Kunz Krazies

Well, to follow up on the last post, I did find some gumption and finished my paper and exam. I have now heaved a sigh of relief and can begin on my hundreds of papers to grade. As a break from the madness, I to went to Kory's work Christmas party on Tuesday night. Melaleuca hires out the Civic Auditorium for a couple of nights and brings in some sort of entertainment. This year it was a comedian named Fred Keck--I think, or something like that. He was from Minnesota and very funny. A few weeks ago Kory called and said they like to have someone playing piano music while everyone is being seated and asked if I would be willing to play. I said, "Sure, as long as no one listens to me." So, I get there, thinking I'll be on an upright in the corner somewhere, and I behold this stage gorgeously decorated with lights and Christmas trees and this grand piano right in the spotlight, like I'm Jim Brickman or something. I immediately became a little more nervous. Luckily...

Okay, I've officially reached my end-of-semester slump, when, in spite of the mountains and mountains of grading I have to do, I stare into space, look on facebook, read the news, call my sisters, text Kory, do anything, ANYTHING, but what I need to do. I must snap out of this, because, on top of the grading, I have a paper and a take-home final to turn in on Thursday for my last--yes LAST--PhD course of my entire life. Provided I pass it, which seems a little iffy at the moment. I'm sure I will start to care sometime in the next two hours. It has to happen. Merry Christmas.

To explain the title, when something makes Ainsley feel sick, she says "That sickens me." For some reason that makes me laugh. I had to look the term up just to make sure, but it mostly means "to disgust," although its secondary meaning is to show the signs of an illness. So, in Ainsley's terms, this has been a sickening week. I started to get a sore throat on Monday afternoon, it got worse on Tuesday, Wednesday I woke up, planning to cancel class. I thought I needed to get a few things from my office, so I was heading over there right before 7:00 and noticed that all the lights in Rexburg appeared to be off. The power outage caused class cancellations, so I came right back home and vegged all day. Mom made me some soup, Dad cleared my driveway. Thursday I woke up feeling even worse, so I cancelled class again and skipped my meeting and my PhD class. I was thrilled to hear that our PhD class is not meeting again this semester and that the final is an open bo...

This was a memorable Thanksgiving--my first one away from my family since my mission. Kory and I loaded the kids up in a rented minivan and headed to St. George. Once we were there, we all split up to different houses--Kory has two sisters and parents there. The kids swam in the pool at their grandparents for awhile and then we went to his two sister's homes. The next morning Kory and I went for a walk and then took a drive to Hurricane to look for a retirement home. We found an awesome golf course. Unfortunately, we later found out that Hurricane is named after the winds that always blow there. I hate wind, so we'll have to find something else. As long as it's by a golf course, Kory is happy. :) We had dinner at Nicole's house. It was fun to hang out with Kory's family. I've met all of them before, but it was fun to visit more. We took a little trip to Swig--Nicole and Todd's business which is wildly popular in Utah. It's a drive through d...