Hawaii Day 2 and 3

 

Day 2:

This was our day to relax. We didn't do a lot of stuff. We mostly got settled, did some grocery shopping and went to two of the pools and the lagoon. I remember it wasn't super warm so it was cold getting out of the pool...that and the pools aren't heated. The best part was discovering a jacuzzi that had a waterfall w/ warm water coming in. That was pretty awesome. They also had a water slide. I went on it a few times. It was me and a bunch of kids!

 

Day 3:

Day 3 was consisted of visiting Pearl Harbor Memorial and hiking Diamond Head. We missed our exit to Pearl Harbor (mostly my fault) and ended up having to take the freeway a ways down b/c Hawaii apparently doesn't like freeway exits. It was nice though to drive through the tunnel to the windward side of the island where the vegetation was really green.

We have been to Pearl Harbor before but my parents had not. Due to my "detour" we didn't get there when we wanted to and ended up having a 3 hour wait time to take the ferry over to the USS Arizona. However, it was nice to just walk around, look at the different torpedos and guns they had displayed, and watch the video. The downside this time was that they are re-doing the theatre so the video was set up in a makeshift theatre made of black netting and folding chairs. Not as cool of an experience but that's okay.

As we headed over to the USS Arizona, Reagan told us there were dead men under the water and sharks and octopus (I think it was octopus). It was kind of creept b/c when we got to the memorial, she stared down into the water and pointed down and stated that she saw the dead men. I asked her what they were wearing and she stated they were wearing white and brown. It was creepy and kind of funny at the same time. I am guessing she heard about the dead soldiers from watching the video. I just didn't think she would add sharks and octopus into the mix.

Diamond Head was my mom's idea. What we didn't realize until we did a little more investigating before heading out was how intense the hike was. Its not a long hike, but its a lot of steep switchbacks. There are three stair cases too I believe. It is so steep and narrow that you have to walk up stairs to get to the top. I can't remember how many stairs but it was a lot! It was really hot too so we made sure the girls had plenty of water. Especially Reagan...her face was really red and I didn't want her to get heat stroke. There were a few people up there jogging up the mountain and stairs. Yes apparently there are people excercise (LOL) and do it at Mountain Head! :-) One guy was jogging with a jacket on. I thought he was crazy. My mom said he looked like he was going to pass out. The best was seeing the young folk struggling. Especially the 15 year old boys that should be racing up the hill! Once we got to the top, it was pretty amazing. It used to be a military post, but now its just a nice place to view that side of the island.

Hawaii Day 1

 

Friday was travel to Hawaii day. It didn't feel like a long day until we were taxiing into Hawaii and knew we had to pick up luggage, the rental car, check in, and buy food.

Our entire trip from San Diego to Honolulu was from 10am PST to 11pm PST. We had a long lay over in Seattle but when you get to use airline miles (thanks again Maughans!) you don't complain. My parents met us at the Seattle airport (they flew out of Oakland) and then the 6 of us all got on the same plane to Honolulu. Even though we had 4 separate reservations (I quickly learned how to utilize every airline mile and special available...regardless of how many reservations I had to do), I made sure we were all in the same row. We basically took up an entire "row" 3 on one side and 3 on the other side of the aisle.

We flew Alaska whose only downfall is that they don't have movies on TVs for customers! You have to rent a portable dvd type player for $12. On the way there, the girls had nintendo ds' to play with and we did have our portable dvd player and my laptop. However, we quickly learned that the plane is really really loud and the portable dvd player doesn't get loud enough. My laptop was loud enough but didn't like the DVDs. Luckily the girls wanted to sit w/ my mom!!

When we arrived, we were greeted by a woman who had leis for each of us and helped us down to get our luggage and get onto the rental car shuttle. We wanted to take a pic of us all in our leis, but after looking at the result, all I can see is how exhausted I looked!

We got our luggage and ended up w/ a really nice minivan though I still love mine better! My mom and I dropped G and my dad and girls off and she and I headed to Safeway. First off, my gps didn't like its location and then once we got there we were so exhausted but luckily I had made a list b/c if we didn't have a list we probably wouldn't have remembered what we needed.

There was a nice guy that helped us a bit (even found us a few coupons). He was probably coming off his evening shift there (it was about 10pm Hawaii time or later by this point...thats 1am PST). As we were leaving my mom got the keys out and we realized there was no key! All that was there was the clicker thing (or I call the beep beep). When we got to the van, my mom figured out that that was the key. It was an electronic key. I personally think its kind of silly but oh well. I can't even imagine what it would cost to replace that!

I think we ended up going to bed about 3am PST time...Midnight in Hawaii.

Hawaii

I have pictures from Hawaii. I am going to edit them and put some up here (w/ a synopsis of the who, what, where, etc) and then put the majority on facebook.

blogging

I haven't written anything in awhile. Most people want to know about the girls, however, I usually write my blogs on my laptop and since photos and music are not allowed on this bad boy, I can write blogs, but no pics will be on here. I have finally written in a blog I set up a long time ago. Its a place I can write my opinion w/o using the family blog (which in theory should be about the family)

soundingoffinsandiego.blogspot.com

the definition of homicide

Tonight I watched a piece on the local news about a man who entered the country illegally, and after being "aggressive" (can't remember the word the news used) was tasered by the border patrol and later died of a heart attack. The news stated that the medical examiner had ruled it a homicide. Of course people automatically will think homicide = murder and there will be a huge outcry.

Of course homicide only means the killing of one person by another person. It has nothing to do with guilt, mental state, etc. Interestingly enough, they stated that the man had been deported recently after being stopped for a traffic violation and then discovered he was illegal (sound like something familiar in Arizona?) and subsequently deported.

Over the weekend, he chose to illegally cross the border again to reunite with his family. He was caught, later tasered, and died of a heart attack at a SD hospital. Of course it wasn't until the very last split second of the segment did they mention the man had meth in his system. I am not a medical expert so I can only wonder if the meth with the tasering by the border patrol caused the death.

In the end, I think it is just a reminder that we need to remember events like these occur because someone is doing something illegally. Obviously a family is w/o a father now and I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I just think that if a person crossed the border legally, there wouldn't be an issue like this involving border patrol agents.

Shame on you!

Shame on you for taking out adjustable rate mortgages w/o knowing if you could really afford the house once the rate when up! Shame on you for buying a bigger house you could barely afford so you could keep up with the Jones'! Shame on you for walking away from your house even though you could afford to pay the mortgage!

Our house has dumped 33%. Yes 33% in less than four years. We bought it for 180 and a house a few doors down is selling for 119. Holy cow. I blame all those in the Boise area that bit off more than they could chew. I am not blaming those who lost their jobs, just those who bought houses they knew they could barely afford and were always one paycheck away from missing a mortgage payment.

You can try and blame mortgage companies as much as you want but at the end of the day, the buyers were the ones who signed on those many many documents on closing day. It is so frustrating to me that there are those out there that are being hurt by this only because they bought at the wrong time.

I already know when we sell we will be losing money. I already know that we will have to bring money to the table to pay back the loans on the house. I joke with Garrett (though am serious at the same time) that I will be working just to save enough money to sell the house. The only silver lining is it is still worth more than when it was built. At least we have that going, right?

"Paparazzi"

Pandora

Dear Pandora,

Thank you for having free music for me to listen to. I need it as I try to clear my mind so I can fill it up with crim law information. My tenants wants us to spend more money for them to renew their lease. We are willing to do it, but I will be stressed about it until they sign the new lease and the new sprinklers are put in. It isn't working yet, but I have faith you will come through for me!

Elizabeth

Arizona Immigration Law

I enjoyed reading this. Very informational!

Arizona governor: Boycott is misguided
Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, responds to calls for sports boycotts of her state
By Gov. Jan Brewer
Special to ESPN.com
Archive
In my 28 years of public service, I have made a lot of tough calls. But with a federal government unwilling to secure our border for years and years, Arizona is left with little choice. Imagine a sporting event in which rules have been agreed to for 70 years, but the umpires refuse to enforce those rules. It makes no sense. Although I recognize that Arizona Senate Bill 1070, as amended, is not the entire solution to our illegal immigration problem in Arizona, most people are united in the hope that it will finally inspire the politicians in Washington, D.C., to stop talking and to start action now.

By now, sports fans everywhere have heard something about the passage of Senate Bill 1070, a measure I signed into law. It has resulted in protests outside ballparks hosting our Arizona Diamondbacks and has led to calls on Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig to strip the City of Phoenix's opportunity to host baseball's Midsummer Classic in July 2011.

Urging Major League Baseball to take away next year's All-Star Game from Phoenix is the wrong play. In Arizona, both proponents and opponents of Senate Bill 1070 have stated that economic boycotts are an inappropriate and misguided response to an issue that is clearly worthy of proper public debate and discourse. Put simply, history shows that boycotts backfire and harm innocent people. Boycotts are just more politics and manipulation by out-of-state interests. As a border state, Arizona has already paid a heavy price for the federal government's failure -- hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in unreimbursed costs -- and its citizens should not be punished further.

It is critically important that all Americans understand the impetus for this new law and have a clear understanding of the law itself. Our neighbor to the south, Mexico, is in a massive battle with well-organized drug cartels. Because of Washington's failure to secure our southern border, Arizona has become the superhighway of illegal drug and human smuggling activity. In December 2008, the U.S. Justice Department said that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." In 2009, Phoenix had 316 kidnapping cases, turning the city into our nation's kidnapping capital. Almost all of the persons kidnapped were illegal immigrants or linked to the drug trade.

Essentially, our border leaks like a team with a last-place defense. The very same week that I signed the new law, a major drug ring was broken up and Mexican cartel operatives suspected of running 40,000 pounds of marijuana through southern Arizona were indicted.

While drug smuggling is the principal cause of our massive border-violence problem, many of the same criminal organizations also smuggle people. Busts of drop houses, where illegal immigrants are often held for ransom or otherwise severely abused, are
not uncommon occurrences in Arizona neighborhoods.
Today, Arizona has approximately 6,000 prison inmates who are foreign nationals, representing a cost to our state of roughly $150 million per year. Arizona taxpayers are paying for a vast majority of these incarceration expenses because the federal government refuses to pay what it owes. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, as governor of Arizona, sent numerous requests to the federal government to pay for these prisoners -- only to be given the same answer she and President Barack Obama are now giving Arizona: They will not pay the bill.
The Immigration Issue

Arizona's new immigration law has become a hot-button topic in the world of sports. Over the past several days, ESPN has presented a number of perspectives on the controversy.

When I signed the legislation, I stated clearly I will not tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona. My administration worked for weeks with legislators to improve SB 1070, to specifically clarify and strengthen its civil rights protections. I issued an executive order to implement proper training and enforcement protocols for our police so that the intent of the language could not be misconstrued. Although it is already against the law, the new law undeniably prohibits law enforcement officers from considering race, color or national origin in implementing the new statute.

I have worked for years without fail to solve problems diligently and practically. I have done so always with an eye toward civility, and always with the greatest respect for the rule of law.

This new law is no different. As committed as I am to protecting our state from crime associated with illegal immigration, I am equally committed to holding law enforcement accountable should this statute ever be misused to violate an individual's rights.

There have been countless distortions, honest omissions, myths and bad information about Arizona's new law -- many, undoubtedly, spread to create fear or mistrust.
So here are the facts:

1. The new Arizona law creates a state penalty to mirror what already is a federal crime. Despite the most vile and hate-filled portrayals of proponents of the law as "Nazis," actions that have been condemned nationally by the Anti-Defamation League, it is ALREADY a federal requirement for legal aliens in the United States to carry their green card or other immigration document. The new Arizona law enforces what has been a federal crime since before World War II. As anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar laws.
2. Contrary to many of the horror stories being spread -- President Obama suggested families risk being pulled over while going out for ice cream -- law enforcement cannot randomly ask anyone about their immigration status. Much like enforcement of seat belt laws in many states, under SB 1070 there must first be reasonable suspicion that you are breaking some OTHER non-immigration law before an officer can ask a person about their legal status. Only then, after law enforcement officers have a "reasonable suspicion" that another law has been broken, can they inquire about immigration status -- but ONLY if that individual's behavior provides "reasonable suspicion" that the person is here illegally.
"Reasonable suspicion" is a well-understood concept that has been thoroughly vetted through numerous federal court cases. Many have asked: What is reasonable suspicion? Is it race, skin color or national origin? No! Racial profiling is prohibited in the new law. Examples of reasonable suspicion include: a person running away when approached by law enforcement officers, or a car failing to stop when the police turn on their lights and siren.
3. Arizona's local law enforcement officers, who already reflect the great diversity of culture in our state, are going to be trained to enforce the new immigration law in a constitutional manner. It is shameful and presumptive for opponents to question the good will and the competence of Arizona's law enforcement personnel. The specter that is raised of rogue, racist police harassing people is insulting to those in Arizona who risk their lives in the name of law enforcement every day.
President Theodore Roosevelt said, "No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor." Arizona has been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. Decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation. Arizona has acted to enforce the rule of law equally and without bias toward any person.
It is time for our country to act to resolve our border security problem; an economic boycott in Arizona would only exacerbate it -- and hurt innocent families and businesses merely seeking to survive during these difficult economic times.
A boycott that would actually improve border security would be to boycott illegal drugs. Dramatically less drug use and production would do wonders for the safety of all our communities.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=brewer/100505

Update

Well lets get this update going!

Garrett: only one more semester going full time! This summer he is taking 5 units and then 16 in the fall and then 11 (part time) in the spring 2011 semester. The CA bar is crazy hard or so everyone says. All I know is that he will graduate in a year! He has had some interest in tax law so I think he is going to take some other classes like that.

Me: Got my first C+ on a paper. Stupid legal writing. I love my professor and on a side note, people that judge their professors based on their grade in the class need to grow up. So love the teacher, hated the grade but oh well. It is only worth 12 percent or something like that. The final memo (due Wed at 3pm) is worth 80 percent so that's the important grade. I still am enjoying my classes. Our section was very lucky this year to have such great teachers. I have heard some horror stories about other 1L professors so we are definitely lucky! I am a staff writer for the school newspaper (though haven't actually written anything yet....), Student Bar Assoc. social committee member, diversity chair for the Crim Law society. Oh and we are going to re-start the Jefferson Democrats group (how a law school has an active republican one -outside of BYU that is-and not a democrat one is beyond me). A friend and I want to start a PALS group which is Parents attending Law School. Hopefully we can pull it off. The only problem is that I don't have enough units under my belt to run anything so my friend will be president of PALS and I think I will technically be VP or something. As for the democrats group, I am sure I can find a democrat somewhere out there :-) And yes I am up on my studies. My outlines for finals are already done. Just need to finish up my final memo for legal writing.

Madison: lost her teeth in the wrong order. She has one front tooth missing, the other in tact, and then next to the one still in there, a missing tooth. She is still doing well in school. Next year I am going to go part-time during the day so she would go back to the after school program for one hour after school. I gave her the option of either me staying in the evenings or her going to Primetime after school for an hour. I can't believe she will be seven soon and on top of that in second grade! In case anyone is curious, she is only four years away from middle school. A little crazy. She will go to middle school when my niece goes to kindergarten!

Reagan: thinks that everytime you go to the doctor there will be a prize at the end. How she has equated that from just two visits ever to the dentist is beyond me. She has her four year check up tomorrow and thinks she will be getting a toy. I have tried to explain that isn't the case but tomorrow around 11am we will see if she "got it." She went to the optometrist for her annual appt. Her vision hasn't gotten any worse so that's good. Of course, there is that side of me that goes, well its only 1.00 or something like that...do we really need to spend a hundred dollars on glasses (btw does anyone else think that kids frames should be less than adult ones? oh but they're not!)? Of course going to costco for the appt and new glasses and lenses was still cheaper than an optometrist with an office outside of the costco box. She loves having long hair. She wanted it in a low pony tail today and would swish her hair back and forth. She tells me all the time that she has long hair. She is so proud of it! At some point we will have to trim it. We do trim her bangs though. I think she looks better with short hair, but if she wants it long, I don't care.

Upcoming events:

Sami's (my niece) first bday!! The parents will be in town for the big event. I am taking my dad to Coco's (we used to go on our bdays with him) while my mom takes Maddie shopping for her seventh bday. G informed me he is taking Rea to breakfast too.

Finals! I only give this an exclamation point because its amazing how fast the semester went. It helps that I kept up with my reading, outlines, etc. Now I know why people don't sleep for forever. Not only do the full timers have two more classes, those that don't outline throughout the semester must go crazy getting it done so they can study.

Hawaii! Not for over a month but it will be SO MUCH FUN!! G's parents were kind enough to let us have the timeshare on Oahu this year since they are in Ghana. On top of that we got to use their Alaska Airline miles for free and discount tickets. And for a bonus my parents are coming too!! We will meet up in Seattle and fly over together. Our seats are all in the same row. I have a feeling the girls will be next to grandma...The timeshare has a main suite/apt and then a "lockout" which is basically a regular hotel room (the apt has a regular kitchen, dining room, living room etc). I told my mom that they will need to lock their side of the door if they don't want two little girls going in there all the time :-) It will be lots of fun.

Summer school! I am taking professional responsibility (aka what not to do as a lawyer to get disbarred) and G is taking two classes but I can't remember what they are. I am taking PR from Prof Christensen who is super super nice.

Preschool/daycare! Yes Rea will be in daycare/preschool. We had to do something b/c night school for mom isn't working well for Rea or Maddie. Poor kid knows that if she wants my attention during the day she has to take away my laptop and cell phone. She will go this summer on the two days I have class. We want to make sure she enjoys the school before she goes in the fall when we are "stuck" with my schedule. She will be there two days a week. Its the least expensive one I have found. It has a big kid side and little kid side. Each side has its own kitchen and play ground. Yes they provide two snacks and lunch everyday. Reagan will be in the prekindergarten/kindergarten group. By the end of the school year she should know basic reading and writing and basic math. They run the place on the same schedule as the school district. Reagan will start June 22 since thats the first day of "summer school." Our schedules mismatch for a few weeks b/c G and I start school mid August but Maddie won't start until after labor day. I think we will have her go to the YMCA for one week to have some "fun" of her own and then the other week or so figure something else out.

I am writing this on my laptop so I don't have any pics to share. Will get on that at some point...

Recent Pics

 

one week later

Went camping. had fun. Rea waiting for computer so going to be short. Midterms: A+ in property (high grade woot woot!). Only a B in Crim Law. Definitely want to keep this A+ thing going and def. want to do better on final in Crim Law. Who knows with legal writing. Crazy legal writing. No real grade until after my first paper is graded. Ok. well done for now. go me.

Monthly update

I am just going to keep calling every title the monthly update b/c it seems I post something once a month.

Let's see. Maddie lost her first top tooth on Saturday night. It pretty much fell out on its own. Garrett tried the string thing last week but long story short, that only caused screaming and bleeding. I recorded it but G would kill me if I posted it. Or at least try....I didn't realize how big her front tooth was until the tooth fell out because now she has a huge hole there. A straw could easily fit in the hole w/ room to spare. Her other front tooth is loose so it should be interesting once both of them are missing. She lost her ditty (comfort blanket's name) and no it wasn't "lost" by mom or dad but really lost. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it and hasn't tried to get another blanket to take its place. It is nice that that part of her life is now over. She is almost seven now and its a good idea to get rid of some of those younger kid habits.

Reagan is convinced she has a lose tooth too. I think she either wants the money from the tooth fairy or the attention. Maybe a combo of both. She has been in need of a daily nap, though they only happen about twice a month. Heck, if I need a nap at my age, she definitely needs one. Perhaps its a genetic thing, though my mom lives off little sleep. Not sure how that works.

I finished my second midterm last night. Property. The ideas are 'ehhh' but the problems are kind of fun b/c its like putting a puzzle together. You have all of these different aspects involved in one conveyance and you have to figure out who has what and how it can change based on different conditions. Kind of cool. I got finished w/ the property one in about 30 minutes. They give you 60 minutes for the 33 questions so I went through all of them again. I did what the professor suggested in figuring out the answer before looking at the options. I only had to guess on two or so because of the wording, but at the same time I left the test convinced I did awful. Oh well. Multiple choice tests are worse because the answer is either right or wrong. Crim law was an essay which gives a little more leeway since you get points for individual things. Not so black and white, though I did leave w/ a headache after that one. I am super busy with school and pretty much have no social life outside of my immediate family. Our spring break is next week but Maddie still has school so we won't be doing a lot.

Garrett took two midterms last week and has another one at the end of March. I have no idea why this third one isn't until after "midterm time" but at least he didn't have three in a row.

We are both taking summer school. I plan on taking professional responsibility (a class you take so you can pass a test that no one outside the legal community knows about. have to pass it AND the bar to practice law). Garrett is going to be taking two classes; remedies and community property. We chose these classes so our schedules won't conflict. I am also applying to do an internship during the Summer. I want to do it the same days as school so I only have two days a week scheduled for school stuff. I would be interning at the same place G did this past Fall. It is with the Madge Bradley Clinic.

Ok. done for now. see you in a month!

Happy VDay to you!

Dear neighbors,

When two little girls who live across the street from you and have for over a year and a half come by with Valentine cupcakes, you don't get to reject them. I don't care if you won't eat them. Take the plate and throw them away for all I care. The fact of the matter is people always talk about being neighborly, talking to one another, etc but at the end of the day, you don't even have the common courtesy to pretend to appreciate them. You should be ashamed of yourselves! I would say that from now on I won't be nice to you, but that won't happen because I have class.

Sincerely,

The mom

fav' Super Bowl Ad

Hello everyone!

It has been a long time since I have posted anything and a lot has happened. Christmas was awesome. Afterwards we went to Davis and Sacramento to see friends. We then headed to Livermore for the rest of the New Year's eve week. My parents' neighbors have two kids the girls play really well with. They all just played together the whole time. I never personally witnessed any arguments, fighting etc between any of them! It is nice to have kids that play well together. I wish we had neighbors two doors down like them!

Garrett did really well this last semester. I am so proud of him. Who would have thought that working over 20 hrs a week at Target, interning two days a week at a legal clinic and taking five classes makes someone get better grades? Hopefully there never is a repeat of that in the future except for the grades part of course!

I promised I wouldn't talk about me and law school in the next post so all I can say is today is my first day of class. First class in 59 minutes. I will say though that if you ever have around 200 dollars in a checking acct and then deposit a huge amount of money in it (new car buying amount) don't expect the money right away! We have never had the situation where both of us deposited checks w/ high amts at the same time. Long story short, we will get about 1/6 of it tomorrow and the rest on the 20th. Rude right? Whatever at this point. Not much we can do about it.

Madison quit her after school program. We told her the new situation and she chose to come home right after school to hang out w/ the mom. It won't be much more than an hour or so but its important to have some interaction. We will probably do early dinner some nights together and then have G have dinner w/ them on other nights. We could technically be home together for dinner hour on Mondays and Wednesdays(at 5pm) but it comes down to the parking issue or lack of parking issue at the school.

Reagan is getting so tall. I swear she grew a foot this past month. She is so cute and I love her little quirks. The "face" as people call it can be endearing to an extent, but my favorite is when she points to something but instead of just a straight arm pointing in the right direction she shirks up a little and points with a little bit of crookedness in her pointer finger. I am not sure how else to explain it.

Well that is for now. On a side note: I haven't decided if I am going to keep up with posting. I will try for now but am trying to be good about more homework, less internet. It came down to internet time or tv. TV won. Also, the same goes for facebook. I will keep it up for the most part but won't "participate" in the games on there. So if you send me a free tree, I won't get it b/c I am blocking the applications for now. You will see me again on the farm and the sorority house this Summer!

realization

Earlier today I applied for my Stafford student loans for school (6 more weeks!) and the "freaking out" phase began in regards to law school. Am I worried about the course load? No. Am I worried that I will look like an idiot in class? No.

No, I started freaking out b/c I realized that A. with one click of the button I would have twice as much student loan debt compared to what I had when I left BYU and B. if I fail out of school (this does happen to people...) I will still owe a whole lot of money and no career prospects.

So now I can understand the stress of law school. It isn't the fact that you have so much to do. Its the fact that if you majorly screw up you will have thousands of dollars in student loans and no way to pay it back.

So yes today I had my first, Oh my gosh what the heck am I doing moment?! But then I got over it.

Just as I got over it though the mail came and I received my Summit package (1 semester class that helps you pave the way thru school, prepare for life as a lawyer, etc). It even comes w/ a DVD! I was still getting past my loan experience so I had Garrett put it in a file folder marked TJSL to read at some point before orientation on January 11.

Oh and then there's the fact that student loan money doesn't come in until AFTER school starts. Ummm...did anyone forget that you have to buy books before class starts?! Luckily I have an in-house library and a resourceful husband who checks out the book exchange table for 1L course books!

Next post won't be on law school. Promise!

law school here I come

Before I give my rant I would like to thank my supporters! Garrett has supported me this whole way and Mariah has been my cheerleader. Teddy wins for the best "congrats!" and Jaymie wins for the one person who really "understands." Kalon gets hugs and kisses for moving here so I can have Mariah!

For those who don't know this, I have wanted to go since I was young. Long story short, after many attempts to get a job this year after my library one ended I realized that I should finally go to law school. Garrett and I prayed about it and felt it was the right decision for our family at this time. I know if I don't go now it won't happen. As it is, I am 5 yrs behind the rest of the group and don't want to be in school when the girls are in high school!

There are those out there who have the opinion that women should stay home with their kids. I used to feel that I had to defend my personal decisions that someone I am talking to doesn't agree with, but after a conversation earlier today I have decided I no longer need to back up my decisions with examples and so forth. If I want to go to school that is my decision and I really don't want to hear the comments like "what are you going to do with the girls" or "so does that mean you aren't having anymore kids?" First off, last time I checked, my older daughter is in school all day and Reagan and I will be together all day everyday if we like it or not. She is almost 4 and pretty independent. Of course I have my cheerleader aka Mariah who is willing to drive to my house and help if needed. I of course would drive Rea up there, but its the point that she is willing to do it. As for not having more kids, once again that is not anyone else's business. I first want to apologize to those out there in the mormon world who I thought rude things about in my head b/c they only had one or two children. This was when I was younger, but still it wasn't right. Having children and how many to have is not anyone else's business but your own.

Interestingly in all of this, my personal statement was about the box that women are put in with regards to what I have basically stated. Too often there is either a double standard or an expectation that unless you have to work, you shouldn't work. What I am amazed at is the double standards that occur. I find it amazing that those out there who don't agree with women working are the same who love their child's teacher or pediatrician who without them going to school and working outside the home wouldn't be that teacher or doctor for your child. So those who don't think mothers should work should look at those around them. Perhaps they shouldn't go to that doctor, have their child in that classroom, or perhaps if their husband has a business tell him not to hire mothers because that is against what they believe! Obviously this is an exaggeration of the situation, but I just wanted to make the point. You also have the individuals out there that think its ok for their daughters to go to school, but heaven forbid they actually use their education outside the home and its ok to work while your husband is in school or out of a job, but how awful it would be to keep the job you have grown to love because there is the expectation to go home.

There may be those out there who don't agree with me about what is "right" but shouldn't the decision be based on your family? Of course! The real question though is how often do we judge others because of their decisions? I do this too, though more on a superficial (like what the person is wearing) than a decision like occupation and number of children to have.

With this I say bravo to you who stay at home and bravo to you who leave the house to work. I realize now that there is no such thing as a worldwide solution. If a mom is happier to be at home than away in an office or classroom, that is what she should do. On the other hand, if a mom is not fulfilled by being home all day, regardless of the number of children and their ages, and the solution is to get a job, go to school, etc that once again is her decision.

Boxes come in every shape and size. The box that fits your neighbor, friend, or family member isn't going to be the same size box for yourself. I definitely have learned this over the years. Luckily for me, I finally am doing what I want to do and not what is "expected of me". The best part of all is that I no longer care what others think but I am doing what I want and what makes me happy!

The family tone is set by the mother so in the end I would like to say, "if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

Andrew and Sami