Tonight while I worked, the tornado sirens went off for about an hour. So many new things that you get to see when you live in a new part of the country.

One thing that Memphis does have is excellent thunder and lightning storms. The bad thing is they are usually at night so they just keep you awake instead of allowing you to sit on the porch and watch them. We had another storm last night and I was sleeping peacefully through it until one particular burst of thunder, that I thought exploded our house, jolted me wide awake. After the thunder wakes you up the lightning keeps you awake by lighting up the room every 2 or 3 seconds. When the storms do happen during the day it's kind of neat to see how fast the sky goes dark and the clouds build.

Kelly is in North Carolina, at the beach with her family this week. After the beach she'll head to NY for a few days and then finally make it back here.

I only have about 5 weeks left here in Memphis and then I'll probably stay with the company for an extra month while Kelly goes back to Utah. I'm not sure where I'll be working the last month. Possible locations so far are Nashville, Houston, Reno, LA and somewhere in one of the Carolinas. No one seems to be in a real hurry to decide.

Happy Birthday Aimee!

Aimee is now 7 !

As you have seen by Dad's blog we had some interesting weather. We finally finished cleaning up the yard Saturday evening. About ten minutes after we finished, the rain started. It rained 1.5 inches in about an hour. It was awesome to watch that much water come down that quickly.

We are now in the middle of putting our house back together. We have an appointment to take the car into the adjuster on Aug 3. We'll see how that turns out. We also have an adjuster coming out to look at our roof, deck, and fence. We will end up getting a new roof and we'll see how the other two items turn out. I'm thinking about redoing the roof myself. I might use the extra money and put on nicer architectural singles. I've seen some nice patterns and colors around town.

Thanks Dad and Mom for the visit. We had a great time. Sorry it turned into a downer at the end, but hopefully you'll be enjoying a new car soon.

Brant

Our Trek

This is Kevin's dream mission, I suppose. Riding horseback and leading hundreds of youth up and down Rocky Ridge. How lucky is that. I guess, surviving the negative degree winters is the trade off. I'm not sure that is where I want to be mid-December.

Here is our family. The "Johnny Whoops" family. (Do you know that game? We learned it on the car ride to WY). Anyway, we had a superb family, a great time, and as always things fell into place. I'm sure we could tell stories galore, but at the moment I can't think of one to share. Unfortunately, my camera got plugged up by the Wyoming sand and grit, so it stopped working half way through day 1. Bummer. Luckily they posted some pictures on a website that I downloaded. It was a great week, and we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Back to Normal

Well, we've been home a couple of days and things are slowly returning to normal. Matt and Kimbre were here when we arrived on Friday. They had come down for Matt's 10 year high school reunion. They had a BBQ at Walkers (for the LDS kids) on Friday, an activity at East City Park on Saturday, and then appetisers and dance at the Best Western later that night. Matt seemed to enjoy seeing old friends and visiting. They came to church with Mom and I this morning and then headed home to get ready for tonight's shift.
Mom and I did a little shopping yesterday afternoon and then drove by Paradise Ford to look at cars. We pulled into the lot and within 10 seconds out came a sales person and then out came the owner. We visited with them for a few minutes and got some info on new Explorers.
We hope that if we get a couple of thousand from the old car, my employee discount with Ford (through the church), and rebates, we might be able to afford a new (2009) vehicle. The adjuster is supposed to contact us this week and we'll see what he has to say.

Hope you all have a good week.

The Saga Continues

A guy and his sister were in this vehicle. She was transported to the hospital with a sore neck.

Mom had a little sore neck but refused treatment.

Notice all the anti-freeze and transmission oil from the Jeep and the pickup.

The guy in the Jeep was transported to the hospital too. The guy in the pickup was OK. The mother of the two kids in the black Nissan was transported too. The son, about 16-17 was the one driving.

Well, there it is. It was quite an experience. We're glad it's over and glad we're home.Out trip home went well. The engine would start to heat up if we drove faster than 65 mph (I think the front bumper is pushed up in front of the air intake area and not enough air gets through to cool the radiator. We got home about 5:00 pm.

Thanks to all of you who put up with us, fed us, and let us have fun with your families. We enjoyed all of it (although it is nice to be home).

The insurance company is supposed to contact us within the next couple of days. We hope they total the vehicle. We would like to take that money and I get an employee discount through the church, and look into buying a new Explorer. We may have terrible sticker shock.

Thanks again.

Dad and Mom

It Was A Hail Of An Experience

I'm beginning to think they don't like us here in the Denver area. Last night I was listening to the 10:00 pm News and they said a major thunderstorm with possible tornadoes was headed for Lakewood. I stood up and walked down the hall to tell Brant and the hail started hitting the roof. We opened the front door and down came the hail. Brant grabbed his keys and ran his van into the garage but alas there was no place to put our Explorer, his Explorer, or his Focus. For the next half hour we stood and watched out the front and back doors as the hail piled up. When it finally stopped we went out to look at the cars. We couldn't see any damage but we couldn't see how it wouldn't have dented the hoods. This morning I went out and there are about 100 little dents in the hood, trim around the front windshield, and roof. The hail came from the north straight into the bug shield, hood, windshield, and roof. No problem with the rear of the cars.

Leslie put a few pellets in the freezer. I measured them just now and they are 1 1/8" x 7/8 ".

I called our insurance to let them know and will check in with them when we get home.

There was hail, rain, winds up to 60 mph, and three tornadoes sighted in the Denver vicinity. This morning we raked up leaves, branches, and miscellaneous items.

Don't you love the remodeled bug deflector?

Don't know how bad Erik and Jamie got it. Lisa's Mom is tending the kids and she said they just got rain. The morning News said to expect more thunder showers this afternoon.

Hope all is well in Moscow or where ever you are.

Dad

From the Travelers

Our information is not as exciting as Lacey and Seth's but we are still alive in Denver. We spent bout 3 days with Kevin and Lisa and today we moved to Brant and Leslie's. We went to their church and had lunch with them and then Kevin called and asked if we could come back and pick up Lisa's Mom at the Denver airport because they had a "trek" meeting to go to at the stake center (they are leaving in the morning for Wyoming). We got back to Brant and Leslie's about 9:30 and it is now after mid-night and we have about run down and are headed for bed.
Hope all is well in Moscow and that Bryce was able to get his keys out of the bishops office.
We'll leave for Cody Thursday morning, tour the museums (5) on Friday and Saturday and then head for Yellowstone. We'll probably stay in Missoula and then be home on Sunday evening.
Have a good week.
Dad

With all this baby talk, we thought we'd jump on the boat too. We had our first ultrasound this past week with Uncle Chuck. It appears that everything is going well and baby #3 will join us around February 18th. I'm 9.5 weeks and feeling fabulous. A little fuzzy in the brain, but that's about it.
The giveaway with ourbestbites went fabulous this past week. I had a great response to the little boy shirts and decided to have them silk screened. I pick them up from the printers this next week.
Seth also had a good week at work. The practicuum he's been doing has been for resume experience and not so much financial benenfit for the time being. The strength and conditioning coach he's been working with accepted a job for the University of Washington this past week. When he told the team, he told Seth to keep in touch and that he's been very impressed with him. We're hoping it will be a good lead for an internship in Seattle next summer.
Hope everyone has been enjoying visiting with Mom and Dad. We've been starving without them...

It's Official

She just got home. Her name is - Maura (sounds like Laura) Backlund Zirker.

New Baby

Thought you might like a picture of the new baby. Everything went well and Jamie and baby will be coming home tomorrow. Grandma and Grandpa are surviving well. Not sure about the kids. I am a little out of practice.

giveaway

check out ourbestbites.com for a pretty stellar giveaway.

The week in review

Here's the highlights from the week.

-It is still hot here and has turned very humid again, currently 85% humidity.
-My friend Josh stepped off a rafter and put both feet through someone's living room ceiling.
-We went to Nashville and purchased a new (used) car. It's a silver 2003 Honda Civic. I got 37.2 mpg on the first tank of gas.
-Kelly worked on her sun tan and read 3 books.

We're Here

We arrived at 7:30pm Saturday evening and Erik and Jamie left for the hospital at 8:00pm. We put the kids down and went to bed. I was up at 4:00am this morning reading when Erik came home and announced they had a new baby girl (now name yet).
We all visited them in the hospital this morning on the way to church. Jamie and baby should come home Tuesday morning.
Mom and I enjoyed the drive (although it was long). We left Moscow at 12:30pm and drove to Billings. We only had one near miss with a deer somewhere west of Billings. Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and drove to the Little Bighorn National Monument (Custer's Last Stand). We had visited there about 8 years ago but I wanted to see it again. We went to the visitors center, walked up to the soldiers monuments and then over to the new monument to the 4 Indian tribes who lost men in the battle. All in all it was very interesting.
We headed for Denver and except for one instance when we forgot to check the gas gauge and drove the last 40 miles into Casper on fumes, everything was pretty uneventful.
Hope you are all well and happy.
Dad and Mom

Giant Palouse Worm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_sc/us_giant_palouse_earthworm

I saw this on the Yahoo home page. Recognize any of the buildings or machinery in the background?

Mid-week Blog

"Look Mom! I'm a door.""Can you guess what flavor our popsicles were?"

Has the baby outgrown the crib yet?

Dad - I see all kinds of interesting vehicles here. Most of them are like this: The other day I saw something that reminded me of home though. I saw a black pickup truck with a homemade bed cover. The guy had taken a sheet of plywood and covered it with black indoor/outdoor carpet and used it for a bed cover. It looked kind of like a black putting green. I wonder if he got the idea from some guy running around Provo in the early 1970's.

Explosions of Great Magnitude

Growing up in New York, where all fireworks are illegal, I never really got to experience the joy of blinding explosions and the scent of gun powder wafting through the air. But luckily for me, the area of the dirty south known as Mississippi allows EVERY kind of firework imaginable. To my delight, we purchased our own mortar shells and 1 lb rockets. AND an exploding "Bin Ladin Noggin." And a bunch of other things I had never seen before (Roman candles are much more exciting when you're shooting them at someone). Our fireworks, combined with all the other security people, created quite the display, rivaling the local show, and maybe even that of Niagara Falls. Ok, maybe not quite that big, but it was pretty great.

This afternoon we went for a drive to Arkabutla Lake (yes, that really is its name). We found a nice trail that goes through area looking similar to this:

We're coming back later next week with our machetes to do some exploring. But first we need some bug spray. With a lot of deet in it.

Happy Fourth/ Happy Birthday

Waiting for the parade to start

The Birthday Girl!

As I write this, I'm tired and sun-burned. It must have been a good weekend. As is quickly becoming the tradition, we headed up to Vail for the weekend with Les's family. The Utah part came out as well and we had a fun time together. We went swimming, watched Vail's parade, rode the bus around Vail, rode the gondola and saw Avon's and Vail's fireworks displays all for FREE! Gotta love that kind of entertainment.

Today we got home and celebrated Les's birthday. Yes, that is four layer dessert. I made the cake this year, so I picked what I wanted to make. As usual, it did not last very long.

Have a great week!

Brant

Thunder and Lightening!!!

We are in the middle of a thunder storm and I love to sit and listen/watch it. We have had three days of 90 degree weather and just now as this storm rolled in the heat has broken and it is cooling off.

We had a fun 4th of July breakfast and pinewood derby race at the church for our student ward. This breakfast has always been Seth's thing and since the new elders president is out of town, Seth volunteered to be in charge of it one more time. This year they added the pinewood derby and Seth had to really twist some arms but in the end there were about 15 cars and we all had a lot of fun.

Mom and I enjoyed our usual 4th of July celebration, we stayed home, took a nap, went to Pizza Hut for the salad bar, went shopping at Safeway and then sat at home and listened to the neighbors shooting fireworks and hoping nothing landed on our roof. Now its all back to work tomorrow.

Hope you all had a nice holiday (if you got one).

Now You See It - Now You Don't

We got back from Utah Monday evening and ran the car down to Moscow Auto Body. Yesterday we picked it up. They always do a very nice job. So, we are back on the road (until something else happens).