Greta vs. Heidi

Rob's parents got a new puppy for Christmas--Greta. Here she is getting all upset that their stuffed dog Heidi is in the house too. She got very territorial until she found out she could tromp and drag it around.

Christmas break!

Okay....This was the real Christmas tree. Technically I guess it isn't ours. This huge tree is in Rob's parents house. This is where we spent Christmas. It was a really pretty tree. We had a great Christmas! Rob's Dad, Lehr, got a new puppy for Christmas and we instantly fell in love with her. Her name is Greta and she is so playful. Apparently she has gone into the room we were staying in a couple of times now and cried because she misses us already. She is so funny. She found the Christmas ribbons and had dragged one clear across the room before we finally found her in her mischief. Then she started playing tug o'war with Rob when he tried to take it away.

Blog, meet Cal. Cal, meet Blog

After 3 years and 7 months it is finally time we bid a fond farewell to our beloved Jaguar S-Type (may it rest in pieces). While driving to Charlotte to enjoy Christmas with my parents, Lisa and I noticed that unfortunate and most unwelcome of all lights...the check engine light. After a full diagnostic was run on the Jag we discovered that there were over $3500 in repairs that needed to be made in order for the car to be trustworthy to drive the 450 mile trip home, in addition to another $3500 in repairs that would need to come later. We love you, Jag, but you aren't worth that much. 

So now it's time for everyone to say hello to our new car, Cal. Cal is a red 2008 Dodge Caliber with slightly more than 16k miles. Cal seemed to be a pretty good deal for a new (used) car and brought a lot of bells and whistles with him, including: tiptronic shifting, speakers that fold out from the 5th door, a cooled beverage storage area in the glovebox, a 115v power outlet, and a 6 disc in-dash cd changer. 

Although we were sad to leave Jag behind in South Carolina, we can finally move on and welcome Cal into the family and focus all of our worries on Lisa's Saturn. Who knows. Maybe Cal will be getting a new little sister sometime soon (not too soon though...we hope).

Christmas!

This year we are spending Christmas with Rob's parents in Charlotte, NC. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of our tree yet this year, but this is what our tree would look like if we had... and if we had a house... and if we had a fireplace... and if we had..... anyway, you get the point!

We wish all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I told you, Never trust a monkey!

Most of us know that feeling we get when we take our car into the shop to get some work done on it. You never know if what the guy is telling you is true or if he even did what he's charging you for. Grease monkey's are a fickle breed, and are hard to pin down. Finding an honest one is about as easy as finding an honest politician. So you can imagine the gut wrenching feeling I got when the heat and ac in our Jag started acting up on us. Not only is it getting colder, which sucks even more than usual if your car has no heat, but Jags are not known for their economy pricing. The hazards of driving a luxury vehicle. (By the way, my wallet is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight.)

So we set out to find out what was going on and to get an estimate on repairs. Since Ford used to own Jaguar (they recently sold to some company based out of India, I think) I figured that the Ford dealer down the road would be a good place to start, and wouldn't be quite so expensive as the Jag dealer downtown. We took the car in on Saturday morning because I leave before the sun wakes up, and Lisa, though she leaves an hour later, is still gone for work too early to take the car in on a weekday. So Saturday the dude at Ford tells us he won't be able to check it out until Monday. I should add that when I told him what was going on he didn't seem to catch on too quick. I said to the guy, "When I set it for cold air it won't blow cold air, and when I set it for hot air it won't blow hot air." In his grease monkey brilliance, his only reply was "Well what's it doing if it's not blowing cold air or hot air." At this point I didn't really know how to dumb it down any more. "If it's cold outside it will blow cold air. If its hot outside it will blow hot air." What else can we, who are automotively unlearned, do. They've got us by the underneethy bits.

Monday rolled around and Ford charged me $185 to tell me that the heating control valve needed to be replaced before they could begin to figure out what was wrong. And to do that would cost $995. I figured I could get a better deal somewhere else. Since I am a Vanderbilt employee, I get awesome discounts, like $6 movie tickets for $10 theaters. So I called around and found a place that charged $20 less for labor than Ford and would offer me 15% off because I work at Vandy. Cool. Today I drive to their address and to my shagrin the sign reads"Pedro's Auto's" or something like that, I just remember Pedro's. I ask Pedro if this also happens to be "Auto Experts". He'd never heard of them, and he'd been there 3 1/2 years. Scary. So, I went back to work and called Auto Experts. I discuss the fact that the people at his address have never heard of him and then proceed to discuss what exactly is wrong with the car. After telling him everything, the "Auto Expert" says something about the control valve being on the dashboard. Again I say, SCARY! This self-proclaimed auto expert is nothing of the kind!

Finally fed up with scheisters and idiots I set up an appointment at the Jag dealer. I went over there, got right in, told the guy the same exact thing I told Mr. Auto Expert, and suprise-he didn't even mention the dashboard. So I left my car with them. He asks if I need the shuttle to take me back to work. Of course. Uh oh, the shuttle guy's on break. So he takes me to their rental office at the dealership and gives me a free rental car...a Lincoln MKX (look it up, its very nice and quite the smooth ride). He calls me around 4 to tell me that the heating is fine, including the control valve that needed to be replaced. After work I go back, grudgingly return the MKX and see about the Jag. The bad news is that the evaporator is out ($2K), hence the strong scent of freeon in the car. The good news is the heat still works, and that this is something that doesn't even need to be fixed until it's so hot in the car that I can't stand it. They bring the car back and to top things off it has been washed and detailed. The moral of the story? Only trust a grease monkey if he works at a dealership that sells $100,000 cars.

(They had several Audi R8's there. One retailed for over $130,000. By the way, this is the car that Tony Stark drives in Iron Man.)

A job for a Rob

Sometimes the best thing to do when you're fed up with your crappy job and the buffoons you work with, is quit! Rob quit his job at Sun and Ski Sports at the beginning of this month. As with all retail there are busy days and slow days. Rob made it a point to get infront of customers as much as possible to make sure they were getting the help they needed. In other words He was one of those annoying guys that comes up and bugs you while your shopping, which is fine because when a sales associate addresses anyone we all say the same thing, "No thanks, I'm just looking."

Aparently that wasn't good enough for the manager with no future. He gave Rob a 10 minute lecture about getting infront of customers, chiding him by saying he hadn't seen Rob get infront of one customer all day. Big surprise considering he hadn't been on the sales floor but for five seconds. Rob's boss then said he was a hiring machine, that the new hires would need hours and that those hours need to come from somewhere.

So the next day, Rob gave his notice...effective immediately. Here ya go Mr. Hiring Machine, here's 35 hours a week to get you started on those new hires. Above is a picture of the building Rob works in now. He recently got hired on by Vanderbilt Temporary Services for a temp to hire position in their HR department. He works as an Organizational Effectiveness Specialist which means he does alot of the behind the scenes work for the training workshops and orientations that are put on by his department. The hours are great, it pays well, he doesn't have to work weekends anymore, and they aren't even giving him grief over leaving for Thanksgiving. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Sun and Ski!

Southern Cookin'

Since living here in the south I've had the opportunity to try some different kinds of foods that I've never had before. Granted most of them are new only because they are fried, but new nonetheless! This is catfish. I was hesitant to try it because 1) I don't like most fish and 2) Catfish are bottom dwellers. But I tried it and it was ok. I wouldn't say it was the best, but I'd try it again.

These are turnip greens. You can even buy them frozen in little packages like you can get peas or spinich in the frozen foods section in the supermarket. Again, a little weird, but ok if you eat them in the right kind of restaurant (a.k.a. not Cracker Barrell).

I tried these for the first time in Cracker Barrell.....fried okra and I really like them. Even Rob liked them and that's saying a lot for someone that doesn't like most vegetables. It's probably the fried thing.

I've only seen these in one restaurant since we've lived here and I fell in love with them. Fried pickles. I'm telling you, you can honestly get anything fried in the south including cornbread, corn on the cob and even Snickers.

This is becoming a favorite and fast. Chess pie. It's kind of like pecan pie I guess because it has that creamy caramel kind of taste, just without the pecans. It's so good!

Come and visit and we'll give your tastebuds an adventure!

"Go my favorite sports team, go!"

Saturday Rob and I got to go to a hockey game. I'm not used to being around so many professional teams. But Nashville has their own NHL team....The Predators. We got free tickets to go and it was a blast. This was only the 2nd hockey game I've ever been to and I wasn't bored like I thought I would be. This particular game went into double overtime and the Predators won 3 to 2 in a shootout.

We are also quite proud of Nashville's NFL team....the Titans. They are the only team still undefeated in the season. We've only gotten to go to one of their games so far, but we really like watching them on tv. It's fun to have a real local teams to support. Go Titans!

Talk about old school!

Here's a blast from the past. I got to use one of these the other day at work. Now for those of you who don't know---it's a typewriter. Ha ha. Hopefully everyone still knows what a typewriter is. There was a project that I guess just couldn't be done with a computer (really it could have, but I just do as I'm told), so I ended up using this bad boy for a whole afternoon. Well, one similar to this anyway. Good thing mine had the built in whiteout because I hate that gooey stuff in the bottle. I have to admit it was kind of fun; however, I am definitely grateful for computers :)

Jack o' lanterns

Rob is so creative and it even shows with his pumpkin carvings. He did this last night and this is the best way that it shows up (although it's much cooler with candlelight shining through).
I just stuck with the usual carving technique. He's fun!

Yay for Wii

Rob and I bought a Wii for Christmas. Yes, I know that it's not even Halloween, but we had to act quickly while there was one still in the store. They are already selling out in some places. Of course we've already played it a bit and it is so much fun! I worked up a sweat playing tennis. I didn't know I was so good! 

To buy or not to buy?

So we are thinking about buying a house. Rent in Tennessee is ridiculous for what you get and we figure that if we're going to be spending so much on housing, we might as well put our money toward a house (in a place where we actually like living as opposed to our apartment now) and if ever there was a time to buy it's now----before an election, when interests rates are low and there are plenty of options on the market. This is what we are thinking anyway. So we're open to advice for all those who have bought a house or those who have thought about it, but ended up not. Any thoughts or tidbits of advice?!?

why...why...why? *sigh*

This morning we woke up to find that my car was gone. No sign of it anywhere in the parking lot and that is a great feeling :( The last time this happened to me I thought it was stolen, but come to find out it had been towed. So I searched all over for a sign that posted where it may have been towed to and why. Yep....it was towed and I'm really mad at our apartment complex. We've been here just over a month now and there are still things in our apartment that they promised would be fixed before we got completely moved in and, you guessed it, they still haven't been taken care of. That's my complaint for the day. BLAH!
P.S. $101 to get my car back.

Nashville fun

The parthenon. This is actually in a park right next to where I work. Kinda cool!

We decided to go to the Tennesse state fair and were a little disappointed. Unless you wanted to spend a fortune, you couldn't really do anything "fair-ish." You pay $16 to get in only to wander around and see that you have to pay another $10 to ride one ride and then another $15 for 2 little corndogs. No thank you. So we just wandered trying to ignore all the carnies wanting you to play their rigged games. We did get to see the little petting farm animals and some neat exhibits, and of course we did get some cotton candy...so all was not lost.

Rob and I were both equally disgusted at the idea of eating one of these hot BEEF sundaes.

A job for Rob

So I think that this is actually the first time I have posted anything on this blog...maybe the second. Wives get to have all the fun. Anyhoo, we finished filming the music videos for the EPK on Thursday this past week, so now I no longer have an excuse to lay around the house and do nothing. Friday I went over to our producer's house/studio and talked with him about a few things concerning the final product of the EPK, and by the time I left he had arranged for me to meet with the manager at an outdoor sports store. By Friday night I had a job. Although it's nothing glamorous, it'll do until Something happens in the music biz. Whether it be a full on record deal or a publishing contract. The actual EPK won't be ready for another couple of weeks though so between now and then make sure you come to Sun and Ski SPorts for all of your skiing, boating, hiking, camping, and cycling needs.

Work at Vanderbilt

These are pictures of Vanderbilt where I now work. In reality it's only like 20 minutes away, but with crazy traffic in the morning and after work it normally takes 1 hour or more to get there. YUCK! Luckily I found out about the bus system. There is a bus I can catch 1/2 mile from my house that takes me all the way to Vanderbilt and drops me 1/2 block from where I work. Perfect! And it's free :) So now I can read on the way to work and not stress about getting killed every day in my car. The campus is gorgeous and all the building are beautiful. I found out that I'll be temporary for 2-3 months and if they like me, which they already do, then they'll hire me full time. So right now I am in the medical school admissions office. Every day there are students that come in for interviews that want to go to medical school, so I walk them to the building where there interview is and chit chat to try and help them relax before getting there. That part of my job is helping me get out of my comfort zone more, but the rest of the day is filled with scanning and setting out lunches for the students and making files (not my idea of expanding the mind really, but at least it's a job right?)

A New Job

Yea! I finally got a job. Well, it's temporary to the end of the year, but hopefully it will lead to something permanent. I got a job with the temporary services at Vanderbilt University & Hospital. They are a major part of Nashville and very prestigious. I start on Wednesday and I'll have to fill you in on what I do later because I'm not quite exactly sure what I'll be doing yet. Anyway, Hooray! The wait is over.

Recording time

Rob started recording today and so I thought I'd throw in some pictures of people from the band. They are very talented and it's amazing to see them bring a song together that they have only heard once. Roddy Smith who played acoustic guitar and electric guitar.
Tommy Wells who played drums and tambourine, etc.
Bobby Ogden played piano. He played for Elvis back in the day!
Tim Smith on bass. He owns the studio and has been fundamental in all of this.
And of course, Rob....the singer and songwriter.

Titan's Game

Me and Rob in front of the Titan stadium. This was my very first time at a pro football game. Pretty cool although I can't say much for the food we had there.


The entrance of the players onto the field along with the mascot (he's the one with sparks).
We got tickets from Rob's uncle Lance who has season passes. So we had club seats and you could actually see quite a bit of what was happening on the field. We never did get on the megatron though......oh well.

Adventures in Nashville....the beginning

Hey ya'll (it's my southern accent starting!)
It's been a pretty big rollercoaster ride since we left Rexburg. It took us 32 hours to drive here, but we got here last Saturday despite the air conditioning going out on us in the U-haul in Kansas City and one of the chains breaking off of the thing towing our Jag. We got here and when we checked in to our apartment they told us that they hadn't checked our apartment in time to fix some things so not to unpack everything because they wanted to redo the carpet and the bathroom counter tops. So even though we got new things it was a big hassle because we couldn't really unpack anything. The carpet people came Monday night so we had to stuff all our boxes in the kitchen, up on shelves, and in the bathrooms so that it wasn't in their way. The only thing we didn't have to "worry" about was our furniture. So while we were eating dinner with Rob's aunt and uncle, the carpet people ate some of our food, broke a knob off of my piano and a dresser, went through my drawers, scraped up our desk and used OUR vacuum without a bag sucking up nails and all the carpet fuzz. Needless to say we were mad when we came home to find all of that. So it's been fun trying to get that taken care of. The managers here are very nice though and apologized up and down. They called in the owner of the carpet place who drove down here from Knoxville to take care of the situation. He's sending in someone to fix the piano and the dresser, they bought us a new vacuum, and are doing everything to make it right.
So that was our introduction to Nashville! We are now just looking for jobs and no luck yet, but we have a lot of people helping us and a lot of people with connections which is great! Rob starts recording next week. The band will lay down the music to all the songs on Tuesday and Wednesday. We found out that the steel guitarist that plays for Dierks Bentley and Brooks and Dunn will be there on Wednesday! Then on Thursday Rob will go in to sing and Friday the backup singers will do their thing to finish it up. Tim, the recording studio owner, is really excited for Rob and this project and seems to have a lot of hope for all of this. So keep your fingers crossed!
In spite of the fun adventure we had at the beginning we are really enjoying Nashville. Our ward is great. So many people came up and introduced themselves and were just very friendly and helpful. The bishop said that 2 months ago there were a lot of people that moved out of the ward so they had a ward fast specifically to ask for new families to move into the ward. Since then they've had at least 1 new family almost every week and said that we were helping to answer their prayers. Some new younger families have just moved in too so that's good that we have some people near our age.
We are looking forward to more new adventures, hopefully the good kind, coming soon!

Hawaii

The first beach we went to.....Turtle Bay on Oahu
Rob trying out his new skills on a boogie board.
In front of the temple on Oahu
Lisa and the Easter Island man
Rob's favorite Tiki man.

More Hawaii

The Kahula pig they pulled out of the ground for our dinner at the Luau in the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was delicious!
We got to go on a botanical garden hike. It was gorgeous. This was on Kauai where in the middle of the island it gets over 500 inches of rain a year. Holy cow!
The Ke'e beach at the end of the road on Kauai. It was beautiful there surrounded by mountains.
Rob on the catamaran. We saw a sea turtle and flying fish and gorgeous scenery along the north shore of Kauai.
Our view from the hotel on Waikiki Beach.

Yellowstone Adventures

This was our first time to Yellowstone and we had a blast. Rob really wanted to see a bear, but probably lucky for us, we didn't! We did however make friends with a ground squirrel in our camp who we named Buster. He now loves O' Brien potatoes and granola bars! We went everywhere we could in the park in 1 1/2 days and totally had the best time!

Lisa's Birthday

All the birthday presents...except for the earrings that Rob got and can't find where he hid them.
Yummy birthday cake!
I can't ...quite ....get...it open.
We ate a very delicious dinner at Stockmans Restaurant in Rigby.
Rob's big ole piece of meat (steak #2)

Transcription is done!

I have been taking an online transcription course for the last year and a half now. I started it when I only had a part time job and thought I could whip through it in a jiffy. Well, since I started working full time a year ago this course has been like another job after coming home from work. But now....it's finally done. I do have to take the final, but already a burden has been lifted. I feel like I've got loads of time after I come home from work now, and I'm discovering what I can do now with all this time I've been spending on transcription. It's awesome!

The Rebel

So I guess I'm not a cause without a Rebel anymore (waka waka waka). We're all a little peeved about the recent hike in gas prices. Out here in Idaho gas jumped 36 cents per gallon literally over night. It was starting to cost over sixty dollars every time I went to fill up the car, which was usually every two weeks, so for one car thats $120 a month. Well, we both had had enough, and I had talked with a guy I work with who said his bike gets about 100 miles a gallon. At that rate he was spending a whopping 8 bucks a month on gas. "Oh that I could be so lucky!" I thought. As it turns out, I am. I happened on a newspaper ad from the local motorsports retailer and saw that they had these mysterious machines that got such great gas mileage. I had to check this out for myself. So, one afternoon I drove over and took a look around. There in the middle of the show room floor sat a dozen or more...fourwheelers, but to the left of those was a black 2007 Honda Rebel. It only had two miles on it and the price tag read $2875. Was it a good deal? I went home to find out. After doing my due diligence I discovered that this bike's MSRP was $3200, nearly $400 more than the asking price. "So let me get this straight," I thought "This bike comes with a $400 discount and gets 80-100 miles/gallon? Why not? The money I'll save on gas alone will more than pay for it." That was Wednesday night. Friday afternoon, after spending over 4 hours at Rexburg Motorsports, I rode home on a brand new motorcycle.

So Rob and I recently went to Nashville where it was actually Spring. It was gorgeous and my nose hated me for it....I couldn't stop sneezing. We had a blast and it was kind of nerve racking. We packed in a lot of stuff into such a short trip, but we sure got a lot accomplished. Rob layed down some rough demos of 2 songs that he has written and then he we met with the president of publishing at Montage Music Group under Sony Records who gave Rob 2 more songs that hopefully he'll be able to record in August. We also found an apartment we'd really like to get into and just have to wait for an opening now. So that's our little adventure in a nut shell.

Rob's Birthday

Yea! Presents!
The trilogy of Indiana Jones.
Rob loves his new puppy, Rascal. Rascal even left me a treat on my pillow recently. I wonder who put him up to that?!?

Rob's birthday breakfast. He had an ice cream cake and I didn't think candles would work too well on that, so instead he got to blow out the candles on his birthday muffins!