Famous Neighbor?

I was listening to an old episode of Mormon Miscellaneous, a radio talk show about Mormon History, I heard Allen Malmquist's name mentioned. While I lived in his ward for a long time and knew his daughter, I never felt like I knew him personally very well.

It turns out that Brother Malmquist discovered a lead scroll by Lee's Ferry in 2002 that is purported to have been written by John D. Lee admitting guilt, along with Brigham Young, for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The radio show host mentioned several times how knowledgeable Allen Malmquist was about the area.

The scroll is probably a forgery, but it was sure fun to hear Brother Malmquist's name and to feel a little bit famous by association. I wonder who took the time to forge the document and how it got into the fort by Lee's Ferry. Someday it will be fun to watch the celestial replay and learn all those interesting answers.

I found a paper online that gives some background if you are interested.

Truman Madsen

Truman Madsen passed away this morning. I wrote down a few memories here.

Happy Birthday, Nicole!

Maybe you and Theo can plan a hot date to watch this interesting show about the Rez. It is from the same guy that did the documentary about eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/26682/30-days-life-on-an-indian-reservation

Wow Eric!

The end of the school year is here. Eric is moving to high school next year. Before they sent him on his way, the school gave Eric an award for his perfect 4.0 (all 3 years). We are sure proud of him and the hard working young man he is.

Um...so I have this new blog...

The Parks/Recreation building in our town doesn't have a handicap parking space OR a handicap entrance. To get in you have to go up a flight of stairs. Actually, around in the back, there is a ramp to the back door, but the back door is locked with a keypad lock and a sign that says "Employees Only. Please Use Front Entrance."

Before Gee was born, I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed. But a few weeks ago we had to get some forms and sign a liability waiver to sign up for swimming lessons. I had all the kids with me, naturally, because the Parks/Recreation Office is only open when Bradley is at work...

Read the rest and give me advice at my new blog...

Wedding Update

Saturday was the Hannay family kitchen shower hosted by Karina, Lori & Kris.

Days Gone By

Here are some fun pictures I wanted to post in light of the pending nuptuals. This was 14 years ago this June!

Does anyone recognize the cute little flower girl in the front there?

She isn't the only one who looks a bit younger! :D

Too Cute!!!

Color Alert

Wedding Alert... For all interested parties.

Lauren has changed her wedding colors!!
Black, White, CHAMPAGNE (Mothers) & RED (Bridesmaids)!!

This has been a wedding alert.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy M day to all of my sisters and my own special mom. I love you. Michelle

Conference Call Info

I thought we might give Tokbox a try again for our group call. It is the only free service I know of that allows so many parties to video conference. There is a lot of latency in any of these internet conferencing solutions, so expect that it will take a while for what you say to make it to the other participants.

Here is the URL that you can use to link to my profile on Tokbox. http://www.tokbox.com/Bradley3

Once you get on, you'll need to click the green button to start a video conference with me. I will merge you in with everyone else. You will probably get a pop up asking if you want to permit the computer to access you video camera and microphone. (You will want speakers and a microphone at the least. Hopefully won't have too much echo.) When you see the pop up, click "Allow" and then click close.

I'm thinking that 5:00 PM Mountain Time would be a good time. I left voice messages everywhere a few minutes ago, so hopefully you aren't reading this after the time of the call! Mom should be off of her call to her mom by that time and hopefully the time will work for everyone else. I hope you can make it!

Wedding Fun

We had a great time at the wedding of one of Keryn's roommates today. Kim and company were kind enough to watch the kids for a big chunk of the day. Steve even pitched in to save me from a fashion faux pas by loaning me some black shoes for the afternoon. Now we are all practiced up for Lauren's wedding!

Mother's Day Call

We would love to get together for a conference call with Mom and Dad for Mother's Day. I was thinking late afternoon, early evening to fit everyone's church, dinner, and time zone schedules. What do you all think? We haven't done one for a while.

DON'T open emails/attachments about Swine Flu

Hey, guys, just a little warning: Don't open any attachments or click any links from emails you get about swine flu. Because then you'll get swine flu.

Just kidding. You really won't get swine flu. But you might get a computer virus or see something you really didn't want to see.

Bottom line: if you don't know who sent it, or even sometimes when you do know who sent it, don't open it.

Martin's April Happenings

April has certainly been a very busy month for us with all kinds of exciting events. Here are a few of the highlights.....

Drake finished up his track season with several meets in Kayenta, Tuba City, and Page. He did things like the long jump and sprints (fancy that). We chased him around the rez to as many meets as we could.

Corbin and Bowen started the Little League season. Bowen is in the minors this year (machine pitch) on the Dodgers. Corbin has moved up to the majors and is playing for the Braves. They both have two games a week and lots of practices, so we are spending lots of quality time at Birch circle in the infamous Page spring winds. The boys are loving it!

Rex had a big party for his 6th birthday. As the party happened to coincide with my spring break, I had all kinds of fun finally using my new sewing machine I got for Christmas making Jedi cloaks for all the guests. We even had some surprise visitors when Theo's brother, Donny and his family showed up. He and his family have moved back to the states from Germany to Sierra Vista in extreme southern AZ. We are so glad they came for the weekend. Their son Josh is also 6.

Along with costume making, I tackled my first ever (and most likely my last) paper mache project, a Death Star pinata! The only thing Rex cared about having for his party was a pinata, and since all our Walmart has was those cheesy pull-string kind, I got ambitious. That sucker was a project! Lots of goo and mess, not my favorite things. I must love this kid!

As mentioned in another post, we are working on building a website for trail running. Theo took the kids and Otis out on a long afternoon hike to a couple of the trails to get some fun pictures. Unfortunately, our camera battery chose this day to die!!! Aaarrrrrggghhhh. Here is one of the few photos of a place called the Hoo-Doos (sp?) we will be adding to the list.

I was busy at home trying to finally get my very first veggie garden planted. Theo graciously built me a raised bed with water run to it and everything! I am so excited to try my hand at this. I have been saving this spot in our yard for 6 years. It was about time I got on it! Hopefully pictures of cute little sprouting green plants and then even later, bountiful harvest are to come. Stay tuned! Gardening tips are welcomed!

Bowen pulled out his two front teeth! He looks so big!

Theo took his third annual trip to Louisville to run with Tim. It usually falls pretty close to their birthday. They did the half marathon, and Theo placed 3rd in 1:10, a great time! He was pretty happy since this is about the best he has run since his accident and knee surgery several years ago. FYI- Theo is training for an ultra-marathon (a lifelong dream) in June. It is 6 day stage race where he will cover over 120 miles (yes, Theo is a little unbalanced). We're hoping he can stay healthy and injury free until then. He is getting into great shape. I am so proud of you honey!!!

Those are the high points. We are sure looking forward to summer and seeing all of you at Lauren's wedding in June!

Two votes for SWAMP IT!

Amen to Kim! When we lived in Denver we had a swamp cooler in both our houses. Some people put them on the roof, but because of community ordinances we couldn't. Skip, being the calculating guy that he is and very industrious, cut a hole in our house just big enough for the cooler to fit. Inside it was at floor level. He hung it from the side of the house, buy the water source, in an area that would get afternoon shade, and very low, making sure there was enough clearance for it to drip and such. He added some caulking. Then we hid the vent by strategically placing an end table in front of it. The bottom of the table was open so it could blow without obstruction and I couldn't see it {not very pretty}. Our house was a little over 2000 square feet and we were always extremely comfortable. Our electric bills were so low compared to our friends that had central air.

Oh yeah I forgot, it was hooked up to the water source so we never had to check on the water. It just came on when we turned the unit on and as an added bonus Skip hooked it up to a remote so when I got too cold at night I could turn it off without getting out of bed. Genius!

Swamp it!

When Steve & I lived on our little brick house we had a swamp cooler. ($500-$700) It cranked out the cold air! When you don't have a lot of square footage you can run those things for cheap and get it cold enough to hang meat!

Are you planning on staying in your house much longer?? I don't think you would recoup that big of an investment for heating/cooling. Just bag the improvements and move up to Lehi closer to us! Interest rates have never been lower!!!

My Two Cents Worth

We have lived with a "Heat" HA! pump for the past two and a half years. For me it has been quite a different experience than Nicole's.

It heats a house perfectly if the temperature is in the 50's. When it gets colder the house losses more heat and the heat pump has to work harder to change the cold air to hot, once you reach around 37 degrees it stays on constantly and lower temps than that cause the auxiliary heat strip to start operating. This is all electric.

We had a long cold winter for VA and our bills were through the roof. To top it all off once your house cools off, like at night when you turn the temp down{ we stopped doing this, because we couldn't get our house to get above 63 in the day time} it takes forever for it to heat up again. The heat pump must run night and day 24/7. Expensive and you are still freezing.

I think Utah has some cold days for a while in the winter. I am not sure of Page and maybe Nicole's unit is much more efficient than ours. I really don't ever want a heat pump again. Except of course if we move to a much warmer climate, then I might consider it... for a minute.

Sorry I have such a strong opinion on this, but I do not like to sleep in fleece...I am talking gloves and socks.

One answer

While doing our addition, we switched from a swamp cooler and gas furnace to a heat pump. They do the heating and the cooling. We have LOVED it for the year we have had it. It is electric, so I don't know how environmentally friendly it is. However, using water for the swamp cooler isn't great either right! We already had ducts in our house, so it was about $4,000 for one good sized unit (our house actually has two, one for the new part of the house, and one for the old part). If you need ductwork, it may cost more. I hope that helps. Let us know if you have other questions. Good luck!

Air Conditioning

So...the summer cometh. Yay! Except, nay! We have no air conditioning, and lemme tell you--while I love our little window unit, it only cools the living room and the dining room, and every time I try to vacuum it blows the fuses, and...well, yeah. It's not quite adequate, although we can definitely live through many more summers if we have to.

But, you all know how noble Bradley is, how concerned he is about the economy. He really wants to do his part to stimulate economic growth in the country, and so we are considering installing central air. Only for the well being of the economy, of course.

And here's the other thing: our furnace is 14 years old, and furnaces of this type are usually good for 15-20 years max. So it may conk out next winter, or it might last another six years. Nobody knows.

So here's the dilemma: Should we replace the furnace with a furnace/air conditioning, because there are a TON of rebates/tax credits/etc available right now, and we would save $3300? (Bringing the price down to a measly (HA!) $7700.) Or should we just take the risk that the current furnace is going to be just fine, and just buy the a/c (without the rebates/credits/etc), which will be around $3200-3400?

Anybody have any advice/information? We wanted to tap into the great wealth of knowledge that resides in our family...so, speak up if you have any ideas!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAUREN
WE LOVE YOU!

More Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday Theo and Kim!!!!!! Love you!

Bradley's birthday and Gideon's crutches

(A little update on our Gid-kid.)

Gideon got his new crutches about a week ago. He's definitely unsure about them, but here he is with his therapist, Kim, trying them out.


And here are the kids helping Daddy have a happy birthday. He was the "king" for the evening and they made him a crown and everything. Ezra called him "Your Majesty" for most of the evening.

The curse of the spring break

We went to my sister LaDale's house in Colorado Springs during her spring break the last week in March this year. The trip there was a nightmare, with Vail Pass closed for 4 hours because of snow/accidents. Once the pass reopened, it took us 2+ hours just to get across the 27 miles of the pass. After being in the car for 17 hours, we arrived at LaDale's apartment. The first two days of break were marvelously fun, and then the Great Blizzard of 2009 arrived. This is a picture of the front porch of LaDale's apartment:
This is what happens to your pre-schoolers when they are cooped up in an apartment with few toys for 36 hours:
So we eventually came home and got back to our lives. Now it is mid-April, and this week is spring break for the schools in our area. We planned on attending a protest Tea Party in SLC or Provo, depending on how ambitious I was feeling.

And now, look:



If I were the swearing type, you can bet the air would be QUITE blue around me right now. The kids are cooped up again, it's cold...and, well, I better stop thinking about it, because I'm NOT the swearing type. Even in print.

So! Something better to look at and think about:

Happy Easter!

Happy Happy Birthday Bradley Dear!

CONGRATS Skip

I have always wanted to visit Seattle!

Seattle, here we come

Well, we signed the deal. I will be going to work for Amazon, and we will be moving to Seattle. At the moment, we anticipate that I will start on May 18. I have some pretty good financial incentives from CC that prevent me from leaving before May 15, but I am going to work on moving that up so that I can start sooner, if possible. This move doesn't get us quite as close to family as we were hoping, but Seattle is about a 12 hour drive to SLC which is a lot better than where we are now.

There were two different roles open at Amazon, and they gave me my choice of which role I wanted to take. I will be the Senior Buyer for Home Audio. Amazon seems to be a great company and is still growing pretty fast. I'll be working in the tallest building in Seattle, the Columbia Center tower. This move will be another big change for our family, but we are ready for a new adventure, and looking forward to new challenges.

We are feeling very fortunate in the way things have worked out so far. Amazon will pay all relocation expenses, so now we just have to find the right place to live. We have definitely been very blessed. Thanks to you all for your encouragement and prayers. We really appreciate all of the faith that was exerted on our behalf. We really tried to heed the council of many of the recent conference addresses and exercise our faith without fear. We hope to be able see you all again soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REX

A Little Help From My Friends

Hey family! I am in need of some feedback on a project Theo and I are working on. Theo is trying to start his own little side-venture taking people on remote running trails in our area. Me with all my computer savvy, am currently making my first foray into the realm of website construction (try not to laugh out loud)! Here is where you come in.... Please visit the website, keeping in mind it is still under construction, and offer me some feedback. I am open to design suggestions, aesthetic advice, navigation help, marketing gems, whatever you think will help us get this going! You will NOT hurt my feelings because I realize I am a novice in this area. Call me, email me, post, whatever. I know that in this group, there is some creative business genius. So let me have it! (=

http://extremetrailadventures.com

Our home email is you don't have it is nicoleandtheo@cableone.net or use the address we got for this little venture extremetrailadventures@gmail.com

Keep Posting!

Skip - We have all been so worried about you and your family. It is so good to hear some news. Please keep us posted!
You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Job Search Ongoing

At this point I am still involved in the wind-down of the Circuit City offices and they have asked me to stay until mid-May at this point, with the possibility that they may ask me to stay longer. Despite this opportunity, the job search is moving forward.

I made a visit to Seattle this last week to interview with Amazon.com. They contacted me a couple weeks ago and I had a couple phone interviews for a position as the Senior Buyer for office products. After the first phone interviews, I received an email from a former colleague at Ultimate. He mentioned that Amazon was looking for a Senior Buyer for the Audio category. I was quickly able to figure out (through LinkedIn) that I knew 6 people that also knew the hiring manager for this position. I made a few calls, and pretty quickly received an email from this manager at Amazon saying that he had received some calls from people who had recommended that he speak with me. He said that he would like to meet with me when I came out to interview for the other category.

Travel to Seattle was a little challenging. I was supposed to travel Wednesday so that I would be ready for a full day of interviews on Thursday. My flight out of Richmond took off on time, but was unable to land in Washington D.C. due to weather. We landed back in Richmond after flying around for an hour. At this point there was no way that I could get to D.C. in time to catch the connecting flight to Seattle, so I had to reschedule the flight for early Thursday morning. I left the house at 4:30am EDT and arrived at the Amazon office at 1pm PDT where I had interviews back-to-back with six different people, until about 6:30pm.

It was a very long day, but I think it went pretty well. I'll keep you posted on further progress next week. I've had a few other conversations with other possible employers, but nothing that has progressed quite as far along as this.