Life Update

• We have been landscaping our yard for the last couple of weekends. I am completely sick of picking up rocks.
• We should be able to close on our house this Wednesday!! and move in Thursday!!!!!!!!

{This is the most current pic I have of the house, but it is done now!}

• Matt and I just got back from a rained out Youth Conference. We were the goodly parents of 9 teenagers. If you thought it was cold last weekend in the Salt Lake valley, it was really cold up in the Uintahs.
  
• For the three months we lived in the Bluffdale First Ward, we were both called to be on the activities committee, substitute primary teachers, and asked to go to Youth Conference. Plus, as a parting gift, they asked us to speak in sacrament meeting last Sunday. I don't know why they decided to pick on us...Maybe because my dad is the ward clerk...perhaps he had something to do with it.
• Matt and I are running the Ragnar Wasatch Back this weekend. A team of 12 runs from Logan to Park City (188 miles).

Matt

• Matt just graduated from the University of Phoenix with his bachelor degree in Accounting. Yay!!
  
• He was accepted to the Weber State MBA program and will be starting this fall.
• Matt is training for the Ragnar relay race. Matt will be running three legs that equal 18 miles. And he will be doing it in these bad boys:

{these are not Matt's feet, but they are his funny-looking shoes}

Ashley

• I finished up the school year with AMES and I'm not sure what I'll be doing next year.
• I've gained 7 lbs living at my parents house. Good thing I'm moving this week.
• I decided last minute to join Matt's Ragnar team. I will be running a total of 13 miles as runner #4 (hopefully I don't die mid-stride). I haven't run much since the Marathon in September. In fact, I will only have 1 1/2 weeks of training for this weekend. Fortunately, it is one of the easiest legs.
  

Parker

• Basketball was so last month. Now, it's all about baseball.
• Parker LOVES to sing. He sings Hallelujah, ABCs, and his very first original song. It goes like this: mama (high), dada (low), mama (high), dada (low)
• He love the alphabet almost as much as he loves sports. Every time we drive anywhere and he sees building signs, he starts pointing at the letters and saying "A, O, B.." http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo

Hey, I'm still alive in case you were wondering

So, yeah. I'm a failure at blogging. It's ok. I've accepted this. In fact, probably nobody is even going to read this because they forgot I exist since I haven't blogged in, like, forever. Well, just to set the record straight, I do still exist.

"So what has been going on in the last few months?" you ask. Or I'll ask myself since nobody will be reading this. The short answer is "a lot," but I was never good at short answers so...

Well, I've been working a lot unfortunately. Remember, I teach a class on Scientific Research at AMES high school. Honestly I love it. I help high school students with their science fair projects. So around the school science fair date I started doubling my hours and every week it got worse and worse. I worked more than 40 hours one week, which I guess is no big deal except I'm really supposed to be a full-time mom who teaches as a hobby. Poor Parker lost his mom. Sad. I probably won't work there next year even though I love teaching. Sad again. (side note: We had 17 projects entered into the regional fair. All except 2 placed in their category. One of the projects "The effect of localization on the stability of DNA duplexes..." is going to the international science fair! It was way over my head.)

This is a small section of the Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair at the Rice Eccles Stadium.

I wanted to post a picture of some of my students, but then I thought that would be a little creepy. "Hey, did

you hear? Mrs. Budd posted a picture of me on her blog. Sick."

Next big news: We're building a house!!! We sold our condo in West Valley and are building a house on the other side of West Valley. I know what you are thinking. West Valley? But honestly I have always felt safe there and I love being surrounding by such great diversity. I felt like Matt and I were service missionaries in our last ward. Now our new location isn't so inner-city. We are on a quarter-acre lot in a cul-de-sac in the middle of a nice brand new neighborhood just a couple of houses down from a large park which is connected to miles of a paved park trail system. I'm really excited. It should be done mid-june or so (who knows with this crappy weather).

Parker has grown up. He is no longer a baby. Now he thinks he is such a big boy.

He loves basketball. "Loves" is too weak of a word. He is OBSESSED with basketball. Yeah, he is only 18 months, but he loves shooting basketballs, watching basketball, and just walking next to basketball hoops. It is little weird, but extremely cute. Vids to come.