New Office Monday



Move in day

 What's the coolest thing about "New Office Monday"? The new office of course!

For the past 1 year and 3 months I've been working, rent free, in the Farmers District 45 Office. You're probably wondering why I would move out a rent free office. Well, I'll tell you!

Being in the District Office has many benefits such as being around a great support system, free, and it's a very short drive if I need to talk to the District Manager...like, 30 feet. The benefits of moving out is not having the responsibility of answering the phones for any customer issues that are District related and no more Reserve Agents with their innumerable questions. It's not that I don't like to help others, but sometimes I would have my own issues to take care of and as an agent I don't make any money on solving a problem that another agent's problem. I can't complain though because it was a small price to pay for being rent free for the past while.



The Office.  Fully furnished!



The new office is great!  It's a luxorious 85 square feet, has a door that I can open and pretend that it's a window, and a nice extra chair just in case I get tired of sitting in my normal chair.  You might be thinking, "Dave, aren't there prison cells out there that are bigger than that?"  You're probably right, but do prisoners get a hot office secretary (Lisa) to work with you for at least half of the workday?  I didn't think so!

A cookie bouquet from my
District Manager

The long of the short of it is I'm very grateful to find this place to sink my roots for now. It's right up near the San Antonio Temple in a great part of town, the building I work in is brand new, I've found great ways to save money yet stay fully functional, and after a long search and seeing many things fall through this place came up at the right time, right area, and the right price.

I Love Texas Thunderstorms!

I love the Texas rain!  I like it because it's usually more of a torrential downpour, and it's not freezing cold so you can still enjoy it outside. 

I first learned this on my mission to Houston.  We'd be out riding our bikes and it would be nice and sunny.  Then, in a matter of minutes, these huge dark clouds would come billowing in and we'd be stuck in a downpour with no where to go.  I always thought I could outride it and make it home, but trying to ride a bike in sheets of heavy rain and powerful winds never gets you very far.  

Some might think it would be annoying getting all your clothes and belongings soaked so many times, but I absolutely loved it!

The one advantage that I have now is this bad boy... Channel 5.3.  It's the radar station and it tracks all the storms.  I can see the storms coming from a hundred miles away and know exactly where they'll hit and at what time.  It is soo cool!!!  Since we're in a horrible drought, I haven't gotten to spend too much time with it, but this is all from our most recent storm.

 I still love to see when the big dark clouds come rolling in.  Although it can be pretty scary looking at times, I think it's so beautiful.  Check out the clouds in this video and you'll catch a little glimpse of what I mean!

An then the rain hits, 5.3 is always right on time. We love to sit out on our balcony during the storms and just watch the lightning light up the sky.  I love the mist we catch, the humid air that makes me hair go crazy, and the fresh smell of the rain.

I can't wait for the next one!

Texas or BYU, Texas or BYU?

Back when we were dating, while attending BYU, Dave heard the announcement that BYU would play University of Texas on September 10, 2011.  He was pretty excited and shared with me that he'd really like to go to that game.  After we were married and decided we'd be moving to San Antonio, that same idea came back and he started inviting all of our friends to come down to Texas and stay with us before the game (still over a year away at this time)

We were sitting in Dave's office on Thursday and I noticed he was reading some articles on the game.  All of a sudden it all came back- how excited he was for this game over a year and a half ago.  I told him that if he could find some reasonably priced tickets, we could go.  He jumped right on that and found there were still actually quite a few tickets left and they weren't as expensive as we had thought.  So, we bought them and headed up to Austin for the game on Saturday night.

After a little debate, we decided we'd stay true to our alma mater and put on some BYU gear.  I'll admit it, I've never been a huge fan of BYU sports, they've just never been that good, so I've never gotten that into it. So I debated going neutral and just cheering for whoever was winning, mostly to save us from being attacked by hardcore Texas fans.  We did have some blue face paint, so that convinced me.

We definitely stood out in the sea of orange!  At one cross-walk, everyone was stopped and we were seriously standing there surrouded by a hundred others, all in orange.  I did see these two really big, tough-looking dudes up front in blue shirts so we went and stood by them :)  I felt much better walking to the stadium alongside two huge guys also dressed in blue, one of which son's plays on the BYU team.

We were on the second to last row at the very top, home (shady) side. All the Texas fans loved making the longhorn hand gesture.  Here's what I have to say about it!!!

In case you didn't hear, BYU lost.  They had a great first half, but then fall apart.  But of course, we had fun anyways and Dave's already looking forward to the next time BYU comes to Texas.

Free Pizza

We love free food!  We had a Friday night work appointment and decided to just stop somewhere for dinner.  Pizza Hut's having this deal where you can get any pizza, any size with any toppings for $10. We got there soo hungry.  We ordered a super supreme and I had mentioned no onions, but just to make sure she heard me Dave went up and reminded her.  When they finally brought us our pizza, she put it down and started apologizing, they had put onions on it. I was just about to tell her it was ok, I would just pick them off.  But, beofre I got to that she said that she already had them making us another pizza for free, so just to eat this one in the meantime.  How cool is that!  So we got two large super supreme pizzas for $10.  We'll be having pizza for lunch for the next few days at least. 

Grandpa's Moment of Fame

Man reported missing found safe

September 08, 2011 1:51 PM

THE RECORDER

"An 85-year-old man with dementia reported missing before 10 a.m. this morning was found safely at the Porterville Community Center more than three hours later.

Edward Mathias walked away from his house on Grand Avenue at about 9 a.m. and after he did not return family members called the Porterville Police Department.

Because of his age and condition, police immediately began a search. At one time, more than 20 members of the police department were involved and the city utilized a helicopter in its search.

Mathias reportedly walked away from his home wearing a Hawaiian shirt and carrying a ukulele in a case. Mathias is Hawaiian.

A little after 1 p.m., police got a call that a person matching the man’s description was given a ride to the Community Center on Putnam Avenue."

All he wanted to do was get to the Senior Citizen Center so he could entertain the people there. He gave us all quite a scare, I'm so glad he's ok!

Are you ready to race around the world?

We don't have cable, we just have the bunny ears for our TV ($0/month).  We've always gotten CBS, NBC and FOX and since the living room rearrangement we've picked up ABC :) We actually get about 20 more channels, but they're all either worship or Spanish.  Since movies are cheap, we'll usually have a movie night every weekend, but we recently got rid of our netflix, due to the increase of price.  So Dave just so happened to find a website that has almost every show in the world, almost every season.  We recently got into the show The Amazing Race and when we looked at this website we saw that there are 18 seasons of it.  We couldn't have been happier.  We have about 200 episodes to catch up on.  We're addicted to this show!

Labor Day Breakfast...Yum!

Dave loves cereal, but I love a good hearty breakfast.  Dave's parents were here and we love treating our guests to a special breakfast.  It makes my mouth water everytime I look at this picture!

Retama Park

There's this huge horse track just outside of San Antonio that we've driven past probably ten times.  We never really thought about going, but the other day a friend told us about 50 cent Saturdays. 

Dave's parents were in town for the weekend, so we decided to try it out.  It was just $5 to park with free admission.  They had 50 cent snow cones and hot dogs, plus pony rides, face painting, balloon animals, etc for the kids. 

We got to stand right up next to the track and see it all up close.  The jockey's were short and skinny little guys and after each race you could see all the dirt that was kicked up on their faces.
 

We had so much fun!  They had a short race about every half hour (I wish they were more frequent).  We loved all choosing a horse and then cheering it on as it came around the corner.  It was so exciting!  I kept thinking about my little sisters and how much they'd love it, so I can't wait to take my family there someday.