Sprinklers

I have found a new hatred for two people in this world. The guy that invented sprinklers, and the moron that installed them at our house.

where does the time go.

It's almost been a month and I haven't sat down to type a post. There really hasn't been much going on. Winter is starting to lose it's grip and we are starting to see some warmer temperatures. Meaning it's making it up to 40 degrees. The snow has all but melted off the lawn, other than what is shaded by our big pine tree, and the north side of the garage where the snow got piled deep. The one bad thing about all that snow meling is that is exposes all the dog piles that got hidden under the snow. Thank the big guy they have certain spots where they usually go. They leave certain pathways that you know are safe to walk on. I usually wait for a day like yesterday to go out and clean it up. Once the winter nights start getting clear, the early morning temperatures get really cold. This turns everything into a frozen solid mass before the sun comes out to warm it up. So Friday afternoon we stopped by the store and I bought a pair of those yellow elbow length gloves that our moms used to wear when cleaning the bathroom, and get to work. It is actually much easier this way as "do-do" is forzen so it doen't smell. I just go along and pick it right up with my hands, dump it in the bucket that I lined with a garbage sack, and did work. I try to stay on top of it as much as I can, but it never ceases to amaze me, just how many little piles there are. I ended up with two full garbage sacks. This probably groses everyone out, but it is by far the easiest way to get the job done fast. If it isn't frozen, it smells. If you use a shovel, you end up taking a chunk of grass with it.

Last weekend we headed down to St. George for the weekend. It was Valentines and President's Day all in three days. We actaully didn't stay down there for Monday because Deb had to get back to work. Uncle Bryan was nice enough to let us and Anje, Jerry, and Baby Gabe stay at his house. Anje and I ran the Dam to Dam race out at Sand Hollow. Well, we didn't actually run other than a total of 10 minutes. Anje, just had Gabe a month ago so we took it easy. We actaully started off in Dead Last Place, which was kinda fun. I decided that the folks at the rear, have a lot more fun that those that take it even remotely seriously. We thought we were going to be the very last ones to finish, and we even joked about it with some of the other folks that were walk/running by us. We would run the first two minutes of each mile, and then walk the rest of the mile, until the end when we actaully did a bit more running down the last mile. Two of the people were were joking with about finishing last, actually got in the ambulance and hitched a ride back to the start. We ended up passing two people and finished 3rd and 4th last out of about 300 runners. It was great scenery, just like other years, and we really enjoy that fun little run. The reason we run it is that it is part of the Runners Series for the St. George Marathon. They allow 500 runners to sign up and if you run two of the races, you get an automatic entry into the marathon. You still have to pay the money, but you don't have to go through the lottery and wait to find out if you are actually running it.

For Valentines, we really didn't do anything. They guys made dinner for all the ladies. Jerry BBQ'd the stakes, Bryan set the table, and I made the twice baked potatoes, also with Jerry's help, the salad, I cheated and bought the rolls, and we topped it off with Apple Crisp for desert. It was a lot of food but it was really good.

The next morning, Jerry and I headed down to the Oasis Gun club to shoot some sporting clays. Anje bought Jerry a really nice semi-auto Winchester 12 ga. for Christmas and he hadn't had the chance to shoot it yet. I was definatly rusty when it came to clay pigeons. I remember back in the day when I was going to the Provo gun club to shoot Skeet and Trap, I could usually get through a round missing only a few. I missed the better part of half this time. Maybe Jerry and I can make it up the Skeet range a little more often and get back to not missing many

This morning we decided to take the dogs and Rae for a walk down by the Jordan River trail. It was overcast, but not too cold. Skull has a lot of fun when we take him down there and let him off the leash. He gets to run through the fields and swim in the dirty water. Lucee seems to enjoy her little walks, but Broose is a whole other story. We actaully got worried that he wasn't going to make it back. Anistyn wanted to walk, rather than ride in the stroller, so we let Broose have a break and take a ride. He was so proud that he got to be pushed along while everyone else was walking. Hopefully, as the weather gets warmer, we can get out on more walks, and help the poor guy lose some weight.

Anistyn's funny comments this past week.

"I crossed my eyes that I never saw'd that before"

Translation. . . I corss my heart that I haven't ever seen something like that.

I also snuck up behind her the other day and shouted BOO and she truned around and said "Wow, You scared me out of the crap!" I said good, you were starting to smell.

So the gig is up!!!!

I can’t believe that it has been over a month since my last post. Sorry for those that read, although I thing the only people that check here on a regular basis is the family and they pretty much know what is going on. For those that check in from time to time that I have no idea about, SORRY!

It seems like Christmas was so long ago already. There has been so much that has happened since then. We had a great Christmas. We really kept it low key this year as Deb and I both had to work right up until late afternoon on Christmas Eve. We were able to run over to Pa’s house and give him his present. We all chipped in and got him a Radio player that plays Records, Tapes, CD’s, has and AUX input, and can convert anything to CD. We were all pretty excited to give it to him and I think he really liked it. Later that night we also did our tradition of visiting Mom’s grave site and lighting candles in paper sacks. Each year it seems like there is more and more folks that do that. This year was just like last year, very cold, very windy, and very snowy. Here is some video footage of our visit. It isn’t great because we were freezing, and there isn’t much light. We always miss mom, but Christmas time is always hard as it was her favorite time of year, at least that is how it seemed to us. She loved getting the Christmas decorations up, all the lights, and her Christmas Friends. She collected stuffed animals for years and had a huge collection.

Brande came out for a visit on her birthday, Jan 2nd. She was able to bring Porter out with her. It was really nice to see her. He is such a happy little guy. I think it was a real eye opening to Anistyn. She has always had all the attention she wanted. This was the first time that there was someone else that was the center of attention. Brande, Deb, Anje, Porter and Rae went to visit Grandma Nada to learn how to make the “secret family recipe caramel’s”, and when they got in the truck to head over Rae asked “Is it all going to be about Porter?” If she thought that was bad, she is in for a rude awakening.

Brande was here for a week, but just missed welcoming Anje’s baby girl. Gabriele was born on Jan. 12th at 9:00 pm. Lee was overdue by a week, so she was finally induced. It was funny to watch as things seemed to progress really slow throughout the day, then everything sped up really quick and Baby Gabe was here. She is a beautiful little girl. You can visit her blog by clicking on Castle9mm over to the right to see all her pictures. They tell her story better than I could.

In the meantime, Deb and I found out what flavor our new addition is going to be. I have to state for the record that I really didn’t care to find out on this one. I would be happy either way. Deb really wanted to find out so we did a few weeks ago. We decided to keep it a secret from everyone else. Deb wasn’t sure that she would be able to NOT tell. So I conjured up a plan to keep her motivated. I offered up the purchase of a brand new Coach bag if she could keep it under wraps. She told me that “Coach is kinda out”, so I proposed a brand spanking new Rhule bag, and the bet was on. I actually felt that I was going to be a few hundred bucks short, after the first week of not telling everyone. What’s funny is that everyone seemed to think that we were doing this just to spite them. I imagined how cool it would be, to just come out of the delivery room and introduce our new daughter/son. The other funny phenomenon was that most people got ticked that we weren’t spilling the beans. It almost got funny how mad people would get that we I wasn’t letting them know. Some people from work thought that it was a great idea, and other’s wanted to know. I kept telling them that their life wouldn’t change one bit if they knew or didn’t.

The other funny thing that happened was that Deb and I would sometimes slip. For the first little while that she was pregnant, we both though that it was going to be another little girl. Then after about a month or two, we started feeling that it was a boy. About a month back, Deb started thinking it was a girl again. During those periods, we would refer to the baby as he or she, rather than it. So when we told people that we weren’t telling they would try to trick us. I found myself slip quite a few times calling the baby She, and on occasion He. So we had a handful of people thinking one of us had slipped and they were certain we were having a girl. And we had another handful of people, heard us slip the other way and they thought that we were having a boy. For the last three weeks, I have had so much fun watching people read things into what I was saying. I would say things meaning one thing, and people would read into it that they knew the sex of the baby. I was certain that Grandma Carol, and Anje and Jerry thought we were having a little girl.

Well, last night, Deb let the cat out of the bag and she told her mom. So the gig is up, and I don’t have to purchase a new bag. If you haven’t guessed by now from the background, we are having a little boy. We are really excited for the new adventures of a little boy. We love our little princess to death, and know she will make a great big sister.

We hope everyone is well and if you find some time, drop us a line and let us know what is happening in your lives. I promise to be better about keeping updated.
Here are some links to Rae's Christmas.
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