It was really dusty today with some serious Santa Ana’s. Church went really well. We had excellent talks from Jillian, James and Zion. Zion talked about remembering and explained that we all have good memories, we just don’t know how to use them properly. I guess I need to take some classes. James just about inspired me to go turn in my mission papers right then and there. He’s amazing. I can’t honestly remember what Jillian spoke about, but her song was touching. I’d like to get the words so i can ponder on it some more.

We got new home teaching assignments today. This round looks to be much better than before.

We had a stake emergency drill this afternoon. I knew it was coming sometime this month, so I made sure to get my radio charged up and had it ready in the car. Apparently Brothers Prosser and Kowallis are both licensed ham radio operators, but neither has a radio. It sounds like they are going to work on getting each member of the presidency and shepherd to get licensed and to have a radio. I’m thinking maybe I should get one installed in my car, or at least be better at making sure I have one ready and charged in my car. We did alright in the drill, but we had to cut some corners to get it done.

I had dinner tonight with Brother and Sister Kowallis before temple prep, during the emergency drill, but before I had to go radio in the results. I appreciate the time I get to spend with them and hope it continues.

I really got to sleep in this morning. My alarms went off at 7. My alarm on my treo had managed to hotsync to my laptop causing the laptop along with both phones to go off. It was quite a nightmare. I jumped up, silenced them all and went right back to sleep. Around 9:30 I figured it was time for me to finally get out of bed and get going. I enjoyed a mostly quiet morning at the house. I did a few chores and tried to catch up on some stuff.

The wedding at GT went well. I was happy I decided to wear a polo instead of the normal shirt and tie as I thought it was pretty darn hot when setting up. Other than having no paperwork to know what I was doing, I think it all went fairly well. I worked my full four hours, which is never fun, but it wasn’t too bad. I got most of the reading done for the women in the church lesson tomorrow.

After the wedding I drove up to see Melissa at Lowe’s.

Larilyn came over tonight and we wanted “The best two years.”

It was really tempting this morning to stay in bed and forgo the ride, but I pulled myself out of bed eventually. It was nice and cold and was misting outside. I was able to get Ryan out of bed without too much trouble, although he tried to argue that it was raining. We had a good ride and it is clear we are getting back into it. Now we just need to focus on picking up the intensity and frequency of our rides.

It was after noon when I finally made it to the office. I did some work from home and figured that since everyone else was there, I didn’t need to be there. All went fairly well at the office this afternoon. I think we had a productive meeting this evening, now we just need to press forward.

James taught a good lesson tonight at FHE and tried to encourage us to extend our hand to others. He questioned why we didn’t have 100% attendance at our activities and such. I think he will be a great addition to the branch – and I am looking forward to getting to know him.

As I was driving home I was talking to Larilyn about how she passed me on the freeway and she always gives me trouble for being a fast driver. She told me that she had mint brownies waiting for her at home, so it became a race to see who could get there first. Even though she had a head-start at this point, I managed to beat her to her house going down Green Canyon while she took 76 to Mission. They were good and we talked until Tara finally called me back to discuss plans for DR.

Another late night… I made it up early this morning for stake conference, i was so proud of myself. i was one of the first few there and managed to claim one of the last rows left in the chapel. It filled up pretty fast and at times I wasn’t sure I could keep the row for the extended Dowden family, but it worked out.

I had lunch at the Dowden’s and then went to GT to work a wedding. It went well, other than we started quite a bit late and had guests that were tired of waiting. After that I went to the Kowallis home.

I really wasn’t feeling too into branch prayer tonight. I actually left fairly shortly after it was over to head back to the Dowden’s.

I’m trying to think of the big things to mention from stake conference this morning. Fortunately, it was not all about the temple. Elder Lawrence pretty much said we were doing good and to keep on plugging away. We were encouraged to try and step it up a notch and to continue our focus on the five pillars as established by the stake presidency. He gave us four things to do to increase the boundaries of zion/the stake, but I don’t remember them and it wasn’t anything too groundbreaking. I think I need sleep and maybe I can borrow someone’s notes later…

It’s uber late, and I need to get up in the morning, so I need to make this really short. Wedding in the rain this morning went well. I got through lots of mail and stuff this afternoon at home and one can even see more than a few square inches of my desk. Don’t worry it will be back to normal soon. Stake conference went well tonight, lots of talks about the temple. OK, I’m going. A bunch of us went out to eat with the Dowden’s at Claim Jumper after. As usual, I ate too much of the chocolate chip calzone, but didn’t even finish it. Thank you Lauren S for finishing it off for me!

I didn’t spend too much time in the office today because it was almost noon once I got there from the Mattson’s. I managed to show up exactly as a customer was coming to pickup a rental which hadn’t yet been prepped, so it worked out perfectly!

The wedding tonight seemed to drag on forever. We got a late start and then it took them 45 minutes to get through the ceremony. It was actually even a little chilly while I was standing there for the wedding with a breeze cooling me off. How quickly it can change. The sad part was that it wasn’t even cold!

I thought about going with some members of the branch to the Haunted Trail at Balboa Park tonight, but decided that I was just too lazy to drive down to SD and spend $14 plus parking just to watch some girls scream. I also figured that if I went tonight, there was no chance of me getting up to go riding with Ryan in the morning. Staying at home allowed me to spend the evening watching “A Good Year” and gave me some time to chat with Tara and make plans with Ryan for tomorrow morning.

I probably could write something thoughtful, but I’m thinking maybe I should just get to bed before I get lost on a tangent.

It’s way late, so I need to make this short and sweet. Work went well today. I think I am getting close to caught up. it was quiet enough that I was able to get my email down to 99 messages and take care of a few things that have been a bit overdue. The office was really boring this afternoon by myself, but Victor stopped by to surprise me which was nice. Institute went well. I found out Lauren is a Mac geek, which is always cool.

Tara and Shelly got the pictures I sent today. Laura said that the pictures are great and that they are already on the wall.

I made it to the office around 10 this morning, so I am making progress. Even more surprisingly, I actually got some work done today. I think I got caught up on most of the paperwork. Now I just have my delayed pile to go through again and make sure I am current. Maybe after that I can work on getting my email back down to a manageable level.

Melissa came for lunch today and Tara joined us at El Torito. It was good, although I did feel back breaking my quasi-deal with the other Tara about eating out this week. I guess Wednesday’s will just have to be an exception for standing dates.

With that, I think I’m off to bed.

I made it to the office earlier this morning, but not quite when I was hoping for. I was shooting to be there at 10 after going for a 7 o’clock ride with Ryan. Ryan and I actually got a good start this morning and nearly froze to death on a few parts of the ride. I could tell we were in better shape this week than we were last though and the cool air probably helped as well. I was ready to be at the office on-time, but then decided to make lunch to take with me and waited for water to boil and made pasta.

Things were pretty quiet. … After Tara left I didn’t accomplish much of anything, I’ll be honest. I talked to Tara C on the phone for a while trying to work out the passport issue.

The house closed escrow today! It feels good to have that taken care of, so now we only have a few remaining items to take care of. I was a bit surprised when I looked at my Wells Fargo account and saw quite a bit more money there than I was expecting, so that was how I knew things must have closed. Shortly thereafter I got an email saying it had indeed closed.

I decided this afternoon that I will not be buying a house anytime soon. There are too many possibilities up in the air. I may decide to run CBC remotely from somewhere colder, decide to move on to something new, leave and serve a mission for two years or do something else where the house would be tying me down. This will also give sufficient time to allow the real estate market to hit rock bottom (hopefully) before I purchase, and I am thinking that I will just wait until I am really ready and quite likely married. I may decide I like it so much in the Dominican Republic that I want to move there after our trip next month – I highly doubt it, but it could be possible. I’m sure there are some really nice houses in Idaho that would give plenty of room to grow which I could probably pay cash for if I tried hard enough!

I was planning on watching a movie this evening, or working to further catchup on my email, but I somehow got into a cleaning kick. I started vacuuming spider webs out of the corners and then spent some time looking for pictures to put on the walls. I guess I need to go through some old discs again looking for anything worth printing and maybe find some newer ones as well.

Well, I should probably be getting to sleep if I am going to have a chance of getting to the office at a decent time tomorrow morning. Good night and God bless.

It took quite a bit of effort to get me back to work this morning. Actually, it was this afternoon by the time I got there! I got a bit of a late start and then was going to go by Costco to get a few items and develop some pictures. I then remembered that I could upload them and have them ready for me when I got there, so I started doing that. For some reason though it takes two hours from when you upload to when they are ready, so I figured I would wait around the house for a while so I could pick them up on the way in. That would also allow me to eat lunch at home, making it the most meals I’ve had at home in a long time! I really didn’t want to go out to eat once again.

I got the pictures, and some frames to go with them. … I really need to print pictures and do things like this more often. … I’d also like to see more pictures on my walls, both at home and at the office. I will admit that is a problem with digital – that the pictures seem to go nowhere.

We had a brief meeting this afternoon, but didn’t really do too much else. I went to the batchelor pad after dropping boxes off at FedEx for dinner. It was the first time I’d been there – and I managed to eat dinner without eating out again! That’s three whole meals in a row!!!

At FHE tonight we talked about service and then wrote letters to missionaries. It was really hard for me to think of something to say to someone I don’t even know. I probably should have just written anything, but I spent most of the time trying to come up with something that they would really appreciate and enjoy. Because of all the time I spent thinking, and none writing, I didn’t get anything done.

I definitely have some more pondering to do, but I need to get to sleep so I don’t fall any further behind!