Fall Term Update

It's been a while since I've written so I thought I'd fill you all in on what's been going on.

Valerie is showing a very artistic side lately. Just about anything liquid becomes something she can spill, paint, or play with. She loves to sing as well. She'll frequently make up her own songs as we drive along in the car. She also loves animals and babies her stuffed animals while ignoring her baby dolls. Up until recently we've managed to avoid the princess stage, but when she received a Barbie nightdress as a hand-me-down from a neighbor it quickly became her favorite pajamas and the Barbie and Disney Princess revolution began. She still likes green and blue better than pink, but who knows how long that will last :)

Gabriel is learning fast. While I'm at class he'll work on a Preschool workbook with my dad (or sister depending on who's in town). He's fascinated with cars too. It started with the Disney/Pixar movie, but Dan recently found him a Hot Wheels movie and mini-series that he loves as well. He's also into the new Speed Racer cartoon (Valerie likes this one too). He loves to pull out his toy cars, pretend they are characters from the movies, crash them together, and "boom them up." His most recent "boom" came this past Sunday when he jumped onto the couch (as usual), smacked his head into the corner of the end table (not as usual), and put a hole into it (definitely not usual). So Sunday morning was spent in the emergency room. Finally, he's not as fond of vegetables as Valerie is, but he loves apples. My father recently brought some apples back from Dixon and Gabe's been loving it. Even more now that Dan has tried out caramel apples (which wasn't very successful).

Dan has decided to try out a side business. It started as an idea to make custom ball-tops for video game joy-sticks using resin. He's been thinking of ways to expand the resin business into other areas such as beads, models, and other things. He's purchased most of the supplies, but time and health have made it slow going. Hopefully he'll get a chance this weekend to try and get things going. As for work, things have been getting more stressful. He's been given the opportunity to do "billable" work which would bring in extra on his paycheck, but the companies have been so wishy-washy about it, that it's more stress than it may be worth. The added work from recent cutbacks has made things more stressful as well. He's been considering a career / employment change, but that's on hold with the economy as bad as it is.

Three weeks ago I started my third term at CNM. Since I'm working on my UNM pre-requisites, this term is less about accounting and more about general education classes. My schedule is Tues and Thurs from 9am - 1:15pm and Tues from 6:00pm - 8:50pm. The 9am class is the second half of my Accounting 1 class and I'm still up in the air about whether I like it or not. The teacher has been teaching for a while, but in some ways it seems like he's trying out new things on us and isn't sure of how it should all work. My 10:30am class is my Technical Writing english class which focuses on writing in the workplace. I'm beginning to wish I'd taken this class online as the teacher spends most of the class going over the book practically point by point which I could have easily accomplished on my own. In her defense, it is a new book so she's still feeling her way along, but it doesn't stop me from almost falling asleep a few times. At 12pm, I have my Macroeconomics class which I'm really enjoying. I wasn't originally registered in this class, but after looking at Ratemyprofessors.com, I rearranged my classes to try and get into this one (and ended up losing my Sociology class in the process). The teacher makes the subject interesting and helps me understand things very well. When I take Microeconomics next term I intend to try and get the same teacher. My last class is the Tues night Chem Lab. I took Chemistry almost 15 years ago at BYU, but the credit transferred and allowed me to take the lab without having to retake the class. I'm hoping that I'm not shooting myself in the foot with it because it's been so long, but so far I'm doing okay.

Other than classes, I've been recently working on getting the kids (and myself) out and about more. Monday and Wednesday afternoons there's a flexible volleyball game going on at our church that's open to pretty much anyone. Usually there are also enough kids there to keep my kids entertained as well. Occationally the game pauses while tiffs are settled, but for the most part they keep each other occupied. I've actually managed to drop a pant size because of it too :)

Sorry about the length, but I wanted to get you all up to date.