and GingerSnap makes 7!

Let me tell you a story. Aaron's Dad, Step Mom, and Grandma decided to send money this year for Christmas. They wanted us to decide what to do with it and let them know through pictures what our decision was. So...we had a family meeting. We decided we would all give out two ideas and then take a vote. I voted to go buy a bunch of presents and drop them off at Toys for Tot. Or, I suggested we go somewhere for the weekend and play. Aaron voted for a Home Depot card or Stereo Speakers. Preston wanted a monkey. Christopher wanted to split the money and have each of us shop for another member of the family, not ourselves. Then Jenessa brought up a puppy. That is all it took! Aaron and I quickly realized we should have put in place guidelines to this voting. Too late. We thought we could evoke Executive Power and each parent take two votes, but the kids put up a fight. The rules were not set before the voting process began. We could all vote for two things. Of course the puppy got the most votes and split the money and shop for everyone else took second. We did a secret ballot to see which of the two final ideas would win out. As you can see from the pictures, the kids won. Aaron and I voted for split the cash, but clearly were out numbered.

We tried having a dog about 10 years ago, and frankly, it was not a good experience. We didn't do our homework and we had three kids that were 9 and younger. We had no time to devote to the dog and we also picked the most hyper and hardest dog to train. We lasted about 3 months before we sent him to live on a farm. (It really was a farm...in the Midwest.) We decided that this time has to be different. This dog will actually be a part of our family. We want to make it work. We have spent the past week learning about different breeds and there has to be more to it than just picking out a cute dog. For one thing, the dog has to be easy to train or I want no part of it. Who is training this dog? Well....obviously me. As a result, my vote has to count at least 10 times. Once we decided upon a breed, we had to find a dog that would fit our budget. We went to a pound, but they only had about 6 dogs and none that would fit our lifestyle. The kids decided to chip in some of their own money and we started to look for puppies. We found one! It is an Miniature Australian Shepherd. She is about the cutest thing we have ever seen. Plus, she will be easy to train. That makes her even cuter!

We met a nice couple with three kids who live in Federal Way and went to their house to meet the puppy. The mom of the pups is named Snickers and the dad is Oreo. They had 10 girl pups in this litter and named them all after cookies. The name they chose for the puppy we fell in love with was Gingersnap because of the brown eyebrows! She has a sister with similar eyebrows and her name was Gingerbread. Gingersnap won our hearts though. We don't have to keep the name, but it's growing on us. It will help us remember that we got her for Christmas. She is only 4 weeks old right now, so she will stay with her mom and dad for a while longer. She will join our family in about 3 to 4 weeks. It will give us time to do some homework and puppy proof our house. Aaron and I have to admit that we might just like this idea of having a puppy after all.

We Tried to Go!

We were excited to get the call this morning telling us that Sacrament meeting was on today, in spite of the weather. So, we all got ready to head out the door. When we opened the garage door, there was a bit of snow that had drifted up against it. To make sure it would close, I started to shovel it away from the door. I found out that we had freezing rain during the night when I took a step out on the driveway and started to slip. I started to panic a bit wondering how this trip was going to end. Fortunately, I ended up stopping at the bottom of the drive when I hit the snow on the street. We decided that it might be best to not try to make the trip to church. :) Here is a video of my slide. (Sorry for the sidways view)


We ended up having a sort of service at home by watching a church Christmas video.


Oh well...we tried!

Snow Day = Long Commute in Seattle

Today's commute was a long one. The day started with a three hour bus ride to downtown Seattle. It snowed about 4 inches and put a layer of ice on the freeway. Cars were abandoned on the interstate and people were walking. We even passed an empty bus on the freeway. It was one of those extra long buses that bends as it rounds corners. This one had jack-knifed on the freeway and was just sitting there. We moved our way around it and I thought, "Man that would be a bummer to have that happen!"
Our bus driver was great! Once we hit the first stop in downtown Seattle, the whole bus let out a cheer for her skill and ability. She felt like a hero!
So, I finally got to the office and got some stuff done. The whole while the snow kept coming down. I was starting to get worried that the bus service would be cut off, so I decided to leave at about 12:30. I jumped on the bus and started to head home. As we were moving along, there was wreckage going both directions. Cars off the road, bumps and dents everywhere. We made one stop and almost did not start moving again. The chained tires just spun for a while. Finally, we started inching along. Not long after that, one of the passengers said, "ooo that truck is across the road." Sure enough, a delivery truck was blocking the opposite lanes of traffic. Several cars and our bus were trying to stop. At this point, we were headed down hill on about an inch of ice. Needless to say, the loaded bus did not make the stop. This bus was also one of those long buses that has the back end that bends on corners. It also bends when the front of the bus stops but the back does not. There were a couple of screams and profanities and then our bus was jack-knifed. Just so you know, it is a bummer when your bus is jack-knifed.
So myself, with my 120 closest new bus friends, walked the rest of the way down the hill in a blizzard to the closest transit center. Luckily, it was only about 1.5 miles away.
Here are some pics of the spot where the bus and other cars had troubles.

It is hard to tell from this shot, but the back of the bus is at about a 90 degree angle from the front of the bus. Clearly, people were a bit surprised!



This is looking up the hill at the bus and the delivery truck across the road.




This is a look down the hill at the other cars stuck on the ice.



All in all, I spent about 6 hours traveling today. Long Commute!