Miscellaneous Monday

We've sure been busy, so I'll make this as miscellaneous and random as I please. :) That's the joy of having my own blog -- I can do and say what I want to!

So, the weekend before last we went to see Becca's Shakespeare competition. We had planned to go down as a family and also visit my bro (who would then watch the kids while Paul and I saw the competition), but we ended up having fevers and weren't able to visit them. Paul and I drove down to watch Becca compete anyway. The three hours each way to watch her perform her 2-minute monologue twice wasn't too bad. But then this weekend when we went down to visit my bro (a four-hour drive each way), we got a little sick of driving. So, we're staying put for a while.

In any case, Becca did an excellent job! She got two superiors (out of three performances), and an excellent on the other. Her school got fifth overall in their division (out of 26 schools), which I thought was great considering none of them got an award and this is her school's first year to compete. Here she is in costume (which thankfully a friend loaned to her):


We're looking to refinance our home to drop our PMI, and I sure don't like the new laws and changes Obama has made. Now you have to get an appraisal up front before you can even start the process, and since it has to be a government contractor, it now costs more than $400 instead of the $200 it cost before. Sigh. We're hoping rates stay low so we can lock in at our current rate of 4.75, especially since we had to pay for the appraisal up front. In any case, if we can do that, it will end up saving us $85/month ... although in the long run it will end up being about the same overall. Funny how that works ...

I've lost five pounds on my fitness challenge. Hooray! At the beginning of the week I had lost more but gained some back this week. A road trip and a girls' night with the girl cousins just didn't sit well with my body or my challenge. In any case, if any of you are sad you missed the chance you can join in another we'll be doing starting in January.

Paul's work is changing health insurances. Supposedly this is to save us money. I am not looking forward to trying to figure out what doctors and hospitals are covered. Knowing our luck (and from the looks of it this is how it will be) we'll not be allowed to go to IHC hospitals. This would mean next time we have a baby we'd have to switch hospitals yet again! Can you imagine -- four kids in four different hospitals? Crazy! (Especially considering I've loved them all and would deliver in any one of them again. Our first one (GroupHealth in Redmond) closed their maternity ward before Zachary was born; then we moved away from the second one (Overlake Hospital where Bill Gates' wife delivered as well :); and the third one (Orem Community) is IHC. Gotta love insurance!) I guess at least we have health insurance, even though we pay for it. At least it's better coverage for cheaper cost than Paul's last company ...

Oh, along with the refinance we had an appraiser come last week. We're waiting to hear on that today. However, it motivated me to do all the touch-up paint that needed to happen. It was a stressful, short day (not enough hours), but I got it done. So happy with that, because now other than sealing the grout we're done with the upstairs. Hooray! Downstairs we still need finish work and outside we still need to put back up the fence ... but we're making progress ... and loving the space even though it's not 100 percent done.

I feel dizzy right now. What's up with that?

Shayla's potty training is coming along. The poor girl has been dry for weeks, but she holds it so long I'm worried about her bladder health! She won't even go when we put on a diaper or pull-up. I guess that's a good thing, but it's been a struggle to get her to actually want to go. So, we went to the dollar store and got about five things she can earn by going potty. She has a chart, and once she's gone 10 times on the potty she gets one. That seems to be working -- and a few times she's even said she needed to go potty. Before I'd just see her dancing and convince her she needed to go (or force her to go sit down anyway). Hopefully this'll work!!! I'm not worried about her wetting her pants/bed, because she's not having that problem at all. But where in the world does she get this type of bladder control?

I'm doing a digital scrapbook about our Disneyland trip and am trying to finish it by Wednesday so I can use a Shutterfly coupon for $15 off. I better get back to work, because I've got a lot to do!