I wish these things had word counts. Wait, no I don't…

Heya peeps!
First of all, just so's ya knows, I am listening to the 'Lord of the Rings' musical whilst writing up this post. (It's part of an ongoing theme that will probably be at least mentioned in here somewhere.) That fact will most likely affect my writing, in at least that it will be take me longer than it should as I keep stopping to sing, but it may actually end up changing the content of this post too. If you read something even more random than seems normal with what you know about me, assume it a lyric. (Yeah, that's it. Random stuff is lyrics… xP)
아무튼 (yay, Google let me type that today!) on with the post. I was planning on writing this up on Sunday or Monday at the latest, since I'd already been gone over a week and figured someone might be a little curious about what had happened in that week. (Or not. I don't know.) Obviously, that didn't happen. The reason for that will be explained shortly. I have decided I still want to type something about the move out here.
Arg! It was pretty crazy. Aubrey and I left the house in Alpine at about 8:00 in the morning. Somehow, we didn't end up leaving Salt Lake until almost 11:00. I still don't really know how that happened. We stopped to borrow something from Kyle, but that didn't take long. Then we decided we wanted Gandolfo's, but even with having to circle Temple Square three times to try and figure out parking, it shouldn't have taken us two hours. The sandwiches did take longer than usual to be cooked, but we just grabbed them and left. Like I said, it doesn't make sense. Whatever. Though we were late, we finally got on the road. We were out past Tooelle when Brandon called and said he wanted to take me to lunch before I left. Seeing as how I already had, I felt bad, but I'm still pretty sure I told people I was leaving Friday morning… (Love you, DonDon!)
Did you know, the end of the world is right near the Utah/Nevada border? Aubrey and I went through it. There was like this huge bubble of nothingness all around. The salt totally looked like snow, there were heat mirages when it was way too cool for them, and we drove through an odd almost-smoky-but-possibly-fog-but-maybe-not haze for a good 45 minutes. It was pretty creepy. It's no wonder they filmed Pirates there. It's perfect for any of Johnny Depp's hallucinationdreams.
Most of the rest of the drive was pretty calm. It was strange, being on such a short trip. Aubrey and I kept forgetting we were only going to be driving for about 12 hours. I haven't done that in a long time. I will say, though, the sunset as we were driving through the mountains in was GORGEOUS. (I know that big ol' fire up there is devastating and I really hope it gets completely contained soon, but it did wonders for the view!) Then came the stupid part.
We stopped in Sacramento for dinner. Somewhere along the way we decided we wanted Taco Bell, 'cause duh, so we found one and after a short debate choose to go inside to eat. We'd been getting to the point where we needed to stop for gas, but as we were leaving I thought, "No, we'll just get it later." There was a point in about half an hour where we were going to turn off I-80 onto a different freeway to head south for San Francisco, and I'd been thinking for some time we'd just top off there, so we kept going. We were trying to use Gas Buddy to get directions to all these stations in the general Travis AFB area, and though it was giving Aubrey some trouble, I knew we'd be exiting soon so I moved over to the far right lane and started slowing down. It wasn't long after we'd reached the lane that there was a big bump, and the car started acting up. Aubrey asked if we'd done something to the tire, to which I replied better that than engine trouble. We managed to get off the freeway and into a shopping center parking lot. Turned out, we had blown a tire. Pretty badly, too. To make a long story slightly shorter, we ended up having to unpack most of the car to get to the spare and get rid of a box to get the car repacked around the too-big-to-properly-close-the-compartment real tire, only to find out the spare was flat and I couldn't drive on it. We found some flat repair foam stuff in the Safeway, but didn't feel comfortable driving the remaining should-have-been-at-most-two-hours-but-would-get-bumped-to-over-three-cause-we-can't-go-over-55-on-the-spare leg on it, so we (thanks to Daddy) got a motel room. (Ryan did very graciously offer to make the five hour round trip to help us fix the spare, but we didn't want to make him do that.) We'd stopped for dinner at about 7:30, pulled into the parking lot around 8 and finally got into the hotel a bit after midnight. It was a long, frustrating few hours that made me want to swear more than I think anything else in my life (and if you know all the crap I've had to deal with from the district lately, you'll know exactly how much that means). However, at one point, Aubrey turned to me and said she knew this had to happen to us in order to literally save our lives. If we hadn't been trying to stop for gas, if we'd been in the far left lane going 80 as we had been for the past ten hours, things would have been a LOT worse. Who knows what would have fallen upon us in the next while. Aubrey told me, and I know, that our mom was allowed by Heavenly Father to help us survive that night. Thanks, Mom.
The next morning, we took the car to the Les Schwab that was literally next door to the motel to replace the tire. They told me the other two (I'd just gotten one of them replaced for our Vegas trip) were looking pretty darn bald and should probably be replaced, but I haven't done that yet. Don't worry, we made it anyway! After a more than satisfying breakfast of Crack Pancakes and repacking the car for the third time (we took most of it out so the tire guys could get to the spare compartment) we finally got here! We pulled up at around 1:00 PM, approximately 17 hours later than planned. Woo hoo!
The next night we ended up going to dinner with Kasey Shafsky an his wife Laura. Kasey is the production manager for STC, and pretty darn awesome. I'd met Laura twice before (once at a convention, where I saw her a few times over the three days, but I don't know how else to count that) and Aubrey had met her once. We went to a really yummy Chinese place, then got some ice cream and went back to their house to hang out. We also got to meet the girls! Sadie and Echo are very sweet. Echo apparently took a liking to me and kept trying to climb up on my lap. Next time I go there, when I'm not in a dress, I'll probably let her. I love puppies!
Moving on. The rest of the week wasn't anything too special really. It's all been day-to-day stuff, other than taking Aubrey to the airport. That was sad, but she couldn't exactly stay now could she. Other than that, though, not much. I've been helping Niccole with the kids, getting Kelsey to and from school, trying to corral them when we go out, and keeping them more or less in line at home. I've applied to a few more jobs, most of them at Apple, and Ryan referred me for one of them. I'm hopeful I'll hear something about that soon. I've also started working out with Niccole every morning (if anyone is looking for a good program, I recommend Turbo Jam from beachbody.com . It's a fun one for sure) and we've been having fun experimenting with new recipes. That was pretty much it for last week.
As for why I didn't post sooner, here it is. On Sunday, I was tired. I know, terrible excuse, but hey. I don't know exactly what it is, but regardless of how long I sleep every night I wake up feeling like I haven't slept in a week. That makes me gratefully take what I can get at night, and I've been trying to go to bed shortly after the kids. Of course, that hasn't been as early as it should be lately… Anyway. I figured, 'hey, who cares? Chances are no one is reading this anyway and I'll just post tomorrow. No one will even notice.' Then came Monday.
Everything started out normal enough. We got up, got Kelsey to school, and did our Cardio Party Mix workout. We did a bit of this and that, with Niccole working starting to work on her Pikachu ears and me pretending to be helpful when I really have no idea what to do when it comes to anything crafty. I played a bit of Wii with Asher and Browyn, though true to form Browyn just ended up going back and forth between cuddling with me, sitting on my legs and asking me to finish her races for her. We had lunch, then Niccole went to pick up Kelsey while I told the younger two we would turn on a movie and snuggle until Mom got home. (That's how we usually try to get them to take naps. The kids hate doing it, but still very much need them.) We were just getting to the pick-a-movie screen when Ryan called and asked what was going on. I told him nothing, and he said "So you haven't heard?" in that tone that makes you want to ask "Who died?" He told me Niccole had fallen and was saying she needed to do to a doctor, which she never does. Not for herself. I got the kids ready to go, then Ryan told me Niccole was getting a ride home so I should just wait. A friend from the ward brought Niccole, Kelsey, the bike a trailer home, then took the kids so I could take Niccole to the InstaCare in Gillroy. We spent about an hour and a half in the waiting room before she got called back, then I was there for the rest of the Dr. Oz episode while she was getting x-rayed and stuff. Again, trying to keep the story short, she may or may not have broken her wrist. She went to an orthopedic doctor on Wednesday to try and figure it out for sure, but he said he doesn't think there are any breaks on the x-rays. Unfortunately, there are a couple of bones that don't really show up on said x-rays, so they may be broken and he just can't see it. She's been given a nice sturdy brace and a follow-up appointment in three weeks to see what they can see. If it's not getting better by then, they may have to do an MRI to figure it out. Here's hoping.
Niccole and I are both pretty sure, though, that I wasn't supposed to have a job yet. If I had, it would have been a lot harder to not only get her to the doctor on Monday, but for everything else to have happened this week. Ryan and/or I would have had to take a lot more time off work (he stayed home on Wednesday to go to the surgeon with her) and she would have had to do a lot more on her own, which is hard enough without these particular children. I'm hoping, however, that this means as soon as things have calmed down a bit to the point where I'm not so needed (where she can at least fold laundry or open a bottle by herself) that I will start getting interviews and stuff. Don't worry, I'm still trying to look, I just haven't had any time to apply to more jobs this week. Again, that should come soon.
Well, that's about it for what I've been doing. The only other real recurring thing is Lord of the Rings. Did you know the Santa Clara valley has an awesome library system? You can go to any of the I believe six libraries in the valley, check something out, and return it at the same or a different location. You can reserve stuff from any of the libraries, and they'll pull it to the one you request and have it there at the entrance ready for you. They have TV shows, movies, and video games as well as books to rent. When we went last week, Niccole and I found the Lego LOTR game and decided to give it a try. It has been a BLAST, but it made us really want to watch the movies. We started with 'Fellowship' last night, much to Ryan's chagrin. He wasn't there for too much of it, but he still had to hem and haw when he was. That all, of course, led me to listening to the musical now. If you don't know it, go look it up on YouTube. It's beautiful!
The other cool thing this week has, of course, been Conference. Yay Conference! I just love it. Today's sessions were awesome, even with all of us getting distracted by the kids and other things. *aHEM, Aubrey, I'm looking at you! xP* Seriously, though, it was just great. I don't have my book with me, and will probably talk more about it after tomorrow's sessions, but I really liked the 'Which way do you face?' talk and President Uchtdorf, of course. Not to mention Elder Holland. Can't do wrong with him, eh? Anyway, like I said, more on that later.
Okay, I was going to try and put a cute story or three from the kids in here, but this is getting ridiculously long even for me. This is why I want to try and post once a week- so I don't drown y'all every time. Sorry. I will, however, be posting a video (or possibly two. I can't remember if it has a split in it) of something absolutely adorable that Browyn has started doing lately. If you want, you can check it out. Of course, I'll have to figure out how to post a video first… Wellp, we'll see how that goes. If anyone made it this far, I say unto you, KUDOS! Again. Unless you didn't get through all of the last post, in which case you only get kudos once. You can still have the plural though. Getting this far definitely deserves more than one kudo. A singular kudo is just sad.
No really, I'm going now. Love you all!

P.S. I don't think I threw in any random lyrics! Yay! Although, I did technically only get through I think six or seven songs in the hourish I've been typing 'cause I keep repeating them. If you'd heard it, you wouldn't blame me! Plus, I somehow accidentally made the YouTube playlist stop automatically playing the next song and can't figure out how to put it back… Help? Anyone?