Changes

We've had lots of changes in the last few months. All have been good.

Yes we finally moved into our new house in April. I have included some pictures of the house before we moved in. We also found some hats from San Fransico. We bought them a few years ago and were packed away in boxes for the last couple of years. The kids had fun goofing off with them while we moved.

The other changes that we have gone through are:

Katelyn moved back home for the summer. She also got her job back from Dimple Dell. She had to quit last fall when she went up to school. She is really glad to be working again. She might also work at Midvale Middle School. She will be a lifeguard and teach swimming lessons at both places.

Matthew got a good raise. He also got a change in his job description from Technition to Engineer 1. It sounds like they really like him as ES3.

Tania just started working at Dairy Queen in the South Towne Mall. Her picture in her uniform is above.

Sasha, we think, has a job at Smith's. He should start that job when we get back from our family vacation. Sasha also got his driver's license. He had to have his license for his job. We aren't letting him drive by himself yet.

We have been attending our new ward. We are really enjoying it. It is a little hard not knowing anyone but the ward has been very good about introducing themselves to us. We are even remembering some names. We are keeping really busy in the ward.

Father's Day

A couple of weeks ago the Laurels decorated ties for their dads. We are so proud of the dad's. They all wore them to church.

Drivers License, misc. conversations & the house

Hooray!! Tania has good enough grades to get her license. She is even going to make the honor roll. Sasha has good enough grades to get his license but he is not eligible for another month.

So today David took Tania to get her drivers license. He actually had to take her twice because Tania did not wear her contacts or bring her glassess. She couldn't pass the eye test without them. When they got back to the DMV they ended up talking to the same person from the first time they were there. After Tania's eye test, the DMV offficial wrote some words on a piece of paper and asked Tania to read the paper. He wanted to make sure she could really see the letters correctly or so he said. The words were "I must kill moose and squirrel". The DMV official said that he had to hear the saying in the native tongue.

David had a great time with the official but now he had to explain about moose and squirrel and why one of his best friends has a nickname of moose and squirrel.

Earlier this week as I was driving the kids home from school, when Tania mentioned that her friend makes it a habit to ask each of her teachers "How are you doing, my favorite teacher?" We kind of laughed about it but we talked about what a difference that might make with attitudes of teachers toward them. I encouraged them to try saying the same thing to each of their teachers to see what would happen. I haven't heard anything back yet. I'll let you know if the kids notice a difference.

This next comment is for Brent M. In answer to your question if the kids ever appreciate anything. At the beginning of the week, David took Tania to Bountiful to see her friend's dance performance. It was a very long and gruelling hour and half for David. He really doesn't enjoy stuff like that very much. When they got into the truck to come home, Tania actually thanked David for taking her to the performance. It was very sincere and very appreciated.

This comment is for Wendy. Our friend Wendy has her son write down something he is grateful for every day. I thought we could at least tell each other what we were grateful for at the dinner table on Sunday. I have been waiting for the right opportunity to start this little idea. Last Sunday was the first time for us to say what we were grateful for. I was pleased to hear what Tania was grateful for. I don't think Sasha was really comfortable. I hope next time he will be more comfortable. But at least after dinner Sasha was quite willing to give out hugs. He was in a great mood. I like to think that our grateful talk put everyone in a great mood. It was really nice.

Tania's room. This picture makes her room look purple but it is really very pink! It should match her new bedding very well.

Laundry room

More laundry room. The countertop was supposed to be completely installed the other day but apparently the installer was talking to his wife when he cut the top. Oops, he cut it wrong. So now they are making a new top.


We have our new fridge and our double ovens. My children laugh at me because I have wanted double ovens so badly. The pantry door is still covered with a film. Once the film is removed it should look really cool.

This is Tania after she spent a couple of hours cleaning the new house. Obviously, we need to have her work on the house we are living in.

There have been some fun times as the house has been built. Quite often we go see the house when it is dark outside. We had to bring flashlights with us since we didn't have any lights. The more we went to see it in the dark, the more hiding in closets, hiding behind walls and standing quite still in a dark room occurred. So as we had more hiding, I'm sure you can guess, we had more screaming and jumping as people jumped out of their hiding spots. It has been so bad that I have had to lead the crowd around before they would go anywhere. Of course that really didn't help because I new something would happen and just walked on by whoever was hiding. I must admit, I might need hearing aides after Tania has screamed several times in my ear.

The outside of our house is really looking like a real house. Tomorrow they are going to start working on the driveway.

Cabinets in the mater bath.

Our kitchen.

More kitchen

The family room.

The kitchen's new hardwood floors.

Our stairwell and front entry.

They lined all of the inside doors to paint. It was really kind of bizarre looking.

Katelyn wanted me to post pictures of the house from the last couple of days so here they are. Putting on the stone.

One of our walk-in closets.

Kids bathroom

There are times we have to take pictures of our house after 5:00. We can't seem to get a good picture during the day because of all the vehicles in front of our house.

The stucco with color should be going on tomorrow. Hopefully, we will start painting inside sometime this week.

We also have tile in our shower and around the bathtub.

I haven't taken pictures of the doors and the trim work but all the inside doors and most of the trim work is done.

In order to carry a taser, you must be trained on how to use it. As part of the training you are tased. I'm not sure why. I mean, they don't shoot you with a gun before you can carry a gun for work so why do they tase people before they can carry a taser?

So David underwent training several years ago. When they tased him the recorded the experience and we have a copy of it. Members of our family have requested us to put the video on the blog. So I have attached the video.

Sasha

So Sasha has changed during the last few months. To help you understand what I mean, I will start with the beginning of the school year. He absolutely refused to do a homework assignment. There were two reasons he wouldn't do it. First he had to get up in front of the class and second the subject was himself. Once he found out he could just give his speech to his teacher, he went in the next day to complete the assignment.

Then, last fall Tania and I noticed him doing something that he would never have done a year ago. We had someone looking at our house so we went to dinner at Subway. Sasha and I finished before Tania so he threw away our garbage including all of the napkins. Tania needed a napkin after that and suprise of all suprises, Sasha actually went up and asked for a napkin from one of the employees. Anyone who knows how shy Sasha is will understand why Tania and I were surprised.

Just last week he had another assignment where he had to get up in front of the class. When we asked him how it went, he said he aced it. He also is getting extra credit because he volunteered to give the first presentation. I think I about fell off my chair when I found that out.

On a different note. It is very easy to scare Sasha. While in Arkansas at Christmas time, my mom rented a house for us to use. So one night when David was driving the kids to the house, he asked the kids if they had heard the axe murderer at night. (He had our niece and nephew with him and thought he would scare them.) Everyone kind of laughed at his comments. Once they got to the house Tania, Sasha and our niece went downstairs to watch TV. Matthew in his great maturity, snuck around to the back of the house and made some noises. Well Sasha got up to look out the back door and Matthew jumped up infront of the door. Apparently, Sasha jumped really high and screamed really loud.

Then the other day David and I came home while Sasha was vacuuming. He had absolutely no idea that we had come into the house so I poked him and said "boo". Once again he jumped and screamed. It was so perfect. Sasha is always trying to scare us. So we have now gotten even with him.

Our domestic kids

It has been really nice having our domestic kids home from college during the Christmas season. It has been so nice to have some really good help around the house. Both kids have been very good about volunteering to help cook meals, bake goodies and clean. Matthew thoroughly enjoyed making cheesecake and chocolate pie at my parents house. He also made dinner last night. Katelyn has been more than willing to make treats. She has also taken out the garbage when it was full.

I'm not sure that the kid taking care of our animals while we were in Arkansas really appreciated taking care of all their animals though. We all ready had both of our labs, but Matthew and Katelyn also brought home a rabbit, 3 frogs and yes a snake.

The rabbit is cute but I don't want it staying in my house for long. And I really don't want the snake in my house. Below are pictures of the rabbit.

More House

Footings for our covered patio.

Our roofers are very anxious to get going. Our framer had to hold them up for a little while so that he could finish some nailing on the roof and they all most didn't let him.