I like knocking a lot out at once...

11. Pack for deployment.
The bad news about this one is that Ryan deployed.

14. Go to the zoo.
We go to the zoo a lot, so this one was easy. But on Thursday Alana and I skipped school so we could spend the day with Ryan before he left.

50. Give power of attorney to Karri.
Ryan did that before he left. Now everything is in my power. Mwa ha ha ha...

53. Wash those stinky dogs.
Sadly, it has been a long, long, long time since those dogs got a bath. They are inside dogs so they don't really stink but they were long overdue. Alana and I washed them today after dropping Ryan off.

79. Move the office upstairs.
I forgot to write this one down before. When we reorganized the living room we moved the office back upstairs. Much more room downstairs now.

94. Learn how to paint a princess really good.
Alana worked hard at it and she painted a beautiful princess. In fact she named her Princess Beauty. Her artwork was displayed at the IPA annual Art After Dark show.

Getting a lot done

We are just trucking through our list. Okay, so we're completing a lot of the easier things. Well, we have to start somewhere and we're making sure we have time for the big stuff. Here's a list of what we've accomplished so far.

13. Throw Alana's birthday party.
Alana's birthday is tomorrow but we had her party on Saturday. Read more about that on Karri's blog.

54. Finish grading the Master Puppeteer projects.
That took me weeks to grade - the kids turned in so much more than I expected, but I finally got it done. Now I only need to get through the Americas test they took two weeks ago...

61. Finish Atlas Shrugged.
Another thing that took me forever to get through. It took me about two months to finish Atlas Shrugged - mostly because I don't have a lot of spare time for pleasure reading. But I loved the book and I'm going to re-read it this summer.

64. Choose an elective to teach next year.
It took me a while to decide on what to teach for a learning community next year. I'm doing Creative Writing this year but I wanted something different. After weeks of going back and forth I finally decided to teach a film and literature class. I think it's going to be fun. Our first book/movie will be The Princess Bride.

73. Redecorate living room.
We bought a new couch and loveseat and a bookshelf/wall divider. I think the new living room looks great. While we were at it, we bought a new dining room table too.

BEFORE

AFTER

95. Paint our rooms.
We haven't finished the house yet, but we are making headway. We finally painted the dining room. Alana's room was already done, so we're a quarter of the way there!

New table in our painted dining room

45. USS Arizona

After three and a half years in Hawaii we finally made a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial. I don't really know what to say about it. Can't really say we had fun. One of the reasons I think I've stayed away for so long was to avoid feeling sad. It's like the Holocaust Museum in D.C. You just don't walk out of there feeling good. But it is important to remember. I think too many people forget. And when we forget we stop being cohesive, we start nit-picking, and the unification that we felt for a brief while slips away and we are divided once more.
Well, despite that, it was actually nice to spend a day with my family and Alana did have a good time visiting the museum, playing with the periscope, and admiring the American flag. And we were able to cross another item off our list. 99 to go.

The Gun Turrets on the Arizona

The USS Missouri


Ryan and Alana in front of the Bowfin submarine. Ryan will be leaving for sub duty in less than 2 weeks.

98. Get AA Degree

So I (Ryan) have sent all my transcripts to the Presidio of Monterey. All I have to do now is take a couple of CLEPs (College Alg. and a Science) then I should be done. That should be easy enough, especially in the next 1001 days. But we'll have to see, I could have done it a long time ago but procrastinated for three years. At least for the math CLEP I asked one of Karri's colleagues who is a math teacher to help me out, hopefully I will get this one done soon.

31. General Conference

We've already begun and we are on our way to completing the list! We watched every session of General Conference this weekend, though of course we're only half way there. We have to watch every session of the October conference too before I feel comfortable crossing that off our list. And the truth is that we'll probably never cross that one off our list.
Conference was truly wonderful and uplifting. I felt the spirit during the solemn assembly as I sustained the new first presidency. It's weird to not hear or see President Hinckley, but I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet and is called of God. Alana couldn't actually sit through all sessions but she stayed nearby and I know she was listening because she would perk up at familiar words or phrases. I so love my family and I'm so grateful for them in my life. I wouldn't have such a wonderful family without this church, the true church of Jesus Christ.

BIG project for the Murri Family

We are participating in Day Zero, a project to complete 101 things in 1001 days. We are creating our list now, which will be permanently displayed in the sidebar, along with a countdown to the final day. We are beginning on Sunday, April 6, 2008 and our final day will be January 2, 2011. It's perfect timing, because that is the time Ryan will be finishing his second tour here in Hawaii. We're really excited to try this, but I have to wonder how far we'll get or what we'll accomplish. Neither Ryan nor I are known for follow-through, but perhaps this fun project will be just the thing to help us in that area.
The rules are simple: tasks must be specific, realistic, and have a measurable result. We'll use the posts to report on our progress. The list is in no specific order - we'll do what we can when we can. Wish us luck!