Blogs of Our Friends
Blogs are a great way to keep up with friends and family. We have been collecting links to blogs and other websites owned by people we'd like to keep in touch with. You can click these links to visit the sites themselves …
- Life in General
- Four Girls and a Guy
- Woolgathering
- The Boys and Me
- Darren
- Vernon
- Steff and Nol's Place
- Three kids and counting (Pulsiphers)
- Kelly and Will Larsen
- Mark and Karen Ray
- Where is the Laugh Track?
- Geekily Ever After
- Benj, Melinda, and Jason
- Live, Laugh and Love (Arthur and Sarah)
- Inspiration Station
- Julie and Andy
- The Colorado Wright Family
- Allred family Blog
- Don and Sarah
- Keeping Up With Kate
- Kelsey Hartley- my OK friend 8)
- Wise and Otherwise
- Krimme World
- Bybee Family
- Bernadine
- Horrocks Family
- Lloydlings
… or, read them right here (the ones that provide feeds):
Family Pictures
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 5:35 PM by Mark and Karen Ray
We have a friend in our ward who is getting back into photography and needed some subjects to practice on. We jumped at the chance. You can check her out at http://www.leonardsonphotography.com/
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 2:59 PM by Woolgathering
Finally, the hammock from Brazil that has been living in a closet or a box for the past 13 years has a home. And 4 boys who love it. Poor Daddy - the kids usurp it every time he thinks he's going to "get away for a bit". 
this day in blog history
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 8:24 PM by Life in General
Did you know that today is a big day for this blog? Well, it is. Today marks 5 years since I started this endeavor into web journaling. My first entry was on September 1, 2005 and it really wasn't about anything special. Just "hello, I'm entering blog-land. Come and read me if you have the time." My first commenter was Kent, actually Elder Kent Andersen clear from the island of Madeira, Portugal. (I think they've changed the internet rules for...
Andy is a rock star!
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 8:15 PM by Julie and Andy
Andy has been playing the piano in Primary and Nursery at church for the past several months now and one of the parents of the kids told us this cute story about their 3 year old son. So their son had just gotten a little play keyboard the other day and I guess during his allotted quiet time he was totally going nuts with it, playing his little heart out and his mom asked him what he was doing and I guess the little boy said "i'm pretending to be Bro. Hague!"
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 11:36 AM by Woolgathering
He isn't as fond of putting ON the tape, 
painting our house,
for two days in a row...
and helping assemble our bookshelves.
But he did it anyway. 
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 11:36 AM by Woolgathering
And now that we're all (mostly. kindof) settled in, they have adjusted to the new location and new schools (more on THAT later) and more space. 
During the two weeks before the move, my good friend Robin and my neighbor and friend Maxine took turns taking my kids and feeding them and keeping them sane. 
It was tough at times, and we all stressed out a little bit, but we're back to normal now and everyone is happy. 
especially mommy.
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 11:16 AM by Woolgathering
3. Did you know that there are two Round Table Pizzas in Burbank? TWO! You don't want to know how much money we spent there in August. My parents would be horrified.
4. This little guy insisted on helping. And being nursed every hour or so, just in case I had thought about weaning him too hard. 
5. Did I mention good friends?
Thanks Nick and Kamy! 
Ready or Not...It's time!
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 11:07 AM by Mark and Karen Ray
Kenny's in 5th, Carley's in 2nd and Lauren's in 1st grade.
The Emperor's New RF Exposure Calculator
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 5:19 AM by Vernon
It has been twelve days since I made my RF Exposure Calculator available for all to use. I admit that there were a few bugs in it when I first released it. But nothing that didn't get fixed within a day or two. You see, it being open source and all, I figured I should release early and release often. So what you see today is about 26 commits newer than the original.
I just can't believe that it was my own naïveté that expected a warmer reception to the ham world. I mean, there are no other RFE apps that can even come close to how cool mine is. And I am not just saying that to toot my own horn. All the other applications make you type in numbers and information time and time again. For each little change you have to type new stuff in again. And they don't remember what you typed in yesterday. Come on folks, get on the Web 2.0 bandwagon already (or something buzz-wordy like that). I got some positive feedback, for which I am very thankful. (This mad machine runs on props!) But I also got a bunch of "I don't get it," and "Where is the program? - All I see is a tabbed help page!" or "nada". All I have to say to you folks is RTFM!
The grand old story of The Emperor's New Clothes comes to mind. I wrote this awesome RF exposure calculator that only works for smart people. So if it doesn't work for you, well... sorry. Only I am not really that sorry. I mean it would work for you if you could only read. I designed it so it would start with help text showing if there was nothing else to display (thus the tabbed help), which TELLS YOU EXACTLY HOW TO USE IT! GAAAAAHHHHHH!
Okay. That felt good. And really, this post was half therapy for me and half directed right at the anonymous coward who says that "Blogs are the verbal equivalent of vomiting!" with reference to my blog. This barf's for you.
The lazy days of summer
Posted on August 31, 2010 at 5:28 PM by Three kids and counting (Pulsiphers)
I have a dream of having everyday be a lazy summer day. Where I can sit on the porch, sipping an ice cold lemonade and watching my kids play, while I chat with my sweet hubby. I am sad that the summer went by so quickly. This summer has been full of family reunions, birthday parties, BBQs, berry picking, farmer’s markets, and tons of creativity. I am sure going to miss the lazy mornings of not
Our Summer in Review
Posted on August 31, 2010 at 12:29 AM by Four Girls and a Guy
My parents came to spend the week with us before the baptism. One of the days we went down to San Diego to visit Old Town and the Mormon Battalion. The new visitor's center was great!
The week before that we spent a week in Utah, celebrating McKayla's birthday and the 24th of July. (Both are on the same day!) McKayla and the girls loved that their grandpa Thomas built them a float and they got to be in the parade for McKayla's birthday. The theme was "Pioneers: Past, Present, and Future." We took first place! Jenna especially loved throwing the candy!
The other highlight of our week was a day at 7 Peaks water park. My kids ALL love the water, even Jenna. She didn't hesistate to hit those tube slides with her mom and dad. Grandpa came along, which allowed all the kids to do whatever they wanted and not be limited to what their sister wanted to do. They all had a blast! McKayla and Brianna even went on the super tall super fast water slides at the top of the tower! No pictures of that day, unfortunately. We were too busy having fun to worry about a camera.
Brianna decided to get her hair chopped while we were there. She looks so much older!
The week before THAT, Kevin and Helga and the kids visited for what we hoped would be a fantastic week on the beach. Unfortunately, up until recently, we had a very cool summer. In other words, cloudy and cool at the beach. Not so much fun when you are hoping to soak up some sun and enjoy the water, but hopefully their trip was fun overall. Here we are celebrating Kevin's birthday--look at all those candles! Poor Kevin.....
doppelganger
Posted on August 30, 2010 at 10:09 PM by Life in General
So you've already seen this look-a-like combo . . . and while I browsed through pictures of Payton fishing, I couldn't help but notice the resemblance . . . the blue eyes, the rolls of sweater / rolls of skin, and most especially that grin. Do you see it? I love it! Now, I need to come up with a match for this face. Any ideas? The attributes that jump out to me: pasty white skin, crazy eyes, and a...
Back at work today
Posted on August 30, 2010 at 5:13 PM by Benj, Melinda, and Jason
sunday thoughts
Posted on August 30, 2010 at 5:48 AM by Life in General
a quote from sacrament meeting that reminded me why we do the things we do & why we take the time. And inspired me to renew & refocus our efforts: When you stop and think about it from a diabolically tactical point of view, fighting the family makes sense. When Satan wants to disrupt the work of the Lord, he doesn't poison the world's peanut butter supply, thus bringing the Church's missionary system to its collective knees. He doesn't send...
Free Bowling
Posted on August 29, 2010 at 2:55 PM by Mark and Karen Ray
A friend introduced me to http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/amf.php which is a site that lists different bowling alleys in the US that have coupons for kids to bowl 2 games free everyday during summer. You just have to pay for shoes. We were finally free to go these last two weeks and had a blast. I have my own bowling shoes (does that make me a nerd?), so I just had to pay for my games too. $11.25 wasn't too bad for the amount of fun we had. It was a joy to watch my kids excitement as they got strikes (with the help of bumpers). I bowled my second highest score ever of a 169 on my first game. It all went downhill incredibly fast for me after that. But like I said, it was fun!
and Kenny got a strike in this one. The battery died before I could get a picture of Lauren's strike.
By the way, can anyone tell me why all the stuff on my blog is hugging the left margin? It's driving me nuts. I guess I might just have to spend a lot of time re-doing the layout. It kills me to think about changing it all. Ugh!
