Korean beef tacos
it worked!
This evening Mikayla and Guy accompanied Cora to the baptism preview fireside. Cora will be baptized at the beginning of July.
While the three of them went off to the church, all the other Johnsens, less the dog, came to hang out at our house. Whenever they come it is pandemonium. We were just sitting down to eat, and although the Johnsens had had dinner, everyone joined us for second dinner, as if they were all Hobbits.
After dinner, everyone scattered to play and I thought I would make cookies. Freya was very keen to help, so she sat on the counter and dumped in ingredients, lifted and turned on the mixer, then rolled the dough in cinnamon and sugar. Thea came into the kitchen while we were rolling dough and joined Freya on the counter. Kal passed through the kitchen a couple of times and stole unbaked cookies off the tray. After they were all baked and we were eating them, he told me he liked them better before they were cooked. The kid's got good taste. He also has an egg allergy, so I hope he isn't sick all night.
Mikayla, Guy, and Cora returned and we all enjoyed cookies and milk. It was a lively Sunday evening.
At the beginning of December, I received a promotion at work. I am now the Branch Service Manager, or the assistant manager under the Branch Manager. I was glad to get the new job, but it has been overwhelming at times. My manager is not doing much, so I feel like I am doing all the things. The job is a big one anyway--I'm over branch operations including hiring, training, and the day-to-day running of the branch, as well as all the monthly and quarterly regulatory oversight. It's a lot! I had a couple of freak-outs the first month and wondered if all the extra work would be worth the marginal raise I received.
Six weeks in, I'm still not sure. I had to hire three new people the first month and all of them have started since the beginning of the year. Midori Okamura has replaced me as the Branch Relationship Banker, and she is wonderful. She knows all the things, remembers where to find things, and is great with people. She is a huge asset to the branch and to me. The other two are tellers who have not worked for Zions Bank, but one of them, Andrew, has had years of banking experience and the other, Jill, is about my age and has had lots of managerial experience. I'm hoping they will be great, too, once they have finished their training and get to real work.
Training has not lessened the workload, nor has Dave, my manager, really stepped up to fill in while I train. We'll see how things play out. In the meantime, I am doing all of my annual compliance and training modules at home, during the evening, because I absolutely do not have time to do it at work.
I have been so busy at work that I have been unable to do any of the training modules I am required to complete each year. They are terrifically boring compliance trainings about government regulations. All pretty dry. Fortunately, I know much of the material already, so I can jump right to the test and don't always have to read through the whole thing. But the fact that I've been doing it at home hasn't been terrific.
Today, for National Popcorn Day, I made popcorn for everyone, and then, instead of sitting and watching a movie, the best thing to do while eating popcorn, I sat and did trainings.
At least I had popcorn.
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I have discovered we have a lot of gift cards to various places. They are sitting in an envelope on the desk in a cubby waiting to be used. Every so often I commit to actually using them so that they are not going to waste. Today was one of those days. I didn't really want to cook so I pulled out our gift certificates to see what we had, and we had coupons for four free dinners to Chuck-a-Rama. Chuck-A-Rama isn't my favorite place but if we go there to eat, I don't have to cook. So that was today's option. And here we are having eaten together. Chuck-A-Rama's tag line is, "The choice is yours at Chuck-a-Rama," and that's true. Everyone was able to choose what they wanted to eat, so everyone was happy.
The autumn run of Les Mis at Timpview was amazing. I blogged about that back in November (or I will, when I get caught up). It was so amazing, Timpview was asked by the Utah Theatre Association to do a revival for their high school conference. Practically everyone agreed to perform again, so Brandt and Isabella have been busy with rehearsals and performances. Fortunately, it hasn't been the ordeal that it was in November, as they have only been involved for a week rather than a month. While the productions went well, Isabella reported Fantine had a panic attack shortly before she was meant to go on stage and things were a bit chaotic backstage. Brandt was told not to turn on her mike until she pulled herself together, but she rallied as the show must go on.
Kent and I did not attend the revival, so I took no pictures. Isabella, however, took a selfie backstage.
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This evening, Kent and I attended the BYU ballet production of Swan Lake. We were meant to go with our friends, Chris and Sandralee Jensen, but they are on a cruise with their children. I asked my co-workers if any of them wanted the extra tickets, but they had other stuff going, so just Kent and I went.
The ballet was terrific--the music is beautiful, the dancing was amazing, and it wasn't too long (just over an hour). The children were at school finished up the Les Mis revival, so the house was quiet for over an hour after we got back. It was a lovely evening.
It's interesting to hit a milestone and look back on what has come before. Today, Kent and I have been married 28 years. It feels like a long time. We had a sunny winter day, much like the day we married. You could have golfed, just like people did as we ate our wedding lunch. It has been hard, especially the last couple of years. You would think, after all this time, that we would have figured things out better, that we would be better at conflict resolution, that we would be happy with each other all the time.
We aren't.
But that doesn't mean our marriage isn't worth fighting for. We continue to work at it. Through small actions, we are trying to strengthen our relationship; we pray together, we read scriptures together, we attend the temple together each week, we are trying to play together more. We still need lots of work and I know we are both often frustrated with our inability to get it right. I wish it were easier.
To celebrate, we went to the temple yesterday and did sealings, then went and got shakes and onion rings in memory of our first date. This evening, the children were at school doing a two-day revival performance of Les Mis, so Kent and I went and had Indian food for dinner. Brent and Brenda leave for Montreal on Saturday, so we had a final evening of pickleball. All in all, it was a wonderful way to celebrate being married.
No pictures were taken anywhere.
We partied hard with Mikayla to celebrate her birthday and the new year, but we had planned on making onion rings, then didn't. We ran out of time/energy/stomach space. Today Mikayla invited us over to have the onion rings we didn't make and eat yesterday, and I'm happy to report they were delicious. As Mikayla said, "Let's 'ring' in the new year." Hear! Hear!
No pictures were taken of people consuming onion rings, but here is a picture of the actual rings we consumed.
For some time, Blythe has been going by Izzy at school. She is trying to find herself and as she looks, she wants to be known by Isabella, her middle name. It feels weird for us, her family, but in an effort to respect her, we are trying to remember to call her Isabella. So, at the beginning of this new year, I will now call her Isabella on our family blog.
