And life goes on

A lot has happened, but at the same time, it has all flown by so quickly.

The Sundance Film Festival came and went in that time. Alene worked it as a manager for the ten-day period. She was cold. Still, I was able to get out and see a few movies.

I saw the Shorts Collection, which was basically about two hours of short films. They were all great, so it was hard to say which ones I liked the best. The funniest one was called "Robins date", which starred Sam Rockwell as Batman and some other dude as "robin", who was out on a date with a girl. Batman (Rockwell), intervenes and starts trying to put the moves on Robin's date. They both end up finding out that the girl has a boyfriend and the boyfriend shows up to basically be-little batman and robin. It was hilarious.

I also saw a movie called In Between Days, which was about a Korean girl living in America and her relationship with a boy who she likes, but won't admit it and it drives her to do something she will end up regretting. It was awesome because it was shot on an extremely low budget (I'd guess under 20k) and it got some good reviews. All the talking was done in Korean, so there were subtitles. Another cool thing was that the lead girl had never acted before (and she did a dang good job). The director met her while she worked in a bakery.

The last film we saw was American Hard Core, which was a documentary about punk in the early 80's. It was awesome because it focused on a select group, the dudes that were really NUTS and just vented pure agression. They showed old footage of bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag, and others. It was a loud, awesome documentary.

School has been OK. I'm only taking one class because I was not able to get into the others I needed. I basically have two more classes to take (Math 1050 and Biology 1010) this summer and I'm done with my Associates degree. I used to hate Math, but I'm actually kind of enjoying the class. Not that I'd want to get into teaching it, but for the most part, it's not as painful to sit through as it was last semester. I think the instructor makes a big difference though.

I love Alene to death. She is an amazing woman. We have our marriage problems here and there, but it's never something I don't think we can't work through. I deeply love and care for her. My issue is that I'm not showing it enough. I often spend too much time working on things that only I enjoy, when I need to focus more on just dropping what is going on and pay attention to her. I think I'm getting better at it, but other times I think I take two steps backward (OK, maybe 1.5 steps). Either way, Alene is always willing to talk about things, so I'm comforted by that.

Caiden is growing and doing the things that 6-year olds do. I love him to death and there isn't a minute that goes by that I don't worry about him and how he will end up. It's sad, I know. I need to not worry so much, however I feel this total sense of MAJOR responsibility for him, his life, and his soul. I want so badly for him to have every opportunity to learn and grow. I want him to learn to be selfless and help others too. It's so hard to not worry and just let life happen. Oh well.

Anyway, Alene and I had fun last night. We spent most of the night making sugar cookies for a Valentines day project she is doing with her Sunday School class tonight. I felt bad because alene said I rolled and cut the cookies better than she did and it frustrated her. I guess I mostly feel bad becasue it frustrated her. She is amazing at other things that I admire about her, but for whatever reason, I'm not frustrated by it? Anyway, it was still fun because I had powdery hands and I placed two powder hand-prints right on her butt. I also kissed her when she had her back turned to me, and in the process, rubbed powder all over her face :-). It could have gotten messy, but we avoided that :-).

In the process of making the cookies, I kept staring at our map of the world (which hangs on our kitchen wall) and I had an idea for us to write down every corner of the earth we would like to visit, even if the places seemed impossible or too expensive. We came up with TONS of places, so we're going to be pretty busy the rest of our lives trying to get to those places.

One place I'm particularly excited to get to is Montana. Alenes brother Brian is graduating from his Masters program this may, so we're taking a week-long trip up there. We plan on going to the East side of montana to visit there area of Custers last stand, then heading back across to the North-West of Montana to visit Glacier National Park, then south down to Missoula to visit Brian and be there for his graduation. I'm so stoked for this trip. I've seen so many pictures of Glacier and always wanted to go there. Also, since I'm a big history buff, I'm excited to see Custers Last Stand as well. We'll be camping for four of the days and staying in a hotel for 2-3 of the other days.

Work is going well. Our landlord gave us $225,000.00 to make improvements to our floor (they gave us the money because we signed a new contract with them). If all goes to plan, I'll actually feel like someone important for a bit. I'll get to over-see the construction of a new cafateria/break room, office relocations, and a newer-designed floor plan for our employees. The project will take 3-4 months, so I'll be busy, but it will be fun to see it all come together.

I'm getting braces. Alene's insurance covers 50% of the expenses, so I figure I better jump at it while I can. My first appointment is on Valentines day and then I get fitted with the praces on the 21st. I'm stoked because I've hated my teeth pretty much my whole life. We were too poor when I was younger to get them, and I was not ever in a position to afford them in my early adult life either. It will be nice to have a correct bite and have straightened teeth as well. I'm going to the same place that Jeff went to.

That is about it. I haven't had a ton of time to sit and write my thoughts, so this has been nice.