14 July

For several months we have been saving to take our family on vacation to southern California to Disneyland. The kids have been excited about it and have been saving money for the trip. Then about 3 weeks ago, there was a motor home in our neighborhood that was for sale. Kelli and I both starting thinking, independently of each other, about buying the motor home instead of going to California. When I brought it up with Kelli one day, she said that she had been thinking about that as well. We decided to go and look at it for fun but it had been sold. At that point we re-evaluated and decided that we’d ask the kids if they would like to by a camper instead of go to Disneyland. When we asked them, they all said they wanted a camper instead. They then spent the next several days drawing pictures of campers and designing floor plans for what they wanted the camper to look like inside. Kelli and I went and looked at one other old beater camp trailer that would have worked but was not really in that good of shape. We then waffled a bit on the decision between a motor home, a trailer or a popup tent trailer. We decided what we really needed was a tent trailer and decided to look in the paper every day and pray about finding the right one. The first day we prayed, Kelli saw a popup in the paper and went to look at it. It was perfect. It was owned by a little old couple that took excellent care of it. It also included an awning and bug screen which was an extra bonus. It was a bit small but otherwise exactly what we needed. Kelli bought it from then right then and we went that evening and picked it up.

The kids were so excited and we put it up right away in our side yard. The kids slept in the trailer for the next 3 nights.

That all happened on Monday July 7. The next day, early Tuesday morning, Kelli went to girl’s camp for the week. The kids continued to play in the camper every day for several days, I finally had to kick them all out because they were making a mess and getting the trailer all dirty. We decided that as soon as Kelli got back from Girls camp, we’d take the trailer up to a local canyon close by and try it out for a night. We spent some time during the next week going through our camping stuff and getting the trailer ready to go. Kelli arrived home Friday afternoon and we took off up Big Cottonwood Canyon. By the time we arrived at the campground, they were already full so we continued up the canyon and eventually ended up at Wasatch Sate Park in Midway (near Heber). We set up camp and had a very nice evening together. It got cold during the night so we were able to learn how the heater worked and everything. The next morning we got up, broke camp and went fishing. Rebekah was the lucky one and caught a fish that was 14 inches ling. She was so excited she talked about it all day and all day Sunday. All in all it was a great weekend and we are very glad that we got the trailer instead of Disneyland.


One other thing really cool event (7/11); as Kelli was driving home with the girls from girls camp, they saw that the construction crew was putting the temple spire with the angle Moroni statue in place on the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple. Kelli called us as they realized what was going on and we hopped on our bikes and rode over to the temple. We missed the actual placement by half an hour or so but it was still neat to see the spire in place. Kelli took the kids over for pictures later on that afternoon while I finished getting the trailer ready to go.

On another note, this past week there were a few developments at work that promise to make life easier. L3 officially announced a new work at home policy. After someone has been at L-3 for a year, they will have the option of working at home. Since I was able to do that for a long time with Intel, I am relay excited about being able to do that in the future. I’ll have to wait 6 more months but I am hoping that they will let me start at my contract hire date instead of my actual start date. Either way, it’s not to fare way that I’ll be able to WAH part of the time. Gas price continue to rise and reached $4.00 a gallon this week. High fuel prices are taking a toll on our budget along with lots of other areas of our economy. Everything is getting more expensive. To help employees cut costs, the State of Utah announced that they are going to a 4-10 work week. There has been a lot of speculation is other companies, especially L-3 will follow suit. Last Wednesday, an unofficial email came around that said L-3 will make an official announcement soon that they will give employees an option of 4-10 to keep our current schedule. I am very excited about a 4-10 work week, especially if I can WAH part of the time. I could work home and come in to the office one or two days a week and everything would be awesome. I’d get my time in and still have every Friday off. Kelli is really excited about this schedule as well. The unofficial time line states the program will start in October. (7/30 addendum: The official word for a 4/10 work week came on 7/21 that L-3 will begin the schedule in September - we are really excited).

Today is Abby’s 5th birthday. It’s amazing to realize that she has been with us that long and that the time has gone by so fast. She wanted a baby doll and an MP3 player for her birthday. She ended up getting a kids camera that takes digital pictures and an MP3 player. Last night we had a little party, ate come cake and let her open her presents. She was really excited. Dad helped her get some music on her MP3 player. She wanted Disney tunes, The Chipmunks, Hanna Montana and the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean (that her brothers have been listening to). She was very cute.