Life continues

Just some pictures of life before Morgan left for USU and after. WE tried to go boating this

Sat with Kim and kids, but it got very windy. Ezri and I did ride the tube, then we spent some windy time trying to catch a fish, unsuccessfully. The townhomes are coming along. You can see the foundation is done, sewer line is in. We will keep you updated. We have had some people ask when they would be available, so that is encouraging.

More Signs of the Times

Have any of you seen the new ads for the Mormons? I first saw one on CNN, it showed a guy who sculpts, builds motorcycles AND is a Mormon! Whoa! He had facial hair!

This is pretty sweet, you can go here, enter your age, gender, ethnicity, and previous religion and find a Mormon just like you! Your Mormon doppleganger! Once you have found Mormon-Bizarro-World-You, you can join his/her social network and be cyber buddies! I wish they had something like this for a group I wasn't already a part of, but would like to associate with. I'd like to know what the affluent african american version of me is like. I got a feeling he is awesome.

For my part, I am showing people that Mormons can be cynical, sarcastic, and maybe even a little weird. You know, just like you! If you look to the right, you will mostly find a bunch of links to blogs by Mormons. You want to see how diverse Mormons can be? Poke around there and you will find some crazy schiz. . . stuff not about to wind up in any Mormon Ad, I guarantee. I'll let you do the finding, but some of those are real gems. . .

I get that it makes sense to show people that despite having shared beliefs and abstaining from some common social activities (alcohol, coffee, R rated movies, humor, exercise, sensible fashion), Mormons are a pretty diverse and normal group of people. But don't you become suspicious when someone has to tell you they are normal? Isn't it kind of abnormal to go around declaring how normal you are? When the new kid at school came up and said "Hi. I'm normal. I swear. Will you be my friend?" I figured it was time to politely excuse myself and then be just friendly enough to not wind up on his hit list.

Sign of the Times

In what must be a sign that the end of the world is upon us, the New Mexico Madsen's have gotten high speed internet. Will this result in a sudden surge in posts, an increase in family love and communication, or just more random ramblings? In all likelyhood it will just mean a bigger peak into the freak show that is our lives. For example, here are some random pictures, just because we can...

This is what we found at home when we got back from Idaho.
The tree was about to collapse.

Some stuff the family did while in Utah (while Dad lay on his back on Grandma's living room floor). Dad didn't miss much, they do this at home everyday too.

Cliff's amusement park in Albuquerque.

Kentucky

We made it here. They got us all packed up - it was very nice not having to do anything,but it was not fun staying in the hotel for four days waiting for everything to get here!

This is how I will always remember Idaho. Windy.


The trip here was pretty uneventful. The girls were great on all three flights.

We definitely had a lot of carry-on.

So far Kentucky has been great - except the heat. It has been horrible. The people are really nice. Our house is great. Riley is enjoying school. We have HD. I think we inherited two nice kitties. I am hoping that they are the neighbors and that someone is feeding them, but they sure are friendly and spend a lot of time on our doorstep. The girls love it. We wanted to name them Rob and Big, but we just found out the black one is a girl.

I have even learned a few things-

There are two constants wherever you go:

1. The Church

2. Walmart

(If it were a competition, Walmart would win.)

The Kentucky Public School system is trying to make a morning person out if me. I don't like it. We put the girls to bed at 7...but Riley has to get up at at least 6:30 and the other girls are up by seven. Gone are my days of sleeping in :( Also gone are the days of wearing an outfit two days in a row. Too sweaty. And before you judge, just think how practical is it. Day One I don't leave the house, Day Two maybe see a person or two, and Day Three...what are the odds of seeing those same people from Day Two? We do have two AC units, so it is cool inside, but all it takes is a trip to the mailbox or out to the garage.

Todd would like to let you know that never before has he gotten so sweaty from doing so little.

Everyone here says they can tell we are from "up North" because of our accents. Seriously? That is coming from people with some serious southern drawl!! Our internet hasn't been hooked up yet, and it won't until next week. I am at McDonalds letting the kids play and using the free wi-fi. I feel so out of touch!! We will be sure to let you know when we get connected.

'Enucky

Friday, October 1 at 6 P.M. What are the plans?

BYU at USU, October 1, 6:00 P.M. I guess Val and Todd won't make it, but Jared should be living in Logan by game-time, right? Trent has assured me that tickets should be available.

It could be a really good game. BYU plays a tough schedule up to then and lost their all-time leading reciever, all-time leading running back, league-leading pass-rusher, and all-time winningest QB. Either a freshman or the once-great-hope-of-Logan will be playing QB for BYU. USU returns a lot of people from last years 4-8 team (is that a good thing?). The game could be so close that USU Fans tear down the goal-posts (meaning USU loses by two touchdowns or less).

The Friday evening start time is a bit awkward, but I could make it work if everyone/anyone else is going.

Vancouver B.C.

We got to Vancouver at 5pm on Friday and checked into our hotel and went to a yummy Italian place for dinner. I had a thin crust, almost like a cracker pizza with carmelized onions and proscuitto and fontina cheese on top. It was SO good - Rich and I both were loving it! Our hotel was super nice and in a good location for walking everywhere. Rich's conference was about a 10 minute walk away and we were close enough to walk to different places for dinner and shopping and stuff, so it worked out great. One of the best things about Vancouver is the temperature and location. It is mild temperature there year round. They get snow once or twice a year but two hours to the north is Whistler that gets tons of snow and a couple hours to the east they get lots of snow. It was between 70-75 degrees the whole time we were there with no wind. You could wear pants and not be too hot or shorts and not be too cold - it is the perfect temperature! Plus it is such a great location - you have downtown right next to wooded parks and mountains and surrounded by ocean. The thing that surprised me the most about Vancouver was how many Asians live there. I felt like we were in China except everyone spoke English - it was crazy!

This is a picture looking back at Vancouver from N. Vancouver

You have to take a seabus across the water to get to N. Vancouver. The public transportation was very easy to figure out and use.

here is a picture of Rich and the seabus we just rode to get over to N. Vancouver

We caught the bus up to Capilano Suspension Bridge. It is absolutely amazing how much money and work they have put into this park. The suspension bridge is 450 ft. long across a 230 ft. deep canyon. It really sways when you walk across it - so many people were freaking out and walking super slow.

After you cross the suspension bridge they have built all these paths and walkways through the forest and up through the treetops. It was fun to walk from tree to tree and be so high up.

After the Suspension Bridge park we caught the bus up the Grouse Mountain. We took the gondola up the mountain and they have all sorts of different shows and activities at the top. It got really foggy for a while when we were at the top but then it cleared off.

This is the lumberjack show - it was so fun to watch them compete against each other in different events. Here they are cutting into the tree and sticking a piece of wood in the slot and then would stand on it and cut the next piece in until they had worked there way up to the top of the tree and cut the top off.

You can see the log they spin on in the picture above. That was really fun to watch. Down below they are cutting through the logs.

After volunteering Rich to go help them to the two person saw - they picked me to go up instead. Rich said I looked like Ma Ingles of Little House on the Prairie. We raced against another lady from the audience and the other lumberjack - we won!

We went to a Birds in Motion show after the lumberjack show. They brought out falcons, hawks and eagles and they would fly from the trainers arm to a perch and back - but the would fly right over the audiences heads and so close to our heads you'd have to duck so they wouldn't hit you. The birds know you'll move so if you don't they will hit you. I have a video I'll try to post of a hawk flying so close over our heads its wing hit Rich in the face.

This is the bird that hit Rich - I think it was a Hawk.

Here is the eagle - they were huge.

We reserved the bikes our hotel offered for one afternoon and rode around the seawall. The north/west tip of the penisula that Vancouver is on is a big wooded park that they have made bike and walking/jogging paths around the edge along the ocean. It is about 6+ miles around the park. It was so pretty riding along the ocean. We rode bikes for 2 1/2 hours, then I couldn't walk.

This is Rich on the Vancouver side - behind him is N. Vancouver

That is Canada Place behind me. There are convention centers there and cruise ships dock there. There were a few cruise ships headed up to Alaska.

On our last day there we went back up to Grouse Mountain so Rich could do the Grouse Grind. We learned all about it the first day we were there and he wanted to do it.

The Grouse Grind is 2,800 feet elevation gain in 1.8 miles. I would have liked to do it with him but didn't think it was a good idea for me. So I stayed at the bottom and read my book - The Help - while he did it. I finished the book while we were there - it is a good book, I really liked reading it.

The best part was just being with Rich and not having to think or worry about kids. After you have kids that seems to be the main focus in life and it is so nice to have time to just be with Rich. It was so nice to just do whatever we wanted and sleep in as long as we wanted. But by then end of the trip I was more than anxious to get back and see my boys. It doesn't take long to realize you are back to reality and everyday life. :) We need to start packing up our house this weekend. We close Tuesday morning and will start moving stuff over as soon as it gets funded and we get the keys :) We are so excited!!

27 years of pure awesomeness

 

Happy Birthday to Trent! Thanks Pat for giving birth to this guy.