Wedding Bells

On February 27th, my younger brother Larry proposed to his girlfriend Megan. She said yes!!! They will be getting married in the Salt Lake City Temple on April 22nd. It will be a joyous occasion in a year filled with many blessings already. We are all very excited for them, and will all be trekking out to Utah. Fortunately, I will be trekking a little higher and faster as I will be flying in, (Southwest of course) and spending a couple extra days with him before the rest of my family gets here. So Salt Lake, watch out the weekend of the 18th of April, 2 crazy Kansas Mormon boys will be tearing up the town! Actually, we will probably go out for sushi.

Tomorrow I am going back to work. It is bittersweet. While I have enjoyed staying home for the past week, I am not meant to be a stay at home parent. First, Clara is way better than I am and has a lot more patience than I do. Second I enjoy my job too much. I mostly miss having a routine. Get up, be to work, and do the various things that need to be done. I have four meetings for tomorrow and could not be happier about it. Mostly, I think that children are better off when they have their mother raising them. Case in point; anytime my kids have learned something (crawling, walking, talking, etc.) it has been when they have been away from me. Yes, I dumb my kids down. It's not intentional, it just happens. It is not a guy thing either. I have a good friend who has raised two wonderful and smart daughters on his own, so it must be me. Anyways, I look forward to the fact of missing my kids and having them run to me when I get home from work. Oh yeah, I will not miss getting them to take a nap.

-John

What a Web Cam Should Really Be Used for

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday and bought a web cam. Well actually 4 web cams. Clara and I had been talking about getting one so the kids could video chat with their cousins and grandma in Kansas. I originally went for a $20 Logitech that got pretty good reviews. When I went to get it, there were a whole slew of other types ranging from $16 up to almost $100. What caught my eye was a box that had 2 cameras in it. It was made by a company called Ezonics, and it was an EZ Video Chat kit. It came with 2 headsets as well. So I bought the last 2 boxes they had. Best part...$35. That’s $15 a camera and they are a higher resolution (1.3mp) than the $20 Logitech. I set mine up and it came with some extra programs. One was a video creator, one was a video mail program, and the other was a surveillance program....creepy. Anyways, I set it up with yahoo chat, and once my family members get theirs set up, we will try it out. I spent a while trying to set up the head set so we could use it as a microphone. I later found out that the camera has one built in. We have our computer hooked up to our big screen in out room, so the headset was not feasible as it did not reach very far. For one on one chat at a desk, the headset would work fine. For multiple people, stick with the mic in the camera and turn up the volume. Anyways, my sister is taking one box back with her, and will use one of the cameras, and give the other to my mom. Clara’s brother Aaron and his wife will get the other since they will have a new baby in June, and that way Clara's parent's can see her. We hope we can get good use out of these.

JJ and The Plane

My sister, JJ comes into town today. I am getting ready to go pick her up from the airport in a few minutes. She had an early flight that wasn't cancelled until her husband already dropped her off and left. She caught another a couple hours later. That’s why I never fly United. Only Southwest. Besides, you have to love a company whose President said "Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun." (Colleen C. Barrett) I was very happy when Southwest changed their policy to where you didn't have to race to the line to get a front seat. Instead, they now assign you a number and you stand in place when it is time to board. It saves me from having to watch those weird people standing by the gate 2 hours before we board, just so they can get the seat they want. I never cared to do that; I figured as long as I have a seat, I am happy. Besides, I would usually try to sit behind the wing. It is pretty cool watching the flaps raise and lower as we go along. The scary part is landing. Have you ever seen the wings when a plane lands? The flaps flip up at a 90 degree angle, and those 3 feet of resistance that they create actually slows the plane down?! The other scary part about sitting by the wing is when you swear the plane isn't level because your wing is almost touching the ground. But I digress. I am very happy to have JJ spend the week with us because I have to go to work, and Clara shouldn't be doing too much with the C-Section. Abbi and Jake are excited as well, but I don't think they realize their cousins are not coming with her. They love their cousins and miss them. I think we are going to invest in a web cam so we can do video chat with them and Grandma Kathi. Anyways, I am off to the airport. I will arrive on time because I am driving a Chevrolet Impala. Unlike United, it is very reliable.

-John

Pictures

Please enjoy the albums of our wedding and of Isaac. I will post more when I create them. As I was going through my pictures on Picasa (thanks Ashley for the recommendation) I thought I would post this Christmas eve picture of Jake, Abbi, and their cousin Mandolin.

Welcome To Our Blog!!!

So at the urging of a good friend (Ashley), we decided to start our family blog. Clara will probably be running it most of the time, but John may have some input. Anyways, a lot has happened this year. We moved to Colorado in May. John works at a credit union in Boulder while Clara stays at home with Abigail, Jacob, and our newest addition Isaac. We are very happy being back in Colorado, and the only thing better would be to sell our house in Topeka, so we can buy our own out here. Thats all for now, enjoy the pictures and future posts.