Ooma Update

I wanted to write up a quick update about our Ooma telephone. (To clarify: Ooma is just the brand of phone/provider we purchased. It just happens to be what we call it.)  We have had this home phone since January 2021 and it's still working really well for us. We have two phone extensions and one base. 

Here are some things that I love about the Ooma phone: 

-I feel comfortable leaving Lydia or Austin home for short amounts of time knowing that they can call me if they need to - but that they don't have unsupervised access to a cell phone. 

-My kids know how to call someone and how to answer the phone. 

-My kids love calling the Haderlies and talking to them on the phone. 

The last time I was at my Grandpa Walker's house, I snapped a picture of their home phone. This is an upgrade from the phone from when I was very young, but it's still full of childhood memories. I smile at the cord that attaches the handset to the base, the corkboard with hand-written phone numbers on it, and the notepad to the side with messages saved from decades-old phone calls. 

I know that the Ooma phone is already outdated and that someday my kids will laugh about having a home phone. People may even laugh about having cell phones (are embedded chips in our future? yikes) - but for us right now, we are happy with this household solution we have found. 

Home Phone

We have been planning for quite a while to get a home phone. Shantel in particular has been very set on getting a home phone, not even a cell phone that sits at home. There are lots of reasons we felt this was very important. 

1) We don't think our kids are ready for cell phones (even a cell phone that doesn't belong to them). Even if it just did calling and texting, that is too much for our kids right now. 

2) We want our kids to learn good phone manners. How to answer the phone and be polite. 

3) We want our kids to be able to call their friends and have a number that people can reach them. 

However, we were not willing to spend $30 a month on a phone that may get used once or twice (if at all) during certain months. Fortunately, we found a really good deal. This phone from Ooma costs about $150 to buy the unit, but then you only have to pay taxes and fees, no other monthly phone cost. So we only have to pay about $7 a month. 

We are excited to have the phone and the kids were excited too! We really hope this will be a good thing for them growing up. It is really the first part of teaching them responsibility with phones. 

It's a good day.

I love this time of year when everything starts warming up and the neighborhood starts coming alive again. It brings me so much excitement because I know that summer is right around the corner. I realize it's only April, and real summer is still a ways away. But - it's warm enough for the kids to go outside and run around, to stop at the park on the way home from running errands, and for eating popsicles on the porch. It's also the time of year when storm clouds move in and burst open with rain, when the nights are still cold enough to want to curl up with a big cozy blanket, and when David's busy schedule is finally starting to wind down. I love everything about it.

(Our trip to the park yesterday. Lydia figured out how to spin herself around on that blue spinning bar and Austin climbed to the very top of the big-kid play structure. A beautiful day.) 

I've been bitten by a spring-fever-house-project bug and I have a whole list of things that I want to organize and work on. I'm so excited about them! We've gotten a few quotes for building a window seat into our stair pop-out and for building lockers into our mudroom. The stair pop-out is going to happen and I'm SO excited about it! (The jury is still out on whether we are going to be able to make the lockers happen, or if we'll need push it off until next year.) When I picture our completed window seat and bookshelves I get so excited I can hardly stand it. Some other projects we have in the works are: adding a wood plank wall in the half bath, cabinet hardware in both upstairs bathrooms, and a peel-and-stick tile backsplash in my laundry room. Pinterest and I have been great friends lately. I am just so excited about everything.

So, David was in Minneapolis last week. It was the first training on a new software called Knowledge Coach to be a knowledge coach trainer (an incredible opportunity to learn a new software and then travel and teach the rest of the company). I've said it before, but I'm so proud of him. When he was first contacted about the opportunity, his first concern was that it would require more travel time for him over the course of the year. It won't be a forever thing, but he will be traveling a bit more, especially in the next couple of months. Of course, I told him that we would be fine and that he should definitely take the chance! It's a great thing for his career, and even just shows how good he is at what he does. We missed him a lot, but my happiness for him outweighs how much I don't like to have him gone. However, when he isn't here - I have a hard time turning my brain off and making myself go to sleep so I always stay up way too late. One of the days we went to visit Jenna and ended up sleeping over at their apartment, which was so fun. When we first put the kids down and Austin, Camille, and Jason were crying and Lydia was nowhere near falling asleep - we wondered if we'd made a bad life choice, but luckily they all fell asleep and the night was as good as I could have hoped it to be!

(I asked David to send me a cool picture from Minneapolis.)

In addition to staying up way too late while David is gone, I have the tendency to spend, spend, spend. I may or may not have done some online shopping while he was gone, but most of that tendency was curbed by the fact that before he left we ordered new cell phones! I'm SO excited! I've been wanting a new cell phone for a long time. Specifically, a new cell phone that has a really awesome camera. David has helped me look around at a bunch of options, but I've been dragging my feet. One night, he pulled up some options on the computer for me to look at, when finally I was like "I know I'm dragging my feet, but can I just explain to you why? It's because I want THIS phone (pulling up a Google Nexus phone on the computer), but I know it's too expensive. So I know I can't have what I want - but it makes it hard to get excited about something that isn't really going to be what I want." David nodded and took the computer to get a better look. Lydia woke up and I went into her room to help her, laying down and falling asleep by her for a minute. When I came back into our bedroom he was like, "I know this might sound crazy, but I think we should buy these phones... right now." Google just happened to be doing a promotion with their Nexus 5X phones which dropped them down into the price range that we were looking for. You get the promotion when you sign up with their Project Fi cell service, which ended up being even cheaper than the super cheap phone service we have with Virgin Mobile (who we would definitely recommend). So we did it and I think its' going to be a really great deal for us monetarily, and I still get my dream phone! I know it's silly, and it really doesn't matter. But I really am just very excited about it.  We realized after the fact that we needed to order a sim card kit in addition to the phones, so even though the phones got here while David was on his trip, we still haven't set them up. I might be going a little crazy. But the kits got here tonight and we have plans to set them up and play with them.

Some days I feel incredibly anxious. I feel stressed without knowing why and without having a good reason for feeling that way. Then I feel even worse because I'm obviously so, so blessed, and have not a single reason in the world to complain. We have so many blessings, we don't even know what to do with them all. Today I'm counting those blessings: the sunshine, my kids laughter, my hardworking and loving husband, our beautiful home, my old fuzzy-camera phone, my new fancy-camera phone, the internet, a dishwasher, eating pasta for dinner while David is working late and not cooking a real meal, my new weed-puller that does an incredible job and is going to make the dozens and dozens of weeds in my backyard shiver in their roots, this blog where I can write my thoughts and feelings and record the happenings of our lives. It's a good day.

Happy Tuesday!

A Tale of Two (well.. four...) Phones

So, about three years ago - August 2011 - David and I were vaguely thinking about changing cell phones when one of my great blogging friends, Rebecca, blogged about how she and her husband had recently switched to Virgin Mobile and that they loved it. Within just a few days, David and I did a bunch of research, crunched a bunch of numbers, and were walking out of Best Buy with two new cell phones in hand. It was one of the fastest decisions that we've ever made - but it's also been one of the best! We seriously love VM and have been really really happy with our service and cell phones. I mean, come on, these phones have lasted us for three years! (Which in cell phone years is like a whole decade.)

Our phones weren't the newest/best phones on the market when we bought them - but they were both touch screen with data, so definitely nice (and an upgrade from what we were using before). However, over the past three years they've definitely started feeling a little... old. It hasn't bothered us, in fact, it's kind of a pride thing that we have these old phones instead of iPhones or something similar. (Like, it's a mark of our frugalness or sensiblesness or something.) I mentioned that the phones had data, but that's stretching it a little bit. We lovingly referred to them as "semi-intelligent" phones instead of "smart" phones. The phones had access to data, but only had enough storage space for approximately 1.5 apps (David had Twitter and I had LDS Tools), and were only fast enough to access our email and an occasional website. No web surfing for us, but an occasional consult with PricematchwithRachel.com while at the grocery store was possible. When we hit our two year mark we started a little competition to see whose phone would last the longest. We both thought that if we could get to the six month mark, we'd be pretty happy.

After we reached that goal we had lofty goals of hitting the three year mark. Our phone charger cords started not working as well, taking a fairly vigorous effort each night to twist the cord and set the phone at just. the. right. angle. to ensure that the phone would actually charge through the night. We'd tease each other every time one of us accidentally dropped our phone, or was having an especially difficult time getting the charger to connect. I don't have the best track record with phones, and David's record is like... spotless - so I was determined to win even though the odds were not in my favor.

Can you see where this is going? This is the story of how my phone had a sleepover at the bottom of a damp pool bag and never turned on again - and how we both ended up with super awesome new phones.

I have to justify myself a little bit... because those who have known me in the past are sure to shake their heads and say "That Shantel, she's always been so careless with her phones. Losing them. Breaking them. Of course it would be her to lose the bet." But in all honesty, I've taken very good care of this phone, and most of the time when I "lose" my phone it's because I set it down and would rather just hang out with David than keep my phone by me. I've taken great pride in this phone and making sure that it was taken care of. However, last Saturday was an incredibly busy day - jam packed from start to finish. My mom had come down to go to the Parade of Homes, so we had done that in the morning/afternoon, then I met up with some high school friends, Tausha and Bekah, and we went to the Farm, then as soon as we got home we headed to the pool with my mom, again. I had my phone in my pool bag, and when we loaded up to come home (rushing a little bit because David was supposed to be home around that same time) I shook off a couple of our pool toys and tossed them into the bag. We said goodbye to my mom and I started getting dinner ready, with the intent to clean off the kitchen counter (including the pool bag). Then we had an unexpected (but welcome) surprise and Wendy and Sam showed up to see if they could store their leftover food from their date night in our fridge while they went up to RC Willey (the opposite direction from their house). We sat down and chatted with them for a while and as they were getting ready to leave Cal and Sue stopped by, so we sat down to chat with them. It was getting close to Lydia's bedtime so I made her a quick dinner and got her ready for bed. After we got Lydia down and said goodnight to Cal and Sue, I headed back into the kitchen to make our dinner (Sanpete Chicken and Piccadillies). I was fairly focused on making our yummy food that all thoughts of cleaning off the counter (pool bag included) were pushed out of my mind. Right as our dinner was finishing, Wendy and Sam showed back up with cookie dough and ice cream to play games (we had invited them over when they were here earlier). We set out some plates for our dinner, popped the cookies into the oven, and played our new favorite game "Golf". We had a really nice time hanging out with them - but after they left I was pretty ready for bed! (Remember, I am six months pregnant and I'd had a long day.) As I headed up to bed I wondered, for the first time that evening, where my phone had gotten to - but I just decided to find it in the morning.

Fast forward to the next morning when I came down and finally started cleaning off my counter. I dumped out the pool bag and was surprised to see my phone at the bottom. Nothing was really wet in the bag (more just moist...), but my surprise turned to dismay when I realized my phone wasn't turning on. I hoped that maybe the battery was just dead - but after a couple of days in a tupperware of rice I conceded my loss to David and we headed to Best Buy to get new phones for us.

*Note: we are leaving on our family vacation to Indiana on Friday - so we wanted to get our phones and make sure that they were working before we leave. Nothing like a little time crunch, right?*

We knew that we wanted to stay with Virgin Mobile, and we knew what kind of phone we thought we wanted after doing some research online. We just wanted to hold it and make sure that it was exactly what we wanted. It was kind of an adventure, because the AF store didn't have it in stock so we had to make the trek up to Sandy. But when we got there we realized that they only carried the phone we wanted in white. That was fine with me, because I was already planning to get white - but one of the reasons we liked the phone is because we thought that it would be so fun to have me have a white phone and David have a blue phone of the same phone (we've loved having the same phone for so many reasons, but thought it would be fun to have different colors). We figured that we'd just order David's online and hope it got here before we left for Indiana. So we got my phone and headed home to place an order for Davids. Unfortunately we realized that the reason Best Buy only carried these phones in white is because Virgin Mobile only carries them in white! David wasn't sure he wanted a white phone, so he decided to think about it and maybe just use his phone for a while longer. However, after a couple of days of seeing my pretty new phone, he was sold on the idea of getting a new phone. (It's a pretty loser reward for the winner of the bet to get stuck with the old phone, while the loser of the bet gets a brand new phone!) We checked in with all the Best Buy's locally and found that the closest store that had them in stock was Park City or Riverdale. (Apparently, it's a very popular phone.)  Poor David decided that he'd just order one in to the AF Best Buy and pick it up after we got home from our vacation.

I told David that I would take care of ordering it on the next morning. However, I knew that it would be so much more fun if he had his new phone to play with over our trip. So, I secretly planned to drive wherever I had to in order to buy one for him. Thursday morning was my glucose test (gag), so Lydia and I got up bright and early and headed to "mommy's doctor office". While I was waiting the hour between drinking my sugar syrup, I called Best Buy and determined that the closest store that had the phone in stock was Riverdale. I called up the store and was told that I couldn't actually buy it over the phone, I had to come in to purchase it. I explained my sob story, and that I would be driving from American Fork just to buy that phone and could they at least put my phone number on the box so if someone else bought it before I could get there that they could call and tell me to turn around????? After a brief pause and a couple of buttons being pushed in the background they asked me for my credit card number and information. Whoo hoo! Phone purchased, now all that was left was heading to pick it up. Riverdale is about an hour away from Lehi, but only about 25 minutes away from my parents house - so I called up my mom and asked her if she wanted to meet us for lunch. After my blood work was done, Lydia and I hopped in the car and headed out on our adventure. It was actually fairly painless. Lydia was content to be in the car, we made good time, and we were in and out of the best buy in 15 minutes (five of those minutes were me just following Lydia around the store in order to let her stretch her legs while I smiled my biggest smile at having David's phone in my hands). We met up with my mom for lunch, then headed back home to finish packing!

I'm a terrible secret keeper. I took a couple of pictures of Lydia with the phone, and her with my mom, and contemplated sending them to David while he was at work - to surprise him so he could be excited to come home. I thought that it would be fun to just send him one with Lydia and my mom and say "Had a great lunch date with my mom in Riverdale!" and let him make the connection that I had gone there to pick up his phone. But, I thought that it would be even more fun if he got home and the new phone was just sitting on the counter. I was so proud of myself, because on our way home he called me and I played it totally cool, saying that I had ordered the phone to the AF store and that we would just have to pick it up after we got home from Indiana. However, later in the day - he messaged again and said that he had looked again and that maybe there was a phone in the West Valley store and maybe we could cancel the AF order and go pick it up there so we'd have it. I broke and told him the good news (it's totally his fault - he spoiled his own surprise!). He was surprised and so excited and after he got home, we spent the evening playing with our new phones.

The moral of the story is that we both have awesome new phones to take on our trip, and already they are amazing. We are so excited, and it sort of makes up for the lameness of me losing the phone bet. We both ended up with the white LG Volt, and so far we love them!

(Yes, we have the same background picture, because we love it. 

**Update: We are home from our vacation now and can honestly say that we love, love, love these phones! They are so nice and exactly what we wanted. We knew that we didn't need anything incredibly fancy (like the Samsung Galaxy S3) - but we wanted something that would be really nice and functional. These phones have such a large screen, they are super fast, and we've been able to download some really neat Apps. David is pretty much in love with the "Google Keep" app that he has that is basically a note pad/to do list/organization app. I love how nice the camera is, and pretty much everything else about the phone. We feel pretty happy and are already hoping to go another 2-3 years on these phones!