Daycation

Hello everyone!
As you know, Chad got Saturday off so we could go to Provo for Will & Sawyer's birthdays. However, after deciding that we didn't want to drive down, and then back up in less than 24 hours, we postponed our trip to later this summer and looked for something to do here instead.

We decided to go to Island Park and check out Johnny Sack's cabin, Big Springs, and Sawtelle. First, however, we remembered the WalMart ad that advertised $30 glasses. Since I haven't had new glasses in I don't know how long, we thought it might be a good chance to go get some cheap glasses. The closest WalMart with a Vision Center is in Idaho Falls, the opposite direction from Island Park. However, by the time we were headed out, I found out that my eye doctor was closed and I couldn't get my prescription anyway. I called WalMart to make sure they couldn't help me without my prescription and they said they couldn't. And then the guy so nicely tells me
"Well, that's for kid's 18 and under anyway."
"Oh, well it doesn't say that in the ad."
"Yeah...."
"Okay, bye."
Stupid WalMart. I sure am glad we didn't waste an hour driving to Idaho Falls to be told that their ad falsely advertised $30 glasses.

So we headed to Island Park instead. We made a stop at the Mack's Inn Dinner Theater so Chad could say hi to the people he used to work with up there. We ran into the manager who gave us free tickets for that night's show ($30 value).
After that, we drove up the road to Big Springs - you might think you would see water springing out of the ground, but you would be wrong. The water does, in fact, flow straight out of the mountainside, but it's overgrown with plants, so you can't actually see it. We stopped on the bridge to look at the fish and dip our feet in the water.








We walked up the trail to Johnny Sack's cabin. He was a 4'11" German immigrant who built his entire house by hand, and lived there for 25 years. He died in the 50's and the neighbors in the area saved his cabin from being destroyed, and in the 70's (I think) it was made into a national something-or-other. It was really interesting!



(Some cool steps along the side of the house up to the outhouse)



Dead mouse we saw on the steps.


View from across the river.


But they said the only place where he really built around his height was in his workshop in the basement, which of course, was closed to visitors. It would have been a fun place to visit. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't live there year round. They had pictures in a binder of the snow covering the front steps - probably 4 or 5 feet of snow.



After the cabin, we ate Subway, then drove over to Sawtelle, the big mountain in the area. We drove the dirt rode up to the top and took some pictures.

Sawtelle from the bottom.


Sawtelle from the top.


Weirdo soccer ball thing on the top of Sawtelle. Chad says it's a satellite that's built like that so it doesn't catch the show.








This one's for you mom. I could hear you in my head - Megan! Get away from there!



After Sawtelle, we stopped at the little restaurant where Chad, Christian, and John used to live/work. We bought a "kiddie" sized ice cream, and it was pretty good. But when we went to pay for it, the socially odd lady at the cash register said -
"Can I see how much they're putting in that? That's what I thought. That's way too much. We ran out of kiddie size cups, so they're putting way too much ice cream in those cups." Ohhkay. That's not awkward and tactless. Maybe we should give you some of it back? We went down to the river and put our feet in the water, and revisited the little place where we ate our fruit loops for breakfast the second day we were married.

Let's see, after that, Chad took us to the Island Park Reservoir, where we walked on the boat launch and hung our feet off the dock before it was time to get back to Mack's Inn for the show.










Our dog friend. He had a collar but no tag and he was running around in the parking lot/by the boat launch the whole time we were there. We hope he wasn't lost.



We saw [the] Less Miserables, a parody of Les Mis. The actors were good, but the show itself (written and produced in Utah) was not the best thing we'd ever seen. But it was free. We headed back to Rexburg after that, stopped at WalMart for I don't remember what, and then came home.

While we were sad to miss the birthday party, it was a fun day, and I think now we have officially done everything there is to do in Island Park.

America, America....

So - it's been a long time since I actually wrote a post. But - school is over tomorrow!!! I only have one class today and two tomorrow, one of which is bowling. Finally my summer can begin! I know, I know, it's almost August, but I'll take what I can get.

Mollie came up for the 4th of July. She got here Thursday night. On Friday, we did Mollie's laundry (we know how to party) and then went to Idaho Falls. We went to a kitchen supply store where I bought myself a music note cookie cutter, and then to the mall. When we got back to Rexburg, we went to the Farmer's Market they started in the Tabernacle parking lot. There were lots of vendors, and we bought some kettle corn. Yum! Then we went to a movie at the (comparatively) cheap theaters. We saw 17 Again which actually wasn't terrible. But it did start with a basketball/dance number with Zac Efron, and for a minute there we were afraid it was going to be another High School Musical. We cleaned out Mollie's purse which conveniently converted into a Kettle Corn carrying case. After the movie, we went to Craigo's and got the buffet. We didn't get a cookie monster because we were stuffed. At some point during the evening, we got sno-cones from the little shack on Main Street.

The next morning was the Fourth of July! I had to be up and at the local high school by 8:30 so I could march in the town parade with the "community marching band".

(Long story - I'm taking a class called "Band Practicum" this semester. The point of the class is to get experience teaching a band. That didn't happen, (since public school is not in session and there was no band to teach) so we got to participate in the community marching band instead. Oh, wasn't it a ball to feel like a 14 year old all over again? No, no it wasn't. I got put in the Color Guard since I have marched in the band before. Anyways, so the final event for this part of the class was to march in the 4th of July parade. An event which 1/2 of the class (there are only 4 of us, but still) didn't feel like doing, and as far as we know were never marked down for. So - I marched in the parade.)

We were fourth in line for the parade, so by the time we finished the parade, we were able to go back and watch most of it. And, I found out later, they held the "Madison High School Marching Band" banner for the parade, so everyone who saw me wondered since when I was in the high school marching band. Oh well. It's over and I never have to do it again.


As I said, when I got done marching, I walked back to our apartment and found Mollie and Chad and watched the rest of the parade with them. A Cream O'Weber truck came by and gave everyone a free pint of chocolate milk! It was sooooooooo good!



We had to go back to the park where the parade ended so I could hold the American flag while the band played some patriotic songs.

After the parade, we went to a hot dog place near our apartment. We had heard they were selling $1 hot dogs. When we got there, we got 3 hot dogs, and two sides of coleslaw for $1.25. We went over to the parking lot to get the Subaru to go back to the high school and get the van, which I had parked there that morning. We found a coupon on the Subaru for a 99 cent smoothie (of sorts). We went and took a couple coupons off the other cars, and then went to the bagel place near our apartment to get our 99 cent smoothies. They came with "tapioca pearls" in the bottom of the cup, that felt very much like eating fish eggs through a straw. We ate our smoothies on the drive to Idaho Falls to scope out a spot for the fireworks.

We parked in a park on the other side of the freeway from the riverfront where they set off the fireworks. We took a nice walk along the river walk and found a rock chair and a giant dandelion thing.





But once we got to the highway overpass, the trail (a floating bridge-ish thing across the river itself) was closed because the water level was too high to connect it to the sidewalk on the other side, leaving about a 3 foot gap which I was too chicken to try to jump over. So, we had to find a way across the highway. We were just going to run across when no one was coming, but we chickened out of that idea too, and walked down to the onramp and used the sidewalk under the overpass. We scoped out a spot on the Snake River so we could see the fireworks they shoot off from the other side of the river. We laid down our blanket and took turns saving our spot. We got there about 3:00 and the fireworks didn't start until almost 10:00. First Chad and I took a walk about a mile down the river to where all the food vendors and carnival-ish things were. We bought some food and then walked it back the mile to Mollie. After that, Mollie and I walked down to the vendors, and bought sno-cones on the way back. Chad bought some homemade rootbeer which ended up being disgusting.
At some point, I walked away, and Chad almost introduced Mollie to someone as his wife (she had her back to him and was wearing my jacket) She goes - No! No I'm not!

We conveniently picked a plot right next to somebody Chad was in band with a few years ago. Therefore, she felt like her children could be all over our space and we wouldn't care, even though Chad and her were apparently only acquaintances. Not to mention, they had spray painted out their square (the police went around and pulled up any stakes which is how people usually pick their spots the night before) and that still wasn't enough room, and they invaded our space. So we put up with her two kids all afternoon because we had such a good spot!
We played Phase 10 and as soon as we got out the cards, we hear the boy ask "Mom- can I play with them?"
We all just look at each other.
The mom says "well, you have to ask them".
NO! That is not the answer! The answer is no, let them play their own game! GRR!
The 5-6 year old boy came over and kept saying "Can I play now?" Can I play now?"
... No - it's a long game.
Apparently Chad pulled out the cards while Mollie and I were gone, and the boy came over and helped himself to the game. Anyways.
He started touching our cards and stuff while his mom paid no attention.
Finally she looks over and goes "Hey _____ come back here" as she laughs.
We all just sit there playing our game. She says "Hey guys, is he okay there?"
None of us says anything. You think that might be your cue.
"No really - is he okay there?"
Still nobody says anything. What do you want us to say? "No! Your kid's being a brat - it's not our job to babysit him".

We fended off Mexicans and children, and wind, and rain, other little children, teenagers, and later in the evening, cold, so we could have our perfect view of the fireworks. It was finally getting dark, and we were getting excited! They put on a concert across the river, outside at the hotel that hosted the fireworks. We kept watching to see when they would stop, turn out their lights, and start the fireworks.
The lights went out!
The fireworks were about to begin!
We heard the first sound of the fireworks and craned our necks to see where they were.

BEHIND A BIG BUSH!!!

Are you kidding me?!!! We sat here for 6+ hours only to find out that the fireworks are BEHIND A BIG BUSH?! We moved down right on the river bank to see if that improved our view, and then over a few feet, but no, we were not anywhere close to seeing the fireworks. We grabbed up our stuff, and ran down the street, closer to where they were setting off the fireworks. We ended up sitting in the middle of the street that they closed off around 6:00pm. But we had a good enough spot and we got to see most of the fireworks. It was fun. After that, we began the great exodus back to Rexburg. We got back around midnight (?). We went out on the sidewalks and lit some sparklers, and then went to bed. The next morning, we made breakfast, and then Mollie left for Provo.

At some point in our boredom during the 7 hours we spent on the riverbank, we took some pictures.









We also took these pictures trying to re-create a picture Mollie has from when we were babies. (She'll have to post the original)





We also took some pictures of the fireworks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! CHA CHA CHA

Well, Chad and I were going to head to Provo this weekend for Will and Sawyer's Birthday Extravaganza. After debating over it all week, we decided we probably shouldn't go. We'd get to Provo really late, get to grandma's where Uncle Gary is staying, have to blow up an air mattress, and then be at Erin's for Saturday before leaving again Saturday evening to get back for Sunday. (lame) Plus Chad has been feeling under the weather lately, and was afraid he'd be too tired to drive. So we decided to postpone our trip until Mom is out here next month so we can spend more time there. Also, we want to be the center of attention. Just kidding.

So we'll be down to visit in a few more weeks. But we wanted to post this to our favorite nephews (since they don't read).

1 Down, Many More To Come

Well, just as we were flying out to celebrate Kyle and Jess's wedding, Chad and I were celebrating our own. On Thursday June 18th, we were up early to head to the airport, but took a moment to eat our cake first. We have been toting it around with us since we got married. It went from Pocatello to Rexburg for the wedding, to Provo, to Orem, to Rexburg (30 College Ave. to 23 College Ave.). So, by golly, we were going to eat it! (I have a video I have to have Chad put up later)





Anyways, we ate our cake and headed off to Salt Lake. Here we are on the parking shuttle, beginning our trip. But the trip is a post for another time.



Anyways. Can you believe it's been a year since we got married?! Crazy, huh!? It was fun to go to another wedding to remember our own.

happy anniversary Chad!

They say the first year is the hardest, and if that's the case, I'm really looking forward to the rest of our lives being a cakewalk!

Throwback to A.P. Biology

Last night I had to go to the library to print what I had assumed would be 10-20 pages of some crap (pardon my attitude, but it's justified - read on) one of my teachers posted online - papers which were required to finish the homework last night.

So I go to the library to print the pages because it prints faster and I feel like I'm not wasting my own ink if I print it at the library even though I still have to pay 4 cents a page.

Upon getting to the library a bit after 9:00pm, we find that none of the school's computers have the required update of Adobe Reader and I can't even open the file. In order to download the update, a password is required. So we called over "the red vest" (library tech worker) who was supposed to have the password. Apparently he had a password but not a username, and the computer was asking for both. He tried that for about an hour. We were ready to give up and go home, but our red vest was not. We were trying on a Mac so we went over to a Windows computer and tried it there. After taking 10 minutes to log on (no lie), Chad found the update and was able to download it. That took another 15-20 minutes. Once it downloaded it, we had to restart the computer. It took another 10 minutes to start up again. Meanwhile the red vest is getting more and more annoyed at how slow the computers are and tells us that he is going to bring this up in his meeting tomorrow, because this is just ridiculous. Tell me about it! Anyways, so we finally get back on and open the file we originally needed to open. It opens! We call it a miracle and move on. I select the pages I want and click "Print". The printer doesn't show up in the "select printer location" box. In fact, no printers show up in the box. It has to convert everything into PDF so we can print it. The red vest saves the PDFs on his jump drive and attempts to find us a faster computer. By now it is 11:15. Remember that we got to the library at no later than 9:30. The library closes at 11:30. The red vest has been trying to help us get these 10 pages printed for about 2 hours now. He finds a (relatively) faster computer and sends the pages to the printer. It takes a few minutes to process everything and we realize that it's sending EVERYTHING to the printer.

Now, when I say EVERYTHING, I mean it. The latest thing on campus is to "cut back" on textbook costs by scanning an entire textbook into the computer as PDFs, formatting them as read-only pages, uploading them onto the internet, requiring the students to go online and download the electronic copy of the text.

Now - this could be a good idea! Heck, this could even be a GREAT idea! But in order to grade us, this particular teacher is requiring that we then go on our computers, download the entire file, convert it all back into PDFs, print it, hole punch it, and put it in a notebook so that he has something to grade. He obviously can't put a grade on us saying "Yes, we downloaded it to our computers." So we are required to provide a hard copy.

I present to you my hard copy of the text.



"EVERYTHING" was over 300 pages. And it cost me over $16.00. And I'll have to buy a ridiculous notebook to put it in. Followed by the process of hole punching every page. Chad suggested that I buy a three hole punch and sit in this this guy's class now until the end of the semester (when the "binder" is due) and hole punch each page.

This is RIDICULOUS. On the syllabus it says to print it double-sided. Oh, cuz that makes it better. Besides the fact that the library doesn't have a printer that can print double-sided without printing all of the odd-numbered pages (which you couldn't even do because it's split up into different topics, and then into different sub topics, and they all have their own sets of page numbers) and then put the paper back in the printer and print the even-numbered pages.

And yes, my friends, I found pages of PowerPoint slides. No lie. An entire page that cost me $.04 had about 6 words on it.

I'm pretty sure I would rather pay $30 to have an actual textbook sitting in front of me rather than this crap.

There is no Table of Contents. I think it's a whole bunch of handouts that the teacher has accumulated over his career and has decided that we need, rather than researching it and purchasing a textbook. At least I can sell back a textbook if I want to.

We got to the library at a little after 9:00. About two and a half hours, one red vest, $16(+), and 300 pages later, we left, just as the P.A. told us "Attention: It is now 11:30 and the library is closed." Not happy.

P.S.

This is as close as we ever got to seeing the circus in Rexburg.

Circus McGurkus

So - about a month ago posters showed up around town heralding the arrival of the circus in Rexburg! There were free kids tickets all over the place, but no prices listed on any of the posters.
But we counted down the days and --- Tonight was the night!

We withdrew 20 bucks from the ATM and headed off to the fairgrounds. Visions of elephants and trapeze artists danced through our heads. We got there an hour before the show was supposed to start. We were probably within the first twenty people in line. We were so ready!! We were gonna get good seats and we were gonna see the scary clowns up close and personal! Our hearts beat in anticipation - we could see cotton candy vendors and costumed ladies inside from the show that was just finishing. (They did one earlier today.)

THE CIRCUS!!!!

This is too good to be true!!!




Yes, yes my friends, it was.
The tickets were $16 a piece. Luckily we only had $20 or I might've been tempted to stay to satisfy my inner child.
But I was a big girl, and we left. I didn't even cry.

We went to WalMart instead and bought stuff off their clearance rack which has appeared since they started major remodeling.
Then Chad treated me to a Sno Cone - they have a shack on Main Street that makes really good Sno Cones for relatively cheap. It sure wasn't the circus, but it was good.

Laundromat 1- Post Office 0

As long as the family blogs are on the subject of complaining about customer service, I felt I better contribute.

Today we went to the Post Office to pick up our mail, as we had to get a P.O. Box when we moved. I was expecting some music I had ordered for my senior recital next semester. Usually Eble Music (who I order from) sends the music with a piece of cardboard so that it isn't bent - one of the several things I like about them. My music always comes looking like I went to the store and bought it myself. Well, the Post Office was about to change all that. We got to our little 3x5 box, and seeing that some of the keys for the package boxes were missing, was excited to see if we had one. I opened our box to find my carefully packaged music folded in half and shoved in the box. I was not happy. Really Post Office? Because you obviously had to put some effort into folding that in half so you could fit it into our postcard-sized box. It's like 60 pages of music (or more!), plus a piece of cardboard. Grr. Thanks a lot Post Office.

However, on Thursday we did our laundry at the Magic Suds Laundromat. It's open 24 hours and it's away from everything, so it's usually pretty empty. It's our most recent laundromat find, and we like it. It has tv and wireless internet, and as I said, there's usually nobody in there. Every time we go though, we find some young guy (usually sketchy looking) using it as his own internet cafe - not actually doing any laundry. Cuz I know that'd be the first place I'd go to hang out and surf Facebook. Anywho. We got all our laundry done and put it in the dryer. It had been in for a couple of cycles already, but needed more time. We put in another quarter, closed the door, and pushed the button. To which it displayed some error message about the door being open or the lint trap needing to be emptied - neither of which was the case. So we kept opening and closing the door and pushing the button only to keep getting the error message, and wouldn't give us our money back. So there's a note on the door to the office that says "If you lose any money, please leave a note with your name and address on it and we will be happy to refund it." I was annoyed, so I left a very pleasant note (it really was pleasant! I'm not just being sarcastic) with my name and address and slipped it through the mail slot on the door. Today we got back our note with $1.75 taped to it. We only lost a quarter!
Thank you laundromat! I think we'll be back.

How Old Are You Now?! CHA CHA CHA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

How Old Are You Now?! CHA CHA CHA

Well everyone, Wednesday was Chad's first birthday as a married man. It was pretty fun.

Since he won't post about it - I have to write a post about how cool of a wife I am.

I got up early before school (I have a 7:45 class, so that's saying something!) and decorated the apartment. Thankfully for our new apartment, I had room to decorate without being heard. I went to school while Chad slept in.

When I got done with class at 3:00, we headed to Idaho Falls for his free birthday burger from Red Robin (thanks to Chad's mom entering him in their birthday system thing). It was good but WAY expensive even with the free burger! We probably won't be going there again. After Red Robin, Chad wanted to go see the new XMen movie, so we went and saw that. Also WAY expensive. We never go to a movie unless it's at the cheap theater, so $20 to see a movie was quite a shock. Sheeze what a rip-off! But the movie was good and Chad enjoyed it, so mission accomplished. We got home around 9:30 and Chad blew out his birthday candles and opened his birthday gifts.


(from his parents)




His last gift had to be found via a treasure hunt. I have found that Chad is almost too impatient for a treasure hunt. But he made it through it and found his last gift and his life was officially complete.





Chad opened and set up his Wii Fit, which promptly told him that according to it's measurements he is "obese" and his "Wii Fit Age" is 43. Why did he want this again? Just kidding. And then I got on it and it told me that my "Wii Fit Age" is 35. So we aged 14 years together, but we're still 8 years apart. So Chad has been exercising with his Wii Fit and plans to be fit and svelte by the time we go home for Kyle's wedding. The best part was when his Mii bubbled up after weighing him and then bumbled across the screen as it tried to run. Hahaha....

Anyways, with that, Chad's 29th birthday was over.

On Friday Mom and Dad's gift to Chad got here and he opened it after work. We didn't have time to play before we went to bed, so I'm sure we'll play that today.

The Long Overdue Easter Post

Hello everyone!
It is Saturday and I am sitting at home doing nothing. Chad is at work until 5 or 6 (it varies from day to day and I can't remember what today is) and I have been looking for some way to occupy myself for a while. I figured I could update about Easter since I never did.

The weekend before Easter, Chad and I drove down to Provo for my birthday weekend. We celebrated our birthday, and mom had sent a package knowing we'd be there so we could have an Easter Egg Hunt. It ended up being a crazy weekend and we didn't have time to do it. But we were coming back for Mollie's University Band concert about ten days later - on the Tuesday after Easter. We decided we would do it then, but since Mollie didn't know we were coming, she was quite disappointed about the whole lack of an Easter Egg Hunt.

Easter day was spent in Rexburg. I told Chad all about our Easter traditions and explained to him that he must provide an Easter Egg Hunt for me. Luckily for me, he likes that kind of thing.
I told him how the Easter Bunny would always come during church. It was our first week in our new ward, so Chad helped me find Relief Society, and then he went off to Priesthood. When that got over, I looked for him so we could go to Sunday School, but couldn't find him. I called him and he was only a couple of minutes away from having me think he went to Priesthood instead of "getting sick" and having to go home during Priesthood. So close! Anyways, so we went to Sunday School and Sacrament meeting (where we didn't even talk about Easter! The talks were on missionary work!!) and then went home. I got out to the car to find this note on my seat:

!!!! :o)

We drove the 4 minutes home, and I was sad we didn't have a yard full of candy I could scope out while I ran upstairs to change my clothes, but we had an Easter Egg Hunt nonetheless. Here are some pictures.



(Some of the eggs had vouchers for $1 because we didn't have any dollar bills and Chad knew about the money egg tradition)

Chad hid all of the candy and eggs, and then I got to find them. It was fabulous. We had way more than enough candy, but it was fun.

That night we had dinner with our friends Dave (Chad's old roommate) and his wife Kim.
She brought dessert - she made this bunny cake!
It was yummy!

To finish our Easter celebrations, we drove down to Provo again on Monday night. As I mentioned, we were there to surprise Mollie and go to her concert the next night. We stayed at Erin's and then went to run errands while we waited for Erin to get Mollie over to her house so we could surprise her. I told Mollie I had sent my concert black clothes to Erin so she could wear them if she wanted. Erin told her the package had gotten there and she needed to come pick it up. (We brought the clothes with us.) Unfortunately we were in line at the WalMart on University Parkway when Mollie got to Erin's. We rushed back as quickly as we could while Erin tried to stall Mollie. Erin kept asking Will where "that box with the clothes in it" was and he kept being confused. He tried to show her "the box" on the Children's Book of Mormon they have, but Erin kept asking him where the other box was. Poor kid. Erin said it might be in the car and went out to the garage just as we pulled up and ran in through the garage with the clothes. It wasn't quite as stellar as we had hoped, but it worked.

We went to Mollie's concert and snuck out after her band was done. We drove 8 hours round trip to listen to approximately 30 minutes of music. Yay. We went back to Erin's where Bryce has surprised us by setting up the Easter Egg Hunt (inside cuz it was raining ... and dark). Unfortunately it was an Easter Egg Hunt made by and for tall people, so Kyle and Jess ended up with most of the eggs. I finally spotted an egg and went for it but Erin was guarding it - "Leeeeave it! ... Hey Will! Come look over here!" But we had lots of fun. Thanks mom for the Easter Egg Hunt!
Afterwards, we all sat around eating chocolate until we felt sick.





After that, we went to Burger King cuz Mollie was starving. And with that, we headed back to Rexburg the next afternoon. Much fun was had by all.

I had a video of Will, but I can't find it on any of our camera cards. :o(

Drum Roll Please!

Here is the video Chad made of our new apartment. It's kind of a quick walk-through, but hopefully you get the idea. 

Enjoy! 

To: Mom

Ode.

A Sign from Above

So, it being a lovely day in Rexburg today, Chad and I decided to enjoy the weather and go for a short walk. We were almost back to our apartment when I felt something wet splash on my feet. I look down only to see a splash pattern of bird poo right there on my feet. Both feet and my ankles, but not my clothes, as far as we can see. Eew.

"Lord, that was uncalled for."

Suzy Homemaker I Am Not

So recently Chad has found that nearly every pair of his jeans has a hole in it. This is due to the fact that he wears jeans to work every day.

He now only has one pair left that doesn't have a hole. It was time to buy new jeans, or else try to fix the old ones. After a trip to Wal-Mart, I found myself equipped to try the fixing. I pulled out my sewing machine from mom, and my laptop. I found a YouTube video by a lovely "fashion designer" with some kind of accent who called the thread "cotton" all the time. So I had the machine threaded by the time I was done with that and then tried some stitches on scrap fabric. I called mom somewhere in there because the machine kept getting jammed up. After about half an hour to forty-five minutes, she decided there was something wrong with the tension. (Which was set to zero) After fixing that, things ran smoothly for a bit, and I finally got one pair of jeans mended. I didn't want to do the next pairs until Chad had seen what I had done to the first pair, just in case it would be a waste of my time.

So. One bobbin full of thread, two machine needles, and three hours later, I mended one pair of jeans.

There's a mouse in the house.

Well, we got back from Wal-Mart last night around... 8:30? We carried our groceries upstairs, but when we got to the top of the stairs, I heard a noise. I shooshed Chad and he finally stopped rustling his grocery bags. We both heard a noise. It was coming from the ceiling. We listened for a few seconds, to hear what what sounded like something scurrying around in the ceiling. Grrreeeeeeat.

We went into our apartment and put down all of the groceries, deciding that if it hadn't been in our apartment yet, it probably wouldn't be, whatever it was. I walked back to the hallway to listen, only to have my attention drawn up to the fluorescent light in the ceiling. There are fluorescent lights in the hallway ceiling which we leave on all of the time. They are set up in a cubby in the ceiling, that's supposed to have some kind of surface covering to make the ceiling all one plane. Those coverings got taken down who knows when, and so it sits, open straight up to the bulbs. There's a little hole in the ceiling in the corner of the light cubby, in which I saw something yellow move. Not like, yellow as in a yellow animal, but yellow as in an animal pulling a piece of food into the hole. Something like that.

I told Chad what I saw and asked if there was possibly someone working in the ceiling. Yeah, no. But I figured I'd be optimistic. It really sounded like someone had a wire that they were trying to push through the ceiling. Something was up there.

We locked our door and went to bed, thinking of all of the open holes in the walls in the apartment we're living in now. There's one behind the cabinet in the kitchen, but if something fell down through the hole, we don't think it would be able to climb back up. I guess that's not much of a consolation. There's another hole behind the stove/fridge so you can get to the water pipes to the shower. Even if something came in there, it wouldn't be able to get to the food. So, feeling pretty confident that this animal(s) wouldn't be able to break into our fortress, we watched a movie and went to bed. This morning Chad got up to put a new doorknob on our door. The old one worked just fine, but nobody had the key to it, so we couldn't lock it when we left. The door that leads up to these apartments from the street has a large deadbolt-ish lock on it that's supposed to be kept locked all the time, so we weren't really worrying. But, especially with some kind of animal roaming around, we decided we better have a working lock just in case. So I was still laying in bed when I hear the drill start going. A few minutes later Chad comes into the bedroom.

"Yup, there's definitely something out there. I could hear it as soon as I started up the drill. But now it sounds like it's in one of the other apartments, not the ceiling."

Knowing that the doors to all the other apartments were securely closed, I didn't think he had too much to worry about, except the creepiness factor. He went back to the doorknob and I went back to my snoozing. He comes back in just a few minutes later and says

"Okay, that was creepy. I just heard a noise like a door opening. Like the weather-stripping brushing across the floor. Why don't you get up and get dressed and keep me company? (Or something along those lines)"

So, with visions of giant mutant rats running around in one of the apartments, big yellow eyes a-glow with ferocious greed, I put in my contacts first. I was not going to be attacked by something only to have my glasses knocked off and be rendered completely defenseless. Think Piggy in Lord of the Flies. Not happening.

So I got up, got dressed, and put in my contacts. Armed with my multi-purpose weapon of choice, I joined Chad in the hallway. I poked by broom handle into the ceiling a couple of times, and didn't hear anything. I walked down to the hallway that leads out to the roof (where Chad said he thought it was coming from) and looked through the grates on the door. There, at the far end, was the culprit. Yes, my dear friends, a bird. I watched it fly around in the hall for a few seconds. There was a box and some kind of packing paper material in there that it kept flying into, and that was the noise Chad kept hearing. His comment to me was: "I'm glad you had the guts to look, cuz I wasn't going to. I didn't want to look in and see a giant rat." I was feeling pretty self-assured. We didn't know how to get it out without getting attacked by it though. It looked pretty irritated. When I first saw it, it was flying head on into the window in the door that leads outside to the roof. Over and over again. Before I could protect my head, open the door into the hallway and shoo it out the opposite door to the roof, it flew into a hole in the ceiling, and we haven't heard from it since. We're hoping it found the exit. It explains the movement near the light last night though, if it got stuck up in the ceiling and was looking for the way out, it would have been confused by the light. But the light was probably hot and so it could see the light but not get out that way.

Anyways, I, the conquerer, feel much better to know that I don't have to worry about rats invading our kitchen. And I, the conquerer, am realizing what a wuss I married. ;o)