Blizzard!

Over Friday and Saturday this week, we had a huge snowstorm that dumped over a foot of snow on top of the 5-6 inches we had leftover from last weekend's storm. Total accumulation is somewhere in the neighborhood of 21-22 inches!

We're very fortunate that we haven't lost power at all through the weekend... we have friends all around in the area that have had to do without.

Here are a few pictures of the "luge" I made in the front driveway for the kids to enjoy, since we won't be driving to a sledding hill anytime soon:

Snow job

So for the second time this winter, we're snowed in... it snowed pretty much all day yesterday, and when the final tally was done this morning, I think we came in at about 12 inches (hard to say, since it's pretty powdery and is in drifts). The roads are all still snowpacked, so our church leaders canceled services this morning, and like last time, we had our own service here at home, just the four of us (plus the cat). Allstar chose our hymns, Princess shared a scripture and spiritual thought, and my Sweetheart bore a beautiful testimony. I was getting ready to give my little lesson/talk when Allstar piped up and said he wanted to give a talk too... so he ran and grabbed his scriptures and shared a couple of his favorites. I'm so glad that "my children walk in truth."

Now, while they romp in the neighbor's snowbanks, Sweetheart and I get to go shovel the driveway.

The Future

I love this. It really sums up what I'm trying to do with our kids:

Original here

My Day at the Library of Congress (part 2)

Back in June, I wrote part 1 of my story about our visit to the Library of Congress and said that part 2 was coming the next day... Then I promptly dropped the subject. I'm thinking I need better follow-through on my writing here, eh?

So when I left off last time, my Sweetheart and the kids and I were on our way into D.C. We took the metro from Huntington station, which is always fun for the kids and mildly stressful for the grownups (but much less stressful than actually driving into / parking in the District). One quick subterranean trip later, we surfaced a few blocks south of the Library.

Following all the out-of-towners into the main visitor's lobby, we uttered the requisite oohs and aahs at its impressive architecture (which is quite impressive). After pausing a few moments to take it all in (and take a few candid photos of Sweetheart and the kids), I asked a patron where to go for, you know, the books, telling him I was trying to find a particular book for my journal submission. He directed me to a sub-basement tunnel leading to one of the other buildings, where I could sign up for my "library card". So I left Sweetheart with the kids to look at the Gutenberg bible, Bob Hope memorabilia, Gershwin's piano, and the rest of the public exhibits, and took the elevator down to the catacombs (okay, not really, but it did kind of feel that way).

When I got to the right office, I filled out my request for access and waited my turn. Not much of a wait, actually (it was, reportedly, slower than usual: bonus!). They took my picture and gave me my official "library reader" card, then I sat down with another gentleman whose job it is to help new readers find what they're looking for, in exchange for their self-worth as a human being and grad student. When I gave him the call number and title, he kind of snorted and launched into a tirade about the uselessness of my chosen field, and Liberal Arts disciplines in general. A few times, I wanted to interject some rebuttal or counter to his points, but I bit my tongue for the sake of the mission: closing time was looming within a few hours and I might end up needing all the time I could get (I also wondered if you could get kicked out for arguing with the grumpy old librarian, and didn't want to risk it). At the time I idly wondered if goading young researchers was some form of "hazing," and it wouldn't surprise me if it is.

Anyway, after I refused to take the bait when Mister Sunshine belittled my research subject, he told me that my book - if I still really wanted to get it, and not abandon such a useless endeavor in the face of his soul-crushing logic - was in the main reading room. Cool! That's the place you always see pictures of, and one Ben Gates got the President's secret book from in National Treasure 2! Keen! So back through the catacombs I marched, and up to the research floor.

I checked my bag at security: no cameras, smartphones, or other potentially clandestine devices are permitted in the main Reading Room, although they've recently made an exception for laptops in one area of the floor. If I'd known this ahead of time, I would have brought my laptop; instead, my arsenal of research tools was stripped down to a small pad of paper and a pencil. Worse, the woman at the circulation desk told me the wait for my request could be upwards of an hour! Without email, Google Reader, and Patiences solitaire, my usual time-killing companions! Horrors! I noted with some interest (and a little concern) how dependent I've become on this little miracle of hand-held computing (it's with a liberal helping of irony that I'm writing this tonight from said smartphone).

So now I was in the Reading Room... and yes, it is as mind-blowingly big as it seems in its photos. And, like most of the government buildings in Washington, it was loaded to the gills with symbolic art, almost absurdly, overwhelmingly so.

With nothing else to do but sit and quietly wait, I began to write in my small notepad:

6/27/2009
So... Here I am in the Library of Congress's main Reading Room! It's quite an impressive place, just as amazing as it looked in "National Treasure" when Nic Cage tried to steal the President's secret book. I'm sitting directly under the huge rotunda, looking up at art celebrating our civilization's heritage: philosophy from Greece, religion from Judea, emancipation from France, administration from Rome, etc. Awe-inspiring is too small a word.

About that time, my book showed up -- in less than the predicted hour, so they were 2 for 2 on efficiency for me that day. Within 5 minutes, I'd found the quote I'm using in my paper, and had made a note of its page number and a few other relevant details. Here's the funniest part of the whole effort: I knew the answer all along: years ago, I learned from Douglas Adams the "Ultimate Answer" to the "Ultimate Question," and that was indeed the answer I'd spent this entire day seeking (and all this time blogging about it!):

The missing page number was 42.

Pioneer Camp 2009

In honor of LDS Pioneer Day, the anniversary of the early saints' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, our family decided to go camping. In some small way, we figured, this would help us to better understand the sacrifices made by these early members of the Church.

In a way, it did: first, we got rained on Friday night as we attempted to cook our dinner. Admittedly it was a short and light rain, but enough to keep the fire from really taking off (Although I suspect lighter fluid would've helped too). We slept on hard ground in the sweltering heat/humidity (it got better as the night wore on, though). Mary and Sarah got woken up in the middle of the night by rescue sirens and a life flight helicopter (we found out later that there was a fatal 2-car collision involving a drunk driver, happening only a few miles from our campsite). Of course the pioneers wouldn't have had that sort of an experience, but I suspect there were the occasional nighttime encounter with hostile indians or wildlife.

Saturday morning we got up and the kids and I went over to the campground playground to let off a little steam before breakfast: orange juice, bananas & blueberry muffins. Mary closed the muffin baggie to keep out unwanted bugs and such, and came over to join us briefly. We returned to find this:



Those are bite marks... clear through the bag and into a bunch of the muffins! (Note there's also a bite mark in one of the bananas, but apparently the bitter outer peel was enough to discourage the little thieves from pursuing that effort any further.) Looking up, then, we noticed the camp surrounded by the perpetrators, who brazenly remained at the scene of the crime:



Apparently 35 years of campground life has conditioned these squirrel colonies to the "easy life" among us careless humans. Next year, we'll know to keep stuff in the cooler!

Anyway, we went on to have a nice morning, swimming in the campground pool and exploring the southern coast of our little peninsula of Maryland.



Happy Pioneer Day, everyone!

Home

By the time you read this, we'll be in our new home.

I'm writing this on Friday afternoon, but scheduling it to be published as my regular Sunday post. This afternoon I'm running over to pick up the U-Haul, tonight we load it, and tomorrow morning we head for Great Mills. We've got friends from church lined up on both ends to help us load/unload, so that should go reasonably smoothly.

The one unknown is when we'll have an internet connection again. I recently found out that I can use the data connection on my T-Mobile smartphone as a laptop modem, so if need be I may try that, but otherwise expect me to be offline for at least the next week or two.

Long Weekend

This was a "long weekend" in more ways than one. Friday, since my office was closed in observance of the Independence Day holiday, we drove the kids down to the house to take the first load of "stuff" (kitchen supplies, pantry foods, some of the kids' toys, etc). Mowed the lawn while Mary and the kids relaxed and rested in the shade, ate lunch at the nearby Cici's Pizza buffet (not great, but not bad for $20 for the 4 of us), ran errands in getting accounts and memberships and utilities set up. We didn't get back home to Alexandria until after 9 that night. Tiring!


Yesterday, July 4th, we drove out to Amissville, Virginia, where some good family friends live, to join them for the baptism of their second son, Dallin, who just turned 8. Our kids reall hit it off with he and his 10-yr-old brother Nathan, and after the baptism we went back to their house for the afternoon, for a barbeque, lots of basketball and other outdoor tomfoolery, watching parts of the Star Wars prequels 1 and 2 (which my kids have never seen), and of course fireworks. Drove home when we'd finished blowing stuff up, and rolled in to our rental house's driveway about midnight.

Bringing us to today: our last Sunday in our current ward (a local LDS congregation is called a "ward", for reasons I'm not entirely clear on; but I digress). In the past year we've made a ton of friends here, so it's really hard to leave. Thank goodness for email and Facebook!

A day in the life

Somewhat typical exchange at our house that just occurred a few minutes ago:


My wife: Okay, I just got the pizza in the oven!

My 11-yr-old daughter: ... and I'm almost done with this math worksheet!

My 6-yr-old son: ... and I'm reading Jesus the Christ!

Oh, life! I had no idea when I was a kid what surprises parenting would bring. :)

Catching up on the picture pool

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I set up a YouTube account for our family videos that I want to share with the public. It's at YouTube.com/RyAndMary, and includes a few school concerts the kids have been involved in this school year.

I've also recently done a picture dump from my phone, so here are some highlights from recent months:

The kids at a recent "art night" event at school

Matthew playing Tee Ball

Picking our own strawberries at a local farm

Sarah at the recent Daddy/Daughter Night at church

Matthew at our church fathers & sons campout last weekend

Well, beat me with a wet noodle!

Not an auspicious start to my new publishing schedule goal... I posted my MUGEN update on Friday, and my Code Monkey update today, but I totally missed my goal in terms of posting something here on the root blog this past Sunday. I take full responsibility for the lapse, and promise that my next post here will be more substantial.

The house-hunt is still ongoing, the old farmhouse fell through for a couple of reasons that I don't really want to go into, and the few other times we've been interested in writing an offer, we were either outbid by someone else, or priced out of it by high taxes or HOA fees. I'll update when we find something good.

Hard to believe it, but we're coming into the end of the kids' school year already... even in Fairfax County, where the school year runs to the middle of June, we're down under 30 days now. Tee-ball is in full swing, and Irish dance is preparing for the end-of-the-year recital. So expect some cool pictures soon, and maybe even some video on our family YouTube channel.

What joy shall fill my heart...

Yesterday my Mom called to let me know that my "Grandma Dini" (Dad's Mom) had passed away in her sleep the previous night. While we're sad that she's left us behind to continue on her soul's immortal journey, I think about all the people she's with today in paradise: her parents, her sister and brothers, her good husband, and most especially her Savior. She's been such a faithful follower of Christ, a good wife and mother and grandmother and great-grandmother, who lived to see her posterity blossom and flourish in the rich soil of faith that she prepared for us. I have every confidence that when she peacefully passed through that eternal veil she heard Him say to her, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

I love you, Grandma. I miss you already, and look forward to the day I'll see you again.

Godspeed

(note to self: I need to stop posting blog entries late at night! The last one was actually meant to go on my MUGEN blog, not here. But maybe this accidental post will give it a little more visibility. Or something. =P)

My step-grandpa, Papa Ed, quietly passed away at his home yesterday. Soooooo glad I flew out with my family to see him and Grandma a few weeks ago! That ticket was 100% worth it. Godspeed, Papa. I love you.

Ping-pong weather

It was sunny and in the mid-sixties today. Most of last Tuesday's snow and ice have melted, and it felt like spring is on the way. So, naturally, we're forecast to get 3-6 inches of new snow by the middle of this week! Crazy.

This afternoon the kids and I had our first test run of Google's new(ish) "video chat" service through GMail/Google Talk. We got my parents a webcam with integrated microphone for Christmas, for this very reason. I got to see my parents last week, but the kids haven't seen them in nearly 6 months... so this was pretty neat. Highly recommended. :)

Quick note (almost a tweet, really)

Back from Salt Lake. Had a good (if short) trip, got to see my family & spend a lot of time with them. My grandpa's not looking so good... he was in good spirits, but it was clear, even to him, that he might not have much longer on this earth. Good thing our spirits are eternal beings.

Fairfax county schools were out Monday & Tuesday for teacher workdays; they were also out today because of an ice storm last night, and will be delayed tomorrow by 2 hours for the same reason. Contrast that with Utah, where I don't think I ever had a snow day at BYU! Oh well... different infrastructure, different expectations.

Long weekends

Living in the Washington DC area as we do, Inauguration Day and its attendant pomp & circumstance are swirling all around us here. For our part, we plan to spend a relatively quiet day at home, and not travel anywhere on the roads glutted with travelers if we don't absolutely have to. The kids have the Tuesday off for the actual inauguration, plus of course they get Monday off for "Civil Rights Day" (I don't see why we have to give up Martin Luther King's name as part of the day's official title; it's all in his honor, after all). Lucky me, working with a government customer right now: I get both Monday and Tuesday off as well! :)

I'm also taking next Monday and Tuesday off to go and visit my sick grandpa in Colorado with my parents & my sister... and we just found out that ours kids get those two days off of school too! I can't for the life of me figure out why the Fairfax County school district is built this way... the teachers get workdays seemingly every other week! (at least it feels that way) No wonder the school year runs from mid-August through mid-June! Sheesh!

Simply smashing!

Just got home from our church meetings a little while ago and had something to eat, and now the kids are outside smashing rocks with a hammer. Matthew got the idea from something he read recently, I guess, and they're both having great fun with it.

Happy 2009!

So... one of my resolutions for the new year is to blog more frequently. Sunday seems the natural time to do this, so here goes.

Work has been slooooooow, both because a lot of people were out for the holidays, and because it was the end of the year. I expect things will pick up quite a bit when I go back tomorrow.

We had a pretty nice Christmas at Mary's mom's house in North Carolina, seeing family that we haven't in quite a while, and generally enjoying the slower pace of life "Down East." It almost made it hard to drive back up I-95 to the congestion and hectic lifestyle of suburban Washington D.C. ;)

Mary's been feeling a little run-down this past week, so her mom drove up a day behind us to help out around the house, which has been a huge help. Mary's feeling better, so I think she's planning to head home tomorrow before a forecast of snow in this area (which, of course, the kids are excited about... it would be the first real snow of the season if it sticks)

Some friends in our church ward invited us to a fun New Year's Eve party with a bunch of the ward's other young families. Mary stayed home with her mom, but the kids & I went for a while. Then we came back here and watched movies (the DTV Kung-Fu Panda sequel, and the Brandon Frasier "Journey to the Center of the Earth") until shortly before midnight, when we channel-switched a bit to see the various festivities including the ball-drop in New York. One thing I noticed in doing that was just how OLD Dick Clark suddenly looks... I know for years the running joke was that he didn't age, but apparently he had a stroke a few years ago, and now he looks really, REALLY old. Anyway, we had fun.

New Year's Day was pretty fun too... a friend posted something on her blog about a cool park she had taken her kids to, and Mary suggested I take the kids and go find it. After a quick Google search, we found it: Clemyjontri Park, in McClean. It was really cold that afternoon, but we had a great time. The park is neat because it was designed from the ground up to be universally accessible -- kids of all ages & physical (dis)abilities can have fun. As proof, here are my kids, thoroughly enjoying themselves:

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The saddest thing possible...

So, I was getting all set to blog about my first day at my new job at Master Control on Monday (it went pretty well), when I got a phone call from Mary saying that our midwife Suzanne thought there might be a problem with the baby and that we needed to get to the hospital to have an ultrasound and some other tests run. Lucky me, rush hour made the trip from Salt Lake to Provo, which usually takes about an hour, into a two-hour ordeal, with me fretting the whole time.

Anyway, I made it to the Utah Valley RMC hospital in Provo, and hooked up with Mary and Suzanne. Sure enough, after a volley of tests, they determined that there was something seriously wrong with little Jacob. He had a lot of fluid collecting in and around his lungs and other places, plus some apparent growth stunting (while he was supposed to be 29 weeks gestationally, his bone length indicated something more like 24 or 25 weeks), and there also appeared to be some abnormalities in his brain tissue. The doctor told us that his chances outside of the womb were unsure, but that his chances in the womb were nil, and she recommended that the best course of action would be an emergency C-section! So at 11pm Monday night our third child was born—alive, but only just. Despite 40 minutes of very dedicated resuscitation efforts by a team of dedicated caregivers, his little body just wouldn't breathe on its own, and after beating weakly for just shy of an hour, his little heart gave up and he peacefully slipped back to heaven.

The doctors still don't know exactly what happened, but the leading theory now is that a bacterial or viral infection apparently got to him over a month ago, and he's been fighting it ever since. Medical science hasn't yet advanced to the point where this sort of thing can be detected -- our first clue that anything was wrong was when Mary noticed Monday that he had stopped moving around (apparently trying to conserve energy so his body could use its last reserves to fight the infection). We agreed to let the doctors perform an autopsy on his body at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake, and that's where things stand at the moment. When they finish there, the funeral home in Tooele (Tate Mortuary) will retrieve the body and prep it for burial. We're going to have a small family graveside service on Monday, and bury him at the feet of his great-great grandmother or grandfather (Federico or Maria Teresa Corradini, my grandpa's parents, who emigrated from Italy near the turn of the century).

Given everything that's happening in the world, I know this may seem a small thing to some, but it's the biggest to us. Everyone's prayers and thoughts for our family would be very much appreciated right now. The only thing that's keeping us going is the knowledge that our family has the promise of eternal life together, and God willing, someday we'll be with Jacob again. For now, we'll just consider him our own little guardian angel, spending his time with his great-great grandparents and watching us from a place where sin, pain, and sadness can never touch him. It may not take away the pain and the loss, but it makes it bearable.

Happy New Year!

Well, the holidays are now behind us. We had a nice one, quiet & (mostly) restful... but Mary & I now understand that line in the old Christmas carol: "Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again!" For my kids, at least, a regular routine makes all the difference.

The big thing right now is that I'm applying for Grad School at BYU. Deadline is January 15th, so we're coming down to the wire now. I've finished the writing portions, just waiting on my GRE test results and recommendation letters. Hopefully they'll come in time. =P

Today, a Domain - Tomorrow, the World!

I just discovered that my awesome hosting company, Brinkster, gives me a free (i.e. I don't have to pay anything for it. Gratis, even!) domain name registration. So what did I choose to go with... something immediately recognizable as mine, like RyanCorradini.com? Nope. Something that would further my business ventures, like IntConcepts.com? Nope. A nickname derived from a Filipino dialect that I, along with a handful of other people around the world, can speak and not be understood by virtually anyone else?

How'd you guess? ;)

Anyway, as of this morning, Buyog.com has gone live. This, of course, signals the beginning of the end of western civilivation as we know it... but hey, I feel fine. :)

In other news, we're moving to Charlotte. Whee!

Long time no blog. Heh.

We're in our new house now, have been for 6 months or so. Pretty nice, although the yard still needs MAJOR work.

This past July 4th we celebrated American Independance Day here in North Carolina. I took the kids swimming in the sound that morning, and in the afternoon Mary and her Mom joined us as well, and we went to New Bern (about an hour from here) for the town celebration they were holding. Games for the kids, live music from two Marine Corps brass bands (jazz and concert), and of course, fireworks. Here's a small video clip:
Sarah-Matthew-July4.avi

Labor Day today here in the USA. Paid work holiday + school holiday = extra Saturday. :)

We spent the day boxing up linens and books and such, in an effort to continue getting ready for our impending move to Otway. This past week they've been working on the heating/cooling system, doing the drywall finish work, and putting up the siding on the front & back ends of the house. Hopefully, if we're still on track, we'll be closing in less than a month. Guess it depends on how quick the inspectors are, now that we're through the initial snafu of a few weeks ago (the house is 4 feet longer than the original plan, so the county inspector, looking at the original plan, failed the foundation almost immediately after the house was set last month... it took a good 10-14 days before that was all sorted out to everyone's satisfaction).

After Matthew woke up from his morning nap and had gotten something to eat, he, Sarah and I (Mary's not feeling well today) packed all of the stuff (and it was a LOT) in Mary's mom's Lincoln town car, and drove it the 30 minutes up to the storage unit. Swung by the house to see if there was anything new since Saturday (there wasn't, but that wasn't a huge surprise considering the weekend & the holiday), and we were GOING to take a few pictures, but the weather was starting to look downright nasty, so we decided to hasten on home instead. Good decision: before we had even gotten out of the neighborhood the dark clouds had cracked open and were sprinkling on us, and after 5 minutes, we were in a torrential downpour. Very low visibility, and nowhere to pull off the road and wait it out, so I just slowed way down and hoped it would pass as quickly as it had come. Dealt with that about halfway home, but it was fine after that.

After dinner, it was Sarah's turn to teach the Family Home Evening lesson, and she did a great job. Even Matthew, who's usually in bed by then, stayed awake and enjoyed it a lot. Then, after spending 20 minutes fighting and trying to convince Matthew that yes, it really was bedtime, it was Sarah's most-anticipated part of the day: the season premiere of Jeopardy! Over the course of his still-undefeated 38-day run last season, it seems my little 6-year-old has become something of a Ken Jennings Groupie. Maybe I need to find her a poster for her bedroom wall or something. ;)

Longest Hour of the Week Award
And the winner is... Sundays, 9-10am. Hands down. That's the time when we have Sacrament meeting, the all-adults-and-children-in-the-chapel portion of our church services. After that, we separate into age-appropriate instruction, and my almost 2-year-old son Matthew goes into the Nursery room with his Mom and a couple of other boys his age. But for that first hour, he's all mine. Mary usually is singing in the choir, and sits with them on the stand, leaving me to sit with the kids and Mary's mom, and it's very rare the week that Matthew actually manages to sit through the whole thing (although he's surprised me from time to time).

Yesterday was no exception, and was in fact a prime example of the rule. About 15 minutes into the meeting, after all the congregation business and announcements were taken care of, we sing a hymn to prepare to partake of the sacrament (it may be more familiar to you as the Lord's Supper; in the LDS faith, we partake of blessed bread and water each Sunday in remembrance of Christ's atoning sacrifice, death, and resurrection for mankind). Just as we had started, he stood up on the pew, pointing to his diaper area, and loudly declared, "Wee wee! Wee wee!" We're in the very early stages of potty training, and ignoring his declaration would most likely set us back a ways, so I scoop him and the diaper bag up in my arms, and head for the back door of the chapel (which is a room within the building, not the building itself). We get to the bathroom and sit on the commode, but of course, nothing of significance happens (I'm beginning to suspect that he's sometimes using this as an excuse to change his surroundings more than it is an actual call of nature, but since I can't tell the difference between a false and a real call...).

So we walk back up to the foyer, where we're able to sit quietly and have the chance to partake of the sacrament bread & water (I hate missing it). Out of respect to the rest of the congregation, people who leave or arrive during this time will wait there until the sacrament has been provided to everyone and the speakers begin, before filing back into the chapel. When the time comes, Matthew seems to be in good spirits, and walks with me to the chapel door, apparently willing to go back in. So with his hand in mine, I open the door and start to walk in, while Brother Rock Newman is bearing his testimony of the Savior to start the traditional first-Sunday-of-the month testimony meeting. As soon as Matt realizes that we're heading back for our pew, he promptly throws himself on the ground and screams at the top of his voice. Sheesh, I feel like every head on every set of shoulders in the entire chapel has swiveled around to face us... they probably didn't, but I'm so self-conscious by now that it feel like it anyway.

Okay, apparently he doesn't want to go back in, after all. I quickly scoop him up again, and back to the foyer we go, and there we stayed for the rest of the program, trying to keep him and his peers out of trouble and not climbing the walls/doors/furniture. (by now there are two other mothers with boys his age, Chandler Gillikin and Michael Smith, who have joined us in the foyer--which is not at all unusual). At least the pulpit's microphone is pumped out to the foyer, so we can hear everyones' testimonies (including Mary's, today). Even though the din of chiildren playing sometimes drowns it out, it's better than not hearing it at all, and I'm glad we've come. He won't be this age forever, and someday in the not-too-distant future, I'll probably miss it.

Fire Chief Ben to the Rescue

Well, okay, so I'm a totally unreliable blogger. =P

Anyway, all is pretty well here. Septic tank hole is filled, Mary's Mom's lawn is seeded and kinda growing, and our (modular, but not modular) home is being built, the footers will be dug this week, and we are hoping to be in as soon as mid August, maybe. :)

Had to write this story about what happened tonight. Mary's Mom gave a talk in church today about personal histories, keeping journals and so on, and I had to get this one down

About 9, as Sarah was getting ready for bed, she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, just like she does every night. But tonight, for some reason, she shoved the door all the way shut (something of a no-no; it has an old doorknob that's hard to turn), and then, to top it off, she turned the deadbolt knob. Now, this deadbolt hasn't even been *functional*, let alone used, in quite some time... so you may be able to guess what's coming next.

Sarah finished brushing her teeth, then Mary & I heard from the bedroom:
"rattle... rattlerattle... rattlerattlerattle... rattlerattlerattlerattlerattle... blubber, sob..."
... at which point I knew we were in trouble. The door had jammed, and Sarah couldn't get it open. So, Daddy to the rescue, right? I went and grabbed my power cordless drill and tried to unscrew the doorknob to get into the guts of the thing and open the door... no dice. The knob has been on there for so long that I can't get a screwdriver blade to engage any of the screws, which were worn to begin with, and had then been painted over at least twice. Sarah, by this point, was getting more worried. She's whining and crying a bit, and we have no idea how we're going to get her out. So, I go out back and grab the ladder, climb up on the roof, and go in the (very small) bathroom window to be with her, thinking I could turn the doorknob for her and get her out.

Nope. That would be too easy. In fact, after messing with it for a while, we figured out that it wasn't the doorknob latch, though that was as temperamental as usual, but that the deadbolt had somehow broken away from the knob that controlled it... so flipping it did nothing to disengage the bolt. At least now that I'm in with Sarah, she's calmed down.

So next we try pulling the hinges off the door from the inside... only problem? They, too, have been painted over several times since being installed, and they wouldn't budge with any of the small number of flat tools that Mary could slide under the door to me. So Mary grabs the drill and sets to work on the outside of the door again, and even with both of us shoving and pulling and drilling, we can't budge the thing. So, we call Ben.

Mary's cousin Ben is the fire chief in nearby Stacy, and he's probably seen this sort of thing several times before. So he saunters up to the door, his girlfriend Jacquelyn at his side, and sets to work on the door with my drill and a chisel. BANG! GRIND! WHIRR...POP! And the occasional semi-serious firefighter-ism, "Don't worry, sir, we're doing all we can for you...," or "we'll have you out soon." This, even though he knows me pretty well, never calls me "sir," and knows that I'm not panicking. You'd just have to know Ben... if senses of humor were measured like climates, his would be as dry as the Sahara.

Anyway, he finally manages to pry the door open. Hooray! I thank them for coming over, but Sarah, tired, still recovering from a cold, and a bit shell-shocked by the whole experience, is clinging to my backside, and despite out best efforts, wouldn't come around to say thank you.

And all this time, 19-month-old Matthew is snoozing away on the other side of the bathroom wall, apparently oblivious to the whole thing.

Where'd 2003 go?

Okay, so THAT month really whizzed past me. Wow.

Lots to talk about, but I'll leave it for another time. For now, enjoy the pictures we've taken on our new digital camera (thanks, Mom & Dad!):
http://www.geocities.com/ryancorradini

Happy Holidays!

Sheesh, is it really December already? Yowzers.

Here's a couple of photos I took with my kids in the Hobbit Hole over the long weekend, enjoy:



The house painters are here for the next few days. Noisy, reeking of cigarette smoke, but efficient & affordable. Guess there are tradeoffs in everything.

Just so long as they keep the smoking outside, so our new walls don't stink. :-p

Homecomings

Just got back a few days ago from a long & eventful trip to Utah... it was my Grandma Corradini's (Dad's mom) 80th birthday, and her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids went out to surprise her, and celebrate with her. We had a pretty big shindig and some fun gifts to give her, like a book of all of our childhood memories of her, a "crazy quilt" with a square for each child, grandchild, and great-grandchild in her great family, stuff like that. It all went off without a hitch and was a whole lot of fun, but it wasn't what you call a restful vacation... especially with a 5 and a 1-year old in tow! ;)

In other news, it looks like we'll be moving back home again this weekend! Yay! The upstairs is all done, though still packed with stuff that doesn't have a place downstairs yet, and the heating/cooling guy started today, so hopefully the house will be sealed up tight and livable again by Saturday, even if the downstairs won't be completely done for another 6 weeks or so (the kitchen cabinets aren't supposed to come until Dec 19th! :( ). Oh, also: Mary's Mom and aunt surprised us when we came home, with a totally-redone bedroom for Matthew (our baby)! For starters, It's blue now instead of pink (it was Mary's room as a teenager), and has a nautical/lighthouse theme with border accents, "signal flags", and stuff like that... they really put in a lot of work! They also rearranged Sarah's room, since her Mom's going to be sharing it with her until her bedroom is done, and it'll also have to be our new makeshift kitchen (with microwave, toaster, mini-fridge, and hot plate) for the next several weeks. But Aunt Lou's rental at the Sea Level Inn is coming up due on Saturday, and they only take rentals in monthly increments, and we surely don't need another whole month. So, we'll just have to be cramped a bit for a short while... which we're pretty much used to anyway.

Travel report

Okay, I'm back from Gatelinx, and it all looks good. It was a long week, a long drive to and from, and LONG days as I struggled to come up to speed on the stuff we're doing, but I feel like I'm getting there, and it'll be interesting work.

I drove up from Southern Pines to Cary (a suburb of Raleigh) Wednesday night so I could finally see X-Men 2 (or X2, as I guess it's officially called); it's been out a while and wasn't playing in the area I was in anymore. X2 was a MUCH bigger movie, grander in scope than its predecessor, with many many characters, each of which had their own subplots and character arcs. It was fun, well-done, and left my inner fanboy squealing with glee. :))

My Mom & Aunt Joyce were here this past weekend. Remember the whole car-breaking-down thing that happened to us during our move a few months ago? Well, it's finally fixed, and they drove it out to us. They just left this morning to drive their rental car back up to Durham and fly home, after having a nice fun weekend with us here. I think they both liked it, but the humidity/heat seemed to get to Joyce more especially. It is pretty bad lately; summer is undeniably upon us now.

Anyway, more to write, but I'll save it for later. Gotta go and earn some dough!

Moving pictures

Wow, have I really not posted anything here since April? Well anyway I've scanned some pictures we took before we left Utah in April, and a few from during the move. Enjoy!

• Grandma Corradini, Matthew & Sarah


• More playing with Grandma C


• Picnic lunch on our way up the western side of the Rockies (oh, look at the smiles... this is when we were still blissfully unaware of the troubles we were about to have!!)


• Vital new-baby furniture


• Father & son at the park

We've landed!

Greetings from North Carolina! We just got here after a rather tiring & eventful (don't ask) 12-day trip! I'll have plenty to say about this later, but know that I'm still here, and will try and compose a decent post soon!

Welcome, Matthew!

Say hello to our new arrival, Matthew Brayden, delivered December 6, 2002!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

The Home Stretch?

Been a while. I've started my last (knock on wood) semester at BYU; only 9 credits, but all 3 are those 3-credit classes where the professors actually believe that you've cleared 40+ hrs a week in your calendar specifically for them! :-P

I'm also trying to work full-time while doing this. Last week, I barely managed to pull off 20. And that was working Friday night until 5am!

Anyway, besides extreme sleep deprevation, all is well here in OO-tah. Mary's just going into her third trimester with baby Matthew Braden, and he's one __active__ little dude... kicks her all the time now, so much so that Sarah & I can see & feel it too. She's getting tired more easily than before, but that's a pretty typical symptom of 3rd trimester, so I'm not worried about chronic fatigue or anything yet.

That's about it. More news later when I think of it.

Weekend in Colorado

Last weekend was cool; saw my first ever live NASCAR race with my Dad... had no idea how LOUD they really are!

My daughter Sarah has her 4th birthday on Wednesday. Hard to believe she's getting that old... wow I feel old! My 10-year class reunion is tonight in Grand Junction, but Mary just got back from a week at her Mom's in NC (don't worry, not because she wanted to get away from us, but because she wanted the vacation and Sarah & I couldn't afford to buy tickets to go with her, or afford to leave school & work for a full week!) and doesn't feel like travelling much in the near future (and who can blame her?!?). Besides, my folks'll be up Saturday for Sarah's birthday party / water park day.

Working for Drs. Melby & Bush, neither of whom is currently in Utah = Lots of time to figure things out on my own while I wait forever for responses to requests for feedback/direction! <*sigh*>

Been working a lot on a personal website; the link'll show up in the left sidebar here when it's live.

That's about it.

Happy Birthday America!

So. The long weekend is over, and the new week of "holy crud, I only worked 22 hours last week and budgeted 40---have to work long hours every night!" is upon me. :(

Big news: my little sister Christy had her (fourth!) baby boy this past week (I think it actually happened a week ago Thursday, if I remember right)... named him Samuel Jacob. He joins Adonijah (5), Gabriel (3), and Justin Jeffrey (JJ, 1 1/2) in a house full of love... and torn up bicycle tire pumps chewed up by their not-so-small anymore Christmas puppy, Sally. :)

So my parents came up for the 4th... actually they didn't get here until late afternoon for whatever reasons they were delayed. We were all going to meet up American Fork Canyon at a place called Silver Lake & do some swimming etc., but the road there was closed due to a forest fire (bummer). It's been a DRY year so far here in Utah. (Praying for rain has become a pretty familiar refrain lately). So the three of us followed Christy & Jeff in their van back DOWN the mountain, to a nice outdoor ampitheater where we had a picnic lunch, played around a while, then came back down. Sarah (quite the tantrum thrower/whiner these days), disappointed that we didn't get to swim at the lake, convinced me to stop at a park on the way out of the canyon, where she & I waded into the (COLD!) Provo river for 15 minutes or so. (it's really more of a wide creek at that point; we walked all the way across it, the water never getting past my knees). When we got home we regrouped with Mom & Dad and watched NY and DC fireworks on tv, then lit off some in our cul-de-sac for the kids. (which they loved, of course).

Friday the 5th, the celebration went on in Provo and we went down that night to hear a couple of our fave local bands: Fiddlesticks (a Celtic folk-centric kind of thing, a bit like Riverdance-type stuff) and Colors, a fun alterna-folk-pop sort of group. Lots of fun; they both put on great shows.

Well it's 2am Monday, about my bedtime, so I'll sign off 'til next time. Later...

Space Monsters and Pioneer Temples

Had a nice weekend. Went to see Lilo & Stitch friday night with Mary & Sarah; it was REALLY FUNNY! It got a bit intense in the middle section; I actually had to take Sarah out at one point because it got her so upset... and we never have to leave movies! (but she's almost 4, and I think she was pretty tired and stressed out that day; she's just started preschool, and we think it's still a bit overwhelming for her)

Yesterday Mary & I attended a broadcast of the dedication of the LDS Nauvoo temple. It's significant for those of you who don't know because mormons settled Nauvoo (near Quincy, Illinois) back in Joseph Smith's day, the early 1840s, and built the temple there... the first modern temple built by members of our faith for the same reasons we build them now. But mobbers forced them out of the state and burned down the temple, forcing them to begin the famous trek west to Utah. Anyway, the Church received some generious contributions that allowed them to repurchase the land and rebuild the temple, and it's now been rededicated to its original purposes. It was quite an emotional ceremony, and very special.

Well, back to work. ;)