Antonia's birthday visit to Spokane

Finally! Sorry this took so long, but better late than never. This is Antonia's official birthday present from Opa and Oma; we went to show it off when they weren't home, so we promised they'd at least get to see a picture of what it looked like with Antonia in it, since she had to go back to Rexburg before we could try again. We got it at a store someone in the ward recommended that opened up across from the mall, where they actually have dresses with sleeves, or short shrugs and jackets to go over those which don't. For this one we sewed the shrug to match because they didn't have anything but white or black that would have worked over this one. And a pain in the neck it was! But it looks okay, I think. Enjoy!

Murder at Club Swing

On Thursday the 22nd, Mead High School put on a play called Murder at Club Swing. This is the poster.

Not very explanatory. What happened is there was this murderer. Every time somebody died they found a card on the body. The characters are Inspector Quirk, Eduardo Cillen, Ella Goose, The Jester and his Three Stooges, The Jones Siblings, Sybill Pretawney, Angus MacByron (a very bad romantic poet), Lady Ha Ha, Thirsby and Thelma (The Creepy Twins/Jacob and Rachel Sok), Linus Tree and his golf club toting wife Penelope, Colonel Ketchup, General McPattonhower, Scarlett Anastasia Prynn, Downtown Sinclair, Jeeves, Bacca the Bouncer, and Leon Pluott. The deceased are Ella Goose, Nick Jones, Colonel Ketchup, Thirsby(Jacob), and Lady Ha Ha. The suspects were The Jester and his Three Stooges, Sybill Pretawney, Angus Macbyron, Scarlet Anastasia Prynn, and Bacca the Bouncer. The card for Ella after she tripped over a bucket said, "She kicked the bucket." The card for Nick after being electrocuted right when he started to sing said, "He sung his heart out." The card for Colonel Ketchup after being found in the kitchen with the candlestick said, "He didn't relish his life." Thirsby's card after being given a swirly said, "He was all washed up." I do not remember the card for Lady Ha Ha when she was found in the kitchen holding onto one of Bacca's Klondike Bars. The killer was Angus MacByron. The reason they think it was him was because everyone before they died had insulted him and because only someone so bad at poetry could come up with so horrible puns. Opa took me and he didn't take a camera so there are no other pictures. It was a hilarious play and Ralph was a waiter named Scott Hindenberg from Scotland who has had the most sightings of the Loch Ness Monster therefore earning the nickname "Ness". Too bad you weren't here to see it. Well, anyway, bye-bye!

Sincerely,

Teddy

Computer

So, my computer is trying to commit suicide. First, my battery decides that it needs to work fine sometimes, and be completely dead at other times. Then I lose my power cord for a day (okay, that was me). Then my memory card reader stops working like it does sometimes. Then, none of my USB ports work, which means no USB drives, no TV tuner, no printer, no hard drive, etc. I'm trying to solve this problem, when Mel suggests I just restart my computer, I call her a genius, and do so. The shutdown process is taking far longer than it should, when all of a sudden the blue screen of death pops up. It doesn't even stay up on the screen long enough for me to read half of it when my screen flashes a little bit like a miniature light bulb just burned out, and then it starts up again. When it finishes loading Windows and everything, it pops up a window and informs me that I saw the blue screen of death (gee, I hadn't noticed):

Problem signature:

Problem Event Name: BlueScreen

OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3

Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:

BCCode: 9f

BCP1: 0000000000000004

BCP2: 0000000000000258

BCP3: 0000000000000000

BCP4: 0000000000000000

OS Version: 6_0_6001

Service Pack: 1_0

Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:

C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini042510-01.dmp

C:\Users\Antonia\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-81198-0.sysdata.xml

C:\Users\Antonia\AppData\Local\Temp\WER7213.tmp.version.txt

Read our privacy statement:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=50163&clcid=0x0409

Fun, huh? Any suggestions?

Brentwood News

Well, today in church the whole Stake Presidency was on the stand, so I got it into my head that it was just an annual ward visit. Boy, was I wrong. They released Bishop Dodd and his counselors and called Bishop Bingham and his first counselor Graig Smith. Then President Larson said that they didn't call a second counselor because they were confident that he was moving in next week :) Hope you are doing well (I've been throwing up and such). Hope that you, Antonia, are enjoying your new semester. Burdette, hope you find employment soon and congrats on still getting unemployment benefits. See you!

Hi

I was going to post some pictures, but my memory card reader's glitching out on me like it does sometimes. So, I came home from Spokane and finished putting my room together (almost). I've now got my bookshelf right next to the door, and the mirror between the foot of my bed and the closet (so I stop kicking my books in my sleep). When I got here my bed was up on cinderblocks, so I took advantage of that fact and now have no big boxes or tubs in the living space of my room. I put up about 1/3 of my pictures, I've been too lazy/busy to do the rest yet.

Monday (my birthday!) Mel and I drove down to Salt Lake. I got myself a pair of shoes that I'd fallen in love with in February at a store that had had only one pair left on clearance, the wrong size of course; in Salt Lake they were the 'these just came in' shoes, they came in my size, and they were 40% off. So I got them as a birthday present with some of what I got from Oma and Opa :) We picked up Mel's boyfriend and his twin brother from the Salt Lake airport, then bought stuff we needed for our apartment at Ross (e.g. garbage can, shower curtain, and a backpack for me), and groceries at Winco.

So the first week of school was interesting. We started on a Tuesday, which would of course happen to be my busiest day. My intro to foods class looks like it'll be fun; I got lucky enough to end up with one of the three guys in the class as my lab partner, rather than one of the girls whom I suspected would probably light the lab on fire. He tailors clothes. We made lollipops, which was a bit of an adventure. After those 3 hours, I went to my object-oriented programming class, where he just showed us examples of programs we should be able to write by the end of the semester. My last class that day was Book of Mormon, we went over the syllabus (we're going to have to read the Book of Mormon in 4 weeks starting April 27th). We also had devotional by Pres. Clark, on preparing for marriage (the singlemost popular topic on this campus...). On Wednesday I went to my operating systems class; I'm the only girl in there. We talked about digital logic and building switches (AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR). My teacher is tall. My next class was home and family consumer science education, and the teacher said anyone who isn't taking it for their major (that's me!) can waive the class. So I went and got a waiver form and frantically tried to find another class that I could take instead, because waiving this one would bring me down to 12 credits this semester, and I have to have at least 14 to keep my scholarship. After lots of hunting, I finally found a class I have to take, moral judgement and analytical thinking, though I didn't have the prerequisite and the class was full. I went and talked to the teacher, he said the prereq didn't matter, and if I showed up to class that day he would add me. So after going to my programming class (it's daily, and I forgot my laptop power cord, oh horror of horrors) I went to this guy's class (everyone calls it 'capstone' for short). It sounds tough but I think it'll be good for me. He told me he added me, but it hasn't shown up on my schedule or Blackboard yet, so I can't do the homework *sigh* That night my laptop died because of lack of power. Thursday I got to sleep in until 11, then had programming, where I actually understand the Java code we're writing (and at the beginning of class my teacher gave me my cord back), and Book of Mormon, which I'm going to absolutely love. Friday I went to operating systems. After that class I went and worked (I'm still working as a TA for my old web design teacher). Then I had programming. Then I went home.

Somewhere in there I also went to the library and got a card. I got my reading glasses in the mail on Thursday and have been trying to remember to wear them (I'm very good at getting fingerprints all over them, every two minutes). My roommates this semester are Mel and Shelby, who I roomed with last semester as well, Heather, who I've been friends with since coming up here, and two new girls, Kristen and Aleen. Kristen and I have already gotten to be pretty good friends, and Aleen is nice. I've gone back to the old apartment a couple times, usually to get mail, and I'm glad I'm not living there anymore. It smells disgusting, and they have random outfits of clothing hanging on the living room walls as decoration (e.g. an olive winter bodysuit complete with olive fake fur trim, a pink long-legged leotard, etc.). Saturday I spent most of the day doing homework, and work-work, and some of the evening watching Star Trek. Today I went to my new ward (48th), which I'm already liking a lot better than last semester's. The bishop (Bishop Westenskow) is really nice, I feel like I could actually talk to him rather than having a staring contest like with the last one. The bishopric came by Wednesday night, and on Sunday he remembered my name (wow). The counselors are Bro. Bennett (heehee!) and Bro. Rose. Poor Aleen had to play piano for sacrament meeting. Had a nice lesson in Sunday school on that funniest of all Bible stories, Balaam and his donkey *grin* Walked home after church. Took a nice nap. So now here we are :)

Vancouver BC Temple

We took a quick trip up to Vancouver on Monday to go through the temple open house. It's really pretty inside with a theme based on the pink Pacific dogwood since that is the provincial flower of British Columbia. It is one of the smaller temples at about half the size of the Rexburg one, but still very nicely furnished with lots of crystal chandeliers in the Celestial Room. Peter said he didn't want to leave it was so nice inside.

Happy Birthday!

Wow - 20 already (tomorrow)? That's a fifth of a century! Where has the time gone? For your 21st birthday, we'll have to upload a nice blackmail photo of you as a baby on the diaper table. . . . This year, we decided to be nice.

Ward Talent Night

We had another talent night yesterday, this time for the Ward. Instead of taking the turtle again (although some asked about it who had seen it at the Stake talent show), we decided to take some of Peter's rocks and fossils he has collected. The display turned out pretty nice and was very popular.

Peter also played "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg on the piano and did a good job. We are working on getting our digital piano hooked up to our new computer so we can record him and email those out. His piano recital is coming up in May and he is going to do two pieces this year, one of which will be "Chopsticks".

Yet another flower picture

The gentian we bought at the flower and garden show has one blossom but it's huge. It has a great pattern on the inside as well, so I thought it would be worth sharing.

Archery Practice

Yesterday I went outside with my bow and arrows and shot at my target. One of my arrow's tips got stuck in the ground and we can't find it. Here are some pictures of the first time I hit the target.

This is me pulling back the string to fire.

Here I am aiming at the target.

And here is the outcome of the shot.

As you can see, I hit the top of the target and knocked it over. Papa refers to it as I killed the target. After that I gave the target two leg wounds(As in I hit the the bottom corners of the target). And then the last shot I made before I got tired was a foot wound. I hit the very bottom of the foam target so I didn't even hit the foam.

Moving (better known as trying to kill myself)

Everyone in my old apartment is gone except for Janae, who's at work all the time. This meant that, again, I got to do all the cleaning for the entire apartment (not including the other people's bedrooms, and I didn't do the other bathroom either). Sometime after midnight I just said to myself, I'm done, if this isn't good enough, management can complain to everyone else, but they'd better not complain to me. This morning I woke up to the maintenance guy knocking on the door to switch my door lock over to my new apartment. I ate breakfast (pseudo-lunch, I slept in), and then went over to the new apartment to see when the girl whose room I will be occupying from now on would have her stuff moved out. She wasn't done until 3:30. At 2:30 I started moving my stuff into a different (empty) room, just so I could get started, since we had to be moved out by 6 pm. I was moving things from 2:30 until a little past 6, because I had to move everything I own, plus some stuff Nicole asked me to hang on for her, plus all of Mel's food and some things she forgot, plus some things Shelby forgot, by myself. Oh yeah, up and down a flight of stairs. So my body is just mildly complaining right now. After that, I had to rush back to my apartment and do all the cleaning I couldn't do before because my stuff was in the way (vacuum my room, wash the window and blinds, clean the bed frame and table and desk, and clean the bathroom). Then I waited around for the clean-check people to show up; most of the stuff I took care of passed. I just ate a freezer dinner and now I'm going to relax. I might unpack a little tomorrow, but mostly I think I'll leave it for next weekend, and sleep on the couch tonight (like last night).

YAY!!!

I passed Networking with a B!!!! I don't know how that happened. On Tuesday we had the final, and three last assignments due at at midnight, one of which was a lab cumulative of the whole semester. I took the final, I would've guessed I got a B on it. One of the assignments I did without any problems. The second assignment had a part I couldn't figure out, so I did most of it and left the rest till later that day. The cumulative lab I worked on for about 2+ hours, couldn't figure out about half of it no matter what I tried, knew that I wasn't going to be able to figure it out before it was due, so I just turned it in with half of it done incorrectly or not at all. While I was working on that, though, I figured out how to finish the second assignment. So... I got my grades back- 93% on the final, 100% on the first two assignments, and 83% on the cumulative lab (!!!). So I was very excited (and rather stunned, he must've been pretty lenient on that lab).

Also, my home and family management final opened up yesterday. I'd originally planned to study for it Tuesday night, and take it yesterday, but I ended up staying up until 5 am Wednesday morning just doing other homework, so that didn't happen. In that class on Wednesday, my teacher told us all to write our names on a piece of paper and turn that in. Everyone on the list didn't have to take the final!!! Hallelujah :) This is her last semester cause she's retiring, and she was getting very sentimental about missing us all, so I guess that was her going-away present.

Pant, pant...

Last Saturday (the Saturday before General Conference), Papa and I went on a 10-mile hike up by the Whitworth College/Powerlines area. We were on a 2 mile loop that we went around 5 times. Papa stayed in the middle-back with the adult leaders and I was in front with Tanner Hardy. Boy, that was tiring! According to my pedometer, we'd taken 21347 steps, and by the end of the day, I'd gone 23049 steps. AIEEEEE!!!! That was a long walk.

Sob

There's about three inches of snow on the ground right now, and it's still practically blizzarding...

Cleaning

We had a 'pre-white glove clean check' this morning, so yesterday we were cleaning like CRAZY. I wiped down all the baseboards, magic erased all the spots I could find on all the walls and doors, mopped, vaccuumed, and scrubbed our bathroom floor, vacuumed and scrubbed the kitchen floor, cleaned up my room, vacuumed my room and the hall, cleaned the entire interior bathroom (toilet inside and out, tub, walls, etc) and picked up the bath mats to be washed, folded my towels, wiped down the fridges, dishwasher, oven, and cabinets, vacuumed the pantry, washed the stove burner bowls and helped wrap them in new foil, got all the tape and junk off of the inside and outside of the front door, and organized the storage closet. When I opened the storage closet, it was full from the front to the back and all the way to the ceiling, just this teetering pile of boxes and suitcases and tubs, with a 5' TV box on top threatening to smack you in the face. I took everything out, and put everything back in so that we people who are moving out in a week have our things at the front for easy removal. There's the same amount of stuff in there now as there was when I opened it, except now it's only taking up about 1/3 of the closet. Success :) For the REAL white glove check (possibly Saturday), we additionally have to wipe down all the blinds and windowsills, redo the bathroom baseboards, scrub the tub even harder (it's white and there are no marks- what do they want?), lift up the stove surface and clean under there, clean the inside of the oven, sweep out the corners of the hall carpeting and vacuum that (which entails buying a broom...), clean the inside ceiling of the microwave (someone tried and failed), clean the light fixtures, and clean the tracks (for lack of a better word) of the suctiony seal thing that keeps the fridge door shut. Wish us luck!