VBA, SQL, RUBY, ETC.

If you understood the title, you're already ahead of the game. It recently occurred to me that I don't often write much about Dave. He's referred to when I talk about "we," "us," and so on, but this will be a Dave Porter post.

The above noted letter combinations are names of computer programming methods, which Dave is/has been learning about recently for both work and for his own knowledge. I'm really quite impressed at how well he does program writing and how much he's already accomplished.

Dave was offered a promotion at Deseret First where he is now back at their operations center (definitely not the best part of the job - i.e. the commute) and he is writing programs to improve efficiency and fluidity of the credit union's operations. He is very excited about the work he is actually doing and he's enjoying it.

Along with the programming he's working on for his job, Dave enrolled in an online class to learn more about programming through a local tech school. He is absolutely loving that. The only drawback to his class is that he can't skip ahead. He gets so into what he's learning that he just wants to keep going.

Here a sample picture of the programming Dave is learning:

Weekly Update

Once again I have meant to blog and it has taken me a week to do so. Nevertheless, here are just a couple of things that have been going on...

Last weekend we had our spring General Conference for the LDS church. What I heard of it was really good. I usually fall asleep during 1 of the 4 sessions, but I ended up sleeping through at least 1/2 of the 2 day conference this time. As we always do, we had pizza Saturday night. It was good. We didn't however, do our traditional Sunday morning cinnamon rolls, but it was still a good day.

Sunday was Easter of course. Dave and I had thought about going up to visit the parents, but ended up staying home and having a Chinese Easter dinner. No ham, we went for the Szechwan chicken - homemade.

(Not the exact recipe we made.)

We have recently been playing a game with our neighbors called "Dominion". It's a card game, which Dave generally doesn't like because it's sometimes hard for him to hold cards, but he really likes this one. In fact, he likes it so much that we bought "Dominion: Intrigue" ourselves.

Intrigue is cool because it can be played as a stand-alone or expansion to "Dominion". I'm not even going to try to explain it, but it's a lot of fun and if you're in the neighborhood, we'll gladly whip it out and play with you. Also, if anyone has any recommendations on other good board games, they would be appreciated.

No Foolin' Around

The baby brudder is back! My brother Charles just got home from Afghanistan a few days ago and made it back to Utah last night. Hooray! He has been gone about a year. This was his first Army tour. We are all really proud of him for going and serving. His flight didn't get in until 9:45-10:00 PM. Since Dave and I now live in Pleasant Grove, (instead of Taylorsville, which is only 15 min from the airport,) we decided to just stay up in the city. It worked out really well.

We ended up getting to do a mid-week date. Yep, an "actual" date, which we haven't done for a little while. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Chef Tom's, (also in Taylorsville, not far from where we used to live,) and we had a really good pizza. It wasn't too badly priced either.

After dinner we splurged. Being the big spenders that we are, we went to the dollar movies. And, we actually only paid $1.00 per person. It was awesome. We went and saw "The Blind Side" and really liked it. It's a great story and I think they had excellent actors to portray the various roles. Dave spoiled me and let me get some popcorn. Definitely the most expensive part of our night. I only got a small, but it was $5.00. As much as I like popcorn, I think we'll just stick with making it at home.

When we got to the airport, we were informed that family members of the soldiers could go and meet them at the gate. However, I didn't have my license with me; so we just waited for everyone else to come. I thought it was cool though that they let some people go up to the gate to wait. As you know, that's just not the common practice anymore. Genius left her camera home, and amazingly so did my mom. I do have some earlier pictures that I'll post soon.

Below is just a quick news clip about the batallion's return.

ksl.com - Utah soldiers return from Afghanistan

P.S. On our way in today, a small herd of deer ran across the road. It was fun to see.

Kimmy Go Boom!

Do you suffer from short-term memory loss?....I can't remember. Kimmy whimmy stood on the bed, Kimmy whimmy fell on her head. Yep, minor concussion over the weekend. I was trying to lift a bag off the floor while standing on our spare bed and slipped. I'm doing alright, but I ended up going into InstaCare today just to make sure it wasn't something worse (under the recommendation of a couple of people).

My head's got a cute little banged up spot and I have a really nice bruise down my leg. A couple other fun little bruises and a sore back. Morals of the story: don't fall off your bed, avoid "stupid" moments; if you do fall, try not to land on a TV stand or exercise weights.

On a brighter note, I got my first pedicure last week.

Recent Cuts

Recently I having been posting much. My "unoffical, personal goal" is to write at least once a week. I realize that I'm behind for March. I just haven't had the energy to do so. Now that it's like 11:00 at night, on a work night. This too shall be a brief entry.

Last weekend we (pretty much the whole family) went in for springtime shavings. Dave, who is very particular about his hair, finally reached his breaking point. Admittedly, it was getting rather long...for him. So, he was able to get his hair trimmed up.

Dave rather enjoys it when I do different things with my hair, i.e. highlights, curls, etc. So I whacked a ton of hair off so I could look like a boy again, like I did when we met. (That would be according to Dave.) Alright, I didn't whack much off, but I did get a perm. It took 4 1/2 hours to do! It was 2 hours of just rolling my hair. At one point there were 2 girls rolling, and I think 150 or so rollers were used. I've gotten a pretty good response from everyone with the results.

Sadie also got a haircut, which was more of a spring shaving. I'm not sure we intended to make it quite so short, but she needed a cut and we figured that she'll appreciate it in the summer when it gets really warm out. On a random side note, Sadie and I went out for a nice long walk on my day off. She really enjoyed that.

A Rare Occurrence

A few days a year, Dave and I get to have a "work day" off together. This happened to be the case yesterday. I was definitely looking forward to it. Usually, Dave gets the Monday "banking holidays" off, but he is going in to work tomorrow to teller for half the day. So he got to have my day off for the week.

Unfortunately, I had one of my much needed sleep days. :( The poor guy. I was out most of the day. Seriously, I was awake 7 out of 14 hours yesterday. Not exactly the best ratio. We did manage to get to go to lunch together, which was great. We ended up going with one of our good friends to JCW's. (A first for us.) The food was awesome and the company was even better!

So while I didn't get as much quality Dave time in as I would have liked, I'm still glad that we got to have a day off together. Hopefully the next one my husband will have conscious spouse. P.S. I fell right to sleep last night. Despite my massive napping, I was not up all night.

A Brief Update

Last weekend my very good friend Rebecca and her fiance Sam came down to visit. It was great to see them! We ended up going to dinner at the Bombay House (Indian food) and then back to our house where we played a few games and had some ice cream. It was a lot of fun.

We found out recently that Sadie managed to get Lyme's disease. We're just not sure how she managed to pick that one up. She only travels to Logan occasionally and that's not very often. It was discovered when she went in for a routine check-up. They were actually testing for heart worms, which came back negative. She's been taking an antibiotic and I think she'll be fine.

My brother should be coming back from Afghanistan pretty soon. I'm not exactly sure when, but I'm looking forward to seeing him. I believe that it has been a good experience for him and based on e-mails, I think he's grown up a bit. That in and of itself is just cool.

Other than that, just glad to be into March and headed towards spring/summer. I can't tell you how nice it's been to not leave work in pitch darkness. Occasionally it's still dark when we get home, but it's an improvement to see some light outside. All in all, we are doing well and just lovin' being just a couple of Porters.