Thanks Jacoby!

While recovering from laser eye surgery, you know I'm not going to miss getting my free taco from Taco Bell. For those that don't know, Taco Bell said that if any player stole a base during the world series, everyone in America would get a free taco today from 2-5 pm. During Game 2 at Fenway, Jacoby Ellsbury stole a base, thus giving everyone in America a free taco. I took full advantage of the situation today, here are a few pics.

Help from all the Bloggers.

I need some advice from all of you guys. I found out today that Bright Eyes will be in Billings on Oct. 27. I know that several of you are fans of the band, and I'd like to know if they would be worth going to see live. I didn't go to see a band called Against Me! a couple months ago and have been kicking myself every time I hear one of their songs. So, for those that are familiar with Bright Eyes, would you go if you had the option?

Happy Birthday Mom!

We wish that there was more that we could do for you, since you do so much for all of us. Happy birthday Mom!

Forbidden Fruit.

For those who haven't heard, there's this. Two words that are banned from our household for at least the next month or so: white and stripes.

Who says the blues are bad?

Jenny will kill me if I don't at least mention that I bought her golf clubs for our anniversary/her birthday. She loves her clubs very much and here is a picture of them...

Next order of business, as an electrician I'm always amazed how carpenters can take a pile of lumber and nails and make it into something functional and (in the cases of good carpenters) something that looks good. I know that everyone reading this is familiar with the work of one of those good carpenters: my dad. I'm constantly in awe of his skill as a carpenter and I wish that I could extract the finished product that he does from an unassuming pile of wood and metal. Case in point: Jenny needed some storage cubbies for her new classroom. Someplace that her kids could store pencil boxes, crayons, and binders. She asked dad if he could throw something together that she could paint and use. The weekend after the party we arrived at the DSCB shop (thank you Dave for the use of the shop and materials). In the span of 3 hours dad put together these. . .

Jenny painted them and put the animals on the sides (for the children), but dad designed and built them with minimal help from Jenny and I. I know he acts like it's no big deal, but my dad is truly an excellent carpenter. (I wanted to add that I will have the best cubbies in the entire school!!! I could not be more pleased with the outcome! They are perfect!!!)



Final order of business, since dad gave you a play by play of the Magic City Blues Festival, I thought I'd make a CD of the bands that we saw there. These are just the bands that we watched for more than one song, so there are only 4 on there, but I tried to pick songs that they played there. If anybody wants the CD, just let me know and I'll send you a copy.



1. Aberdeen (The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band)

2. Biminy (Hello Dave)

3. My Name Is Hurricane (Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers)

4. Run-Around (Blues Traveler)

5. Michigan (Hello Dave)

6. Zydeco Two Step (Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers)

7. The Mountains Win Again (Blues Traveler)

8. Boom Chank (The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band)

9. Thinking of You (Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers)

10. Summertime (Hello Dave)

11. But Anyway (Blues Traveler)

12. Where'd My Baby Go (Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers)

13. My Old Man Boogie (The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band)

14. Saturnalia (Hello Dave)

15. Hook (Blues Traveler)

A little bit of good in a bad bad world.

I was going to write about this last night, but like everyone else I was caught up watching the on-going situation in Minnesota. I heard about this thing on the radio the other night and decided (for obvious reasons) to check it out.
Please check out the website below and go to the information bar on the left hand side. Go ahead, I'll wait. . .
http://pawsoflife.net/default.htm

Did you check it out? Now you know why it caught my eye. I know where this kid is coming from. I was diagnosed 2 years younger than he was, but that's sort of beside the point.

The point is, I know exactly the sort of confusion that this kid is feeling every time he experiences this sort of low in his blood sugar. Lucky for me, I had very attentive siblings watching over me as a child. On several occasions they caught me before things got bad, and one night I have no doubt that my brother saved my life. I'll never be able to pay them back for what they've done for me and I will always be there for them.

Anyhow, if you feel like donating to this worthwhile cause, please do. If not, the ADA is always looking for donations. If not the ADA, just donate some money to any cause, I can promise you that it will feel good.

Not my usual sarcastic post, but sometimes you have to change it up a little bit.

The Continuation.

After a long delay, here is the conclusion to our vacation blog. I know, I know, you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats. We've been house-sitting for Jenny's parents and their Internet is mind-numbingly slow.

After a good nights sleep, we headed to McCall for the 4th of July. We ate lunch at the McCall Brewing Company, a pretty neat brewery with 9 different micro brews on tap. Pretty good food, and the waitress knew a lot about the beers (always a deal breaker for a thumbs up from Dad). Here's a few pics:





Then it was off to Cascade for the fireworks show over Lake Cascade. We ended up sitting right on a little beach about 50 yards from where they were setting off the fireworks. They were exploding right over our heads, it was pretty amazing.

The next day it was 106 degrees at the cabin, so we headed back to Lake Cascade to relax on the beach and do some swimming. The boys came along:

The next day we just hung around the cabin and the day after we headed home to get back to real life.

The Big 4th.

Well, almost a month has gone by since my last post, so I guess it's time to do it again. Jenny and I decided to spend the fourth at her parents cabin in Idaho, about an hour north of Boise in the Long Valley. I had never been there before, so it was off to Idaho on the third. I'll do the first couple of days in the Maggie style of blogging, one post for each day. If I tried to do it all at once, everyone would get bored all at once, instead of getting for over the span of a couple of days.

So here is day one. We awoke at 5 a.m., loaded up everything we hadn't packed the night before and headed off. We decided to go through Yellowstone as it would cut some time off of the trip and I never pass up a chance to go through the park. We saw the usual animals, elk, buffalo, and pelicans. Jenny was on the lookout for a moose (she had never seen one in the wild) and finally was rewarded with a cow and 2 calves. We didn't really want to disturb them so we didn't really get close enough for a good picture.

Once outside of the park, we started passing billboards for something called Bear World outside of Rexburg, ID. Jenny was excited to go and with much argument convinced me to stop there. I didn't really know what to expect, having never heard of this place. We were amazed when we arrived to find a sort of Yellowstone safari. The first part you drive through the hoofed animal tour, complete with buffalo, elk, mountain goats, and caribou. Then, much like in Jurassic Park, we were granted access through the electric gate and into the bear sanctuary. I can only let the pictures tell the story and all I can say is that none of these have been enlarged, this is how close you get to the bears.










There are a lot more pictures, Jenny is scrap booking the trip, so I'll have it at the party for those of you that would like to see more. We spent about an hour at Bear World and I would highly recommend it to anybody traveling in that area.

That was about all of the excitement for that day, we drove for about another 5 hours and made it to the cabin right as it was getting dark. After sitting quietly for the whole day. . .



the boys relaxed and got ready for the 4th of July.

Happy Birthday Sis!

I've been thinking and thinking all day about what I could post on here about my little sister Maggie and I can't come up with anything good. All I can say is this: my sister is one of the strongest, smartest, and most beautiful young women I know and I'm not sure how she turned out so well having a screw-up like me for an older brother, she must take after Cody.

Happy Birthday Maggie, have a great time at the concert, can't wait to see you in July.

Big whoop.

Since it's been a while since I've put anything on our blog, here's a little something that everyone can enjoy. There are some other good clips like this on youtube but this one is a good place to start.

Please to enjoy, Sean Connery.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YvX5TChyUUM&mode=related&search=

For some reason the link isn't working like it's supposed to, so you'll just have to copy to the address bar.

Finally Some Great News!

I just wanted to share with all of you the good news. I will be teaching Kindergarten at Livingston Elementary in Cody next year! Finally after 3 months of worrying, crying, and applying, I am now a teacher...again. :) Hopefully this job will have more stability. I am super excited to be a kindergarten teacher, and I think teaching at Livingston Elementary will be a good fit.

Hooray for good news!
Jenny

Some housekeeping.

Well, since everyone else has posted recently, I guess I should contribute to the fray. Just to answer a few questions from previous posts: Maggie, in order to adopt your own bobblehead, just do as Madonna did and take one that looks good to you. As for a college fund, everyone will be applying for the Bobblehead Scholarship. The BS (as Cody can tell you, that's how it's referred to in academic fields) is fairly easy to obtain and should take care of things nicely. Finally, one of Fat Albert's parents did enjoy watching Chico Escuela on SNL (still one of my all-time favorite sketches).

A little update on the animal situation in our house. In addition to an idiot cat, we now have a guinea pig named Biscuit. Biscuit is Jenny's classroom pet and is home with us for the summer. Biscuit brought several toys with her, including her rolling exercise ball. Fat Albert, being a bully, had to establish himself right away as top dog.

Last but not least, I would urge everyone out there that enjoys beer (which better be all of you) to check out a movie called American Beer. It's a documentary by 4 guys from Brooklyn who go to 38 breweries in 40 days. They travel across the county to several good breweries (Boston Beer Works, Red Hook in Washington, New Belguim just to name a few) and speak with the founders of the various breweries. It's a very entertaining and informative movie and kudos to Jenny for finding it.

Have a good week everyone and don't forget to boycott gas stations tomorrow!

Another milestone.

We've seen from the early stages of Albert Pujol's career that he developed into quite a major league baseball player at a young age. It should come as no surprise that Fat Albert was the first one of our boys to speak. So, here's a picture of his first words. (p.s. Only a few of you will recognize his first sentence, but those of you that do will appreciate it.)

A Bobblehead Adoption Story

Celebrities come up with so many good ideas, it's hard to decide which ones to copy. I don't have anyone that I feel comfortable leaving threatening voice mail messages to (Alec Baldwin), and Jenny wouldn't look good with a shaved head (Britney). So we decided to take the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt route and adopt some less fortunate children. We've managed to basically warp a perfectly normal cat in the few years that we've owned her, so the logical solution to that problem was easy: bobbleheads!

Say hello to the newest additions to our family: Fat Albert, Tek-money, and J-Pap. (aka Albert Pujols, Jason Veritek, and Jonathan Papelbon)

It was a tough choice, there were a lot of needy guys out there, but these 3 were the most pathetic looking. Here are some shots of their first moments in our house.

Here's the guys when they first came home:

And here's feeding time:

A hierarchy is established:

Neighborhood watch:

Tek-money learns how things work around here real fast:

There will be a lot more pictures to come, none will be as good as Dr. Johnny, but hopefully they will be good ones.

A little more on the Frozen Four

Dad did an excellent job of describing the goings-on at the Frozen Four. I would have attempted a summary, but I didn't feel that my descriptive powers would do the event justice. One thing thing that Dad touched on that I wanted to talk about a little more was the sense of community that surrounded the whole week.

Dad talked about the two guys at the Morgan Street Brewery, but my first experience came on the plane from Minneapolis to St. Louis. The plane was about 3/4 full of hockey fans headed to the games and the guy that I sat next to had been going since 1976. He was a Minnesota fan and we lamented the fact that our teams weren't making the trip this year.

After that it seemed like everywhere we went we ran into hockey fans from every possible location. Some teams (the Frozen Four) were more represented than others, but we saw a lot of different college and pro jerseys. Everyone who saw Dad and Bubba's UNH jerseys wanted to know what happened to them and who we would be cheering for.

What really amazed me was the fact that no matter what teams logo you were wearing, another hockey fan would not hesitate to talk to you. I've only been to a few NCAA basketball tournament games, but this is the first time I've felt that sense of community regardless of team affiliation. It's not uncommon to talk to other fans from the same school during the basketball tournament, but you rarely see SU fans talking to Georgetown fans in the elevator of the team hotel.

So now we come to the worst part of the year: 12 months to the next Frozen Four. I'll be looking forward to next year when everyone will be there.

More pics!

For those of you that didn't receive the email that I sent, here's link to the photo album for the rest of the FF pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/zackandjenny/FrozenFour

Everybody assumes I'm a catcher, you know, cause I like the chest protector.

All of you are going to hear a lot about the Frozen Four from other people that were there, all of them better story tellers than myself. It will sound better coming from Cody (the scholar), Dad (a man who has traveled the world), or Bubba (the postmaster general), so I'll just say that I had an amazing time. The only down side to the whole weekend was the fact that Cody wasn't able to enjoy Thursdays games with us.

St. Louis is really an amazing city, very unassuming but with a lot of pleasant surprises. I wouldn't go back just to visit the city, but when the Frozen Four goes back there I'll be excited to return.

Here's some of my pics:

Here's but one pic of the arch.

Here's the four of us at Square One Brewery.

Top of the arch!

Us before the championship game.

There's more where those came from, but that's about enough for now. Jenny is going to scrapbook the whole trip for me, so anybody that wants to see that when it's done is more than welcome to.

Gmail.

Hey everyone, I realize that we are very behind in the times, but I've finally signed us up for gmail. Our address is zackandjenny@gmail.com

I'll post some good pics of our trip later this week and have them available on gmail to send to everyone. Have a good week!

Digging out.

I realize that Maggie is used to much more snow in the winter than the rest of us are, but I think that the thing that caught everyone here (and in Casper apparently) off guard was the speed with which the storm arrived, then the sheer volume of snow that it brought with it. Wednesday was cold and the wind was blowing, then the snow showers started about mid-morning. Thursday was another cold windy day, very little snow had accumulated in Cody or Powell, though from what I hear Meeteetse was buried Thursday.


Friday was when we received the big dump of snow. It started snowing at about 10:00 in the morning and was just steady throughout the day and into the evening. When I last measured the snow in our yard, I counted 18 inches of snow, 16 of those had fallen on Friday. This may not seem like a lot, but Powell is considered a high plains desert, so that is a lot for us.

Above is a picture of Jenny's car at about 5:00 Friday night.

Here's our cat enjoying the pleasant weather.

And here's a snowman that Jenny built today. She calls him her Smarch Snowman.

A lot of the snow has melted today, temps were in the 50's most of the day. I know that a lot of the area farmers are happy, they really needed the moisture. Hopefully everyone is enjoying their weekend, and I'm pretty happy about the Cowgirls winning the WNIT today. Have a good rest of the weekend!

My axe to grind.

Those of you that know me fairly well know that it takes quite a bit to rile me up. Today I was reading the Sports Guys basketball blog and he had this link on there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RKoXNToOnk

This player is OJ Mayo, the most recruited high school basketball player in the country. He has signed to play at USC next year for at least one year. My problem with this clip is this: His team is up by 40 in the closing minutes of the game. Now I can understand why he's in the game, it's his final high school game. The problem I have is that he steals a pass, alley-oops to himself from half court, then grabs the ball as it comes through the net and throws it into the stands. He is kicked out of the game and as you can see from the video, laps up all of the adoration.

This is why I can't wait to watch the Frozen Four. The kids that we watch play next weekend will be kids that love the sport they play and don't receive a lot of national attention. Most of you know that I love college basketball and it's one of my favorite things to watch. I can guarantee you this: next season I'll be rooting against USC every chance I get.

Snow Day

I guess you could say that the one good thing about commuting to work is that when the roads are bad, you get the day off. I was pretty excited this morning when my phone rang and I was told that school was canceled due to the freak snow storm. I changed back into pajamas and slept for a few more hours. I was excited to have the day off. The key word being was. It is really boring staying home by yourself. I have found nothing on television to hold my attention. My cat thinks that since I am home that I am to pay attention to her non-stop. Because of the winter weather, our hot water is luke-warm, so taking a relaxing bath turned into more of a quick dip. I feel sorry for my husband who had to drive to Cody and is probably outside working in this cold weather. I feel bad for anyone who had to travel on the ice covered roads. As Lori reported in her blog, four wheel drive is a necessary commodity for travel in this weather. I hope that all who traveled today make it home safe. I would post pictures of what the weather looks like here, but I took my camera to my classroom yesterday to take pictures of the kids when we made cookies, so it is still residing on my desk, in Burlington. So unfortunately you'll just have to take my word about the snow covering my car and the roads here in Powell. This post has eased the boredom for a few minutes, so I will end it and try to find something else to get me through the day. Enjoy the weather!
Jenny

Just a few pics

So one of the biggest changes in my life recently was the addition of an insulin pump to my daily routine. Having been a diabetic for almost 20 years now, I had grown a little bit tired of poking myself with a needle several times a day. So, to make a long story short, I was started on the pump. It's a pretty neat little device, I punch in my blood sugar and the number of grams of carbs that I'm going to eat or drink and it figures out how much insulin to give. It also delivers a basal dose throughout the day. So far the results have been favorable, I only have to change the insertion site every three days and refill the reservoir every 6 days.

Here's a picture of the pump and below that a picture of the pump next to my cell phone just for a size reference:

A bad day just gets worse

Just a liitle peak into what went on in my day yesterday.

The morning started off fairly early as I had to get up for my apprenticeship class at the college. For those that don't know, I'm am currently a electrician's apprentice working my way towards becoming a journeyman and hopefully someday a master electrician. This class is part of the requirement for that.

I came home for lunch break to check out the UNH score, confident that they would be up by at least 4 or 5 goals as it was the end of the first period. Imagine my surprise when the score said 1-0 Miami. A little bit shaken, I went back to class hoping that the Cats could come back and win in the second and third periods. Tragically, when I came home, they had lost.

A sidenote here: There are differing opinions on whether or not UNH losing is a good thing for those of us making the trip to St. Louis. While I wish that they could have gone farther, it's a bit of a relief that we won't have to be obsessed with the Wildcats and can just enjoy the amazing time we'll have. Plus they will win the title next year. For those of you that don't know, that last sentence is call the "Kiss of Death" as it jinxes the Cats for next year. Hopefully since the Frozen Four hasn't happened this year yet, all will be forgiven.

the only other thing that could have made my day any more miserable would have been to humiliate myself just for the fun of it. So I decided to go golfing. Powell has $5 for all day play, but only the front nine is open and it's all winter greens. It was a good chance to get out and shake the dust off. I realized after yesterday that there is quite a bit more dust to shake off.

Here's a pic of my longest, straightest drive of the day:



For those of you that golf with me, that's a definite improvement.

Have a good week everyone!

The view from my eyes

I tried to post in my usual pink color, but cannot figure out how. So here is my post anyway :)

I thought I would put my two cents on the issue of my job. I have been mulling it over in my head for some time now. They first talked about the big budget problem back in February. I didn't want to worry about it too much at that time because everything was up in the air. After a whole month of not knowing, the board had three meetings where they were supposed to discuss our future. At two of the board meetings the issue of the budget was not addressed, and at the last board meeting (Tuesday) I found myself on the chopping block. I am unsure how to feel about the situation that has been forced upon me. I feel cheated, and I want to blame some one, but there is no one to blame. Since I am a new teacher, I am not entitled to the luxuries of a tenure teacher, and thus I pull the short straw every time. My principal has been very good about talking to me, and he said if it were up to him, I would not be losing my job. I wish it were up to him. He reassures me that I am a great educator and will go far in the education world. I take his words as strength to begin my search for my next great teaching job.

So are the woes of my first year as a teacher, the tears have been cried, and now it is time to move on. I feel I am young yet, so hopefully this loss will open up a new door for me somewhere else. Who knows, maybe I will get a job in Powell, and won't have to commute for a change. Plus that would mean a whole extra hour of sleep in the morning! Wishful thinking. I am going to end my post with a saying from the Dahli Lama that is posted next to my desk at school:

*Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

Jenny

All the news that's fit to print.

Well, I wish that every post on here could be funny and about something humorous that happened to me during work. But unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way. Jenny found out yesterday that her contract with Burlington will not be renewed next fall, which means she'll no longer be teaching there. She's pretty upset about it and I can't say that I blame her.

It's pretty hard to believe that Big Horn County School District could be that hard up for money, but I'm not here to pass judgement on the school district. I know that all of those preschoolers love Jenny and I have no doubt that their first school experience was a positive one that they will cherish for the rest of their lives. Jenny is a great teacher and I have no doubt that she will be teaching somewhere else in the fall. It's too bad that it won't be where she started her career, but that's Burlington's loss.

Have a good day everyone!

Shun the non-believer!

So I was at work today thinking about whether or not I left anything out of last nights post. The only thing I could come up with were a couple of links to some Youtube stuff. They are the top two links on the page. I can't take credit for finding either of these. Maggie directed me to Charlie the Unicorn and Dad sent me the Flight of the Concords one. I think that both of them are hilarious and I offer them to you as the gift of laughter. I'm sure that many of you have seen these already, but have a look at them again if you're having a bad day or just need a good laugh. Jenny loves Charlie and uses quotes from him to torture our cat.
If you like that Flight of the Concords, check out some of their other stuff on Youtube, all of it's good. That's about all I have for tonight, I am glad that Syracuse won last night and is well on their way to winning the NIT and solidifying themselves as the number 66 team in the nation.
No post from Jenny tonight, she's watching American Idol and I'm preparing to puncture both eardrums.
Zack

Welcome to the big show!

Live from the heart of sugar beet country: POWELL, WYOMING!
We think the idea of a blog as a way for everyone to keep up is a great idea. I have a feeling that I (Zack) will be doing a majority of the posting on here since Jenny spends most of her time on the computer doing pointless stuff like homework and bettering herself with online classes. I feel computer time is much more well spent checking out the Sports Guy's latest column on ESPN.com.
I won't go into as much detail about the past year as Cody did in his blog, but here's a little refresher for those that are behind:
I recently had eye surgery on my left eye to remove some scar tissue and other assorted debris from the eye. The recovery is going strong and vision in that eye has improved dramatically. I'd say vision is at about 65% right now and the doc has told me that it will improve in the next couple of weeks. I'm scheduled to see him in about a month for a shot in the other eye to prevent surgery down the road. Other than that the only big event coming up down the road is my first trip to the Frozen Four. I'm sure Cody will provide a play by play when we get back, but I'll have some pics to post on here after that weekend.
On to news about better looking people, Jenny is still teaching in Burlington and having fun just about everyday. Recently she found out that her contract may not be renewed next year due to budget issues and the fact that she's a first year teacher. So she's a little stressed out about that. But that's not for sure yet, and even if it does happen she's a great teacher so I'm confident that she'll be teaching again somewhere in the fall, even if it isn't Burlington.
I don't really know how much I'll be posting on here since nothing real exciting happens around here, but I'll try to post a few times a week, even if it is just a few paragraphs. I'll also always try to keep current pictures of Jenny and myself on here.
For those of you that only tune in here to see what Jenny has to say, she'll be adding her spin on what I post and contributing anything she thinks I left out at the end of each post. You'll be able to tell it's her post because the font will look like this.
So I'll end this initial post now, because I seemed to have rambled a little bit. Happy reading!

I figured that I should put my two cents into this posting a la Sports Gal. Zack and I have decided that we are the Powell, WY version of the sports guy and sports girl, so our blog will resemble their column in a few ways.
I have to admit that I am happy about Zack's surgery. It is a great relief that they were able to fix the damage and improve his eye sight. I would much rather go to Billings and shop than go for medical reasons, but I am just glad everything worked out for us!
As for the job situation, being part of a small school district, there is always chance of not getting your contract renewed. I will have to face this problem until I am able to be tenured, and hopefully I will be tenured in Burlington (3 continuous years of teaching for the district). If that isn't in my cards, then I will just have to see what comes my way.
Well Zack pretty much said the other exciting news, omitting the fact that at the same time as his St. Louis trip is my wisdom tooth surgery (Yes it is time all four come out). I'll let him off the hook this time, but only if he brings me back the best St. Louis Cardinals souvenir he can find!
That's all I have to say, and as Zack said earlier, Happy Reading!