One of the most wonderful things happened today. Ever since I first started my blog the search never worked correctly. I mean, the search worked but the style was all wrong. It just came up with a generic page with the results listed in a most uninteresting way. Tonight I finally dug into the files and found the error that was causing this to happen and I corrected this little "glitch". I even learned a few things I never knew before. The result is that the search not only functions correctly, but it looks like it is supposed to. It actually matches the rest of the site. Go ahead and try it - you'll be impressed (or at least occupied for a few seconds)!

We went to Sam and Lisa's last night to enjoy delicious chicken cordon bleu. They served Kool-Aid® beverage with dinner, which was a little uncomfortable for me. I felt like we were cheating on the Barnet's since we usually don't have Kool-Aid® without them. Still, the dinner was most excellent. Emilie made a chocolate caramel cake that we ate after watching Napoleon Dynamite. Good dinner, good dessert and good movie.

Richard helped us out by solving the mystery of the crazy catalog cover. He contacted Kaman Music and asked them to explain the photo that I posted on January 25, 2005. According to them, the picture is a parody of the Rumors album cover by Fleetwood Mac. Unfortunately, this raises more questions than it answers. Take a look at the pictures side-by-side. At first I questioned what it was about the picture that made it a "parody". My question was quickly answered when I looked up the word on M-W.com. One of the definitions is "a feeble or ridiculous imitation". A feeble imitation it is. I still have to ask: why parody this album cover? What does their product have to do with this cover or this album? Why, why, why? I've decided that I don't want to know.

Today we attended our ward for the last time before we start going to our new ward. Next week is stake conference, so we decided that this would be the best time to make the change.

After church we stopped by to see Emilie's sister at work and she gave us our official close date for the new house. Unless something unusual happens our close date is scheduled for March 30th. This week they pretty much completed the roof, finished all the cabinets, finished the tile in the bathrooms and finished putting the counter-tops on. The only things I can see that they still need to do are landscaping, flooring and sinks, but they must have much more if it's going to take them two more months. You can go to the house page for pictures.

Umm Paris Hilton is ....
Well as you can see from the previous post I have had braces for over 18 months. I finally got them off about 2 weeks ago. I went to the dentist today and got them really cleaned, so right now I feel good. I still have some gum swelling but my dentist said it was from some cement that othodontics did not get out. Anyways hopefully in a few days my gums will subside and be back normal. I think the process was worth it. I like my teeth. Hopefully their will be a picture up soon of the finished result. I might also add that my dentist says I have strong teeth. Whatever that means.

Well Brad and I are excited for the house, Brad checked it out the other day and saw that they had cabinets in. Woo Wee. I am excited.
I still have not gone over to see them, but I hope I will soon.

We also had other exciting news that our family would be expanding, but I need to annouce that that is not the case anymore. Maybe too much talking about it jinked it, actually no, but Brad & I have high hopes that a family will be in our future. However when we do get pregnant again, we are not telling anyone! One day your just see us with a baby. A cute one!

Last week we spent a few hours helping my dad to pull up carpet at his store. He's doing some renovation, which includes tearing down walls, replacing carpet and a few other things. ANYWAY, we were tearing up the old carpet and stopped to take a dinner break. My mom went over and got some Wendy's and we were sitting and eating and talking. I noticed a catalog that had the strangest picture on the cover. I've captured this picture and would like to know if anyone can explain this to me.

The catalog is a music instrument catalog. They sell drums, guitars, harps, trumpets, microphones, microphone stands, etc. You get the idea. So, what's the deal with this picture? What does it have to do with the products they sell? There is something definitely not right about it and I must have an explanation.

In case you're wondering, the catalog is for Kaman Music.

There's so much to blog about from this week that I hardly know where to begin. Emilie got her braces off last week, which is probably the most exciting thing for her lately. I haven't got the "after" pictures yet, but here's a nice "before" shot:

She can tell you more about her braces if she feels so inclined.

I was released from my calling as Ward Clerk today. Now that I've been released and Emilie's been released we can start going to the other ward. We love our current ward, but we need to start going to the other ward eventually. I think we'll go to our current ward one more week, then we have Stake Conference after that. We can go to our new ward the second week in February. I think that's the plan so far.

I did a little bit more geocaching. The snow makes it exciting, but it's always fun. This brings the total of caches found in the last month to four. Yay!

It's good that geocaching is good, because work stinks. I'm definitely ready for a job somewhere else. I'm trying to tough it out because I know that things will be good if I make it through the current series of changes. On the other hand, it's been about three years of steady decline in quality of work life. Bah...

I didn't go to work today. I think I had the day off. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. I went with Emilie to Quiznos, even though their commercials are products of the devil. I purchased some snow boots, since my current shoes are low cut shoes and not particularly great for snow activities. I got a pair of Baltoro HV 400 shoes made by The North Face. Now they have to last me fourteen years. It may sound like an arbitrary number, but that's only because it is.

I went out in search of caches today, also. I was foiled in my first attempt because of some muggles that were loitering in the vicinty of where I needed to search. I then went in search of A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican cache. Although it was buried deep under the snow I somehow found it anyway. My "tracks" should make it nice and easy for whoever is next to look for this one. It was my first find for 2005. Hopefully not the last find. Some sort of renewed interest might be brewing, but maybe not. It's tough to say while there's still so much snow.

I also did my home teaching tonight. Hooray!

In some sad news, I came home from home teaching and watched 24. Maybe I shouldn't watch it, but then again maybe I should. It's just so darn good!

Trust me! I know what you were thinking! You were just reading my comment about working on my web page. You thought, "Yeah, right! Brad never updates his web page." Well, now you're the liar. I completed a new biking page and made a few changes to my stuff page.

Believe it or not, there's only a few more things I plan on changing before my page will become relatively static. Other than updates, most of the layout is done. You may not like it, but then again, no one asked you :p

First, the bad news: A couple days ago someone backed into Emilie's car and smashed in the driver-side door. The good news is that the person left a note. The bad news is that the note read as follows:

The good news is that we know who left the note. The bad news is that it was Mike. The good news is that he came forward to let us know what happened, but the bad news is that he wasn't kidding about the bar. The good news is that I'm just kidding - it was all just a joke. The bad news: I'm not kidding about him hitting our car.

So, the house is behind schedule. We're now being told that it will be done sometime around March or April. Just think of all the house updates you'll get to witness!

We ate at Red Lobster tonight. It's not a place we've ever gone to before (I went once when I was in Canada), but we got a gift card from Emilie's dad for Christmas. Emilie got the Classic Tomato-Herb Linguini and I got Sirloin Steak and Fried Shrimp. I'm not big on seafood, but I tolerate shrimp as long as it's fried. We shared a Bananas Foster Cheesecake for dessert. It was all very good; however, it was out of our comfort zone. We tend to visit the same places over and over. Maybe it's good that we tried something new.

On the way home we stopped by Wal-Mart to get some essentials. While there we ended up with some non-essentials, which included a Jewel CD and the movie Amos and Andrew on DVD, since it was in the $5.50 bin.

Perhaps the worst thing to happen to me lately is Monopoly Party for the GameCube. All the fun and stress of Monopoly, but it can be played in 30-45 minutes. It's definitely a habit that should be dropped because it's pretty easy to get worked up by it. When I say worked up I mean absolutely rabid.

Back to the website updating. Yippee!

It seems to me that we are in a dark age of advertising. What commercials have you seen lately that make you want the product they are advertising? I can think of only one: Jack-in-the-Box; however, there are commercials that are so horrible and disturbing that they shake the foundation of everything we hold dear about television. The ads are for Quiznos and feature a talking baby. Blockbuster is in tight competition for worst commcercial, which makes all viewing pretty painful. I sincerely hope that those of you reading this never have the deep misfortune of seeing these commercials.

So, the big snowstorm for the weekend was pathetic. The wind was crazy last night, but other than that the weather was fairly warm and not very snowy. We actually have significantly less snow now than we did before the big storm. There's always tonight for the storm to come, I suppose.

Honestly! What's the deal with the snow? We've got an exciting weekend planned. Since we're basically going to be snowed in for the weekend my sister and her family decided to join us. We've got a cozy little home with 12 people living in it. That's okay, though. Less driveway shoveling for me...I mean, it's quality time with the family.

Needless to say, there won't be much in the way of house updates right away. I'm not likely to drive over and snap a picture and I think it's safe to say they haven't done a whole lot of work on it lately. This last week they informed us that it will probably be March or April before they finish. It's nice that we'll have a little extra time to save money, but we're also ready to have our own living space again.

In the most exciting news of the week I've finally made some significant updates to the web page. Emilie's page finally has some content, although it's still missing a big chunk of stuff. Mine is getting there, but it's only about half-done. It's a move forward, though.

Well Brad and I had a great Christmas. Brad's sister Lori and her family came into town and I actually enjoyed it more because of the kids running around excited about Christmas.
This year Brad and I said we would have a budget on what we would spend for each of us. Brad is the type that if he wants something he just goes and gets it. So he is pretty hard to shop for. I on the other hand ask for socks because I need them and wont buy them on my own. Anyways... Brad always says "I didn't get you anything" or " I just got you one gift". As long as he didnt go over the budget I dont care how many gifts I got. Well this Christmas I didnt go over the budget for Brad and actually I spent less because of his need to get DVD's right when they come out (which was a good thing because if he didnt get Napoleon Dynamite we would have never got it) but Brad of course went over his budget and wrapped all the gifts and then wrapped all the gifts again so it would be just one gift. SO of course I feel he got the shaft, but I scored. He He! I guess it doesnt matter because he hates buying gifts, and even getting gifts on Birthday's or Christmas.

I am excited about the new year. Big changes for the Carpenter family. Our house is not ready but it now has stucco so that is a big change. I hope it will be ready by February. I just cant wait to get into that house and start decorating and just living in our own space again. I do like it at the Carpenters and it is actually not bad living over there but I am ready for the space.

Didn't do a thing on New Year's Reno had a record breaking storm and Brad and I could not get out of the driveway. So we were home bound for about 4 days. We did go to church and I attended the Foothill Ward Releif Society and 4th wards church. I taught Young Womens, that was fun.