Hello Everyone,
Happy 2011. January has been a very busy month for us – at least for me. School started and I had to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have my feet under me when I hit the ground, but I think that I am mostly recovered now. I have been trying a new format to teach my beginning writing students. I meet in a large group once during the week and then I am meeting in small groups with the students go over their writing at different times during the week. It has been an interesting experience so far and I am figuring out ways to make it even better and more efficient, but I think students are getting some good experience out of it – at least I am. The other big news from the school front is the little present I received from work. I was in my office one day when the department chair came in and handed me a 4th generation Ipod touch. He told me it was either to make me more productive or bring a smile to my face. I don’t know about the productive part, but it did put a grin on my face. I also started classes at ISU again. Last semester was pretty peaceful. This semester has me working pretty hard to do everything. I’m reading 2 ½ books a week just for my ISU classes. I guess that is what happens when one of the classes is History of the Novel and the other is Teaching Literature. Oh Well.
Morgan’s co-teacher in primary was released this month, so Morgan is flying solo teaching the 7-8 year olds in primary for a while until the primary can get another teacher called (probably won’t happen for a while). She is friends with most of the parents of the kids in her class and has been given permission to be strict with a few of them. If it is possible, Morgan is learning to become strict with children. Being a mom will do that to a person, I guess. But she seems to enjoy her time in the primary. She also sang a solo for sacrament meeting last week which was very beautiful. She was then surrounded for the rest of church by people thanking her and complimenting her for her singing. I don’t think the ward has had anyone with her level of training sing in church for a while. One brother went so far as to offer her a singing position in his band. Upon further reflection, he softened the offer by saying that she might not like the type of music he does – citing Janice Joplin as one of his favorites.
Kyla and Daria had a great month. They turned 4 this month and now will tell everyone about it. For their birthday, the received a bunch of clothes and books from grandparents and great grandparents. Morgan and I gave them Disney princess bikes which I think might possibly qualify us as the best parents ever category. The girls love their bikes and can’t wait for the snow and ice to go away so they can ride their bikes outside. Jamis likes the bikes as well and does his best to claim them as his.
Jamis continues to be a very good natured kid (as long as he isn’t tired). He can say a few words now and is almost constantly smiling.
We had a few adventures with water and our house this month. It started mid month when we went into the girls’ room in the basement and found the carpet was all wet. After investigating, we figured that water was coming in through some small cracks in the foundation. So we took out a sheetrock wall in the girls’ bedroom so we could waterproof the wall. That seems to have done the trick because we haven’t had any other problems, but we probably won’t completely patch the wall back up until after the spring thaw just to be safe. The other adventure was the freezing of our pipes last week during a cold snap; there was no way to get to the part of the pipe that froze without tearing up a floor or a ceiling, so we turned Morgan’s hairdryer on the pipe in an effort to heat the entire pipe up to get to the frozen section. After a few hours of that, the water in the pipe thawed and we had water again. Luckily, no pipe burst (as far as we know). Anyway I think that sums up our hum-drum lives. We hope that all things are going well for everyone else.
Bless you all,
The Robertsons
Saturday, February 5, 2011
2011 January: North
To write this post I’m trying to think back to the beginning of the year; it seems like it was so long ago. School started on January 3rd for me. Yeah, they’re not really good about giving us breaks in med school, shorter summers and shorter Christmas breaks. You’d think they were trying to phase us out of the whole ‘vacation’ idea.
In the middle of January I signed up for my first boards test. I’ll take it in June. It costs $500! Whatever happened to the free tests back in high school? I remember back when we took tests because the school wanted us to, and now I have to pay to take a test. It just seems backwards. Well signing up for the test was kind of scary, because it made it seem more real. Up until now boards have been some big ominous thing off on the horizon, now they are getting close.
Becky and I went to Beckley on President’s Day to look for a new apartment. We found lots of options, there are lots of town home-style apartments in the area. We found one apartment complex that was super nice. They have a tennis court, a Jacuzzi and swimming pool, and they even have a fishing pond that they keep stalked with fish. It’s not that much more than we’re paying now, but I think we’re going to look for something a little bit more modest. We weren’t crazy about anything we saw that day, so we’re going to go back and look for houses another time. I like the idea of having a yard and a little space between me and the neighbors. Someday we’ll own our own house.
I went on my first campout with the Boy Scouts in our ward this month. They called a new scoutmaster (I’m still the Young Men’s President) who has more time and resources than me, so the new guy planned the campout. We drove about 15 miles to a cave. We slept about ¼ mile underground. It was a lot of fun. The temperature in the cave was probably between 40-50 degrees, which was a little chilly, but it sure beat the temperature outside the cave (10-20 degrees). We saw bats and cave spiders. There is a little stream running through the cave that we had to cross several times. Before dinner Friday night we went exploring deep under the mountain. All but one of the boys enjoyed it. The one who didn’t enjoy it doesn’t like to get dirty or wet, and unfortunately in that cave there is little else besides dirt, water, and dirty rocks. Oh well. It was a neat experience for us. This month the youth are challenging the elders and high priests to a pinewood derby contest. It’s been years since I made one, but it will be fun.
We hope things are going well for you all.
Stewart, Becky, and Sophie.
In the middle of January I signed up for my first boards test. I’ll take it in June. It costs $500! Whatever happened to the free tests back in high school? I remember back when we took tests because the school wanted us to, and now I have to pay to take a test. It just seems backwards. Well signing up for the test was kind of scary, because it made it seem more real. Up until now boards have been some big ominous thing off on the horizon, now they are getting close.
Becky and I went to Beckley on President’s Day to look for a new apartment. We found lots of options, there are lots of town home-style apartments in the area. We found one apartment complex that was super nice. They have a tennis court, a Jacuzzi and swimming pool, and they even have a fishing pond that they keep stalked with fish. It’s not that much more than we’re paying now, but I think we’re going to look for something a little bit more modest. We weren’t crazy about anything we saw that day, so we’re going to go back and look for houses another time. I like the idea of having a yard and a little space between me and the neighbors. Someday we’ll own our own house.
I went on my first campout with the Boy Scouts in our ward this month. They called a new scoutmaster (I’m still the Young Men’s President) who has more time and resources than me, so the new guy planned the campout. We drove about 15 miles to a cave. We slept about ¼ mile underground. It was a lot of fun. The temperature in the cave was probably between 40-50 degrees, which was a little chilly, but it sure beat the temperature outside the cave (10-20 degrees). We saw bats and cave spiders. There is a little stream running through the cave that we had to cross several times. Before dinner Friday night we went exploring deep under the mountain. All but one of the boys enjoyed it. The one who didn’t enjoy it doesn’t like to get dirty or wet, and unfortunately in that cave there is little else besides dirt, water, and dirty rocks. Oh well. It was a neat experience for us. This month the youth are challenging the elders and high priests to a pinewood derby contest. It’s been years since I made one, but it will be fun.
We hope things are going well for you all.
Stewart, Becky, and Sophie.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
2011 January: Bates
January is over? Wow, life gets blurry in the fast lane.
So this month we finalized ZebraStrut LLC, set up a website (not much content yet, and our designer is still too busy, so it's 100% me).
We released 2 Apps: A Band Name Generator (silly app with ads at the bottom), and an iPad app called Procrastination Presentations (a last minute powerpoint for someone good at BS-ing).
We are about to release a Fortune Cookie app (with the ability to specify your own text for 1 of the cookies and what cookie you want to have that message [for pranks, or proposals, or whatever]).
I also did my final interviews with Adobe/Omniture in Orem (who will be building a campus in Lehi soon). I did really well in the interviews, so hopefully I got the job (knock on wood). I should find out today or tomorrow.
If I don't though, I will definitely be searching for jobs, as I am done with MasterControl (I don't think I can last another month without quitting).
Fintan is now crawling perfectly, so we are slowly re-baby-proofing our house.
Orianna is as talkative as ever, and still dancing like crazy.
Tamara has finally mastered the art of having 2 kids, and is re-integrating herself socially and starting to do fun things and hobbies again.
And I hopefully will make enough money with ZebraStrut that I can slow down and stop being such a workaholic, and maybe have something interesting to write in a newsletter that doesn't revolve around side projects :P
Hope everything is going great for each of you,
-the Bates Fam
So this month we finalized ZebraStrut LLC, set up a website (not much content yet, and our designer is still too busy, so it's 100% me).
We released 2 Apps: A Band Name Generator (silly app with ads at the bottom), and an iPad app called Procrastination Presentations (a last minute powerpoint for someone good at BS-ing).
We are about to release a Fortune Cookie app (with the ability to specify your own text for 1 of the cookies and what cookie you want to have that message [for pranks, or proposals, or whatever]).
I also did my final interviews with Adobe/Omniture in Orem (who will be building a campus in Lehi soon). I did really well in the interviews, so hopefully I got the job (knock on wood). I should find out today or tomorrow.
If I don't though, I will definitely be searching for jobs, as I am done with MasterControl (I don't think I can last another month without quitting).
Fintan is now crawling perfectly, so we are slowly re-baby-proofing our house.
Orianna is as talkative as ever, and still dancing like crazy.
Tamara has finally mastered the art of having 2 kids, and is re-integrating herself socially and starting to do fun things and hobbies again.
And I hopefully will make enough money with ZebraStrut that I can slow down and stop being such a workaholic, and maybe have something interesting to write in a newsletter that doesn't revolve around side projects :P
Hope everything is going great for each of you,
-the Bates Fam
2011 January: Hope
Hi All well in January we went to California for Michelle's brothers wedding, the boys and Michelle went for a week and I was just there for the weekend. The cool part was taking the train it took 16 hours but the boys had a blast most of the time they were looking out the windows it was a nice ride up the Donner Pass it was really nice views. They boys are doing great we have a chart for both of them Scott is school related stuff like the A B C's and numbers, and Kyle is for potty training they are both doing really good at it. Michelle and I are the same old same old just working and family. The Pipe Band I am in was in a performance a week ago a small clip is on FB on my profile the best song was Mozart on the Rampage it sounds better live on the clip it was the last song. Well hope everyone is doing great.
The Hopes
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