Valley View Replacement posted by Carol @ 11:18 AM

I am finally getting some pictures sorted out and ran across these. This is the house that is/was being built after they tore down our old house. This is as far as they got when they ran out of money. Anybody interested in a really big project. It's for sale.

I wonder how the moles are liking this situation?

Folly Folly Folly!!!!

I feel sorry for the poor little gazebo. Somehow, it just doesn' fit anymore.

Owen: One Year Old posted by Carol @ 10:55 AM

Nice profile, little buddy

Just getting over the flu left Owen a little unsteady on his legs. He was getting steadier as the day went on.

Nice horsey!

If he sees you taking a picture, he heads straight for you resulting in a blurry picture. Therefore, I needed to be sneaky with my shooting.

Love that Look posted by Carol @ 10:47 AM

Complete with cupola, weather vane and lush green countryside. Awesome

Now nicely fitting the surroundings

The rock is still to be done along with the chinking. But aren't the flowers in the foreground pretty?

Snow and more snow posted by Carol @ 10:19 AM

Here is Howard standing in front of the "private lane" to Brown's cabin. Not too much chance of using this path for a while.
Thank goodness we can get into the house through the garage. We now have a narrow path shoveled out, but it is treacherously slick with all the dripping off the roof. (see the top picture)

We have had gorgeous weather with the sun shining most days. However we did get another inch of snow overnight.

More Donnelly Construction Photos posted by Carol @ 4:39 PM

Since this was taken over a week ago, there has been at least a foot and a half more snow. And it is going to be snowing all week. I wonder what we will find when we get back up next week.




Here are pictures of the inside changes. Thank goodness for visiting strong men to help bring the logs in and set them up. It took quite a
few muscles.

Upgrade construction posted by Carol @ 2:47 PM

This has been officially dubbed the "Toy Barn". Wouldn't you know we would picked the snowiest winter in years to try to do construction. Anyway, the guys, Byron, Anthony and Jonathon, have been troopers. They are finishing up today. Anthony is missing his family who weren't able to come up this week. We will have to wait until it warms up to chink the "logs" and stain the board and bat sections and soffet. Several snafu's caused us to make some really cool changes.
One of those changes were tongue and groove soffets instead of plywood....which turned out to stain really ugly.
The overhang/lean to is going to be a cool place to hang out. Being able to drive the snowmobile's in one end and out the other has already been tested and approved.
The inside log trim is in process. The dining room is almost done.
This huge log is in the process of being attached as I type. We had to get this lift to get it into position.

My Ideal NCAA Football System posted by Brian @ 1:28 PM

I will take my family's blog hostage for a minute here and use it as a soapbox to put forth my idea for NCAA football.

To start with, the current conferences would be abolished, mostly. This is probably the biggest show-stopper for the powers that be, but I'll keep moving on because the eventual benefits would outweigh the negatives.

Here are some facts to keep in mind while thinking about a new organization scheme:
- There are 119 teams in 1-A football.
- Travel is expensive.
- Every team should have the opportunity to win the National Championship.

Keeping these facts in mind, I have split the country into 4 zones: Western, Central, South-East, and North-East. These zones are geographical zones. Teams from each zone will be split up into 3 different Levels: A, B, & C. Each Level will ideally have 10 teams. Level A will be composed of the top 10 teams. Level B will have the next best 10 teams. Level C will have the next best...

Here is a picture of how the zones are arranged.



Each team in each zone/level will play against the other 9 teams every season. At the end of the season, the top two teams in each zone/level will play against each other to determine the zone/level champion. The champions will then enter a 4-team tournament with the Western champ playing the Central champ and the SE champ playing the NE champ. The winners play for the National Championship while the losers can optionally play for 3rd place.

Here is the best part that makes it fair for every team in America. The bottom team from each zone/level will drop a level while the top team will "level-up"!

There should be a "bowl game" for the bottom two teams of each zone/level as well as one for the top two teams from the lower levels. These "bowl games" will actually mean something!

So every team has a path to the National Championship! Even the lower level teams!

The best part is the quality of games throughout the season. Teams will play against teams of their own skill level. No more cakewalks! Every week of the season there will be many "College Game Day" games!

Imagine the money that will pour in for television rights to the games! Money for everyone! Great games for everyone! What's not to love?

There, now that I have that off my chest, I can get back to some real work.

Check out our flying daughter. posted by Brian @ 9:05 PM

So here's a nice little video of Audrey being her little brave self. Our other two would never have done this! We didn't even have to coax her into jumping! She got her goggles on and then immediately climbed up the ladder, turned around, and jumped off! She continued to do it so we had to get our camera! How crazy cool is this!?!?!

Audrey's Photo Shoot posted by Brian @ 5:45 PM

Last Saturday (Debbie's last day in Nampa) we were able to coerce Debbie into taking a bunch of photos of Audrey. We've had quite a few people comment on her to us, so we are thinking about seeing if she could be a little kid model for clothes or something. (Someone has to pose for all these catalogs and advertisements!)

Anyhow, here are a few pics from the shoot. Isn't Debbie talented? Thanks a bunch Deb!

BTW, if you know of anyone who would like a cute little spunky monkey for a photo shoot, she's available! :D





Last Saturday (Debbie's last day in Nampa) we were able to coerce Debbie into taking a bunch of photos of Audrey. We've had quite a few people comment on her to us, so we are thinking about seeing if she could be a little kid model for clothes or something. (Someone has to pose for all these catalogs and advertisements!)

Anyhow, here are a few pics from the shoot. Isn't Debbie talented? Thanks a bunch Deb!

BTW, if you know of anyone who would like a cute little spunky monkey for a photo shoot, she's available! :D

What are ORBS? posted by Carol @ 12:22 PM

Sunday, Mother's Day, I was taking pictures of Owen's (designated name for as yet unborn son of Becky and Byron Henrickson) room.I thought the streak in this picture was quite interesting and zoomed in on it. (see second picture). I didn't have a frame of reference for such a thing, so just took a mental note and went on.

Yesterday, I was listening to some teaching tapes by John Paul Jackson and he was answering a question from a student concerning Orbs. Here is the transcript from the tape. Hope this stirs up faith in you.

JPJ: "I fit the orbs in that nondescript category called "hosts". Because I don't know what "hosts" are. Nobody knows what hosts are. We know a little bit about what they do because of Psalm 103. But we don't know a whole lot about what they do. We know that they give witness a lot of times, because when the angel declared Jesus was born, there was a host of heaven behind the angel who declared that. They gave Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men. But we don't know a whole lot else about what they do. They are servants of God. They have missions, obviously, they have tasks, responsibilities. They have functions, but we don't know a lot about what they look like. In fact we know nothing about what they look like. So I put orbs into the host category, nondescript, beings that have been created by God that are not humanoid in appearance. And so just as each one of us look different, then there are hosts that look different. We have pictures of orbs that are diamond shaped, some that are octagonal.
Some that have 5 sides, some that are triangles. We have some that look like shields. We have some that are elongated, some that are oval, some that are round, and some that are multi-bulbular. There are several different bulbs connected to each other. We have pictures of them moving and you can see the tail as they move so fast like a comet. Different colors, different sizes, different shapes. Grainy looking, different designs in them, some with stripes in them like Saturn. They kind of remind you of the planets in a way.

People say: "Well it is a reflection of the planets." Well, how do you get that inside? If you were outside, I could say...well, OK, sure. But inside how do you get the reflection of Mars or Jupiter or Neptune? "

Question from class: "What about the orbs that were at concerts that were not necessarily Christian concerts?"

JPJ: "If those orbs weren't there, then, murder would happen. Because the verse in scripture that says: He who holds back, when he leaves, then the earth is unrestrained. And when those orbs leave, then restraint leaves. And so those orbs are there, even in decadent arenas because God loves people so much that he doesn't want them to perish. So he is protecting them. And it keeps a semblance of order so that dominions of darkness don't have rule. Because if they had rule, there would be murder and massive loss of life. Most people in church don't get it. They think, well God isn't present whenever there is sin. Well, one, none of us are perfect, so that tells you he wouldn't be present in us if it has to be perfect. Secondly, God is the creator and holds all things and if He didn't do that, then the world would be destroyed. Only He who holds everything back that keeps it from happening. So he has to be present everywhere or else things happen. Bad things happen.

Question from class: "I know that some people can see orbs out of the side of their eyes. I don't know how many people can actually do that. Why is it that most people can't do that. Why can we catch it with a camera?"

JPJ: "Because the camera has faith and we don't. (laughter) See the camera doesn't argue in nano-second arguments. We argue so fast, we don't even know we argue. It happens so quickly. And so the camera just captures what's there. It doesn't have an opinion one way or the other. It just captures what's there. We always have an opinion one way or the other."

Question from class: "Is that like when you see lights out of the corner of your eye, just for a second. Is it because in that second that you see it, you have that argument and it goes away.?"

JPJ: "Yes, you instantly have an argument. Right. You see it and then you instantly have an argument. As your faith increases, it moves from the corner of your eye to the front of your eyes."

Question from class: "Do they catch them on video?"

JPJ: "They do. We have videos of them. They are moving. Thousands of them. They are floating, moving. .....It has a lot to do with F stops. Because at certain F stops you catch certain dimensions...If you take a narrower F stop you will see more orbs........they depict the flow of the Spirit. (Lots of questions that I couldn't hear, but these were some of the answers.)

Question from class: "So the more faith you have the more you are able to see and the less faith you have the less you are able to see?"

JPJ: "Of course, in every issue.

Google Reader posted by Brian @ 3:47 PM

Not so much news-worthy as just a really nice web page from good old Google...

This past week I stumbled upon Google Reader. What this page does is organize any web pages you frequently check to see when they are updated. When they get updated, Google Reader shows you the update in a sort of email format. Each update on each page is in it's own box and the Reader web page shows you which ones you have read and which you haven't read yet. Just like your email.

I've added Deb's blog and Bec's blog as well as a few other interesting websites (like www.slashdot.org & www.engadget.com) to my list. Now I just check one page and get all the updates from all the web sites!

Check out Google Reader here. www.google.com/reader

8 going on 21!!! posted by Brian @ 7:34 PM

I'm in a bit of shock here. Ally, my little sweet girl, has gone and done something the I'm sure to her, makes her more grown up. She went with Mommy and Claire and Chandra over to Monkey Do to get all dolled up for her birthday and not only got a make over, but also got her ears pierced! What's that you say? Her ears pierced!?!?! YES!!

Such a grown up now!

Check her out.

Such a pretty girl.

Then she got to go have a treat!

Big day for the Ally girl.

:)

Free at Tamarack posted by Carol @ 2:56 PM

Hey, believe it or not.....I am finally posting to the blog.

We drove up to Donnelly, Thursday, March 15 with Nick, the realtor who sold our house in Portland, and his little family...wife and 2 kids, a boy 5 1/2 and girl 4 years old.

They had signed up for a superduper sales pitch for the new Fairmont Tamarack(Agassi/Graff) release. That is gobblygoop for "we want you to lay down a ton, and I do mean a ton, of money for a little tiny bit of space in what they think is "heaven". They put you up in a chalet, wine and dine you, show you around, let you ski to your heart's content and hope you sign on the dotted line while you are two sheets to the wind. Get my drift. Then you wake up the next morning and say...What have I done?

Well Nick is really up here to see if there is anything in Simpco Estates that he can afford, but what a way to go. They all love skiing and are doing that today. Since we were escorting them around, they are not familiar with the area, Nick asked if we could accompany them to dinner last night when he checked in. They said, "Yes"...don't tick off the prospective buyers first thing... So they dropped off their bags, hopped in the Avalance with us and came over to check out Simpco Estates. By the way, the drive to Tamarack is so much improved, we actually made it between the cabin and Tamarack in 15 minutes. Almost unheard of. We returned to Tamarack for a lovely dinner at the Morel Restaurant in the Lodge at Osprey Meadows...probably about $50 a plate. We had salad, a choice of three entrees, dessert and all the wine we could drink. :) I never dreamed of actually eating there. What a treat. We were all at a long banquet style table. Dad sat next to a pretty big EGO for the first part of the meal, and then a sales rep...pretty lady....took the EGO's place. She was really low key. I am sure the big push comes later. My companion was a 5 year old who was engrossed in his Leapster, so nothing to do but enjoy my meal.

Sunday is our 35th Anniversary, so I just figure it was a really cool anniversary gift from God. Check this out:

Ecclesiastes 2:26

26For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God's sight.

I think we got a taste of that last night. Dad has a new discription of Tamarack after seeing a Chalet and the price list. "Center for Misplaced Values"

And the best thing was, I came home with all my faculties, didn't have a hangover this morning and have a wonderful place to enjoy the handiwork of God without selling my first born child. What Peace.

Thank You Lord!

Audrey is 2!!! posted by Brian @ 3:01 PM

Wow, last night I went out to Jason Steiners house for guy's night out. Got home after 3:30 this morning. Ugh. I'm totally dead because there is no way I can sleep past 8:00. Anyhow, my little girls is now 2. She went to Walmart yesterday for her 2-year-old pictures. When we get them back maybe I can put one up on the blog. Not sure how long it takes.

Anyhow, party tonight. Angie even made the cake! Woohoo Angie!

If you guys ever want to get another board type game, take a look at Blokus. It's a simple fun game that doesn't take very long to play. I guess you can play with 2-4 people, but I think it's most fun with 4.

Weekend Away posted by Brian @ 8:22 PM

This past weekend Angie and I went up to McCall (without the kidos) with our Sunday School class. We stayed at a place called Camp Pinewood. They have a new (to them) building with 10 rooms in it. It used to be a managed care facility. Anyhow, it was a nice place to stay and we got to know a bunch of other couples a lot better. It was a total blast and we haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time!

I don't think we took any pictures (I know, there has been a lack of visuals on this blog lately) but it was a nice place. The cool thing is that it isn't very far from downtown. Totally within walking distance! It's a bit north of the airport. Next time you're up in McCall, go check it out.

In other news, Angie is going to be helping me with my business! YAY! The fact is, I just don't have the personality to do sales. I'm friendly and all, but not very outgoing. I also can't read people like she can. So I think she'll be able to help out a lot! Here's hoping the business just takes off!

Have a good weekend!

Nana, you will be missed posted by Brian @ 10:45 AM

Yesterday morning as I woke up I received a call from Mom telling me that Nana had passed away minutes before. She had said that Papa was there and had just given her a kiss. I think that will be a lasting memory for me. I didn't see it, but I can imagine how it went.

It's hard for me when I think about what Papa is feeling these days. To be married as long as my grandparents were and to now be without his wife, his partner, his friend must be hard. Too hard to imagine. But beyond the grief we know she is in a better place now, where sickness and pain are no more.

Still for those left behind it is still hard. Papa, Mom, Sally, Suzie, I love you all and I'm praying for you.