All things race car

So, on a whim last night we watched Speed Racer. I enjoyed it way more than I had expected. I'm not sure if I actually liked watching the movie or if I just liked watching Ian watch the movie. He has been talking Speed Racer race cars ever since.

On the way to church this morning he wanted to know what my cars name is and on the way home he wants to know if my car can climb ice cliffs like Speed Racer's did.

In sacrament meeting, he informed us that the church had turned into a white race car like Speed Racer's, only bigger, big enough to carry all of these people. How would that be for mass transportation? Fancy race car that carries 400.

Archival Footage: Allen Family Vacation in early '90s

That's Nedra driving and Brent navigating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI5wTDFRA34

Christmas Party at Grandma Allen's

Grandma Allen had decided to have her christmas party on the Sunday following Christmas. At 5:30 p.m. at her house. She is providing a potato bar and has asked that we bring sidedishes and desserts. I think I talked to everyone but here is a reminder of what you are to bring.

Mom--sidedish
Crystal--sidedish
Heather-Dessert
Daniel-Dessert
Eric--Nothing isn't it nice to be single and not be expected to bring anything?

April, we will miss your family but maybe next year.

Merry Chrsitmas
Heather

Update

I told you all we would post as we go through the adoption process. Here's an update. We obviously passed with our Bishop because I got the call today to schedule our next interview. Our In-Take interview will be on January 23. This should give us time, if we end up moving and to gather a few necessary documents. Daniel even admitted to being excited. This is big. Right?

Wondering what to get daniel

Click there for daniel's list.

The joys of Modern Technology.... and an Imagination

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Buying a house

Recently I have been looking to buy a house here in logan. Well this week that has changed a little bit, now I am buying a house. An offer was accepted this last week and I'm in the process of buying my first house. Scary and exciting at the same time. I know everyone wants to see what it looks like so I have posted some of the pictures that it was listed with here. Let me know what you think. I should be moving in around Christmas time so if you would like to help me move stuff into the house I would be more than welcome for the help.

The house is 1800 sq ft and it has 4 bedrooms(3 finished), 3 bathrooms(2 finished) and it sits on .24 acres. So it is a good sized house.

Eric

Picture from the street

From House pictures

Front Room

From House pictures

Kitchen

From House pictures

From House pictures

Master Bedroom

From House pictures

Master Bathroom

From House pictures

Bedroom

From House pictures

Bathroom

From House pictures

Basement Family Room

From House pictures

Backyard

From House pictures

Treats

Underrated:
Root-beer floats
Rice Krispy treats
Pecan pie
Hot-fudge sundaes

Overrated:
Brownies
White chocolate anything
Pumpkin pie
All fruit-based desserts except Peach Pie and Apple Pie
Pudding

Housing updates....

Our house is still on the market, and we are still looking for a house.  We have had several people look at our house.  Of those 3 or 4 were "very interested."  Even with their high levels of interest, we haven't received any offers on our house.  We are still pretty optimistic though.  People keep looking, and everybody tells us first time homes are where the market is still moving.  Our house hasn't been on the market that long and we average ~2 people looking at it per week.  I think we are still in pretty good shape to be selling it.

We have looked at 50 or so houses.  We found one early on that was exactly what we were looking for, but it was bank owned.  Because of that they wouldn't accept an offer from us until our house was under contract.  It has since sold to somebody else (closes on Heather's birthday).  Of all the other ones we looked at, we haven't found exactly what we wanted.  We have even looked a little at building.  We will keep looking until something looks and feels right for us.  Not sure when that will be, but I am optimistic that it will happen eventually.....  If you know somebody who is selling a house in the Logan area (preferably somebody who is losing money when they sell it.) :), let us know.  We are interested.

Daniel said....

I would post more. I was so unfamiliar about the process that I thought I'd let you all know what we are headed for. Here at things that we need to do:
The many things to complete:
1. Attend Orientation Interview (11/11/08)
2. Send Completed Application and Description of Services to agency (11/13/08)
3. Give the Bishop's reference letter to your bishop (11/16/08)
4. Schedule In-Take Interview
5. Have Intake Interview
-Background Check
-Pay first installment
6. Complete and Turn-in paperwork
7. Attend Adoption classes
8. Home visit
9. Individual Interviews
10. Caseworker completes study summary
11. Committee meets for agency approval
12. After approval, turn in 20 copies of picture collage and birth parent letter.
13. Put our profile on-line for birth mothers to view.
14. Wait and hope for that little baby that Heavenly Father wants in our home.

This is going to be a long process with tons of ups and downs. You all will be more informed than non-family. As steps are completed I will date them. I am keeping a list of this on my blog. So if you want to see how far we are (or are not) you can check there - it's on the side.

Pics....

Since I don't have too much exciting to say (other than I single handedly killed 233 servers at work today....), I figured I would show some pics of my kids.

One hoon to rule them all.

Drifting is not really my thing, but when the guy on the Segway showed up, I was impressed.

A big announcement

Yup, we have a big announcement. Sometime in the next 6 months-two years Ashley and I will be buying a kid. Or in more polite terms we have started the long adoption process. I'll have her post more later but thought you all might like to know, since everyone else does.

Molly's ponys

Molly was at our neighbor's house the other day when the girls were getting their hair done. Jen put pony tails in Molly's hair and the next day Ian insisted we buy pony tail holders for Molly. So, she's now a pony tail girl.

Christmas list

Is everyone planning on doing a gift exchange for Christmas this year? If so I think that this is the list:

April and Ryan give to Daniel and Ashley
Crystal and Jake give to Eric
Heather and Matt give to April and Ryan
Daniel and Ashley give to Crystal and Jake
Eric gives to Heather and Matt

p.s. I think that April and Ryan are not coming out for Christmas so plan ahead Daniel and Ashley so that you can mail their gift in time.

Halloween

Okay, we are a bit slow, but it is not yet Thanksgiving so we are not too bad. Anyhow we had a nice halloween. The weather was warmer than usual and so we went trick or treating farther than the usual 7-10 houses that we hit every year. We also had neighbors and Grandma and Papa over for doughnuts and played the spiderweb game. Amelia says that since I got to pick the halloween costumes this year that next year she gets to choose my costume, that should be something to look forward to.

Thanks Papa for getting us the Chinese hats and shirts; the whole family was decked out.

Weird Invention of the day

Brent will still be hiking in 30 years thanks to these.

Underachiever.....

So, I said once a week, I missed it already.... But I do have this cool video to waste your time with today.

Engrish

If you haven't been introduced to Engrish...

Begin here.

You don't want to miss your chance...

Dog Park!

There has been a dog park open in South Ogden, just behind Shopko on Riverdale Road, this whole summer. Unfortunately we just decided it was worth visiting. We had a blast. We took the dogs for a romp a couple of times.

Lacy loved to run with the other dogs. She'd pretend to fetch the other dog's toys and then she wouldn't let them retrieve them. It was like she was playing defense. It was good for her. Winston played a little but he mostly stayed by us. He gets a little timid with lots of other big dogs around. I can't wait til it opens again in April.

April makes a joke

We are sitting in Stake conference, in the back, watching the screen. When the choir starts to sing an intermediate hymn, the guy running the camera decides that he should emulate the people who run the cameras at general conference (close ups, sweeping views of the choir, etc.) The problem is that the guy running the camera appears to have a combination of Parkinson's disease and ADHD. Watching the picture is starting to make my eyes tear up, so I lean over to April and say something like:

"Why can't he stop zooming in and out?"

Without hesitation, April responds:

"Be nice. He's just trying to magnify his calling."

I should post more.....

I decided that as an Oct 29'th resolution (new year's resolutions are overrated), I am going to try to post to this blog and/or the blog I made for heather and I* at least once a week. This means that sometimes you will get deep meaningful posts from me, but more often than not, you will probably get useless time-wasters like this:






His name is Remi Gallard. He is French, he can kick a soccer ball pretty dang good, and does other humorous thing (not all are considered polite or kosher). If you are bored, it is worth a look on youtube.... And if you get sick of my random posts, I can stop (this assumes I stick with this resolution longer than a day)....

* Even though I created it for both of us, mostly I post to it (about as often as I post here...). Occasionally I will copy Heather's posts from elsewhere to that blog...

Looking Forward to Halloween

David Letterman remembers Paul Newman

Old Houses and Daniel

Since Daniel can't figure out how to do a slide show, silly boy, here is mine. It's only like 1/7 of the pictures I took. Enjoy.

Daniel's Washington DC Collage

Look it is some of Daniel's favorite pictures from his trip. Now if he can only make it into a slide show...

The Laws of Ultimate Reality

Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee

Law of Gravity
Any pill, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Law of the Alibi
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time)

Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theater
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

The Starbucks Law
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces
The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

Brown's Law of Physical Appearance
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Oliver's Law of Public Speaking
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

Doctors' Law
If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor. By the time you get there you'll feel better. Don't make an appointment and you'll stay sick.

Paul Newman: He was even cooler than you think

Paul Newman passed away yesterday. Everyone knows about his film career and work for charity, but did you know he finished 2nd in the the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans? Yeah--and at the age of 70 he became the oldest driver to be part of a winning team in a major sanctioned race, winning the GTS-1 class at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona.

He was 19th on Nixon's enemies list and number 1 on the list of people way cooler than you.

Wikipedia here.

ESPN here.

Books Everyone Should read

Resentlly I have been thinking about books that I think every one should read and I would be interested in hearing what the family has to say. I am especially interests in books that are from your area of expertise for example Dad might suggest a business book or Daniel and philosophy book, Ashley a history book and Ryan a economics book. But I do have conditions these are books for the average lay person not someone with a background in your subject or expertise. I would also like any recommendations that are biographies or novels.
Thanks for you help. Here is my list.

Biographies:
Queen Noor by Peggy Noonan

Novels:
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
All Creatures Great and Small by James Harriot

Classics:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

My Expertise:
Parenting
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby by Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau

Family Finance
The Wealthy Barber, Updated 3rd Edition: Everyone's Commonsense Guide to Becoming Financially Independent by David Chilton

Our Turtle Friend

Ryan went out early this morning to fill the Escape up with gas for me and he found a turtle crossing the road. So, our turtle friend came to visit us. It didn't take too long before Ian was telling the turtle that he loved it. We had hoped to keep it in the backyard for the day and then take it down to the pond, but it was nimbler than we expected and climbed out of our flooded-sandbox-cover pond and has taken itself to parts unknown.

Cindy McCain

Not what I was expecting.

Please insert joke about how easily McCain drifts to the left or right in the comments.

Wellsville Hawkwatch Hike

Dad and I hiked up the Wellsvilles to see the hawk watch. We saw a bunch of hawks fly by. Here are the pictures from the hike.




Also a link to the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/trucker42/WellsvilleHawkwatchHike?authkey=9tSSAtjc99A#

Eric

Newest Addition

I guess it is time to introduce you to our newest addition. After much study and thought Brent and I have purchased a new Honda CR-V. (The initals stand for nothing. In Europe the same car is called a Crave, but that was not a great name for a US car.)
Welcome to the family.

Memphis the lab rat: The Results

Memphis has finished the Keppra study at NCSU. The principal investigator spoke with me about the study when Memphis was "deblinded". We learned that she was on the placebo during the first 16 weeks and Keppra the second 16 weeks. She had 14 seizures during the placebo period and 7 during the Keppra period. Apparently, the study is not going so well for Keppra in general. Memphis is only the second dog to show significant improvement on Keppra. (0ut of 15-20 dogs)

That is good news for us, especially since some rich dude in California gave NCSU a bunch of money to provide Keppra to dogs when it is shown that it helps. Since they are having a hard time finding dogs it helps, they were happy to give us some. So we get free Keppra for 3 months at least. Woo-hoo! (Keppra for Memphis would cost about $200-$300/month if we paid for it. I like my dog, but no way...)

On the down side, bloodwork during the study showed that the phenobarbital she regularly takes is damaging her liver. We will need to investigate the possibility of cutting the dose or getting her off it completely.

Ian Autocross

Ryan may appreciate this

Huh?

You are a famous and wealthy car designer. Your own name is synonymous with beautiful powerful cars.

How do you die? Hit by a Ford Focus while riding a Vespa.

Tearing up our street

We watched the men tear up the street in front of our house. I was surprised that it was Molly who was the most captivated. I guess that love of tractors is not a gender thing. Personally, I will be glad when I don't have to stop and watch every single construction site.

Hellewell Family Reunion

Here are pictures of Papa and Grandma and the Kearl clan canoeing. I only wish that I had pictures of Lacey and Winston trying to swim to our canoe. (The following message is from Eli) Eli mom dad boat.

new teeth

We have really been impressed with Eli and Hazel new teeth.

I believe that I found a bit of Bosworth family history in my YW's manual today.

Sarah Pea Rich was converted to the Church in 1835 when she was seventeen years old. She and her family were living in the state of Illinois, and two Mormon elders had come to preach in her area. They told her family and her neighbors about the Prophet Joseph Smith and about the translation of the Book of Mormon from gold plates.

Sarah was anxious to see the Book of Mormon and asked one of the elders if she could see the book. She said: “I retired to my room and spent the rest of that evening and most of the night reading it. I was truly astonished at its contents. The book left an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. It appeared to be open before my eyes for weeks afterwards.”

The next morning the men left for Kirtland, Ohio, leaving a deep impression on the minds of the Pea family. The family thought they would never see the elders again. Sarah wrote: “After they had been gone six weeks, I had a dream concerning them. I dreamed on Friday night that they would come to our house the next evening, just as the sun was going down, and that they would first come in sight at the end of a long lane in front of the house.”

The next morning, her father and mother planned to go to town. Sarah asked them to return early because she was so sure the missionaries would come. Her father laughed and told her she must be crazy, for the elders were hundreds of miles away. He and Sarah’s mother soon left for town. Sarah, however, began preparing for the arrival of the missionaries.

Sarah recorded: “As the day passed, I began to look, once in a while, down the lane for those men. Sure enough, just as the sun was setting, they made their appearance, just where I dreamed I first saw them. I met them on the porch, and bade them the time of day. ‘I have been looking for you to come,’ I said. ‘Why,’ one of them answered, ‘had you heard we were coming?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I dreamed last night that you would come, and I felt sure you would be here.’ ‘Well,’ said one of the elders, ‘we had a dream that we were to return here and baptize you and build up a church in this region.’ ”

Sarah’s parents returned from town and were astonished to find the missionaries at their home. The missionaries taught the family and many neighbors. They stayed until they had built up a church of seventy members, including Sarah, her father, mother, and sister. (Quoted in John Henry Evans, Charles Coulson Rich: Pioneer Builder of the West [New York: Macmillan Co., 1936], pp. 38–40.)

I'm not sure if you were familiar with this story, but I thought it was neat to come across it.
Crystal

Course map

I'm pretending you are interested. Caption added. My misfortune was not part of the official documentation of the event.

Also of note, we had a car at the autocross that was "tuning" for the greatest American motorsports event of them all: the 24 Hours of LeMons.

"In all motorsport, no event captures the universal human need to whale on old crapcans and hoover down greasy barbecue like the 24 Hours of LeMons"

Daniel, don't read this at the dinner table!

So, Ian and I spent the afternoon answering the question: Where does my poop go? He was a little disappointed that it wasn't all stored in the toilet water tank, but luckily he was duly impressed with the talking fish who narrates a video about how the Raleigh waste treatment facility works. I think he's watched it something like 10 times today.

Everyday Food Storage Blog

I just found this blog and I really like it. On the blog she gives recipies and tricks for using food storage. But she makes food you could really eat. No "wheat meat" in sight. I thought you might be interested.

http://everydayfoodstorage.blogspot.com/

OK, so I beat a few people...

I finished 5th out of 24 novices. I am pleased, especially considering that the course was wet for me in the afternoon and I spun off the course into the grass on my third run. Most people got 4 runs on a dry track, I only got 2. Call the waahhmbulence. I wuz robbed.

I can't link to the results directly, but if you go here and then scroll down to the Sat July 16 event "Points Autocross # 5 Old Sanford Airport Sanford, NC" you can click on "Class results", "Indexed Results", and "Raw Results" and see how I did.

Class results are organized by class (C Stock, Ladies, Novice, etc.) Scroll down to the very bottom for Novice results. (Notice that the first class listed is "old farts" class--a highly entertaining group.) My best time of 77.517+2 means I ran the course in 77.517 seconds and hit 2 cones. Each cone is a 2 second penalty. D'oh!

Indexed results are times adjusted for "PAX". Not sure what PAX stands for, but it is an adjustment factor based on how fast your car is. Sort of like a handicap system, except it adjusts for equipment, not ability. I didn't do so well here--I have a pretty fast car and no actual skill. I'm that guy with Mizuno blades, a Scotty Cameron putter and a 28 handicap. I finished 77th out of 110 in PAX.

"Raw Results" are just that--results unadjusted for anything. Overall, I finished 75th out of 110 entries.

So...how bad did the old lady in the Mini beat me? By about 6.5 seconds. That's about 6 and 5 in match play terms. (See the 36th place finisher in Raw times)

Church Memories and Horrible Sundays

When I was little I remember being in Sacrament meeting at the Riverdale chapel and during the passing of the sacrament sitting there by myself. Dad was sitting on the stand trying to keep Daniel quiet. Mom was out in the hall with the baby (that was you Eric) and April and Crystal had gone somewhere. At the time I thought that it was so odd to be sitting there all by myself when my entire family was at church.

My other memory of Sundays as a child is that on Sunday's Mom had a nap. Dad often had a nap sometime the kids would lay down and have a nap but Mom had a nap. I now understand this phenomenon. Today was a horrible Sunday. We all started out tired. Nobody slept well mostly due to the fact that since our vacation to Denver everyone is out of wack. Matt kindly watched the screaming whining children before his meeting so I could sleep a little bit longer, but after he left Noah and Grace were in rare form, dumping cereal on the couches, on my bed, in the bathroom. Dumping flour and dough (we were making rolls) everywhere in the kitchen. Screaming that they did not want to go outside and then that they did not want to go in. They refused baths, and cloths, and lunch. They did finally fall asleep about 20 minutes before church was to start. I let them sleep through Sacrament meeting and then woke them up for sunday school since I was teaching. Grace hates church and must be holding on to me for the entire time we are there. Matt counted tithing today so he wasn't home until late. So all in all it was not a great day.
But I do now understand why on that long ago Sunday I was buy myself. I was because Mom could only cope with so much. and I definitely understand why she took a nap. I just have not figured out how to make that a reality in my life. Which I think is just fine.

I did have a happy revelation today though. Only 5 1/2 more months of afternoon church. Hurray.

Family Autocross Day

So here are some pictures of Ryan at the autocross. He got to drive the course four times. We saw run one and two of his second chance.
It wasn't too far away—a little less than an hour drive. So I took the kids down and we looked at all the cars (it's really just a big car party) and had a picnic lunch. When it was time for Ryan to line up for his run, it started to rain. His group got the raining and wet track, by the time they were finished it had all cleared up. But the kids and I had headed out too. The rain is only so fun until you're wet.

And just because she's too cute for words:

Volcano

Ian has been loving volcanoes lately, so today we staged our first science experiment with a couple of friends who happened to be here. First Ian taught them how volcanoes worked from his book. Everyone was very excited by the erupting volcano.

This time, its for real...

That's right folks, this time there will be no instructor in the car, times will be recorded, and (gasp!) published on the internet. Yep, everyone will be able to see how the old lady in the Mini Cooper wiped the pavement with me. My goal: beat someone. Anyone.

That beep you hear means: "Warning. You are having fun."

Happy 4th of July

Thanks Brent and Nedra for a fun 4th of July!

Haiku Contest

Write a Haiku for
about ward pancake breakfast
irreverance is welcome

Bosworth Update

Molly is walking—three or four steps at a time.
Here is a smattering of photos over the last while.

Happy Birthday Eli!

We were all just out at Jake and Krystal's. I took some pictures of the ponies and the awesome cake Eli had. I hope you all enjoy.

For Matt, Daniel, and Brent

RX-8 vs. 500 HP BMW M5 at VIR. Funny captions along the way.

Uh-Oh...

Maybe that personalized plate wasn't such a good idea.