Dance Pictures

Ava's Dance Video

Ava is the 3rd dancer on the right.

Coupons

So I'm trying to save some money and I'm exploring the whole coupon thing. It's pretty overwhelming but I'm taking some baby steps. Today I made my first money saving, coupon wielding, shopping trip. So here are the stats. The retail value of the products I purchased was $65.29. After combining sale prices and coupons I paid $41.94. That's a savings of 36%. I guess it's not bad, but it sure took a lot of work to get that $23.35 savings. I guess 20 bucks is worth a couple hours. Hopefully I'll get fast and more efficient soon!

Piano Lessons

Hey Everyone! I'm taking on more piano students for Fall! Yay! I've made a special blog to get all the information out there.

Here is the link: plymouthrockpiano.blogspot.com

Check it out if you're interested!

The Police

Well, I hate to complain or play the victim but we're having quite the week. On Monday morning I received a call from our bank. They said there were some possible fraud activity on our account. I instantly looked up our account online and saw that there had been 6 ATM withdrawals in California, totaling over $1,100. Obviously someone had got a hold of our banking information and was drawing out money. Somehow the thief had Luke's bank card number and PIN number. Crazy, huh? Well, the bank disabled his card and is doing an investigation. Meanwhile, they refunded the money to our account, thank goodness! Luke also filed a police report with the Oxnard California Police Department. Not that it will do any good. They basically say this happens all the time and there's nothing they can do.

Now, today on Wednesday I had to call the police again and file another report. This time I was dealing with the Lehi police though. Here's the story: Luke's out of town this weekend, and so today I took the girls to McDonald's for dinner. While we were inside someone smashed in one of the windows of our van. Luckily nothing was stolen (not that I had much in there anyway except a stroller and car seats). I called the police and they came to check it out, but unfortunately there were no eye witnesses and Mc Donald's did not have a camera on that side of the building. So again, the police told me the same story, there was nothing they could do. I've just got to suck it up, replace the window, and move on.

So basically, I've had two incidences this week with criminals and with dealing with the police, who unfortunately can't do anything to catch these guys.

Here are some pictures of the broken window.

What a Raisin Can Do

This morning the Comcast guy came at 8 AM to fix our phone line because it's been down for two days. I was able to call out but I couldn't receive any calls. If anyone tried to call us here at home all they got was dead air, it didn't even ring. The Comcast guy was here for an hour, trying everything he could think of to fix the problem. Finally, as a last resort, we checked every phone jack in the house. Everything was working correctly until we reached Ava & Tessie's room. Shoved inside the phone jack's tiny hole was a raisin. He pulled it out with pliers and the phones started working again. Crazy! I couldn't help but laugh at what a big problem a tiny raisin can cause. The Comcast guy said he'd never seen that before and we laughed about it. That crazy little Tess, she finds ways to create mischief! Ha! Oh well, at least she didn't get shocked or anything like that!

Sendai - Sapporo - Sendai

Well, my brother Brian is back in Sendai. After the earthquake the church had moved all the missionaries out of that mission and Brian went to Sapporo. This last week they chose 20 missionaries to return to the Sendai mission. Brian is one of those missionaries who returned. He is back in his last area, Hachinohe, where he says things look pretty well cleaned up. Although he did mention that there is a large crack in the church building...otherwise, he said the streets are ok, but some buildings look dangerous and you can't go in. Here's a picture from one of his last activities with the Sapporo mission president. Brian said it was a combination of real golf and mini-golf. Somewhere in between the two. Anyway, Brian has such a good attitude about everything, and adjusts so well to all the changes that have been thrown his way. I'm so proud of him and the work he's doing in Japan!

Soccer

Luke just posted a bunch of soccer pics from Ava's soccer team The Sunflowers. Here is the link to his blog if you want to check them out.

http://plukehansen.blogspot.com/2011/05/yellow-sunflowers-vs-blue-thunder.html