These floaties on the lake were the best things EVER!

Look at all those mountains in the background, it is very green though.

I love this picture, our friends 3 year old jumped on the air mattress that Joni and thier baby were peacefully laying on, I had just pulled the air plug, and I got the baby in mid air glee before I dropped the camera and caught her, and Joni's face in the background shows how much fun she is having. You can see a pillow in the background floating in mid air too.

It is so nice to have people we know be so close now. Our friends from Houston came up to visit with thier two kids, and we had a good old time playing games and swimming at Lake Bryan. That lake is sooooo warm, it is wierd. It was warmer than a swimming pool, then the further you went out you could find cool spots, but only about 2 feet below the surface. After swimming for a while the warm water started to feel like warm soup, so to really cool off we had to dive down a few feet every couple of minutes. We are definately going to have to rent some jet skis or a ski boat with some friends soon, because it really is a cool lake, and it was the first time we were able to spend some fun time outdoors. I imagine when school starts it will be crazy out there though, but then again this place is clear out in the Texas countryside all by itself, and the only reason we knew about it is because we live on the same road that goes out to it. I shouldn't say this until I actually do it, but for some reason I have really wanted to get into triatholon shape, not to compete, but just to be in tip top shape. I figure if I can find a way to ride my bike to the lake, then swim when I get there, and ride back, that could be some good exercise. Joni runs over 10 miles a day now, so I feel like I have to do something with myself to keep up. We'll see, I'll let you know how it goes...or if it goes.

I have been spending about 12 hours a day on this online course, it is a beast, but it will all be over in about a week. It would help if I had a professor who was more helpful, if I ask him what effect the debt ratio will have on market risk, he'll explain to me how a chicken lays an egg. It is frustrating to say the least.

Did you know they make goggles for dogs that ride in the back of trucks? Joni got a picture on her cell phone of a dog wearing goggles to keep the wind out of his eyes...or something to that affect, it was pretty funny. I don't think the owner liked us driving alongside him taking pictures, but the moment was too good to pass up.

Belated Birthday blog

Happy birfday doey! I call her doey ever since I heard her niece say it because she couldn't pronounce "Joni". I wanted to post something a couple days ago, but time did not permit...what a lame excuse.

I love Joni's little "surprised hands", she clasps them under her chin, then sways her body...starting with her butt...back and forth. I got her a little cake because she would have killed me if I got a big one with just the two of us.

Joni just turned 62 years old, she loves using the camera timer, but I think she got a little mixed up witht the numbers. By the way, I just noticed that my head is 3 times the size of Joni's, pretty cool huh?

We went to Johnny Carino's for dinner and ate until we were uncomfortably full, and I took her shopping at the mall, yeah you heard that right. One of the best presents I could give Joni is to show patience and watch her look at clothes. She ended up getting some cool stuff, and I thought it was pretty cool that she is so into buying Texas A&M stuff for herself. By the time we leave here we'll probably have to decorate an entire room with Aggie stuff. We decided to catch the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie, what kills me is that someone took thier 3 kids, 6 months, 2 years, and 5 years to the movie. Not just because they were screaming and crying the WHOLE time, or because the movie is way too scary for younger kids, but it was midnight...why are they even awake? These people need to be shipped off to some compund in Saudi Arabia...that was for you Meleesh. Or maybe we could trade messed up people with some nicer foreigners who are having trouble getting into our country. I find the people who are the most vocal about shipping out illegals are usually the ones we don't want here anyways. I do agree something needs to be done to our borders...but that is a whole other subject.

Joni is the type of person that makes life worth living. I have learned to appreciate some of the littlist things in life because of her influence. No matter who she is with, she can find something to belly laugh about...it could be about anything, but it is never a cruel laugh. The other day I fell over our bed when I was trying to fix the frame, she had the control to hold her composure until she knew I was okay, then she lost it. I hope we keep having fun until she really is 62, and not just because the candles say so. I am pretty lucky to be with such a beautiful girl.

Anyhoo, as promised I wanted to share the card I got for her...we also got some pretty good ones from other people...I can't find mine though, so I will have to do my best to translate it. There is a picture of two owls on the cover sleeping, it looks like a serious card at first which makes it even better. It says something like: "I bet you weren't expecting this for your birthday...open the card...a pair of droopy hooters." Maybe it was the time of day, I don't know, but I lost it in front of a lot of people.

the sixth sense and cross country

For those of you who have seen the movie "The Sixth Sense", you will probably understand Joni's newest nickname. Over the past few months, I have noticed that almost every time I turn around or leave the kitchen, I come back to every cupbard open, including the microwave. It is actually pretty funny, and I love giving Joni a hard time about it because she is a pretty clean person, but she will not close doors...maybe the reason is a deeper phenomenon, I don't know. Her mom told me that when she used to come home from work, she could retrace Joni's steps over the last two hours that she got home from school, re-living everything Joni did to the exact detail. I think I am understanding that gift now.

We took a major road trip over the last few days because Joni's grandpa passed away on Friday night. We left about an hour after we recieved the news at about 10:30pm, then we drove straight until about 7pm the next day to Vernal...I don't recommend the trip to anyone, but it was good to be there to support Joni's family. We were mad because we couldn't find our camera before we left, it is such a beautiful drive from Denver to Vernal, and we saw so many people, but no pictures. I forgot how awesome mountains are, the crisp clean air, the clear blue lakes, and the coolness every night brings after a hot day. It made it really hard to come back, even though we are thankful to be back home in our unique little place. Joni's grandpa really was the perfect example of service, kindness, and integrity. He had one functioning eye and one leg and was suffering from parkinson's, but he was always positive and fun to be around. When he was younger he was so big and strong that when he parked the car badly in a parking lot, he would get out and pick it up the front or the rear of the car and move it into place. He served in Vietnam and Korea as well. My favorite story was when he was at a park with one of his teenage sons, and a big bullying 16 yr old challenged him to a wrestling match. He shrugged it off at first, but when everyone started to cheer him on and the bully took off his shirt, it was on. He ended up taking the kid down in one move over his head. He reopened a previous cut to his thumb in the process and after pinning down the bully, he took his bleeding thumb and drew an "x" on the kids chest. Talk about tough. I think there aren't many things more inspirational than being a part of carrying the body of a great man, with an american flag draped over his coffin. It was a wonderful funeral, and a great time to reflect on life and its true meaning.

We decided to cut the drive back into a two day affair, and we were glad we did. I think I cursed myself in my last blog by saying I was not busy and had nothing to do. I guess that is how life goes sometimes. Joni will be 26 in a couple of days, and Melecia 29? I found a hilarious birthday card that made me laugh out loud until my face turned red, I couldn't stop..it was kind of embarrassing. I'll have to tell you more about it after Joni reads it on Sunday.

Great News!

I feel wierd blogging when we just made one two days ago, but I had to let everyone know about some more great news. Joni was supposed to start her job last Monday in Waco at Providence memorial hospital, but we were both very worried about her traveling every day 180 miles. She called her boss to see if she could start a week later because of how far behind we were on everything, and also to try our luck on finding a job here in Bryan or College Station. We have been looking for months without any luck, there are only about 4 or 5 dietician jobs in this entire area so thats why we had to take the job in Waco. She felt really strongly that she shouldn't go into work, and the first day she was looking for a job here, she was interviewed for a position with a nursing home as the head dietician. They decided to make a full time position just this week, and Joni found out today that they want her. She will start Wednesday, and I think she is basically the manager over food service, and the dietician for the entire nursing home, she will report directly to the administrator. It will be a pretty big pay cut, but still more than I made in Dallas. It's amazing how things work out sometimes. Her boss in Waco has been amazing through all of this and told her that her job offer in Waco will always be on the table if she wants it. It really does pay to be nice I guess, there were other people with more experience than Joni they could have given the job to, but they said she was the most personable.

We are experiencing time together we have never experienced...actually having time together to do things. We almost don't know what to do because we don't have tv, and we have all the time in the world right now. We got a couple of books to read, and we are thinking about going to the lake tomorrow to play or something. We have watched a lot of movies, and tried our best to get acquainted with the town. Sorry for those of you who may be super busy and hate us after reading this, but having too much time to do things can be over rated...we'll take what we can get. I'll have to take some pictures of the student rec center on campus when school starts, its the most gigantic rec center I have ever seen. And I found out they are planning to expand the football stadium over the next few years, allowing it to hold over 120,000 people. That would make it the biggest pro football or college stadium in the world. Can you tell I am excited to start school? I am finding out all kinds of little tidbits about the university before I have even started my program. Sorry for being boring, guess I'll go clean the kitchen...again.

Texas sized move

Here are some pics of our new apartment, it's twice the size of our last place

We painted two of the walls a light olive green color, really makes it more like a home

We are finally settled down a bit, it was a crazy move. I don't think I will use U-Haul ever again. We picked up our truck on Saturday at some random place downtown, then we had to drive to the other side of town (Dallas is a big town by the way) to pick up the tow dolly for my truck. As we were driving away Joni about tore the roof off of the truck because a cockroach was crawling on my foot in the cab. Then when we pulled into Bryan three hours later, I noticed the guy didn't attach my trailer right, and the straps that hold down the wheels had come undone, I don't know how my truck didn't come off the trailer...I can't even imagine the disaster that could have caused. As we pulled up to our apartment there was no one there to open our apartment for us, and when we finally did get inside two hours later, we found our electricity hadn't been turned on. I felt completely drained, and shafted by a lot of people. It didn't help either when we pulled up that we were being stared at because we were the only white people within 2 square miles, and everyone was outside with thier bottles of alchohol in brown bags...and I do mean everyone was outside. When Joni finally got upset I just about couldn't take anymore, I honeslty felt like hunkering over and crying...which is wierd for me to think that if you know me. But that is just about when things started changing for the better.

My new elder's quorum president showed up with his wife to meet us at just the right time. Turns out Joni's uncle called our new bishop for us to get moving help without telling us. He in turn called three guys to come help us unload before it got dark. Just so happens that one of the guys works for the utility company and got everything straightened out for us so we had power. We were moved in within an hour, all drenched because of the humidity. I didn't think I could sweat out of my eyeballs but now I think otherwise. Our neighbors are all VERY nice. We talked to some people as we were moving in and joked around a lot with them. Every time we walk in and out of the door to go somewhere, there is someone outside we talk to and they are always friendly. When we came home from church on Sunday one lady asked us to pray for her because she didn't go to church that day as she was gulping down a bottle of beer, it was pretty funny. Our new ward is pretty cool, the testimonies in sacrament meeting just blew me away. We have already met a few couples our age that we are becoming friends with. We went to Transformers yesterday with some couples after the 4th of July breakfast, which was a pretty sweet show. Then we cooked hamburgers and fries and played games with another couple until late last night.

I was talking with Joel the other day about small Texas towns and how they are still racially divided. Its really wierd because College Station is so nice and everything seems "perfect", then Bryan is like the ugly stepsister. All the well to do white people live in College Station, and everyone else lives in Bryan. Our experience here has been pretty good so far, but we do notice the racial divide. We live really close to Lake Bryan, we went there the other day and caught the last glimpse of the sun setting on the lake, watching people jetski and a live band was playing in the background. I thought it was a nice touch to our feelings that everything is going to be okay while we are here.