yellow or mustard?

Okay, I need a refresher on the family portrait colors.  I saw some basic solid shirts at JCPenney for women one in yellow and one in mustard yellow.  Which color "yellow" should I purchase?  (I don't want to be the one that clashes with everyone else.)
We're getting excited...less than a month! 

How I Spent My Holiday!!

 Four pickup loads down and one to go.  I didn't realize there was so much "junk" under there.  Yuuup, Matt, we saved your beach cruiser.  I'm also looking for parts for the drinking fountain.  It's a 1950's vintage rubber/mesh diaphragm.  Any suggestions?

 If a little 2,4-D is good for clover a lot is better.  Hope the lawn recovers.

Besides the deck, we will need to replace his 2x8.  Hope y'all are ready to work.

Backpacking with 6 people???

Here is the short version...I'll let Kevin fill in details later.  We went backpacking with our good friends the Reyman's.  We all had our packs (some lighter than others) ready to hike in about a mile!  It was a fun time and I think we might try it again.  Thanks Brant and Ty for letting us borrow your equipment! 

A fun tree to stop and pose at

The whole crew just messing around.

Rolling Thunder Run

There are lots of grubby tourists festivities in town for Memorial Day. One of the events, quite possibly the coolest one, is the Rolling Thunder Run, which is a massive line of motorcycles that wind their way from the Pentagon, around the National Mall, and end at the Vietnam Memorial. It's especially huge this year because of the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War.

Part of the staging area in the Pentagon parking lots.
ALL motorcycles waiting to ride.

The police escort preparing to start the run.
I guess if you have to be a cop, you might as well ride a motorcycle. Matt. 

No shortage of characters in this event.
Characters and awesome bikes. And less awesome bikes.

Obama having a look at the run from Marine 1? I like to think so. 

This old dude stood at attention in the boiling heat and sticky humidity and saluted everyone who passed.
For at least 45 minutes. He was still going strong when we left.

It Was a Slow News Week

Early in the week Scott Billy (Moscow Fire Department Safety Officer) called and asked if it would be OK to stage some fire equipment and trucks in the church parking lot for a demonstration they were doing for the graduating seniors.  It is to make them think twice before drinking and driving.

 Everett Paul brought in a couple of junkers from his wrecking yard.  They had several people in the cars and laying on the ground.

 Five buses of seniors arrived from the high school.

 Then about every couple of minutes another emergency vehicle arrived.

 They must have had half the units from town at the site.

 They staged some of the vehicles in the church parking lot.

 Just when you thought everyone was there the helicopter arrived.

They loaded up the victim and away they went.  The guy standing beside me watching said the victim was his wife.  Lots of people were rubber-necking and some stopped to asked what had happened.  Scott came over after it was done and thanked me for letting them park at the church.  He said it took lots of hours and he had to call in a lot of favors but it turned out well.

We built a playground

Our stake built a playground a few weeks ago.  I was skeptical when we arrived and found two trailers of parts that still needed unwrapped and then two semi-loads of mulch showed up, but it all worked out.  By the end of the day, the playground was built and  cemented in and the mulch had all been installed.  It was a lot of fun working together as a stake. 

Here is a video of our project.  I'm near the start and the kids show up near the end.

Brant

New Place

Here are some shots of our new place.  Ignore the cheesy music.

Brant

Here's what we've been up to lately:

Last weekend we went to Palmyra to visit the Hill fam for mother's day weekend. We got there on Friday afternoon and while Kelly ran around with her mom, I took off on an overnight camping trip. I loaded my gear into my new trailer and rode up to the shore of Lake Ontario. It was a nice ride through rolling hills of farms and pastures and then finally apple orchards. 

My bike ready to go

My rustic campsite. I was the only person in a tent and, from what I could tell, the only person who didn't actually live at the campground on a somewhat permanent basis. Even after 15+ years, my tent is still going strong.

The (somewhat junky looking) lighthouse at Sodus Point. It was a little early in the year, so the beach was closed and the little touristy downtown looked a little closed up and sad.

 We also made a stop at the lilac festival in Rochester. For those of you wondering why we took a picture in front of a Japanese maple at a lilac festival, it's because they had a hard frost about a week before the festival and it burned all of the flowers off and there wasn't much to look at.

This week Kelly is in Utah, making the rounds and visiting her sister who had a baby a little while back. I went to the air show at Andrews Air Force base yesterday and saw the Blue Angels, some trick pilots and a demonstration of the F-22 (possibly one of the cooler planes I've ever seen). I got sunburned in strange places (under my chin?) from looking up at the sky all day.

It Was a Good Day

Not much to report except that it was a good day yesterday.  I got my whole list of things done and got the yard where I want it for spring/summer.  We did the clean-up of the last few things from the bathroom remodel (cardboard to the recycling center).  Washed the deck, raised the deck stairs a little (one side had settled a little), cleaned the garage (a little), sprayed 2,4-D on the lawn, and Sevin on a couple of trees.  Washed both cars, visited with the neighbors, and sat under the crab apple tree with a couple of grand kids and visited with family.  What a nice day!!!!

Arrowhead Tree and Landscape

Our latest project. I wanted to show "before" photos first, then "after", but the order got switched when I uploaded them. We spent a lot of time (i.e. over-budget) on the project, but I was very pleased with the result.

Beautiful Day

We've had some nice weather lately so Matt and I decided to spend some time at the park. We put Riley in a swing for the first time and she loved it!

Why I Love Living Here

It was a beautiful Sunday evening for a walk.

Mother's Day S'mores

It was a beautiful day today so Matt and I brought out our fire pit and had some s'mores! Not a bad way to kick off the summer!

Finished

 

We finished all the "extras" yesterday and we are now back to normal.  It turned out as good or better that we had hoped.
The weather has finally turned nice.  Everything is growing and turning green.  Looking forward to a nice summer.  Uncle Eugene will be here in about a month.  He is going to stay for about a week and work on Grandpa's life history and photo albums and try to get them digitized.  Have a good Sunday.

This girl is in our ward. I don't know her, but the shots of the church building and the sacrament meeting are from our ward. They filmed it 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Beggar #1 and Beggar #2

This picture makes me laugh.  It's become an often occurrence whenever Matt and I are eating.

A Whole Corn Field in Egypt

 The contractor is done.

The plumber is done

We will be showering tomorrow.  We are very pleased with all who worked on it.  I still have to install the new light, cover plates, two towel bars, toilet paper holder,robe hook, plus a little caulking.  Oh, I forgot, I have to put the door back on.

Erik's Birthday