MONEY MAGAZINE'S TOP LIST

1. Louisville, CO
2. Chanhassen, MN
3. Papillion, NE... Read More
4. Middleton, WI
5. Milton, MA
6. Warren, NJ
7. Keller, TX
8. Peachtree City, GA
9. Lake St. Louis, MO
10. Mukilteo, WA

FORBE'S BEST PLACES TO MOVE

1.Alpharetta GA
2. Hutersville NC
3.Apex NC
4.Parker CO
5. Castle Rock, CO
6.Flower Mound TX
7. Frisco TX
8. Cary NC
9. McKinney TX
10. Roswell GA
11. Fishers IN
12. Carrollton TX
13. Franconia VA
14.The Woodlands TX
15. Sandy Springs GA
16. Leesburg VA
17. Centreville VA
18. Dublin OH
19. Allen TX
20. Highland Ranch CO
21. Woodbury MN
22. Overland Park KS
23. Gaithersburg MD
24. Round Rock TX
25. Plano TX

RACE TRAC

Money has been tight for awhile now and I am not one to wallow in my misery. I may be depressed a bit over a issue but I soon get to work finding a way to fix what ever problem is at hand. To back track in January I became a stay at home Dad. Our adopted kids have had a lot of uncertainly in their lives and they were not doing good having to go to after school care until 6 PM when we picked them up everyday. I have been in sales for 14 years and I was getting burnt out and needed a change. Plus the economy was such that my 12 hour days were spent paying for day care and not much else. Liz loves her job and made more money then I did so I became a House Husband! I am also a better cook so we tighted the budget and paid off the truck and van and the adventure was on! Being a stay at home Dad has been a lot of work and not a job for the faint at heart. People look at me like I just hang out at home doing nothing but I get stressed out if I do not do enough! I did get a lot done when school was in session. The house was clean, laundry was done, the kitchen was clean and dinner was made, the lawns and backyard looked good and little projects were done around the house. Then summer hit us! I had to entertain these guys everyday! Oh my! Needless to say that Liz no longer came home to everything being done. Thankfully she realized that I was not just sitting around watching TV! The best part about this experience is that I have built a closer bound with my adopted kids then was there before when all I did was work. Kids bound quickly with a Mom but Dads can be a different story and with adoption that is even more true. Towards the end of the school year I did get a job with Allen ISD for the last 2 weeks of the school year as a Cafeteria Monitor with the hopes that next year it will grow into a better position. We ended up having weeks go by where we had no money until Liz got paid and that has been a little scary plus we did not have any savings in case of an emergency. So this last week with the help of my friend David Mauss I got a job working the graveyard (10 PM to 6 AM) shift at the Race Trac gas station/connivance store location in McKinney, TX. I will admit that I am a Quick Trip fan but hey, they didn't hire me when I applied....twice! I could have started out in management with Race Trac making a lot more money but I wanted to make sure that this would be a good fit before I went any further. I will be the first to tell you that I feel stupid doing this. I should just get a full time day job doing "something" during the day but I want to be there for my family and not just meet their financial needs. I will say that making the change to both staying at home and deciding to work at a gas station is not easy. I will be honest in saying that I feel stupid doing something that I did when I was 20. I tried to explain all of this last week in Elders Quorum (men's group at church) when our lesson was on Provident Living but I just got bland stares. Our ward has a lot of people with money in it and is made up of Engineers and software/computer guys and I know that they think that I am a loser but I don't care. Believe me, I am the only guy in my ward or in the Universe that I know who stays home with his kids. It is a change but my kids have a parent home with them during the day! Sleep will be a luxury but if I do this and the school job we can get rid of our "bad debt" with in a year and then refinance our house since our credit score will be better. I also want to build up our savings for an emergency and save for a trip to Disneyworld next year with the Sims. I would not go on such a trip knowing that I was in debt! If I get into management or a better job with Allen ISD all the better!

CARNIE WILSON'S WAR: WEIGHT GAIN AFTER GASTRIC BYPASS

I posted this because I am reading her first book right now and I came across this on the internet.

Carnie Wilson's War: Weight Gain After Gastric Bypass
Gaining Weight After Bariatric Procedures Can Be as Discouraging as It Is Unhealthy
By DAN CHILDSABC News Medical Unit
March 13, 2008 —
For many veterans of crash diets, killer workouts and tailored meal plans, weight loss surgery is the nuclear option in a battle against the bulge. But while such procedures can indeed lead to dramatic weight loss, for some the pounds return. Such appears to be the case with musical star Carnie Wilson, whose fluctuating figure dominated tabloid front pages this week in the latest chapter of her widely publicized fight against obesity since her gastric bypass surgery in 1999. Wilson, 31 at the time, weighed more than 300 pounds before the procedure that reduced the size of her stomach to that of an egg. Speaking with ABC's "20/20" at the time, Wilson said that at that weight she felt "tired a lot, I'd feel sluggish. I started getting paranoid. ... I felt like I was going to have a heart attack." By all accounts, Wilson's procedure was a success; she dropped 152 pounds and her new trim figure soon made her the poster child of weight loss surgery. She regained 70 pounds in 2005, when she was pregnant with her daughter, but later lost the weight. Until recently she sported a trimmer figure. But that appears to have changed. New photos released by the celebrity Web site TMZ.com Tuesday show the singing star significantly heavier than before. When the Pounds Come Back Without a doubt, weight loss surgery works. Within the first two years of surgery, most patients who have such procedures can expect to lose 50 percent to 80 percent of their excess weight. This means that if a patient's ideal weight is 150 pounds and they weigh 350 pounds, they can expect to lose between 100 and 160 pounds in those first two years. And following suggested lifestyle modifications, most of which revolve around healthy diet and regular exercise, can go a long way in ensuring that this weight stays off. But for some, like Wilson, the weight can come back. "We know that 5 percent or maybe even more of these patients over time can regain weight," said Dr. Daniel Jones, director of the bariatric program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "A large part of that has to do with the fact that the factors that caused them to be overweight to begin with are still out there." And while a few patients regain a large percentage of their original weight back, Dr. Anita Courcoulas, chief of minimally invasive bariatric and general surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says that most of those who have gone through the surgery will experience some weight gain after the bulk of their post-surgery loss. "Most patients experience something I call 'the creep,'" she said. "They creep up another five to 10 pounds. Eighty percent will experience this creep and level out again, but about 20 percent will continue to creep up." It turns out that caloric restriction is just one part of the equation, although a large part. And reducing the space in your stomach into which your meals can fit to the size of a large walnut is a particularly effective way to cut hunger and jump-start weight loss for morbidly obese individuals. The most rapid phase of weight loss after surgery occurs during the first year. After this, the rate of weight loss will slow. And after two years, the patient has reached a new "set point" in terms of weight. From here, biology can reassert itself. Courcoulas says the tiny pouch that serves as the new stomach expands slightly in most patients, perhaps increasing in size between 10 percent and 15 percent. If a stretch of intestine has been removed through surgery, the remaining portion may become more efficient in absorbing calories. For most, these changes result in just a slight "bounce" to a modestly higher weight. But for some, this plateau period represents a danger zone. If a patient's eating and exercise habits have evolved, they can maintain this new weight. But if they have not, excess eating can cause what remains of the stomach to stretch significantly to accommodate more food -- thus leading to weight gain. "If you tend to keep pushing yourself, taking one extra bite with every meal, then you can stretch the pouch," Jones said. "Over time you will eat more and more." But Jones notes that more of a threat than the re-expansion of the stomach is simply eating too much of the wrong foods -- high-sugar, high-fat treats that pack a caloric punch sufficient to bring the weight back. The Psychological Side of Weight Maintenance For this reason, counseling and other forms of psychological support are often seen as key to reaping the long-term health gains of weight loss surgery. These benefits go far beyond a more attractive figure. For many morbidly obese patients, having such surgeries and maintaining a more normal weight can have a significant impact on their overall health and risk of early death. "It is very important for these patients to receive behavioral therapy, as well as time with a nutritionist and a physical therapist," Jones said. "I can cut and sew, but it's really the nutritional and behavioral programs that help with patient success." And along with professional help, maintaining personal motivation to keep the weight off is crucial. "These are people who feel that they have failed at everything they tried in their lives," Courcoulas said. "If they feel that they are failing surgery, they're embarrassed and they don't want to come back for help." "Regaining weight down the road is a common phenomenon for weight loss patients. These patients need to be educated and prepared for it if it happens."
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Update

Carnie Wilson Talks Weight, Takes on Tabloid
Singer Says Her Weight Gain Was Exaggerated
By IMAEYEN IBANGA
March 27, 2008 —
Even before she entered the spotlight as part of the '90s pop trio Wilson Phillips, Carnie Wilson struggled with her weight. Her fame made that struggle public and got her dubbed "the fat one" of the group. Nine years ago she took a very visible step in trying to control her weight when she broadcast her gastric bypass surgery online and became vocal about women and weight loss.
That is why when the National Enquirer recently published a story about her gaining a massive amount of weight and considering a second gastric bypass surgery, it infuriated her. The tabloid featured a photo of Wilson walking with her trainer and compared it to a photo when she was at her slimmest, 150 pounds. It claimed that Wilson had gained 79 pounds. "I have not gained 79 pounds. When I look at the picture of me prior to surgery and I see that face and I see that person, I'm so different from her today in so many ways," said Wilson, who weighed more than 300 pounds before her surgery. The daughter of legendary Beach Boy Brian Wilson said today she weighs 205 pounds, a gain of 57 pounds. The singer shot down rumors that she would have surgery again to help her slim down. "It's so crazy. They're saying I was going to get liposuction and have a second gastric bypass to have a baby. It's laughable," she said on "Good Morning America" today. Wilson said even though she's gained some of her weight back, she doesn't regret having the surgery. "I'm so grateful that I had that surgery. You know what, it's very hard to be in the public eye and be scrutinized for every pound when there are lies on the cover of a tabloid right now. The number is a lie. It's an outright lie. It's frustrating," she said. "I look at myself back then [when I was larger and] I felt like I was going to die. I probably was going to die. My life was saved." A History of Struggle Wilson's weight battle came long before tabloids started documenting her weight. "It's always been a battle since I was 4 years old. It's always going to be a battle -- surgery, no surgery. This is what I've been dealt. These are the cards I've been dealt," she said. As a child, Wilson used food to ease the pain of an erratic childhood. It's a habit she carried into adulthood and by the time she was a chart topper, the critics seemed to be more critical of her weight than her singing. She often was compared to her two slimmer counterparts in the group. "I wanted to look good, damn it, you know? I wanted to look something like them," she said. By 1992 when the trio disbanded, the then-31-year-old was morbidly obese and faced a life-threatening condition. "I would be tired a lot. I'd feel sluggish. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It really scared me," she said. A Life-Changing Decision She opted for gastric bypass and within 16 months of surgery, Wilson was down to 148 pounds. She came on "Good Morning America" just two months later to discuss her outlook. "I feel a burden off my shoulders. I feel free. I actually feel like I've been released from a cell. I don't obsess about food anymore," she said at the time. Wilson showed off more than her newfound confidence when she displayed her size 6 body in a 2003 Playboy magazine spread.
After her stunning slim down, Wilson began to gain weight after the birth of her daughter, Lola, in 2005. "You need to follow certain rules. I fell off the bandwagon when I got pregnant. My eating habits changed," she told Diane Sawyer this morning. "For me, it's about snacking, Diane. Somebody can consume a certain amount of calories all day long. If they don't burn the calories, that equals weight gain." Her New Goal Wilson now wants to get back on track and get to a healthy weight range. "My goal would be to be somewhere between 150 and 170 to keep up a healthy lifestyle, eat as little carbs as I can and just be an inspiration," she said. The California native said she wants to help others who have had weight problems and added she is becoming more active even though she doesn't love working out. "When I'm on the treadmill, I'm thinking about lunch. That's the truth," she said. "However, it does make me feel better. The good news is -- these pictures in the tabloids -- at least I'm exercising, I'm making an effort. I'm not shoving cake in my mouth. They're taking photographs of me making an effort of improving my health." Rather than trying to achieve a certain look, Wilson hopes to encourage people to be healthy, including her daughter. "I want to be a light of hope for her, not to say, 'you need to be a size 6, my darling,'" she said. "You need to be healthy and be kind to other people and help other people. That's the message I want to give to her." Wilson shared some advice for others looking to lose weight. "Progress not perfection. Thin doesn't mean healthy. Fat doesn't mean unhealthy. Try to get to a comfortable weight. Drink a ton of water. Stay away from sugar. Be true to yourself. That's the positive message," she said. She also had some parting words for the paparazzi. "Eat the doughnut that I wish I could eat," Wilson said. "And then, you know, cram it somewhere."
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
var s_account = "wdgnewabcnews,wdgasec";

GONNA FLY NOW!!

Years ago I had gastric Bypass surgery and I lost over a 100 lbs. from it. The mistake that I made was that I believed that I could still eat "bad" food, just less of it. I did not take the time to study diet and nutrition since I went right back to working in the high stress world of sales and on the weekend as a DJ. Even though I was working out it does not help if your fat intake is still too high! Flash forward 6 years. My weight was creeping back up about 30 lbs. and I felt miserable! I just was not happy with my health. Around Easter I decided that I had had enough. I went and had a complete physical and a more extensive blood work done. The results were that besides the high blood pressure that I have always struggled with I also had bad cholesterol and a high insulin level. So I got myself into diet, nutrition spending a lot of time reading books like Sly Stallone's book on working out, The autobiography of Jared Fogle, the Subway guy who lost a lot of weight. Right now I am reading Carnie Wilson's first book on having Gastric Bypass surgery. I also find motivation from the Rocky (except #5) movies and I really enjoy working out at the gym. If I miss a workout at the gym I find myself in a bad mood and I am pretty mad at myself the rest of the day. When I get to the gym I stretch, say "hi" to anyone I know and then get to work! The iPod Shuffle is the best thing ever invented. I use to deal with bulky MP3 players or worse the big CD player but now I just clip on the iPod and turn on the workout tunes. I do not have time to socialize when working out. There is always some guy who wants to be the center of attention at the gym and talk to everyone but I am focused only on getting things done! I normally break up my workouts like this: Monday - Legs and Treadmill, Tuesday - Swimming, Wednesday - arms, shoulders and Treadmill, Thursday - Swimming and Friday - Chest, Back and Treadmill. I also like to find time go on bike rides mostly on Saturday mornings. My legs are the easist to work out and the most fun. My shoulders are theworst and I look like a little girl pumping the 5 and 10 lb dumbbell! It doesn't help that I hurt my shoulder a few months ago working out and that it still hurts! It is very motivating sharing my success with my friends on Facebook who have been very supportive. My diet is very simple, eat less and eat healthier food. I believe that by trying to cut out the fast and bad food and replacing it with more fiber from grains, fruits and vegetables. I have peanuts, fat free popcorn or high fiber crackers as a snack and my breakfast is a protein shake when I am working out or a high fiber cereal on my off days. I have also really gotten into fat free yogurt. I have tried to replace the "bad food" in the house with "good food". If the bad food is there I will eat it. Why? Because it is there. With time I will work on fine tuning my food intake but right now I am just making "lifestyle" changes. The bottom line is that I just want to be "healthy", not skinny. Sure, now and then the kids will want to go to Taco Bell or we will go out to eat but I just try to eat less and stop when I am satisfied, not full. I also find that I eat less then I did before and I try to drink a lot of water. Chipotle is still my biggest weakness but I only go every few weeks and I less rice in my burrito bowl and more beans. I also love to get a veggie sandwich from Subway. If you have any thoughts or ideas to help me in my quest please feel free to share them. So far I am down almost 40 lbs. I have to wear a belt to keep the pants up and I just bought a pair of pants for work that were a size smaller. Most importantly I feel so much better! I have a long way to go but I am seeing results and having fun!

LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL

Liz and I were able to go see "Legally Blonde The Musical" in Dallas yesterday. We have not been to a real musical in a long time and it was fun to go out on a "date" with my girl! The show was awesome and as a added bonus Jeff McLean, son of Michael McLean was in the cast as "Warner". We had meet Jeff a few times before when he tour with his dad in the production of "The Forgotten Carols" and we were able to meet him after the show along with Becky Gulsvig who played "Elle Woods". A big "thank you" to Carly and John Goode for watching our kids. They helped us a lot in making our day special!

Theater review: 'Legally Blonde' shimmies to the stage at Fair Park Music Hall
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News ltaitte@dallasnews.com
You may not come out of Legally Blonde humming the tunes, but this show will leave you as pumped as a two-hour cardiac workout. The stage adaptation of the popular movie, a modest hit on Broadway, arrived at the Dallas Summer Musicals on Tuesday. It keeps up a breathless pace as heroine Elle Woods, the seemingly shallow blond bombshell who follows an ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School, discovers a whole new perspective on life. Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin, who rewrote their Sarah, Plain and Tall for the Dallas Theater Center this spring, tell the story mostly in song. Their lyrics, as cute and clever as Elle herself, are worthy successors to those of their great Broadway predecessors. They give us good tunes, too, but the incessant melodic patterns seldom relax and luxuriate. They just keep percolating like a triple shot of espresso. The real mover of this theatrical whirlwind, though, is director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Over the last decade, he has established himself as one of the American theater's great storytellers through movement. Like the score, the dancing seldom settles into a stand-alone number, at least before intermission. Throughout the musical someone onstage is stepping, shimmying or gyrating in ways that move the plot along. The second act finally gives us some release with production numbers based on exercise videos, sexy poses and, of all things, Irish step dancing. As Elle, Becky Gulsvig looks a lot like the film's Reese Witherspoon. She sounds even more like Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. (Those with strong negative reactions to squeaks and other high pitches may find themselves at risk.) Gregg Barnes' costumes expand the boundaries of pink, mauve, hot pink and not-quite-crimson. Gulsvig wears them smashingly. For those who crave a bit of old-fashioned fun from their musical comedies, preferably with a smidgeon of uplift and optimism, with a bevy of shapely young bodies to boot, Legally Blonde is guilty as charged.

TOUR AT THE FIRE STATION

Today we were able to take a tour of Allen's main fire station. Firefighter Reed gave the tour and he was great! We looked at the fire trucks and then went inside where the firemen demonstrated all of there gear on our friend Melissa! She was a real sport and didn't cry once! The kids learned about fire safety and had a blast! I was talking to firefighter Reed about touring the fire station where they filmed "Emergency!" and one of the moms on the tour had never heard of the show. Oh, I am getting old! Sadly it was time for lunch so we had to go but we are always thankful for the brave firemen who serve the City of Allen!

I BUILT THIS GARDEN FOR US

So we have been working on our back yard and we have had some fun results. The first 2 pictures are of some of our sunflowers. Every now and then I will build another planter box and plant different flowers in them. My favorite is sunflowers but Liz would like to see something besides sunflowers in our back yard. The 3rd picture is of our herb garden. Sadly the cilantro died so i have planted some new cilantro seeds. The 4th picture is...more sunflowers! The 5th picture is of our watermelon growing. The next is of our planter box that has both our watermelon and pumpkins growing together. Next year we will make sure that we separate them! Next we have our planter box with corn, cantaloupe and cucumber growing. Then we have our sad planter box with onion, carrots and green beans. Maybe next year! Lastly we have a picture of one of our tomatoes growing! Thank you for touring our back yard gardens. We hope that you will come again.

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About

By Nathan Barry
July 22, 2009
Categories: Armchair Geek
There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.
That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …

Audio-Visual Entertainment
Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to todays teenager.
The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
High-speed dubbing.
8-track cartridges.
Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
Betamax tapes.
MiniDisc.
Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio bork this concept.)
Shortwave radio.
3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’
Photo credit: smin via flickr" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/59/216278639_9f840ab68f_m.jpg" width=240>

Computers and Videogaming
Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
The scream of a modem connecting.
The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
Using jumpers to set IRQs.
DOS.
Terminals accessing the mainframe.
Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
Counting in kilobytes.
Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
Joysticks.
Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
Recording a song in a studio.

The Internet
NCSA Mosaic.
Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
Phone books and Yellow Pages.
Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
Archie searches.
Gopher searches.
Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
Privacy.
The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
The time before PC networks.
When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.

Gadgets
Typewriters.
Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
Sending that film away to be processed.
Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
CB radios.
Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
Rotary-dial telephones.
Answering machines.
Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
Pay phones.
Phones with actual bells in them.
Fax machines.
Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.


Everything Else
Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive. Remembering someone’s phone number.
Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
Neat handwriting.
The days before the nanny state.
Starbuck being a man.
Han shoots first.
“Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
Trig tables and log tables.
“Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
Swimming pools with diving boards.
Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil of break off the first finger
A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
Having to manually unlock a car door.
Writing a check.
Looking out the window during a long drive.
Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
Cash.
Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
Omni Magazine
A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

COPS

Today we were able to take a tour of the Allen Police Department. Officer Jones was really nice and should us all over the police station and then.....the police car! The kids had fun playing in the police car and they were even able to turn on the lights and horn! We are thankful that we live in a safe city and that we have very nice police officers! A big "thank you" to Shauna for setting up the tour!

SLIP SLIDING AWAY

What to do in Texas when you are hot? Make your own slip n' slide! The kids have a very creative Mother who thinks of stuff that I would never think of doing.

THE PASSING OF LIZ'S AUNT BARBARA

Liz's Aunt Barbara passed away yesterday at the age of 79. She is Liz's Dad's twin sister and lived across the street from Liz's parents for years in Buena park, CA. They were also in the same ward (church congregation).

Here is the information regarding the passing of Liz's Aunt Barbara:


BARBARA KAY GILLIES
Gillies, Barbara Kay, age 79, passed away peacefully at her home on Monday, July 13th, 2009. She was preceded in death by her loving husband, Claude. She is survived by her children, Thomas Gillies and Claudia Butler (Michael); her grandchildren, Phillip Hamm, William Kiel Butler and Katie Butler. She spent many years working for Bank of America and Hallmark. She enjoyed arts and crafts and oil painting. Most importantly she was a devoted wife, mother and grandmother who will be dearly missed. Visitation, Thursday, 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 4000 W. Orange Ave., Anaheim. Funeral Service, Friday, 10 a.m., Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with burial to follow in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Cypress, 4471 Lincoln Ave, Cypress, CA 90630. Callanan & Woods Scovern Mortuary 1-800-901-0090

HEAVEN ON A SUNDAY.....

Liz is on the Computer, Miss B is quitely reading in the living room and Mr. J is jumping on his bed while listening to the song "Burning Love".