Spring Break

We spent our Spring Break in the cold, silly us. It really wasn't exciting at all, but here are some pictures to chronicle Quinn's first trip to Utah. Unfortunately most of the time the only camera I had with me was on my phone, so most of the pics are not very good. :(

We stayed in a hotel the first night because 1) we were anxious to get the fun started and 2) we weren't sure how well Quinn would handle an eight hour drive. He seemed to LOVE his first night in a hotel: he had an entire queen sized bed to himself and slept through the night (it was a late night and early morning, but I was still very happy about that).

We stopped in Cedar City to see Troy's sister and stretch our legs. Quinn enjoyed being able to kick his legs to his heart's content. We also saw our niece and her baby, who is five months older than Quinn. Can you believe it? She is really tiny and he is big, but he does easily outweigh her. You can see how much his belly hangs over his pants!

Quinn also met Great Grandma Curtis. Unfortunately he was not on his best behavior and was a bit of a grouch. I think he just wanted to be free: lying on the floor and kicking is one of his favorite pastimes.

Dreaded tummy time. It's a lot of work to lift that Peterson head.

My cousin Jessica came down to see us with her two girls. I promise Quinn was not a grump for our trip. He was really quite well behaved. But I think he's figured out what cameras are and purposely stops cooperating when they come out. I've been trying to get a video of him "talking" for days but have been unsuccessful.

Quinn had a pretty big Easter. A second Easter Bunny actually came and left him candy and books. Notice that he finally has some boy bedding. :)

Daddy and Quinn on Easter morning. Too bad the picture is so poor.

Getting ready for his first walk in the little stroller.

We've decided that Quinn will be a fan of every team that wins a championship this year. This is a picture of his "Let's go Duke" PJs. It made for an interesting game--us cheering for Butler amid Quinn's shouts for Duke. For those interested, Quinn is a fan of the New Orleans Saints, Duke Blue Devils, and Phil Mickelson. We are really hoping the Lakers don't win the NBA championship. There would be some serious contention in our home.

When we got home we went to the fair. Quinn could care less, but Daddy had to get a picture of him next to Dad's favorite part of the fair--the cinnamon roll stand.

This actually happened before Spring Break, but it's a usual sight around here: Daddy and Quinn watching the Jazz. Pretty boring for mom.

Blythe excitement

For those of you non-Blythers, I thought I'd share a little of our excitement on Thursday. It rained ALL day and the power went out around 3:45 p.m. Apparently that's when a tornado went through town. I don't have video of the actual storm, but here are some pics of the neighbor's house.

Here's a YouTube video of the actual storm.

Fortunately we came out unscathed. The storm did convince me that I will never have large trees in my yard. The power company gave no indication about when we'd have power again and I was nervous about having no power (and heat) with a four-day-old baby. Luckily we had power restored by 9 p.m. and Quinn was unaware that he had just been through the most exciting weather Blythe had seen or will see for quite some time.

Verizon, Verizon, I hate Verizon

Excuse my rant, but I am very angry.

Three words that would describe Verizon are crooked, backward and not helpful (okay, that’s a phrase). Here’s the story:

I live in a small town with no “options” for services. Land lines are only available through Verizon and as far as I know, the same goes for DSL. So I had just a basic, local-only phone line and semi-slow DSL, but was satisfied enough.

Then I moved. Well, back up a little. I was about to move and called to arrange a service transfer. The woman was helpful and I thought we had everything set up. We needed satellite service, so I decided to bundle the three and get more services for a good deal. Sounds great.

Then I moved. Phone works at my new place. Great. Satellite hooked up and working at my new place. Great. Internet does not work at my new place. Why? After calling tech support, I learned that Verizon had upgraded my connection speed as planned, but hadn’t changed my service address. Frustrating. Why on earth would I want to change the service address for my phone line but not my internet connection? My connection comes through my phone line, kinda necessary to have both at the same address I would think. Whatever. Now I’m told the Saturday shift can’t help me so I need to call X number on Monday. Like I don’t have things to do on Monday.

So like a good girl I say okay and call the stupid number on Monday. After waiting on hold, being cut off, holding again, getting cut off again and then told I need to call a different number, I finally talk to the internet sales and order department. I’m pretty sure I could have talked to this department on Saturday (because when it comes to making a sale, Verizon is always open, but getting tech support is a Monday thru Friday issue) if the no-nothing Turkish man from Saturday understood what I was trying to tell him.

Moving on. The woman in S&O pulled up my info and was also perplexed as to why they hadn’t ordered an address change. She calls her supervisor over and gets things set up, but then discovers that the reason my service address wasn’t changed was because DSL isn’t available at my new address. If you are from Blythe or talked to anyone in Blythe, you’ve probably heard of this. They have a limited number of slots available for DSL and until someone moves, cancels service or Verizon gets their act together and updates their technology, you’re SOL. Apparently my new neighborhood is full and I am SOL.

Verizon is so focused on building their wireless customer base and expanding coverage (which I appreciate as I use that service) that they don’t care about their original market—residential services. I get that. I’m sure they make a lot more money on their millions of cell users, but if you only want to do that then sell your auxiliaries to someone who would actually provide a service. I don’t think my area even has caller ID for crying out loud.

This is where the crooked part comes in. When I called originally to change my service the lady said we were all set. Now call me stupid, but I assumed that meant I would actually get the service I was paying for.

So all this brings me to my current dilemma. What do I do? I don’t need all the bells and whistles that are part my new, unlimited phone line. I’m perfectly happy with local only—in fact I’d survive without one. I do need satellite because I’m married to Troy. I do want internet!! I guess I need to do some research and find out if I can get internet through anyone else and see if my satellite contract is through DirecTV or Verizon. If I can deal only with DirecTV and cut Verizon out of my life completely, I will.

Enough said.

Rummage Giveaway

This is our stuff before we loaded it up and said goodbye:

I don't miss it at all. It took both cars to get it down to the church and Troy made lots of trips from car to building to get it all inside.

Troy had be at the church Saturday morning to help out with the giveaway and he said it was crazy seeing all the people lined up outside and then even crazier when they opened the doors and people rushed it. He jokes that there was a lady on a rascal scooter running people over to get to the Mormon's good junk. Next time he wants to set up a video camera to film the madness.

Anyway, it was a success. I got there after everyone was inside, so I found a spot on the couch in the foyer and watched the people as they left with their treasures. I'm glad that the things I no longer wanted could help people who obviously needed them. And the missionaries every handed out a few pass-along cards, so maybe someone will find something even better than a few t-shirts and muffin tins. :)

A little story (and finally some pics)

After thinking about how we were going to fit our lives and a baby into our two-bedroom apartment, we decided that instead of sacricing our stuff, we'd just move. Add to that the constant promptings of my dad, the real estate lover. It all became too much and at the end of August we started the house hunt. I'll tell you what--any of you who live in a metro area are lucky. In Blythe we have very few options in the lower price ranges, unless of course you want to buy a dump in the ghetto. Yes, we actually have multiple ghettos in our small town. Go figure.

Nevertheless, we were optimistic. This is Troy the day we went on our first home tour:

If you can't tell, he's in a good mood. I think he's singing along with Eddie Money or something. Anyway, among many other awful sights, the visual evidence of which I deleted without thinking of this post, this summarizes our first day:

An investor's reno that looked great on the surface, but at closer inspection was trash. This is the sprayed on grass in the front yard. Highlights of other houses included a kitchen with about two cabinets, bedrooms with psychedelic carpet and extension cords powering the ceiling fans. If I had a picture of me at the end of the day, you would see I was clearly depressed.

But the search continued. We saw houses straight out of the fifties, complete with metal cabinets; houses with a reek that will likely never leave; and houses that were workable, but priced far above our comfort level. There was a foreclosure we made an offer on, but only after it had been on the market for three days (which included a weekend), there were already multiple offers besides ours, so that didn't work out for us.

Anyway, I had pretty much given up on the idea when our realtor told us about a house that was coming on the market. We made an offer the day it was listed and the owners accepted the next day. Hooray! So we're moving and I'm very excited.

Twice in Less Than Two Weeks

That's right, I'm on a roll. Time for a little Peterson update. Nothing's changed. Ha ha. Not really. I don't know if I posted this or not, but in January I was called to be the Young Womens' camp director for our ward, so I was all excited for that and gung-ho (I guess that's a way to describe it). I still had a primary class to teach, but it was certainly managable. Then a few weeks ago they called a new primary presidency and, no I'm not the prez (thank goodness), but I'm the secretary. Yep, still doing girls camp, so I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm way psyched about primary, so I'm losing a little focus from camp. Oops. I better get back on that. I have about 6 weeks to get everything together. Fortunately the young womens presidency is awesome and they carry a LOT of the load.

My mom is doing well. After six chemo treatments the tumor was long gone and she's been recouping for the last month-ish. Next week she has a few more scans to make sure the cancer isn't anywhere else and then they'll decide what needs to happen to make sure her heart is recovering like it needs to.

In March our friends Morgan and Jessica invited us to Phoenix to watch an NCAA Elite 8 game from his company's luxury box. It was mega fun and Troy's sure he can never go back to the cheap seats.

Troy looks a little goofy, but I promise he was excited.

Troy's just a worker. Golf season just finished (he was JV coach) and he's looking forward to being head boy's b-ball coach next year. He already has a game scheduled in Richy! That will be kinda funny. Our team with one or two white kids will step off the bus and then the Sevier County teams will kill them. Should be entertaining (I'll be torn over which team to cheer for). Sometimes Troy and I have contests over who's high school song is better and I always win because I sing better, Richfield's is longer than PVs and I get to spell in may song so there's no beating that. :)

One Blythe story--the other day I was watching TV when I heard this long rumble outside. "What the . . ." I thought. It sounded like thunder, but it's May in the desert and storms don't just pop up. But then it came again and sure enough it was thunder. Outside there were a few drops of rain on the sidewalk. Enticed by the smell of rain, I decided to go check the mail. There were a bunch of kids and and a family lined up on the sidewalk with umbrellas (even though there were only about 5 raindrops) watching the storm come in from the west. Everyone in the complex had their doors open to let the rain smell in. All in all there wasn't much to the storm, but it was a nice change.

I took this as the storm was clearing. Stupid power/phone lines ruining my pictures.

An Observation

So our primary VCR is on the fritz. Well, it was last spring and I haven't experimented with it to see exactly what's going on. We've talked about getting a new combo for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. So I decided that today was the day.

I go to Kmart and basically find nothing. The shelves are empty. I'd already selected a replacement razor for Troy from, oh wait, it was my only choice, and now unless I wanted to by a 1080i machine that won't work with my TV, I wouldn't be getting a VCR. No selection in this town.

Don't get me wrong. I like living in a small town and I'm okay paying a little more to buy in town and keep the tax money and jobs in the community, but come on. Shouldn't the businesses put forth a little effort if they want my business? I was ready to spend one employee's daily wages, but couldn't because there was nothing to buy. If the city leaders want to rebuild this town they need to stop fighting businesses that will actually have things on their shelves for consumers to buy. I'm not really a fan of Walmart, but at this point everyone goes out of town for a lot of purchases (even food because Albertsons is so expensive) and if WalMart will bring the tax base back then bring them in.

This isn't about the fact I can't get a VCR today. I can order online or go out of town. But if this town is screaming for money and wants a turn around, they need to encourage responsible businesses that will boost the tax base of this city. I know nearly all my readers have never been to Blythe, but those are my thoughts and I'm sorry you had to endure that little rant.

Maybe It's Because It's New Years

I'm getting in one of those "I need to accomplish something" moods. Although you wouldn't be able to tell because I still haven't unpacked and I've been on the computer all day. When we got back our patio was covered in dead leaved and pigeon poop, so I swept all that up (it's still in a pile on the cement, oops. I'll have to take care of that tomorrow) and pulled most of the weeds in my flowerbeds. I say most because I'm not sure if some are weeds I not. I know I didn't plant them, but last years I ended up with tiny white chrysanthemums growing randomly. I can see I have some of those coming up again and some other leaved that look too delicate to be weeds, so we'll see what happened. Blythe is full of surprises.

Speaking of Blythe, today when we were driving down Highway 95, I actually felt like I was coming home. I think that's the first time since we moved here. I mean, I've looked forward to getting into my house after a day out of town, but driving into the valley today, I was struck by the beauty of the desert. I found myself happy to be back in the area. It's a nice feeling. I guess the southwest has grown on me.

Lastly, when I was home of the holidays, my dad was playing with his new camera. Of course I don't want one as fancy (read pricey) as his, but I decided I want to be a better photographer with what I do have. So I've joined Kamie and have started another blog. Everyday we post a new picture featuring something new, whether it's a technique, subject or whatever. The site is www.petersonpictureblog.blogspot.com so be sure to add it to your list of places to visit daily and feel free to join us!

Go Big Green!

Congrats to the Boys' JV Basketball team. Tonight they got their first win of the season! Keep it up lads. Now I'm practically a basketball widow because Troy's had games every night this week but one. And he hasn't even gone out of town yet. So begins my six months of solitude. :)

The fearless leader shares his widsom (I guess it finally worked!). And I must say he looked pretty handsome as he yelled at the refs to call the River Valley kid on traveling or palming or pushing, etc. etc.

All I Want To Do Is Vacuum!

Doy (that's a little something coined by my old college roommates basically meaning "This is pretty much the dumbest thing ever," although we used it all the time).

So my vacuum bag got full as vacuum bags will. This is the first time I've had to replace it since pulling my vacuum out of the box a year ago, so I checked the vacuum and it said to use a "U" bag. Okay, so I go to Kmart (because that's the only place to get vacuum bags here) and lucky for me they have bags that say "U" on them. Of course they're made by some random company, but the letter matches, so I figure I'm set.

I get home and yeah, it's not working. First I had to alter the cardboard hooker-inner-thingy so it would stay in and then the bags too long and then cheap-o Kmart bag doesn't have anything that will seal the connection between the vacuum part that spits out the dirt and the bag. So after vacuuming one little room I opened the thing to check the performance of the bag and although some gunk has made it into the bag, there's a lot just chilling in the outer bag compartment.

Doy. Family coming into town and no working vacuum bag? What's a girl to do? I will have to turn to the internet and make due until I can get a real vacuum bag. Unless any of my Blythe friends can tell me another place in town where I can buy an actual brand-name vacuum bag. Maybe I'll get lucky at Sears. I'm not holding my breath.

Hello, My Faithful Readers

Yes, I know I haven't been a good poster, but there hasn't been anything good to post about. Homecoming went on without a high school game, although Pop Warner played and everything else pretty much went on as usual. Our primary program was on Sunday and it went relatively smoothly--nothing to complain about, but not much to laugh about either. Other than dealing with sibling drama over the weekend (thanks for your help, Kamie. She's clueless about the source of the treats but I told her Brian probably didn't have much to worry about. She did comment that they were very yummy and the packaging was very "done up." Okay, tangent ended) we really didn't do much. I did learn that one of my sisters has to drive a mile to use a restroom when she's not working in the Utah wilderness. Very sad and slightly funny that she has to plan her potty breaks well ahead of time. Anyway, that's about it in Peterson Land. The snowbirds are starting to come back to Blythe, so the streets are fuller and there are more friendly-looking seniors in the grocery store, so that's fun. I'll try to look for some oddly-funny stuff this week.

California Is On Fire

Well part of it. It's really sad that so many people have to leave their homes, possibly for the last time, but let me go on to tell you how it's effecting me:

It isn't. San Diego is over 200 driving miles from me and much of the wind that's fueling the fires is blowing from me to them, so the sky is clear and smoke-free. However, athletically speaking, we are in the San Diego section of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which governs all sports in the state. This afternoon CIF basically put a moratorium on all sports in the San Diego section--with good reason. Schools are being used as shelters, kids and families have left town, air quality is awful and many people have much more to worry about than making it to the game on time. However, that also effects those of us in the east desert. Our homecoming game is scheduled for Friday. We're supposed to play a team that's over 100 miles west of San Diego; one that's as unaffected by the fires as we are. So our homecoming game is cancelled.

For those of you not familiar with Blythe, homecoming is almost the biggest event of the year. Rather than having class reunions in the summer, we have them over homecoming weekend. There are floats, a parade and everyone and most mothers make an appearance at the game. Even people who don't care about the game or a class reunion still use it as an excuse to party and get drunk (generally speaking).

We can't invite a team from Arizona because we are banned from playing games. We can't even have a scrimmage game because the teams can't practice. So now they're talking about have the Pop Warner (basically little league for football) teams play. Who knows. There will still be a parade and all the other stuff, just no high school football game. What's a small town to do?).

Here's a little PV pride