My first major construction project in the house is finally completed. Yesterday just before 10:00pm I laid the last piece of the floor and finished the crawl space. It only took a month and half to complete but I glad to say it is finally over.

We have chosen to call the crawl space “The Hobbit Hutch”. We actually got the name from Jake Judd who is a good friend of mine.

The kids have already spent quite a bit of time in the hutch playing and having a grand old time. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Am I glad it is over? HECK YEAH!

I had tons of help from friends which was greatly appreciated. Below are a bunch of photos of the process. Originally Emily thought I built the camer into the walls but she found out other wise when they found the camera under the bed.

Since we moved into our house, Emily has wanted to build a play room for the kids in half of the crawl space. Many people in our neighborhood have done this already. I have been against it because of the time and the money it would take. Well, this morning I was thinking about it and was in a good mood. So, when I went down to breakfast this morning I told Emily that I was ready to move ahead with creating the playroom.

First we had the Cook’s over and Keven told me how they did theirs and how they got around some of the obstacles. Then Kevin and I went to Home Depot and bought some wood, light and a few other things to get going.

Once all the wood was inside I called up the Bishop and he came over and helped be get started on framing. It was a lot of work but we were proud of the work we got done today. It is coming along well and I am hoping to start doing the sheet rock next Saturday if everything goes well. The pictures in the post are some before pictures of the crawl space we are transforming. There is also a picture of my and the Bishop after a couple hours of work.

Since I don’t work on Friday’s we occasionally decide to go out and have some fun as a family. Yesterday was one of those days.

When Jake got home from school we jumped in the van and headed to Sandy. This weekend is the Festival of Trees. It is a fundraiser for Primary Children’s Hospital. People donate the trees and then they auction off the trees. The trees they have there are amazing. My favorite trees were the BYU tree and the Utah Jazz tree. Emily liked any trees that looked like something was exploding out of the top of it. You may not be able to see it in the picture.

After the kids got sick of walking around looking at trees we decided we would go have dinner at In-and-Out in Draper. Well, the line was too long. We decided to flip around and go to Wendy’s instead but instead of trying to turn left on State Street I decided to just rap around the back streets. Well, I got myself turned around and we ended up at Del Taco. I prefer Taco Bell.

Once we finally finished dinner we headed to Thanksgiving Point to have some fun at the dinosaur museum. We got there at 7:30 and it closed at 8:00. We hurried through to the boys favorite parts. You can see Matt next to the dinosaur leg. He has a long way to grow.

We finally rolled in at home around 8:50 last night and the kids were tired. They head straight to bed and Matt was nice enough to sleep in until 7:00 this morning. I enjoy having my Friday’s off. I also had a chance to go volunteer in Jake’s class yesterday. I always enjoy doing that.

After years of talking about getting my tonsils out it finally happened. I am looking forward to a more happy and healthy life.

The surgery didn’t quite go according to plan. I was supposed to go home the same day. However, my time in the recovery room was not too smooth. My left arm ended up have spasms for a while. On top of that I was slow to come out of the anesthesia. Because of this, I ended up having to stay the night in the hospital. In the end I got home last night around 5:00.

When I am on pain killers I feel pretty good. However, when they start to wear off it hurts to think about talking.

Thanks to everyone for your phone calls and support.

If this blog post seems a little odd it is because I am currently on pain killers while writing this.

As many people know Jake had his tonsils (and adenoids) taken out on Friday. We let him know that his throat was going to hurt after but we told him that he would get to eat lots of ice cream and popsicles.

Well, Friday morning at 9:15 we got to the surgical center where we got Jake checked in. He was fine until they took us back to get him ready for the operation. We forgot the camera so we didn’t get any pictures to put up but we did get some pictures on our cell phones of Jake in his “hospital clothes”. They looked quite comfortable.

Once they got him all ready, they told him he could watch some TV until they were ready to take him to the operating room. He started to ask us if we could come back another time to get his tonsils out. Of course we told him no. The gave him some medicine that would help with anxiety. As many of you know, Jake gets very anxious about new things.

Emily and I waited out in the waiting room for about 30 minutes when they pulled us back to get us in place so we would be there when Jake came out of recovery. After another 15 minutes or so, they wheeled a crying little boy into our area. I could hear him coming as they brought him. He was not a happy camper. He kept crying and telling us his throat hurt. We kept trying to tell him that if he stopped crying it would help his throat not hurt so much. That didn’t help. Emily got up on the bed with him and held him and eventually he calmed down. After a does of pain killers of course.

Jake eventually Jake fell asleep but they would not let him go home. Whenever Jake ends up in the hospital he has a problem with his oxygen levels. His oxygen level kept dropping and they told us it had to stay above a certain number for 20 minutes before we could go. Eventually they had Emily hold an oxygen mask by his face for 30 minutes. Then they tried to see if he could do it on his own for 20 minutes. Luckily it stayed up and we were able to take him home.

Well, Jake has been doing quite well. When he has his pain killers in him you would never know he had his tonsils out. He talks just as much as he always has. However, when the pain killers wear off, he gets really upset. He hates his pain killers because it doesn’t taste good. So to get him to take it, Emily and I usually have to do it together.

The past two nights he has watched the movie Cars on our bedroom ceiling with our projector. He is going to be sad tomorrow night when we move him back to his room.

The lesson Jake has learned from this is that he never wants to have surgery again.

Oh, about the title of this post. When the nurse asked if Jake was getting his tonsils out, Jake responded. “And my adenoids too.” It was pretty funny.

Sorry there have been no updates lately. We currently don’t have a home computer. We are planning on fixing this problem for Christmas. Just bare with us and we will get back on track one of these days.

Tonight we were sitting down at the dinner table and I figured while we were all there we would read our scriptures as a family. Well, before we started I was asking the boys some gospel questions. They were really excited that they knew the answers to the questions. As I continued to ask questions Jake yelled out “How many Jesus points do I have?” We all had a good laugh. As we went on the boys continually asked how many Jesus points they received after answering a question. It was really funny.

I had a follow up appointment today. The ankle is still very swollen. They found I tore the ligament completely. They put me in a boot for at least the next two weeks. They also have the exercises I am supposed to do. Fun times!

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So this year I have decided to get back in decent shape (physically). So, I have working out on the elliptical machine and I have started playing basketball again. Well, for some reason my basketball skills and my physical abilities aren’t what they used to be in my glory days of high school.

I was playing basketball this past Thursday at the church. I had been enjoying the past couple weeks of playing basketball with out feeling like I was going to pass out after 5 minutes of playing. Well, we were in the middle of a game and I was going for the ball that was about to go out of bounds. As I reached for it my ankle started to roll. I tried to let up before it went too far but it was too late. It continued to roll under and then there was a loud pop. Boy did it hurt! Once the guys scraped me off the floor they brought in a big pot of ice and water. I sat and watched them finish playing.

Well, one of the guys helped me get into the house when I got home. There was no way I was going to try going up the stairs. So I stayed on the love seat in the living room. I figured at some point Emily would come down to find out why I hadn’t come up to bed. I got home at 11pm and come midnight Emily hadn’t come out and I drifted off to sleep. At about 2am I woke up in pain and needed to go to the bathroom. At about 2:30 I crawled up the stairs to go to the bathroom. I pulled myself into bed and that’s when Emily finally work up. She looked at the clock and wondered why I was getting to bed so late. I told her I hurt my ankle and she decided she wanted to look at my ankle. She looked at it and immediately called her brother Jeff and asked him to come get me and take me to the ER. I had no say in it.

Well, after two hours in the ER they let me go. Luckily no bones were broken but I have at least partially torn a ligament in my foot. The doctor told me to stay off it and keep my foot elevated. So, today was the first time up and about in order to go to church. Thank goodness for pain killers because after my bath this morning I was in a lot of pain.

So, what lesson have a learned? I need to play more basketball to get to the point where my body won’t fall apart when I play.

Holy smokes, it is February 2009 and not a work from the Olsen’s. I guess I better play catch-up.

It has already been a crazy year for us. We had a great time this holiday season. We saw almost all the family from both sides. It was great to see everyone but it was also nice to get back to our regular lives.

Maybe a quick overview on each of the kids will suffice for now.

Jake was excited to go back to school after the holiday break. He loves school and all he wants to do when he gets home is play school. He has had a couple of bouts with the stomach flu which he hates. He’ll constantly talk about how he hates to throw up.

Andrew started Sunbeams this year. He was so excited. He thinks he is so big now that he is in primary. He also can’t wait to be 5 so he can go to school like Jake.

Isaac is still quite the character. Grandma Murphy made all the boys capes. He wears his constantly and says he is Batman. He usually gets in the car to go to church with it on and I have to take it off before we go into the church.

Matt is getting big. He is a tall little guy. He loves to hear himself talk and he is very smiley.

Emily and I are just jugging away like usually. I have been swamped at work trying to juggle things after we had some people laid off. Emily’s life consists of kids and enrichment.

Hopefully we will be better about updating the blog. Life has been crazy.