I had to write a family description for the ward newsletter. It was kind of fun to do, so I thought I'd keep the magic happening and include it here, as well. The ward news lady loved my entry, saying it's exactly what she was looking for. Apparently people don't usually send her much to work with. Yay for me!


This family is a small one, but a great one! Established in August 2003, the Mynamyn Family is a strong, friendly group of people who are so excited to move from their small cramped apartment into a great house with a yard. Please, stop by and say hello if you're out for a walk or are in the neighborhood. :)

Let's meet the Mynamyns:

Dinomight is a loving father and an extremely hard worker. He holds down a full time job as a Web Developer at Tahitian Noni International, as well as several consulting jobs for various companies around the US. He is also working on a BS in Physics at BYU and still manages to find the time to play with his wife and son. His interests include anything computery, video games, league bowling, japanimation movies, and tempura sushi.

Mynamyn recently found herself serving as a homemaker when her son, Dinomyn, was born. She earned her BS in Zoology from BYU in 2003, and was married later that summer to Dinomight. Coming from a military family, Myn moved around a lot as a child, frequently once each year. She has a great love of many places in the US as a result, and loves the adventure of discovering a new home. Her interests include reading, cross-stiching, inventing new games to play with her son, working out at the gym, and completing small home-improvement projects around the house.

Dinomyn was born January 31, 2005 to a family that couldn't be happier to welcome him. He is very friendly and has a lot to say, even if it still comes out as gibberish. He almost always has a smile (except when it's close to naptime) and loves to play in nursery. You'll probably see him wandering around the halls (and sometimes the aisles) during Sacrament meeting as he always seems to have more energy than he knows what to do with. His interests include going for walks, eating lollipops, playing with his cars, laughing, and all things Winnie the Pooh.

We're so excited to be in the 7th ward and look forward to getting to know our new friends at the Apple Chapel! Thank you for welcoming us so completely. We may not remember all of your names at first, so please reintroduce yourselves often and we'll get it eventually. See you on Sunday!

This is our third Noni Company Picnic. Noni really knows how to do it right. Filet Mignon for the adults, pony rides for the kids, caricature artists did everyone's likenesses. They even gave away amazing prizes (new bikes, TVs, grills, iPods, and lots of cash). We had a blast.

Seamus loved the pony rides, as evidenced below:

































Dylan and Seamus had a great time playing on the hill while we were waiting in line for the caricatures:
















Overall we had a great time. Here are some cute pictures of Seamus playing and enjoying the party. We were there from 4:30-8:30 pm and he did a great job!! His favorite part was probably running up and down the huge hill in the back with a bunch of other kids:


































The other awesome thing was that Dylan actually won a prize! There are only about 30 people who win (out of 800), and one of them was Dylan! He won an XBox 360...unfortunately he already has one, so he's going to return it to Wal-Mart and put the money towards a Nintendo Wii.

I love moving. I really do. I love finding those items you thought were lost when really they were just stuck in the back of a closet. I love getting rid of the trash, cleaning out your life and only keeping the most important things. I don't really like the heavy lifting and cleaning that goes along with it, but you take the good with the bad.

One plus of this move came this morning when Dinomyn went down for a nap. I found some old missionary letters written to me from my very good friends: Peter, Kevin, and Dinomight. I spent the better part of an hour rereading these old letters and remembering the way things used to be. I can't believe how much we've all changed. How different things are now. Peter's about to have a kid, Dinomight and I are into our 3rd year of marriage, and Kevin...well Kevin hasn't changed that much, but I don't think he ever will. He was such a generous, hilarious guy when we first met him, that he didn't have too much changing to do.

Reading missionary letters takes me back to freshman year. I think that year was one of the best in my life. Not that I haven't loved being a wife and mommy, but the highs I experienced in 1999-2000 were consistently awesome and the friendships I made then are ongoing. The memory of those times will always be like a warm glow in my heart. I'm not living in the past, not by a long shot, but I had a somewhat rough childhood and teenagehood (with the divorce and all of the moving around). Freshman year was the first time I remember being truly happy and not constantly worrying about the future. I was only responsible for myself and I had the best of friends. A simple phone call meant the night was totally planned. An IM to Peter or Erin meant I was never alone if I didn't want to be. I ate when I wanted, slept when I wanted, and had the funnest study sessions with my friends. Peter and I carved pumpkins on the picnic table outside of Merrill Hall for Halloween. Everyone got together and made 9 foot tall snowmen outside of Hinckley Hall. We all slept in on Saturdays and went up to the Cougareat for breakfast at 11am. We played Sardines at the MOA and stood in line to eat at the Cannon Center on Fast Sundays. We got up early to watch movies for American Heritage and stayed up late playing cards in Tommassito's. Truly the funnest times of my life.

Everything is different now, but it's all good. Life goes on and, if you have the right attitude, it only gets better. Still, it's fun to look back on those happy times and let yourself feel some of the freedom from responsibility and the love you had for your friends...if only for a moment.

Ahh...moving. Why do we move? Why do we get the urge to pack all of our personal belongings into little tiny boxes and take those boxes to another place for unpacking? It's insane. Anyone who willingly moves should be locked up.

I look at my new house (which is finally clean!) and it's so pristine and uncluttered that I'm loathe to move the junk you see above into it. Somebody stop me. See all of that junk up there? That's from one hall closet, one-half of a bedroom closet, and one-half of another bedroom closet. That's all. It's amazing how much we accumulate in a few short years. It used to be that everything I owned I could pack up in 2 hours into 10 boxes. Now I'm going to be lucky to get out of this place in 10 days.

Moving is a little bit trickier with an energetic 18 month old boy. I've never had someone underfoot, never had to work around nap schedules. If I didn't have the boy, I could probably get this house moved over in 2 days. Tops. Load up the car, take it over, unload it, come back for more. I could do that for 10 hours straight without Dinomyn. As it is, I'm getting in 2
hours in the morning, and another 2-3 after his bedtime.

Still, I'm not complaining. Ok, I just did, but I'm really excited to get into this house!!!! It's really awesome, and it's all mine! I get more excited about it every time I go over there. :) It's going to be sweet when we finally get in there.

Oh, one more thing. I posted my apartment on Provo's craigslist, and I got 4 calls on it within 12 hours of it posting. The apartment has already been taken, and I'm grateful. The only problem was that we advertised and showed the place so that someone would take over our last 2 weeks rent in August. The people who just signed the contract set their move-in date for the 29th. After all the work I did on this, I'm mad that we'll still have to pay those two weeks anyway. I've called the property management people and practically demanded that they do something--either give me the 2 weeks rent back or give me a break on my new place. Either way, they'd better do something about it.

I don't get mad easily, but if I'd known this couple was going to screw me out of 2 weeks rent I would have told them about the ants that come every year, the leakage from the upstairs bathroom into ours, the noisy, noisy neighbors, the noisy traffic on University Ave, and the neighbors who park in your spot all the time. I didn't mention any of those things, though. Maybe I should have... :)

We've finally reached temperatures below 85! Last night it rained, and it has continued to be cloudy and drizzly today. Usually I don't like this kind of weather but today we're counting our blessings. I woke up cold this morning and had to find my blanket to pull over me. That hasn't happened in weeks! I turned off the 3 fans and one swamp cooler that we've had going nonstop, and it's amazing how complete the silence is. I can now hear the big trucks going by on University, the baby crying in the upstairs apartment, the people walking around upstairs, the people talking upstairs, the people's TV upstairs...you get the picture. I can't wait to move!!! Maybe I should turn the fans back on--the white noise did a great job of masking all these other pesky noises. I can, however, also hear the wind rustling through the leaves of the tree outside my apartment, so that's a plus.

We were supposed to get the keys to our new place today so we could start cleaning and moving. Unfortunately, the keys are MIA. We returned them to a friend of the owner who maintains that she never got them. The property management company (that the owner wants to hire) is looking for them so they can see the house and decide whether or not to take the job. They also happen to be our property management company for this apartment and we have to give them a 30 day notice to move out of here. But we haven't signed a lease at our new place yet and I'm hesitant to put the cart before the horse. Everything hinges on those keys... Where, oh where have they gone?

I don't want to start packing before things are cleaned over there because I'm planning to make a bunch of small trips in the evening after Dinomyn goes to bed. That way I can get the bulk of our stuff moved over and settled where I want it before we do the big furniture. I'll pack it up during the day, and then move it over and unpack it during the evenings. Then I can reuse the boxes the next day. It's a perfect plan, except for the fact that I'm waiting for other people to finish their jobs so I can implement my plan. It feels like I'm back at my corporate job...waiting for other people to get around to doing their jobs so I can do mine. I guess this is the way the world works, but it's a rather frustrating way for super-proactive people like me who just want to get the job done and move on to the next task.