FSO exam results

Clinton just got confirmation that he passed the written portion of the State Department Foreign Services Officer exam. YIPPEEEE

So on to the next step. His application and personal interest statements and references will all be reviewed, along with his FSO score. In about 12 weeks we'll find out whether he will be invited to the oral exam. So watch for another post some time in late July.

Ward Talent Show!

Saturday night the 19th of April, our ward had a talent show. Since Colette is the Activities Committee Chairperson, she was rounding up the local talent and found someone who needed a drummer. Well she just happened to know someone who had played the drums before. So if it will work - here is a couple videos of the music we played. And in the first video - if you can't tell - the thing that I hold up is 'sunglasses'.

The first song that we played was called ’The Stinky Cheese Man' written by our guitar player's friend. It's based on a kid's book that is a takeoff from the Gingerbread Man. On the Guitar is Seth McKenzie, Piano is David Stone (served a mission in Japan, and we were in the MTC together, and were in Japanese classes together at Weber), and finally the Drums is yours truly.

The second one is by Peter Paul and Mary called I Dig Rock and Roll Music. The Melody was played by Diana, Seth’s wife.

I hope this will work for everyone. We had a blast doing this. Just so that you know - I played with the guitar player twice, and the piano and flute just once before the day of the performance.

Sunday Dinnner at Mom's

I'd like to say that I would update this with pictures every month so the folks in VA, OK, MO, and soon TX/CA could feel a part of things, but no promises. However - unofficially - I am going to bring my laptop with my web cam and set it up at Mom's when we come each month and you all - if you would like - can chat, interact, or just watch as things go on. Thought it might be a fun way to interact with everyone. It may encourage everyone to use their web cams more too.

Well we had soup and salads. Nothing Special. **It was excellent and very tasty! Mom made potato soup, and we had bread sticks, and pasta, caramel apple, and jello salads.** Everyone in state was there. Matt got a job in Alaska and leaves in about a week. He'll be near Anchorage - so way up there. Travis got a permanent solid career job with the Federal Airline People doing Radar stuff. Sorry for my lack of specific details. He'll be going to OK for 6 weeks or so for training. Then he'll be back in UT.

Here is a couple pictures from Sunday. We celebrated birthdays for David, Travis and Becky.

We also played Bang! which is a lot of fun. Even Jenni played! Sarah was the Sheriff, and alas the Sheriff did not prevail. This will only make sense if you know the rules of the game. Favorite move of the game: Jenni's power was that she could use any number of bang cards on her turn, my power was a 'General Store' every turn, so I gave every person a card of my choice. Well I gave Jenni a gun that allowed her to use any number of bang cards on her turn. Ha ha - very useless card - LOL - I just died from laughing. She didn't think it was funny.

What a way to start your weekend!

Friday 4/11/2008 - about 3:25 p.m.
I'm just leaving work excited about the weekend and I get about 100 yards from work and this car pulls right in front of me, and there was an unavoidable collision. I was driving straight down the road and she pulled onto the roadway turning left in front of me. You be the judge. Well here are a couple of pictures of what my now dismal car looks like. FYI - at the time of collision, we were going slow enough that neither of our airbags deployed - with a head on collision.


Front, passenger side. Skid marks from my car. (Her on the right)

Another angle. No fun.

Deck Project

I have committed much of my spare time lately to the Case's Deck project. We stripped the surface boards off of the old deck, doubled the support, added a 16' beam, extended the deck another 12 x 8 feet and resurfaced it with Trex Decking, and are now in the finishing stages. Since I've mentioned it to about everyone and I'll be doing my own deck before too long, figured I'd add a few pictures to show our progress.

The first picture is us enjoying being able to sit on the new deck and relax. This is Kyle, my partner in crime. Although all credit can't go to Kyle, most of it does for this project. The second picture is a level sitting on the new 16 foot support beam, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words. I take pride in this kind of stuff.

Here is a picture of the extension on, and then finally a glimpse of what it will look like when we're finished.

We Ran Another Race

March 29, 2008
We ran in the Goldenwest Credit Union 5k for local schools. Race Info They had thousands of people running/walking and they quit recording time after 22 minutes, and no that is not something that I ever could hope to do - run 3.1 miles in less than 22 minutes. I ran it in about 30 minutes. Colette ran as well as Brandon K., my bro-in-law who now works at Goldenwest Credit Union as their telecommunications (phone) guy. It was threatening to snow and rain on us, and the forecast called for the storm starting at like midnight, the night before. Well the race started at 8:30 and the first wave of fury from the storm struck right about 9:15. So luckily we were in our car waiting to go home by the time the hail and snow started. It was a good little race there in So. Ogden.

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