Wood Drive

The Boy Scouts do an annual wood drive as a fund raiser to supply the money which the three troops use throughout the year. We have a unique setup now, originally there were two wards that combined their scout troops to create an older troop (16+) and a younger troop (12-15). Well, now there are 3 wards together with an 11 year old troop (this is what used to be blazers), a 12-13 year troop, and a 14 and up troop. For the past couple of decades the troops have bought oak firewood wholesale and resold it the local area. We end up selling about 50 cords of wood. For those who don't know how much that is: a quarter cord will fill up the back of a small pickup. A big pickup might be able to get half a cord if it is piled up pretty high. We had about 40-50 adults and scouts working for 8 hours to deliver all the wood yesterday. I am a little tired today because most of the scouts either leave in the early afternoon or their energy level dies down to the point that they aren't useful for doing the last few loads. The general idea is to rent a bunch of trailers from uhaul and put plywood sides up on them, then a member who has a landscaping company brings a bobcat (those little scooper/tractor things) and loads up the trailers. 11 scoops equals one cord of wood. Then a couple of adults and a couple of scouts pile into the truck to either dump or stack the firewood. The worst is when you find the customer lives up in the hills and has their woodpile 100 yards away and wants the wood stacked, and they ordered a full cord. The best order is when the customer ordered a full cord and wants it dumped on their driveway. Makes me feel bad for the teenage kids in the family that get to stack it later, but, better them than me. No pictures though. Sorry. It was a very impressive amount of wood.

Kathryn is doing great. She is a little uncomfortable when the little guy decides to start tap-dancing on her groin, but she is a trooper and hanging in there. We are sitting in front of a lovely fire as I am writing this. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

Pinnacles

This weekend I went to the Pinnacles with the Boy Scouts. We draw from 3 wards so you would think that we should have a decent turnout--considering we have 20+ boys in just our ward. Well, we only had 5 boys. They all had a great time. Except for the part where they froze on friday night. But, besides that it was a good time. I didn't realize that the Pinnacles was so close to here. Only 2 hours or so. Anyways, I just thought I should post something up. Enjoy the pictures!

Rats!!

I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but I didn't have a chance to grab the camera. I was working away on the laptop--like the diligent student that I am--when lo and behold I see Porkchop trying to eat a roofrat on the patio! I think that he caught it in the woodpile area and it was desperately trying to escape his maw by running for a stack of firewood that we keep on the rear patio to keep it dry.
I was able to rescue the rat, not for the rat's sake but for the dog's digestive happiness, and threw it over the fence to the neighbors. (They are gone for the fall/winter) So, I am sure it will live happily over there until another animal eats it. Or Porkchop gets it again. I just thought that I would share this experience because it was hilarious watching the dog play with his "food." He resembles a pig in some regards so I don't know how he was quick enough to catch the rat, but he was really excited about it. He has now caught more rats than our cats.

Good News and Not so good

As you can see from my last post Kathryn and I are having a boy. Yipee!!! We are both very excited for march. Obviously apprehensive at the same time though. Big life changes. Here are some pictures of the ultrasound from thursday.


I scanned the pictures in so you may have some trouble seeing them. The ultrasound tech was amazed that we couldn't tell what was what as she was moving the sensor all over. I think half of what they see is just what they know should be present not anything they can really "see."

Along with the good news of having a boy, well first let me state FOR THE RECORD that I would be just as happy and excited if we had found out we were having a girl, I heard back about my LSAT score. I will be taking it again in December. Yipee. I had set for myself a certain score that I would accept as a minimum and I didn't quite make that so I am re-taking it.

On Saturday I attended "Little Philmore." It is an SF Area event with 10-12 stakes participating focused on scouting. The YM general president was there and spoke on how important scouting is. I was surprised to a degree at how scouting is literally the activity arm of the Aaronic priesthood and that there is no such thing as an activity that is a YM activity and not a scout activity. A little eye-opener there. I think a lot of people were surprised at how forceful President Beck was stating this principle. We had different sessions depending on your calling. Certain classes for priesthood leaders, age specific classes for younger scouts, cub scouts, etc. It lasted 8 hours and was fun to see different perspectives on how to accomplish scouting.
After having a large storm at the beginning of the week it warmed up to almost summer temperatures. Luckily it started cooling down today so Kathryn and Porkchop could enjoy a comfy fire. I just realized that when I type "comfy" that it passes the spell checker. Weird. There is no way that is an accepted word.

During our fire-time the Blotters stopped by to drop off a plate of cookies. They are delicious. Every Sunday the Blotter children make cookies and drop them off to families. I am pretty impressed with their children. Especially since Greg is their father. I was expecting them to be a little more rambunctious. I guess they are holding it in until their high school years.
Here is a picture of Porkchop showing off his large mouth.

We went to the doctor's office...

And we were told that we are having a boy on March 11th. We are SOOO excited. I will post more when I have time.

An Important Event...

Is happening on Thursday. Thursday is the day we find out whether we are having a boy or a girl. Kathryn says it is definitely a boy, but I remain on the fence. We are SOOO excited to find out though. This has been another busy week for us with school, work, and the daily tasks that make up our lives. The annual firewood drive is happening for the Boy Scouts and as a leader I get to become even more involved with it than last year. Last year my sole contribution was to buy some of the wood, and this year I get to help make the phone calls, stuff envelopes, and generally try to help out. This weekend I was able to convince Kathryn to go camping with me at a place called Lake Francis resort in Dobbins, CA. It is about 200 miles from here and the real test of Kathryn's love was that this was an International Harvester Rally so I wanted to drive my 1973 Scout II. It was a long noisy drive. We did have fun though. Here are some pictures of some of the old "nice" looking scouts and trucks.



The camping site was nice and right next to the bathroom for the pregnant woman. Kathryn said that she had a good time, I brought everything imaginable to make it a fun time. There was a restaurant at the "campground" so Friday night I had prime rib, a salad bar and Kathryn and I shared a shrimp appetizer. Kathryn had the trout, and since we were in the foothills of the Sierras and next to a lake, it was probably pretty fresh. Kathryn finally met some of the people that I go to Hollister with, when I take the truck offroading. She thought everyone was very nice, but I think she was laughing a bit at some of the people's facial hair. There were some REAL mustaches going on. I didn't take any pictures of the people and I am kind of regretting it. I had fun, the Scout made the trip with minimal issues, and Kathryn was gracious enough to not complain about the silliness of it all. Overall it was a great weekend. Here are some more pictures.


There were more that showed up later in the day and some really nice looking ones too. There were a few that were less nice than mine, but mine was DEFINITELY on the low end of the trucks. There were probably 60-70 trucks there.

The week has been great for us, midterms kick off this upcoming week so I will be busy, and next monday (David's birthday) I am supposed to find out my LSAT score.
No new pictures of the pets this week. But we did just make 4 more jars of applesauce.

Messiness

Kathryn's apple crisp Extravaganza.




All 5 of Kathryn's sisters showed up to help out with the 8(?) apple crisps that were made. Of course this was also a result.

Which means I had to siphon out the water, yes it was disgusting and I even threw up a little. I took apart the pipes a bit to try and find out why things weren't moving along, but everything looked clear yet the sinks would continue to back up. Right now the pipes are full of liquid plumber as we are hoping it clears out whatever the problem is. I hope everyone is having a great conference weekend.

-Pete
Just thought that I would add, I finally got the sink unclogged TODAY. 2 days later and a trip to home depot for a longer drain snake. The clogs, yes that is plural, were about 12 ft down the pipes. What a fiasco!