The Neal Family

Hi, Internet family! Turns out I don't have much time to blog when I'm a single parent. Reason #58 why I love my husband--without him I could not blog. Things have gone pretty well--sorry for my dismal take on the upcoming weekend.
There were several complicating factors the made me pretty grumpy about things. First off, we were in the middle of a car purchase which I was going to have to finish by myself. Secondly, for most Wednesday I thought I might be able to go with Sean and take a short trip to Utah/Idaho. This did not pan out; however, the car purchase did! Woohoo! We are now the proud owners of a 2001 Daewoo Lanos hatchback. Nothing fancy, but it's in good shape, has had lots of regular maintenance and only has 57K on the odometer. And we got it for dirt cheap, so even if it turns out to be a disposable car within a few years we'll still come out ahead. My freedom beckons me...
So yes, where were we? Oh, the weekend. We've gotten lots of errands and shopping done, bought the new car, went to the city's Easter carnival (pics to come), and even managed to hear some of conference. Patrick took a perfect nap this afternoon and I was able to watch all of the afternoon session online. He woke up right before the closing song, which was amazing, and he sat a listened and started to applaud during the final note! So cute. Also, even more adorable conference moment this morning, now that I think about it. He was running around playing while I was listening and getting ready for the day. When they started sustaining people he heard the words "manifest it" and dropped his toys to raise his little hand up, just like he does in church! Too cute--he voted for every name they read by the time it was over. He really likes manifesting!
Oh, and for those of you who admonished me to treat myself, don't you worry. I'm good at that! I actually ended the weekend with a new outfit for Easter Sunday AND I went to dinner with the ladies in my ward tonight while the hubbies were at Priesthood session. And scrapbook stuff at the Michael's grand opening. And Patrick got new flip-flops. That'll teach Sean to leave me and the bank account alone all weekend!
So, thank you all for caring about me when I'm a whiner. We now know that I would make a crappy military wife. Case closed. Hope everyone enjoys Conference Sunday!

Last Saturday I went to pick Sean up from an all-day merit badge fair he had been in charge of. He was intorducing me to some of his top volunteers and then had to run off to put out a fire or two. One of the older men stuck around to chat and asked me if I had become a scout widow yet. I laughed it off but then kept thinking about it when Sean had to work Monday night and Tuesday night and then called me yesterday from work.

"Um, honey? Something's come up that's going to be really good for me and my career but not so great for you and your weekend."

Turns out he was able to join up at the last minute for the scout exec trip out to SLC for conference weekend. There will be much networking and hobnobbing with top folk in the scouting world, not to mention that Sean will get to revisit his beloved BYU campus and attend three sessions of Saturday conference. So it is good for him. As for me, well. He left at 6:45 AM this morning and will be back around 9:30 PM Sunday night. Which means 4 long days of single parenting, on a weekend with no church, in a house where we most definately do not get conference on TV. Yea for me, I tell you. At one point he tried to compare this trip to me running of to Monterey Bay, but I was quick to point out that leaving one spouse alone for two work days without the boy is totally and completely different from leaving the other spouse for four weekend days with the boy in tow. Totally. Different. He decided to drop that point right away.

So it's all me. May we both still be here and sane when the hubster returns.

I found these two blogs, Lei at My Many Colored Days, and Morning Glory at Seeds From My Garden in my wanderings and learned that they are organizing this writing project called Woman to Woman and decided to add my two cents. Maybe more!
The topic this week is about children under five attending events such as weddings, funerals, church, etc.

My little brother Tanner was crying out for more Patrick pics, so these are mostly for him. I want to turn them black and white to make a cool scrapbook page out of, and so you don't see his painfully red cheeks as much. Do any of you know what I'm doing wrong when I use Picassa 2 to change pics but then can't seem to upload the altered versions? Anyway, here's some Patrick time for you, Tanner, and I'll upload video soon! Love you--we can't wait to see you guys!

Patrick burped at dinner tonight and suddenly realized that it was funny and laughed himself silly. He spent the next ten minutes trying to make himself burp (it sounded more like a hacky cough) and laughing at himself and looking at me wondering why I wasn't as amused as he was. It's only a matter of time. I am indeed raising a BOY. Wish me luck, people.

Here are some shots from our little vacation. We had a great time with our buddies. I think Patrick would actually love to be the baby of eleven kids. Too bad for him. He loved having all those big kids around to play with him and tote him around. This is us riding a pretend seahorse at the KidZone in the aquarium.
This is Patrick and the five Jorgensen kids; Megan, Clayson, Kristi, Ammon and Sierra. Aren't they cute?
This is a great jellyfish shot. Turns out the other fishes are hard to take pictures of.
The kids. Patrick and his ten adopted cousins in the hot tub. He loves to swim now!
The lion drinking fountain--do any of you remember one of these at the Hogle Zoo?

Patrick and I are going on Spring Break! We just finalized plans to tag along with my friend Heidi and her 5 kids on their three day trip to Monterey Bay. We're going oulet shopping, to the Monterey Bay aquarium, swimming, and to IKEA. All lovely, lovely things. Sean has to be at a scout rendezvous the three days that we are going and Heidi's hubby, who is also our bishop BTW, is busy remodeling their kitchen. We're leaving tomorrow AM and returning Friday night. So, if ya'll will excuse me I have to go start packing the million and one things necessary to travel!

I'm tucking Patrick in a few minutes ago (we're trying to move bedtime to 7ish during the daylight savings transition). We said prayers, had hugs and kisses, and one last drink of moo juice. Then I laid him down, handed over the binky and grabbed his blankies to cover him up. Lately he wants all three of his special lovey blankies covering him. I shook one out and said "Oooone blankie," grabbed another and said "Twwooo blankies," and from behind the binky Patrick says "Ah, ah, ah!" I laughed my face of, tossed the third on and said, "Three blankies," just to hear him go "Tre! Ah, ah, ah!" I love that baby. He's hysterical.

Several of my Sparks/Reno friends and I spent today having time out... for women. Tee-hee. Every time I say the name I think of all of us sitting on the naughty spot together. Anyway, it's pretty much like Women's Conference, only sponsored by Deseret Book and held locally, just for a day. My review is mixed.
Some things that were nice about today:

1. I had a whole day by myself, with grown people.
2. Sean took great care of our son, cleaned the house and did dishes while I was out.
3. Cherie Call is neat. I like her music and her attitude. She was a great presenter.
4. Michael Wilcox gave a great talk called "How Many Is One?" that I'm still thinking about.
5. This other presenter, Merilee Boyack, spoke about "Wifehood 101." She taught me a lot, and reminded me of things I maybe have forgotten about marriage. Also she referred to Fascinating Womanhood and I laughed a lot about that.
6. Mary Ellen Edmunds is just a funny older woman. She reminds me of the "I shall wear purple" poem. She was hysterical.
7. There were a lot of laughs and great stories shared. It was nice to be reminded that we're all in the same boat.
8. It's always cool to be among a huge group of sisters in the church.

Things I did not love about today:

1. Michael McLean. Cannot deal with him. He's way out there and unfortunately, everyone here seems to love him and I'm pretty much over it.
2. There was a lot of advertising. The event was too much of a pitch for Deseret Book at times.
3. There were kind of a lot of those "if you cry, you must be feeling the spirit" moments. I know I'm kind of a cynic sometimes but I don't like my emotions being manipulated.
4. Our boxed lunches were kind of sub par. And we were led to believe that we had no other options but to purchase them with our tickets when we really did have an option called Olive Garden across the street.

That pretty much sums it up. It was OK. It could have been better, but it was a nice break for the day. Have any of you ever been to one?

*I guess pretty much everyone who's anyone does Wordless Wednesday. And since I want to be cool too, we're gonna give it a go....

You'll be happy to know that I've figured out the next twenty years of my life. Got it all worked out. Now that THAT's out of the way....
Just kidding. I've only just begun to stress myself unnecessarily over things I have no control over!
It all started this morning when Patrick was insisting on wandering around on the balcony arranging his little knick-knacks and talking to himself. Since it was still morning, and quite chilly I went to fetch sweatshirts for the both of us. I grabbed my cute Manila Elementary hoodie from the back recesses of the closet and got started thinking about that other life and wondering, in particular, how long my teaching liscense would be active and what the heck I need to do to keep it active. So, I tore apart Patrick's closet, which mostly contains baby swings and carseats and twenty boxes of school stuff that we have no other place to store. I finally found the license, discovered that it's active until June 2009, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Only then during Patrick's longer-than-usual nap I started checking around and found that it may be harder to keep active than I thought, since most of the renewal hours come from teach time when you're employed, so when you're not, it looks like you have to take TONS on inservice classes. I don't yet know if I can take them wherever we live, or if they have to be taken in Utah, or if it's even worth it to take them as I go or if I should just let it expire and renew it closer to when I'm ready to go back to school.
That was when I drafted my Master Life Plan. It basically lines out the 4 kids spaced about 2 years apart, their genders and names, when each kid starts kindergarten, and when the last one would potentially be in school full-time and thus I could/would be as well. As we all know, I have total control over all of these things, so it's totally smart to set myself up for disappointment. Also, there's the bit where Sean keeps talking about six kids.
But the point is, in theory, I could be back in the classroom (or somewhere) by appoximately 2020. The big questions that came out of this little mental excercise are a) whether to keep the teaching license valid, b) whether to pursue graduate school between now and then, c) if so what degree to shoot for, and d) what kind of position I would want when I head back to work (i.e. classroom, administrative, district level, boss of the world, etc). I know 2020 seems like a long ways off but I'm pretty sure it'll come faster than I think and I don't want to get so far out of the loop that I can't slip back in.

This little guy pretty much loves to dance: anytime, anywhere, to any music. I finally managed to capture some of it on video and decided the time had come to show off his skills. What a goofball!

Exhibit A:
What I've been up to lately. This is a cleaned out, scrubbed out fridge. Take a good look-it only happens once a semester or so. My mom was right about me. I care way more about clutter removal than actual scrubbing type cleaning.

Exhibit B:
What the Pook has been up to lately. He's not sure he likes it all that much. However, he does love to gather all his clothes together in preparation to go outside and then insist on heading back in after three minutes.