Daily Tender Mercies

I turned on the vacuum this morning and all I could smell was mildew. We have been saying for a while that we “need” a new vacuum. Our we have had that vacuum for 4 or 5 years. Our past two vacuums were bagless because I didn’t want to keep buying bags. At this point, I was sick of cleaning dirty filters, so I wanted something with a bag. I also wanted something that would last more than a few years. I did some research on the internet and decided to try to find a miele canister vacuum. I found a dealer in draper so we drove over the mountain to check them out. I stopped at AFCU and withdrew $600 cash because I wanted that to be the top of my budget. Once we got there he had a miele canister vac on sale for $450. But then he showed us another brand of upright that thought we might like better. We did like it better. It was $425, plus he threw in a canister vacuum of the same brand, extra bags, and extra belts. The vacuum has a 10 year warranty on parts and labor. On top of that he said we could rent his carpet cleaner anytime we wanted for free. So I felt we came away with a great deal. I vacuumed the whole house when we got home. It did a great job. I used the canister vac for the stairs. I was surprised at its quality and power for a “free” vacuum.

At 4:00 there was a parade in the neighborhood commons area. Gracie got an award for her Mary Poppins outfit. They had cupcakes and juice. They said generally they have donuts and hot chocolate, but it was just so ward today they didn’t bother with that. It’s fun that they make use of that little park in this neighborhood.

I took Gracie & Gehrig around this neighborhood trick-or-treating. It took us about an hour to hit most of the houses. At around 7pm, the bishop stopped at our house looking for me. He had purchased a new bed for a family in the ward and so I went to help remove the old bed and set up the new one. I finished the night by relaxing and having potato soup at Nani’s house.

Today we had a fun potluck lunch at work for Halloween. It was a lot of fun. Kids were invited in to go around trick-or-treating to each of the desks. Rachel brought the kids in around 4 PM. It was fun to show them where I work all day. I drove home with Gracie. It allowed me to drive in the carpool lane. Once we got home we popped popcorn and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. Well, I can finally say I’ve seen that movie and once is enough.

The past two days at work I have been in a training. We did a survey last week that determined a profile. The technology of the company is called Emergenetics. I had done something similar when I worked at 3M. To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in training for a day and a half, but it was actually entertaining and interesting.

I learned that I am a mostly a “blue” personality which is concerned about the bottom line. Blues make decisions quickly. They are very logical. While listening to the various profiles I determined that Rachel is mostly a green personality. Greens like structure. They are very linear. They like guidlines. I determined that Gehrig is mostly a yellow personality. Yellow personalities love ideas and are not concerned with details. The don’t like rules and strucure. One comment that was made was that yellows tend to drive greens crazy. I spoke with the training during a break about this. He suggested that Rachel and I talk about what rules are critical that he follow and which rules we can relax a bit. Otherwise Gehrig will have a hard time trying to live withing the rigid structure and could possibly feel like he lets us down because he can’t live within our standards.

Also I told him how he loved puzzles and blocks and various things to be creative with. The trainer said that is the best thing we could for him is encourage his expressiveness.

I don’t know how much I will use this training going forward, or how much I will remember, but it was interesting nonetheless.

The kids were pretty excited when I got home. They had pumpkins ready to carve. It’s become a tradition to carve jack-o-lanterns, but I can’t say I particularly enjoy carving pumpkins. After four of them my hand was cramping up pretty bad, but the kids love it!

Gracie’s school had a halloween party tonight. I was a little late getting home from work, but I was able to make it. She dressed up like Mary Poppins again. People kept pointing at here and telling her she had the cutest costume they had seen all day. I’m sure she loved hearing that. She does make a cute Mary Poppins.

Today was the primary program in sacrament meeting. I think now Rachel is so relieved to have it over with. She didn’t sleep much because she was dreaming of seating charts!

The program was excellent. Gracie & Gehrig did very well on their parts and sang all the songs. I found myself wiping away tears a few times during the program.

Rachel’s friend took her to lunch today for her birthday. They then did some shopping. I spent time with the kids today working in the yard. I tilled the flower garden and later planted some tulip bulbs. We also cleaned up on the little weird fruits that fell from a tree in the front yard. I’m not even sure what they are. We filled five buckets full of them though! We also raked up some leaves in the front yard. Overall it was a productive day. I never did put Nolan down for a nap. He fell asleep on my lap around 7pm. He was so exhausted.

We got Rachel a Wii Fit for her birthday. Tonight after we got the kids in bed we tried it out. It was pretty fun. The idea is to have fun while losing weight. I found the game oddly motivational – especially after it calculated my BMI and gave my mii character a big gut! We had some fun playing the games and getting a little bit of exercise.

I sent Bryan and Chris cards in the mail earlier this week just letting them know I was thinking about them and missed hanging out with them. They both called to say thanks and suggested we go golfing. So we went today after work Scott also came. We teamed up, me & Chris vs. Scott & Bryan. I was actually surprised we were winning most of the day. It wasn’t until the final hole that they parred and we double-bogeyed that put them ahead. It was a lot of fun though and it was good to see them again. I really miss that ward.

After work I met Rachel at my mom’s house. My mom took the kids for the nigh so we could go out on a date. It was very nice to have a date night. We had something to eat then finally got to see the 6th Harry Potter movie. We had to find a dollar theater that was showing it because it was already out of all the newer theaters. That’s okay though, it saved us some money