It's official........

You can now call me "brace face". I had my braces put on my teeth yesterday (Tuesday). They're not too painful, but if I bite into something, they really bother me. So, it looks like I'll be losing weight, which isn't a bad thing. No, I won't be starving myself, I'll just be eating less-frequently.

I find that with my braces, I wait until I'm really hungry, then I eat only for the sake of getting the food on my stomach, not to enjoy the taste of it. I already envy people that get to sit there and chew their food, to get the flavors in their mouth and wait a bit, then swallow it. For me, I just get the food in tiny pieces, put it in my mouth and swallow. Not much flavor and nothing fun about it. Oh well, I guess that is how it should be. Shoot, maybe I'll just start eating bugs?

Life has been pretty busy/hectic, but I've enjoyed it. Alene is very loving to me and shows me all the time that she cares about us. I love that about her. She truly is the "glue" in our marriage and she teaches me every day about love and the importance of the bond a husband and wife should have with each other.

Caiden teaches me many things too. I don't know why, but I never feel like I'm an adequat parent to him. I know I love him dearly and I care about him, but I find myself always "in the moment" when I get mad at him too easily, or I'm quick to discredit his fears. The hardest part with him is getting him to bed. He will take AT LEAST an hour before he falls asleep. During that time he is up every few minutes, calling me into his room because he saw a shadow or he heard a sound. Most of the time I get frustrated and tell him it's nothing (and during that time I'm tired/grumpy, so I REALLY over-react) when I know I should have patiently given him a hug, looked around the room for anything scary, then showed him it was OK. Still, I know he loves me and I know he knows I love him, I just want to have a strong impression as a father on him.

We recently signed him up for Soccer, so that should be fun. He does Karate right now, but that is more of an individual thing. This will be his first opportunity to be on a team of some sort. I can't wait for him to start.

Alene may be working for a new employer soon. She was contacted by someone in her MBA class about a job opening with Echostar (which is basically Dish Network). She interviewed and they offered. It's a great opportunity with less stress and a more relaxed environment for her. She gets to work from home on Monday, then Tues-Fri she is out and about on the road in the Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis County area retailers for Dish Network products, providing updates and training to each location. I'm really excited for her to start this as I know the Travel coordinator job has been really wearing her down.

We are both getting ready for a re-model of our kitchen and we've also decided to do a little more re-model into the front room of our house, making it into a dining room. It's going to be a HUGE change and I can't wait to have it done and for everyone to see it. It's going to look WAY different than things have in the past. I'm seriously ITCHING to get started on it, but I'm sure Alene can wait :-). I look forward to working on it with her and being able to teach her some of the things I've learned with home remodels.