We moved back into our home today… Well sort of. We have to wait to put out fridge, table, and island back in the kitchen. We need to let the varnish dry a bit more. Unfortunately Rachel was really upset when she saw it. It is not the right coor of stain. It is much lighter this time. I think if it were just that, we could probably live with it, but what irritated me the most was all the sand particles that were in the varnish. it was like...

Our floor got stained and its first coat of varnish today. It is great it is almost back to normal and we can move back into our home soon. The hotel has been fun and exciting for the kids, but stressful and cramped for Rachel. We did go swimming tonight which the kids really enjoyed. This is a nice place though. I like the layout of the room. We have two twin beds and a couch hide-a-bed. Tonight Gracie and Gehrig are on the hide-a-bed which...

I just got back from playing some ward basketball. It was great to get out and get some good exercise and get to know some ward members a little better. We are going to be staying in a hotel the next two nights while our floors are getting done. It should be fun – if not too hectic!

My grandma & grandpa Brighton gave us a gift card to Applebee’s for Christmas. Rachel had a long day today and didn’t feel like making dinner and cleaning up, so we utilized our gift card. It’s always fun to go out to eat. I must say though that I don’t think I’ll ever order a hamburger there again… blah! Red Robin is so much better in that arena.

More progress was made on our house today. Some contractors came and finished the ceiling in the basement. They did a great job. Now it just needs to be painted and you would certainly have a hard time noticing there was ever a problem.

Today was the first day of my 2 weeks of crash programming… I first had to get some stuff out of the way to get a client’s issues resolved. They imported a bunch of data into our product. The import took 3 days – that is how much there was. They had over a million documents to import. There were 20 million document values records. When they would try to do a search, the system would time out. It was my job to figure out a way...

Rachel and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting today. Rachel’s mom came to help sit with the kids. That was sure appreciated! I was surprised at the number of people that came and told us how much they enjoyed our talks. I don’t really think it is so much that we are awesome speakers, but rather I think it shows the kindness of the ward to acknowledge us in such a gracious manner. I even had a young girl – probably about 14 or 15...