This week was a typical weekly with little excitement. We worked all weekend on expanding the garden.  Lucky for us it decided to rain Saturday and Sunday  This allowed us to be somewhat lazy and lounge inside.  Here are a bunch of pictures to make up for the lack of detail

In my free time I've been playing around with Adobe After Effects. It is a great video editing software that lets you animate complex video graphics. Here is the intro I have created for my youtube.com videos.  

       Sorry about having no update last week. The computer was giving me trouble so I ended up doing a clean install of the operating system. Unfortunately this meant that I ended up re-installing every application, updating drivers, and cleaning up the system. 

       Spring semester has finally come to a close. I did fairly well this semester and even enjoyed a few of the lessons. It was crazy trying to balance home, work, and school. Free time is a precious commodity. When I start into the math portions of school it is sure to get worse. Melissa has been very supportive and has helped by taking on extra responsibilities while I was doing homework. It was very appreciated.   All the long days will be worth it in the long run. 

Last Friday we spent most of the day hauling concrete the dump. This is step one of Melissa's plan to double the size of our garden. Step two is to build a slate patio. Step three is to create a cobblestone pathway from the front yard to the back. All of these grand dreams will involve large amounts of manual labor. Melissa is lucky I work cheap (Hint: cookies and kisses)

    For Mother's Day weekend Ellie and I went to Walmart and picked out some pretty blue flowers and a bag of Reese's Mini Cups. We then had a nice day outside, which included; a bike ride, running in sprinklers, playing in the garden, and eating dinner on the patio. It was awesome. 

Well enjoy the pictures. 

       What a busy week!! The end of the semester is near so a lot of assignments are coming due. I had to write a five page  impact paper on "How history has influence my life" for my American Civilizations course . For my intro to music class I had to attend a concert and write up a review. I attended "Global Sounds 1" by the Salt Lake Choral Artists. It was actually  very enjoyable. Click here to see a video of them performing "Arvo Part Te Deum". My criminal justice course also has a large number of assignments coming due.  

      Work has been interesting since the recent layoff. Luckily everyone is now motivated to work really hard. I feel this is because the slackers have either been let go or scared straight. For my five year anniversary at L-3 I was awarded a prized from the OC tanner catalog. I selected a Wilson Harmony M2 putter. It is not likely to improve my golf game. 

     Melissa and I have been going through our stuff and de-junking. Melissa is quite the saleswoman. She has sold enough stuff to purchase a banjolele. It is essentially a half banjo half ukulele. She is really enjoying it. Ellie has been your typical two year old. One moment she is the cutest thing on the planet the next she is throwing a tantrum. Click  here to see a video of her being cute a dinner time. With the nice weather we have spent most of our free time in outside. We have gone on a few bike rides with Ellie being pulled in bike trailer.  Returning from the Yearsley's home, she fell asleep in the back of the trailer despite all the bumps and pot holes on the road.  We cleaned out the garden shed and worked in the yard most of Saturday.

Hope everyone has a great week.

      Sorry about missing last week. I hope to make up for it this week by posting a nice collection of videos and
pictures. The last two weeks have been crazy. At school I had a large research paper, a crap load of history reading, and lots of music homework due. Work has been stressful as my employer just completed its first round of layoffs last Thursday. All the build up leading up to the layoff had me quite stressed even though I felt fairly safe in my position. While  I was not let go a few of my close co-workers were walked out. Melissa and I are working towards changing our eating habits. I have lost quit a few pounds in the last two weeks and I am starting to feel the results. My energy level has increased and I have just felt better since we started eating properly.Here are a few links that we have used to helped us in this endeavor:
 http://www.myfitnesspal.com/mobile
http://www.runtastic.com/en/apps/runtastic
http://www.runtastic.com/en/pumpit

I have been working on a good way to share videos with family and friends.  Youtube.com is the best way I have found to quickly share videos. You can subscribe to my Youtube.com channel and you will be notified when I post a video. Here is a link to Ellie's newest videos:
Thomas the Train Theme Song  
Twinkle Star/Baa Baa Black Sheep

Well another week has past us by. This Friday was Jerry Yearsley's birthday so we went over and celebrated at their house. Jerry and I hit a bucket of golf balls at the driving range then had a nice dinner with the family  followed by cake.  Mmmmmm.....Cake.  Ellie played a number of songs for Grandpa's birthday.  Click these links to see Ellie sing "Happy Birthday" or  "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" . On Thursday Melissa and Ellie went to baby animal days  in Logan, Utah and had a busy but good time. I had drill this weekend so I didn't get much time to run around. Enjoy the slide show.

Well this is my top five top five lists. I got bored and thought I'd post a collection of things I am currently interested in. There is no rhyme or reason to most of the selections and I am likely to change my mind on some of them depending on my mood. If you are interested I challenge you to make your own "Top Five Top Five"

  Click on the pictures for links to websites about my selections and enjoy

These last five images don't link to any websites. 

    Well, it is almost my seven year anniversary so I was looking through some old photos taken before we got married. There are not that many photos of Melissa and I  because when we started dating in 2004  digital cameras were not as readily available .  Usually Melissa is usually the one behind the camera so I could not find many pictures of her. There are even less photos of both me and Melissa.     
     I met Melissa in a bar called Brewski's located in downtown Ogden.
She was singing during the open-mic night and her voice lured me away from the pool tables. After watching her set I  tried to talk to her only to have her get nervous and look for a quick exit. I just thought she wasn't interested so I blew it off. A few weeks later she showed up at the band practice of the band Chronic Layover. I was running sound for the band at the time. We started talking at the weekly practice and found a lot of common interest, such as music, hiking, camping, etc. After a few weeks I build up the courage to ask her on a date. Being poor and not very creative I asked if she wanted to go out for Chinese food then watch a movie at my place. Luckily she agreed to the date. That evening we watched Shaun of the Dead.  We really enjoyed each others company and started dating soon after. Seven months later we were engaged and the rest is history. Enjoy the pictures.