Thursday, April 30, 2009

There is good news and bad news in the Team Schiele Parenting category.

The bad news is that Ian does not want to come this summer. He is 15, has a girl friend and wants to get a job. He has decided to spend a few weeks with his Mothers parents (other grandparents) and then get a job. (To support his new girl friend habit?)

The good news is we have an appointment for licensing on June 29th. We are STILL not ready, but decided to set an appointment and hope that the deadline gives us the impetus to get it all done. This means that we can expect a placement between Mid July and Mid January.

Here is what we still need to complete:

  1. Screen Wood Stove
    a. Figure out how to screen wood stove affordably
  2. Outlet covers and stair gates
    a. Find cheep/free stair gates (need 2)
  3. Medication and Chemicals
    a. Install new locking door knobs
    b. Buy magnet locks
    c. Install magnet locks
  4. Verification of Health, life and Auto insurance
    a. Copy my insurance card
    b. Figure out how to verify Brian’s health insurance
    c. Copy auto insurance policy
    d. Get life insurance
  5. Buy new fire extinguisher (ours is not big enough for code)

Thanks to Manda, I may have number 2 complete. The biggest problem is with number 4. Although Brian has a job, we are hoping it is temporary. He really does not like his job and it doesn’t pay what we want. We have insurance until July from the Army, and are hoping to wait for “the real job” to get new insurance. Also, I don’t have life insurance so I need to get some.

In other news- we are getting central air! Yeah! This will change my life. No more planning my day around the heat in the summer. I had over 8 estimates (a bit of overkill, but I am like that) and I feel like I was able to make an educated decision.

Also my computer crashed last week and I had to get a new one- but I am working on blocking out that memory. It was a very bad week. This week has been better.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Up in our Grill




Conversations we had many times in Cancun:
Where you from?
Utah
Blank stare
Salt Lake?
Oh yes, I love your Jazz!
Insert pithy comment about music from Brian
Blank Stare






Whats your name?
Mirinda
MirAAAnda?
No, Mirinda, like the soda
Oh yes, Mirrrinda, very nice.








You buy?
NO
How much you pay? Give me fair price?
X US
No, Seniority, this hand made! Worth XXX pasos.
How much US?
You give me fair price, I sell cheep.
X US
But Hand Made!
No gracias, no buy.



So I always thought it was so cute that every spring the Denos family got a bird’s nest in there barbeque. The kids got to see the eggs and the baby birds. How sweet! Not sweet at all I think now.

The problem is either I am cheep or they just don’t make good grill covers. It seems like every 9-15 months we have to buy a new cover for our barbeque grill. When the last one died I swore we would not just go to the orange box or the blue box and get another one that would fall apart. I decided I would find a good one that would last or make one myself. Like many of my good intentions, it ended up on the project list and I never got around to it.

A few days ago, we went to grill some burgers and found the beginnings of nest in the grill. Not seeing the actual birds or any eggs, we cleaned it out and made dinner. Two days latter the nest was back, bigger then before!



We went to the blue box and I made Brian pick out the “BEST” cover he could find. We will see if it lasts longer than a year.

First Aid Kit contents for Licensing:
Quick reference first aid manual
Surgical Soap
Sterile Guaze pads
Scissors
Tweezers
Assorted band aids
Flexible Gauze Bandages
Cotton
Tongue blades
Cotton swabs
Bandage tape
Thermometer
Rubber gloves
Ace bandage
Alcohol wipes
Safety pins.

I heard about this great place that sells cheep medical supplies. Not wanting to spend more then I needed on the above items not already in the house, I went to find it. I mean really, if any of you actually have ALL those items on hand, at this moment, I will make you a pie.
Of course I got lost and ended up coming across an accident. A motorcycle, a car and a van. The police had yet to arrive and the motercyler was lying in the road with his bike just off him yelling into a cell phone that he didn’t know the address, and no, he couldn’t look around. There were a few pg13 words added. The van driver was sobbing, and the car driver was directing traffic away from the guy in the road. Just as I was trying to figure out what to do the police showed up and took over so I left- to get my first aid supplies. Ironic.


But it got me thinking about not living my life by accident, living more intentionally. It is so hard for me to live in the moment. To live each hour on purpose. I am not sure how to change that. I often find myself lying in the middle of the proverbial road, on my back yelling that I don’t know where I am. First aid supplies for life are a bit more difficult to purchase.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Our little trip to Cancun......

It's hard to really come up with the words to say about our little trip to Cancun last week, so you'll see a lot of pictures. Needless to say, we had a great time doing a whole lot of nothing, a little bit of this and that and a good amount of stuff that only Mirinda and I will know about... ;-) ;-)
























The sun rising just above the Wasatch mountains, a great way to start out a trip by watching the sun rise with the one you love. I am more of a morning person and Mirinda isn't, so being able to enjoy this with her was special for me.

It's been a long winter here in Utah, so being out in the sun and nice weather sure put smiles on our faces easily.




One of the yummiest things we did was eat! The resort we stayed in had a gourmet restaurant, which we ate at twice, and really enjoyed it. I think each meal consisted of four or five courses depending on what you got.

This is the soup course of my meal, it was called a "Trilogy of Soups". Each was served in tiny glasses or cups. I don't remember much about them, but the first one on the right was served in a shot glass, and shot in the name. The second soup was a cold soup, and was a fruity soup with watermelon. The last soup was served in an espresso cup, and probably had some a little espresso in it too.
This was one of the soups Mirinda had one night, I don't remember what they called it, but there was a reason it was served in a champagne glass, it had something to do with what they called it, but it was really just a tortilla soup. It was yummy!

The next menu item was from the "hot starter" part of the meal, which was the last course before the entree. They called this a "seafood lasagna", the pictures don't do this any justice but it really looked like lasagna, and it was also delicious.


Another view of the "seafood lasagna"


















This was one of the appetizers I had, it's Beef Carpaccio, the picture doesn't do it any justice, but it was tasty too! It's basically raw thin beef tenderloin, with some greens of some kind, with a splash or two of a vinaigrette and some Parmesan cheese.



















One one of the nights we ate there, we both were in the mood for some meat, some each had the rib eye steak; it was such a huge slab we should have just ordered one and shared it.



















And of course no meal would be complete without desert and coffee, this was a yummy chocolate cake. I love the artsy touches they put on each meal, it's really cool!


















But of course Cancun wasn't all about food and drink, it was about relaxing and pampering ourselves. So for the cost of about two hours of time we got a couples massage and pedicures.



















How could you not relax with a view like this...


















Our cute toes after our pedicures! Which by the way is the only picture we have of us together on the whole trip!


















The view from the terrace around the lobby....


















A big reason I wanted to go to the part of Cancun that we went to was because I wanted to go fishing, so I booked a day of fishing trough Cancun Fly Fishing Dot Net. I was hoping to catch a tarpon, but they are easily spooked and are hard to land. I had a couple on the line, but I wasn't able to set the hook quick enough. I fished with a fly rod and a spinning rod, because it was very windy that day.

The beach where I started from:


















The boat I was on for the day:
























And me and the barracuda I caught that day...























The novice angler that I am, I am elated that I caught something; it was late in the day and the conditions were challenging to say the least, but man was it cool!
I was about an hour outside of Cancun in a rather remote part of the area, and saw some amazing wildlife that I had never seen before. I saw a number of saltwater crocodiles and even an eagle ray.

We did our part to stimulate the economy of Cancun too, we even stopped at the local Wal-Mart of all places because it was recommended to us by several locals.
One of the more interesting things we saw at the Wal-Mart was something called "acid cream", we never figured out what it was, but we thought it was sour cream, because we were in the dairy section.
Another interesting translation we thought was funny was "Salsa Inglaterra" which translates to English sauce, which we know as Worchire sauce.

We found out that Mirinda and I have something in common with Cancun, in that we were all "established" in the same year.

All in all it was a great trip, Mirinda and I had a wonderful, I would have never guessed 21 years ago when I first got into the military that I'd go on such a wonderful trip and have such a wonderful time with such a wonderful woman.