Settling in …….. again!!

Well it seems that we have been settling in here in the StG for quite a while now. Well the reality of it is that we now at it again or still depending on how you want to look at it. When we first moved down here we were under the gun in finding a place to live and ended up in a way too small place. This little place was decent but we just didn’t fit in it. We were cramped in every room. There was absolutely no room to any of us to do anything without being on top of someone else. But for whatever the reason we needed to be in this place, and we made it work for the school year.
This school year brought a number of changes to the Innes gang. The biggest and most important was the newest addition to the gang. Bauer joined us Apr. 15 weighing in a solid 10lbs. and now that he is 3 months old he is close to the 20lb and still getting bigger and cuter everyday.
Cooper is an animal he is all boy he turns everything he picks up into either a ching-ching (sword) or a pew-pew (gun). He can’t wait for his little brother to get old enough to play, and all day long he hears the word NO! Most of the time he doesn’t try to be mean, but he often does enjoy teasing his sister and everyone else.
Morgan loved preschool and is really excited to go to kindergarten this fall. Well honestly it depends on the day you ask her some days she is really excited and other days she says she that she is not ever going to school. She turns 5 in a few weeks and I am wondering where the last fie years have gone. It seems to have gone by all so fast.
Corben is going into the 10th grade and he too starts at a new school. He will be attending the brand new Desert Hills High School. He understandably has mixed feeling about yet another new school, but fortunately it won’t be all completely different he has some friends that will be attending the new school with him. We hope that this is a good experience for him.
We recently moved out of the shoebox and into a house. We have a yard and a pool now. The kids especially Morgan are way excited about having our own swimming pool but more importantly we are all excited about more room. We have quite a lot more space than we had in our first St. George address. Hopefully we will be here at least until Corben graduates high school because none of are very thrilled about the thoughts of moving again in a year or anytime in the near future. So really we are still settling in again. We have more room to spread out and not be on top of each other all the time like we were but so far we are still in a pile of boxes. It just doesn’t look like as many as it did before.

Professor

I made it through my rookie year as a professor, and I enjoyed it. It was everything that it was supposed to be. There was of course a learning curve but you should expect that in anything. My course load was pretty good I taught 3 classes during the fall and 2 during the spring, as well as supervising the shop, and work calls, designing lights for 3 out of 4 productions and sets for one. Here’s a semester by semester break down of my rookie year. Fall The week before classes started I spent in meeting after meeting, college meetings, department meeting, division meetings, and production meetings and on and on. I was so disoriented after all these meetings I was sure my head was going to explode, and honestly I don’t recall what any of them were about, I just remember that they were long. Which is great because in a few short weeks I get to do it all over again for the new school year. Go team!! I taught and will again this fall semester Stagecraft, Set Design, and Sound Design. The stagecraft class I have been teaching as a grad student for a few years now and I enjoy teaching that class. While I have done set and sound design it was a whole different ballgame to teach those classes. I didn’t have a clue where to start so I tried to tailor the class to model some of the classes I took. I took some of Dennis, and some of Shawn and some ideas from Amy Critchfield and made a set design class. It seemed to work out well enough to use the same model again with just a few adjustments for this year. The sound class I shamelessly just stole from Bruce’s sound class. We spent a great deal of time of the engineering of sound, and touched on elements of design. The highlight of the class was of course the tempest mix at the end of the semester; we had some really creative projects come out of that, including the interior sounds of a porno if you know what I mean. It was really funny and very well done. We did I Hate Hamlet and Sweeney Todd this semester and both shows were great I design lights for both, I Hate Hamlet was first and it was a simple 1 location set that changed from night to day a few times. Sweeney was awesome, the concept was inspired by the old black and white horror movies, and every element was in tones of black and white, the set, the costumes and even the make up. My lights are what made the set and characters come alive. It was an amazing experience and even more amazing show. We were all disappointed to hear that we were not taking it to KCACTF but my student makeup designer rode it all the way to DC and after inning the national honors ended up in NYC for a week as a guest at Ming Cho Lee’s Clambake. So here we are little Dixie State College in the middle of nowhere making waves at the national level all in my rookie year. I don’t know how I am going to top that or even match that this year but we sure are going to have fun trying. Spring Semester This semester I taught light design and stage management. I was sure that the stage management class was going to get me fired. That class got so out of control at times it really was funny but it was almost dispruptive everything around us during most classes. The lighting class was much more subdued and easier to handle. From each of these classes I now have a pool of students I can throw in to Stage Manage a show or assign as a light designer. This is the goal to create working opportunities for students so that can get enough practical experience to be able to get a job in the field. Our first show of the semester was “As you Like it” in the black box. We set it in the forest and made a canopy of leaves over the black box so as you entered in the theatre you felt like you were going into a forest, complete with trees and the fall leaves overhead. Not long after the first show closed we loaded up the vans and took 18 actors and 2 tech/designer to LA for the regional KCACTF where none of the actors made it past semi finals but Guy rocked the makeup design world with Sweeney. Our trip to LA was stressful but we all had a great time we even hit Disneyland and had the amazing Bryan Richards tour of insider information. Just a few days after returning from a sleepless but victorious LA trip I was on a plane headed out to the land of Aloha to help Bruce with Aida on the army base. I spent a week in Hawaii working for the most part but of course there was some play. You just can’t go to Hawaii and not play some come on now lets keep it in proper perspective here. Our final show of the semester was “A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum” this was my set design. That was a challenge mostly because my brain wasn’t into as much as it should have been. But we pulled it together and made a good show out of it. Morgan actually came to 2 of the dress rehearsals with me and loved the show; she sang “pretty little picture” for weeks after that. It was during the run of this show that Bauer showed to join the gang. We were all so sure that he was going to be a little girl. We purposely didn’t find out that he was to be a he. Morgan wanted a little sister so bad she almost cried when she found out but like everyone else her disappointment didn’t last long and she quickly became attached to her new baby brother. And there it is the nutshell recap of my rookie year as a professor

Settling In.....

We have been in St. G now for almost 6 weeks (well I have anyways) and we are starting to settle in. We are slowly getting unpacked. The garage is still stacked with boxes but at least now the pile is somewhat less chaotic and we are making some headway.
We are still adjusting to the 100˚ heat and to life in the desert without to much difficulty so far. We haven't turned off the AC since we moved into our little place, and we are learning that we do just have to accept the fact that we have to just share some things with the bugs.
A few days ago Kim had her official welcome to the desert. She found a small scorpion in the house. It was about 2” from tip to tail so it wasn’t very big BUT was still a scorpion. She tried to smash it with a shoe but those little devils are tough and are hard to kill. Corben ended up smashing it with a heavy wood block. Neither of them had the stomach to scrape up the carcass so they left it for me to clean up when I got home from work. Later that night as she recounted the event to me I made the comment that it could have been worse………”How could it have been worse it was a scorpion in the house?” ….”it could have been a snake…..now that would have freaked me out I hate snakes!

Now I thought that I was in a great place and that life just couldn't get much better that it is. My job here at DSC is absolutely fantastic, I love what I am doing and things are just going great, in fact just today as of about an hour ago I finally got an office. The communication faculty just moved into their new space, (since they are the new 4yr degree on campus someone decided that they should all be together in the same building as most of their class space) so now I have a nice big office with huge windows. I no longer have to carry my office in my backpak. Now all I need is some stuff to go in it. I have so little that it's still going to look empty after I unpack. I'll have to get some pictures and maybe some toys or something.

On to other bits of excitement........
Kim told me the news and pass around the cigars, we are going to have another baby. She is just about 8 or so weeks along and has been feeling like poop on a stick for lack of a better description. So moving has not been particularly easy on her but she is doing OK and things are only going to get interesting as we get farther along. We went to the first visit to the OB Doc today and so far everything is normal and good. It is going to be fun to see how Cooper reacts to all of this especially the farther along mom gets. Morgan was 2 when Cooper was born and one her first comments after he got home was " its too loud can we put it back" Right now Morgan and Cooper fight over mommy's lap so it might get a little hairy when they have to share mom with yet one more.

I will get some pics up of our new digs here as soon as I remember to download them from camera

Well it has been 1 week now in the new digs. The garage is full and the storage unit is empty. Corben has settled into school and actually likes his teachers and his classes. Much to my surprize seminary is his favorite class. I wouldn't have held out hope for that one, but miricles do happen.

It has been just me and Corben here unloading. I can't say unpacking as we have only unpacked enough to survive. A few utensils, plates, cups, pans, some bedding, the TV and DVD player and the stereo, you know basic needs kind of stuff. The kitachen is full of boxes, the little room that Morgan and Cooper will share is full of boxes. Corben's room is mostly set up and I have set up my bed but thats about it for now.
We decided to wait for Kim to join us down here before attempting to set up to much especially the kitchen. But next week hopefully we will start to get more settled after Kim and the little ones join us in the heat.

Next week I will post pictures of our little house and stuff.

Living in a Box!

Well we have now moved. We have actually been here in St. George for almost a week now, and we are living in the hotel. It's not exactly a box but it sure feels like it. Kim and the kids left with grandma and grandpa on Thursday (Aug 8) to head back to Salt Lake for a few weeks to help out her mom, while her dad goes out of town.
Meanwhile I am still here in my "box" trying to get my ducks in a row in order to start teaching my classes. I feel a little overwhelmed with the teaching load I have been given. I am teaching Intro to Stagecraft, Sound Design and Scene Design this semester. The intro class is one I have been teaching at USU for 2 years now so that one is no worries, The other two are definitely not my strong areas but it will be OK, it will be interesting but it will be OK.

I'm trying to convince myself OK, I'm not sure it's working yet but time will tell.

The real estate market is outrageous there are 6000 empty houses in Washington County right now. Most of those are either for sale or fore-closures with enormous price tags attached to them Some of these are rentals but again most of what we looked out were way way out of our price range or really really dumpy. Here in St. George since it is the fastest growing community in the country right now and a college town, the rental market is fiercely competitive. You either live in a nice but compact space or a really crappy house for what most salaries down here can afford or you live well beyond your means and pay as much in rent as most people pay for a mortgage.
We finally did find a house to rent that will at least get us by for a time. It's a cute little town home 3 bedroom, 2 bath, small 2 car garage. We can't move in until Wednesday but what ever we have a place that we will be able to call home. We hope to be able to buy a house here by this time next year, but we'll see how reality goes I guess.

Moving day is coming way to fast

Moving day is coming up on us way too fast.
Reality is going to punch us right in the face in exactly ONE WEEK!
We still have so much to do here before we can even think about getting to St. George. Kim has been packing since February and has eliminated alot of unnecessary stuff. We have taken several loads to DI and have filled the dumpster several times over but there is still so much stuff.

To add to the stress of moving we have yet to find a place to live in St. G. We have been down twice in the last 6 weeks and have left empty handed each time. Everything we looked at was either really really tiny or really trashed or way out of our affordable price range. If we were in the immediate market to purchase a home there is lots available but the rental market is really competetive and without being there to see anything it has been extremely difficult to find anything that meets our needs. We have been really spoiled here in Logan we have a 3 bdr. 2 ba. townhouse with almost 2000sqf of space. It is hard to go from that to a 3bdr/2ba 1100sqf shoebox. Almost everything we looked at was so tiny that it would be almost impossible for us to survive in for any length of time. But I guess we can deal with anything for a time. Hopefully we can just find an acceptable place that meets our budget constraints and then maybe we can all just suck it up and deal with the compact closeness until we are in a better position to be able to buy a house that hopefully meets our size needs a little better.
So we pick up the moving truck on Saturday morning and load withthe help of the elders and the young men of our ward and Monday I get to head down to St. G. I'll pick up my co-pilot (my buddy Spanky) in Utah County on the way through. We'll drive on to sunny southern Utah and find a storage unit in St. George where we will offload everything and then we will turn right around and head back to meet Kim and the kids in Salt Lake.
While we are in SLC we are planning on having a big BBQ smell ya later party at her parents house (i'll email details in a day or two) on Aug 2 then we load the kids up in the van and we all head south again. I know it sounds like a lot of driving but it seems to be the best idea we could come up with in order for Kim to not have to drive 5+ hours by herself with the kids. (Cooper is not a happer traveller)
So the adventure continues..... we are heading out on a wing and a prayer hoping that we aren't homeless for too long as we look for a place. As soon as we have an address we will gladly share it with everyone. Until then please keeps us in your prayers......we are going to need all the help we can get.

there should be a few recent pics for your enjoyment, but we seem to be having technical difficulties today so I'll try to get them hopefully in tomorrow.