Quiz

(Copied from the Bills' blog...)
Just for fun...let's compare where we all live by answering a brief survey:

1. Price of gas today: $2.21/gallon at Chevron vs. $2.03/gallon at Costco

2. Temperature today: 22 degrees at 11:00 a.m. and 1-2" of snow from last night (is the inversion finally gone? We can only wish!!)

3. Sacrament meeting topics (this week): A new family to our ward spoke. Actually, their two children (ages 5 & 7) spoke, and the father. The father half-told a story of why his wife wasn't speaking--something to do with the first time they were asked to speak in church, and her speaking ended up with the paramedics coming in and reviving her. I'd have liked all the details!

4. Biggest small-town news story of the week: A West Bountiful jogger was hit by a woman taking her kids to daycare last week, right in front of our elementary school. Luckily, by the time I drove kids to school, there were just a bunch of police cars and the car that had hit her, left on the road. She was wearing all black and was in the jogging/walking lane, but the Suburban swerved over & hit her. The 30-year old jogger was unidentified for a day before her mother realized she hadn't seen her come home the night before. The family got to see her in the hospital for several hours, until they finally decided to take her off of life support, since she had never responded.

5. What your kids are doing/did for 100 days of school: My kids didn't even know it was 100 days this year--5th grade/4th grade/2nd grade. I think it's only a big deal in kindergarten & first grade. Next year we'll know when it hits 100 days, when Sabra's in kindergarten.

6. Restaurants indigenous to your locale: Cafe Alicia, Robintino's, Mandarin, Joy Luck Club

7. Top 3 attractions near you that people would be interested in visiting: Temple Square, Great Salt Lake & Antelope Island, 2002 Olympic sites

8. Closest temple: Bountiful, 15 minutes east

9. Distance from your house to where you attend church: 2 blocks

10. Number of different HOMES you pass on the way to church: 6

11. How long have you lived in the house where you live? almost 8 months

12. The team everyone roots for in my city is: Utah Jazz for sure! Divided on BYU blue and U of U red....

13. The number of visitors that could sleep comfortably at your home if they were to visit: We've never tried it. But we have a huge family room--we could probably get wall-to-wall sleeping bags in there and fit the whole family. If it was summer, the huge back yard would provide outside sleeping room. No extra bedrooms/beds, however. So maybe 0, comfortably!

14. Distance between you and the next closest relative: About 10 minutes to Mom & Dad in Bountiful

Wheat

A couple of weeks ago for Enrichment we had the Wheat Lady come and give a presentation and talk about a bajillion different things you could make out of wheat, including sausage (yes, I'm serious!), and sponge cake, cookies, sprouted wheat salads, etc. etc. She made everything for us to taste, and it was great! (Ask Mom, Lynette & Sara if you don't believe me--they were there too.) So that presentation has gotten me much more aware and excited about baking & making more healthy things for my family.

I haven't ever had any wheat storage, let alone a mill, because I didn't know what kind of wheat to get, or what kind of mill. (The only mill I knew about was the Mill 'n Mix that Mom had, and they don't make those anymore.) So, I'm getting wheat AND a mill, and I'm very excited to try more recipes than just wheat bread! (I'm also finally getting a Bosch mixer. Goodbye, KitchenAid!) I'll let you know how the recipes turn out. (I think Lynette was going to try a few of them with her Foods classes as well.)

Sledding

Last Saturday we took the kids sledding with the cousins on Sean's side. Joe, Sean's brother, had found a great sledding hill in Layton, so we all went. We'd borrowed a big tube from Mom & Dad, which everyone had a great time using. The hill was perfect--a nice long, gentle slope. Sean's sister Melinda and her daughter Contessa brought their 4-wheeler to help get everyone back up the hill. If we hadn't had that, I think the kids would've lasted about 30 minutes, but as it was, we were there for a couple of hours! The temperature was only about 18 degrees, but with the sun out, it felt plenty warm to us!

Tile & Stuff

I know I'm incredibly slow at this blogging, but life's been in a constant state of craziness for awhile. I think we've been choosing tile for the new house for about a month now! I never thought that WE would take that long to decide on TILE! After all the tile we've picked out in our life! I think the biggest difference between now and every other time we've tile-shopped, is that always before we went for the nicest we could afford at the rock-bottom lowest price. This time we have about 4 tile stores to choose from, and nobody gives you an exact price because we're not contractors, and we have a "tile allowance." The allowance makes it so we don't have to have the rock-bottom price, which is harder than it seems. Based on this experience right now, I think I'd rather have the 99-cent Home Depot tile, which takes about 2 days to decide on, as opposed to 4 WEEKS!

And lighting: different issues, same frustration. We don't want the same oil-rubbed bronze that everyone is doing right now. The antique-pewter type look we'd like is out there, but it just takes some hunting to find. We're so wrapped up in deciding on tile, that we haven't had time yet to decide on the lights.

The thought that keeps driving me even more nuts is that we'll notice everything for about 3 months, and then after that we'll just be living in it and not noticing anything anymore.

On a totally different note: Raleigh might be in the Deseret News. A reporter & photographer were coming to her class today to do an article on their 4th Grade class blog! She was very excited, and made sure her clothes and hair were "just right" before going to school today.