Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Vacations this summer

We went to my family reunion July 14-18. Stan was unable to go because his barley plants were "heading out" during that time and he had to take "heading notes". Which he did. The rest of us went and played in Utah with my family. We stayed in the Snydermill Lodge owned by my brother's stake and played at a lake (can't remember the name) one day, went to Utah Olympic Park the next, and to Lagoon the day after that. We all had a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we will be leaving for Glacier National Park (Stan with us this time) to camp for four days. Jessi has been looking up things to do in Glacier the last few days. Looks like we will be hiking and fishing a lot. Sounds like fun :)

This summer has been filled with moving and vacationing. As soon as we get back, I have to finish unpacking and get ready for the next school year.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Massive update. Again.

Well we moved. And moved again.

Two days after we moved into the farmhouse, a breaker popped over. No big deal. We couldn't get it to come back on though. We told the farm manager that we needed to buy a new breaker and asked him how he wanted us to deal with it. He said that he didn't want us to mess with the electricity and he would call Facilities Services (MSU electricians).

Facilities Services came out and said that they couldn't replace those breakers--they're not made anymore. And this box needs to be replaced. And all this wiring doesn't look right...let's look inside. When all was said and done, they gave the Dean of the Department of Agriculture a bid for $10,000 for the work that needed to be done. They also told the Dean that they would not allow anyone to live in the house if he didn't pay them to fix all of it (they are apparently allowed to do that--and no one but them is allowed to fix it). The Dean didn't want to put that much money into the house. He decided to tear it down instead and put up a manufactured home instead. He sent a message to us through the farm manager that we had to move as soon as possible. Two days after we moved in.

Stan made an appointment with the Dean to discuss all of this. We just put out quite a bit of money to move and didn't have the money to put down (first, last, and deposit) on another place. We certainly weren't moving unless we had another place to move to and with no money, there was no way to get one. He called his boss (on vacation) and his department head (also on vacation) to apprise them of the situation (they knew nothing).

Stan's boss said not to worry, he would pay for the electrical to be fixed out of his own budget and would go to the meeting with the Dean with him. When they went to the meeting, though, the Dean said that he didn't want the house fixed, he wanted to tear it down. They agreed to give Stan a 23% raise instead.

We couldn't save like we would have living in the farmhouse, but we could at least afford a decent house in Bozeman. We live 2 blocks from church and about a mile from Stan's work. With on campus parking the way it is, Stan walks to work and we all walk to church. We are saving a lot on gas at least.

This is Funny.

Check this out.