Not Much New...

Spent Saturday helping a neighbor put vinyl siding on his garage/addition. I wanted to learn how to do it so when we finally get around to adding a garage to our place I'll know what I'm doing. It was a service project for our high priests group. I got there a little late because I slept in (it's the only day I get to.) So I got there about 10am and we had luch about 12:30 back to work and stayed at it 'til 5pm when Janet came and got me. We had dinner plans with her parents for their anniversary. They were down this way for the weekend and decided to let us take them out to dinner. We went to "Sam Hawk" the Korean place that I've blogged about before. It was them and our two youngest and us.

THE SKY IS FALLING...THE SKY IS FALLING...

Thought this was quite interesting...found it in the Washington Times via a headline on the "Drudge Report."


Before Gore
D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."
The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."
"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

Worth pondering
Reacting yesterday to word that certain European governments and officials are suddenly trying to abandon their costly "global warming" policies, Royal Astronomical Society fellow Benny Peiser, of the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain, recalls the teachings of Marcus Aurelius: "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.


Am I in the majority?

OKAY, SO IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME....

I guess I'm just not into blogging like others. Don't really feel like my life is all that interesting to others. Don't do many exciting things or go that many exciting places. At least not that often.

Did go camping with the scouts this past month. July 18 thru 21 about 12 of us went to the Mirror Lake Pass in the high Uintas.

Taken up golfing...again...been going with my neighbor and his dad. Wish I had more time. I get very competitive and want to work on my game, but others things, such as work and family, seem to get in the way. Go figure. Need to find a job that requires me to go golfing with clients or potential clients. That's the kind of job for me. Sounds kinda selfish, don't it?

The weather here is finally starting to change for the better. Haven't seen 100 degrees in a couple of weeks now. Nights are starting to cool off too. This is the perfect time to head to the mountains for camping. Which reminds me that I need to get my fishing license so I can grill up some trout the camping trip we take. Last year the kids caught some crawdads and boiled them. They even ate them...all? Can't remember.

My lawn is starting to recover from all the heat and drought. Green is starting to cover the corners now. May not seem much to others, but I like the feel of lush green grass under my feet...and I do go barefoot a lot. I get home from work and change into shorts and a t-shirt and don't put shoes on again until I have too.

OKAY SO IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME!

We went on a little trip this past month...Georgia and Florida were mighty fine. The smoke from the wildfires was a little bothersome at first, but that soon went away with the rain. The rest of the trip was great. As you can see from the photo above we had plenty to do...

Everyone was having fun...I'm so glad that all of get along so well. The kids played games and the adults played games and we sat around and talked and caught up and just enjoyed each others compay.

It was very nice to have Eric with us. Even if it was only for the first week. We enjoyed having him with us.

The first weekend we went to Florida, Destin to be exact. We had a hotel room right on the bay, the Fort Benning Rec. Area. It was small but we had a great view. We caught some fish off the pier and enjoyed the sunsets.

The white sand reminded me of snow...

Just had to add this picture of Mom. She was suffering from heat-stroke and was acting a little crazy. So we gave her some raspberry ice cream and had some fun...No! not really. She's just a fun loving and funny person and was having fun with the grandkids.

I'll post some more stuff later.

FOOD!!

I love food. You can see by my svelt figure....240lbs....

But, I was sitting here with my tamales from 'Cafe Rio.' And I thought to myself..."What a great country we live in. With so many immigrants and all the recipes they bring with them..." I guess I was thinking of that because I'm listening to 'Rush Limbaugh Show' and how the hispanic immigration march turned into a riot in LA yesterday. That and I'm doing indexing for the church genealogy department these days. I've been seeing so many different immigrant family names on the records from the 1900 census in Massachusetts. It wasn't the hispanic families back then, it was British and other European people back then. It's interesting to see the amount of families.

So, anyway. Food. Janet and I try to go out each weekend for a date. We try not to make it a date at the grocery store, but sometimes you can't help that. But we get to eat out a couple of times a month and we try to make it a new place every once in a while. Here in Provo we have BYU and UVSC (which is almost 20,000 students now and soon to become a university next year) and they draw quite a few people from around the world. All of these restaurants are owned and run by people from the countries of origin, not returned missionaries trying to bring back food from the country they served in.

Just two weeks ago Janet and I had dinner at a Peruvian establishment. It was tasty. It wasn't anything like Mexican/American. No sauces. No tortillas. It was interesting. I don't quite know how to describe it. My dish was a fish and shrimp salad. Kind of a vinagrette tossed salad that was more onion than lettuce with lots of breaded fish and shrimp. It was really tasty and really big. I couldn't finish it. A little pricey though.

We've also found a nice little Korean place just down the road from us. They have some really good food. More meat than I was expecting. I guess I was thinking Chinese...rice, noodles, things like that.

We've also discovered a Thai place with some really spicey sauces. I've talked to Donna and offered to make a Thai curry dish that we've learned to cook at home. It's actually pretty easy to make, thus we make it at home at least once or twice a month.

And then there's the the Mexican fare that is all over the place around here. Janet was game the other weekend when we were shopping and I stopped in the Mexican food aisle. I was just looking at a package of corn husks and said to her, "We could do this." Well, she took the challenge and we bought all the ingredients and made plans to try our hands at it the next day (Sunday.) I got caught up at church and Janet, bless her heart, did the whole thing all herself. They were delicious. Won't be doing it again anytime soon though. It was quite involved. But if we were to work together I'm sure she'd be game again.

Boy, I really do love food.

Well, I've finished my tamales from Cafe Rio. I call today, "Tamale Thursday," because it's the only day Cafe Rio has tamales on their menu. And they're gooooood. Guess I oughta get back to work.

Busy Weekend For Our Family

Well...not really the family, just me. The Stake President called this past Saturday afternoon and wanted to see Janet and I as soon as possible. We already had plans to go to a friends wedding reception at 6:30 pm and I had an appointment with the Bishop at 8 pm. So we squoze the Stake President in at 7:30 pm. I was all ready to be released and thanked for my time served. Janet was speculating all over the place...Bishop, counselor, high counsel....

Well, I was released! Then asked to serve as the first counselor to the new Bishop. His name is Steve Bjornberg. He and I went to school together a few years ago (to get our master's in Public Administration.) He was also the Young Men's President when we first moved into the ward 12 years ago and he called me as his first counselor back then. And to top it off he called Merrill Brockbank to be his second counselor the same as he did twelve years ago in the YM Presidency. LeeAnn Brockbank (Merrill's wife) pointed that out after we had been set apart. I thought about that for a moment and turned to Bishop Bjornberg and told him that if he were called as Stake President that we were moving.

Sunday was like a blur to me. You would think that I would be used to it, being in the previous bishopric. But for some reason I was still overwhelmed. I think it goes back to the fact that I was called into an existing situation and I was able to just follow the lead of Bishop Ferrin and Brian Brown. I'll admit, Brian and Bishop Ferrin did most of the work. I just tried to keep up with them and learn from them. I just hope that I learned enough to help Bishop Bjornberg make a smooth transition.

So, Dad. You almost got it. I'll call you later.

Weekend in Cedar...

The family and I took off for Cedar to go to church with Linda and her family this past weekend. Nick's home and we wanted to hear him speak in Sacrament meeting. He did a great job. Sounded like potential Elder's Quorum presidency material. But I'll let Linda brag about him.

Janet, Gail, Mandy and Sarah spent Saturday morning at a scrapbooking fair in SLC. They started at 8am and didn't finish until 5:30pm. They got home at about 6:15pm and we were loaded up in the car and out on the road by 7:30pm. It was an uneventful drive down and we were in our beds at the hotel by 10:30pm.

Up and had breakfast and to church at Linda's ward by 11:00am. Like I said before Nick did a great job on his talk.

The rest of the afternoon we spent with Linda and her kids talking about mission experiences and kids. I thought there would be more visitors from the ward around to see Nick, but I guess they've already said their "Welcome home"s in the last couple of weeks. So it was mostly the Liebhardt side of the family hanging around the house. Linda put on a really good spread and we ate like pigs for a couple of hours. We finally got out of their hair about 7pm and home by 10pm.