Getting the Boot

For all of you who still think highly of me, skip reading this. For those who know the truth and can handle it, proceed at your own risk.

I am more than upset right now. I live in a very nice townhome. Let me define this. I have a luxury townhome that is roomy and gorgeous on the inside. On the down side..... It has zero yard, and we pay each month to have the lawn and grounds taken care of. I am NOT satisfied with the outcome of the money I pay. Here is what I get for my money each month:

A lawn company who ruins the grass, kills the trees and runs into the houses and fence.
The same lawn company who try to remove snow from the ice skating rink... aka parking lot. bless their little hearts.
A booting company to enforce parking. This may seem like a good thing to some of you, but let me further explain....

The booting started because people who own these townhomes decide to rent to students. Fine. Do it. But FOLLOW THE LAWS!!! There can only be a certain number of non-related people here and they KNOW they are only allowed TWO cars. NOBODY followed this last year and when winter hit, it was impossible to find a parking place. Even more impossible if you were here visiting. And you CAN'T park on the road or you get ticketed. Well, I would take a ticket over a boot. MUCH less expensive, and you can pay it online! There is my advertisement. Ever since this booting began there has been nothing but headache. Sadly, the majority of the headache is for those of us who have followed the rules all along. We have only two cars. We park them in our garages. Even now I see cars that are REGULARLY parked in the parking lot "with permission." Well, folks, it's the same people who've always lived here. Nice problem solving skills. I was always quite put out by this whole ordeal, especially when friends of mine were affected, but now my dislike has risen to an EXTREME level because tonight, my friends, they booted MY car. First let me admit my fault. I was parked behind the townhomes in the way. I knew I was in the way. I had NO intention of being there as long as I was. My friend got to talking, you know how it goes. And let me just add that I was on my way to DO SERVICE, thank you very much. I admit that I should not have parked there. I left my car running, then ran out to move it so another car could get in and decided to turn it off to save gas! The thought entered my mind to just move it home so I didn't have to worry about it, but I didn't want to have to walk across the skating rink in the freezing cold twice. I was stupid. I should've known it would come back and bite me. But for the love, people! I don't pay a large monthly mortgage payment so that people can boot my car for being parked on the very property I pay for. Then to add insult to injury, the boot man parks his car behind mine and he doesn't get booted. I was sure to point this out to him. He didn't find it helpful. Too bad. I would've felt much better about the whole thing. I would have paid my $70 and known he'd have to pay the same for the same offense and all would have been right in my world. I will now go and buy a set of boots for the next time they are illegally parked to enforce illegal parking. I am going to make sweet money for the rest of the time we are doomed to live in this choice community. Don't worry. It's not really as bad as I make it sound. But I think it is. Most of you are probably like my husband who can't understand why I'd be the least bit frustrated at the booting situation. Apparantly I should only be frustrated at myself. Fine, whatever. I'll rise to a higher plane of existense tomorrow. Until then I WILL VENT!!!!!!!!! Does anyone out there understand where I am coming from. Please tell me there is SOMEONE out there who understands what I'm feeling. Anyone? Please? If not, I don't need to hear again that it's my fault. I already know that part. Thanks.

Birthdays!!!

Wow, I feel tacky, but my sanity is worth a lot to me, so everyone can just deal with it! I have a LOT of birthdays this month, so I am posting them now. I don't know if I'll have another chance to blog this month. I am sad because we had so much fun in California and I am sure we'll have more fun soon! Anyways.... on to the birthdays.....

Dec 7th: Happy Birthday, Joe!

My brother-in-law is celebrating his birthday today. Joe lives in Oklahoma with his wife and four cute kids. Joe always knows the funnest new games to share with us. They used to be here in Utah a bit closer. Hopefully we can catch up with them and see their new house! Happy Birthday, Joe!

Dec 8th: Happy Birthday, Kim!

My niece Kimberly turns eight on her big day! She will be getting baptized this coming month and we are very excited for her. Kim is full of fun and life! We hope to see you this summer!

Dec. 25th: Happy Birthday Lawrence!

My cute, cuddly nephew turns one on Christmas Day! How cool is that?! You should see the cute birth annoucements they had. We enjoyed meeting Lawrence for the first time this Thanksgiving and, man! He is one cute kid! We love you, Lawrence!

Dec. 28th: Happy Birthday Cheryl (and me! )

My sister-in-law, Cheryl and I share a birthday. It has been four years since we were able to celebrate together, though. Cheryl is out in Oklahoma now. I always enjoy playing games and laughing with Cheryl and Joe. I will always fondly remember our winter drives to Arizona and California! Hope your birthday is awesome!

Christmas Newsletter

Dear Family and Friends,

It is hard to believe another year has come and gone. It is always nice to take some time at the end of the year to look back at what we have done. Life is usually pretty busy around here and often times it feels like life is running away without us! Here is some of what has happened in our household this year....

KAYLEE (5): The biggest news this year was Kaylee starting Kindergarten! It is hard to believe we are old enough to have a child in school. She has enjoyed it so far and has made lots of new friends. She enjoys Primary and gave a great talk in the Primary program this year. She enjoyed swimming lessons this past summer and keeps asking for piano lessons. She also set a goal of learning to ride her bike without training wheels and accomplished that this summer. Kaylee loves to play with Charles and her friends.

CHARLES (3): This summer was Charles' first swimming lesson! He was pretty nervous about it after the first day, but he decided to take another set of lessons. He did a great job and we enjoyed watching him jump off the diving board. Charles has adjusted pretty well to the move of his favorite aunt and uncle. Jake and Tressa bought a home in Perry so their visits have significantly decreased. Charles is looking forward very much to a new cousin this January. You can usually find him running through the house with a turkey baster and vacuum attachment. These are his favored “swords.” Charles loves babies and keeps asking when we'll get one, so if any of you are needing a babysitter, just let us know!

CAMILLE: Life is busy as usual. Camille decided to be a crossing guard again this school year. It has gone much more smoothly. We'll see how it goes when the snow starts flying. This summer Camille entered the exciting world of blogging! It has been fun to keep up with family and friends. She is still making cakes for friends and family and has recently set up a cake blog to get some feedback. The most exciting thing for Camille this year was the purchase of a brand new car! It has been wonderful to have reliable transportation. We broke in the car with a wonderful trip to California for Thanksgiving.

LOUIS: June marked one year at Juniper Systems for Louis. They have been a great company to work for. One highlight was a facility upgrade. Louis got a new office with a HUGE desk! The company also built an exercise room with a raquetball court. Louis enjoyed some lively games with Zach while he lived here. He is getting ready to head back to school for a Master's degree. This past summer he enjoyed doing some work for the HOA here.

We are still living in the same townhome. Rather shocking for us to not move this past year! We just may be here for a long time! Life continues as usual and brings us fun memories. We hope this year was good for each of you and wish you joy and happiness in the coming year. It is wonderful to keep in touch with our family and friends.

With love,
Louis, Camille, Kaylee, and Charles Koberstein

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to write a quick post about Thanksgiving. There is something about this holiday that always gives me warm fuzzies. I'll admit that married life makes for some new experiences around holidays and I will also admit that for a time I felt like holidays were basically organized family feuds. I can now say I have had at least three Thanksgivings in a row where this is not the case! I have been looking forward to this Thanksgiving more than others. In June I decided that we needed to spend Thanksgiving in California this year. We rarely get out there and the kids had so much fun the last time we went for vacation. I just felt this strong urge, something pulling on my heart telling me we needed to be in California. Of course the biggest problem in getting to California is always HOW. Our lovely protege is no longer allowed to make the trip. Flying is out of the question unless the tickets are donated. The last time we went we rented a car and not only did it just cost a lot to begin with, we ended up paying a couple hundred extra to pay for the window that someone broke! So, our solution this year.... a new car!!! A brand new car! I never thought I would own one! It has been wonderful. The next dilemma was the weather. We were so happy to find that the forecast was clear. We enjoyed a wonderfully uneventful drive out. That is pretty good considering it's twelve hours with two young kids. I can't remember the last time I was so excited to go on a twelve hour drive. I really felt like a school girl. I woke up Tuesday morning with butterflies in my stomach! I was grinning all morning knowing that we'd be leaving that night to prepare for our departure to California!!! I am so thankful this year for a new car which provided a much needed opportunity to spend time with our family. We enjoyed a delicious feast with all five Koberstein boys. That makes for quite the interesting conversation, but it was so fun to see Louis with all of his brothers. We were missing his two sisters and their families, but we still had quite the crowd! Tomorrow we'll head out to San Francisco for more family fun and I can't wait! I enjoyed a nice, laid back day of talking, laughing, playing games, relaxing, cooking, cleaning, feasting, and just loving! Hurray for Thanksgiving!!!

Trying out some Courage

This honestly is really hard for me and makes me very nervous, but I've been wanting to do it, so enough being chicken! I started a cake blog. I just want a place where I can post some pictures of my cakes and hopefully get some feedback. I really hope for positive feedback, but I can handle the truth. Usually this is my downfall in any type of situation where I am selling my "talent or skill." I get negative feedback or harsh criticism and just quit doing it. (i.e. hairstyling...) So I am really going out on a limb here, but I just have to know! What do people really think? So... check it out and let me know what you like, and what you don't. Thanks!

www.camillescakes.blogspot.com

Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!

This year Halloween was nice. It seemed that I took it at a slower pace than normal, so I was only "mostly dead" the following morning. I saved just enough energy to finish a cake, move a family to a new apartment, and clean up the house. Can I have a wonderwoman award now? Hee hee seriously, though. We went to Kaylee's school in the morning for a costume parade. After school I took the kids to Lee's Marketplace for the trick-or-treat while I did my shopping. It made the trip much more enjoyable for all. We also went to Papa Murphy's where the kids got their own personal size pizzas for lunch. At the crosswalk they enjoyed playing Star Wars. Afterwards, we went to see Donna at work and the kids thought that was pretty cool. Next stop, Dad's work for some awesome trick-or-treating! That night we went to our "tri-ward trunk-or-treat." In case you were wondering, I'm NOT a fan of those. I thought about posting more on this issue and then decided against it due to possiblity of offense. Thanks, Donna and Steve for coming for the kids! They loved seeing you there! Next up, dinner party at our house. My brother and his wife, my sister and her husband, and our good friends, Alton and Shirley joined us. We had pizza, salad, breadsticks, homemade rootbeer, donuts, cider, and egg nog. Yum! Then we played a rousing round of BANG! before all had to depart. It was a lot of fun!

Here are some fun pictures of the kids' costumes, our party, and a few cakes I made.... enjoy.

These are pictures of the kids at a Monster Bash at Kaylee's school. I thought they were hilarious!
Darth Vader and Princess Leia. So cute! And Uncle Jake the jedi. My kids' favorite uncle and the instigator of Star Wars at our house. Playing Star Wars at the crosswalk.Donna and kids at her workSteve and kids at the trunk-or-treat

I made this cake for my friend's son. His birthday was a couple weeks ago and they had a Halloween costume party. This was one of my funnest cakes to make!

This cake is the one I made the day after Halloween.

In the meanwhile.... an Award!!!

Well, friends... thanks for all the response. I still am undecided in my vote on whether to go private or not. The polls will close this week, I hope. I noticed that I miss a lot of your comments because yahoo keeps sending a bunch of them to my spam list. Grrr. In the meantime... I will hurry and post some things I want everyone to see.... starting with this!!!



Hee hee! My friend, Katie, or Con as I call her, gave me this! Wowie! Look at me go. So, now I get to tell you some more stuff about me....

6 things I value:

1. family

2. faith

3. education

4. dreams

5. work ethic

6. experience

6 things I do NOT value

1. laziness

2. tv

3. apathy

4. designer jeans

5. rudeness

6. people who speed through crosswalks

6 people I give this award to:

1. Megan H.- best view on motherhood

2. Megan J.- love the writing skills! Makes me think hard!

3. Elena-so many fun ideas here

4. Elise-what can I say? She makes scrapbook stuff herself!

5. Amber-just check the blog, folks.

6. Danielle-a letter of the week in prose!

These people have inspired me with their never-ending creativity. Examples next to their names! Thanks folks!