my boyfriend

casey.

he works all day every day

building elevators

so that i can play all day every day

with the two little humans we've made.

sometimes work has its casualties

(beware: not for the faint of stomach)

yes, that's 7, count 'em
S  E  V  E  N
stitches in one finger

he caught it on a piece of exposed raw metal as he was going up some stairs at work.

it wasn't cut, it was ripped...

ripped in the up direction

along both sides of his left ring finger

let's all say ouch together...

while casey just smiles and looks beautiful.

ps. don't tell casey i called him beautiful.

it might make him blush.

and i can't see his adorable freckles when he blushes.

free

three day weekends are awesome.

for this 4th we worshipped at the church of our choosing

then donned our country's colors

and celebrated freedom

               

"for what avail the plow or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?"
ralph waldo emerson

day 2

note to self: when on a "weekend away", aka time without children, don't plan on waking up early. it's just torture.

today was moped day. we started at 7a. i've gotta say i love me a moped! i never knew. i was a little wary at first... the balancing thing, and accelerating thing... 35 mph never felt so fast.

sadly, no moped pics. but basically we looked like this, only on separate mopeds.

first stop: diamond head

yah, i only took pics from the top. let's be honest... i was dying. those were lots of stair with a 70% ankle.

and evidently i wasn't the only one suffering...

two people were choppered down... it was a hot day. and i think it's 282 stairs or something like that.

after diamond head me mopeded our way to hanauma bay.

via

it was fun enough. we were pretty much the same color as valentines m&ms by this point

the red ones

and there wasn't as much marine life to see as we had expected.

then we mopeded back to the marriot to get all dolled up

dancers danced while we waited to board... we were the very FIRST people on the boat, so we got our own personal serenade while we sipped our virigin mai tai's

a moped back to marriot and the day was done.
oh, except for that time we stopped for hot cocoa and pastries and some place by ward theaters.
WHOA to the pastries and cocoa! so delicious!


next time you're in waikiki, i highly recommend renting mopeds.

and starting your diamond head hike really early...

today's casey-ism

lately we've been all sorts of into john mayer. isn't he just phenomenal!? seriously, people. that's talent. so tonight casey was iPoding the john while i was making my way down my huge stack of google reader, then out of nowhere:

"john mayer's as ugly as i am."

funny 'cause it's true ... not that casey's ugly, of course, but mr. mayer really is just not that attractive, folks. 

pinch me

wow. where to start... so, as you read, casey quit. that was thursday. friday his former boss called him a good half-a-dozen times but his phone was turned off. he called saturday morning while case was at foodland getting fresh tomatoes and lettuce for the party ... well, for the burgers at the party. i said that he would call back when he got a chance but our day was pretty packed (yes, i answered the phone. no fear.) sunday was sabbath - no work. monday, case forgot to take his phone in. (i promise all this rambling has a point. it'll be worth it.) so monday night casey finally got around to checking his voicemail. (i guess i could have just gotten to the point and said "case was checking his voicemail monday ..." oh well. i didn't.)

well, remember how i mentioned that casey's boss knows scary people. i said it in jest; though it is true, i figured he wouldn't actually sic scary people on us. returning ... monday night's voicemail ... a message containing expletives from a man saying he represented "company name, bosses name" (gotta love the anonymity) and we had better return the [expletive] truck and computer or he would come get them. and i quote: "and you don't want me to come get them." 

hmmm... two points worth noting: 

1. casey left the truck and computer at the jobsite when he quit thursday, as well as his uniforms, all company tools, etc.  

and perhaps more importantly 2. what in the crazy!!! are you serious?! is some thug/hitman/strong arm for "bosses name" really calling us, leaving a message on our personal phone, threatening our livelihood for said truck and computer?! really? ... pinch me. seriously. is this real? i feel like i'm living in theGodfather part 5 (or whatever part is next. not too familiar with the series.)

and in case you're wondering, yep, i'm just a tad scared. and yes, he knows where we live. and yes, me and the girls are home alone for approx. 12 hours every day. and yes, i intend to be in the company of others and/or away from home at all times for the next ... oh ... several weeks maybe. 

now i realize he is 99% unlikely to do anything, because he would be a fool to. however, in the same breath, in my opinion he does some quite nutty things (e.g. withholding casey's last two paychecks because case's quitting "hindered his day" ... true story. and requesting of casey all the parameters of every job case has ever worked on by the end of the week - talking like two dozen elevators here. parameters are part of the computer programming section of elevatoring. they tell the computer everything it needs to know from how much voltage it needs to how many feet per minute the car should run. they are already saved in the computers contained at each jobsite. and to provide the parameters for two dozen jobs ... ridiculous. it would take months. it's like asking you to count the number of toothpicks at a mississippi family reunion before dessert is even served.)

looks like this is going to be quite the doozy here ... quitting  i mean. hopefully we get paid soon. and of course hopefully no large, angry-looking polynesians make a surprise visit during thursday night meatloaf. 

sticking it to THE MAN

is the suspense killing you? probably not, but nonetheless, the reason for our move.

quite oft we ("we" meaning "us", the blogging community) fail to share the intricacies of our family life on the blogosphere. even if we say we are, we aren't really. because even if we're sharing some fine detail of our day, in truth, we know we aren't divulging too much. e.g. admitting you pick your nose, don't brush your teeth, your child pooed/peed in public, etc., these things that we type are things we've thought about and deemed worth sharing and not too damaging to our reputation, or considered TMI, boring reading, yada yada yada.

well, in the unblogged life of the jorgensen family, case has been working a minimum of 50 hours a week since january. minimum. (it's usually more like 55-60) not including the 3 hr. per day drive time. so he's gone from home about 70 hours per week (work time + drive time + 4 hrs. of elevator schooling one night a week). again, just a reminder ... we're talking minimum here. 

"why, stefani ... that's crazy talk!" you may be uttering to yourself.

we agree. so today, casey quit. yep, he quit. the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was last week. for those of you who read our blog (thank you, by the way) you may remember the incredibly sick casey that kept mysteriously vomitting over a period of two-and-a-half weeks, ran a 103 degree fever WITH tylenol, slept 3 days straight, lost 20 lbs. in three weeks, and was finally diagnosed with some weird bacteria growing in his gut, or salmonella. (we don't know which would be worse, quite frankly, so we don't know which diagnosis we would rather claim.) that happened last wednesday - the diagnosis, i mean. our Dr. said "sleep, drink, stay in bed until 24 hrs. after the fever breaks, no work until monday." so wednesday while case was sleeping i emailed his boss and relayed the news and explained he would be back at work monday.

thursday morning, the next day, his boss calls him asking him to drive into town to deliver some elevator parts that had arrived at our house the day before, and put in "just a few hours" installing said parts. excuse me. did he miss something?? case couldn't stand up without puking. i was irate. livid. (insert any number of words for 'extremely angry' here.) so the family piled in the car and drove the parts to town ... cause Kam Hwy. is only one way these days, you know. then that afternoon while case was in his sleeping stupor, i emailed his boss again, a bit more testy this time. i said that he had taken advantage of casey's willingness to do anything requested of him (case is just too nice - which i think is a good thing) and said he (the boss) had displayed a total lack of regard for case's health and well-being, and then reiterated that he would not be returning to work until monday. 

so he shot back a nasty email (think toddler with a blackberry ... got it?) saying my bad attitude was going to ruin casey's future and apparently casey and i weren't communicating well because casey knows how important it was to get those parts to the jobsite ... blah blah blah ... he said he was 'taking care of case and our family' and 'casey is a wonderful employee, but everybody is replaceable'. i responded explaining my intention wasn't to ruffle his pretty little feathers, i just expected  and demanded a little respect for casey and his health. he wrote back reiterating something about my bad attitude and how he was offended that i would suggest that he had taken advantage of case ... you get the picture.

well, he didn't. he called case friday night bragging about how he had "laid it into [his] wife"... hello?! bad move mr. boss. then proceeded to ask case to come in and work saturday. 

*please pause and digest what you just read. seriously folks. he wasn't getting it.*

*did you digest it? imagine it happening to your little family? got the emotions all stirring and bubbling? good. read on.*

so today case called up his boss and said "i'm done". his boss asked him to stay. he said no. he asked him to stay until a certain job was completed. he said no. he called him back twice and left messages. case said no. he left his uniforms and company vehicle at the jobsite and came home (well, got a ride home, seeing as he had no mode of vehicular transport)

so, we're free! no more panic in the gut when the phone rings at 11 o'clock at night with a "problem that needs fixing", no more sending case off to work monday morning and not seeing him again until wednesday night (only happened like a dozen times, but that's a dozen times too many), no more lost saturdays (our only day to spend time as a family doing non-church stuff). no more persecution from "the man" (i just wanted to say "the man" )

*sigh*   life never tasted so good. 

oh, so you might be thinking, "i missed the part that explains why they changed their blog." well, because the boss reads it. and i wanted to blog about the whole experience. (quite the conflict of interests, eh?) and more importantly, because we're a little scared of mr. boss. he knows some scary people and we just don't want scary people reading our blog.  

so when you see case, give him a pat on the back. it was a crazy stressful week (last 7 months) for him and i'm so proud of him. this has been a long time coming.

oh, and case starts his new job tomorrow. (just didn't want you lovely folks to be worried.)

case's 2nd wife

a post for Casey, because he's been crazy sick (he lost 20 pounds in three weeks), and because he works so hard for our little family.

Case {hearts} salt water aquariums. he had one in utah before the mission, and maintained it again for a bit after the mission. when we moved here, for our 2 yr anniversary (after we realized we'd be living here for a bit) i surprised case with a 55 gal. aquarium we bought from our friends the carters (thanks guys).  

at one point we had over a dozen fish in there, but then on a fateful night, case went fish-catching with some friends (nets here, not spears) . someone caught a gorgeous raccoon butterfly and we brought it to our lovely fishtank home. unbeknownst to us, he was sick with ich. no good. he killed everybody ... every single little vertebrate in the tank (except for the cheap-o, ugly fish we caught at bikini). 

so now, nine months later, we're slowly rebuilding the tank. it's a scary thing ... lots of deaths in the fish portion of our family. we're still grieving. especially for sally the seahorse.

at any rate, here's the tank now ... 

superficial infrapatellar bursitis

that's what we decided is wrong with casey's knee.

he was working at a job where he basically kneeled 8 hours a day for 3 months and now has this hard bulge below his left knee. it doesn't hurt except when he's kneeling.

a few cold compresses from now and he should be back to his old kneeling self.


(note: the picture is not casey's knee; his doesn't look that dramatic so i just found a pic online)

yesterday's "Caseyism"

yes, i realize i just posted on said subject, but i decided i'm gonna post them ('them' being Caseyisms) from time-to-time because sometimes the things that come out of his mouth just crack me up.

"He's gotta have a headache," (said after catching a cockroach and throwing it against the wall.)

my husband

case is the quiet type. it makes me feel like jack sparrow because i have a little secret treasure that noone knows about ...

but i've decided to sprinkle a few jewels to the general public. i give you Caseyisms:

"happiness: side effects may include fatness" (said driving home from town as we were discussing whether or not to continue doing p90x)

"sure. i'd vote for him" (said after wrinkled shirt, rotting-toothed, supposedly-had-his-PhD-revoked man handed us a flier on likelike hwy. that outlined his mission if he were to be elected as mayor, which mission was to supply free energy via Nikolai Teslas theories and nuclear energy, and that be doing so would creaste a literal heaven on earth)

"since when did heaven have visitation rights?" (said when discussing RS and Priesthood lesson about family foreverability and whether or not it's contingent upon every family members' righeousness.)

that's my case.

Good Luck Casey!!

For those of you who don't know, Casey is an elevator mechanic: he builds, services, modernizes, etc. all things elevator. To be an elevator mechanic you go through a 4 year apprenticeship program, and Case is finishing up his 2nd year. The way it works is you take a test at the end of each year and if you pass (70% or higher) you get a 10% raise; if you fail, you retake the whole year. Casey's two-year test is tonight ... mega-stress.

What does an elevator mechanic study, one might query. Year 2 was on electromagnetism (Ohm's Law, series and parallel circuits, etc. etc.), and I can't remember what year 1 was ... mechanics and elementary physics I think ... :/

imagine: a world without elevators ...

So good luck Buckett! I know it will be a cinch for ya, 'cause we 3 gals will all be praying for you at home (plus you've been studying tons). LOVE YA!!

Happy Birthday to Casey!!!

Yesterday Casey turned 25! Woo Hoo! We had quite the fun day (though I unfortunately have no pics for you ... still no camera). He stayed home from work and we spent the morning at Temple Beach.

Noone was there for the first 1/2 hour or so - he wrote a huge 25 in the sand, made a sand castle city, and we walked WAY out on the sandy area between the two reef shelves - you know where I mean? in front of the fallen-tree spot of course - we got to where it was about neck high for me and decided to turn around. You might not know, but just a few short months ago (okay, so like a year) I was hydrophobic, yes, phobic. At that time, we had lived in Hawaii over a year and I had never gone to the beach much less gotten in the water. I started going with my friend Melissa (she can atest to the fact that I would literally freak-out at knee deep water) and Casey took me snorkeling a few times, and gradually I've overcome the irrationality of the fear, but I still get really scared by large bodies of water at times.

Well, yesterday was one of those times. Once we got about neck deep I decided to swim instead of walk. At this point I swore I was getting sucked out to sea. I felt like I was swimming backwards ... yada yada yada, I wasn't in fact swimming backwards and everything was fine. Luckily Case was there to calm me and bring me back to reality (which was that we weren't getting sucked out to sea).

After the beach and Addi's nap we headed to Windward mall. We intended on getting fish for the tank - for our anniversary last year I surprised Case with a salt water fish tank (thank you Carters). This past fall we had a bout of ich, like the flu for fish only totally different, which came from a racoon butterly Case caught. Everyone (meaning every fish) got sick and died. We cleaned the tank, treated it for ich, and tried putting new fishies in two months later - got sick again. Then a third time, sick again. SO, we dumped out all the water and sand, treated the rock to a fresh-water dip, bought new lights that promote algae growth (one of the old ones had burnt out), yada yada - we now think the tank is ready for fishes again. So, back to Windward Mall - the pet store had some nice tangs (Dory), a cool pipefish, a maroon clown (Nemo), etc. etc. But every single fish had ich. No exaggeration here. The tanks are all linked ... every fish was sick. Isn't that crazy! So, no fish.

Then we had a suprise party for Case - woo hoo! Even I was surprised. We got home and I don't know where they had parked, but everyone parked very inconspicuously (maybe they were at 7-11 - seriously don't know where they parked). No shoes outside ... they even thought to lock the front door behind them. Everyone was hiding in the kitchen - they jumped up from behind the bar and started singing one of the primary "Happy Birthday" songs. It was awesome! Some red velevet cake (thanks Parkers) and good conversation later, it was bedtime.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CASE! I LOVE YOU!

Almost three years, and now this!

On May 6, 2008 Casey and I will have been married three years. That's quite the time to get to know a person. He's my best friend ever and I love him to bits and pieces, little tiny, red-headed bits and pieces.
BUT he's been keeping a secret from me ... a secret that I only learned tonight. He can wiggle his ears. Yes folks, the man can wiggle his ears. You see, this is one of those rare, innate abilities. You can't learn to wiggle your ears; you either have it or you don't.

Really now, three years of marriage, plus four months of dating/engagement, plus nearly a year of friendship prior to that ... it's like a stranger is drinking from the same gallon of milk as me. I can touch my nose with my tongue - do you think I kept that a secret? No I didn't.

It just goes to show, you never know what you know about a person. (wiggle wiggle)