Spring Weather

The first week in May, we woke up to snow on the ground. It didn't last too long, but still.




A week and a half later, we irrigated for the first time of the year. It was warm enough that PJ had fun playing in it.

Easter 2010

This year JoAnn decided she wanted some new ducks for Easter. Our other ducks, Pearl and Elmer are getting old and may not be around much longer. Parker named these ducks Easter Egg, Donald, and Daisy. He knows which is which and if you don't believe me, just ask him.




Sometime around Easter, I've lost track of time, Dustin took PJ to the park for the first time of the year. He loves to go to the park as you can see. I love this photo.

JoAnn's Honor

JoAnn received a very nice honor a couple of weeks ago. She was selected as an outstanding educator in the Jordan School District. The bad thing about it is that I have to accompany her to a banquet at the Little America Hotel next week. I really don't like banquets. But it is a big honor, I think there are about 10 teachers in the entire Jordan District being honored that night.

Mr. Lucky

I don't know why but I've always been lucky at "draw your name out of the hat" kind of things. I used to go to "Western States Land Commissioners" conventions for work. At these conventions, they always had a dinner on the final day and they had prizes which they awarded to those whose names were drawn out of the hat or box or whatever. I won at least one grand prize, one or two runner-up prizes, and lots of other prizes such as briefcases, totes, shirts, that kind of thing.

There was also a name drawing at work a couple of years ago. The Director at the time, who didn't like me and towards whom the feeling was reciprocated, had a couple of tickets for a sky box to watch the Jazz. Much to his dismay, my name was drawn.

Anyway, last week, JoAnn and I went down to BYU to listen to the last in a series of lectures about Hugh Nibley. Since it was the last lecture, and since it was given by Michael D. Rhodes, who co-wrote Nibley's last book, One Eternal Round, they had a drawing for an autographed copy of the book. As they were getting ready to draw the name, I leaned over and told JoAnn "I'm pretty lucky at these sorts of drawings". She just said that she never won anything. She's been to at least a million teacher educational gatherings where they drew names and she's never won anything. Well, you guessed it, they drew my name for the autographed book. Now I feel obligated to read it.

Not Boomer's Favorite Day

Boomer is a pretty good dog but he is somewhat, how shall I say it, wild. JoAnn likes to take him and Sadie for walks but he is so rambunctious that it is difficult. He barks all the way to the park and he whines and cries while JoAnn is getting them ready to go. He refuses to walk at a leisurely pace and instead, tries to pull her arm off. When Richie comes home from school, he tries to use Caesar Milan's tactics to tame him down (as has JoAnn before him) to no avail. Richie finally swore that he would no longer work with Boomer until he got neutered. JoAnn has been after me to take him to the vet for at least a year now. Well the day finally came. I knew what was in store for us; Boomer becoming a small bulldozer, using the Elizabethan Collar to push things out of the way including the lower legs of any human beings in the vicinity. He crashes into doorways especially often and usually is moving at full speed. In the first photo you can see the collar is beginning to split. He only wore the collar for about 6 days and I had to tape the split in the collar 3 times. Luckily, he is now healed , stitches are out, and life is back to normal. Dustin told me I should have had him fitted with neuticles, but by that time, it was too late.

What is Senta up to?

One of the reasons I started this blog is because Senta had a blog and I loved to read it. She always had such great, creative stuff, it was wonderful. So, I figured if I loved to read Senta's blog, maybe my mother would like to read mine, which she says she does. Anywho, Senta is too busy these days to keep her blog up, which is a loss to the world. Since she hasn't posted lately, I thought I'd put some stuff on my blog that she has been doing. Besides working at SOS, she does a lot of freelance stuff, some of which is designing Cricut cartridges (whatever they are). She came over the other evening and was showing JoAnn a couple of cartridges she had designed so I guess I'll show you.

The BYU Museum of Art (MOA)

Last Saturday, JoAnn and I went down to the BYU MOA. She has been reading a book entitled "The Healer's Art" by Lloyd D. Newell and Don H. Staheli. On the cover of the book is a painting titled "Christ Healing at the Well of Bethesda" by Carl Heinrich Bloch. The book talks about various aspects of Christ's healing powers and relates some of them to the painting. Anyway, the painting is in the BYU MOA so we went down to see it (the story of how the painting, a national treasure of Denmark, got to BYU MOA is fascinating). It was a great experience to be able to contemplate this work and some of the other great works that are on display. Did you know the BYU MOA has the world's largest collection of Maynard Dixon works? Probably not.

By the way, if anyone from the BYU MOA reads this, I did not get the photo from their web site so don't go tracking me down for copyright violations.