Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2004 February

We are going up to go to church with John's parents today and drop by the Whitney's. Yay!

Here is
my map. I don't remember visiting Oklahoma, but it Leonard said so. He also forgot Missouri which I'm sure was visited on that same trip.

Here is my world map. I am counting airports, which I slept in, but not Moldova, which I lived ten miles from but was never able to visit due to their political situation. John should make a map of countries with people he's sent EFY refunds to.

This morning I got up before John for, like, the third time in our marriage. He is sick and I had to go take a test. A very stupid, important and expensive test I've been waiting eight months for. I passed. Yay! That means a huge raise and another letter ("C" for "Certified") to sign after my name.

Keri's baby is still here (at work in her tummy) despite all her efforts. This proves for more new hours for me than I thought because Anna still needs to take Level 5s skiing. Or I could just take them...

Today after group we all went to the hospital to see Keri and her new baby (who finally has a name: Sam). Sooo cute! I got to hold him and he was all asleep and tiny. I miss Keri already, mostly because I had to cover her unit today. I played "Ring the Stick" with 14 13-year old boys, all with ODD and ADHD. You would not believe the arguing. On the bright side is more hours and more money.

This morning I made some very cute Valentine's Day cards and some yummy Taco Soup for dinner.

John had some mission buddies over last night... They stayed until 3 AM. I went to bed this time and left John to get them to leave. Other than that, it was fun. We had pizza and played Scattergories.

I am learning how to crochet baby hats and I have finally gotten one that I think wll fit an actual baby. Although since I don't have one, I'm not positive. Booties to match! 6 weeks or less until Shiela's baby comes.

Our poor cute little ducky syrup jar had an unfortunate incident. Since only the plastic broke, I'm hoping to be able to put it back together, but we don't have any glue. Maybe syrup will work? Other Christmas presents are having better luck. We made sugar cookies in Play Therapy yesterday and my farm animal sprinkles were a great success.

*Yawn* I've been so tired this week.

Today is looking up from when I woke up feeling so tired and dreary. My job search (I'm looking for some additional part-time work) produced more results than last time and my group with Boys ISU was much more successful than Mondays.

My mommy made it here all safe and we are excited for a fun-family-filled weekend. John did great on his test today. I am writing that because he never updates. He says I write everything important anyway. Well here's something important: John sent me tulips!!! Just like he did over a year ago and Mom said he was moving too fast. Well we're married now and we like it!

Glad my mommy is here safe and that Len is in Kentucky safe. Excited for a day off work to spend with the fam.

The other day I was telling John about the "Richardson Family Funnies" and saying that we should be sure to write down all the silly things our kids say. The only ones I could remember were:

Leonard: Over the river and through the woods, watch out my apple juice.

Dad: Who is answering the phone? Susie: It's Susanna! It keeps on being her!

Can anyone (Len and Rach) remember anymore?

Remember "Spending Time"? We used to have half an hour with our dad every Sunday (or something, I was little, what do I know?) to do things like play Uno and get our nails painted "half and half". He also used to read us books at night. I remember one about a girl in Idaho and cornfields and sitting on the roof....

Mommy's gone, but now I get to look forward to Leonard's coming, whenever that will be. Hopefully, for me at least, while John is gone so I have company. Then John may miss him, but he gets to take rachey to lunch so I feel no pity.

John made this really cool Hong Kong Tourism powerpoint for his last project in one of his classes. He recorded himself speaking and some music even to go along with it. Plus, he is totally done with that class now!

Today is awfully quiet after this busy weekend. Everyone, including John, is gone now. I began getting my house back to normal, but I have to go to work (unlike the 800 other people trying to do laundry this morning). I am still deciding whether or not I get holiday pay today.

Thanks for all the visits, family!

I made beef stroganoff based loosely on Aunt Jeuney's recipe this past weekend. It was really yummy, yummier than I thought it would be. I am supposed to be somewhere, but I got distracted playing 20 Questions with the computer.

Necessity drove me to the car wash the other day; I am out of wiper fluid. In other news, I finally bought krazy glue and have attempted to fix the ducky. He is partially fixed. It's harder than I thought. I've gotten a lot of extra work this week, which is good. Mommy brought me more scrapbook stuff and I am excited to work on that. Last night I went to a stamping party. It was fun, but lasted a little too long for my taste.

We got a postcard today from Sumana from Hong Kong. We loved it, thanks!! I began the task of getting the pictures Mom brought me ready to scrapbook. It's fun to have fun stuff like that to do.

John requested I make chocolate cookies tonight. He likes my cookies! Another triumph.

Today I worked all day and have scrapbooked all evening, minus the cookie baking. Well, I found it exciting.

Leonard helped us get a Pop-up blocker last Sunday night. In the past week, we've blocked 100 pop-ups, plus we still get some! That is an insane amount of junk floating around out there.

The firemen were at the track today. They ran one lap, then went running off to an alternative high school, a little like Heritage. We play their basketball team. We don't accept convicted arsonists.

Good day.

I am doing Polynesian Culture for this year's Cultural Awareness (this is by default since Shiela will most likely be missing most of it on maternity leave). We had a nice meeting today, Shiela's units are combined with Anna's so I get to work with her again. It's going to be less of a big deal and pain this year (I think people schedule their babies around this). We are considering dipping dried pineapple in chocolate for an activity- yum.

I forgot what I was going to say.

I'm glad John has finally made it home and I'm glad that he's finally shared his good news because now I can talk about it! I say finally, but he really did at the first available chance. Well, the internship John is going to accept is one week shorter than we thought it would be, and it starts four days after Jodi's wedding, so we don't have to worry about that being a big hassle. We are very excited.

This headache has come back to haunt me. I complained about it to Mom and she says "old wounds hurt when the weather changes" which it certainly has today. It was over 50 yesterday and today it is raining. Anyway, my poor little broken skull hurts and I have to work all day today (and tomorrow). At least it's not snowing.

Yesterday I had to throw away a pair of PJs that Mom made me when I came to college (5 1/2 years ago?). I looked for more, but the only ones I found were the ones she left when she came up here. Well, they certainly are warm, Mom!

It's me! And the pretty tulips John sent me.

I made a yummy dinner and we are going to Coldstone. That's about all I have to say!

Today I am bringing Julie to scrapbook club. I think I am just going to make cards though. I don't have very much more scrapbooking to do, so I need to spread it out. I need a tiny screwdriver so I can open my camera and try to salvage the pictures that actually managed to get taken. I'm afraid I have dropped it one too many times.

It's snowed a bit over the night. Enough to make it pretty, but not so much there will be ugly piles of nastiness everywhere tomorrow.

I find myself constantly getting rid of stuff we don't like or use. I even get excited when we get to throw out an empty shampoo bottle. I just like getting rid of stuff!

More snow over the night. John took me to Fazoli's yesterday, which was much yummier than anticipated. Tonight we are going to West Valley for Hannah's birthday party. This time last year (Hannah's 2nd birthday) I was meeting most of John's family for the first time, except for Traffic *wah!* and his parents, whom I met on Valentine's Day. Yay for family. I'm excited.