Fine Dining

Today after church, we went to Desirae's (my niece) house to help put in some new windows. They live in an older home and it was time for some better windows. Dez was really good and for dinner she had steak and chicken that I helped cook on the grill for everyone.

When we left, I decided since it was a boring day for DiDi and Kevin had worked so hard, it was time for a treat. So we stopped at Dairy Queen for some ice cream. We went in, instead of the drive through, so that DiDi could take her time and look at pictures. Not sure why though, because I knew she would want an Oreo Blizzard....she is all about the cookies and cream...

Anyway, so we were waiting for our stuff and this guy comes up and says to the lady at the counter "you forgot to give me the special Ketchup for the shrimp". Well that just struck me as very funny....reminds me of the hick town we now live in....no longer do we have cocktail sauce....but special ketchup.

I can just imagine going to the Village Tavern and asking for special Ketchup, maybe I could get that special BBQ sauce for my steak too....or they would just boot me out the door.

Life is returning to normal

Last week we (Jody, Didi and I) went to my parents for a family reunion on my mom's side. My parents live in Oregon so it is a 2.5 day drive each way. And due to work commitments we could only be gone about 8 days. So 5 days of driving for 3 days of visiting... It was a killer trip.

However, we did get to see some things we had not seen before and also got to catch up with people we hardly ever see. So that was good. (Uncle Steve, thanks for trusting me with driving the new toy. I was super nervous driving it)

Took a couple of days to get settled after getting home, but I think we are about there. Didi goes home in under a week :( , so we are doing a few last things with her and then she will be gone.

I'll be posting pictures soon...

Mark your Calendar

September 17th....2:oo PM (MT), Ft. Collins Colorado, Colorado State University Campus....

I will be defending my dissertation! That is right...it is written, my advisor has approved, my methodologist has approved, and the date is set!

I can't believe that the time to be done is so near. I started this process in the fall of 2003, and now finally I will be done...

The official graduation date will be December 19th (Happy Birthday Kevin)!

another delay

So I saw this article today. I can't believe that the next Harry Potter movie is postponed until next summer? Why? So they can make more money of course. This is very disappointing. I know many of you are Harry Potter fans also....I am sorry if I am breaking this news to you.

Fearless...

I have to say that I thought I was doing pretty good in the fear management department when I rode the roller coasters at Elitch Gardens in Denver last weekend. However, my cousin Holly just moved to Albania for a year to teach. Now that is fearless. Not only is she going to be teaching (which Jody tells me can be scary enough), she is moving to a whole new country that speaks a whole new language and has a culture that is different that that of the good 'ol USA.

So Holly, I know I am proud of you and I hope you get a lot out of the experience.

Goodbye to a Dear Friend

Wednesday was a very sad day for my family. We lost a dear family friend, Sylvia. I have known Sylvia my entire life. She was best friends with my mom. Bill and Sylvia moved to Brush at the same time we did, but we knew the family before we moved here.

Sylvia was my 2nd mom. She was the one that always went shopping with my mom and me, for school clothes, prom dresses, my wedding dress.....She always knew how to balance what I wanted and what I thought was cool, with what my mom thought I should have and how much it should cost. I can't tell you how many times she saved us from fighting as teenagers and mothers do.

Sylvia was very fun loving and always saw the best in the world. She was always able to take a situation and laugh at it or herself. She laughed with me about boys, with Kari, at camp with Cheetos in our nose, at Halloween when Kari and I were sweet banana boys, I can't think of a time, when we weren't laughing together.

I love you Sylvia, and I will miss you

When it rains

It pours....

Ok, I know that saying is used a lot, but I have a whole new respect for it now...First of all Wednesday was just not a good day, it was tough all around. I worked until about 9:30, and it was raining so I said to Kevin, lets go stand on the front porch and look at the rain....then we found the flood....yes a flood, we had a sink hole develop and it filled the window well to the window of my parents bathroom.....


Here is Kevin, trying to dig a trench....no that isn't a shovel...they are all in storage....The boxes are from our new mini blinds Kevin just put up on Wednesday....good thing we had them....



Here you can see the water in the window well....


Here is the view from inside, you can see at this point a lot of water had already come in, and you can see how high the water was at first....



So we grabbed some towels some buckets and started mopping up, even while water was still coming in....


It was so bad, we had to call my brother and have him bring some shovels over. He also helped us bail water out of the window well. I helped my parents clean up in their bathroom. This next picture just cracked me up, we were working our way down, from the counter to the floor and I opened up this drawer and this it was full of water....at this point there was nothing to do but laugh and take a picture....


The water even came into our unfinished storage area as well.....



Here are the morning after pictures......

So by the next morning it was sunny and things were starting to dry up. And we did laundry all day washing up all the wet clothes and towels.

Digger!!!!

Oh, I forgot my most important post, just for Gibson....


Now that is a nice digger....

Field Museum

Jody's work had a reception at the Chicago Field Museum and so the place was open while we where there. Since I did not know many people I walked around some of the exhibits. They have a nice collections of fossils on display and several well done dioramas.

Of course, Soldier Field... Home of Da'Bears is right next door. Something was going on there that night, but still not idea what it was.

Michigan Ave

Not a much I can say about Michigan Ave that others have not said before. If you want to shop in Chicago, this is the place to go. You can spend hours and hours just browsing around and I'm still not sure you could see everything. There are several malls in the skyscrapers and so you have to look and make sure you have seen everything in the building if you want to make sure you have seen it all.

Navy Pier

Navy Pier is the a Chicago Tourist Trap but it is fun. It has the boats of course and a farris wheel and lots of touristy things to do...

I saw this boat and thought of my Uncle Tim. I had a feeling he would like to see it.

We also went on a boat cruise of the protected harbor on Lake Michigan. Not super exciting and the boat had some audio problems. But it gave some nice views.

Here is a view from the tour boat of the Navy Pier Auditorium.

We rode the Farris Wheel, but is was so slow it hardly felt like it was moving. Also it seemed like there were several groups of kids there that day so there were lots of people running around and screaming...

Time to catchup...

Ok, we are home from Chicago... so I'll be posting a bunch of pictures from the trip.

First up.... pictures from the Lego store...



At least the picture of the Marriott is relvant since that is where we stayed in Chicago.


Didi also made me go to the Sanrio (aka Hello Kitty) store..
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