Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Preserving Marriage

The church just came out with a new website on the Divine Institution of Marriage.

There are several nice features of this site that you can embed in your own blog.

Some videos:



A Widget:



A Badge:

Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage

You can even bookmark it on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and more. Help spread the word!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Twitter and The Summer Relief Trip

Here it is, mid August. Where is this summer going? I have no idea. One thing I do know is that I am SO ready for a vacation. In 4 days and less than 16 hours we will be on our way to California for a week. This will be our first road trip with both the kids. A few years back we took Petunia to Yellowstone, and we had a blast. But this will be Chunk's first excursion. I know it will be a challenge keeping them occupied while we drive, but the change of scenery will a welcome sight. Plus, going with The Peaches will also be a blast! I'm tying really hard to keep focused at work, but it's tough when I see that it is 77 degrees along the California Coast, and that gas prices are some 20 cents cheaper there! I CAN'T WAIT!

As you are well aware, my blog postings have been minimal at most. Besides Facebook, I have discovered this thing called 'Twitter' which is kind of a mini-version of a blog. You type in these 'tweets'-- a sentence or two of 'What you are doing right now'--and lately that has been much more my style. Quick and to the point. Facebook has the same kind of things, too. You can find me there at http://twitter.com/ensigndj. Come join me! I think you'll like it.

During the course of the road trip, I will try to post tweets of what it is we are doing, where we are, and anything interesting that we see. I might even update Facebook with a picture or two if we have the time.

California, here we come!

Thursday, July 03, 2008

New website to clarify Mormons and Polygamy

The church just launched a new website to help clarify polygamy confusion:

Do Mormons Practice Polygamy?

Simple and to the point. Love it.

Monday, April 28, 2008

What's been happening....

Well, it is time for my once-every-few-months blog post! It seems my wife has been better at blogging than me lately. Oh, well. Hopefully I can bring you up to speed on our goings on.

We have reason to celebrate lately, because now we have a yard! We have a full-fledged sprinkler system, sod, trees, and curbing. And no, we didn't do it ourselves. That what our tax return was for this year, and it was well worth it. I did spend the evening fertilizing the grass, and boy, did it feel good to putter around the yard!

We did plant 4 trees by ourselves. Three in the front (flowering fruitless pear) and one in the back (Blazing maple). I hope they grow well. The kids love to help water them, even though more water seems to get on them than in the ground. They love to have a place to play outside now. Our flower and vegetable gardens can wait until next year.

Another exciting development this week is the launch of FrontRunner, the new commuter rail. We took the kids for a ride on Saturday and they loved it. And so did I. When we came back to our station and the train went on its way, the kids waved goodbye to it while exclaiming, "Bye Bye, Daddy's Toot-Toot!" I am thrilled to be able to ride it. It goes pretty fast (we passed up a ton of traffic this morning, and I couldn't help but smile), and the ride is so smooth and quiet. Even though it may take me the same amount of time to get to work, the station is right up the street. Yet another advantage to moving into this house. It is much closer than the bus stop. We can even see the trains from our backyard, which is fun.

I got called to be the Ward clerk recently. It is much more involved than being the Finance clerk, but I love it. Every week, I learn new things.

Well, that about does it for now. Thanks for checking in!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Playing Mr. Mom

Whew. What a busy time this has been. For a while now, The Wife has had some health issues that pretty much knock her down and out for days at a time. Well, last week she had an ultrasound (not what you think!). It was discovered that she was the proud mother of gall stones. She met with the surgeon and determined that the best course of action was to have her gall bladder removed. For whatever reason, the gall bladder is one of those organs that really isn't necessary, like the appendix. Who knew? So, on Thursday, she went under the knife and now no longer has her gall bladder.

The surgery went well, and she is resting comfortably for the most part, but the pain comes and goes. She is doing much better today than yesterday, but we think in the long run this will solve these ongoing health issues.

It has been interesting for me to play Mr. Mom. I don't think that can ever measure up to what The Wife does for the kids. I was able to get Petunia ready for school yesterday, even though she cried getting on the bus. After that, I took Chunk to the Library and Post Office so she could get some rest while Petunia was as school. It's sad, but I count the hours until nap time and bedtime (less than a half hour now). Right now they are watching 'Calliou'. Soon it will be time for bedtime stories and prayers. Oh, how I look forward to that. I have had to break up many an argument between Petunia and Chunk, clean up spilled food storage macaroni in the basement, change a few batteries in some electronic toys, wiped some messy faces, but all-in-all, not too bad.

Once things calm down, in my quiet moments while the family sleeps, I have been really into Railroad Tycoon III. In the past it has been games like Flight Simulator and The Sims. They are good little escape games that help me to relax. Lately, I have needed it. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids to death, but sometimes things get really insane, and to keep my sanity, there is nothing like building a railroad empire until 1:00 in the morning to get my mind off the hectic schedule of playing Mr. Mom.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Snowball Fight!!

I Found this on Jibjab. Merry Christmas!

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Happy Holidays!

Well, I haven't been much of a blogger lately. The wife has surely picked up the slack on her blog:

http://valndug.blogspot.com

But I did find something pretty funny for this holiday season: ElfYourself.com. I did one for our family. Check it out:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9587568099

Happy Holidays!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Newsroom Embedding is Live!

Another work post, but we've just gone live with the linking and embedding for the LDS Church's Newsroom website.



Here is an embedded video from one of the October 2007 World Report stories:



Here's another video with Elder Ballard answering the question "Are Mormons Christian?"



These videos are hosted on the Church's servers, but, as you can see, I am able to link to it just fine.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Embedding videos

Here is a link to a video from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom website, which is the website that I maintain at work. It is about President James E. Faust who passed away recently.

I am testing the functionality of embedding videos from the Newsroom site into blogs, similar to what you can do on YouTube.

Click the play button below to view the video:



Looks like it's not too difficult to do, and it works like a charm.

To embed this video in your blog, simply copy and paste the following code into your blog entry:


With a little 'view source'-ing, you can pretty much embed any video from Newsroom that is published. Hopefully soon we can make it easy for anyone to embed Newsroom videos into their blogs or websites. I love trying to figure this stuff out. This is probably the only time that I get to blog and work at the same time! I love my job!

P.S. Sorry for not blogging for a while, but things have been extremely busy. Our house is coming along nicely. My wife drove by it after dropping Petunia off at pre-school today and she said they are putting up drywall! Yay!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Long time no blog

Wow...I didn't realize it's been so long since my last blog. Certainly a lot has happened, and finding time to blog lately has been next to impossible.

The only reason I found time to blog now is that I am in the middle of a conference call with work (we are in the middle of an internal web application program launch), and I am waiting for other co-workers to get done with their part before continuing on. Luckily, my part is done, I just need to make sure everyone else does the right thing. I feel like conductor in the symphony.

Our house is sold and we are living in a tiny two bedroom apartment for the next 5 months and 7 days (or there abouts) while our new house gets built. It is really cramped. We have half of our stuff in a storage shed. We were hoping that by now, our plans would be complete and a hole would be dug, but we haven't heard anything yet.

We are SO excited for this new house, and can't wait to get into it. It will be a long 5 months, and I'm sure we'll be out to the site several times a week to check on the progress.

Who knows when I'll be able to blog again, but that is where we sit right now. Apartment living really stinks. We hear all sorts of noises at all hours and our neighbors play pulse pounding music on the weekends. But at least we are saving a little bit of money in the meantime. With the equity from our former house, we were able to pay off our van, so we are, besides some balances on our credit card, debt-free. And THAT is a nice feeling.

Well, things are going well with the launch and we are just about done, but it's not without incident. Time to go home to The Wife, who I miss dearly!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Busy Month

Wow. March just seemed to fly by. A lot has happened this month. After we signed on to build a house, The Wife and I kept feeling worse and worse about our decision. We still felt like this was the time to move, but the choice just didn't feel right. We loved the floor plan and the builder, but the location was not ideal. The lot size was significantly smaller than what we wanted, and each time we'd go back to that neighborhood, we just didn't feel like it was the place to raise our children. Not that it was a BAD neighborhood, but we felt that down the road, it could turn that way.

So we decided to go look at one more builder that was just up the road from where we were going to build. Their lots were a LOT bigger (1/4 acre, as opposed to .16 acre), the house plans were a little bigger (and, frankly, less expensive), and we loved the neighborhood. So, after praying about it, we felt that THIS was the place to build.

We are feeling much better about things now, and the ball is rolling. We meet to sign the papers on Fruday, and shortly after, signup for the loan pre-qual.

So far, we have had about 13 families come though the house, but as of yet, no offers. It's a little discouraging, but, we still aren't in any rush to move. The Wife would like someone to make an offer because then we can move into an apartment and save some extra money for 6 months. Plus, she wouldn't have to worry about an agent calling and saying, 'We'll be by to show the house from 5:30-7:30'. That is the worst because then she has to make sure the house is clean and we have to drag the kids out somewhere.

So, anyway, that is the update for now.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Life changes

Holy cow. It has been a while since my last blog. I guess there wasn't too much to report on in the last few months, until now.

We have done something tonight that seems very surreal. We put our home up on the market! We are still kind of like, AH!!...What did we just do? We have been thinking for a long time about moving a little farther north so that we can be 1) closer to family, 2) in a bigger home for a better price and 3) close to a commuter rail stop for work. And this past week, things have just happened to fall into place. This is the way it has always been for our family. At the time, the big decisions were always scary (We thought the same thing each time: "AH!! What did we just do??"), but they just felt right. The decision to marry was right, the decision to move to Layton was right, the decision for The Wife to quit work to take care of the kids was right, and now, the decision to move again seems scary, but right.

There are still a lot of unknowns, like will it sell in 2 weeks or 2 months? We aren't really in any rush, because we haven't even begun to build our next house. Tomorrow we meet with the builder to lock in the lot and the house plan, so that will feel a bit better to at least know that that ball is rolling. We swore that we would never build again, but, here again, the decision just feels right. The other thing that is a comfort in all this is that our next house will be our home base for the rest of our lives. Even if it means we move into an apartment for a few months while they finish building it, I think we are fine with it. It will save us a little money anyway.

Wow. A lot to think about, and I am sure I will blog about the progress as it happens. I feel much better after typing this. Ain't blogs grand? It's like your own free psychiatrist.

For now, while The Wife is away at book club, Petunia is asleep and I am here with chunk. Time for a little diversion...gonna go catch up on 24.

Living the American dream all over again. Wow.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Commuter Special

What a surprise! I caught my commuter bus today, and it happens to be equiped with wireless Internet. So here I am blogging whilst I commute. Sure beats being behind the wheel! We are going at a pretty good clip, so traffic isn't too bad.

I don't normally catch them this late, but work was a bear today, so I'm coming home a little later than normal, and I had to bring my laptop home because we need to check on our website later. We had an upgrade, (which is happening right now) so we need to keep tabs on it and make sure it all went well.

I would have stayed later at work, but I needed to be hoome to do some church stuff with the Bishop.

Well, gotta go. I want to post something to The Wife's MySpace page (to surprise her).

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Cause for Celebration!

Chunk finally slept through the night this weekend! Woohoo! We'll see if it keeps up, but that is cause for celebration!

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Dave Barry and Me

Happy Three-day weekend to you all! I can't tell you how nice it is to have an extra day off this weekend. We are spending it well, cleaning house, playing with the kids, possibly heading up to Grandma and Grandpas. We'll see.

So, I normally don't actively participate in the public blogosphere, but yesterday, I found something that was just too good to keep to myself. I am a huge '24' fan, and I saw something in USA Today that seemed so appropriate to pass on, that I couldn't resist.

Dave Barry (The Miami Herald humor columnist), who I have been a faithful reader of ever since my high school days, also has a blog that I keep up with on a daily basis. Long story short, he is a huge '24' fan as well, and blogs about it all the time. I found this article, and immediately forward it on to him. Lo and behold, he posts it on his blog and credits me for it! I was well pleased. Granted, he doesn't know me from Adam, but to have this kind of communication with people anywhere just amazes me.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

New Years Resolutions

Well, another year has come and gone. It's hard to believe. Each year seems to go by faster than the last. And when you look back, it's amazing to see just how much your life changes in that year.

With the new year comes the proverbial New Years Resolutions. I always thought that resolutions were a good thing, but I have noticed a trend when it comes to the New Year. It seems that each year it's the SAME thing. Get in shape, eat healthier, get out of debt, blah, blah blah blah. And it always ends up the same. You last for about 2-3 weeks, and then it's back to the same old grind. It seems to me that New Years Resolutions never seem to stick. Am I right, or am I right, or am I right?

So my plan this year is the same as it was last year---to not make any resolutions. The way I see it, if you find yourself needing to change, why wait until the new year? Why not just start now? I did the same thing last year, and it worked out great. I never felt guilty for breaking a resolution 2 weeks into it, and I found that I could just find new or different ways to improve whenever I needed to. I found I could improve myself not just because the clock was ticking into a new year and telling me I had to, but because I wanted to.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Christmas came a little early!

knite20 just had a new addition to their family this week. She is quite the cutie! We wish them all the best with their newest addition to the family! We love you guys! Give us a holler if you need anything at all!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

The 12 Days of Christmas

The Wife surprised me with a little something different this year. The other day I find this present with a tag that says, "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....."

She done and did the '12 days of Christmas' on me! How sweet is that?? I love that woman!

So, in honor of this joyous occasion, I will be updating the blog with each day of Christmas. Stay tuned!

Here is where I stand so for:

1. Pirates of the Carribean 2 DVD
2. Two beef sticks
3. Three little notes from each of the family, including Chunk and Petunia
4. Four GooGoo Supremes (Chocolate, Pecan, Caramel) Yummmm
5. Five Candy Bars! (100 Grands to be specific)
6. Six Pairs of Socks
7. Seven Homade Brownies
8. Eight Garage Storage Hooks
9. Nine Holes of Golf
10. 'Ten Cow' wife, from Johnny Lingo!
11. Eleven cans of soda
12. Twelve music downloads

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Fun little Website found

A coworker of mine showed me this cool little website. It is called GiveawayOfTheDay.com. Every day there is a new fully licensed program that you can download for FREE. The only catch is that it is free for that day only. I have downloaded screensavers and some fun little utilities. They even have games, too.

Blogging will be light for the remainder of the year because of deadlines at work and the Christmas holiday. The family is doing well and Petunia can't wait to open her Christmas presents. We know because she already opened some of them once already. We had to re-wrap and hide them. She's forgotten about them anyway, so it was no big deal. Kinda funny, though. This will be a fun Christmas for us. Hope it will be for you too!

Merry Christmas!

Friday, November 24, 2006

'Tis the Season

Well, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It is always great to be with the family this time of year. Good food, good fun. We spent the day with my family, then came up to The Wife's family for the night and day after festivities. I made a chocolate fudge pecan pie courtesy of knite20 and it was a hit at both families!

The Wife got up at 3:30 this morning to go with her sisters for the door buster sales at Wal-Mart and Shopko. They always go just for the fun of it, to watch the people fight over the latest toys. But every so often, they actually find some good deals. And this year was no exception. She saw some ads for a mountain bike for less than $40 and was able to snatch two of them! We have been talking about getting some good bikes for the family that we can hitch a jogger stroller to for the summer, and now we can! She is enjoying the fruits of her labors now by going back to bed.

The family is doing well. Chunk is now eating mush, and is getting better at sleeping, but we are still waiting for the day he sleeps all the way through the night. Petunia LOVES the Christmas lights that are starting to show up on houses all over the neighborhood. We put up the Christmas tree this week just so she could enjoy the lights a little early then have it there when we come home from Thanksgiving.

We love this time of year! Hope you do too!