The Sprinkle that Made Her Day!

Over the weekend Aliece purchased a brand-new umbrella from Wal-Mart with her own money. She was so excited about the umbrella. On Saturday night the sky clouded over and the wind picked up. It looked like it might storm. Aliece sat in front of the family room windows all evening watching the sky and hoping that it would rain so that she could use her umbrella. However, the storm clouds were just teasers. There was no rain that night.

On Sunday, the day was bright and hot. However, again during the afternoon, the sky clouded over with storm clouds. Aliece again grabbed her umbrella. She waited by the windows and would venture out a couple of times every 15 minutes with her umbrella to check and make sure it wasn't raining. However, by the time it was time for bed, it had not rained.

After all the kids had been down in bed for about an hour, Amber noticed that it had started to rain outside. It went against all our better judgment, however since Aliece had been so cute in waiting for the rain the last two days that we could not help ourselves. We quietly went upstairs and got Aliece out of bed. Aliece took her umbrella and spent just a minute outside walking in the rain and enjoying a bona fide umbrella experience in the rain she had patiently, but eagerly, awaited.

A Date with Johnathan

In recognition of Johnathan's eighth birthday, Amber and I took him to macaroni Grill for a date. We like to do this on the kids is 8th, 12th, 16th birthdays. Granted, we've only done it for the eighth birthday up until this point.

Johnathan was the perfect gentleman as he helped open the door for Amber in the van at each and every stop that we made. He was dressed in a white shirt and some pants and shorts. His smile charmed our waitress for the evening.

This is come up upon us so quickly, as his baptism approaches this weekend. He is very excited to be baptized.

WAY TO GO MOM

WOW MOM

Our mom, grandma, & great grandma is incrediable.

Yesterday, July 23, 2008 mom reached her goal of indexing 100,000 names.
Not only just putting in the names but different information about these names depending if they were Records of Births, Deaths, Census etc.

If they were records of births, with each name she would enter information like,
1. Where they were born
2. Where they lived
3. Parents names
4. Parents occupations
5. Color & sex
ETC.

If they were records of Deaths,
1.Where they were born--State & City etc.
2. Their age @ the time of death in year, month, day
3.Parents names
4.Spouses names
5.Their color & sex
ETC.
It is interesting on the deaths however even though mom doesn't have to put down how they died, it does say the information how each had died. She reads about it and sometimes they die in quite interesting ways.

It has taken mom 9 months to reach the 100,000 names with a lot of STEADY HARD WORK.

There have been many many times when she has wanted to stop after sitting for so many hours to go and watch a DVD or something like that. But as she would leave, she would only be gone a few minutes to stretch, and then find herself right back at the computer, not taking the time to watch her dvd. There has just been such a pull on her to get these names done.
But it has been enjoyable and rewarding to her. It has blessed her life with something to do that is such and important work.
The Lord has blessed her so much and it's exciting to see.

SHE FEELS IT IS REALLY A GREAT BLESSING FOR HER TO BE ABLE TO SERVE AGAIN.

WE love you mom, and CONGTATULATIONS!

Novell's Lagoon Day

Novell held their annual "Lagoon Day" for all engineering employees on Jul 23. The kids have been really excited about the prospect of going to Lagoon for a full day on our typical one-a-year pilgrimage to the amusement park.


This was Jace's first time to an amusement park (Third, if you count the time he spent in the womb). He got a kick out of watching everything. He wasn't too sure about the rides though. He never cried, but just had a quiet, panicked look about him when he rode the carousel and other similar rides. He really enjoyed his All-Day-Passport hand stamp that they put on his hand when we arrived. He sucked most of it off his hand, but it remained on his face. Thus, when we would take him on a ride we just had to show them the blue ink all around his mouth :-)



We provided our own lunch which I made myself: Peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Novell provided the dinner later on in the day. The kids hurried to eat as soon as we got there so that they could start getting on the rides.




After eating, we went over some safety drills in case any of them got lost. We tried to get them to remember my cell phone number (only Aylee already knew it) in case they got lost and needed to tell an employee how to get in touch with us at the park. However, after drilling it in their heads, we decided it would be safer to write the phone number on their arms (as is displayed in the picture above). Everyone got to have the phone number on their arms and they thought that was cool!


Aylee and Johnathan found that they were tall enough to ride on any ride by themselves. Amber and I took turns going with them, or sitting by the ride while they went if it was a wet ride or one we didn't feel like going on. Aliece tagged along with John and Aylee a lot, but there were some rides she couldn't qualify for so she spent half the day with Alayna. From the picture above, you can tell that they had fun together (eg. playing in the bathroom) even when they weren't riding on rides.

All the kids did great keeping close and following our safety rules. We all had a great time together. They did so well, in fact, that we let them stay until about 10PM when most of the rides were supposed to be shutting down.

On the way home we saw various firework programs in bountiful and Salt Lake along the freeway - I imagine it was for the 24th of July celebrations. Man, it was a great day!

Bannock County Sheriff K-9 Named Top Dog

Posted: July 7, 2008 06:05 PM


For the third year in a row a K-9 from the Bannock County Sheriff's Office has secured the top dog position and has the bragging rights of being the best K-9 in the state.

"Rex" and his handler Deputy Clint Brown brought home the first place overall award from the Idaho Police Canine Association's Annual Training Competition that was held in Pocatello last month.

The award includes several competition categories including agility, obedience, area searches, apprehension and officer protection.

Another K-9 "Kijon" and his handler Deputy Jeremy Taysom also won first and second place at the statewide competition in agility and officer protection.

The dogs are with their handlers 24 hours a day and have proven to be a great asset to the Bannock County Sheriff's Office.

Deputy Jeremy Taysom, Bannock County Sheriff's Office: "It may take us an hour or more to search a vehicle for some narcotics where it will take the dog just a couple of minutes. If we're looking for a suspect out in the field you can have 10-15 officers out there searching the field and you might not find them and with a dog it could take anywhere from seconds to minutes."

The Sheriff's Office started its K-9 unit nearly 20 years ago and currently has three dogs.