My $70 Free Piano

As some of you have probably heard, Kyle got me a piano for Christmas! Hurray! (Even though its not quite Christmas yet but we won't tell him that) Some guy in Arlington, VA was giving away a piano because he is moving and trust me, you do not want to move a piano. So he put it up on craigslist.org which is kind of like classifieds online. Kyle spotted it 20 minutes after he posted it on Saturday night and jumped at the chance to get me a piano. Even though it was 10:05 at night, Kyle gave him a call and left a message. The next morning, the guy called back and we made arrangements to pick it up on Monday evening.

So, during Elder's quorum Kyle asked for volunteers to help him pick up the piano since Arlington is about an hour away and we don't have a truck. One brother volunteered his truck and another volunteered to help unload once we got it back to Waldorf.
Monday afternoon, the wild goose chase began. The guy giving us the piano called and told us to bring furniture dollies so that his floor wouldn't get scratched up. So, diligent wife that I am I called the Relief Society President to find out who might have some. We both did a little calling and concluded that either a) nobody is home in the middle of the day, b) wives have no idea what is in their husband's garage or c) people just plain don't have furniture dollies. Hmm. This was looking to become a problem. As it gets closer to Kyle coming home and leaving, the brother who volunteered his truck (we will call him Brother S) said that his truck bed was probably too high so we should try to get a UHaul. Uh oh. Kyle comes home at 6. We start calling places with UHauls. They all close before 6 for some strange reason. But wait! One guy says he's open until 8. "Great, we'll be there" we say. We call Brother S and make arrangements to meet near the UHaul place.
So we leave by 7. We have to stop at Lowe's to pick up two furniture dollies. But the people in Lowe's aren't helpful. They tell Kyle "Oh, those are in Aisle XX" and send him away. He spends fifteen minutes trying to find the dollies. Finally he locates them, buys them and rushes out. We head towards the UHaul place. At this point, we realize we don't have the hitch with us. We call Brother S. He has a hitch on his truck. So he will pull the UHaul trailer. He then proceeds to tell us where he is. So we're driving along, find the UHaul place but can't find the place Brother S said he was. We drive further, realize we're lost and call Brother S. We misinterpreted his location so we had to turn around and drive back to where he is. At this point, time is running out for the UHaul place. We drive like mad and get there at 7:55. But the manager has already locked the door for the night. Kyle bangs on the door and indicates that we had called so the nice manager guy rents us a UHaul trailer. By this point I am a little stressed out.
We call the piano guy and tell him we will be late. And we start driving. I feel anxious because I hate being late and we'll be keeping Brother S later than originally planned - and he gets up at 5:30 in the morning. Talk about a guilt trip.
We finally arrive and begin moving the piano. We have to take it out the back door, down three stairs and across a short yard of grass because the front door has way too many stairs and the side door has a sharp turn that the piano just will not navigate. While Brother S's son keeps an eye on Meghan, I help move the piano by being the Official Dolly Adjuster. The dollies were definitely worth the stop. About an hour struggle later, we get the piano into the back of the UHaul. Kyle secures it and we head back home.
We decided that Brother S should just drop the trailer and head home for some sleep. So once we get the trailer in a parking spot, we checked the status of the piano. The piano had tipped over turning the journey. This was bad because it was resting on a part of the trailer that looked like it would break off if we left it. So Kyle and Brother S jack up the piano and Brother S leaves for the night.
The next day, I spend the afternoon trying to find people to help move the piano into our house. I manage to find 1 and Kyle found 1 when he came home. So, near 7:00 two brothers come and help move the piano. They upright it after a brief struggle, then start rolling it out of the trailer. As they're pushing the piano out of the trailer onto the sidewalk, the trailer starts rolling backwards! So one of the brethren goes and tries to secure the trailer while Kyle and the other brother get the piano out. Our neighbor offers to help and between the four guys, they muscle and roll it into our house.
Hurray! The Chaos is over!

Meghan loves the piano. The first thing she wanted, once it was in place, was to sit on the bench and plunk away. She's a regular little Mozart. Its an old piano and needs a little bit of work, and it has two broken hammers but it sounds good. I am very happy with my new piano.

Furniture Dollies: $50
UHaul: $20
Piano: Free
Beautiful Music: Priceless

At the Park

We finally found a fun park to play at! And Meghan loves playing at the park. First, there is the swings. Swings are lots of fun (although they make Mom sick...).

Then there is the spinning thingys. These ones mix up animals so that the pig can have a fish head and the zebra can have a cow body. Meghan thinks they look tasty. Or at least, that's what the tongue probably means.

We also have a fun tunnel. But convincing Meghan to go through it is not an easy thing. Not even with the fun and tempting camera at the end.

We take a quick trip across the wobbly bridge to get to the slide! Meghan hardly makes it move at all.

Mom's favorite part of the playground was the tube slide. The static build up was awesome. Not shown here, but Meghan's hair really stood on end. At first she had a hard time staying upright while going down. But she managed to do it once by the time we were done.

Meghan enjoyed trying to climb to funny ladder. Daddy enjoyed making Mom nervous by taking his hands off of Meghan.

But the best part for Meghan was...

The Dirt! Yay Dirt!

Yum Yum Pancakes Yum Yum

Here is Meghan having some breakfast. This is what happens when Mom sleeps in... Dad makes Pancakes! And Look at those cute teeth!

Chilling on the Couch

Sorry this is so blue, but its the only shot I have of Meghan taking some down time.

My Cross Stitches

I needed to upload these somewhere so I put them here.

A Lesson For Life

It reminds me of when we would let Hyrum "play" with us. "Here Hyrum! You can be the Bad Guys!"

I can just see him saying "Now Meghan, don't fall in the hole like Mommy always does"

Sometimes I wonder if I am corrupting my child...

Does Bed Head Get Any Better?

Dad's Guitar Buddy

Happy Halloween!... Or Not...

Here is the cute outfit Meghan's Nana sent for her to wear on Halloween. Only she didn't wear it on Halloween (silly forgetful mommy). So she wore it in November! Hurrah!

No, We're NOT Dead

But here is the culprit for why some of you may not have heard from us in a while. Our power supply went KAPUT!!! For a few days, I was smelling a funny burning smell. Then Kyle realized it was the computer and opened it up to vacuum out the dust. Well, a bright flash of arcing electricity later our power supply was dead. So it fell to me, who hates calling people, to call Dell. After half an hour of wandering the confusing automated phone directory that never listed who I wanted to call in the first place and then another half hour of convincing the sales guy that I really didn't want to buy extra memory or start a Dell debt account and that I really REALLY only wanted to buy the stupid power supply, no not with a Dell account but with my OWN CARD, thank you very much, I managed to get the thing ordered. It should have arrived on that Friday. But it didn't arrive until the Tuesday after because while the guy correctly spelled our address on for the billing (after all, they want their money) he couldn't respell it correctly on the shipping (Kings Whars Pl). So I had to call the shipping company on Monday since they attempted to delivered Friday, failed, called, left a message and then closed for the weekend because heaven forbid they work on a weekend. So I called Monday and corrected the address. It was delivered Tuesday at which time I discovered that they had once again misspelled our address (Kings Whalf Pl) but at least that misspelling wasn't as confusing as the other misspelling. But we got the power supply and put the computer back together. And that makes us Happy.

Untitled #1

Here is my finished cross stitch project. I haven't decided what to call it yet. I started it in September and just finished it today. Oops. I forgot to sign it.... Oh well. Anyways, this is my first finished original piece. As in, I designed the cross stitch. Admittedly, some software on the internet transformed the picture into cross stitch symbols and threads but I had to crop the picture and adjust the colors AND I did reselect the thread colors because the computer was too stupid to do a better black and white scale. And this is where I'm thinking of putting it (so you can get a sense of the size of it). Although, I still need to frame it.

*Update: Corinna has named my project for me. I shall call it "The Beginning of Forever." Maybe I'll get a little golden plaque for the frame or something.

Reading With Daddy

Meghan really loves books. She reads her board books to herself most of the time, but she really loves big people books. That is probably because we don't let her get her hands on them very often. So, here is Meghan enjoying some reading time with Daddy from a big people book.

Working

Meghan received this keyboard from her Floridian Grandparents. She loves to work at the computer, so its easier to just put the Daddy keyboard out of the way and give her the Meghan keyboard to play with. Here is Meghan working hard at making the pictures on the computer screen change (the screensaver is a big hit in this house). By the way, check out the awesome sideburns Daddy sports!

Pippi Longstockings in Training

Meghan's hair is quite fun to play with. If I don't get it washed and combed nicely in the morning, its nearly impossible to fix later. But it does result in funny styles. On this day, she had somehow managed to achieve a junior Pippi Longstockings look. I find myself wondering if that comb she is carrying had anything to do with it.

At the Beach

Here are pictures from Meghan's trip to the beach in Florida! When we first sat down in the sand, Meghan wasn't quite sure what to make of it. She got it on her hands and looked and looked and waved and waved, trying to get it off, then began to whine. So we went to the water to rinse it off. She wasn't sure she liked that either. I could tell by the death grip on my leg. But she didn't scream too much so we sat and played in the water. The sea foam proved to be the biggest hit. Time and time again Meghan plucked and picked at it, trying to pick it up. There was only one troublesome wave that smashed both of us, drenching Meghan. But she didn't even cry then. Just looked at me with a bewildered expression. Before long, she licked the salt from her lips and then began sucking on her arm, enjoying the flavor.

Lounge Lizard

No, Meghan hasn't been out drinking. But she will sit and lounge in our office chair if we set her there. She sat still for a good 15 minutes while I played DDR. That was helpful because she also likes to play, but she doesn't understand what it means to take turns. I don't like to step on her, so this is a good alternative, especially when she's lethargic enough to stay put for a while. We captured photographic evidence of the phenomenon. Enjoy.

Queen of the Mountain!

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Meghan has discovered the joys of climbing the stairs. There is nothing she likes better than going up them, then shouting her victory to the world. The only problem is getting her to come down them again...