it's that time of year again.

It's coming upon Labor day weekend. Every year my family gets together to camp at Riverview Campground in Owatonna. 3 years ago we started getting matching "family reunion" t-shirts. I get the pleasure of making a design and ordering all the shirts. This year I'm having a block as to what to do for the logo. Let me know if you have any good ideas. I attached the pictures of each of the shirts we've already done.

camping

This past weekend Stephanie and I went camping in Iowa with my parents and my aunt and uncle. This is only the second time my parents have used their pop-up camper but Bill and Judy are avid campers. They camp almost every week. We stayed with them in their pop-up. It was fun. We ate a lot of food. We had steak, potatoes, hamburgers, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and fruit. Mmm. Stephanie and I are ready to go camping some more now. So we may take a weekend in August and go somewhere.

Have a good day,
TJ

gang activity

For Louie's sake, I'll update you a little on the gang activity. We haven't seen anymore people peeing by the side of the road, but we did find some tennis shoes tied together and hanging from an electrical line yesterday. And the underpass down the road from our house has some letters spray painted on the cement. Someone even spraypainted something on a stop sign. Where is it going to end? I can't believe it. I think we need to alert the authorities. Maybe next week I'll post some pictures of the gang activity we come upon. Then you can see for yourself the severity of the problem.

Stephanie

hey

Hi, were getting ready to go camping with my parents and my aunt and uncle this weekend. We're going to a state park by Forest City, IA. It should be fun. Thankfully, it's not supposed to be as hot as last week. Boy, I love the heat. Lucky for me, I get to work in a big building with no air conditioning. And even better, I can't wear shorts. And even better than that, I have to wear a Kevlar uniform over my clothes. And there are a few tempering furnaces there so it feels 20 degrees hotter. Boy, I love the heat. At least I work at night so it's not quite so hot.

TJ

Is it me? Or does it smell like updog in here?

Hey Howdy Hey Everyone!
Did you have a good day? I did! And to top it off when I got home from work TJ had bought pizza from Papa Murphy's. Yeah! I don't have to cook anything. What a great way to add to the great day!
I got a new book last Thursday night. It's really good. I'm almost done with it already. I think I only have about 15 pages left. And then there is a little snip-it of the next book to come. :) Any of the ladies out there who like good Christian fiction need to read this series! It's by Karen Kingsbury.
Like TJ said, we got a new game, The settlers of Catan. It's definitely our favorite game right now. We've already taught a couple friends how to play. Sounds like we are going to bring it with us camping this weekend to teach a few more people! How fun!
TJ just saw his favorite commercial. It's for Honey Nut Cheerios. The baseball one. He likes to cheer with the fans that shout, "Great Taste, Lower Cholesterol, Great Taste, Lower Cholesterol" He stands up and pumps his fist with them. Then rewinds it and does it again. It's pretty funny. Rewind on the TV is a pretty cool feature to have. I'm not sure I would ever want to get rid of it.
Well, tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all folks.
See you next time!
Stephanie

It's been awhile

Hello. It's been awhile since I've posted. Nothing too exciting last week. It was actually very nice. Stephanie and I got new bikes so we went for a couple of bike rides. We also got a new game, Settlers of Catan, which is our favorite game now. We played that a few times. It was a nice, relaxing weekend.

Since I'm holding a record for "Consecutive Days of Work Without Breaking Glass", why not start "Consecutive Years Of Marriage Without Breaking Dishes". Right now we are holding strong at 5 years!

Have a good day,
TJ

wednesday

Hi.
For those of you who may be wondering why I've only gone 14 days without breaking glass, remember I only work 3 or 4 days a week.

I got an email today letting me know that Chris Farley lives! Wow!


Have a good day.

TJ

my record holds

My record for "Consecutive Days Without Breaking Glass" is at 14! This is getting exciting.

I found an interesting story on one of the Twin Cities TV websites today. I can honestly say I've never been in this situation before and hopefully never will be. Check out the link.

Could you imagine me 500 pounds! That's funny.

TJ

hello

Good Monday to everyone. On Friday I went down to Iowa to go to the Iowa Speedway in Newton with my dad. We went to a race on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening. It was fun. We both picked who we thought would win each race. On the Saturday afternoon race we each picked someone and they ended up crashing into each other so we didn't do so well. The Saturday evening race was a motorcycle race. Those people are crazy. It was either 3 hours long or 2 hundred some laps, whichever came first. We stayed for awhile but it got hard to keep up with all the motorcycles and there weren't really any crashes. So we left around 8:30. Well, we should have stayed, cause a guy wiped out and his bike burst into flames and someone else ran into it. They life-flighted one guy to the hospital. Story here We tailgated between the 2 races on Saturday and listened to Lonestar. It was a good time.

TJ

Finally!

We finally have a paved road! They poured black top this week. I think they'll be putting something on top of it, but for now, at least it's paved. Roads are backwards here. They build the house and then the road. So today I'm cleaning out the garage. Wiping all the dust off everything and sweeping the floor real good.

We signed up for Family Camp next year at Iowa Regular Baptist Camp. It'll be fun to go back. I grew up going there but I haven't been there since I've gotten married. We'll be at Family Camp 2. Adam, Jamie and the kids went this year so they signed us up for next year. Stephanie's whole family will be there and my whole family will be there as well. We'll be in the Family Youth Dorms so we have air and a bathroom. My mom suggested we stay in "The Barn". Oh the barn. I think there is a certain someone who reads this that used to stay in the barn. I never had the opportunity to stay there though. Bummer. There's still room at camp, so call in and make your reservation!

TJ

ah yeeaah

What up G. Word. Since I am "The Gift-aka-Save Yo Lost Souls", I have found a new program to help me shape my image and work on my rapping. It's called "Hip Hop Harry". It's actually a children's program. It's Barney...from the ghetto. It's a big stuffed bear, kinda like Barney. The difference is that he wears his hat sideways and has a big medallion hanging from his neck. There's some kids there with him, but instead of singing cute little songs, they rap. You can't get any better than this. "When I say team, you say work! Team ___, team ___!" ah yeeaah. Check out the website and listen to some songs.

Good news for you game lovers. The game my parents played for years at camp is now available again. Rage is being printed again, in English. They made it in the early Eighties, then it went out of print. It was being made a couple years ago, but everything was in German. Now I found it online in English and I bought a deck yesterday. Woohoo!

TJ

Hi

My record for "Consecutive Days of Work Without Breaking Glass" is at 12 right now. The guy I work with broke a piece last night, but I'm still holding strong.

On Saturday evening Stephanie and I were driving and got stopped by a train. While we were waiting there we could see someone walking on the other side of the train. Now, it was around 7pm so there was still daylight. I told Stephanie, "I wonder what he's doing?" Well, he stopped at the first tree and started peeing! There was a whole line of cars and he's just standing there peeing. He didn't walk to the farthest tree, or go behind a building. He went to the closest tree by the road. Thankfully, we were on the other side of the train so we didn't see "anything". But I feel sorry for those that were waiting on the other side.

The Live Earth Concert to make awareness for global warming was Saturday. This next part is from christian comedian Jeff Allen's blog on Gaithernet.
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"Well I feel so much better today about the future of our planet. After the weekend Rock concerts to save our planet from cooking itself, I slept so much better. The funniest thing about the concerts was the paradoxical nature of the people in the audience having the time of their lives, whilst the doom and gloom messages scrolled behind the artists. Come on, if people really believed this crap I don't think they would have enjoyed the weekend so much. This whole thing is some kind of Marx type training program for the next generation; hence all the cartoon advertisements, as if they have given up on converting any rational thinking human, and are going straight for the moron who gets all his science from a cartoon. I.e. the average eight-year-old.

I know that sounds a little cold hearted, which could be the solution to Global Warming. Maybe we need to be a little more cold hearted and a lot less gullible. Perhaps we can get enough cold hearts and cool this planet off. Maybe the problem is not the SUV's but all these warm fuzzy propaganda pieces coming out of Hollywood.

I enjoyed Bon Jovi, but I admittedly had a hard time connecting anything he did with a solution to any dilemma the planet may be going through. I am less worried about New York drowning from a melting Polar ice cap that I am of New York drowning in a sea of irrelevance.

Jeff

P.S. These are the ramblings of the artist, and have nothing to do with the opinion of my warm hearted webmaster. "
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Have a good day,
TJ

The Sixth Of July

Happy Sixth of July to all.

Yesterday Stephanie golfed a 55 on 9 holes. Not bad for not golfing in a couple years.

Yesterday my niece told me we should get a pool. So I got to thinking, we've got this big, empty basement with nothing but a ping-pong table in it. How about a pool? We could get one of those big inflatable ones that are 3' deep and put it downstairs. That way we could swim in the winter. As long as it doesn't get a hole, we'd be good. Wow, what an idea!

Here's a weird story from the Cities.

Can't wait for tomorrow. It's supposed to be 95 degrees. Yeehaw. Sounds like a good day to go swimming.

TJ

4th of July

Our Fourth was pretty uneventful. I had to work Tuesday night so I was sleeping Wed. morning. Stephanie had to work on the Fourth from 9-5. Everyone wants to go to OfficeMax on the Fourth of July. Who doesn't need to get office supplies on the Fourth of July. After she got off work we went to Waseca and ate supper and played croquet at Tim and Nicole's. Then we watched the fireworks in Waseca.

Stephanie's going golfing today after work. I'll make her give you a report on how she did :}

TJ

my record

My record for "Consecutive Working Days Without Breaking Glass" is at 10! Wow. This is so exciting.

Here's a couple pics I got from my parents camera from the Gaither taping we went to in Louisville.
Well, it's getting late and I'm tired. It's 6:30am! I'm gonna go to bed.

TJ

Post Reunion Post

I've had countless numbers of people asking for a "review" of the Abbott reunion. Boy, where do I start? It all started with a whistle blow. Yes, this year they had a whistle to keep things moving along. First we ate, ate and ate. Mmmm. Good food. Then, according to the poster that had a schedule for the day, we had music and devotions. We sang "Victory In Jesus" and "I Can Only Imagine". Hmm. Then, our very own Will Mitchell gave the devotional. It went well until he bashed our awesome T-Shirts. Then, we kicked him out and beat him up. After that we had a group activity - Tug Of War. Our team, the Sparks, won one and lost one. We were unfairly knocked out of the competition. But I won't even start on that. Then some people went tubing so some of us went to the swinging bridge to dump water on them as they went under. You can tell by the picture that I actually fell asleep on the bridge. I was pretty tired. Then in the evening we went to Mabe's Pizza in Decorah for the "best pizza in the world". It's good, but I don't know about the "best".

This was a pretty small reunion. Only about 100 people. It was fun.


TJ