One Smart Puppy

My sweet wife teased me yesterday that my dog has a higher education than I do because he has graduated twice compared to my one. It was witty and playful and made my feelings feel like they were eaten by raptors.

"Clever girl!"
I love MS Paint.

Here is Sully with his other family, graduating from Intermediate Obedience Training. Sullys foster family is so awesome and wonderful and generous that they put him through the next level dog training at Petsmart. They are fantastic people. Congratuations Sully!

Time Wasters

I enjoy wasting my time. It's like a hobby. However, I am less amused when other people waste my time. Like when this happened the other day. It's one hundred degrees and I was trying to take a nap. What the deuce.

Also. Look at my garden! Green things. GREEN THINGS!

Thank you Valli for the dirt. The rest I packed back from the states, including the light bulb. I can't believe it survived.

October Duds

Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

Judging last weeks comments there are not a few baby-picture-starved followers out there. I hope this is satisfactory in that respect. The temperature today was a popular 68 degrees. The happy Sun was shining while not scorching. Perfect Zoo weather.

Oh, by-the-way, we have a walking baby now. It all happened somewhere in the past two months. Became perfected while Dave was home. Not bad timing kid.

Rest and Recuperation

We are still here! We are here and thriving in the Good ole South. We've been busy frolicking the last of our summer away while Dave was home for his r&r.

It was a wonderful two weeks. Filled with so many activities. Which included the following:

Devouring juicy Amish peaches

4 Wheeling across a 600 acre farm

Folding laundry, together

A weekend of camping

Washing the car, together

Rafting the Ocoee River, twice

Attending the temple

Watching baby perfect her mad walking skills

Fixing the lawnmower, together

Watching not a lick of TV

Patronizing Chattanooga's Aquarium

Snuggling with our daughter at 6am

Hanging out with friends

Cliff jumping

Brushing our teeth, together

Attempting horseback riding, there were some uncooperative horses

Sitting down at our dinner table, together

Discovering an Amish Pumpkin patch

Rural county fair ferris wheel rides while camping

Attending church, together

Touring a wonderful veterinary clinic

Dodging a spewing baby while touring clinic (Yeah, our baby)

Stuffing ourselves silly at our favorite sushi spot

Sigh. It was a great two weeks.

Aspiring Carpenters

Dave and I have tried our hand at some woodworking recently.

Here is the tower of a bed that Dave made.There happened to be some excitement his first night sleeping on this skyscraper. As I understand it, Dave was jolted awake around 3am by a monstrous crash. A roommates bed frame failed and the poor guy fell to the floor. Mattress and all. Thankfully Dave's mad skills have kept him and his creation in the rafters so far.

I've got a couple wood projects going at the moment. The one that is functioning is a cover I built for our garbage cans. Even though the doors are not finished it keeps the rain off. This has made it possible for me to move our recycling bins out of our tiny shoebox of a house and retain a sliver of sanity. When I finish the doors I might update it here.

Hill Cumorah Pageant

Finally I'm getting around to posting the good stuff. The whole reason we went to Palmyra, New York was to see the Hill Camorah Pageant. It was wonderful! The cast mingles with the crowd before the performance. They were all very friendly, fun to talk to and patient with camera happy travelers. Here are a few pictures of the costumes we saw. Some were amazing! The snarly guy is King Noah from The Book of Mormon.




Here are pictures from the performance. Not all of them are mine. Thus there are some good ones and some not-so-much good ones. Sitting a 27 miles from the stage was somewhat of a strain for my little camera. But considering the stage consists of 12 stages and takes up the side of a Godzilla hill we felt very much a part of the action.


The whole thing was great. The effects were impressive. With all the fire and explosions I can see why it's outside. Granted, there's historical reasons for being in that locale also. There was a monsoon that I'm convinced drenched the first couple rows of saps-who-saved-seats since Thanksgiving 2003. Waterfalls went from stage to stage, towers broke in pieces tumbled to the ground and exploded and the Savior descended from the Heavens. It was amazing! I highly recommend this to one and all. And it's FREE! Free parking, free performance, free shower (if you want to join the saps in the front row). You just have to get there in July. Happy travels.

We halted our mad attempt at setting land speed records on our drive home to stop in Kirtland, Ohio. This town is also significant in our church history. We toured the Kirtland Temple, dedicated in 1836. Baby enjoyed the freedom to move around. We both enjoyed the air conditioning and the little break it gave us from being on the road.

1,634.7 miles and 5 days later we arrived home. It was a grand adventure.