Product Review - New Printer - EPSON Artisan 700

Check out my review. Click Here to read it.

Nyah, Nyah, Nyah - Look what we got!

Yesterday we got to spend the day with a very special young lady. Melissa had to go to some CE (read - get away with some friends for a few hours) and she trusted us with here very own sweet baby.

















At first, I don't think she thought it was such a
great idea (Avery that is). Melissa may have agreed.








But we finally bored her into submission.




After a while she kind of thought that her grandma wasn't so bad.

Thanks for trusting us with this special cargo Melissa and Jeff. Oh, and thanks for the sandwich Jeff.

The Most Important Day of My Life

I won't keep you in suspense. . . The most important day of my life was February 18th 19__. It was the day Jean Burton was born. I wasn't even a year old yet and of course I didn't know it was the most important day of my life. I didn't know that only a few miles away a new little baby girl was being born that would become the most important person in my life. I didn't know that one day I would fall in love with this beautiful girl and that her and I would be sealed together for time and all eternity and that she would be the true joy of my life. We grew up only a mile or so away from each other until I was about nine, when we moved to another part of town, but as far as either of us know, we never met. It wasn't until I'd pretty well made a mess of my life that we finally met. After doing it all wrong I had finally figured out what I wanted and I made a list of the qualifications of the woman I would marry. It was a pretty precise list. After dating a few girls I was hounded into asking a total stranger out. I don't know what made her accept my invitation, and even more I can't figure out what convinced her to accept a second date. I look back at what I looked like then and all I can say is it's a good thing for me that she wasn't seeing the outer me. Fortunately for me she saw the person I was trying to become and not the one I was. I soon figured out that she met every single criteria on my list. And then, to top it off, I really enjoyed being around her. After a few months and lots of begging on my part she accepted my invitation to marry me.

Jeanne has been the light of my life since 1973. She has loved and raised our children, she has let me do some really stupid things and hung in there even when she thought she was crazy for doing so. But, she has also helped me grow up and become a much better person than I ever would have been otherwise.

I'm truly grateful for that special February 18th when my darling little Jeanne was brought into the world. I'm grateful for her parents for bringing her into the world and for the way they raised her. I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for blinding her for a period of time until she had married me and it was too late.

I'm grateful for Jeanne and the love and happiness she has brought into my life.

HAPPY BITHDAY SWEETHEART!!!

Happy Birthday Wade

February 10th is a special day in our family as we celebrate the birth of Wade. It has always been a blessing to have him in our family. When he grew up and got married he added even more to our family with a wife and wonderful children who we also love. Wade is one of the most honest people you will every have the pleasure to know. You may not agree with him but you will never doubt that you know where he stands and what he believes. He gives his employer more than an honest day's work every day. You can count on him no matter what as his word is his bond. If he tells you he'll do something or be somewhere or whatever he might tell you, you can count on it. It will be done, it will be done right and it will be done when he says it will be done, and probably a little better and a little sooner. Wade tries very hard to come across as a tough old curmudgeon, but if you give him a chance you'll see he's a teddy bear in disguise. He will do everything he can for whoever needs it, especially if he calls you his friend or a member of his family. Wade is a wonderful father. He loves his children as deeply and completely as any man can. There is nothing more important to him than his precious children. They always come first. Wade, we wish you the very best of Happy Birthdays and hope you always know of our love for you and how proud we are of the fine man you are.

Happy Birthday Dustin

As far as I am concerned nobody deserves a happy birthday, or even a happy life more than Dustin. Dustin has been said to be marching to the beat of a different drummer and I am so proud of him for not only marching to that beat but doing it with passion and conviction. Certainly one of the things I admire most about Dustin, and there are many things, is his passion. Dustin is like a bull dog with his jaw locked on the ring of those "bulls" that are important to him. Dustin is a giving person, almost to a fault, if that is possible. Money may be very tight, there may be no time left over, his strength may be spent, but if there is a need he will find a way to do whatever he can to fill that need. Dustin genuinely cares about people, all people, and that is one of his great passions. His first passion is his family. He loves and cherishes his family and cares for them with all the tender feelings a great husband and father can offer. Dustin, if you read this I hope you know how much your mother and I love you and how happy we are to call you son. As a side note, I included Tamra in the photo because I think that even as good as you are, Tamra adds to you. We hope you have a wonderful day on your birthday and every day.

P.S. If any of this looks familiar it is because I used some of the same stuff I wrote in The World's Best Blog when I was writing about my family a couple years ago. I felt strongly about these things then as I do now.

Project of the Month

Okay, so it's not all that pretty, but like a lot of things, it ain't pretty but it's mine. A week or so before Christmas I told Jeanne that I probably needed to upgrade the computer I do all my video work on. Even the simple video I was putting together for the family for last years fun was slow and difficult. I have some money left in my old Signature Video account and I'll use that. I'll be doing some more video for the quilter down in St. George soon and she will pay me some for that, so I should be okay.

Jeanne, being the very clever girl that she is, figured that was perfect - that could be my Christmas. So when she told people what we had got for Christmas she told about her new HD LCD television for her sewing room and her new MP3 player from me, and oh by the way, Scott is updating his computer for Christmas. Yesterday was a day off from work and so I went and visited a few little computer stores around the area. The kind who have computer parts, not the ones that sell the factory made like HP and Dell. After talking to a few people, I decided to go with the Intel chip this time. so I selected a new motherboard, and processor, a new graphics card and RAM. Oh, by the way, the power supply in my old case is not powerful enough to handle all the new stuff so I have to have a new power supply. Oh. . . with the new motherboards and faster ram we have to use a new type of hard drive, now the connections have to be Serial ATA (SATA), so guess what, even though I have about 300 Gigabytes worth of Hard Drives in the old system, none of those are any good anymore and I have to get new ones. The good news is that all this stuff is lots cheaper than it used to be. Well at least cheaper per byte. So the nice young feller hands me a bid, including tax of only $652.92. That's only about $200 to $250 more than I was hoping for. It's sure a good thing I am planning on using my ugly old case and the current DVD ROM and DVD burner in it. Oh, and I found out I can use the firewire card that's in it too. Good news, though they only run about $20.

In 1995 I bought my first "PC". PC meaning it was one of the Intel based or Windows operating system computers. Before that I had had Comodore brand which was a totally different system. Fortunately I wrote about it in my journal so I went back and looked at it today. For just the computer itself - no monitor, no printer - I paid around $2000 and I got a computer that operated at a speed of 100 Mhz or about 1/50th of the speed of what I'll be upgrading to. (If that doesn't sound like much think of this - If you had a car that could travel at 100 MPH in 1995 and it increased by 50 times it would now be able to go in a straight line from Los Angeles to New York City and back to Las Vegas in one hour) The first one had 16 Megabyte of RAM this one will have 3 Gigabyte or about about 62.5 times the RAM. My original had a hard drive that stored 1 Gigabyte of data. This one will have about 800 times the storage (If your 1995 100 MPH car originally had a 20 gal tank it would now hold enough gas to make that same trip 3 times, even at 1 mile per gallon, without stopping). I guess I shouldn't complain about the cost.

I'm so glad that I also wrote the cost of memory at the time. As I said I had 16 Mb of RAM and it would have cost me about $45 per MB for additional RAM. At that price 1 GB of RAM would have been $45,000. Yesterday they wanted to charge me $29.99 per stick of 1GB which is $.03 per Megabyte. Not bad huh.

I came home after my shopping trip and spent a few hours on the internet (a strange new phenomenon in 1995) and got the price down (including shipping) to just barely over $400. AND OBTW - I'm getting better, faster RAM for $.01 per MB. - I'm sure glad I didn't invest in RAM waiting for the price to go up to sell.

Keeping my same case, DVD/CD ROMs and Burners and firewire card is also going to save me around $175 to $200. Well it's ugly but it's mine. We'll see how it goes on getting it installed and up and working.

Does it Get Any Better Than This?

I don't think this needs any explanation.

Merry Christmas!

About 20 years ago, before we left for Germany, when both of our Mothers were still alive but widowed, we would invite them to spend the night at our house on Christmas eve, for alternating years. I always wondered if we were doing them a favor or they were doing us a favor. Well, if they enjoyed watching the children on Christmas morning as much as I do, then we were definately doing them the favor. For the last few years we have tried to go to one of our children's houses early Christmas morning and watch the children open their presents. We enjoyed it, and I hope they didn't mind too much. The last two years we have had the joy of having one of our out of town children stay with us for Christmas Eve. (And I use the word "joy" very intentionally.) This year not only did we have Kathryn and her family with us, but, thanks to Melissa, we also had Christmas brunch at our house. Everybody showed, with the exception of Dustin and Tamra as they are in Oregon. For Jeanne it was a lot of work, but I think she enjoyed it, and I know I did. I LOVED IT. I don't show my joy very well when they are here, but I truly do love it. I just kind of sit there and take it all in. Here are some photos that I took today of some of the grandchildren that I love so much!!!

All I Want for Christmas!!!

To me Christmas is about the birth and life of Jesus Christ, and the best way to celebrate that is with family! Lately I've been feeling sorry for myself because two of my children and their families live far far away. Last year Dustin and family came and spent Christmas with us from Oregon, and even though we were in the middle of a remodel they never complained. It was so good to have them, but this year it would have to be phone calls to Oregon and Kentucky. Or at least that's what I thought. Yesterday evening, as we were sitting talking to some friends that dropped by, the doorbell rang (for the fourth time) and I said something to the effect, "Oh my gosh, who is it this time?" Jeanne volunteered to get the door and pretty soon I hear animated talk and her inviting them in. A few seconds later I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and as I turn and look I am shocked and joyfully surprised to see my son-in-law Trevor standing there, having just arrived from Kentucky after a 30 hour straight through drive. What a wonderful Christmas surprise!!!!

Apparently Melissa was happy to because she beat me to the punch on blogging about it, but fortunately, since she didn't know why she was really coming over, she didn't bring her camera. (Let that be a lesson to you Melissa - Be Prepared) But I was ready and so I get to be the first to publish photos of my two newest Grandchildren together for the first time in their lives. Born only 6 days apart and now still less than one month old. So here you go, one of the very first photos of them together.

Avery Leger (The petite little girl)-Left and Davis Grubbs(The big strapping boy)-Right

My Desktop

I've almost always had Rhinos as my Desktop background picture, but I was recently going through organizing the thousands of photos on my computer when I ran across the one below and decided that I should have the photo of the three favorite women in my life (Good thing Annabelle can't read) as my desktop. They are all so beautiful, it just makes me happy to look at this photo.