journals (2013)
Once a month we summarize the most memorable events of the previous month and write a note that will be placed in
this section. We keep very detailed calendars in our house and will write when something memorable happens on it when it happens; this makes it very easy to go back over the month and to summarize the best and worst!
this section. We keep very detailed calendars in our house and will write when something memorable happens on it when it happens; this makes it very easy to go back over the month and to summarize the best and worst!
December
December started off being a very snowy month! Ashley got stuck in the driveway 2 times and the Elders got stuck once! The Wickhams rescued us from the evil snow by plowing our driveway and driving Ashley to work while Micah and the missionaries got the car unstuck! We are thankful for such people we can call upon for help :) Game nights with the missionaries have been fun (Apples to Apples, Taboo...) and hope we can get more people out to them! On the 14th we had our church Christmas party; we also made gingerbread men for the Elders the same day. On the 16th we went to Winnipeg for our doctor appointment. We discussed options and thought that continuing with the Clomid would be the best thing (since we had some success on it already) but we doubled the dose. We also found out that Ashley has hypothyroidism (which can affect fertility) and she was prescribed Synthroid. While looking at Ashley's bloodwork the doctor also said "hmm, looks like your estrogen has been a little high" and Micah thought that was hilarious! It's alright when the doctor says it, but if your husband mentions you've been a bit more emotional than normal...watch out! LOL We had a great time in Winnipeg shopping for ties. Like Micah did on his mission, we hit up a bunch of thrift stores to find polyester ties! We found so many (Micah says on his mission you would be lucky if you walked out of the store with one or two ties- in a couple stores we found at least 10!) I think we ended up finding around 65 ties, now Micah has a good collection to use or to sell/trade with the Elders! While we were in Winnipeg we went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which happened to be the only movie we went to see in theatres this month :( Christmas was really nice- we spent it with the Elders (our adopted family- Elders Ruth, Kendall, Hirschi and Warren). We had an Italian Christmas (like our Thanksgiving) with lasagna instead of turkey and for dessert we made homemade candy cane ice cream. It was really sweet that the Hirschi family sent us a Christmas gift to say thank you for looking out for their son while he is in Kenora on his mission. What a nice family and what a wonderful church we are a part of! We have "family" all across the globe :) The last couple of weeks this month were freezing cold (-46C with the windchill, that's -50F...) so we have been staying inside playing Borderlands 2, watching seasons of Breaking Bad and renting movies (Halo Foward Unto Dawn, Evil Dead, Soloman Kane, Monsters U, Pacific Rim, Man of Steel, Book of Eli and Transformers series). On New Year's Eve day we woke up to no running water in the house- we were afraid our pipes had frozen and burst! Stay tuned to find out what happened...hahaha
November
We got two new Elders at the beginning of this month (actually I think they arrived Halloween day but we didn't get to meet them until a couple days later). Elder Kendall from Utah and Elder Warren from California. Micah and Elder Warren immediately found something in common- they both love playing League of Legends! Not too much happened in terms of work around the house- it has slowed down because of the snow and because the battery for our portable drill stopped charging. So we eventually go a new drill set in Winnipeg so now we can finish putting up the sheet rock in the last few spots. It was Jackie's birthday on November 3 so we had her and her brother over for dinner and made her a cake. We went out for lunch at Ho Ho's twice this month, once with Kevin and the missionaries and the other time with just the missionaries. It really started to snow the last two weeks of November and I got my car stuck in the driveway! We are looking to get a snow thrower to attach to our DR Field and Brush Mower, just waiting for a phone call back from the store. We started up the game night again with the missionaries, hopefully it will happen every Saturday. This time we played Apples to Apples which was pretty funny. We watched only a couple movies in theatre this month- Ender's Game and Thor 2. At home we watched White House Down, Grown Ups 2 and Red 2 (all terrible!) We finished watching the last season of Dexter and was very disappointed. The whole series was great up until the last two seasons (7 and 8) so we have decided to just ignore the last two :) We started watching Breaking Bad and have gone up to the end of Season 4. The show is not bad, but not great either. We tried our last refill of clomid which did not result in pregnancy. We have an appointment with the doctor Decemeber 16 to discuss our options.
October
The month started out with one of our computer monitors breaking- it just wouldn't turn on again! We only had it for a year which is funny because our working monitor has been with us since we just got married 5 years ago! Anyway, 2 weeks later we bought another one so all is right again in our computer corner :) General Conference was held the first weekend of October- it was great hearing from the prophet and apostles! Heather was baptized October 6 by Chris Ambs, which was really nice to watch. The missionaries worked really hard at priming our house this month- they even came over on Micah's birthday to do some work as a gift! We had our Thanksgiving celebration a day early so that we could have a special "Italian Thanksgiving" for the missionaries. I got to make two pies this month which was fun! Micah started playing his favourite online computer game again- League of Legends- now that our internet connection is worlds better. We went into Winnipeg to celebrate Micah's birthday on the 16th where we saw Captain Phillips, a super good movie! We also saw Carrie and watched season 3 of Fringe (which ended terribly!!) At work we have been doing so many flu shots every day and I hosted a Flu Shot Clinic on one of the Saturdays this month. One of our cats, Shade, for some reason loves to chew wires- so he ruined one of our keyboards which made us switch to a wireless keyboard. For Halloween we bought candy and watched a scary movie- I was so sad because when I started looking for pumpkins the day before Halloween everywhere was sold out! So we didn't get to carve any this year :(
September
This month we have been plagued with sickness- the flu from last month carried into the first week of September then at the end of the month Ashley got sick with a really bad cold that had her living on cough drops. Luckily Micah didn't get sick a second time :) Work around the house this month consisted of finishing the screws in our newly built deck, putting siding on the front of the house and starting the wood wrapping of some the windows in the house. We made a trip down to Menards to buy some electric wall heaters (to replace the ugly baseboard heaters we have at the moment...) and we made a trip to Winnipeg to buy primer and paint for the house. We also went out to the cabin for the last time this year. We watched season 7 of Supernatural this month along with season 2 of Fringe (which is MUCH better than season 1!) We bought Diablo 3 for the XBox (much better than on the computer) and have been playing it a lot with each other system linking our two TVs and Xboxs. Ashley seems to have a touch of gold and always gets the "gold" items (the best in the game) which leaves Micah bewildered! We had a little chipmunk venture into our home and Micah came to the rescue by picking it up and letting it back outside. We had a nice dinner at the Amb's home in Sioux Narrows with Elder McLaws and Camerena where they invited Heather and Michelle (two foster childern) to baptism. We got two new missionaries this month- Elder Ruth and Gardner, both fresh out of the MTC. Movies we watched this month were Insidious (at home to prepare for Insidious 2), Riddick (in Winnipeg since Insidious 2 was sold out...), Insidious 2 (in Kenora) and Rush. Round 5 of clomid failed... We have one more refill of Clomid left and since I was sick, we decided to try the next month without it and see what happens. Let's hope for the best!
August
The month started with a trip into Winnipeg with Tom, Judi, and Micah's grandma. We went to Ikea, had dinner at Paradise and watched RIPD. The next day we had the 4 missionaries over for their weekly meeting with Micah as he is the Branch Mission Leader. At the meeting we found out that Elder Romanovitch can juggle! We also had a good laugh at Elder McLaws for pronouncing gnocchi with the g! Tom came over the next day and helped Micah start the siding on our house where we had taken out the windows. Our two dogs disappeared for 18 hours- I thought they had died! But they came back. Oddly enough, at the same time Tessie, my 17 year old cat, also went missing. She never came back... :( Tom, Judi and Katie left to go back to Idaho the following Wednesday. While Katie was up here this summer she borrowed our collection of Dexter seasons and watched them all. She recommended the show Supernatural to us so we started watching it the day they left. Sean Myran was baptized August 9th and I brought cupcakes :) The next week we had the missionaries come over and help us move our old windows and doors into the garage (heavy stuff!) then Micah help Art Ladd move some garbage of his own the next day. We went to Winnipeg again and watched Kick Ass 2. At the end of the month we had Bring Your Friend to Church Day and Micah attended a Mission Leader training meeting. Cycle 4 of clomid failed... Micah helped Elder McLaws and Hirschi bring some garbage to the dump from the apartment they were moving out of. We started building a deck on the side of the house then we both got sick with a bad flu! I missed 1 1/2 days of work- haven't been that sick in a long time. We went to Winnipeg one last time this month and watched The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. We also rented 42 while we were sick and finished up to season 6 of Supernatural!
July
July 1st was our 5 year wedding anniversary! It was also my 6 year anniversary of being a member of The Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Two of the best decisions of my life... This month we have been doing work around the house- we drove to Menard's in International Falls twice to go pick up our merchandise. Micah and Tom fixed up the trailer we had bought so that it had sides to more easily carry everything back home. Matt and Tom helped Micah out a couple of days this month to install windows, fans, chandeliers and do some siding. In return Micah went out to the lake to help them build a shed. Little Eve hurt her tail- she wasn't able to sit down for a day! We took her to the vet and they said it might be broken but there was nothing they could do. Over the next couple of days it started to get better and now it doesn't bother her except you can feel a kink in her tail! Don't know how she did it... We went to Winnipeg a couple of times and saw The Lone Ranger, The Heat, Pacific Rim and The Conjuring while we were there. Movies we watched at home were 10,000 BC, What Happens in Vegas, Inception, Bolt, and Madagascar 1 &2. We also saw Wolverine at the movie theatre here. Micah got a new calling a church- Branch Mission Leader, which he is very happy about! Cycle 3 of clomid failed...
June
More building things for Micah this month! He is experimenting with designs for chests and so he built his second one which looks very pretty. We went out to the lake to deliver the table and benches for the cottage. We bought a pellet gun from Walmart but the employee sold us the wrong pellets so it wouldn't work! I tried to return or exchange it for the the right pellets, but they wouldn't allow it! We then went to Canadian Tire to have our winter tires removed. When we had them put on we asked for the 4 tires back and when I picked up the car there were 2 wrapped in plastic. I assumed the other two were somewhere else on the car (like underneath or stored with the spare tire...) Well when they went to put the old tires back on, they told us there were only two tires. They had thrown out two of our tires! We tried to talk to the manager who was the rudest man I have ever met, and I left feeling like I was a criminal. I told them that I would buy my tires somewhere else if they weren't even willing to say they were sorry! Very frustrating...We had our first bonfire of the year complete with s'mores, and we even sent up a tent and slept out there. We took a gun course to get our PAL and RPAL so we can now buy guns. We bought a DR Field and Brush Mower and several days this month we spent "working the fields"-cutting down the tall grass and bushes around our property. We also bought a wood stove and the Elders helped us (Micah) carry it up 50 stairs! At then end of the month I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive! But a week later my period came, revealing I had an early miscarriage at 5 weeks. I was very sad, but we are trying again, but won't get our hopes up until later in the pregnancy...Movies we saw in theatre were The Hangover Part III, Man of Steel, World War Z, and Monsters University. Movies we watched at home: Jurassic Park, Whiteout, Jurassic Park 2, Nightmare Before Christmas, Team America World Police, Snitch and Beautiful Creatures.
May
This month we started Scripture Mastery of the Week. I feel like I don't know the scriptures that well yet, so Micah came up with the idea of having a type of Seminary for me! Our goal is to memorize one scripture mastery a week; so far so good! We built (meaning Micah built while I helped/watched) several things this month- stools for our kitchen island, a blanket chest, a garbage box for the top of our driveway (neighbour's dog likes to wander and get into our garbage...) and a table & benches for the cottage. We started to stain the Farmhouse table and benches, but after two coats it didn't look very good so we decided to paint everything black. We made three trips into Winnipeg this month, two trips involving Ikea! :) Hiking to Fox Lake was a highlight this month (fun to dream about future plans) and the biggest disappointment of the month was that the first round of clomid didn't work (a close second was that Dexter Season 7 was terrible...haha). Movies we watched in theatre were Iron Man 3, Star Trek 2, Fast and Furious 6 and After Earth. Movies we watched at home included Djanjo Unchained, District 9, Battle Los Angeles, Hulk, The Incredible Hulk and Home Alone. Micah helped Bob build a platform for a port-a-potty, then they had to boat both the platform and port-a-potty out to Scout Island in the pouring rain and hike it up a steep hill. Rain, Rain, Rain this month.
April
April started with Ashley getting her wisdom teeth taken out. Luckily for her she didn't have any swelling or bruising so recovery was very quick. Micah finished his 18 wheeler for the Boy Scout car race. He painted it to look like Optimus Prime from Transformers. General Conference was this month- always fun to listen to counsel from the apostles! We saw The Croods here in Kenora, then The Host when we had a date night in Winnipeg. We went to Thunder Bay near the end of the month for Ashley's Pharmacist Injection Training Conference and saw Oblivion when we were there. Other movies we watched at home were Dolphin Tale, P.S. I Love You, The Invasion, Phantom of the Opera (1989), Looper and Far & Away. There was a Branch Activity this month where we honored the graduating youth. We had dinner that consisted of their favourite meals (Fettuchini Alfredo with Chicken, Curried Chicken, Caesar Salad, and for dessert Apple, Pumpkin or Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Pie). We then watched a video about the youth's accomplishments throughout high school. Ashley got the results back from her MRI and started taking Clomid. We bought a new cell phone (Samsung Galaxy Note II) to replace our home phone. Micah finished writing his children book series with teaching guide and we sent it off to a publishing company. Flynn and Shade got neutered! Went to The Little Mermaid high school play. Built a Farmhouse Table with matching benches. We also made a chest to store our blankets in! Since the new season of Dexter is coming out on DVD in May we started watching the show again from the very beginning...
March
This month was not great for movies but we did end up seeing a couple in the Kenora theatre- Oz: The Great and Powerful and GI Joe: Retaliation. We made a trip into Winnipeg near the end of the month for my MRI appointment and went to the movie theatre while we were there (saw Olympus Has Fallen). We ended up watching some older movies at home that we either bought at Walmart for cheap or rented from Red Box (Prince of Persia, 21, X-Files, Red Dawn, Paranormal Activity 4, One for the Money and Lincoln). We played several computer games together- Neverwinter Nights and Diablo 2. I was getting tired of them so I tried to go out and buy some video games with co-op and came home with Red Dead Redemption and RAGE. Unfortunately neither had co-op campaigns so we couldn't play either with each other! Later on in the month I picked up Gears of War: Judgement for Micah. I celebrated my 27th birthday this month. Mike and Cindy Christensen took us out for dinner to the Greek restaurant The Plaza to thank us for keeping their boat for them. Still snow on the ground even though the first day of spring has come and gone (thanks to another snow storm). I tried Deviled Eggs for the first time this month! So yummy and really easy to make. Had a quiet Easter with each other at home. Micah started making his Optimus Prime 18 wheeler for the Boy Scout race.
February
We started this month off by going over to Tina's house for dinner with Elder Lyons and Elder Barfuss. She made some delicious ribs and caesar salad! That night we saw Warm Bodies- cute movie. We started to re-watch all of the Die Hard movies this month to prepare for the newest one coming out, A Good Day to Die Hard (stick with the old ones, they're better). We brought Flynn and Shade to the vet to get their booster shots. We went to Kenora's Winter Farmers Market where we bought some homemade chocolates from Tina. They are so good! Micah spent time with the Elders helping them prepare The Fobisters for their baptism! Ashley finished reading Preach My Gospel this month and loves it! Lots of snow here still, I got the car stuck in the driveway (again). At the end of the month we set up our second computer in our room so that we can network them together to play games (tried Civilization and Torchlight). We played a lot of Dead Island together on the XBOX 360- fun game!