Weekly Catchup!

Hello everyone, welcome back. This week's blog is coming to you courtesy of OC Tanner and my work computer, the Mac is back in the hospital. So, sit back, grab a Diet Pepsi and enjoy my amazingly creative writings about nothing in particular.

Monday is Karli's Birthday -- Big 36.


First off, It's finally warming up. As early as last week I was beginning to wonder if we would ever see the sun again. I mean, I like the snow as much as the next guy, but COME ON. Not only was it a crazy winter (See my earlier posts in January and February) but it's been a long winter. Well, when we came home from Church today, it was 65 degrees, sunny and warming up! The weatherperson says that we should see more of this sun stuff. I know that by August I'll be wishing for some rain and snow again, but I'm enjoying it now.

Last weekend we had a lovely visit from Grandma Orton and her awesome dog Jersey. Grandpa Orton was mysteriously absent... except it wasn't a mystery. You see, in his effort to be the hardest working stake president in the world he had contract double pneumonia. For those of you not as smart as me, that means that you have pneumonia is both lungs. He decided to go to the doctor two days before he was supposed to arrive here, thinking they'd give him a couple of Advil and he'd be ready to go. Well, by the time Grandma and Jersey were ready to take off, Wayne decided he'd better stay home in La Grande and get better.

Needless to say, we were all a little bummed that he wasn't able to come. Dallin and I were ready to take him on in Guitar Hero. We'll have to wait until the next visit.

Dallin, Katelyn and Grandma all went to the solemn assembly session of Conference on Saturday morning. They loved being able to stand in the presence of President Monson and sustain him to be the 16th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What an amazing opportunity for them both and thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Orton for furnishing those tickets for them.

Karli, Krissy and I went to Sunday afternoon session. It was the first time I was able to sit on the ground level and not the balconies. We got to see President Monson, Elder Bednar, Elder Ballard and Elder Holland all deliver amazing talks on topics that we all needed to listen to. It was a great experience.

A few days later we received a visit from Darrin and Laura Orton and their awesome kids Nathan, Ellie and Molly. Although is was a short visit, their kids quickly picked right up where they left off -- Molly with Kristen, Ellie with Katelyn and Nathan hanging out with the big boys playing video games.

After a while Nathan and Dustin started playing Star Wars in the kitchen.

Darrin got a little better at Guitar Hero as the visit wore on, but he's still not very good. I think it's the first time in history he hasn't been awesome at a video game.

In short, the visit from the Ortons was way too short. We hope to see them again very soon.

This week we also got a day to play with my nieces Tasha and Gretchen (Mark and Brenda Hubner's oldest girls). They had just finished up a semester at Ricks, err BYU Idaho and were on their way back to Mesa Arizona to spend a week with Brenda and their little sisters. We love it when Natasha and Gretchen come and play, they are always fun to play with and give us lots of good gossip about the Hubner family.

The only bad thing is that I didn't take pictures of them, but will when they visit on their way back.


In the absence of my computer the past couple of days/weeks, I've been trying out Adobe Photoshop Express.

In short, it's a great online photo editor/album. What's even better, is that it's free. If you've used photoshop in the past, you'll find that it's very useful and customizable to the photo editing that goes on at home -- just like I do. It's every bit as good as Iphoto, except can be slower because it's web-based. Give it a try...

Has anyone else noticed how many awesome movies are coming out this summer and next year? I mean, you've got new Indiana Jones and Star Wars movie in the same summer! That never happened before. And in 2009 we get a new Star Trek and Arrested Development! . And Iron Man.

Karli and I would like to welcome a newcomer to the family -- Tammy's new, unnamed Mac made its appearance this week. We welcome it with open arms.

A couple of cool Disneyland updates for y'all.

Mr. Potato Head

My favorite Disneyland update column

Ok, I think that's it. As always, your comments are welcome. Please leave em.

Pat and Karli