My Four Sons

Priesthood Power!

2011-10-01T18:38:00.003-06:00

All of my boys are at the priesthood session right now. This is the type of thing that I absolutely live for! These are the scenes that I tuck away in my heart and pull out in desperate times. I love all of my men so very much! I've gone from living with a single mom and one brother who had the priesthood to being the ONLY one in my home without it. I've come a long way, baby! My life is so blessed!

A good friend of mine recently reminded me that I need to recognize good "moments" as the teenage years are upon us. She is so right. THIS was such a good moment. I love my family!

Just can't get enough!

2011-10-01T18:32:00.003-06:00

Here is a glimpse into the first October logging trip:

Hopefully we'll have enough firewood to get us through the winter!

Finshed restoration

2011-09-28T14:16:00.000-06:00

Remember that rusty old stove about three pictures below this one? Well here it is now. And the ad I posted with it.
"Vermont Castings Resolute wood/coal stove. Cleaned, sandblasted and professionally repainted wood stove. Beautiful. I took pictures of the stove with the coal kit installed (which you can buy alone from Vermont Castings or Ebay for 500.00 itself) and also with the coal kit out which shows how you can burn wood in it instead if you choose. Glass and gaskets will be installed Friday.
Would look incredible in any room of any house. $765.00 cash.
Text or message
Jay @435 660 3082"

Someone owes me five bucks.

2011-09-24T14:14:00.001-06:00

Wonderful Saturday morning up in the woods hunting some nice hard dead oak with two of the boys today. Since I am almost six feet tall myself, you can see that we got a nice stack of wood.

R.I.P. Ray Charles the cat

2011-09-20T14:41:00.004-06:00

Ray was a good cat. He didn't bug me as much as the other cats do. He was so soft and had the sweetest personality. My favorite things about Ray are:

* When I would call his name, he'd meow back like you were having a conversation... "Ray..." "Meow" "Ray... " "Meow". It was fun.

* OCD - this was the craziest cat I ever saw. He would wipe his paws in his water before he could drink it... and if he was interrupted, he would start over again wiping his paws in the water.

* His drop button. Zach found a spot on Ray's back that he would grab and Ray would immediately drop to the ground. Hours of fun, I tell ya!

* His lick button. Zach found another spot on Ray's back that when scratched would cause Ray to lick a lot. Also good for hours of fun.

We'll miss you RAY!!!!!!

Here comes winter....

2011-09-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

Here is a nice Vermont Castings Resolute wood/coal stove restoration project I've started. Before any of you get any funny posting ideas, this is the "before" picture. When it is done we will post some finished pictures.

Off to Nauvoo they go...

2011-06-04T00:50:00.002-06:00

The huge church event to start off the summer. Hopefully they will have many great experiences in this trip. Have fun Zach.

Acid

2011-05-19T09:47:00.002-06:00

There has got to be a bong pipe hidden somewhere in this 1974 VW Transporter that Zach traded his Cabriolet for.

I wish I was born in 1920

2011-05-03T17:33:00.002-06:00

Longest post in Blog spot history. And one everyone should read. But most wont because they are more concerned about what's on tv, or who is on their friends list.

Read it anyway, I dare you.

Why you need to be prepared spiritually, physically and financially. And why you need food storage. So hoard away. You have my permission.

#1 - Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis - At first it seemed like a fluke; but now it's a pattern. The weather is becoming increasingly extreme. Over 120 tornadoes recently struck the U.S. Midwest. Texas is on fire and suffering through an extreme drought. And where there aren't fires and droughts, there are floods. This is only the beginning... watch for more freak weather over the next 18 months.

#2 - The silence of the bees - Colony Collapse Disorder continues to accelerate across North America. We already know it's being caused in part by chemical pesticides (and possibly worsened by GMOs), but the chemical industry is engaged in a full-on cover-up to deny this truth while the pollinators of our world suffer a devastating population collapse. ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484bYPXP9nT94HmK3_LAklZNWg/www.naturalnews.com/028218_p...)

#3 - The failure of nuclear science - The Fukushima catastrophe proves one thing: Scientists are dangerously arrogant in their planning of large-scale projects, and they fail to account for the awesome power of Mother Nature. Nuclear science promised us clean, green energy -- but now it has delivered a silent, invisible poison that's infecting our planet.

#4 - The vicious pursuit of Wikileaks - In an age of such rampant deceit, there is no room for the truth. So those who tell the truth (Wikileaks) are viciously pursued as if they were criminals.

#5 - The rise of the medical police state - The armed SWAT raids on Maryanne Godboldo in Detroit are only the beginning ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484b-p5CG1X8hhbcZNBChLLO6g/www.naturalnews.com/032091_M...). The truth is that the medical system uses guns to force its vaccines and chemotherapy onto children and teens across America. The medical system has become so utterly useless, corrupt and dangerous that it must actually invoke guns in peoples' faces just to "convince" people to take its medicine. This is a gunpoint-enforced medical monopoly that exists as a threat to our health and our freedoms.

#6 - The increasing frequency of food shortages and crop failures - Notice the spike in food prices? That's just the beginning: Food prices will continue to skyrocket in the years ahead due to extreme weather, the loss of pollinators and the global contamination of crops by GMOs. Real food is becoming increasingly scarce in our world. You might want to think about starting a home garden...

#7 - The runaway destruction of the world by energy companies - The radioactive fallout from Fukushima isn't the only way in which energy companies are destroying our world: Don't forget about the Deepwater Horizon and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- a spill that isn't over, by the way. They're still spraying Corexit in the Gulf one year later!

#8 - The continued GMO contamination of our planet - This may be the worst chapter in the coming collapse: The widespread genetic pollution of our planet through GMOs. This is a crime against nature and against humanity. It is a "gene spill" that may never be contained as it spreads its deadly DNA across the world's food crops, leading to crop failures and starvation ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484b0skZjNlTGO80p69bAsJnpg/www.naturalnews.com/032167_g...). The use of GMOs is the closest thing to "Satanic" that you'll find in modern agriculture. The agenda behind this is pure evil.

#9 - The tyranny and criminal crackdowns targeting real food (raw milk) - When you can't even sell honest farm food to your neighbors without being targeted and arrested by the cops, something is terribly wrong with the world. But this is happening today, all across America. Now the feds are even targeting the Amish! ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484bzMJsSBjQPcOSAuAUS6d7xQ/www.naturalnews.com/029322_r...)

#10 - The escalation of the counterfeiting of the money supply - In a failed economic system approaching collapse, the moronic leaders can only think of "solutions" that actually accelerate their own downfall. The runaway counterfeiting of money by the Federal Reserve (with its "quantitative easing" and other counterfeit methods) is a classic sign that the end of our current system is fast approaching. The economic insanities are obvious to anyone who can still do math.

#11 - The plummeting intelligence of the masses - One of the most disturbing signs that we're already in the collapse is the great dumbing-down of the masses. The drooling, CNN-watching television zombies who dominate our landscape offer absolutely nothing of value to the world. They are the "mindless consumers" who get vaccinated, watch television and eat processed, pasteurized junk food. They're on psychiatric meds and believe everything the government tells them. Most of these people, of course, won't make it through the collapse. Which is why we lost the TV at our house.

#12 - The complete and utter fabrication of the mainstream news - Much of the mainstream news is now utterly and completely fabricated these days: The reporting on Obama's long-form birth certificate; the news about the war in Libya; the coverage of the economy and the U.S. debt... it's all so utterly false and unbelievable that an intelligent person watching the news can't help but explode with laughter. It is a sign of this collapse that the information sources relied upon by the masses are unable to report the truth anymore and must resort to weaving politically expedient fictions on everything from health care and medicine to the fate of the U.S. dollar itself.

#13 - The ongoing pharmaceutical pollution of our world - Beyond the GMO contamination and the radiation contamination of our world, we are also experiencing the mass pharmaceutical contamination of our planet. It's not just the pharma factories that dump their products into the rivers ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484bL8Ns8aY4fnvNMlEfFogy-A/www.naturalnews.com/025415_w...); it's also the fact that well over half the population is now taking drugs almost daily, and those drugs pass right through their bodies and end up in the water supply where they contaminate the fish ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484bYgIu1zkC8UkfzmvVxz_pfQ/www.naturalnews.com/025933.html). Even beyond that, the drugs end up in the human sewage sludge that's packaged and sold as "organic soil!" ( http://www.facebook.com/l/8484bwkh0n8A3xm6lMACYUlB1Gg/www.naturalnews.com/029504_o...)

#14 - The radioactive contamination of the global food supply - Here's one that's really insidious: The global food supply is now contaminated with the radioactive fallout from Fukushima. We're told the levels are "low," but we're not told the truth of how radioactive cesium isotopes persist in the food supply for centuries. How is the human race going to survive its exposure to CT scans, radioactive food, chest X-rays, TSA body scanners and even the secret DHS mobile X-ray vans that can penetrate your body with X-rays as you're walking into a football stadium? The total radiation burden on the human race is now reaching a point of mass infertility. That may be the whole idea, actually.

It's accelerating, too

December, 2012 may be a useful date as some sort of mid-point in the crisis, or perhaps as a trigger date for some further acceleration of society's rapid unraveling. But make no mistake: We are already living in the collapse of our modern world. And you have a front-row seat! (Exciting, huh?)

Think about what's happening around you these days. These are the signs of the last, desperate clutches of a civilization built on utterly unsustainable practices that don't value life on our world. These are the End Times of the corporate oligarchy; the monopolistic for-profit corporation machine that destroyed everything in our world in exchange for a slightly higher quarterly earnings report.

In the quest for more money, humanity has sacrificed its food supply, its pollinators, it's oceans, forests and soils. Greed-driven humans have used other humans as medical experiments and cannon fodder. We have created wars to sell more bombs, and we've invented disease to sell psychiatric chemicals.

These are the practices of a failed civilization... and one whose days are numbered. Watching it all crumble is far more interesting than watching it continue its destructive ways, of course, because those of us paying attention realize a future civilization must rise up in the place of this one after the collapse.

Say goodbye to the false power of institutions

It would be nice if our future leaders remembered the importance of liberty and personal responsibility, of course. The answer to all the world's problems, it turns out, is freedom -- freedom in medicine, freedom in economics and freedom from government tyranny.

Because, let's face it: The root cause of most these problems that are bringing down our world right now is bad government. It is bad government (Big Government) that approved the GMOs. Bad government enforced the medical monopoly and allowed the pesticides to kill the honeybees. Bad government drove us into inescapable debt and costly foreign wars. Bad government outlawed health freedom and protected the monopolistic practices of the food companies, drug companies and chemical companies.

The downfall of modern human civilization is, as you probably guessed, also the downfall of the very idea that Big Government creates a better society. Because if there's one idea that needs to stay dead after the collapse, it's the idea that We the People somehow need another group of people (government workers) to live off our hard work while hounding us with their false authority, directing every little detail of our lives.

What we need in our world isn't more government, but more freedom. If we had freedom, integrity and personal responsibility, we wouldn't even be facing the global collapse that has already begun. But alas, the human race is an infant species and it must learn some lessons the hard way, it seems.

This lesson should be long remembered: If you let the corporations, the banks and the governments run your economies, your farms and your lives, they will enslave you and steal your future while you sleep; they will inject silent poisons into the very world around you until you awaken one day to find that all you created has been destroyed. They will promise you paradise but deliver only death. Beware of any entity that is not a living person -- no government, no institution, no corporation has a soul, nor a heart, nor a conscience. They are forces of organized destruction that decimate those things we hold dear while delivering to us things that will only enslave us or harm us.

Beware the corporation; the government; the non-profit institution working as a front group for private industry. Never allow yourself to be ruled over by any institution which exists only as a fictional construct organized from the projection of human greed.

And be ready for the acceleration of the collapse. Because if you are reading this, you are the future of the human race. You have a duty to stay alive, keep your genes intact, and be around to help create the Next Society after this one crumbles into history.

Superwoman

2011-04-30T17:00:00.003-06:00

Not only can my wife run the mile in under six minutes, she’s an excellent massause and KNITS too...check out this cool blanket she just whipped out in like a day or two....she's just incredible.

What a Dad.

2011-04-24T17:16:00.003-06:00

So I am a little behind on doing some of the traditional things that kids like to do on holidays. Here I am showing the boys how to paint an egg on Easter. That only took sixteen years. Later we will be getting chocolate bunnies and little fun things in a basket. Of course what this does very nicely is get everyones minds off the real meaning of Easter which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it was fun anyway.

What summer?

2011-04-24T14:48:00.002-06:00

Summer better catch up fast. So far, I'm not very impressed. In protest, I will now post pictures of summers past. This may irritate my boys. Alas, I care not. No more rain, no more flippin' "praying for rain".....I want summer here. I'm sick of having to wear shoes.

2011-04-07T16:32:00.002-06:00

I am building a chicken coop that allows me to get eggs without actually going into the coop. It's about half done. It is made out of one-hundred year old barn wood on the outside of it. These chickens better appreciate my hard work.

We will be getting a dozen more Deleware chicks soon.

2011-04-03T09:53:00.003-06:00

And a mighty voice called out and said, " Thus I will make it snow on this day as to force all mankind inside to watch conference and eat food and edify themselves"

John Deere

2011-04-02T15:44:00.003-06:00

Nice little restoration project that Elijah and I worked on Saturday.

Cancer

2011-03-30T22:57:00.002-06:00

So I decided to finally watch “Food Matters”. If you didn’t already know this, it is a documentary about how we eat, what we eat, and how doctors treat our conditions.

I have read the books “Back to Eden” and “World Without Cancer” more then once each so there was very little that I didn’t know in the documentary but I wanted my family to watch it also.

I will not get into the absolute fraud that cancer research is. Anyone with open eyes can research that online or anywhere else and find out the real reasons that there supposedly are no “cures for cancer” at this time. Needless to say, whenever I see a“let’s cure cancer” marathon or telethon or a new press release that says they are getting “closer to curing cancer”, I want to vomit all over myself.

The show went into detail about how so much of the foods that we eat are deficient in so many ways. I strongly suggest you watch it with your family.

Do yourself a favor and watch it with with anyone you love or care for.

http://documentaryheaven.com/food-matters/

Just let me sleep.

2011-03-24T18:32:00.005-06:00

See this innocent little noise machine? I hate it. We all make sacrifices when we get married. And my lovely wife Emily, likes “white noise” when she sleeps. I like it quiet at night so when I am sleeping and I hear a burglar trying to break in to steal my eggs or something, I can get up and shoot him. But with this thing, I hear nothing.

The other night we had the power go out and her lovely little machine went dead quiet and I had failed to get back up batteries. Ahhh ….silence. The wonderful nothingness of it all. But guess what? It seems that after all these years of nocturnal brainwashing that Emily has imposed upon me with her little sound machine, I now can’t sleep. David is coughing. The roof has a tiny leak behind the wood burning stove and I hear it drip. Elijah is snoring. Zach still talks in his sleep. Yikes. What a mess. Then the power comes on……and then off. Then on again, then off. Apparently the default “white noise” setting when the sound machine from you-know-where comes back on is “birds”. So when I was able to finally fall asleep I was startled awake again by birds screeching and chirping loudly. How on earth is that supposed to be a sound that lulls you to sleep? I kept waking up thinking I was sleeping in the aviary at the San Diego Zoo.

Emily doesn’t like the ocean setting because it occasionally has a whale sound. She doesn’t like whales or the odd noises they make. It freaks her out.

So now I am stuck. I’ll have to buy some batteries, I presume. Or go sleep in the tree house or something.

Men pull things.

2011-03-12T20:54:00.001-07:00

The Warn 8274 is a very serious winch. Perhaps I will rebuild it.

Summer tips.

2011-03-08T20:50:00.006-07:00

Hello everyone. I am concerned that all humanity other then myself is not getting themselves excited for the summer months coming up like I am.

So, the nice guy that I am, have decided to give you a few tips, free of charge.

Tip one: Buy a convertible. Here is a good example of what kind to buy, but any convertible will do. Do not discuss this with your wife before purchasing your vehicle. She will be mad, but will get over it. Buy her a new mop or something. Maybe a pair of those rubber gloves they use when they clean the toilet.

Tip two: Put a nice stereo in it. It gets noisy when the wind is blowing through your hair down the road so I suggest a powerful stereo. Here are the two old school Rockford Fosgate 1000 watt monsters I have in the back of mine. If your rear view mirror doesn’t shake when you turn up gangster rap music, it’s not powerful enough. A nice glitzy stereo that plays videos and shows stuff on a little color lcd screen is cool too. Mine will even show pics of my hottie wife on it when I get around to figuring it out.

Tip three: Drive it around with the top down even if it’s still forty degrees outside. This will get you in the right “mindset” for when it really is warm outside. Do not drive it in front of your house if you have failed to inform your wife that you obediently responded to tip one. There is a chance she might see you enjoying life excessively more then she is as she is vacuuming the living room, testing out the new mop you bought her with her new rubber gloves on and forlornly looking out the window. Living in a large city like Los Angeles helps you hide better then if you live in a town with only one traffic light in the entire county like, say, Nephi, Utah.

Tip four: Buy some cool “Dirty Harry” dark prescription sunglasses that you can stare at people with and they can’t tell if you really are staring at them like some sort of perv or not. It helps keep the sun out of your eyes. And since you’ll be driving your new convertible around town picking up cleaning supplies for your wife back at the house, and the sun will be beating down on your face, you’ll need them.

Tip five: Don’t post anything you do on Facebook or any dumb blogsite where you might get caught. Chances are that the “she” might take a break from cleaning the bathroom or weeding the vegetable garden and get on the computer and see it.

And then undoubtedly try to blame it all on me.

You're welcome.

Jay

Rebuilt head.

2011-03-05T18:05:00.003-07:00

Now THAT is what a completely rebuilt head looks like after the amazing work that Scott does at Charlies Machine in Provo, Utah. I highly recommend him. Look at all the new valves, guides and machine work he did. Just wonderful. Now it will go in Emily's diesel rabbit and if I put it back on right, she will be back on the road this week. We will see.

Ugly

2011-02-09T13:32:00.004-07:00

Emilys ugly diesel rabbit that gets amazing gas mileage started pouring out smoke and missing badly. I figured it was a bad valve and I was right. We will fix that and get it back on the road.

Ohhhhhhh ya.

2011-01-18T17:18:00.003-07:00

New haircut. New Car. New License.

Life as we know it will never be the same!

BIG DAY!!!!

Can't wait to see what's next.

Eat oranges

2011-01-15T17:27:00.002-07:00

Winter is a drag. We eat oranges because not only is it good for you, it reminds us of summer. So just eat oranges because we told you too and don't argue with us.

2011-01-15T17:06:00.005-07:00

So we have had the good old Dodge Caravan for a long time. A clean 1996 Caravan we bought for $1000.00 and it lasted a few years and 240,000 miles. We sold it so we could get some money for it before it died and would result in a trip to the salvage yard and $100.00.
As I sat in bed the other night, a thought came into my mind that shocked me. We have a number of cars. VW Rabbits. Convertable Rabbits. Diesel Rabbits. Pretty much a Rabbit farm in front of the house right now. But nothing big and roomy. My parents have me drive them to the doctors offices and hospital visits often. Almost every week. My parents are tall. Six feet or so. THEY WILL NOT FIT IN A RABBIT!! Panic ensued.

You know how your parents sacrifice for you when you are young, and then when you are an adult you make sacrifices for them? Well I had to put my loved Land Cruiser up for sale so I could get something to drive my parents around in. A sad day.You can see it covered in snow here in this dreadful winter we are having.

But guess what? I had an offer to trade my FJ40 land Cruiser for an FJ60 Land Cruiser! I can fit my parents in that rig easy. AND STILL HAVE A LAND CRUISER!! Boy is it ugly. And it's an ugly gold color like my wifes' ugly Rabbit is too. Serves me right.But so what. The 4WD all works perfectly and is way more quiet down the highway than my FJ40 ever was. Way more room for snowboards and stuff in the back too.

I'm doing very poorly on my car dealing commitment.

2011-01-09T12:09:00.004-07:00

So in my quest to be free from the addiction of always feeling the need to purchase cars for whatever reason, a new challenge has been thrown into the mix. My family.

Let it be known that since I committed to refrain from “ever buying a car for myself to restore”, I have kept my promise and still have only my 1977 Land Cruiser and 1979 Mercedes as my personal projects. I have had good offers on both and am very proud of myself in the fact that I have turned all of them down.

But guess what? My oldest boy, Zach has informed me that “in less then a month I will have my license” and intends to drive whenever or wherever without any reason or logic and that he insisted that I “help him find a car”. His money of course, not mine. And since I am helping HIM buy a car and not buying it FOR MYSELF, I have not broken any aforementioned commitments.

So off I went hunting down a car that would be fun, cheap and easy to maintain. And here it is…..

Just kidding. But that is what it will look like when it’s done being restored. In actuality, the end result was this three hundred dollar find in Monroe, Utah. A silver 1988 VW Cabriolet. This will be fun project for him. Here it really is.

It needs a new top and some other odds and ends but it should work out fine.

And then my dear wife, Emily, finally wore down the Ford Festiva she has been driving every day to work. She had put over 200,000 miles on it. The transmission blew up and so it has been retired.

What to do, I wondered, (for a few seconds at least). Since Emily is my sugar momma, the river of which all money flows, finding a car for her to get to work, was now my new top priority. No lazing around the house for Emily like her husband gets to do.

Off I went to look for a car that she could purchase with HER money for HER to own.

The only conditions is that it had to get better then the 42 miles per gallon that the Festiva was able to get and that it was safe and not too ugly. Not a very easy task. Having it be ugly is important because Emily does not like us boys using her car as we trash it up with candy wrappers, spilled drinks and the like. So it was going to be difficult to find such a vehicle. But I was up to the challenge.

Here is Emily’s new ride. A 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit diesel. Look at all those 48 horsepower busting to get Emily down the road to work. This one here is getting about 55 miles per gallon. I do things to diesels and I may be able to get it to about 58 miles per gallon. Recently rebuilt engine that hasn’t even been broken in yet. This should be good for about 300,000 miles before a rebuild.

Not too ugly though. Unless you compare it to Zachs cabby or my “parts car”. Then it definitely ranks right up there on the ugly meter.

It just so happens that I was able to work a parts car into the deal also. I have decided to keep that for myself. It has a really bad transmission. I also think it has a hung valve so it needs real work. Since this is my car, it enters into a “grey area” when it comes to my commitment. Here it is. A black 1989 VW Cabriolet.

The house is starting to look like “Jays German auto” since this now gives us five German cars on our property. Three VW’s and two Mercedes.

2010-11-05T06:32:00.001-06:00

Nice leather seats out of a Chevy suv..........fun.

Cruiser.

2010-10-23T17:16:00.003-06:00

So winter is about here. You know, sometimes we get a good amount of snow in our driveway. Sometimes our cars get stuck there. That could be a problem, which sometimes results in me having to put my shoes on. Can't have that. So being the good family man that I am, I decided to be a forward thinker and buy this Land Cruiser project so we don't get stuck in our driveway this year.
In all seriousness, since I started buying, selling and obtaining cars since I was sixteen, I have owned about one hundred and fifty cars. My wife, (Emily Forscutt, the very first Miss Provo College, and a babe), said that I have a problem and need counseling. Well I have decided that this 1977 Toyota Land Cruiser will be my final car that I buy. Any future vehicles purchased will be by Emily with my help if she wants it but I am done.
I have my Mercedes coupe project and this Land Cruiser project. That should do it for me.
This Cruiser will be painted the original color code # 621 Rustic Green. Don't worry friends, except for that part in the back and a small hole here and there, it's all surface rust.

Mercedes 300cd

2010-10-03T09:42:00.002-06:00

In the year 1978 Mercedes decided it might be interesting to make a two door coupe diesel automobile. Now there are many, many Mercedes 300 series diesels on the road. The diesel engines mercedes made from approximately 1978 to 1985 were made out of iron and were very durable. Engines with over 500,000 miles on them and still on the road are not uncommon. There are many one million mile Mercedes Benz vehicles out there still also. But they are almost all four doors, not two door coupes. The first year they made this somewhat rare two door coupe was 1978, and the only made about 1500 of them. So to find one in any kind of decent condition is a good deal. I traded my one hundred dollar Mercedes 300se for this one. It should be up and running after we fix a few things before it snows.

2010-09-09T15:04:00.002-06:00

Salmon for dinner, perhaps?

Size matters

2010-09-07T16:14:00.002-06:00

Now that's a compressor. A Saylor-Beall 120 gallon monster that will pump out 17 cfm when hooked up to the motor. Loving KSL classifieds.

Must...eat....meat.

2010-08-31T15:45:00.002-06:00

P.E.T.A. this! And that's not even showing you the rest behind the front seats.

Frankenstein log splitter

2010-08-26T20:44:00.003-06:00

Fabricating the power and hydraulics for my latest log splitter, "Nutbuster III". That one hundred pound, 220 volt, farm duty motor on the left is going to rotate that Vickers 20 to 45 gallon per minute hydraulic pump on the right and man oh man are we going to have fun splitting wood this fall.

2010-08-25T11:17:00.002-06:00

It's a little early to go logging, with my log splitter not quite done and all.....but I still wont turn down some wood if it's good burning wood like Chinese Elm is.

2010-08-19T09:59:00.002-06:00

"Come on girls, it will be fun, we will go slow, and you wont get wet!"

2010-08-05T00:02:00.003-06:00

So we have decided to rename our blog site the Utah extreme weather site as this seems to be my latest obsession. So Emily is at work and I take off to where I think there will be some action up in the sky. You can see it's not even very dark yet.

It really started raining hard so we decided to get a few shots from the tree house in the back yard. Trees everywhere. Guess that's why it's called our treehouse.

It finally stopped raining, so we decided to make like lightning rods, and go back out to the desert and take a few more pics. It got a little hairy out there.

2010-08-04T12:55:00.003-06:00

Last night too!

2010-08-03T07:01:00.003-06:00

It's been a bad few summers as far as really good lightning storms go but last night we had a pretty good one come through town and for a few minutes it really rained hard.About 100 lame snapshot attempts can usually garner one decent picture.

Rene-bean

2010-07-25T21:32:00.002-06:00

I love it when my sister comes to visit.

Isn't she pretty?

Time Flies....

2010-07-25T21:17:00.005-06:00

Another Milestone in the life of Zacharaias:

LEARNER'S PERMIT!

In this one, he is CLEARLY humoring Mom:

There was a girl that came out of the testing area right before Zach finished... she was in tears because she failed the test for the second time. Poor girl! Good job on passing the test Zach!

Bubbles

2010-07-07T12:29:00.002-06:00

Wife telling you that you collect too much junk, $500.00. Scoring what I used to call a seven woman, one man hot tub for free and getting it working and set up in the back yard before the wife can say no, priceless.

2010-06-03T14:11:00.001-06:00

2010-06-03T14:09:00.002-06:00

A pool is a must have for us every summer. This year I'm using the dump truck to lay down tons of sand under it.

Elijah keeping it nice and flat

2010-06-03T14:08:00.002-06:00

Ouch

2010-04-20T17:37:00.002-06:00

Nice gash. That one almost found some bone. Good thing I'm a doctor.

Hey nice wallpaper.

2010-04-20T17:19:00.003-06:00

Cooking rice, frying eggs for the fried rice. Making a dessert in one oven while baking bread in the other. Eight burners, two griddles. With my twin Buick Roadmaster ovens, anything is possible. David supervising.

www.BountifulBaskets.org

2010-04-18T17:47:00.003-06:00

We just picked up our first order of Bountiful Baskets - a local (Utah, Idaho, Arizona, & Nevada) food co-op. Fifteen dollars for all this, baby!!

(the bread was another $9)

Thanks for telling us about this, Brandi! We're big fans!

Vultures

2010-03-28T21:11:00.002-06:00

Yeah, we had some vultures hanging out in the tree by our house. Never saw those in Los Angeles, that's for sure.

2010-03-18T15:59:00.000-06:00

2010-03-18T15:57:00.001-06:00

After we went to Elijahs school board award event, we went to the cannery. They love it when we go like we do every month. Look at my boys working...contrary to popular belief, that is NOT me in the background.

2010-03-18T15:56:00.002-06:00

That's me with my hottie wife.

Spelling bee.

2010-03-18T15:48:00.002-06:00

Elijah being presented an award by the school board for 2nd place in the spelling bee. School board member looking at Elijah and wondering how he turned out so handsome just like his Dad.

Roomy

2010-03-18T15:47:00.002-06:00

Lots of room inside.

Five bucks at D.I.

2010-03-18T15:45:00.003-06:00

Whenever I see a big bag holding a tent that has poles at Deseret Industries, I usually just snag it. Kind of like a grab bag. Who knows what you will end up with. If its a dud, you at least have material or ropes or something to use for your emergency prep.

Someone dropped this off at D.I. Five bucks. Never used even once. Nice light summer tent. David looks on in amazement.

2010-01-28T08:21:00.003-07:00

Hey look at me, I'm actually keeping up with Liz Thompson with two blog posts in two days! I'm sure it wont last. She will blog about anything. Her kids brushing teeth, dryer lint, the dog, whatever.

Anyway.....check out this HUGE Meade scope I scored at a pawnshop in Salt Lake! We will plant this monster on the porch of the cabin in Park City where we are camping in this summer and see the nose of a deer from ten miles away.....

That camping trip is gonna be the bomb.

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” ~Anonymous

2010-01-27T22:29:00.006-07:00

I've finally gotten around to adding my own name as an author on this blog so that you no longer have to guess which one of us is doing the typing. I know it was probably easy what with Jay's humor and wit (along with his typos and picture malfunctions) but now it will be even easier!

I hope to use this as more of an outlet for my thoughts and feelings... taking a lesson from you, Greg! No longer will this be only pictures... because you don't always have to post pictures in each blog posting, right? I mean... I have interesting things to say that will make it worth reading without the eye-catching pics of my house and family, right?

Time will tell.

I've been loving 2010 so far. We've had some pretty amazing experiences as a family. If you are in our ward, or if you read Liz's post, or if you're a good friend of mine, then you know that we finally realized the twelve year old dream of ours to get to the temple!

While there are SO many things that I could say about this, it seems like every time I relate the story of that day some of it is lost. I think I'm finally beginning to understand what sacred really means. I've always understood the concept of things that are sacred, but this is the first time that knowing something and locking it away in my brain, pulling it out once in a while and thinking about it keeps it shiny and new... while talking about it sort of dulls it for me. It's hard to explain, but know this: the day was perfect and amazing! I LOVE temples! I LOVE my family! and WOW! I love my husband.... more now than ever!

While we're on the subject - how about that PAYSON temple announcement! Oh yay!! Jay and I plan on taking pictures of the construction over the next little while and helping out whenever and whatever as much as we can. I'm sure there will be plenty to blog about that later on.

I've decided that the word for 2010 (for me) is "meaningful". I've already had a year's worth of meaningful things happen to me in these few short weeks, but I plan on making this year one of my most meaningful years ever. It's going to be a time for reconnecting with what's important, forgiving, and healing. I can't wait!

So stick around... it's bound to be good, right?

Ice fishing.

2010-01-25T07:01:00.003-07:00

Are you kidding me? Do people really go ice fishing and ENJOY it? Well here I am with the scouts and a few of my boys giving it a try. You can see Elijah there all bundled up wishing he was back home sitting with Mom next to the fire. The wood stove I made is in one of the pictures there. It kept the tent nice and warm. The event was a good experience. It solidified the fact that I don't mind fishing.....in July.

DIY wood stove.

2010-01-21T11:59:00.003-07:00

More often in the past "ice fishing with the scouts" resulted in "ice freezing with the scouts" with us all in a tent not sleeping because it's so cold and miserable. This week-end we will be sleeping overnight at Fish Lake in Utah and I'm not going to be cold this time. Or any more times as far as that's concerned.

Here is my ten gauge thick nice big wood stove I built for the trip. It will be fun testing it out and see if it burns longer then my smaller one I've used before.

Our new old oven.

2010-01-07T07:25:00.002-07:00

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! We have been having a good time cooking all sorts of stuff on our cool oven that looks like a 1957 Cadillac with all it's chrome and steel. Definitely one of those items that falls under the category of "they don't make them like they used to". This baby bakes and cooks like nothing I've used since managing a resturaunt back in Los Angeles.

I should have been COOKING fifty years ago instead of born then.

2009-12-30T13:47:00.003-07:00

I'm so tired of my stupid electronic oven. The electronics stop working and then dinner is a non-event. The timer panel went out on and I had to hit it with my fist for it to work again. And again. And again. The family all knew Dad was preparing dinner because of all the yelling and pounding that could be heard from our very small kitchen.

Not any more. I'm so done with "modern electronic ovens". This is my sweet new oven. A 1950's era Wedgewood. Beautiful white and missing two easily purchased knobs. A nice center griddle for cooking bacon and eggs or pancakes. Very important to have a working stove as my boys all know how to cook now and frequently just go into the kitchen and make something themselves.

Winter showed up.

2009-12-08T12:52:00.003-07:00

I was in the process of putting up lights and then we got slammed with snow. Oh well.I'm sure I'll get that frozen-to-the-roof ladder down in mid-March or so. At least I got my latest BMW project under a tarp there on the side.

Our Christmas tree

2009-12-08T12:48:00.002-07:00

This is about how close we are going to get to having a tree this year. We wont be in Utah for most of that week-end and we are trying to be very frugal so we can get decent gifts for the boys. Call me Scrooge if you would like. If they want to dance around this years Christmas tree, they can go into the back yard.

2009-12-03T12:58:00.001-07:00

2009-12-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

2009-12-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Red

2009-12-03T12:50:00.005-07:00

Life’s not fair. I swing a killer deal to unload my beloved Porsche 914 projects to get a Mercedes for my wife to drive and now I never see it. Don’t I need a German car to drive too? I say yes. I got to thinking, you know, it’s been like three weeks since we found another car to purchase and I found a car for house husband Jay.

It’s a 1989 BMW 325i. Red. Two doors. Five speed. Big six-cylinder engine. Bought it from a lovely BYU couple in Provo. “It just stopped running”. $450.00.

Vroom vrooooooom!!

So I need to get this going soon as I am getting a mental condition from driving the Dodge Caravan all around all the time. I've got it up on blocks so I can inspect and change the brakes right now. So it's running rough right now but give me a week or two.

Pimp Daddy

2009-11-13T13:34:00.002-07:00

German automotive math 101…..Invest $100.00 total for two Porsche 914 projects……realize you have too many projects involving cars all over the yard…..list 914’s on KSL classifieds for $3000.00…….get a trade offer for a clean 1986 Mercedes Benz 300e …..make trade…does that make my Benz a $100.00 investment?

Flashback Friday

2009-11-06T09:38:00.002-07:00

Our wonderful Romanian friends, Mike & Denise Iacobescu

Here is Mike, sporting Christmas decoration earrings at a PV2 ward party in 2000. I just found him on facebook after 7 years of wondering where they ended up. Denise is holding Elijah. Man, those were the days!! We miss you guys!!

2009-10-18T08:07:00.000-06:00

2009-10-15T15:03:00.000-06:00

Super Step-Dad

2009-10-14T12:09:00.003-06:00

When I remarried, I hoped that I would find someone who would love my boys like their dad does. I never... NEVER.... wanted to hear those dreaded words, "Well, YOUR son did this...."

I think I won the jackpot with that wish!

Jay's the best step-dad in the world. His unique personality has also made these guys into men that they wouldn't have been without knowing him. Feel the love from this sweet picture! And this is the teenager that doesn't let me hug him in public anymore. :)

Fanny & Leafy Mae

2009-10-14T11:57:00.005-06:00

How would you like to be named Fanny... or Leafy Mae? These are honest to goodness names in my family tree. Get it? :) Mom has been working hard to extract names for temple work and she asked me to go with her on Saturday and perform some of the work.

I think we had a marvelously spiritual experience and it was fun to think about what my great-great-great-great- or so grandmother, Fanny, was like. I like the name Leafy Mae so much that I guess it's a good thing I'm not having any more children. They might not like it so much!

Thanks, Mom, for the good time on Saturday. I love you!!

(Provo Utah Temple Photo courtesy http://www.ldschurchtemples.com )

I chose right.

2009-10-11T07:14:00.001-06:00

Flashback Friday

2009-10-09T11:40:00.003-06:00

The best brothers in the world turn into the best uncles in the world!!

2009-10-01T15:06:00.002-06:00

Remember what the little chicks looked like when I first got them about five months ago? Well they are all grown up now, ready to be the egg producing women they were meant to be.

2009-10-01T14:55:00.002-06:00

Now I know what your thinking......who's sexy hand is holding that tiny egg and why is it significant? Well that tiny brown egg is the first egg that was produced by my pretty white Deleware chickens. What this means, of course, is that soon all my other rare Delewares will be laying big beautiful brown eggs too. We will be getting a incubator and attempting to hatch baby chicks soon. I'm not sure how soon as I am not sure if we should attempt to do that in the winter. But we will see.

2009-10-01T14:53:00.003-06:00

Chickens digging the new straw.

The red barn

2009-10-01T14:51:00.001-06:00

Here is the red coop form the outside.

2009-09-18T16:30:00.001-06:00

I ran into some more good deals this summer so I’m in a little deep with projects happening all at the same time. This is the driveway. We actually parked cars here at one time. The brown Porsche 914 is the parts rig. Any parts that I need for the cool sexy mid-life crises black 914 I’m restoring for myself comes from that one. Then of course there’s the 1972 beetle convertible. All the boys made fun of that until they learned that girls dig convertibles. Now they are looking forward to that being completed too. Especially Zach.
None of these fun cars will be found at my Brother Chris’s house. He was bagging on me the other day saying I’m getting old and boring. I think he’s driving a station wagon or maybe a Dodge Aries K or something now.
In the forground you can see our fun Honda 100 and a Honda Cr80 I’m fixing for the boys.

2009-09-18T16:29:00.000-06:00

2009-09-18T16:28:00.001-06:00

2009-09-18T16:24:00.002-06:00

Here is just a sample of firewood that is getting split by or log splitter. This will continue until it snows. We don’t pay heating bills at our house.

2009-09-18T16:23:00.001-06:00

Some wood you don’t want to just cut up for firewood if it’s big enough. This log is an example. It is apricot. I may have it milled into sheets of very hard to purchase one-inch sheets. Lot’s of grain and nearly impossible to find at any lumbar supply store.

2009-09-17T12:09:00.002-06:00

As you know I like to get good deals on things. But I don't just randomly buy stuff I don't need or wont be able to sell for a major profit. Well, wood logging season has approached and I've always wanted a dump truck because I'm so lazy. Imagine how much wood I can load and then dump with this bad boy. That's an 1988 Chevy one ton with a dump bed for five hundred dollars. Runs perfect.

Poor, poor Jay!

2009-09-13T19:16:00.003-06:00

Jay is allergic to our town. It's sad, really. He's from LA and has never suffered through allergies before. Since moving to Nephi, he suffers every year. Severly. We decided to do something about it finally. Jay would like some relief from the suffering. I'm ready for the nature blows to end.

Here are a couple shots of the allergy testing:

they put dots on his back with letters to identify weeds, trees, mold, grasses, and animals

In this picture you can see the welts after the nurse measured them. He is allergic to ALL native grasses in Utah, some trees, and weeds. NO allergy to animals (phew, the cats are safe...) or mold (thank goodness because we'd have to move!)

It was $500 for the test and each shot is $125. Thank goodness for insurance! $30 for the test and $25 each shot. The doc says one shot every other week for 3 years. Here we go!

Summer Fun

2009-09-13T16:22:00.007-06:00

David's Birthday:

Birthday dinner @ Quiznos

When he first saw what his present was....

Dad did a good job picking something he'd love!

New School Year:

They're all getting so old!

4th of July:

On the roof watching the jets... it's become a tradition! Jay's a trendsetter.

Rebekah's visit:

Fun dinner with the girls!

Front yard remodel:

Thanks to our good friend, Will for volunteering his time and equipment to rid us of the giant eye-sore out front!

Jay's brother, Rick at the 4th of July gathering: Jay and Rick re-connected during Rick's visit to help their parents. It was so great!

Hill Air Force Base Air Show:

Thank goodness for good friends. I love you, Wendy!

Four of my five boys set up at the air show... Jay tries really hard to make sure we're all comforatable and having a good time. Thanks for that!

Wheat!

2009-08-29T19:36:00.002-06:00

Can't get enough wheat. My friend Willie planted five acres of wheat and it grew very well. As a result we have tons of wheat to bag up and sell. Here is what six tons of red wheat looks like.

Our kind of newer LG washer set!

2009-08-29T19:23:00.003-06:00

We don't buy NEW washer/dryer sets. They are too expensive and as soon as you buy a set the value drops so much I don't find them worth it. We had a used Maytag Neptune set that worked wonderfully for three years. I bought that set for five hundred dollars. Thousands of loads of laundry for three years. A good value. Well the washer finally died and I scored this LG set for seven hundred and fifty bucks. The people I bought this from paid twenty four hundred for the set three years ago. LG washers kick all sorts of butt over the older Maytag set we had. All the boys are fighting to do laundry. All our clothes are clean again. Life is wonderful.

Flashback Friday

2009-08-14T13:18:00.003-06:00

Jay calls me at work one day and says, "Do you want to see what your boys are doing right now?"

and THIS is what he sent me.... oh my heck. Thankfully, he had it all cleaned up and the kids were freshly bathed by the time I got home! What a super-stay-at-home-dad! These little guys have so much more fun with a dad to play with all day than they would with me!

13 years ago today...

2009-08-10T14:46:00.003-06:00

...we met for the first time and went on our first date. As you can see, Jay won an "instant family" and I feel really blessed because he's taken such good care of me ever since. :)

Flashback Friday

2009-08-07T11:19:00.002-06:00

Look how uncomfy my baby is with the water - he didn't want to fall in! Now he jumps from the treehouse "deck" to the pool below.... we've come so far!

Dusk at Island Park

2009-08-01T10:35:00.001-06:00

The moon setting early in the evening while we are camping in Idaho.

Flashback Friday

2009-07-31T13:33:00.003-06:00

When Liz married my brother, David, she only had nephews and was inheriting four more nephews. She planned to dress them all alike in these darling vests and bowties for the wedding reception. I think it was stunning and I love the pictures of them all... they took one picture (that I don't have) of her down on the floor in her poofy dress with all the nephews sitting on and around her dress... I'll have to see if she has a copy of that one. It was my favorite!

2009-07-30T19:32:00.003-06:00

Now that we are back from our vacation, I don't want to run out of projects to do or I'll have to clean the house or feed my family. I recently scored this 1974 VW Beetle convertable. My buddy Mark lifted the body off of the running gear with his forklift so I can fix that up before I start on the body. Notice the nice clean area on the other side of the fence only ten feet away. Yep, my neighbors really hate me.

Red canoe

2009-07-30T19:22:00.005-06:00

Just before we left for Island Park on our vacation I tried to borrow a canoe. I had given up until at the last minute, our friends Mark and Cheryl let us use this. I had no idea so many people would enjoy it so much. We had some fun quiet times on this trip. Mostly in this canoe. Notice the two ton garbage hauler in the background. My very clean and organized neighbors REALLY must hate me.

I have a FIFTEEN year old. What??

2009-06-19T13:36:00.002-06:00

Happy Birthday my almost-driver!

For Zach's birthday dinner, he REALLY wanted to try Lobster. Yikes, I know, but he's a good kid so we try to accommodate without spoiling... I'm not sure how that is working yet. We went to Red Lobster and Zach got to try much more than Lobster. Here he is trying crab legs.

This is him contemplating the Lobster - he actually said "It's not as good as I thought it would be!" Which is good news, right?

All-in-all, I think he had a fun birthday. We love Zach and he's a joy (when he wants to be - haha)

Finally another Flashback Friday

2009-06-19T13:30:00.003-06:00

It sure is all I can do to keep eating, sleeping, exercising, and breathing... this blogging thing is so hard!

So after a long pause, here's another flashback friday! I'll try to be better... does anyone else get sick of hearing themselves say they'll "try"? I sure am sick of it! :)

My totally cute brother & sister... this was kind of a silly arrangement considering I was married with all four kids at the time... I guess they weren't, but it made me feel a little childish posing with them like the old days. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Flashback Friday

2009-05-22T16:43:00.003-06:00

I LOVE reading Liz's Flashback Friday posts. (Liz is my sister-in-law) I want in on some of that action! Here's my first Flashback post:

Left to Right: David, Elijah, Jacob AKA The Three Muskateers! They played with these for so long... I loved it!

Happy Birthday Emily!!

2009-05-14T05:50:00.003-06:00

Most people don't know that before Emily was in incredible payroll manager, she was a diesel mechanic. Anyway, happy birthday to the most wonderful Mom of four great boys and wife of mine that any man could ever have! Look how sexy she is even in this old work uniform of hers.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

2009-05-12T18:47:00.003-06:00

Happy Birthday, Jay!!! Fifty-one never looked so good. I love you!

Someone please help me.

2009-05-12T17:28:00.001-06:00

You know, I used to drive a cab in Los Angeles. I was a lifeguard. A bartender. Framed houses. Planted trees in Washington. Real macho stuff. What has my life become.

I owned fun sexy cars. A camaro. A Porsche. Convertables. I was somebody. Now look at me.

Here is my latest investment in adult testosterone. A 1996 Dodge Caravan. One thousand bucks. Lovely . Yes I actually drive it. Note the macho Bronco in the background that I actually drove recently. There is even some firewood sitting in the background, that believe it or not, I chopped with an axe myself.

Maybe if I get a massive stereo system for this van, I’ll reclaim some of my manlyness.