Stupid Snow/Rain/Freezing Rain

I can't wait for winter to end! Last night it snowed all night and turned to freezing rain, and then rain this morning. I woke up and saw that it was yucky, so I thought I would wait for a few hours to go to work. I left about 10 assuming that everything would be plowed and that they rain wouldn't add too many new problems. Wrong. The freeway was okay, but when I got to Northampton where I work, there were HUGE puddles of standing water on the road. I went through 6 or 7 about a foot or more deep. When I finally got to the parking lot, there was a slushy mix with ice on it a few inches deep. I got into the office and checked to see that my boss was working at home and there wasn't really anything pressing, and then I headed back home. We are predicted to have rain through out the day and into the night and I didn't want to risk the street flooding getting worse if I stayed there all day. After a little stress trying to get out of the parking lot, I made it home. I was bummed that I drove all the way there just to drive back home, but I now I get to enjoy the rest of this yucky day at home. :) I just saw on the news that they think today will set a record for the most precipitation recieved in the month of February and that the power is out in a lot of places (luckily not here). I hope the weather is better where you live!

Check this out...

Maybe a lot of you have already seen this, but if not you should check it out. Its Glenn Becks closing thoughts from his show where he talks about President Hinckley. Its good to see people who are not afraid to talk about what they believe.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/200/5127/

Busy Schedules

As I lay in bed last night, I began doing a few calculations in my head regarding my time, or lack thereof. Now life in general almost always seems busy, but since school has started things seem to have gotten worse, I feel like there is no time left for anything.

So as I lay in bed I did these quick calculations:

# of hours Monday thru Friday = 120

# of hours consumed by my classes = 20 hours a week (19 credit hours!)

# of hours supposed to be consumed by homework = 20 hours a week

# of hours for sleep (I really like 8 hours) = 40 hours a week

# of hours for my assistantship = 10 hours a week

# of hours spent on the bus or driving to work = 5-6 hours

# of hours for my internship at Historic Deerfield = 8 hours a week

When you add all those together I am left with about 15 or so hours a week for eating, exercising, scripture study, getting ready for work and for bed, and spending time with my wife. After doing these calculations I realized that the reason I felt like I had no time was because I really have no time. While I did not take the weekend into consideration, I did not count any Church activities, callings or home-teaching either.

So as for this week, surprise... we have been busy. On Monday we had the missionaries over for dinner. It is such a nice treat to have them over and the Spirit they bring, I missed that while living in Utah. On Tuesday we got to go vote in the Massachusetts primary, and it was fun because we know that our votes counted and made a difference. I went to the statewide breakdown for the primary and because we live in such a small town we could actually see that our votes where important.

We were both excited about the new addition to the First Presidency, President Uchtdorf will do wonderful things for the Church, as will President Monson.

Our Catch-Up Post

Today we both mourn the loss of our beloved Prophet, President Hinckley, but we also rejoice in his reunion in heaven with his wife.

We have been really bad at posting this month so this post is an attempt to catch up on what we have missed.

Between Christmas and New Years we drove down to New York and spent three days in the city. It was a blast. We walked so much our feet ached, but it was worth it for all the things we did and saw. Below are some pictures of our trip. I do have to mention that we ate the best pulled pork sandwiches ever at a BBQ restaurant near Times Square. It was so good, the meat was so flavorful, and the BBQ sauce was heavenly. That meal alone made the trip worth it.

January has been crazy. The weather cannot make up its mind, one week the temperatures were in the 60s and all the snow melted then the next week we got 12 inches dumped on us in 12 hours and temperatures dropped to daytime highs in the low teens.

Suzy has been busy with work, and I have been busy with my internship, a consulting project with some classmates and applying for summer internships. I think that pretty much sums up our month of January. School starts again for me tomorrow, I look forward to it with trepidation as a 19 credit semester awaits me. Needless to say I will be busy.

So here are highlights of our NYC trip.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Early Morning Wake-Up

So at about 5 this morning our sleep was abruptly ended by the loud piercing wail of smoke detectors in the apartments below us and to the side of us. Feeling quite disoriented and not realizing what was going on we laid in bed annoyed for several minutes. Finally, I decided to get up and see what was going on. I looked out the window and saw several of our neighbors just standing around outside the door to our building. I opened the front door and could smell a foul smoke-like odor, but saw no smoke or anything. Since there was no smoke and the people outside did not seem particularly worried, we decided to go back to bed, the piercing wails of the smoke detectors had mostly abated.

A few minutes later, more shrieking alarms and I heard a truck pulling up out front. I looked out the window and a fireman fully decked out was jumping out of his pickup and running into the building. This got me a little more worried. Then I looked up and a fire-truck and ambulance were pulling into the parking lot. I decided it was time to put on some clothes and go find out what the deal was.



Getting dressed I wandered down the stairs and ran into our neighbor and asked what was up. She told me that there was a fire or something in the boiler room and that several of the apartments are full of smoke. I told Suzy, and we were like, "great no heat for a while" (good thing it is unseasonably warm around here lately). I determined that there was no threat so we went back up and I was so tired I just got into bed in my jeans.

Then there was a knock at the door and upon opening we found two firemen they explained that there were issues with the boiler and they wanted to make sure our apartment had safe CO levels. Fortunately it did, so they said just open the windows and turn on a fan and air the place out. They left and we climbed back into bed hoping to get a little more sleep before our day had to start. Ten minutes later another knock, I opened the door and two other firemen proceeded to tell us the same thing.



Finally, they got the building aired out and the boiler to stop producing the foul smoke, and they left and we were able to cram a little more sleep in before we had to get up.

Suzy and I had a great Christmas and we promise to post about it sometime soon, so keep checking back and we will post our pictures and stories from our post-Christmas trip to NYC.