Don't leave us alone with a camera...

Bring on the Rockies!

Up late again to watch the Red Sox pulverize the Indians. Considering how convinced the national media was that Schilling and Dice-K stink, they won both of their games to end the series pitching pretty well. Highlights of the telecast:

1. the nerd-fest going down in the sox bullpen. They were all banging out rhythms on the pen wall.
2. Big Papi sporting the celebratory goggles before the ninth inning was over.
3. Tim McCarver babbling like an idiot. Actually, I hated that.
4. The sweet catches to end the night, especially the last one.
5. I honestly felt bad for the Indians when they dropped that pop-up in shallow left. It put a damper on my competitiveness...temporarily.

For the first time in my life I am being paid because of my love of sports. My professor, Dr. Thomas Kane, does research with sports and motivation, and he has hired me to help him creatively with his presentation. He liked what my partner and I did for our class presentation and will use part of his grant money to pay us to work on his.

We got to watch Transformers at our friends' house, the Zysks. They are extremely generous and fun, and I enjoy hanging out with them. Stephanie Zysk and Carrie have been friends since high school, and I think Pat, her husband, likes having me around because I yell at the TV during sporting games. Everyone thought my yelling at Kenny Lofton to get off the field because he was a "skinny wimp" was funny. Transformers is a good movie, and I suggest it to all who haven't seen it. It is not a movie that will "make you think."

The next day Carrie and I went to see the new Harry Potter at the cheap theater here in Springfield. I had won free tickets on campus about a month ago. It was also a good movie, but for the first time I understood what my sisters were talking about when they said about the other movies, "It was okay, but they took a lot of stuff out." We went from there to lunch/dinner at Olive Garden. I learned there that Carrie sometimes eat breadsticks like corn-on-the-cob. She told me that she just wanted to eat the good, salty part on top.

But Carrie has been wonderful. She decided instead of watching the baseball game with me she would clean up around our apartment, taking care of loose ends that we have had since moving here. We hung up our pictures, including temple and wedding pictures, and our apartment feels more like a home. We still have not received our tables from SofaMart which we bought August 14. They were supposed to be delivered almost two months ago. When I called again this week I was informed that our salesman did not work there anymore, and that is why our order had fallen through the cracks. Anyway, our apartment looks nice, and I appreciate her very much.

Carrie also made a very delicious dinner tonight. She has gotten more creative and her culinary talents have blossomed since our marriage. I always told myself that I would have to cook when I got married, but I was wrong. I still make my spaghetti once a week, which Carrie claims is her favorite. She is nice. Today she cooked chicken, red potatoes, carrots, garlic, lemon, green onions, and bouillon in our crock pot. It was delicious.

I am more and more convinced every day that my decision to marry Carrie was the best of my life. Not just for her culinary expertise. Not just her good looks. We are best friends.

Adventures in Baby-sitting

It's been awhile since we last posted anything new, so we apologize to our loyal blog readers. We've kept pretty busy this past month and a half. The first weekend of September I rode out with my dad to Rexburg to help my sister, Emily get moved in for her 3rd year at BYU-I. It was a whirlwind adventure, driving over 3,000 miles in 5 days. I really enjoyed the trip, but feel like I have definitely hit my road trip quota for the year. No drive seems that long to me anymore.

The day after I got back I started working at a local radio station. I got the job through a temp agency. It is nice to be making a little money and to have something to keep me busy, but I think the job will be temporary. The work environment is just not desirable. Anthony says the station owner/manager runs the place with a pre-humanistic/positive psychology management style. For example, as front desk receptionist I transcribe all voice mails each morning. After I print out two copies I file one in the voicemail log and deliver the other personally to the manager. He then reads the message and decides how to act. Once, after transcribing the message I told the person the message was for about the call. Ten minutes later after the boss reviewed the log he called me back to his office and told me to let the person know about the message. I told him I had already taken care of it. Five minutes after I left his office his personal assistant stopped by my desk and told me that it wasn't my place to deliver messages to anyone before the manager reviewed them. Whatever. I'll just stick it out until Christmas and look for a part-time job next semester.

Anthony has been extremely busy. He is finishing up his mid-terms this week and has Thursday and Friday off from school. We were planning on taking a trip, but I couldn't get time off from work, so have temporarily postponed our plans. Anthony is doing really well in all his classes, receiving high marks on tests and projects alike. He also seems to be fairly well-liked by his teachers and classmates. It is fun seeing him excited about school and the things he is doing at work. On top of his school commitments, he is also busy with the Teacher's Quorum in our ward. The guys in his quorum are really cool, as well as the leaders he works with.

This past weekend we baby-sat for my best friend from high school, Stephanie, and her husband Pat. It was their 5 year anniversary and her 25th birthday. They have been such good friends to us since we've moved here, we wanted to do something nice for them. So, since we don't have a lot of money right now we offered to watch their kids so they could relax and spend some time together without the kids. They have two daughters. McKenna is almost three years old and Paige is 10 weeks. We watched them from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening. We had a really fun time, but I had forgotten (never knew?!?!) how exhausting tending little ones can be! The girls were very good and didn't cause us any problems, but it was such a different kind of work than we were used to. I had to teach my Primary class and prepare a Sharing Time for Sunday and thought I would have plenty of time, no problem, to get them done, but I didn't really have any free time. I'm sure once I'm a mother myself I will learn to prioritize and focus, but this weekend gave me a new found appreciation for my parents and all the other parent's out there. It's hard work, not to mention a full-time job by itself. When I was in school I used to look forward to the days when I would have kids and could just hang out all day. I guess I'm a little off. Anthony was great. He did more work than me. I think he really enjoyed watching the Red Sox games with little Paige nestled in his arm. We are both pretty tired today, but I get to go to bed soon. Anthony is staying up late to study. Hopefully as things slow down a little bit we can do a better job of keeping out blog up-to-date.