What a great couple of days it has been. We found a new home for our beloved island and countertop which we've had and treasured now since first moving into Wymount almost two years ago. We were fortunate enough to be able to get a new kitchen put in down stairs in our little apartment thanks to my wonderful father and brother Elliott for helping with that. We have been using our new kitchen an awful lot and felt so blessed that we decided we needed to bless some other couple by giving them the countertop that we'd used for so long. It truly was designed to go in a kitchen at Wymount and almost triples the counter top space in that place which is a very grand thing to have if you like to do any sort of cooking at all. Lizzy in her countless wonderfulness contacted our old bishop at the wymount ward who was able to get into contact with the current bishop there and the magic was worked and we found a wonderful couple to donate it to, we hope that they enjoy it as much as we have over the past two years and cook many wonderful meals on it.
I also got a new job as a phlebotomist at the BYU health center. I'm very excited about this. It's a job that I applied for back in august, but they didn't hire me at the time, perhaps because I was away with the army and couldn't start offiicially at the beginning of the semester, maybe it was just because they didn't like me, whatever the case I didn't get the job then, but they had asked me to reapply for winter semester so I took a chance and got the job. It's very exciting to us. It doesn't pay an awful lot, but enough that we can finally, hopefully, start putting some money away into savings. This is something that we've wanted to try and do for a long time, but it's been difficult with me going to school and lizzy being a stay at home mom. I hope it works out well with the semester. I start my first day on the 3rd of January and am very excited.
Other than that we're just loving life. Today is Christmas Eve and Charlie could just tell that something different was in the air today. He was just so sweet and happy all day long. Lizzy's grandma also moved in last night and seems to be settling in well. She bought a house just right down the street from here so it should be nice to have everybody so close. I can't wait for Christmas tomorrow. Lizzy has been working very hard on some present for me, or a group of presents for me that she claims will be my new hobby for the new year. That sounds a little bit ominous to me, but I'm excited all the same. I do enjoy new hobbies. Just between you and me, I think it has something to do with food though I don't know why, but she's left enough hints, or made enough slips of the tongue that I have a fairly large hunch that's what I'm getting. What a wonderful time of the year. I just love Christmas.

Tennis- The girls sport

I teach cub scouts. I am a fairly new leader, only having commissioned into the ranks of den leader a short 4 weeks ago and am still trying desperately to learn what appeals to the imagination and hippness of a nine year old boy. Tonight it was announced that we would be learning about sports. A topic I thought would be absolutely fool proof and appeal to the aspiring sports star minds of all those young boys. "we're going to be playing a few sports tonight, but first we have to learn the rules". This was not followed by the elation that I had anticipated, as trying to cram one more nugget of information into their mind is the worst imaginable threat out there. It was a general consensus among the ranks that it would be alright if we learned about sports, so long as the sport was ONLY football and nothing else. You can imagine their disdain when I further went on to tell them that we're going to be learning about tennis. "Tennis!" They all exclaimed in horror, "tennis is a girls sport, you must think we're a bunch of sissy girls if you want us to learn about tennis." "No" I announced through gritted teeth, "tennis is not a girls sport, many very manly men play tennis and it's good to learn about all different kinds of sports, not just the ones we think are cool". My sentiments weren't readily shared, so I quickly rattled off the general rules of playing tennis. Two people stand on opposite ends of the court. Two people hit a ball back and forth with a racket. The scoring is a little obscure... As I was about to finish, one eager cub scout who hadn't yet drifted off to the land of zombies eagerly raised his hand. "yes?" I asked "do you have a question", "Yea, are we done yet?" I assured him that we were close and that after learning about tennis we would be taught about basketball and then would all go to the gym and play for the remainder of the time. This peaked their interest considerably with even a few good neighborly scouts poking their peers in the ribs telling them of the good news. Scouts ended and I promptly came home to inform my wife that tennis was indeed a girls sport and apparently had no business being taught to a 9 year basketball star. She disagreed with me, which makes sense, since she was the one that initially suggested we teach about tennis in the first place. Well perhaps one day they will enjoy this information and not mind playing tennis so much with a girl.

-Ches