Question

Does anyone know of or have friends that are in the vinyl lettering business? It's all the craze in the mormon world as you may know and I'm wanting to get my fingers in it. I want to chat with some ladies that have their own businesses. So, if you know of anyone let me know. Hopefully in the future, you will know and love "Strawberry Pearl Designs."

More pics

Sure be nice if we had some pics of Erik and Jamie or even heard from them.

More Pictures

I was having so much fun reading the blog tonight I thought I'd add some more pictues.

Has the yard changed or what?

Dad

Part Deux

It has been HOT here in Denverland. Leslie decided to cool off and took the kids to Bear Creek State Park. The kids had fun playing in the water and messing around in the sand. As you can tell from the picture of Tyler the water was still pretty muddy from all the spring run off.

As Kevin said, it was fun seeing Krista and fam. We had a good visit with them and Uncle John. I know it could never happen with all the crazy schedules, but boy would it be fun to have a Backlund or Zirker cousin reunion. Just like the old days but with a new generation.

Man the blog is hoppin' tonight.

Brant

A tough crowd

Dad said to keep the blogs coming so here's a nice picture from a while back.

Nice wheels or Nice legs?

Here is my manly photo of a truck. Speaking of manliness, did anyone see the show on PBS last night about "noodling." It's a sport in Oklahoma and other uncivilized areas where they catch catfish with their bare hands, using their hands as bait. You guessed it: mullets, beer bellies, cut-off jeans, 'baccy, and some of the worst English you've ever heard. It was so captivating I watched the entire program, just to see who won the First Annul Noodling Competition.

Our family, Brant and Leslie, and Jaime went up to Longmont yesterday for Ty Mortensen's baptism. That kid had the biggest smile on his face when he came up out of the water. We went to Krista and Craig's afterwards for lunch. Mom, Uncle John is even more attached to his missionary son than you were to yours. He handed me a pad of legal paper and asked me to write a note to Max. I enjoyed talking to him and Aunt Madalyn. I remembered how similar Martha and John are. We told him you may be in Utah for Kelly's graduation.

Mom, thanks again for helping during youth conference. We're slowly getting back into the swing of things.

Just a bug in everyone's ear-- any chance we could plan a father-son campout when you all come out for Hallee's baptism and Adria's blessing? Mom and dad, we don't know how long you plan to stay, but maybe we could go camping the Friday and Saturday following the baptism. Any votes? Martha, LIsa said there's a Super Saturday activity you call could attend.

That's Life

This is one of those facts of life stories. The last few months several things have been going wrong with the Explorer: the air conditioning quit last fall, the "check engine oil" light started coming on, the lights in the instrument cluster started burning out, and the speedometer started wandering up and down as you drove. So, we took it in to Paradise Ford last week to get them all fixed. They called me about noon and said they had found all the problems and including servicing the transmission and changing the oil in the transfer case it would be $639.00. Actually, that's better than I had hoped. When I called the next day they said they were having problems with the speedometer cable and it would be one more day. When we went to pick it up the next day they said it wasn't the speedometer cable it was the actual gauge in the instrument cluster. Since that part is now obsolete (but still available) it would be $625.oo just for the new gauge. We groaned, paid for the work they had done and told Joe to order the new part. He said he would do the best he could to get the cost down. I know it is a lot of money but the car is paid for, it runs great, and I have always liked it. We brought it home and yesterday I washed it, vacuumed it, and then spent about two hours and took all the luggage rack off the top and sanded the rough spots, repainted the whole thing and then re-installed it. I painted the trailer hitch and rear bumper (black parts) and now it looks great. That is just the way it is sometimes. The new part will be in late this week and we will have all the little glitches fixed.
The last few days have been beautiful. About 65 to 75 degrees and blue sky and sunshine. With the exception of one hot spell this spring has been very nice.
Today they released Mark Skinner as bishop of the 3rd Ward and put him in as 2nd counselor in the University Stake Presidency. They put Wynn Mosman back in as bishop of the 3rd ward (he had served as bishop of one of the university married wards several years ago). Uncle Chuck is one of his counselors and a new dentist in Moscow is his other counselor.
Mom continues to work on her classes. It is a lot of work when you are trying to maintain a 4.0. She came back from Denver with a terrible cold and flu-like symptoms. She seems to be feeling a little better but the cold just won't go away.
We are looking forward to having Seth, Lacey and Weston back for a while. If all works out they may be able to move into their new apartment when they come back for the 4th of July.
This Saturday our marrieds ward is having a temple day in Spokane. About 75% of those still in Moscow will be there. Grandpa is going up with us so he can do a session.
Keep those blogs coming. I'll bet I check it 2 to 3 (4 to 5) times a day. I love to hear what you are doing and to see the pictures.
Love,
Dad and Mom

It's a Zoo around here!

Every Thursday, Seth plays softball with Peter down in Federal Way, so I usually go down and we spend the night there. Stephanie and I finally made it to the zoo on Friday. We tried to go last week but it rained and the kids got sick. We had a lot of fun once we got there. I don't know that Weston had fun. He is usually afraid of animals that move on their own, especially Richard's small cats. So, I thought nothing of that and took him to the zoo anyway. The first animal that we saw was the elephant, it was about five feet from us, so you can imagine Weston's surprise when it started moving towards us. That is why he is in the stroller and remained there the whole time cowering. I also gave in and let him have the binky because I didn't want to be the mom with the screaming kid and I'm weak. The other kids in the picture are Aidan, Michaela, and Addison.

On Saturday we went to Pike Place Market. Stephanie is going to a Mosaic Down Syndrome conference in Virginia this week and needed some Seattle goodies for a silent auction basket. So we got some smoked salmon and blueberry and honey items. We also got mini donuts, they were delicious. These days, anything fried or fatty tastes good to me. Have you ever had Monkey bread? Stephanie also showed me www.cakecentral.com/. For any of you who need ideas for cakes or want to make cakes, it's a fabulous site. I'm thinking of making a hammer cake for Weston's birthday in Seattle and an airplane cake for his birthday in Moscow. I am hoping to experiment with fondant. So if any of you have tips or good recipes, let me know. I found one they call MMF or marshmallow fondant.

Sidenote: If ever you lose your post while you're typing it like I just did, you can go to Edit Posts and there's a list of all the posts that have ever been typed, because they get autosaved as you type. How fabulous is that?

Take care y'all.

Static Fun

Thought I would throw this one on quickly for fun. I've got to run to fireside tonight. It is our slide show review of our youth conference. I'll post more later tonight.

Brant