Upcoming Family Reunion

The Charles and Sarah Law Family Reunion is coming up on Saturday, August 9th. It will be held the same place we had the last Leland and Geneva Law reunion at the park there in Layton. We will get more info to you soon, but please mark your calendars and plan on attending.

Our Goings On

Recently Jeanne was talking to Kathryn about what we had done in the dining area of the kitchen and also about the new couches. Kathryn wanted some photos so here they are. The couch photo was taken during the last family get together as Jeff and Makenna were playing tennis on the Wii. There is an identical couch on the opposite wall under the family photos. Enjoy.

More Weather Related

I write these mostly for those who are out of state. After a long cold winter people were glad to see some grass and the golf courses have been busy the last few days. Our nearby golf course opened on Friday and I was told that they were packed Friday and yesterday morning. However, when I was coming home from work at about 5:00 p.m. yesterday it was nearly white out conditions and there were slide offs and accidents all around the valley. This morning we woke up to this.

Beauty like that makes it all worth while. By the time we got back from church at noon the ice and snow was all melted off the roads and walks and driveways, and the trees were back to being bare and brown.

Spring can't be too far away, but I haven't moved the snow blower to the back yard shed yet.

The Blizzard of Feb 2008

Yesterday was a balmy 50 degrees. If you look close at the photo you'll see that the windows, the front porch and steps, the bushes, etc. are coated with snow and ice. The wind was about 30 MPH so the snow/sleet was horizontal. Driving home from work was terrible. We really appreciate all the snow in the mountains. We really need the water, but we are excited for spring and summer.

Fun in the Snow

This morning as I was out shoveling the latest few inches of snow that appeared during the night a little sun started to peak through, I thought it looked pretty cool. This is definitely the deepest the snow has been in our yard for several years. It has built up starting clear back in late November.





As I looked at the scene I thought there is something missing. I decided my idea of heaven would be to have all my sweet little grandchildren over (including the ones that live in different states) here to help me use all this snow to make a huge snowman or two. I would even take a couple days off work to play with them and have fun in the snow.

No place like St. George in January

Sunday, right after church, we headed south to St. George, about 320 miles. Unfortunately, it was not just to get away from the snow. We went down to do some more videos for Myrna. I was kind of excited to get down there and get busy on them. Myrna had told me that for these videos we were going to have a lot more video from above, shooting down on her quilting instead of a talking head. Last year when Dustin was here, and over the internet and email I had shown Dustin some plans for a device (jib) to mount a video camera which allows you to get to very different angles, including from straight above, below, etc. Dustin built me one of these for my birthday/Fathers' Day, and he did a wonderful job. in addition he worked on it quite a bit more and brought down some additional stuff for mounting it to the tripod when they came down for Christmas, and he even had to send me an additional part for attaching to a different tripod after he went back after Christmas. Again, I repeat, he put a LOT of time and effort into this device and he did an AWESOME job. Last Thursday, before going down to St. George, I had a day off from work and I spent the whole day making sure I had all the parts I needed and could get the jib together, and also testing lighting, wireless mikes etc. Oh, by the way. I had also gone and bought a portable DVD player and some connectors so I could view what the camera was getting while on the jib. So, like I said above, I was anxious to get to Myrna's and use the jib for a better angle. Monday morning we got to Myrna's new studio (We had not been in this one before) and started setting up. Well to make a longer story shorter, after about two hours of trying everything we could think of including some rearranging of her studio we figured out that there just wasn't enough room to use the jib. All that time and money and work wasted. Of course I still have the jib and there certainly may be some other way I can and will use it in the future. If Myrna's new studio was as large as her old one we could have done it. My heart was broken. Also, last week, knowing that we would be staying with Madeline in a little park model, similar the Marian and Dick's, that she had rented, we went and bought the most deluxe blow up mattress we could find and brought it home and tested it by blowing it up and leaving it over night with some weight on it. It had a leak so we took it back and got another one and test it also. It held up fine. Those aren't as inexpensive as I remember them and it is so bulky that even empty in it's bag it takes up about a fifth of the trunk of the car. We took it with us and never used it. Of course, like the jib, I'm sure it will come in handy in the future, maybe as some of you come and visit. It should be pretty comfortable.

I do think we got good video. As I type this the video is being transferred from the tape into my computer so I can begin putting the DVDs together. I'll try to put some photos on later. If you click on the word Myrna here it will take you to her site where you will see the DVDs I did for her before for sale.

Also, I want to pass a special thanks to Melissa and Jeff for taking care of Annabelle while we were gone, and to Wade for taking care of the house and removing the snow. THANKS A MILLION. It is soooooooo good to have such great children who help us so much. Jeanne has been a great example to them, speaking of which, Jeanne was a great help during the taping.

Incidentally, it snowed in St. George while we were there, it just didn't stay long.

More Fun with the Wii

The Wii is working. It is supposed to be a magnet for family and friends to come and visit us. We did get a visit from Makenna and from Makenzie. Makenna tried to teach Grandma how to bowl. I think she beat us both though. I guess I need to practice. Makenzie enjoyed some Dancing with Dance Dance Revolution, but I didn't get any photos of it.

DONE

Finished, The End, Fin, Finito, Completed, Accomplished, Settled, Through, Wrapped Up. Mark it on the calendar - January 16, 2008. The photos below show before and after.
Remember, if you want to see a photo in more detail just double click on it. Then when you are through click the "back" button on your browser.






















For those of you far away, here are some close ups of the backsplash tile.










Now what will I blog about? Well, we do have to paint the walls in the dining room.

Just a Couple Things

We were so excited to have Jeff and Melissa over last night. Jeff and I did 18 holes at East Lake golf club in Atlanta on the Wii. And, for probably the only time in my life I beat Jeff at golf. A red letter day in my life. Now if we could just get some of the rest of you to come and play. We also had a great game of Ticket to Ride, which Jeff did win. But I think he and Melissa need to join the ranks of professionals at that game.

And now for something comepletely different. As I was checking on some information about blogging for Tamra I discovered that you can set a blog for more than one person to author the posts. So I have done that for this blog. From now on the posts written by me will be under the Bull Rhino name and Jeanne will be under he own.

Since this is the first one I've done that way, I'll see how it looks for the first time myself as soon as I click "Publish Post"

This part was added after I looked at it. Like I expected it did say "added by Bull Rhino". However, I notice I still have to sign in under the other log in if I want to do any kind of site administration.

Wii Partiied Today

Colt was over for a while before school this morning and I showed him our new Wii. He and I bowled a game. He won fair and square. These dang games are made for kids;^( . Then, so we could work on the kitchen, we showed him the boxing. He loved it. I tried to get him to look at me for a picture, but he was too absorbed. Anyway, he did really well. In this one he won by a split decision. In several he won all three rounds and even had a couple knockouts in some others. We got a second controller today, which will make playing with others a lot more fun. Wii are looking forward to having you over to play.