iPad Wonderfulness

A little over a month ago, I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning and could NOT get back to sleep.  I had this crazy idea that I NEEDED an iPad, that it would solve ALL of my problems, and I needed to get it like... immediately.  When Doug woke up an hour later and we both started getting ready for work, I let him know my plans.  I went ahead and bought one online that weekend.  I got the 32 GB black iPad 2 with the incredibly overpriced red leather smart cover.  You can watch the YouTube demonstration of the cover HERE. Unfortunately it took like 3 million years to get to me, but now the iPad is here and I am happy.

So am I happy with my frivolous purchase?  HECK YEAH! 

I basically bring it EVERYWHERE I go.  I even have a little case that allows me to carry it in my purse.  I had lots of hopes and dreams for my iPad.  Most of them have been fulfilled.  My only disappointment has been that I haven't been able to use it for work as much as I wanted to.  Apple isn't really friendly with any other technology except for Apple, so that put a few roadblocks in my plans. 

I use it to check email, blogs, and Facebook and shop online.  About 60% of what I do on the computer anyways.  It's just better because I can do it all in bed and the battery life on this thing is AMAZING.  Much better than any laptop.  The other 40% which I spend on school work, I have not been able to do on my iPad.  I use Microsoft Word a lot to create assessments and worksheets and ActivInspire to create Flipcharts for the Promethean (Interactive) Whiteboard in my classroom.  Neither are available in their full forms on my iPad.  I haven't really gotten to the point where I'm reading much on it yet except for the stuff that comes with my LDS Scriptures app.

So this is my background and my tons of free apps (and just a couple paid ones)

Favorite Apps:

1. FaceTime: This is basically Skype, but it came free on my iPad.  I use to it talk to my sister Bekah in Hawaii.  We've talked both this weekend and last and they were ridiculously long "calls" that I enjoyed so much!  I was basically able to take her on a tour of my house, show her what I was cooking for dinner, and just plain have a fun time chatting.  (Her boys also got to see the dead rotting bird on my back porch that Lucky brought home for us over a week ago.) She lives so far away, so it SO nice to be able to have practically a Face to Face conversation.
2. Dropbox: This is a really cool service that basically functions as a place to drop files.  If I ever want to access any documents or pictures, I just drop them in a folder on one of my computers and I can access them on my iPad.  I am going to start using it at work because I have a hard time keeping my files straight between my home computer and school computer.  It's a free service until you upgrade to over 2MB of storage space.
3. LDS Scriptures: Well, this is a paid app and the first one I purchased.  It was either $10 or $15.  There is a free app called Gospel Library that has much of the same stuff, but I wanted the gospel picture library, hymnbook, and other features of the program.  I love it. 
4. Sing-Along: There is an app for both the church hymn book and the primary songs.  It has the different songs with pictures that match the words.  It plays the music and a little ball bounces over the words as it plays.  I first downloaded the LITE version which is basically a preview of the program with only a few songs.  My Sunbeams loved it so much, I figured I would pay the $5 to buy the full version with all of the songs.  It's awesome!

I'm slowly becoming an iPad expert and learning all of their tricks.  I'm still not going fully Mac, but this is a fun little toy that works for a lot of my computing needs.  Right now, I'm actually creating this post on my desktop computer because it works better for this purpose.

Easter

I know it's been a while since Easter, but I was cleaning out my camera and found these pictures.  When we moved in our house three years ago, Doug started a tradition of doing Easter baskets for each other.  We skipped last year because we were in Hawaii, but luckily I remembered this year in enough time to get the good Easter candy before it was all sold out.  This year for Easter, I put a basket together for Doug with the following: a year's supply of Cadbury Cream Eggs, Chipotle Tabasco Sauce, and eggs filled with Sixlets and Starburst Jelly Beans.  My Easter basket had all of the same stuff basically except I got 6 stargazer lily bulbs.  These are my FAVORITE flowers and the same kind that I had in my bouquet on our wedding day.  (He planted them for me too!)

We then had a yummy breakfast of eggs, waffles, and grits with strawberries.  I always hated grits growing up and would never touch the stuff well... because it was too gritty.  Doug happens to LOVE grits, so I make them for him pretty often.  So, now I've actually started to develop a taste for the stuff.  I must be getting old.

I taught the Easter lesson to the Sunbeams at church.  My lesson was on the Resurrection, a pretty tricky topic for 3-4 year olds.  I started off the lesson by letting them talk about their morning so they could get it all out of their systems.  I then explained that we would NOT be talking about the Easter bunny or Easter eggs or candy and that we WOULD be talking about Jesus.  They nodded and seemed to listen very well through the lesson.  They particularly enjoyed the whole glove/hand, body/spirit part of the lesson.  In the end, we had some downtime, so the parent in the room asked them what they learned.  The only response... "Easter bunny!"  ...yeah.

  

After church, we drove over to my parents' house and had an Easter dinner with the family.  We brought over a monster Easter egg kit we had bought with some hard boiled eggs and invited the family to participate.  Doug has been anti-picture taking of himself lately and would NOT pose for any pictures, but he did agree to take some of me.  The only problem... a HUGE piece of green something stuck in my teeth.  He didn't notice it AT ALL and I didn't see it until I was going through the pictures on my camera a week later.  Here is a far away shot that you can't see the stuff stuck in my teeth...

Painting Project

So it's taken me forever to update my blog because I wanted to be done with my painting project beforehand so I could show you the beautiful finished pictures of it.  You know, because infertility is kind of depressing and I like to have happier things on my blog.

SO, yeah the painting... It's kind of still NOT done.  BUT, most of it is, so I'll show you some pictures of the stuff that's done and the stuff that's not done.  Also you'll get to see some fun pictures of me and my sis, Kate painting together. (By the way, Kate is awesome!  She stayed at my house and painted for three whole days and only was paid with my cooking.)

Upstairs hall-ish area where we started.

The actual painting ended up taking 4 days.  We started on Tuesday by going to the grocery store to get groceries for the week and then to Home Depot to pick up paint.  I had intended on starting and finishing EVERYTHING on that day (riiight), but by the time we finished all of my errands, it was 5:30pm.  When we got home, we decided to just make a yummy dinner that my sister Bekah cooks and then just watch TV.  We didn't actually get started on the painting at all, but I felt like the day was productive so we went to bed early and "officially" started the next day.  That day continued onto the next day, which continued onto the NEXT day...

I taped the top and then Kate painted the top.  We both almost died in the process.

I seriously had a blast painting with my little sis!  I hope it wasn't too torturous for her, but I really enjoyed hanging out with her those four days.  We got to catch up on all of the sisterly gossip that we've missed out on the last three years that she has been living in Hawaii.  We laughed about crazy things that we did as kids and just talked about our lives and our plans for the future. 

The stairs going up and down are now all done!

The entry hall (finished) and the stairs that go down into the basement (not finished).

Kate needed to go home on Friday to do some stuff related to becoming gainfully employed, so I released her from her servitude.  I came home and started finishing up the area that we had started in the basement.  I had gotten most of it done when Doug got back from work and wanted to talk and have dinner.  So, thinking that I would just get right back to it after making dinner, I put the paint brush and roller down, and made dinner.  The second my butt hit the couch, I knew I wasn't going to finish.  So this is how it still looks two weeks later.  I'm not sure when I'll get the motivation to finish.

Oh YES, and this here is the tape ball we made.  That's $25 worth of tape right there.  This picture also coincidentally kind of shows (in a blurry way) all of the different color paints that I've done so far in my house.  There's still A LOT more to do, but that's what teacher summers are for, right?