Stormy Weather - June 5, SC News

So Heather and I are finally recovered from our vacation and life is getting back to normal-ish. It turns out that I'm headed back to CA next week. Kaylee's Birthday is Sunday and I'm sure we'll have some more pics of the kids to share soon.

As I was going throught he photos from our trip, I wanted to share some I snapped from the plane ride out to SC. After we took off from SLC the captain came on and said that there was a major storm system that was in our path and that we were being directed around it. Little did we know that we'd be near Albequerque, NM before we really started the trek east. Go figure. The captain pointed out that fact and also the weather system as we rounded the end of the storm. We were cruising about 37,000 feet and we were told that some storm cells went as high as 70,000 feet.

Anyway, I snapped several cool pictures of the clouds from the plane, here are a couple of my favorites. The first is the end of the storm as we came around.

As we got in front of the storm you could see multiple layers to it, creating some interesting pictures. This is a zoomed in photo of the lowest of a three layer cloud system. You can see a little bit of the rain here. Kinda eerie.

Anyway, those of you to the east can blame this as one of many storms causing the bad weather out there.

As you may know, Heather's brother Sam got married which was the reason for the trip. We got there a day ahead to have some time to help set up and socialize with Sam and Renata (she's from Argentina) before they left on their honeymoon. The wedding was typical for a Johansen wedding, there had to be something that happened and this time was no exception. The Columbia, SC temple is about and hour and a half away from where the family lives. It turns out that after arriving at the temple Sam discovered that he didn't have the marriage license. Well, 3-4 hours later we all met back at the temple for a later-than-planned ceremony. Here's a picture of the happy couple:


A couple of unique things about the day: first, the ceremony was done in Spanish so more than half of the people in attendance didn't understand the language. With my Portuguese I understood a little more than half of what ws said. The second thing that was that outside the temple and during the reception there was a webcast from a laptop so Renata's family in Argentina could see what was going on. A little unusual, but I'm sure it made the bride very happy to share with her family.

Mom's 50th, etc.

So, contrary to popular belief, I have proof that Mason wasn't all smiles while he was here in Utah. I know he had a really good time, but I thought this picture was too funny to not share with everyone. Honestly it was fun to have all the family together for the short time that it was. I think we all had a good time.


These pics are my contribution to the "mom's 50th" series of blogs that we've all had. I thought all of the decorations came together well and made a fun evening.



And of course we can't forget the cake that Heather put together. Mom's not too young now that she's 50! We officially buried her youth in a chocolate cake (note the gummi worms).


I think this is one of my favorite pics. You can tell that mom was really happy. Happy 50th mom!


We also had fun playing around with everyone - and very glad that we have the space to have people over without sitting on each other's laps! RockBand seemed to be a hit - especially Nate's smooth vocals. Of course we can't forget the "Scottish lakes" Police lyrics and Mason's astounding vocal performance on the B-52's "Roam". Too funny! I snapped a couple pics of Brad, DeAnna, and Donovan as they were jamming.


And now for a few I snapped over the week of our kids. I especially like Kaylee and Rachel's pics. They're growing up too quick!

Heather is having a...

GIRL!

It's another girl for us this time around. We had the ultrasound this morning. Just before going in, Bryant said, "actually I think it's a girl." And he was right on!

The ultrasound tech had some corny commentary as he went through the motions - things like "her eyes will be blue" and he'd change the color of the screen. The kid was wiggly and didn't cooperate very well. We may have another Kaylee on our hands. All the stats were normal and body parts were the right size and shape. Here's a couple of pics from the session. The first one shows that we have a guitar hero in the womb (note the vicious skull).


At one point she appeared to do a somersault where we got a nice side view.


In other news, we decided to do some painting this week. Just last night we cleared our living area (TV room) and we painted the walls a light tan color. This all in preparation for the entertainment console that we found (thanks for the tax rebate Pres. Bush) which was delivered this morning. We'll be painting the front room the same color either tonight or tomorrow. There's always something to do...

It's been nice having the major projects done. The garden is still living and I think at this point we'll be in good shape for fresh veggies. The dead spots in the yard (from where we dig in the sprinkler heads) are growing back. Our neighbors are even getting their yards prepped for grass. I'd say by the mid or end of the summer we'll be all set on our street. Can't wait for everyone to see it!

The Payoff... (kinda)

Just a quick post to share some cool news today - I was named an employee of the quarter within our consulting services team for the first quarter of 2008! I was recognized in front of my fellow consultants for the weeks of travel and integration work I've been doing with our new team members in San Diego while still maintaining my regular workload. In addition to the spotlight I'll get a $1000 bonus in my next paycheck - YEAH!

The bonus is not much in comparison to all the extra time and travel I've put in, but money is money. My past experience has shown me that good work gets rewarded. I'm hoping for an advancement/promotion in the not so distant future. This is one of the many reasons I'm happy with Omniture - go green!

Faith is like a little seed

Happy Mother's Day! Heather got a bed of flowers in the front yard. Yay! For mom we've decided to help build a swing set in her back yard. It's not even started yet, but hopefully we'll have it done soon.

We had another busy Saturday. We put in our garden yesterday. We planted a variety of bell peppers and tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green and yellow squash, jalapeños, and most important - cucumbers! we planted a strawberry patch as well, but don't expect much from that this year. the planter beds got cleared and we pulled a little more dirt from our garden pile to raise them up a bit. It's really starting to look like a finished yard. Can't wait for everyone to see it.

Here are some pics from the planting yesterday...



Both of the girls were pretty good about handling the plants. Kaylee would verbalize as she would "pat, pat, pat" the dirt around the plants. Bryant wasn't as kind to the plants he placed - he'd grab them by the leafy parts and hold them pretty tight so they wouldn't fall. We put an end to that one really quick.

We had a few extra plants so we donated the leftovers to mom's garden. It'll be fun to see how much our investment will multiply over the year. We spent $30-$40 in plants and seed. For us that's probably about what we spend for a few weeks of fresh produce. Can't wait to see the fruits of this labor!

And another one down...

Yes, the projects keep churning as long as I'm home, but this week it's off to San Diego again. This travel thing looks like it'll be wrapping up soon. It'll be nice when I can be at home on a regular basis. It's been nice to be at home and get some things done.

Before I go into the accomplishments over the last couple weeks, I thought I'd share some tidbits from the kids...

• Rachel got to go on her first school field trip this last week. They went to Hogle Zoo up in SLC. Unfortunately it was that morning that the weather decided to dump a few inches of May snow. She said she had a fun time, but was kinda cold.
• We can't get Kaylee to stay in the house. She's already the darkest one in the family and if it keeps up, she'll probably rival her uncle Scott Hiatt for summer skin tone. (Scott, do you miss the locating job?)
• Bryant's new favorite is Star Wars (that's my boy). He now runs around the house making the sounds of light sabers using his thumbs as the blade (just picture the kid running and jumping around with "two thumbs up"). He loves to pretend to fight "bad spiders" and he gets help from "good spiders". And we've not had any popcorn incidents to report. :-)
  

Heather has been up and down with this pregnancy. She's scheduled for an ultrasound on the 20th so we should have something fun to report in a couple weeks.

Since my last post I've been busy and finally have two projects off the list. Two weeks ago it was the sprinkler project. I dug up all the funny pipes, attached the sprinkler heads and buried them again. That one took me 5 days - one for hooking up the electrical stuff and getting my materials ready, three evenings to knock out half of it, and an entire Saturday to get the rest in the ground. I got some help from Scott on Saturday afternoon which was very welcome. My hamstrings were so sore that week.

The best part of the sprinkler project (other than being done) was Monday evening when dad was finally able/willing to come down and help. By the end of it we were both cold, soaked, and muddy, but I could run the system - plus I got to soak dad. That's still fun. Here's a tangent... hey family - do you remember when we had water fights in the house in Springfield? Filling cups of water and chasing each other through the house? ... anyway ...

The other project as I mentioned in an earlier post was a set of shelves in our closet under the stairs in our pantry. Sorry Harry Potter - you can't stay under our stairs - that shelf project is done. In a week I was able to cut, assemble, disassemble, sand, prep, stain, seal, and install what turned out to be a very nice looking set of shelves. It's almost a shame that they'll be hidden in a closet. Oh well, it's good practice for the future projects. Heather took some pictures and I'll see if she can post them this week.

Kids and projects

I'm at home this week and have access to pictures, so we'll start off with one that was taken a couple weeks back...


We had one of those random storms that comes in March/April and the kids pulled out their snowman kit. The kit includes MOST of the stuff required to make a snowman - notice the arms are made out of utility flags that they "borrowed" from the neighbors... I hope they don't hit the gas line when they have the trenching done for their sprinkler system!

Here's a pic of the little rascals from today - they were playing on the bean bag and I snapped a quick one.


So Bryant decided he wanted some popcorn today. I don't know how long it had been in, all I know is that I could smell something while I was upstairs. I went to the stairs, looked down and all I could see was a billowing cloud of smoke and the distinctive smell of overcooked popcorn (and at this point I'm wondering why the smoke alarms didn't go off). I run down the stairs and see Bryant standing on the chair by the stove waiting to get the popcorn out of the microwave. As I'm stopping the microwave (which still had about 15:00 left on the timer) he asks, "Dad, did the popcorn burn?" Needless to say we opened all the windows to air out the house. Even after a couple hours the smell remains... That kids drives me nuts sometimes.

Finally I can scratch one project off the list. I finished the raised garden bed yesterday. We no longer have a huge mound of dirt because it's spread out in the box. It's about 10x15 feet and is made out of redwood. Once we get the sprinkler system done (starting up that project this week because I'm actually in town) we should be ready to plant.