We're not in Utah anymore!

Yes . . . that was supposed to be a play on The Wizard of Oz. So this last Saturday night we had the normal Saturday activities until about bed time. Here in Missouri everyone (at least those of us who live in the rural areas) have little white boxes that will go off and tell the residents of the house about severe weather conditions. Well on Saturday evening we got warnings of severe thunderstorm warnings, these brought large, fat raindrops and some smaller hail. We watched lightning dance it's way across the sky and when it was bed time we went to bed under the conditions of severe thunderstorms producing 60 MPH winds,hail and a tornado watch. This was mostly happening South of us but still had the chance of moving into our area so we had to be on our toes. There was lots of wind that night and lightning flashes that made the room like mid-day, and then at about 4 in the morning, we were woken (sp?) up by strong gusts of wind and a tornado warning. After rushing to get dressed and downstairs the warning went away and i went back to bed. A total of a 5 minute threat, but enough to get 10 people sitting downstairs in a bathroom and a food storage room at 4am. Lots of fun, but nothing like Utah, where we only had to worry about earthquakes, floods, and smog.

HY-KLAS Livin'

Well this is it. What life is all about. Struggling to climb the ladder of success, working 9863 hours a week to buy a piece of the good life.

Ice Rescues: When rides get stuck and traffic is saved.

Upon returning from our dog saving rescue we offered to give Christina's friend a ride to where her ride would pick her up. So we all piled into the 4 wheel drive jeep and descended our ice encrusted driveway. We found her ride about 100 yards from the olympically stuck car and actually passed them because they had stopped in the middle of two hills. I asked if they were the ride and they said they were and would back up to get the friend. Long story short they couldn't get up the driveway and had to put their chains on which was taking a while so i helped them put their chains on and while waiting turned the pitbull owning neighbor around so she would attempt the icy corner in her car, then delivered the friend and drove home. Thats like 4 ice rescues in one day! Wow. I never thought i could be so helpful, or that 4 wheel drive made such a difference.

Ice Rescues 2: When Dogs attack on the ice!

After we got back from our successful trek, we still had to deal with the neighbors Pit-bull. Said pit-bull was an intimidating blood-red-brown with "i will eat your house" eyes, but the kindest and friendliest pit-bull i've ever met. (the sum total of pit-bulls i've met being 2). Some how the other 5 dogs on the property here either didn't know or didn't mind the pit-bull until our rescue party got back. While talking to Christina, the pit-bull being beside me, the other dogs came up and started to smell/growl/nip at said pit-bull. I grabbed the pit-bull by the collar to prevent him from getting away and eating evey one of the other dogs. So essentially i was holding a dog that would have been appropriately named "armageddon" in my hands while five other dogs rangeing from pug/chiuaua to furry chicken protector to some smaller to medium mixes inbetween, all played russian rullet trying to attack a death incarnate pitbull. Having been in the Army National Guard for a total of three and a half months i put into practice our governments most classified dog kicking skills. These are only possible after minutes of grueling drills and an advanced briefing on safe and unsafe boot-to-dog shoe velocities. (I was wearing my "moon boots" at this time because they are water proof, too big on me because the steel toe in the smaller pair was too small and they have pretty good traction on an ice covered world).

So i began kicking to keep the peace. My first shot was aimed at the nearest threat, a small black and white terrior of some sort, about the size of a small adult cat or not much bigger than my boot. With a background in indoor soccer, classified military skills and kicking, my blow landed under the dog and lifted him a foot and a half off the ground with a slight spin (this is a distract while defend tactic being that when the dog lands he won't know which direction he was facing to begin with). The second wave of the attack was initiated by a brown medium sized dog, some kind of golden retriever mix. Calculating quickly the safe velocity to prevent kicking the dog in two, i released my famous "kick the ball into the goal" shot. This resulted in the golden retriever being shifted 6 inches to the side and rotating between 37 and 63 degrees (again the distract and defend tactic).

Realizing that my wife and i could not save the lives of these small animals without "the grim reaper pitbull" eating a few, and me having to turn the bones of a few into dust, i dragged the pitbull to the jeep and lifted him in and shut the door. We took the the pitbull down the drive way the the neighbors house and since the neighbor wasn't home we found a dog chain near a dog house and then hooked the dog to the dog chain near the dog house, thus completing our 2nd ice rescue.

Ice Rescues: When Missouri attacks!

Got here on Tuesday, and one Wednesday night we had freezing rain. Normally not a problem, unless your living in the middle of no where and your driveway is about 1/4 mile long. Some one was coming to visit one of the families here on the family property (is that redundant?) and they took a corner too fast and slid wonderfully into the ditch. In the Ditch Slidding Olympics they would have taken the silver medal only because they didn't roll the car.

ANY way, Christina (my wife's brother's wife) drove their family van out there to help the person out. Turns out that van gets stuck on the opposite side of the road, but not in a ditch. They both hike back to the house in very cold weather, and get followed by the neighbors pit-bull. I was informed by the family that they needed help and that i should take the battery out of one car, put it into and old jeep that has four wheel drive and at least go pick them up, if not try to get everyone out of the ditch. So after doing that i went down to Christina's house and found out that they had abandoned the cars and walked home. So they gave me the keys to the van (the other lady happened to be in our ward, and was going to have AAA come and wench her car out the next day) and I, Alice and Christina's 14 year old son Nick all went to attempt an ice Rescue.

The roads being a sheet of glass, i drove there in 4 wheel drive, and tried to stay in the snowy areas. Upon arriving on the scene of the tragic/amazing car stuckness, we attempted to free the van from it's situation. One of the van tires spun freely on the brilliant sheet of ice and the other did absolutely nothing. After a couple of attempts we rocked the van back and forth out of the ice's slippery hold. The only difficulty we had in returning it was the hill in our drive way. Alice was driving the van and i followed her. Her first attempt resulted in getting 2/3rds the way up the hill, peeling out and then slidding down to the bottom of the hill. I then traded her spots and with a little more momentum and some off road van driving skills was able to get the van home.
Yea Super Missouri Ice Rescue Squad!!!

"The Exodus"

. . . and it came to pass that on the 15th day of the 12th month of the 2008th year that i and my family crossed the great wilderness of Wyoming, through the barren flatlands of Nebraska and were thus led to the promised land of Missouri.

Well . . . something like that. We left Salt Lake around noon, stopped for a delicious lunch at my parents RV in Coalville and then proceeded to drive to Missouri. Wyoming was no fun. It's hill-y, windy and cold. Nebraska didn't have the wind, but was cold and pretty boring. It had more trees than Wyoming so every now and then Alice and I would say: "Hey look a Tree!"Luckily we had clear roads all the way through and it didn't even start snowing until we were pulling in our families drive way about 6:00am on Tuesday morning. We stayed ahead of the storm and thanks to the wonders of Mountian Dew and Dr. Pepper i only had to sleep for about 1 and 1/2 hours during the whole trip! : )

MS 5K

So this morning my wife and i went down to the Gateway Mall and participated in a MS walk. My wife works with a girl who had multiple sclerosis (sp?). She invited my wife and in turn i was invited. It was a lot of fun. When we got there we found a large mass of people preparing for the walk. Many "Teams" were gathered representing a group of people and families. We had to go up to the Grand Central Station to register. Upon entering we saw large tables of free food and volunteers directed us to where we filled out our information and got our numbers. I was 2098 and Alice was 2444. The walk started at 10 o'clock with Alan Osmond cutting a ribbon. Alice and I had strategically placed ourselves towards the front so that we could start out in front. Well at about 10:05 they cut the ribbon and we were off. Since Alice and I run together about 2 - 3 times a week it really wasn't a big deal. We are both competitive and so we made sure we could stay in front. There were a couple of guys behind us with a dog, who posed a threat, but by the half way mark we had put a good distance between us and them. The whole time we had a police escort on a motorcycle in front of us leading the way. It was cool other than smelling exhaust most of the race. Anyway we ran the whole way and made it back to the Gateway in about 25 Minutes, finishing first. Everyone was a good distance behind us because it was a MS "walk", but we still felt good finishing first. Yea Us!!!!