Mexico Cruise

This is my room mate (Brad Jensen) and our room after all the stuff is in it. We had to bring XBox game consoles, projectors and a lot of wiring so our little room gets packed

Brad and Randy

Our cabin has a little balcony. This is our snack plate that our room attendant brought in the afternoon. The little black and red topping on the little bread is not raspberry jam. It is caviar (fish eggs). It tasted a little fishy but was good

On our second day (today) we are in Key West on the way to Mexico. I'm going ashore in a minute to walk around. This is one of the little islands. Looks nice, but I wonder what they do during hurricane season.

Winter Wonder

Sunday night we had about an hour of rain; the first since October I think. At the time (10pm) it was about 45 degrees outside. This morning when I came out to the car to drive to work, this cool ice pattern was on the car roof.

Diploma

Well my diploma finally arrived the the mail, and our local mail person decided that I wanted it so bad that despite the warning on the evelope, he bent it to get in into the mailbox. As you can see on the corner its got several creases. I'm going to order another one because its actually worse than the picture shows and it would be totally obvious in a frame. I'm not sure if there is anything the post office will do if I complain, but I guess we'll find out how much a duplicate costs and go from there. Maybe I'll have it delivered to work next time so it won't get all beat up. To celebrate I get to start paying my student loans this month. Hurray!!!

Hot Babe

In case there was any doubt about how Allie, Staci & Molly came by their good looks; these pictures were taken either just before or while Jane and I were dating.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jane. The skin, the hair, the smile, those lips... perfect! And no make-up. Jane's super-model good looks were captured on film in December 1976. I asked her out about six weeks later. She was 17 years old. That's Paul Peters beating up on his older sister.


I took this picture on Memorial Day; May 30, 1977 about 2 months away from our getting engaged.

You Know You Are From Colorado If.....

We went out for Chinese food for dinner tonight and the little restaurant had a little local newspaper. This was on the back page and we thought it was very funny because we now totally get it. In honor of our family members thinking about relocating, we thought we'd pass these along:

You're from Colorado If:

1. You'll eat ice cream in the winter
2. When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt
3. It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be cancelled
4. You'll wear flip flops every day of the year regardless of temperature
5. You have no accent at all, but can hear other peoples'. And you make fun of them
6. "Humid" is over 25%
7. Your sense of direction is Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains
8. You say "the interstate" and everyone knows which one
9. You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard
10. You grew up planning your Halloween costume around your coat
11. You know what the Continental Divide is
12. You don't think that Coors beer is a big deal
13. You went to Casa Bonita as a kid
14. You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities
15. You always know the elevation of where you are
16. You wake up to a beautiful 80 degree day and wonder if it will snow tomorrow
17. You don't care that some company renamed it; the Broncos still play at Mile High
18. Everybody wears jeans to church
19. You actually know that South Park is a real place; not just a TV show
20. You know what a "Trust Fund Hippie" is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder
21. You know you are talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags
22. A bear on your porch doesn't bother you
23. Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the heck out of the Raiders

Buzzy

The other night Seth mentioned that he wanted to get his hair "buzzed". In fact, he'd been wanting to try it for a while. When I came home from a trip last night, it was a done deal.

Delphine Faringer Passing

Mardawn Fosson sent me an e-mail with this news article attached. Thought it might be of passing interest.

Pommy and Janie

Molly (or "Pommy" as Janie Hopkin calls her) continues to live in Boston taking care of Janie while Staci remains more or less house-bound by her Hyperemesis Gravidia. Staci sent me this cute picture of the girls and I thought I'd share.

Seth @ ThunderRidge HS Sadie Hawkins Dance

Last Saturday Seth's friend Chris Chambers (who is 16) got asked to the school's Sadie Hawkins dance. Chris had never been on a date before, and his family has a policy of "group dating" at age 16, so Chris called in for some air cover. Chris, Seth & Tenton have a group from seminary that usually gets together to hang out on Friday or Saturday night (or both), so the entire group went to Sadie Hawkins. The kids under 16 (most) aren't paired up, so it isn't a date, but does allow for some mixed-gender socializing. The theme was sort of a "black-light/glow in the dark" dance, so the kids got together the night before and designed some semi-matching glow-in-the-dark shirts, each one featuring a different food or beverage. The following pictures were taken at Trenton's house by his mom.

Making the tee-shirts. Notice the packages of food "models"


Pizza the night of the dance. Chris is at the far end of the table and his date is sitting next to Seth.


Group photos before leaving for the dance

Who's The Hunk?

Just to prove what married life can do for a guy, this is a picture taken 7 months after Jane and I were married. Jane's family doctor let us use his condo in Palm Springs in the off season (August) for nine whole days. We had several friends come out and stay with us for a day or two. This picture was taken of ME after about a week. Its probably the best picture of me that has ever been taken.

30 Years Ago - The Honeymoon

Our honeymoon started the day after the wedding. Yes - it was a Sunday. We got up about noon with the maid knocking on the motel room door. We got up, showered, and went to Jane's house to load up an ice chest with food and to pick up our luggage for the honeymoon. The plan was to drive a few hours each day up the coast until five days later we arrive at San Francisco. We drove my 1967 Ford Mustang (that I bought from Holly after my mission when she left to go to BYU). I recall hitting the road around 2:00pm, and I drove for about 45 minutes or an hour and was so tired that I pulled over and let Jane drive. We were travelling north on coast highway 101. I immediately fell asleep and woke up about two hours later with Jane just cruising along. Our first night's destination was the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. I don't remember dinner, I just remember getting there and we checked into the "Old Fashion Room". Each room is exotically decorated. My favorite part of the room was that you flushed the toilet by pulling a little porcelin knob in the top of the tank. I don't recall where we ate, but I do remember crashing pretty early. We had reservations for two nights in that room, but people switch all the time, so the next night we stayed in a different room (but I can't remember which).

The next day we drove up the coast to San Simeon and Hearst Castle, and took the tour there. We walked on the beach where my family had camped years before, and then drove back to the Madonna Inn.

On Tuesday, we left San Luis Obispo and drive on the Pacific Coast Highway 1. We stopped at Big Sur and hiked among the giant redwoods there. All that time I had been taking pictures with my dad's borrowed Minolta camera, and somewhere near Big Sur I used up all the film but the camera wouldn't rewind. We stopped at a wide shoulder of the road to see if I could fix it because we were in such beautiful scenary. After a long argument I convinced Jane to lock me in the truck of the car so I could open the camera safely without exposing the film and I would rewind it back into its cassete. Jane was worried that if she put me in the truck someone would come along at just that moment and kidnap her. I finally convinced her to lock me in and once I had the camera open I discovered that there was no film in the camera and that we had only pretended to take pictures of our honeymoon. So that is why we don't have any pictures from that week!

Continuing on from Big Sur we drove until we arrived at our next destination; a Best Western motel in Santa Cruz. This was the night that Jane had her first tears of our married life (other than when we were married). The reason was that our room only had a shower; no bathtub, and after a long day of driving she had her heart set on a hot bath, but to no avail.

The next day we drove to San Franciso. On the way, we stopped at the Oakland Temple, and decided to do a session. This was Jane's second time in the temple. You have to remember that Jane looked all of sixteen years old and I looked 18, so of course they asked us to be the witness couple. What was interesting about the endowment room that we were in was that there was no center aisle at that time. It was kind of like a nice auditorium, and the men and women kind of met in the middle, so Jane and I got to sit next next to each other and hold hands during the session. There wasn't many other couples in the session so most did sit together along in the center. I wonder if they still do that there?

I don't remember what hotel we stayed at in San Franciso, but we had a corner suite with solid windows on two wall and we were on the 24th floor with this amazing view of the city. Jane also got her bathtub there. The next day we walked around Fisherman's Wharf and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then took off in rush hour traffic for home. It was a long drive and I remember stopping somewhere in the middle of nowhere to fiddle with the car engine; but I can't remember why now. We arrived at our apartment at about midnight, and John and Pearl had brought all of our wedding gifts to the apartment and had somehow found some linens and had made our bed (thank-you, thank-you!). I remember that we had brand-new pillows that were too plump and I didn't sleep well with them for about six months.