The incident

So, my mother says I should be blogging every day and because I have nothing to blog about Chantal and I decided it would be best to find things. So....we parked our car in a nice little spot and someone ran in to it. It was our 2005 Mitsubishi Galant. It was chillin out on the corner when I worker from Auto Hills Apartments was backing out. For months they had told the company the power steering was going out on the big steel truck. Fortunately nothing was ever taken care of. As he backed out somehow he got going pretty fast and the steering went out and boom he smashed into the front and side of the car. We are not sure yet what the total damage is, but it is going to be quite a lot. We actually thought it was pretty funny. I mean, you can't go back and change time anyway, so why be mad. Hopefully soon we will find out the entire outcome of this wonderful event.

My Mistake

Ok, babies only stay in there for like 40 weeks. So in the lower post when I said 17 months I would only be saying that if we were a herd of elephants, because they take two years. On the other hand, we do not take two years to have a baby, thank goodness, so I meant 17 and 19 weeks. Thanks Roxy, I know at least one person actually reads our blog :)!

Life

Life has been crazy lately. Chantal started babysitting for this family on Thursday and loves it. She said their house is amazing and is getting ideas for when we can possibly have one. One year and counting! I have a big interview with a company called Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories on Wednesday and I am hoping to get the job because I would be working in the HR department. I have already done the first interviews and now it is down to the four or five of us. It started out with a much bigger group, but I have made it this far. So everyone wish me luck and pray for me :)! We got baby pictures which I will put up. She is a beautiful little girl. She kicks very hard. Chantal could feel her kicking when Chantal was only 17 months along and I could feel her at 19.

Softball isn't going quite as well. Our team is in third place this year. I am happily batting about .900 or more though. I was on a batting streak of 19 with no outs until I choked :)! I have also caught some sweet dives this year.

We have been to many yard sales and bought a 75 dollar brand new grain mill for three dollars. It had never been used. We also got tons of baby clothes and items. I have finished choreographing a lot of ballroom dances for next year and have started putting things together for when we start our studio next year. I am pretty excited about that! Well, for now, I say goodbye!

I don't have a job yet

Well, I don't have a job yet so I figure I can write a little more. A couple of weeks ago we took the entire ballroom teams to Seattle. It was a great trip. I will have to tell you that it is a lot harder to run a team than to just go on the trip and be the problem. It was a lot of fun and most everything went smoothly! We got to spend an entire day in downtown. It was a blast and from what I hear the rest of the ballroom team enjoyed it pretty well. I have now finished my junior year of college and I am excited to finally be in my senior year. Only one year left :)! If it goes as fast as this last semester I will be super excited.
Chantal and I are expecting our first baby! WE DON'T KNOW THE GENDER YET! We will find out in about a month or so what the gender is though. I always say I am hoping for a boy, but really I'll be super excited with whatever I get. Chantal is finally passed the sick stage, but still lives on B6 and Unisom.
Our next exciting news is we bought the entire set of ballroom costumes from the Bsu Del Sol's old team. It is four carloads of ballroom costumes. We are so excited to sort them out and figure out what we will be using this next year.
We also went on a great picnic with our friends Kierstin and Dustin. It was supposed to be a bike ride, but for some reason we locked our bikes up last year and have no idea what the password is. We aren't sure if actually the lock just rusted over because we are both pretty certain of what it was and now it won't work any more. So, they biked and we drove. that's about all that is going on right now. I'll write more soon seeing as I have nothing else to really do! Here are some pictures from the picnic. Ya gotta love Dustin's face on the last pic!

What's going on in life

We have finally had something worth writing about. Chantal finishes her first half of student teaching this next week. The weather has been fabulous and life is good. Now for the stories. This last week I learned a valuable lesson. I was teaching early morning seminary and thought the lesson was going great. everyone was involved, but a few of the boys from class kept smirking and I had no idea why. We finished class and one of them came up to me and said, "Brother Dougal, your farm door is open." I immediately knew he was ever so nicely letting me know that I taught the entire lesson with my pants unzipped. Now that's classy!
Our next story for the week was our wonderful muddy buddy incident. I was making muddy buddies and Chantal told me to go get the final ingredient off the counter. She told me to get the powdered sugar off the counter and to start pouring it into the bowl. I poured a whole lot of it because who doesn't enjoy sugar? I reached in and pulled out a huge handful and dropped it into my mouth only to realize it didn't taste the same as usually. In fact it made me want to puke. I ran to the trash and spit it out. Unfortunately we did not realize the "powdered sugar" on the counter was actually corn starch in a winco style bag. That is a taste I really don't want to remember any more.
Sorry, the image quality is not amazing, but that is our favorite treat all dumped out :(

New Post

So everyone is always like..."add a new post"...so I will because I am a nice guy and for no other reason. Well, that and I just cleaned the entire house and really have nothing else to do. What's going on in life? Well for spring break we went to Utah to watch the ballroom nationals with our friends Luke and Piper. It was a lot of fun, but I am glad to be home. We rented a van because Luke forgot his license. Unfortunately the breaks went out on it and they didn't help us much until we turned it in. They took a large chunk off the final cost. We were happy about that.

Something to write about

I am not the best writer or the most philosophical person, but tonight I watched an amazing movie called August Rush with my beautiful wife and then I decided it was time to come ponder life. I know a marveling thought knowing that my life is that of sports, ballroom and school! I have been thinking about a quote by Aldous Huxley which states,
"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities." It really made me think of where my priorities are in life and what should really be important to me. This life really is the time to focus on God and do our best, but what an amazing thing to know that after we have done all that we can, He will make up the rest. What hope and peace this brings about in my life.

I also started in a round about way to think of other quotes and I thought about one that goes, "Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results." I have been taking a class called interpersonal communication and it has been quite edifying. It has made me think everyday about how I act...or in actuality how I react to life. Do I give a grumble every time something "bad" happens or do I say I am lucky enough I am capable of handling this little trial? It really is something to think about. If you are not sure if you are a well rounded happy person I suggest you take some coins and put them in your pocket and every time during the day you have a bad thought about yourself or someone else you take a coin out. It is just a visual way of seeing how we are doing. I don't think we yet understand the life changing effects our attitude can have on people around us. This last week my life was forever changed by a small chat I had with someone. It will be something that for years to come I will remember. Go out and make someone's day happy. Don't let the little things bother you or some day you will wake up to a real problem and you will not be able to cope with it. Those are my thoughts for the day!