Christmas Break 2008

We're going to Missouri this week. It's exciting to go home. All my siblings will be there with their families except Grant(Lisbon, Portugal Mission). We will get to talk to him on Christmas though. Hopefully we'll also be able to sneak in some time with friends while we're there.
Mom put me in charge of crafts and I took my task seriously. I hope the kids like some of the things I picked out. Otherwise, I guess I'll be fired from the position.
Merilee is in charge of the baking treats. But I told her I'd top the pizzas if she made the dough. We have plenty of hands to help. So hopefully she won't get overwhelmed.
We've also been thinking of the games that we're bringing. Games are very important. Sorry babies, you will not be handling and swallowing our precious game pieces. We have crafts to keep you busy unless you are very small babies.
Can't wait to see you!

Board Game Geek Convention 2008!

Board Game Geek Convention 2008! That's what we did last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We drove up to Dallas, starting at 6 am, to get to the convention at 10. We wanted to get there at the beginning because you got to pick a free game off a rack. We ended up getting a game + expansion of Through the Ages which Greg has been looking at for a while. We also got another game called California. So we played games, went to Dennys and got lunch at 3 and played more games. We were at the midnight drawing every night to see if we won any games. We didn't.

Then on Saturday, after the closing ceremonies/grand prize drawings, we drove back to Houston. We got home at 11:30 and had to be up early Sunday so Greg could do the program and I could go through the hymns on the organ.

Tag!
I've been tagged.
The Rules
1. Link this post to the person who tagged you. Megan http://dalmegcoffman.blogspot.com/
2. Post the rules on your blog (SEE!)
3. List 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Random Facts
1. On my mission I never lived in the country where the mission home was.(Geneva, Switzerland Mission)
2. I have danced on stage with the Beach Boys (during my internship with Clear Channel in SLC)
3. I like to karaoke in the safety of non-public places.
4. I know how to milk goats.
5. I make sock monkeys.
6. I like to hoard candy, especially chocolate. (I get that from my mom)

Tag
Chelsea Pace
Heidi Baird
Emily Peterson
Ashley High
Mikenze Souphom
Tenille Call

Trunk or Treat

This last week has been fun and crazy. Besides the normal nannying that I do, this week Greg and I watched some kids over the weekend. Friday I watched a movie with some friends while Greg listened to the 14 year olds and their band. The other kids were at their school carnival with friends. Saturday we had to go to the senior olympics. We signed up for an early shift, but the people at interfaith(a group of churches who do stuff for the community) decided that instead of what we had originally signed up for, we could be all their all day. We did a lot of standing around and some service. Then we left. Greg did his program. Then we were off to pick up two of the kids at their soccer games.


Then we had pizza hut for dinner and off to the ward trunk or treat. I dressed up as Hello Kitty. I have a hello kitty sweatshirt and I picked up a cat mask at hobby lobby for a few dollars. I hot glued a pink bow on it. I also picked up a white mask for Greg which came with paints. He painted his mask that won him the award for the scariest costume. So we're not supposed to have masks at church events well, we weren't really wearing them, so come on. We had a bean bag game set up. There were some baskets on our mini step ladder and I made some halloween bean bags. We gave the kids two pieces of candy if they got all three bean bags in the baskets.

Sarah and Sierra Tippets(as Madeline)

Greg and Sierra

I started not feeling so hot Saturday evening. Sunday morning I felt happy go pukey. I threw up maybe ten minutes before we left for church. I tried to call someone else in the ward so I didn't have to go and play the organ, but noone picked up. So I played during sacrament meeting and then left. So I think I have the flu. I feel a little better today, but not quite well.
That's about it. Oh and we got Acquire off of E-Bay for $15 + shipping. Sweet!

Ramblings of a mad woman

Ok. So I decided I better post because I haven't in a while and what's the use of checking blogs if they aren't being posted on regularly. So fun times.

The other day I was in the grocery store putting chicken in my cart. Then the lady who's cart it really was, said pardon me. And I was embarressed. In my defense my cart was right behind her's. The lady was just going right by.

I went to Michaels today and waited in line, only to find out that their credit card/debit machine wasn't working. Luckily, I had a little cash. I had to prioritize my items and told the cashier to put the rest back. That was an annoyance.

I recently bought a pair of feather pillows at JC Penny for $33. I saw a sale for the queen sized feather pillows for $30 on-line. When I got there, I had to have a sale's person look for that pillow with me. But then there was another sale that you could get a 2nd pillow for $1 more. So I did that. I am writing about it, because I am proud of the deal I got. The end.

Hurricane Ike

If you were wondering. We were affected by hurricane Ike. We had no power for five days. But as far as that goes, we were lucky. Since it's been about 10 days so far for some members of our ward and also some of Greg's coworkers.
Our water also stayed on. We were drinking stored water, but we could still flush.
We also had a miraculous cold front that came in on Sunday night as it was heating up in our apartment. It stayed through friday and our power had come on wednesday night.
This last Saturday we went to the ward building to clean up. There were a lot of trees down and some debris for us to clean up. We cleaned up there and then moved on to help some ward members at their homes. When we got home, around noon, we were exhausted. But glad that we were back in the ac.
Later that night we went and played games about an hour away with a boardgaming group. There was a german themed pot-luck and then we played games until like 12:30 and then made our way home.
We had 8 am church and somehow our alarms didn't go off as planned. Fortunately, we woke up and got ready in a hurry, to be on time for me to play the prelude music.

Finished!

Today I finished my quilt. The edges are bound and I stuck my name on it. So that's it.
My mom asked me what I will do next. Any suggestions?

More quilt

Don't look too closely at the stitching on the back. But still, I have accomplished much. I now have to bind the edges and that's it. Hooray!

Labor Day

Ok. We didn't really do anything. But Greg finished "Breaking Dawn" and I finished the border of my quilt, so we did accomplish something. I will post new pictures of my quilt soon. Maybe. I just have to do it.
I was helping one of the little girls, I nanny for do her homework and she was trying to describe herself. She asked me if she should write that she was bad. I thought that was pretty funny that she would want to put that, but I told her she probably shouldn't. Then she said, instead, she'd write that she was good and asked if that was better. (I could say nothing to this.)So she wrote it down. Then she erased it and said she better not put that because one of the rules of her classroom was to be honest. Ha ha.
Hopefully hurricane Gustav stays way the heck away from us.

Their Vacation

So I am back to nannying and I got it all started off by watching all four kids for 6 days. Whew! That was one way to go back to work. The Tippets were in Canada attending a wedding and so we stepped in. The kids were pretty good, but the eight year old has some power struggle issues. Kid, I know I'm not your mom, but you still have to listen to me.
I felt bad for signing up to bring something to the ward party that friday and then not showing up. I have good reasons #1 I signed up before I knew I was watching the kids #2 four kids #3 the pool party was from 8-10 pm! Greg and I weren't about to haul the kids out at their normal bed time to drown in a neighborhood pool. It's hard enough to watch them all in their own pool, without other kids getting in our way.
Sunday was the big day. I play the organ in our ward, so Greg had all four kids to himself until after the sacrament. He was such a good sport about it. The two youngest ones were fighting over a toy and becoming vocal, but it good silenced quickly. As soon as I sat down, I got handed the smelly baby, a diaper and some wipes. And the baby made boom boom a second time while Greg and I were team teaching our 8 yr old primary class. What was that about?
The girls were in and out "going to the bathroom" and Greg had to threaten to lock Shane in a classroom before he would come back into sacrament. That was a crazy day. Luckily, the parents got home the next day.
But I guess since this is a forum where I say what I want I will tell you that I didn't get much sleep while I was there. Because two kids kept coming into my bedroom in the middle of the night. Shane, who wakes up to go to the bathroom and then comes in and Maiya who pees the bed still and then has to come tell me right away. It happened too much!
Ok and the 8 yr old kept talking back and lying about the mint ice cream that I saw on her shirt and then missing from the freezer (found the last day in her mother's bathroom trash not empty but melty and making a nasty mess) I told Greg that if she were smarter she would just dish herself up a bowl and eat it like any normal person, albeit hiding. Greg said that kids just think of the now. She doesn't think that she'll be able to eat more if she puts it back in the freezer. Just how she wants to eat it now and not get caught.
Whatever. That's about it.

Vacation!

We went to Utah for a week. We spent some quality time with the Gessels. We hiked up to Kyle's bridge and made it back, with Debbie almost knocked flat by some kid running down the mountain in flip flops. What's the matter with kids these days.
We went to the Nickelcade and got lots of awesome prizes like grow beads.
1. add water 400G on the product. about 4 hours it will grow up.
2. one clear beauty satiety face will grow up.
3. when the flower want to oxygen and nutrition, I will help you too much.
We barely caught Grandma and Granpa Darger. That is to say they stayed a little longer up the canyon to see us.
The Petersons also made time to see us. They came by on their way home from seeing America's family. We had a barbecue with them. It was fun. Greg's cousin, Anson,and his wife, Tenille and also came up. Too bad I had to shoot Tenille in Bang. My mission friends, Katrina and Noah stopped by to chat a while.
We went to Thanksgiving Point to see the Dinosaur museum, but it was packed. So we looked at the window shop a while until my brother, Christian, removed me by force. I got caught up in the cute crafts.

We saw a few more of our friends down in Provo and that was super great. Unfortunately, we had limited time, since we were only there for a week.

I also went to a baby shower this week. They had a game where the first person to birth their baby enclosed in an ice cube won a prize. I bit that ice cube and took the prize after everyone pretty much just let their ice cube baby melt in their drinks for 45 min. It was too easy.

Hope you had a great week.

Love Sarah and Greg

Memories

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! 2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.EVERYBODY PLAY! I want to see what memories are out there!!

Ok I stole this from a friend. I am just not that creative. But it could be fun.

Greg's back

Greg was in Angola for two weeks and I was left all alone to do Youth Conference. So I kept working on my quilt. Made 250 YC schedules(laminated, punched, etc). And partied hard with people half my age. I was pretty exhausted when it was all over. I danced and the next day I felt it.
The Fourth of July was so exciting! We did absolutely nothing. Ok, Greg got home from Africa and I was just glad to get him back in one piece without leprosy or any other crazy diseases. He was pretty jet-lagged and slept most of the day away. We finally went out to watch some fireworks, at my insistence, but we left too late. The program finished right when we got there and so we just got left with trafic.

Playing games with my family on-line and my nephew goes to make a sandwich. We all thought it was pretty disgusting sounding, but he ate it. We decided that whoever lost the game had to make and eat the nasty sandwich. I was fairly confident in my gaming skills, but I did lose, by one point. So I did my duty.

MY QUILT

so far.

It's been a while. We've lived in Houston now for just under a year. I have been a nanny for two kids. But I have the summer off(The family already promised the nanny from last summer the position for this summer. I will be going back in the fall when she goes back to BYU. The summer will be crazy for her because she'll have all four kids, now that school is out. So I don't mind very much.
I have been keeping occupied reading, making a quilt and teaching piano lessons. Greg and I are also helping plan Youth Conference in our stake, which is sadly at the same time as the Darger Family Reunion.
Greg is getting ready to go to Angola with Exxon. He and his friend, Scott, will be watching them open a new pipeline that goes to a huge oil tanker. Hopefully he won't be gone much longer than a week and will get back in time for Youth Conference.
Today we had a class party with our primary kids. We had them over to swim in our apartment's pool. We had water guns, food, and floaty toys. It was a success. We have ten kids and more than half came. We give them stars during class, when they are good, that go to a party and they just earned it. We'll see if it takes them another six months to earn the next party.
That's pretty much what's going on around here.