Christmas party

This last friday we had our ward Christmas party and Santa was there. Seth wanted to follow all of the children over to Santa. He had a hard time waiting his turn.

Then when it was his turn he took one look at Santa and wanted his mom.

So as long as I was right next to him he was happy to pose for a picture.

Newspapers look like Christmas to me

I sometimes feel that I cannot post, unless I have a picture to help tell the story. Many times I get on to see others' blogs and then I come up with an idea for a post, but I am not at home where I am able to take a picture. On my last post, Amy Jo commented that she would have liked to see a picture. Pictures involve planning. Sometimes that works; most of the time it does not.

I am against the idea of buying wrapping paper. I prefer to use newspaper. I get it for free from the college. I do not want to waste money buying paper that will go immediately in the trash after the present is opened. Jennifer does not agree. She tells me that newspaper was okay in the past, but little kids will know that Santa does not wrap with newspaper. Now I have to buy paper to wrap Seth's presents with. I see the logic, but I still feel that this is a waste of money. We also bought a present for Jennifer's little brother, Zack. His present cannot be wrapped in newspaper either. I am not sure if he still believes in Santa or if Jennifer does not want him to know exactly who gave him the gift (newspaper would be a sure sign that it came from us). Just know that if I give you a gift that has been wrapped in newspaper, this is a sign that I spent the money saved on paper in upgrading the gift to the better version. If you can look past the ugly outside wrapper you will enjoy the gift a little bit more.

If I was to take a picture to put with this post, then it would have been of a few presents wrapped in newspaper. If you are one of those that needs to see a picture with every post, then wrap up some old box in newspaper and take a few minutes to admire it. If you must see a picture, look at my profile picture. I really like it. Seth is looking right at the camera and smiling so cute.

Leaves Everywhere

It has been a while since we have been to Clearfield, so we decided to vistit Jennifer's parents this weekend. Saturday morning we decided to help do a little yard work. They have three giant trees on the west side of their house. Those trees provide a great amount of shade in the summer that helps keep their house cool. The problem is the leaves in the Fall. Leaves carpeted the front lawn. We raked them all up and by the afternoon leaves carpeted the front lawn again. It took 8 large bags to collect all the leaves. We also filled up the garbage can and the two neigbor's cans as well. Only about half of the leaves have fallen from the trees. At least we helped out a little bit. Then we helped put up the Christmas lights. It was good to get them up before it got too cold.

Halloween

We have always painted our pumpkins, ever since we have been married. It is less messy and can be done inside where it is warm. Jennifer also likes to take the pumpkins and make a pie afterward, so carving it would make it all dirty inside.

At Skip's house, we used power tools to carve the pumpkins. We were able to carve a face in about 20 seconds. It was quick and easy, but it was more difficult to make a straight line with the power tool pulling in different directions. If you look closely you can see my pumpkin in the back; the one with the BYU Y on it. It did not turn out as perfect as if I had cut it with an exact-o knife, but you could tell what it was supposed to be.

Here is Seth in his little outfit. He held still, for the most part, as I painted and tickled his face with the paint brush.

I tried to get a picture of him facing the camera, but he was busy looking at something else and then running from me.

I wore this mask around trick-or-treating with the kids. Many of the other little kids were worried when they saw me. I even saw a few grab for their mothers. Mark, Linda, and Erica got to Amy Jo's house later that night. I was watching and waiting for their arrival. I hid behind the wall near the front walkway. When they got close, I jumped out and scared them. It was funny. Linda liked it the most; NOT. Weston and Chace kept asking me, "Were you the monkey?" They were not too scared by the mask. Even though they knew that I was inside the mask, they still kept a close eye on it.

Knock Knock

Seth has slept in a pack-n-play his whole life. We had plans to keep him there until he was big enough to move into a twin size bed. He had other plans. He is still little, but was getting too big for that pack-n-play. He could almost pull himself up and escape. He would grab the top bar and walk up the side of the pack-n-play. We thought that he would tear a hole in the side net if he was allowed to continue. We decided he needed a different bed. We went to DI and found a crib mattress that fits him just right. He is able to get himself in and out of bed when ever he pleases. This is not always a good thing, especially at 4 in the morning. If he rolls out of bed, it is not high enough to do any permanent damage. The only trouble has been getting him to take naps. When he slept in the pack-n-play, we just put him in it and he would cry for five minutes and then go to sleep. Now he wants to get up and run around. We lay him down and shut the door. After a few minutes, he will stop crying and go lay down on the bed. He still does not know how to pull the covers up, but he will learn. Sometimes when his nap is over, we do not hear him crying. He gets out of bed and knocks on the door until we let him out. Sometimes when it is time for a nap, we put him in his room and shut the door. He will not cry, he will just knock on the door. We do not let him out. He likes to go around knocking on doors. When one of us in the bathroom, he will knock on the door; as if we are going to let him in. Last Sunday, we had temple recommend interviews with our Bishop. Another lady was taking her turn and Seth thought is would be nice to knock on the door. Luckily no one answered.

MAcc Program

I just started the Masters of Accountancy program at Southern Utah University. I have had tough classes in the past, but not so many all at once. My classes this semester require a lot more reading than I am used to. I am taking one class that is pretty much a CPA review course for the financial accounting section. I have a quiz every class period. That class really does force me to study and be prepared to go to class everyday. The teacher of my Business Law II class always says things like, "I could explain more, but I will let you read in the text and figure that out." That makes us search through the book to find information that he could have just given us. I am sure in some crazy way this will help us to learn it better. I am enjoying my classes and I am glad to be in the MAcc program. I am taking 15 credits each semester, in order to finish in one year. I sometimes think I should have taken this one class at a time and taken 10 years to finish.

Seth's Videos

Seth is the “King of the Rock”. He thinks that it is fun to stand on my sewing container in between the two couches. He has not quit mastered the “No Hands” I am sure that we will keep working on it.


Ever since Thomas' sister moved out of Cedar City we have been doing our laundry in the bath tub and then hanging it outside to dry. Seth is always right there in the middle of everything, so we told him to get to work. He still need a little more practice, but before long he will be washing the clothes himself.

Playing in Richfield

Last weekend we decided to go visit my sister, Amy Jo, in Richfield. It is about 1 ½ hour drive north east from Cedar City. In our little truck with the trailer and go cart behind us, it took about 2 hours to make it there. When we pulled up all the kids came running out to meet us. Mariah said, "Look Mom, Thomas brought a little Jeep." The kids were facinated by the go cart. The next morning we went out to the dirt hills to play with the go cart. The dirt hills are 5 or 6 blocks from Amy Jo's place, so it was really nice. In Cedar, when we go out to play in the hills, we always find a nice tree to put our chairs under and enjoy the shade. Richfield is baren. It did not have a single tree out in the hills. There was only one house with in sight and they had a tree but it was fenced off. We put our chairs in the shade of Amy Jo and Skip's van. We took turns riding with the kids and having a great time. I let Mariah drive, while I controled the gas and the brake. She got the hang of it and did pretty well. She was just barely tall enough to see over the front of go cart. I also let Chace drive, but he was too interested in looking at me to pay attention to the road. I told Amy Jo that he must have thought that he was on a hot date.
Jennifer took Weston for a ride and when she got back the go cart died. I tried to start it back up, but it had no juice at all. Almost like the battery was gone. I looked under the cart and sure enough the battery was gone, leaving nothing but the bare wires. The platform that the battery sits on is just wide enough for the battery. It has a half an inch lip around it. Jennifer must have hit a bump just right and the battery fell out. After hanging by the wires for a second, its own weight tore the clamp right off the battery and left it in the dirt. After we found the battery back on the trail, we got it hooked back up and we were off again. To secure the battery, we found an old fence half buried in the dirt and used some wire cutters to get a decent size piece. We wrapped that around the battery and the frame. We played until the sun got too high and we lost our shade from the van. We went back to Amy Jo's to have lunch and rest and wait for it to cool down a bit. The kids would not stay off the go cart and played in it pretty much constantly, even though it was strapped to the trailer.
Later that evening we went back to the hills to play again. We got the go cart unloaded from the trailer and Mariah all seat belted in, then the go cart would not start. Mariah was very disappointed. Jennifer, Skip and I checked everything that we could think of, but could not get it running. All three of us probably checked the gas tank twice. Just as Jennifer and Skip were walking back to the van and going to call it a night, I noticed something on the instrument panel. The go cart is equiped with a kill switch. When the kids were playing in it, they must have flipped the switch. I turned it to the run position and the go cart fired right up. If there is something that kids can play with and mess up, they will do it. Oh well. No harm, no foul. I beat all of them later.
We had a nice time in Richfield and look forward to the Jenson reunion that will be held there next year. Jennifer and I even got a chance to visit the KOA. It looks good.

Go Cart

I bought a go cart the other day. A man and his son came into Jiffy Lube a week ago and had a go cart for sale. They said that they were moving back to California and did not want to take it with them. I decided to buy it. I took it over to Rad Motorsports and had the owner do some adjustments on the carburetor and everything else. He told me that I got a pretty good deal on it. I paid about half of what it is really worth. I even got a little trailer as part of the deal.

I still think that it is funny that Michael and I have practically the same truck.
Except that mine is cooler.

Seth enjoyed being out in the hills and loved throwing dirt all over himself.

Michael did not know that I had a go cart. We told him that we were going to go out in the hills and play around. He was thinking that he did not want to go on a nature hike. We told him that we do it all the time and it is fun, and so he came along. Jennifer and I live in an apartment and do not have a spot to park the trailer. One of my co-workers at Jiffy Lube said that I could park it at his house as long as I want. Once we pulled up to his house and loaded the trailer, then Michael caught on to what we were doing out in the hills. We played for a few hours and took turns sitting with Seth. Three Peaks recreation area is mostly sand and does not have many rocks. It was a lot of fun to fish tail through the trees. Don't worry Dad, we stayed on existing trails (for the most part).

Changing Fluids

My little brother, Michael, came down to Cedar City for the weekend. He has a 1997 Ford Ranger with 150,000 miles on it. We went into Jiffy Lube and changed his rear differencial fluid and manual transmission fluid. My boss, Tyson Redd, let us do it for free and Michael gave him some Bubblishis bubble gum. The rear diff did not look too bad, but it was still good to change it. The manual trani fluid was as black as could be. As I pulled the drain, the fluid came down on a rag on top of the bin and splashed all over me. It got my face and in my mouth. I got oil all over my shirt and shorts, but did not get my G's. I wore an old shirt just in case. We also changed Michael's dash lights just like I did to my truck. I will let you know later about our other adventures this weekend.

Dash Lights

I had this last Saturday off and I wanted to do something productive with my time. I decided to change some of the bulbs in my truck’s instrument panel. A few of the bulbs went out a while ago and I have been meaning to do it for a quite some time now. Also my check engine light is on and has been on since I bought the truck. The check engine light is on, because the oil pressure gage broke and the truck thinks (if a truck could think) that there is no oil in the engine. The previous owner put in a second oil pressure gage but did not tie it into the computer. I would like to live along the Wasatch front soon and I know that if a vehicle’s check engine light is on it fails an emissions test automatically. I decided to fix the problem by taking out the light bulb in my check engine slot. I took everything all apart and replaced all the bulbs with new ones and everything works great now.

The first step is to take off all the bolts on the bottom of the kick plate. You will need a 7 mm socket for this job.

Then remove the kick plate. There are bolts at the bottom, but the top is held in with some push clips. They are inserted at a downward angle, so you have to lift up and out to get it off.

Next remove the radio housing. It does not have any bolts holding it in, just push clips. Use two flat head screw drivers to get under one side and pull it off. Don’t worry you will not break it.

Next remove the plastic cover that goes over your instrument panel. There are three screws at the top of the panel and two at the bottom.

Remove four screws that hold the instrument panel in place. Once again they are 7 mm heads.

Remove the entire instrument panel and unplug the three wire connections on the back. Remember where they go. It shouldn’t be too difficult; they are all different sizes and will only fit back into their proper holes.

Then on the back of the panel you will find all the lights. Twist to remove each bulb. I recommend replacing all the bulbs, since you do not want to do this all over again next week.

The final step is to put it all back together. Hope you remember how. It took about an hour or so and was kind of fun. The best part is that I could have spend $20 at the auto parts store buying the light bulbs, but I went to my work and bought the bulbs from them for $1.75.