Ch-ch-changes

We are officially moved in and about 90% unpacked! We moved Saturday and luckily had everything indoors before the rain/snow started, which was great because it rained or snowed the rest of the weekend! It's been a long, frustrating month, but we are finally settled (somewhat) and things are starting to get back to normal. For those of you who need our updated contact info, you can email me at mcbramy@isu.edu and I'll get it to you. I'll try to put up some pics soon. We haven't set up internet yet, so I can't do much on the computer when I'm home, but I'll get on it as soon as I can.

I also got some great news this morning. I have officially been accepted into the College of Education! I had to clear up some mix-ups the college had with my application, but it's all taken care of now and I have been cleared to register for my Ed classes, which is one of the final big steps I needed to take before I graduate. Yay for me!

Island Park Fun

This last weekend, my family rented a cabin in Island Park and spent a few days riding snowmobiles, sledding, and whatever else we could find to keep us entertained. All of us but one were there, and we had a blast!

It was VERY warm the whole time we were there. Most of the time, we didn't even wear coats. Jake and Sean rode sleds in shorts most of the weekend! They love to have Kandice take pics of them jumping, and this year Jake got a little daring:





Sean was really proud of this pic, because he was looking at the camera:



The boys had a great time jumping off the deck into the snowbanks:



Diana had this BRILLIANT idea to ride a sled down the really steep steps at the cabin. Everyone was doing it, but I did my best to stay in the background and out of their line of sight. This worked very well, until I decided to videotape everyone else! They basically forced me into the sled.





I wasn't very happy with Jake:



Saturday, we spent a few hours at a big sledding hill. Dewey was nice enough to share his little sled with Sayer, and they fell asleep after a little bit of dragging by Diana:



We had a great time together! Sayer and I slid down the hill a few times together. We didn't even use a sled because the snow was so wet and slick. We were lucky to have "taxis" to cart us back up the hill so we didn't have to walk!





Sayer is very lucky to have two cousins on my side, Aedan and Dewey, who are his age. The three of them have a lot of fun together. He loves his other cousins, too!











We took a lot of pics of Sayer this week! He is so photogenic; I just love him!





The cabin we rented even had a hot tub! The kids really liked this; I think they spent almost an entire day in the hot tub. These are my four beautiful nieces-Hallie, Katie, Kylee, and Tasha:



We had a lot of fun at night, too! Boyd and his family brought their Wii and Rockband, and we spent a lot of time jamming out. I totally rock at the drums.





Sean thought he was really funny and suggested some challenges. He leg wrestled and arm wrestled Boyd, and lost miserably both times! I love the arm wrestling pic, because Sean is obviously dying and Boyd is just relaxed and smiling at the camera. My two bros are hilarious!



Dad suggested stick pulling next. Again, nobody could beat Boyd, but they had a fun time trying! Sean and Jake were a little more even:



Even the little ones got in on the action.



Mom really wanted to leg wrestle me. I think this one was sixes: she won one, I won one.



We packed a lot into three days! Sean was in an evil mood and played a lot of pranks. He roped me into helping him with one: we set an alarm for three in the morning and hid it under Boyd's bed! Everyone knew about it and we all asked him how he'd slept the next morning, but he didn't say anything about it. In fact, it was that afternoon before something I said about an alarm clocked triggered him to ask about it! The funniest part about it was that the alarm had a battery backup, and even though he'd unplugged it the night before, it went off again the second night!

It was a great weekend. We had a lot of fun, ate a lot of food, and got really, really wet! It's good to be home again.

Change of plans...again.

It's been a very eventful week, and the best I can say is that if Jake and I aren't constantly changing our plans, all is not right in Who-ville! Firstly, we are no longer buying our house. It's a long and upsetting story that I won't bore you with, but suffice it to say that we trusted someone we shouldn't have and everything fell through at the last minute. I of course spent most of the day crying and Jake spent most of it cussing, but eventually we calmed down and realized we were in quite a pickle! Here we are, camped out in my parents' basement, expecting to close on a house within days, our stuff scattered all over the county, our records in limbo between two wards, and no house! We'd packed and moved with the assumption that we'd all ready be in our house by now, so we decided we just needed to find a new option.

So now for the option: we've found a new home! This one is in Groveland. We had gone through all of the listings in the paper without much luck; Jake wasn't even going to call on this one but I convinced him to and we're sure glad we did! It was originally listed as a rental, but the owner mentioned to Jake that he was hoping to sell it and we are fairly sure we'll be buying it from him in the next few months. This way, we get to move in sooner and try out the house and neighborhood before we do anything permanent. The owners are remodeling it and it SHOULD be ready for us to move in next Wednesday.

In retrospect, I think this is a good thing for us. I have felt a little uneasy about things for the past few weeks (if you couldn't tell from my posts); things were just moving too slowly and the information we were being given just didn't add up. I feel a lot better about things now and hopefully this new option will go as planned. If not, I guess we will cross that bridge when it comes.

In other news, I have officially completed the admissions process for the College of Education! I had my admissions interview last night, which was the last step. It was a little intimidating, because I had to make a video of myself teaching to show during the interview, and then pick it apart for the interviewers and tell them what I did wrong, etc. I think it went pretty well and I should know by the end of the month if I've been accepted. Wish me luck!

The Idaho Wife

This is the funniest joke!

Three men married wives from different states.

The first man married a woman from Michigan. He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and the dishes washed and put away.

The second man married a woman from Utah. He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, the dishes were done, his house was clean, and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from Idaho. he ordered her to keep the house clean, the dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed,and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but the by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.

Ha ha don't mess with us Idaho girls!

The Adventures of Moving Sayer

Things are moving sooo sooo slowly with our housing situation. Hopefully we'll know today when we can finally sign papers and be ready to move in to our new home. Last week, I threw a tiny fit and declared, "That's it! We're paying more and more every day we stay in this apartment and that's less and less we'll be able to put into fixing up the house when (and if we ever) get into it!" So this last weekend, we packed up our belongings, stuffed our furniture in the shop at Futures, and are now camping out in my parents' basement. One room is completely filled, floor-to-ceiling, with boxes and boxes of stuff. We occupy the other room and Sayer has been confined to his pack-and-play.

Now, for those of you who know Sayer, you may have some small idea of just how much he likes his routine. He likes his crib, he likes going to bed at the same time every night, he likes having his binky and his John Deere blankie to sleep with, and he HATES HATES HATES not only sleeping in his pack-and-play, but sleeping ANYWHERE but home. So, for the past five nights, I've had the lovely task of holding down my cute little screaming toddler until he finally gives in and goes to sleep and I can move him to his own bed. I've been bitten, kicked, smacked, scratched, and anything else he can do to get away from me and somehow escape the "evils" of his temporary home. I'm pretty sure if he knew any cuss words he'd have exhausted them by now; I think some of the babbles are meant as a substitute! :)

I have yet to figure out the trick to make this process easier. The first night, we spent almost an hour laying on the bed with him to no avail. We finally shut off all lights and noise, and we laid him between us and sang Primary songs to him. This worked (after about seven or eight songs...thanks SO much to Laura V.O. for pounding them into our heads over the past year or so, we actually remembered the words!) and we got to sleep about 10:30. The next night, he was on to us. The minute I opened my mouth to sing him a song (I thought I was sooo tricky and started as soon as we had him in bed) he started screaming louder. I'll try not to take this as a personal slam to my lack of musical ability.

Sunday we had our first experience with our new ward. It certainly didn't help that this weekend was Daylight Savings and we lost an additional government-regulated hour of sleep on top of all the Sayer-regulated hours of sleep we'd all ready lost! We were all sleep-deprived and grouchy at this point (okay, mostly me) and as we got there a few minutes late, we took a seat in the back of the chapel right by the door. We've always had a hard time getting Sayer to sit through sacrament meeting (imagine that), and we discovered it was worse when he could so easily see his escape route. We took turns chasing him through the halls, holding him down (this was worse...he screamed so loud I think the whole congregation turned to see what we were doing), and trying to coax him back to the chapel with treats. Hello Blackfoot 9th! I was so not in the mood to deal with it, and I wasn't sure how he'd handle the new nursery, so I told Jake to just take us home. I knew Sayer was tired and I figured if Jake went back for Elder's Quorum and my parents were at church, there wouldn't be so many distractions and I could get him to lay down and take a nap.

NOPE! I laid him down in his "crib" and shut the door, then proceeded to listen to him scream for about half an hour before I finally gave in and let him out. I tried rocking him for a few minutes, but that wasn't working either. He ended up falling asleep about six that night for a little nap, when Jake and I stuck him in the truck to go run errands. I don't much remember how we got him to sleep that night, only that it was once again late and took a long time.

Monday night, Jake wasn't home and I was delegated this pleasant task to do on my own. I tried everything: singing, distracting him with a cartoon, rocking him. Nothing was working. An hour had passed. He started pointing at my cell phone, and out of desperation and being pretty close to tears myself, I shut it off and gave it to him. He literally looked at it for about two seconds, pressed some buttons and realized it was off, threw it back to me, laid down, and went to sleep. Just like that. What made it worse was that Jake got home about that time, looked at him sleeping, and said, "Huh. That was easy. He goes to sleep better without me here." RIGHT!!! Needless to say, I didn't talk to him much that night.

So last night, we started about 9:00. His usual bedtime is around 8:00 or 8:30, so we figured starting later would make him more tired and more willing to just zonk out. Miracle of ALL miracles, I tried the cell phone trick after about twenty minutes, and it worked the exact same way!!! I'm not sure if cell phones have magical powers or if he was just so exhausted by this point that he couldn't torture us any longer. Anyways, tonight is another adventure waiting. Will the cell phone trick live up to its success??? Stay tuned...

My 8's

8 things tag rules are:post rules on your blog, answer the 6 '8' items, let each person know they are tagged by leaving them a 'comment'. Here goes!

'8' favorite TV shows
1. Wildfire
2. Friends
3. The Celebrity Apprentice
4. Charmed
5. Gilmore Girls
6. The Biggest Loser
7. Friday Night Lights
8. The Office


'8' things i did yesterday
1. Packed
2. Showered
3. Watched "Never Been Kissed"
4. Watched Law & Order
5. Made dinner
6. Skipped class
7. Blogged about my parents' anniversary
8. De-junked!

8' things i am looking forward to
1. MY HOUSE
2. Sayer's 2nd birthday
3. getting accepted into the College of Education
4. warm weather and thunderstorms
5. watching Sayer play in his own yard
6. Getting a haircut
7. My birthday
8. graduating

'8' favorite restaurants
1. Craigo's
2. Mimi's
3. Olive Garden
4. 5th Street Bagelry
5. Winger's
6. Texas Roadhouse
7. Carino's
8. Sol Rio

'8' things on my wish list
1. a new suit (for my admissions interview)
2. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (leatherbound-a kid in my class has it and I'm jealous)
3. Money baby!
4. a trip anywhere that requires a plane
5. DC (Hint Hint Mom and Dad)
6. Wii Fit
7. to be in my HOUSE
8. to be done with school!

8' people i tag
1. Shylo O.
2. Jessica L.
3. Emily H.
4. Natalie S.
5. Kandice M.
6. Diana D.
7. Clarissa B.
8. Jennifer M.

Happy anniversary Mom and Dad!

Today is my mom and dad's 27th wedding anniversary. Wow! In honor of that, I wanted to share some pics and fun facts about them.

My mom and dad met at a softball game. They were married March 4, 1982, in my Grandma and Grandpa McBride's home.

My dad was born and raised in Blackfoot, the sixth of seven kids. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met; he seems to know a little-or a lot-of everything! He can do just about anything in the world, especially when it comes to tools.

My mom was born at Camp LeJune, North Carolina. She's the oldest of eight kids. She's a very compassionate and accepting person, and one of the least judgmental people I've ever met. She can make a friend out of just about anyone and is constantly chatting with anyone she meets!

My mom and dad love to travel, and since they're empty nesters now, they have a lot more time and money to visit cool places. In just the past couple of years, they've been to Italy, England, Ireland, St. Croix, the Caribbean, and I hear that Hawaii is next on the agenda! They have a lot of good "travel buddies".

They also love snowmobiling! We spend a lot of time in Island Park in the winter, as well as Wolverine, Bear Lake, Preston, and anywhere that has snow and mountains. The funny thing about this hobby is that it's not a "boy" thing for my mom. She's just as crazy as the boys when it comes to sleds, and it's gotten her more than a few injuries!

Mom and Dad both love to cook, and they're often asked to cook for weddings, holidays and parties. Of course, this usually means our whole family is "asked" to help :) They complain sometimes, but we all know they secretly love it! My mom has countless signature recipes that no one in our family can duplicate, even though we've all tried! My dad watches cooking shows all day and every once in awhile, he plans some crazy meal and "forces" us to be his guinea pigs. Of course, whatever they cook is always fabulous!

My mom and dad set a great example for our family when they chose to be married in the temple. On August 8, 1992, they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. Sean, Kandice, and I were also able to be sealed to them that day.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! We love ya!