hadn't heard from UDOT.
Well, the other day I was doing dishes and looked out the window at a man taking pictures of my house. I went to the window and stared at him as if to say, "Are you really on my property taking pictures of my house?" He seemed shocked that there was someone in the house, so he came to the door, knocked, and in essence asked, "Why are you squatting in a UDOT-owned house?" He said that UDOT owned all the houses on this street up to a certain house.
I informed him that we owned the house, UDOT had never contacted us, and that we were a little miffed at the whole situation. While telling him to tell his superiors to contact us, I looked over his shoulder at his documents. Our house doesn't exist on his map. They skipped right over it. Wow... that's quite the oversight. I can just see them wheeling in the demolition-mobile into our front lawn, not realizing that they don't own it!
Anywho... that was weird.
Then, the other night at about 10 PM someone knocked on the door. I threw on a robe, answered it, and was confronted with a young man (probably 20) who wanted me to give him my car because he needs one to help his roommate go to the hospital frequently for dialysis. He was quite coherent. He wasn't intoxicated. He just thought he could swindle someone without being a very good liar. He wouldn't take "no" for an answer. I offered him rides, etc... Eventually I just had to tell him that I was convinced that he was lying and listed the reasons why. I wished him better luck on his next attempt, and bid him good-night.
There were some other weird things this month, but I can't remember them right now.
So, till next month: Cheers,
Rob & Tamara & Orianna
Where to start. I guess I'll start with the Normal stuff.
Orianna has been growing great (I know, I need to post all my new photos... I will get to it soon). She is a very happy baby that loves to laugh and she is very smart. Every time she figures something out you can see it in her eyes. She just recently realized that she can affect other objects when she touches them. So she has been hitting her toys, and pulling blankets, and laughs her head off that she can move things. But, she does get very angry at all the things that are out of reach.
Tamara and I have been fixing up our house. We painted the living room and have started to paint the kitchen (but we still have many holes in the ceiling to patch first).
Ok, now for the weird stuff.
So, as many of you know, Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) was planning to build a road on top of our home. Our city council fought it, and the decision was postponed until 2010 or 2011 (depending on when they complete the 1st 2 phases of their "master plan"). All of our neighbors received constant letters from UDOT informing them of what was going on (since August of last year). We never received a single letter. Then (quite suddenly) all of our neighbors sold their houses to UDOT (literally, all our neighbors. Our closest neighbor is now 4 houses away). We still hadn't heard from UDOT.
Well, the other day I was doing dishes and looked out the window at a man taking pictures of my house. I went to the window and stared at him as if to say, "Are you really on my property taking pictures of my house?" He seemed shocked that there was someone in the house, so he came to the door, knocked, and in essence asked, "Why are you squatting in a UDOT-owned house?" He said that UDOT owned all the houses on this street up to a certain house.
I informed him that we owned the house, UDOT had never contacted us, and that we were a little miffed at the whole situation. While telling him to tell his superiors to contact us, I looked over his shoulder at his documents. Our house doesn't exist on his map. They skipped right over it. Wow... that's quite the oversight. I can just see them wheeling in the demolition-mobile into our front lawn, not realizing that they don't own it!
Anywho... that was weird.
Then, the other night at about 10 PM someone knocked on the door. I threw on a robe, answered it, and was confronted with a young man (probably 20) who wanted me to give him my car because he needs one to help his roommate go to the hospital frequently for dialysis. He was quite coherent. He wasn't intoxicated. He just thought he could swindle someone without being a very good liar. He wouldn't take "no" for an answer. I offered him rides, etc... Eventually I just had to tell him that I was convinced that he was lying and listed the reasons why. I wished him better luck on his next attempt, and bid him good-night.
There were some other weird things this month, but I can't remember them right now.
So, till next month: Cheers,
Rob & Tamara & Orianna
2008 August: North
It has been a great month for us. We have made great progress on the medical school front. Let me briefly explain the process to you. The first step is a primary application. All D.O. schools use the same application service, so you only have to do it once. You give them your pre-med resume, a personal statement (which Derik helped me on), and you send a couple of hundred bucks. If the schools like your first application they send you a secondary application. Basically you write a few more essays, answer a few questions, and send some more money. Then if they like your secondary application they invite you to the school for an interview... at your expense of course. If they like you at the interview then they offer you a spot at their school. Okay now back to my situation: I got secondary applications from all 4 schools I applied to (probably thanks to Derik's input on my essay). I only turned in 2 of the secondaries, and both schools have invited me to fly out and interview. So in about 3 weeks I will be flying out to West Virginia and Missouri. I'll be gone for a week. To be honest I'm a little nervous. I've not flown since my mission. It will be a big, exciting trip for me. I'll have some extra time in each city to look around and get a feel for each place. Maybe by the end of October we'll know where we are headed for school. The Lord has been very generous to us!
In other news we spent Labor Day weekend at Becky's parents' farm. The weather wasn't all that cooperative, so we didn't get to go 4-wheeling or shooting, but we had a wonderful time with her family. We played games, watched movies, teased and chatted. It was a great break from reality.
Becky is working at the fair this week. She gets off work at 5, then leaves for the fair at 5:20. She doesn't get home until around midnight. She's been doing it all week. Luckily her last night is tomorrow night. I don't miss the bachelor life.
Now it's time for the "Don't you wish you were at ISU" moment: One of the books I'm required to read this semester is entitled "Red queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature." The book's author is trying to justify the existence of genders using evolutionary tools. It's not going to be my most useful class, I can tell you that.
We're doing well, and keeping busy. God bless you all!
Stewart and Becky
In other news we spent Labor Day weekend at Becky's parents' farm. The weather wasn't all that cooperative, so we didn't get to go 4-wheeling or shooting, but we had a wonderful time with her family. We played games, watched movies, teased and chatted. It was a great break from reality.
Becky is working at the fair this week. She gets off work at 5, then leaves for the fair at 5:20. She doesn't get home until around midnight. She's been doing it all week. Luckily her last night is tomorrow night. I don't miss the bachelor life.
Now it's time for the "Don't you wish you were at ISU" moment: One of the books I'm required to read this semester is entitled "Red queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature." The book's author is trying to justify the existence of genders using evolutionary tools. It's not going to be my most useful class, I can tell you that.
We're doing well, and keeping busy. God bless you all!
Stewart and Becky
2008 August: Robertson
Hello everyone,
Let me see if I can get you all caught up to date on the Robertson family. The move went smooth enough. It took us two days to drive to Rochester, MN from Rexburg. My parents drove the moving van which was a complete life saver. We can never thank them enough. Morgan's family gave us dinner that night and we crashed shortly after that. The next day we drove to Winona since we had an appointment to get our apartment. But, when we showed up to the appointment, the lady wasn't ready for us. She said that she didn't expect us to actually show up and so she had scheduled another appointment over the top of ours. I couldn't believe it. She then wanted to reschedule for a week following, but we explained that we had a moving truck full of stuff that we were expecting to unload into an apartment. She had us come back in an hour. We ended up getting the apartment. It is a two bedroom, two story town house with an unfinished basement. It is a pretty nice place. And we are getting it subsidized – even nicer. The person who “lived” here was a police informant for a rather large drug bust that happened in the area here, but we haven't seen anything to do with that since living here unless you count the random notes that are slipped into our mailbox with large unmarked bills folded into them (cough).
We were able to unload the truck that day and head back to Rochester. We said good-bye to my parents the next day as they went back to Idaho. We miss them and everyone back in that part of the country. We then got back into the car and drove another four hours to Duluth,MN for Morgan's family reunion. During the reunion we drove around Duluth, went for scenic drives, and drove to a light house. Needless to say, I have been avoiding my car like death since we came back to Winona. Duluth was enjoyable and we did get to play in Lake Superior. Well, we watched Kyla and Daria play in Lake Superior while we tried to keep them from going into deep water.
A little over a week after we signed the contract for the apartment, we finally came to our apartment to stay. Unpacking wasn't that bad. We had everything basically unpacked and put away in a couple days. Winona is an interesting town. It is in a very narrow valley with green bluffs on either side. On one side of the valley next to one wall of bluffs is the Mississippi river, on the other side of the valley against the opposite side of bluffs are a few small lakes, in between all said bodies of water is Winona. It gets humid here. There are several large churches in the town and some very nice 1800's old houses. One of the older mansions is for sale. So if you are willing to cough up a couple million dollars and want to live in a house on the national registry of historic landmarks, the mansion is yours.
Morgan and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. There is no place in this town to have a nice dinner. But if you want a bar and grill or a pub and grille (yes, we have both kinds), this is your town. The place we went to (one of the bar and grill variety – it was recommended), everything of that dining experience can be summed up with this little observation. In the room we were dining in, there was a large hole in the ceiling. Instead of fixing it, the management stuck a stuffed leg with a boot on it into the hole and left it dangling down for the entire world to see. We don't think we will go back.
School started for me already. I am taking three classes (the minimum) and working in the writing center as I prepare my class to teach for the winter semester. The books for my classes ended up costing around $400. I am going through about one and a half books a week plus articles. School has very quickly eaten up all of my time. I am usually gone by 8:30 am and usually get back home at 7:30 pm. It makes for long days for both myself and Morgan. I am enjoying my classes. I have been pleased that so much philosophy has been coming up as I study different theories. My background in philosophy is serving me well.
The branch that we are in is small (60-70 people every Sunday), but everyone there is very friendly to us. So friendly that after the meetings were over on our first Sunday, I was asked to teach the Priesthood lesson for the following Sunday. I ended up teaching the lesson on my second Sunday in the branch blissfully unaware of anyone's name and calling – including the stake president who was sitting right next to me. It was finally pointed out half way through the lesson who and what he was (we were talking about Priesthood keys – someone made a good connection). Ah, ignorance. The young women are enraptured with the girls and mob Morgan and the girls every week after church. They want to babysit and have assured us on several occasions that they are old enough. I have been called as the Young Men's President and am currently trying to get a presidency together. I have three active priests and two active deacons. I am still hazy on how many inactives there are. Morgan is still without a calling, but the primary president is moving out in a couple weeks and the Branch president keeps telling her that they are “waiting for the right spot and the right time.” In the meantime, she plays piano for the Relief Society and has been told to also expect another assignment leading music. Whew! I think that I have covered everything that has happened during this crazy month. We wish you all the best and love you all. If you are every in the Twin Cities area (or Wisconsin, Iowa, or maybe Chicago) let us know and we could try to meet. Our door is always open if you want to take a road trip.
God bless,
The Robertsons
P.S. Here is the new address and phone number:
775 E Belleview St. Apt B
Winona, MN 55987
507.452.1365
P.P.S. we will try and get a blog up and going soon so you can see pictures
Let me see if I can get you all caught up to date on the Robertson family. The move went smooth enough. It took us two days to drive to Rochester, MN from Rexburg. My parents drove the moving van which was a complete life saver. We can never thank them enough. Morgan's family gave us dinner that night and we crashed shortly after that. The next day we drove to Winona since we had an appointment to get our apartment. But, when we showed up to the appointment, the lady wasn't ready for us. She said that she didn't expect us to actually show up and so she had scheduled another appointment over the top of ours. I couldn't believe it. She then wanted to reschedule for a week following, but we explained that we had a moving truck full of stuff that we were expecting to unload into an apartment. She had us come back in an hour. We ended up getting the apartment. It is a two bedroom, two story town house with an unfinished basement. It is a pretty nice place. And we are getting it subsidized – even nicer. The person who “lived” here was a police informant for a rather large drug bust that happened in the area here, but we haven't seen anything to do with that since living here unless you count the random notes that are slipped into our mailbox with large unmarked bills folded into them (cough).
We were able to unload the truck that day and head back to Rochester. We said good-bye to my parents the next day as they went back to Idaho. We miss them and everyone back in that part of the country. We then got back into the car and drove another four hours to Duluth,MN for Morgan's family reunion. During the reunion we drove around Duluth, went for scenic drives, and drove to a light house. Needless to say, I have been avoiding my car like death since we came back to Winona. Duluth was enjoyable and we did get to play in Lake Superior. Well, we watched Kyla and Daria play in Lake Superior while we tried to keep them from going into deep water.
A little over a week after we signed the contract for the apartment, we finally came to our apartment to stay. Unpacking wasn't that bad. We had everything basically unpacked and put away in a couple days. Winona is an interesting town. It is in a very narrow valley with green bluffs on either side. On one side of the valley next to one wall of bluffs is the Mississippi river, on the other side of the valley against the opposite side of bluffs are a few small lakes, in between all said bodies of water is Winona. It gets humid here. There are several large churches in the town and some very nice 1800's old houses. One of the older mansions is for sale. So if you are willing to cough up a couple million dollars and want to live in a house on the national registry of historic landmarks, the mansion is yours.
Morgan and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. There is no place in this town to have a nice dinner. But if you want a bar and grill or a pub and grille (yes, we have both kinds), this is your town. The place we went to (one of the bar and grill variety – it was recommended), everything of that dining experience can be summed up with this little observation. In the room we were dining in, there was a large hole in the ceiling. Instead of fixing it, the management stuck a stuffed leg with a boot on it into the hole and left it dangling down for the entire world to see. We don't think we will go back.
School started for me already. I am taking three classes (the minimum) and working in the writing center as I prepare my class to teach for the winter semester. The books for my classes ended up costing around $400. I am going through about one and a half books a week plus articles. School has very quickly eaten up all of my time. I am usually gone by 8:30 am and usually get back home at 7:30 pm. It makes for long days for both myself and Morgan. I am enjoying my classes. I have been pleased that so much philosophy has been coming up as I study different theories. My background in philosophy is serving me well.
The branch that we are in is small (60-70 people every Sunday), but everyone there is very friendly to us. So friendly that after the meetings were over on our first Sunday, I was asked to teach the Priesthood lesson for the following Sunday. I ended up teaching the lesson on my second Sunday in the branch blissfully unaware of anyone's name and calling – including the stake president who was sitting right next to me. It was finally pointed out half way through the lesson who and what he was (we were talking about Priesthood keys – someone made a good connection). Ah, ignorance. The young women are enraptured with the girls and mob Morgan and the girls every week after church. They want to babysit and have assured us on several occasions that they are old enough. I have been called as the Young Men's President and am currently trying to get a presidency together. I have three active priests and two active deacons. I am still hazy on how many inactives there are. Morgan is still without a calling, but the primary president is moving out in a couple weeks and the Branch president keeps telling her that they are “waiting for the right spot and the right time.” In the meantime, she plays piano for the Relief Society and has been told to also expect another assignment leading music. Whew! I think that I have covered everything that has happened during this crazy month. We wish you all the best and love you all. If you are every in the Twin Cities area (or Wisconsin, Iowa, or maybe Chicago) let us know and we could try to meet. Our door is always open if you want to take a road trip.
God bless,
The Robertsons
P.S. Here is the new address and phone number:
775 E Belleview St. Apt B
Winona, MN 55987
507.452.1365
P.P.S. we will try and get a blog up and going soon so you can see pictures
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