SNOW -- and Guitar Hero

We got snow yesterday. Everyone who knows me knows I am not a huge fan of the stuff. I don't like being cold and wet. In my defense, I went to highschool in the middle of New York state, where they get LOTS of snow. LOTS and LOTS of snow. And I lived within "walking distance" of the school. This means I have many memories of hiking through horrible snowstorms, coming home with a red drippy nose, ears that hurt SO badly, despite having a hat on, and numb toes and fingers. And one winter my Dad was stationed in Oman during the first Iraq war, so it was up to my mom and my sister and I to shovel our VERY LONG driveway. It used to snow so much that we would finally finish shovelling the driveway and we would turn around and have to shovel our way back. It was literally an all day battle. And then the snow plow would come down the street and dump all the dirty snow from the street into the end of our driveway and block us in anyway.

I also went to junior high in the Washington DC area, which is also prone to lots of snow. Once we got to school only to have them cancel it at 10:00 am because it was just dumping buckets of snow outside. We were supposed to wait in our third period class for our bus number to be called (we were about a 25 minute bus ride from the school). I was in PE. My bus number was called around 5:00 pm. Then it was a very treacherous ride home. The roads were awful and traffic was horrendous. This was the pre-cell phone era, so I remember us all lined up in the hall of the school waiting to use the pay phone. We would call collect and when the recorded message would ask for our name we would say as fast as we could, "PAIGE -- SAY YES!!!" so our parents would hopefully accept the charges. We also delivered the Washington Post during my junior high years and we would have so many layers on and these beautiful shiny silver moon boots to try to keep out the cold and wet. I think I posted a picture of us all decked out in our paper gear once upon a time. Oh, the memories.

Then I went to college in Utah. Enough said.

I do have happy memories of snow. Like the suicide sled hill we had in our backyard in Virginia. It was really long and steep and it wound in and out of trees and rocks. And if you didnt' stop in time you ended up in the creek. And... wait. I think that is my only happy snow memory. The rest involve waiting at the bus stop for busses that didn't come and then trudging home to thaw my frostbitten toes by the fire.

So... in an effort to not pass this scrooginess on to my kids, I bought them snow pants this year and some better gloves. I still need to get them boots, but yesterday I just put them in two layers of socks with some Saran Wrap in between (waterproofing trick from my youth) and sent them out in our two inches of white stuff. I think they had fun. I love the rosy cheeks. And I still can't believe that they cancel school for this...

And in other news, Jillise has decided to learn to play Guitar Hero. She saw Logan, Maika, and Austin playing it and so we have gotten to hear Slow Ride played in super slow motion for the past few days. I am quite proud of her. She gets discouraged easily, but she has stuck with it and is getting better! I love the looks of determination in these pictures.

Tributes

I have loved reading all of the blogs today about peoples thoughts about President Hinckley. It has been nice to see how he has touched so many people in so many different ways. I add my amens to all of them.

I got to be close to President Hinckley a few times, all because of my time in the BYU music program. Once our choir was lined up in the halls of the HFAC to get ready for one of our concerts. I think it was a Christmas concert. Down the hall came President Hinckley and his wife. They both shook hands as they went down the corridor. Just the overwhelming spirit that could be felt being that close to him was amazing.

I got to sing in the choir at General Conference once. I remember when the prophet walked in to take his seat, he gave us all a wave. And when it was over he turned around and gave us a thumbs up. He was always so appreciative of the music.

My last experience with him was one that I don't remember much of because I was SO nervous. I was a senior at BYU. My friend Tracy was a grad student in Choral Conducting and was asked to conduct the music at the Devotional where President Hinckley was going to speak. Tracy hates being on camera (anyone who has been to the Marriot center knows there is a huge jumbo tron where they display the conductor so everyone can watch -- plus it is broadcast on BYU TV). So she asked if I could do it and the powers that be said YES. Holy cow. What an honor. It would have been an honor to do it regardless of who was speaking. I met with the organist so we could practice and get everything just right. We sang hymns for 30 minutes before the prophet was scheduled to arrive. Then we sang "We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet" as he came in. I even had a seat on the front row of the stand with my name on it. I have that little sticker in my hymnbook to remember that day.

One last thing thought I had about our Prophet -- I love that our church is run by men who live their lives with such amazing integrity. These are men that you know would never do anything to embarrass the church or shine a negative light on themselves or the Gospel. Every time I hear of some random minister who ran off with a younger woman, or had a homosexual affair, or embezzled money from their congregation, I am reminded about blessed we are who have men who have been chosen by God to lead this church. Men who were taught correct principles when they were young and who lived righteous lives in preparation for this mission. It is no small thing to read the amazing things that people who are not of our faith have to say about President Hinckley. They may not believe our Gospel, but all who have met him agree that he was a special man, full of love, wisdom, humor, and the Spirit of God.

Farewell to a Prophet

I just got news from my sister that the President of our Church, Gordon. B. Hinckley passed away today. He was 97 years old. He was such a great example of humility, generosity, leadership, and obedience. I loved listening to him speak because his love of the Savior was always evident in everything he said. He had a sense of humor, but never used it to belittle or embarrass. He was a wonderful embassador of the church and he will be missed. But my heart swells with joy to think what reunion must be happening on the other side right now. And I love knowing that the priesthood keys that he held will continue on through the next prophet and that the church will continue on, without pause.

Confession

I have to get something off my chest. Please don't think any less of me. I know I am a full grown adult and that this is something I should not be involved in at ALL.

I like to go online and play with my girls' Webkinz.

For those of you not in the loop of childrens toys, Webkinz are little stuffed animals that you buy that come with a secret code attached. You enter that code into webkinz.com and kids can play with the pet online. They can decorate the pet's room, buy food for it, take it to the gym to exercise, take it to the arcade, teach it tricks, the works. If you have friends with Webkinz, you can meet them in the clubhouse to share an online book, or to "chat" (it isn't really chatting because they can only choose from preapproved phrases like, "I love your outfit.") Each Webkin comes with kinzcash. You use the money to buy it things it needs and to spoil it with toys and room decorations and such. If you spend the kinzcash on funstuff and don't have enough to feed your pet, it gets sick and you have to take it to Dr. Quack. You can earn more kinzcash by answering trivia questions or by playing arcade games.

I find myself up at 10:00 pm playing Cash Cow and Home Before Dark to help Joelle earn money. She can't read yet, so she can't do the trivia questions and many of the games are too hard for her (the site is geared to 1st - 6th graders). At least I tell myself I am playing the games for her. I find it a nice diversion. And I can buy broccoli to feed her webkinz cat and it will ask me for more. No complaints. And I don't have to do the dishes when I am done. Maybe they need a site like this for adults. We'll call it Webkids...

Car Shopping -- Take Two

Tonight we tried this again. Found the car I wanted online, called the dealership (different one from last night), told them of my experience and that I did NOT want a repeat of that. The gal went out there and did a visual once over of the car to make sure it was what I wanted and that there were no deal breakers. So I headed up. AND WE HAVE A NEW CAR. On the test drive I told the dealer what I wanted to pay after the trade in and after a little negotiation we got pretty close. But it was good negotiation. Not sleazy. I recommend this place. If you want to know where we went, give me a call. Tell Don that Paige sent you.

The whole process of COURSE took longer than I anticipated, so I want to thank Jenn and Marie for lending me their girls on such short notice so we could get this done. I love that we have so many fantastic young women in this ward who my children adore and who are willing to make dinner spur of the moment and get my kids to bed for me.

Here are the only pictures that I have tonight. Its a 2006 Ford Expedition. It only had 11,000 miles on it and is in beautiful shape. I am not looking forward to the additional car payments or the added gas prices, but I will love the extra room, and the warrenty, and the security. Oh, and that I will be bigger than most everyone else on the road. AND it fits in my garage. Sah-WEET.

Oh, it's the red one. The other is Brian's Escape. My monster car makes his look quite petite, huh?

Car Shopping

Last night we bought a new...... BATTERY. UGH!!! We had the quintessential used car buying experience. It was awful. I found a car online at a dealership. GREAT price, GREAT miles, GREAT color, the perfect car. So I call, they arrange to have it brought over from the other dealership, I get a sitter, have TWO people jump my car (we had jumped it earlier in the day to see if it was the battery -- it was -- then it wouldn't start again in the evening), drive the 45 minutes into town to meet Brian, and the car they had there for us was NOT the car I had driven down to see. Wrong color, wrong miles, wrong interior. It just felt wrong. We had the newbie trying to sell us the car (he won't last a month), but the guy TRAINING him was sleazy. Trying to convince us we wanted something we didn't, showing us stuff out of the price range we had set. He had the newbie drive us to another lot to show us other cars, and while we were in the car we could hear him over the phone telling the newbie which cars would earn him the most money, which he had to get us to buy -- it was BAD. The poor newbie knew it, too. We got back to the dealership and we gave him our info and told him to call us if they found the BLUE car we had come to see. They say that info was just entered wrong in to the computer, thats why the wrong car was sent to us, but the blue car we came to see doesn't exist. It's some imaginative hybrid of what we saw online and what we drove last night.

So on they way home we bought a new battery for the van and we will continue our search. I loved DRIVING the black car last night, so I know that is what I want. And I know they are out there in our price range. And hopefully the van will keep itself together for the next few months so we can really get what we (I) want.

Wise old Proverb...

You know that saying that says you don't know what you have until it's gone? I agree 100%. Especially when that thing that goes is your CAR. Ugh. This morning I had everyone bundled up (with coats and hats and Joelle even had her blanket) and ready to drive to school and my car wouldn't start. My dad thinks it is probably an almost dead battery (boy do I hope he's right). So I am stranded here at home. I didn't have much planned today, but it took away my option of going to the gym. And Walmart. And driving my half of the ballet carpool. We figure we are on borrowed time with the van, anyway. I feel like I am in a horror movie, where everything is fine and good but you just KNOW that when you least expect it something is going to jump out of the closet. But in the horror movies the thing that jumps out of the closet doesn't usually cost thousands of dollars to fix or leave you stranded in a parking lot somewhere.

So I have begun a hunt for a new vehicle. And being a really good wife and mother so my husband will let me have one. Wish me luck. :)