Snow in Tucson

Heavenly Father must have heard my complaints on Saturday. I was complaining that there is nothing to do in Tucson.

So we were all excited to wake up to snow Sunday morning. Thank goodness we don't go to church until the afternoon. Unfortunately,the snow was all gone by noon.

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Hi, I'm Mario Perez and I am a Mormon

After church, Eric came home and told me that Mario had been selected by the EQ President and Bishopric to fill out an application to make one of these commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQGuDslF9Uo

Sorry, I don't know how to make it a clickable link. So you'll have to copy and paste the link.

I laughed. Why would they select Mario? He is your typical Mormon. He doesn't really have some cool story like the Harley rider. But pretty cool. Tucson has been a test market for these commercials and billboards so we see them all the time here. I wonder if our family gets to be in the commercial if he is selected to make one. Mario asked if me if I think this will be his "big break."

Wrestling

I broke down and went to watch Eric wrestle yesterday. It was pretty intense like Mario told me. Seeing kids pick each other and slam them to the mat is pretty scary. Then there was one boy laying on the mat for a couple minutes before he got back up and continued wrestling. I am glad that wasn't Eric because I would have probably embarrassed him by running over there. One kid had to leave due to a bone injury in his face. I must have been in the bathroom when that happened because I missed it. If that all isn't enough, there is a designated blood-wiper-upper. Why blood is involved in wrestling is my question.

That may be my only time watching, but I am glad I did it once. Fortunately Eric wasn't body slammed. I took video of the match and I think that helped me not to be so nervous. I was too busy trying to focus on the video. Here are a few pictures. Eric is in the lovely red spandex.

Sewing

Erin needed a poodle skirt for a daddy-daughter activity. Melissa knew nothing about it but out of the blue sent me the link to a really easy pattern. So Erin and I made a couple skirts using that great, easy pattern. Thank you Melissa.

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Girl Crazy

Well my 13-year-old is definitely girl crazy. I am hopeful that there will always be cute young women in our ward so Eric will always be excited about going to church. He always surrounds himself with beehives. He is not shy about telling Mario and I how much he likes them. He won't mention which ones in particular, but we have a pretty good idea.

Last night we went to a high school orientation at the middle school. This district gives the students a choice but one high school is limited to 225 freshman and that's the school Eric wants to go to. It is solely based on a lottery system. So I told Eric not to recruit kids from school to go there. In fact, he should tell all the girls he is going to the other high school so there won't be competition getting into the school he wants. His quick reply was to tell all the boys to go to the one without a limit and tell all the girls to go to the limited one. So then the limited school will have a 2 to 1 ratio of girls to boys. We find out the first week in March if he gets in to the school of his choice. It is a no-textbook school which is what enticed him. So he will use a computer for all his classes. Plus the wrestling program is better at that high school. It was my choice because I heard the teachers are harder and it is 3 miles closer to home.

What am I going to do with this girl-crazy boy?! He has 2.5 years until he can even double date. And of course the double dating will be with his parents!

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Anne of Green Gables

So I am a little behind. I think you are supposed to read Anne when you are about 11 or 12. But I never did. So now Erin and I are reading them. I even bought myself a Kindle so I didn't have to borrow one from Eric anymore. I am loving the books and all the little messages that it teaches little (and in my case-big) girls.

I was reading Book 4 last night and came across a paragraph that made me laugh. Actually I laugh a lot while reading it, but this paragraph touched me more than the rest. She is writing a letter to her fiance, Gilbert.

"Gilbert, darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!"

I am not adventurous and I am afraid of everything! So I just laughed when it got to the last part about the mention of twins. I found it hilarious that she lumps typhoid and twins into the same category as typhoid.

Proof that I am Nice

I get so frustrated when my pictures come out sideways. I wish I knew how to change it, but I don't.

We have HEAT!

A very nice lady from Southwest Gas came and restored our heat a few minutes ago. YEAH!!! We can all have hot showers tomorrow. It was kinda fun while it lasted. Tonight we had homemade pizza and a movie night in our bedroom. It wasn't too bad with the space heater, but I was tired of all 6 of us hanging out in my bed. The lady was so nice that when I asked her if she would be able to get the Park's house tonight, she didn't think so and it wasn't even on her list of houses. When I explained that they are an older couple and the husband has pneumonia, she immediately went down and turned on their gas.

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It is COLD!

Well, Mario wrapped the pipes really well last night so our pipes didn't freeze again. But we have no gas, therefore, no heat. Zach camped out in our room with the space heater and a sleeping bag. The other kids just slept with heating blankets in their rooms. I woke up to 65 degrees in my room and 58 degrees in the rest of the house. So, I am boiling water to wash dishes and to take sponge baths. Then I am leaving the house for a good part of the day to warm up. It may be several days before we get heat back, but at least it is supposed to start warming up this next week.

I am glad Erin and I are in the middle of reading the Anne of Green Gable books. It is hard to feel sorry for ourselves when we still have water and electric. Those people a century ago would laugh at us now for complaining.

No School

I never thought my kids would have a "snow day." But tomorrow school has been canceled because the cold front has caused us to not have heat. Too bad there's no snow to go with the cold.

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Erin and Braces

Erin has been telling me for a couple years that she doesn't want braces. But I knew that she would regret the decision later. Recently, her last baby tooth fell out, so she said, "Well I guess it is time for braces." I was shocked. She has been trying to hold on to those baby teeth as long as possible so she wouldn't have to get braces. But now it seemed that she was kind of excited about the prospect of braces. It probably doesn't hurt that her friends are all starting to get them. So now it is the "cool" thing to do. I took her into my orthodontist yesterday and he is going to start the process today. Erin didn't even want to wait until next week to get started. So I think she is trying to act like she doesn't want them, but deep down inside, she is excited.

Frozen Pipes

So I see a couple of my neighbors preparing for the deep freeze that was forecasted to hit us. I forgot to tell Mario until last night when he is crawling into bed at about 8:30 because he has to be up at 4 for an important conference call at work. He didn't think the pipes would freeze and so he drifted off to sleep. I recall my dad telling me recently that we didn't have anything to worry about here in Arizona about freezing pipes. So I too drifted off to sleep.

Fast forward to 4 am this morning and Mario comes into the room, turns on the bathroom light and when I enquire why, he says, "We have no water." Great! So now I am up at 4 am trying to research online what to do. We are from Florida. We don't know anything about frozen pipes!

We may have not been prepared with the pipes, but at least we were prepared with water storage. I quickly went to the garage, removed all the junk on top of our huge water barrels and began to boil water to use for our pipes.

Then I called my dad to tell him he was wrong, pipes do freeze here. He offered some suggestions which worked immediately to clear the frozen pipes. I felt so bad for Mario having to leave. I know he didn't want to leave me early this morning with no running water to fend for myself and the kids.

It looks like the pipe leading to the sprinklers has a leak so we do have some damage and I don't look forward to telling the landlord that we didn't prepare his pipes last night. My dad said it was his responsibility to cover the pipes, but I think we should have taken care of it. Lesson learned for next time. At least I had my water storage ready.

Update: Even those that covered their pipes had them frozen. In fact, many still don't have water. So I think I was very lucky to know about the problem at 4 am so I could fix it before it froze any further. Now are gas is out also, so no heat in the whole area. Maybe school will be canceled tomorrow.