Have a Seat

The front seats to the Jeep are recovered/reupholstered. They look great! You may notice an addition to the seats; we had head rests added. Something about losing authenticity points? That's OK though, rather lost points than lost mobility due to some neck injury. However, Uncle Scott says we'd never get it going fast enough to really sustain damage. Better safe... right? Right!

A blast from the past?

Here's an old advertisement for the Jeep - look familiar?http://www.thecj2apage.com/images/1946postad.jpg

Aloha!

Sunday was Ryan's last day here, and definitely did not seem like a Sunday. He had friends visiting to say good-bye ALL afternoon and night. There was lots of laughing, singing, and music all this time including last week. He was supposed to be organizing his stuff and getting packed, but he didn't actually pack until Sunday night. He spent part of the day making piles of things that were spread all over the family room. He did get his home teaching finished, and some places to say goodbye to people. When the people were gone, he threw the piles into the suit cases. We all went to bed at 12:30, which includes people who didn't help pack. Come 6 o' clock in the morning, those friends that were there on Sunday returned to say good bye at the airport. They followed us to SFO, and waited as Ryan was about to go through security, and then sent him off with a song, "I'll Be Right Here Waiting For You". Claire, Evan, and Kathy said good-bye at the curb and headed to McDonald's for breakfast. News from Greg and Ryan, he's all set up, and alone. He gets a room to himself. He's a happy boy. School started today-Wednesday, June 25th. Aloha Ry, we love and miss you.

I Can Fly Like an Eagle!

We had a Court of Honor last week, June 19, an Eagle Court of Honor. It was kind of a last minute plan before Ryan left for Hawaii. We're so glad we were encouraged to do it by our scout master and family and friends. We couldn't have done it without them. It being so spur of the moment-ish, we tried to keep it fairly casual and low key. A young man in the ward, Nate had wanted to have his court of honor with Ryan, so he actually waited quite a while. Cousin Garry ended up being ready at the same time as Ryan so they all had the court of honor together...in our backyard. We honored three boys in 30 minutes, it was good! And after, it was time for cake, chips...and swimming. It was CRAZY, but fun. Now we only have one boy left to enter the nest...hurry up Evan.

The Court of Honor

Gearing Up

The Setting

The Stage

Fearless Leaders

Scout leaders and Young Men leaders from Branham Ward and Cambrian Park Ward

Happy Parents

The New Eagles

Special Guest - Max Parker

Thank you Br. Parker

Time for Cake

Onto Renewal

The Jeep was towed away today - the first leg of its journey to refurbishment. There's been a lot of web work and phone calling before this trip however. Greg has been surfing parts sites, calling parts stores and mechanics for the best advice as how to accomplish the goal - the goal being - Get the Jeep into safe running condition and make it comfortable for passengers while preserving the fabulous character and uniqueness it's acquired over the years. In short - the inside is being redone - the outside is staying pretty much the same.

A man in our ward is a commercial mechanic - works on forklifts. Low and behold - a Willys Jeep has the workings of a forklift! (pretty much anyway). He towed the Jeep to his home this morning. First he removed the windshield and the seats - he'll just be working under the hood.

Greg and Ryan, with some of Ryan's friends along, went out to various shops and found some necessary parts as well as picked out upholstery color - the seats will be green, close to the original color.

Brother-in-law Scott has been a fountain of information regarding best places to go for materials and restoration services. Ryan is amazed at how he can know where all these shops are, just off the top of his head, especially since they're in obscure out of the way places. But Scott loves to restore cars - he's done it many, many times.

Right now Greg is on the phone with a Jeep supplier in Illinois talking about mirrors. What do you know - Greg has a hobby!

Jeepers

There's a "new" vehicle out in front of our house. It's a Willys Jeep. Greg, Ryan and some of Ryan's friends went up to Santa Rosa on Monday evening to pick it up at Ross and Emily's to tow it back to San Jose. This Jeep is legendary. One day, Greg will have to tell the story. And the legend continues; Ryan and friends took turns riding and pushing it around the neighborhood in the middle of the night, once they got it home. And, it hadn't been out front 24 hours before someone stopped and left a note on blue painters tape taped to the dash saying, "If you're interested in selling...please call..."

Wow!

Bare Cupboards

We are sitting around feeling disgusted for the food choices we made yesterday. Claire bragging about all the ice cream she ate yesterday, said "We don't have any food that is good for us and tastes good." And Evan added "We don't have any food that is bad for us. We ate it all." So... guess it's time to go to the grocery store.

Have any food ideas that taste good and are good for you, comment please. We're desperate.

My Ipod

Evan here and I have a sad story to tell you. Once upon a time there was a HANDSOME MAN named Evan and he wanted an Ipod so he bought it. Then after about a year, on the dreaded Friday the 13th, he wanted to put some things on his Ipod so he went to plug it into the computer. When he plugged it in, something went wrong. When he plugged it in the cord sparked but he thought nothing of it so he plugged it into a different spot but when he plugged it in nothing happened. He looked down at his Ipod to find it wasn't on so he tried and tried to turn it on but it wouldn't. He then decided to smell the Ipod since he loves to smell things and to his surprise, it smelled like fried wires or hardware which is bad. Finally, he came to the conclusion that it was broken and this made him very sad :( Unfortunately, this fried the computer too, but it was the old computer and his family just got a new computer so it is ok . So...... Evan decided to take the Ipod apart to see if he could fix it, but he failed. Luckily he found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and was able to buy a new Ipod that very same day :)

The

End

Claire's Birthday

Today is Claire's Birthday!!!Woohoo!She's 14 and get a load of this cake!!! It matches her bedspread!!!She is SOOOOOO excited! Her day started how all birthdays should start, cleaning the church at 8:30 in the morning. She got to have pancakes with buttermilk syrup and chocolate milk for breakfast. She also went shopping with her mother to pick out some new makeup!!!She was very excited about that too. Tonight she is going to take a dip in the pool with her friends and watch "Little Rascals". So far it's her favorite birthday ever out of the fourteen years she's lived. And we know what's for dinner tonight...PIZZA!!!

Claire's cake was made by Olga Philips-if you want to check out some of her other creations click on this link http://philipsfamily.net/pages/op.html

Graduations 2008

Ryan graduated from Leigh High School on June 12, '08. It was VERY hot but VERY exciting. We went to a Brazilian restaurant that night called Pampas in Palo Alto. The meat was a little too rare for some of us. But others enjoyed it.

Then the next day, Claire graduated from Dartmouth Middle School June 13.(Friday the 13th) She recieved an award for getting straight A's for all 3 years. Claire had a friend come over to do her hair because she can't do it herself. Doesn't it just look great!!! She went to her first dance that night and thought it was fun. At the end, Kathy came to pick up Claire and was surprised to see the cafeteria filled with crying students. Moving on is hard to do.