The greatest band and album ever!!

Today I am professing my love for the greatest band of all time. I would even dare to say they are better than the Beatles. Who is this marvelous musical menagerie? It is only Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry otherwise known as U2. Yes, I am a child of the 80's, so it is slightly possible that my view is skewed, but they are even popular today. Isn't one of the legacies of a great band the fact that they are loved and appreciated by generations? Think back to some of their songs:

With or Without You

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Mysterious Ways

One

Elevation

Beautiful Day

Pride..(In The Name Of Love)

Sunday Bloody Sunday

I could go on and on. They do a haunting rendition of Unchained Melody, that makes me want to cry whenever I hear it. One of their B sides contains a song called All I Want Is You. I played it at my wedding and it's another one that makes me cry. Is this an obsession? Probably. If you asked Todd he would swear that I love Bono more than him. It's not true, I just would like Bono to sing to me forever!!! You can tell when I am in a mood, because the iTunes is blasting U2. I am just curious...Am I the only one with this crazy obsession for a band or are there others of you out there? Leave me a comment and let me know if I should seek therapy now.

Baby #5

Well, we've finally let everyone know, we're expecting baby #5. Yes, I know to many of you it is a suprise because we were supposed to have taken care of this. The Lord works in mysterious ways and apparently thought the Billy T family was not quite complete. The kids are ecstatic and mom and dad are looking forward to adding another personality (Not so much the wrestling in Sacrament Meeting, but we got awhile!!). Again, Ally is due about the same time the Nowels family goes to the lake, but what a better way to recover than to sit on my rear in a chair on the dock while the baby sleeps. We're growing out of our cars and our house but it's all good. We're looking forward to August.

It's Official

"The" Stake conference is finally come and gone. They said there would be suprises, and by goodness, there were. With all the speculating and supposed "info leaks" out there, our neighborhood thought we were safe. They would be adding to our ward and cutting off a small part to put in another. Boy were we wrong. I think there was an audible gasp when they read that our neighborhood, as well as a big chunk of our ward, would be in two different wards. We were shocked when we were told that we were now members of the Belle Terre ward and others were members of the Painted Hills ward. I have to say I didn't see it coming. I was looking forward to having my sisters' family and my parents in the Pines ward with us and thought it would be a great experience. The stake presidency had different ideas.
With that said, we are very excited to be in our new ward. We are looking forward to meeting new people and serving with them. For the time being we are calling-less, but we expect that to change as the ward settles in. We are also excited that we will still be able to see some of our friends at school activities and stake activities. Change is good, although for some can be extremely scary, but we're trying to go in with no preconceived notions of what to expect. It will be odd to attend church at the Stake Center, I've gone to the Evergreen Building the whole time I've lived in Spokane (including my childhood) but hey, a building is a building right? So, the suspense is over and it is not the "End of the World", and we still feel fine.

Back to School, Back to School.

They're finally going back!! Thursday is my favorite day this week. After being out of school for 3 weeks...1 whole week of snow closures...they are going back. The amount of snow melt in this city is truly amazing. I will post pictures tomorrow. If you compare the pics taken on Mon to the landscape right now...you'd think we haven't had any snow all year (If you don't look at the giant snow berms everywhere.) I suppose I should be thankful we didn't have any roofs fall in on our children but I had seriously had it. Summer vacation where they can go out and play, no problem. Winter when they are stuck inside? Sucks!! By the way Reni, thanks for offering to send me the homeschooling stuff, but you lived with me for years. Let's just say I have no patience and am not a teacher. I don't know how you do it :). It's now 8pm here and time for them to go to bed so they can go to school tomorrow!!! Yeeeehaaaaw!!!!

The saga continues

Day #15 without any school. They are now saying that a huge warm front is expected at the end of the week and we are going to get poured on. This in turn makes the 2 feet of snow on every roof very heavy, which has already caused numerous cave-ins. The school district wants to be safe and is clearing off all of the roofs before they send the kids back to school. It is estimated this will take until Thursday. I'm half tempted to call the school district and volunteer to remove snow just to get away for awhile. Although the sleeping in is nice, it's probably time for them to go back. They are supposed to be learning, right? I'm not sure how much more Spongebob I can handle!!

Al Gore can suck it!!

The mailboxes across the street

Global warming my butt. I want that man to move here, so he can be on the storm track that every 2-3 days brings us 4-8 inches of new snow. They are worried about the polar ice caps and the polar bears going extinct. Move the polar bears to Spokane. There is plenty of snow for them here. My kids have not been to school in 14 days (This does not include weekends but does include the break which is only 10 days) The Sheriff is now saying that it is not safe for my kids to go to school because the sidewalks are not shoveled and they will have to stand in the middle of the street to wait for the bus. Didn't they know this 2 weeks ago? It didn't just start snowing today. Whatever. I told John that since the Sheriff cancelled school, he could swing by and pick the kids up on his way to work. They would be happy to keep him company in his patrol car tomorrow, because they are driving me nuts. He wasn't so keen on the idea, said it was Ozzie not him. I'd be happy if Sheriff Ozzie would take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. They would like that. It's hard to play in snow that's over your head. Thank heaven for Nintendo DS.

Shannen this is for you. You got Democrat connections. Get Al Gore over here so we can give him a nice "warm" Spokane welcome and tell him what we think of global warming. I'll get off my soap box now and go watch the gigantic flakes fall from the sky, again. At least it's pretty. This was the trampoline!!

A reference to R.E.M.

Ok, flashback to old 80's songs... I've decided that this song is so appropriate these days. It fits for everything... the beginning goes like this....
That's great it starts with Earthquakes, birds, snakes and airplanes,
Lenny Bruce is not afraid....
Fred Durst royally screwed it up trying to sing it during MTV's Y2K celebration at Times Square. The chorus goes something like this...
It's the end of the world as we know it,
It's the end of the world as we know it,
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel FINE!!

Before you decide that I have completely lost it, think about the amount of change that occurs everyday. To many of us, it may seem like the end of the world, but although often hard to stomach, it's just change. It happens all the time and you can't really escape it. The Stake Presidency just announced that they are adding a new ward and many of the old ones will be re-arranged. For us, no big deal... the church is true no matter what ward I am in. For others, it is a crisis of Biblical proportions. It will be interesting when it all comes down next week. If I truly got in to astrology and my horoscope, I would be losing my mind. I am a Taurus. I am a bull, very stubborn and resistant to change. Maybe I grew up. I don't feel like I am so resistant. Change is exciting and makes life fun. It breaks up the routine. All I can say is long live R.E.M. and great 80's music, because I feel FINE!!!