Be an informed voter

It is that time again. The presidential election. I am not going to tell who to vote for. But I am going to strongly encourage you to not be ignorant. There is an incredible amount of lies and ignorance surrounding the current campaigns. Many people are too lazy to find out the truth and just rely on what their friends and family say or what they hear on the radio. Here is some examples of incredible ignorant people on both sides:

McCain supporter saying she doesn't trust Obama because he is arab

Interviews with some uninformed Obama supportors


Below I have listed some good links to read to help inform yourself about actual issues the next time someone make some outrageous claim about either candidate or tries to boil down the complex issues facing our nation to single words like conservative, liberal, or socialist or capitalist.

First, the candidates' actual websites and actual quotes from the candidates on various issues:

John McCain's website

Barack Obama's website

Procon.org, a website with candidates statements on various issues


Second, some websites checking up on the various claims made by the candidates

A site that checks that facts spouted by both sides

Snopes, a site debunking urban legends and spam emails from friends

CNN investigates misleading claims on both sides

Website addressing specific smears agains Barrack Obama


Third, for those of you who are LDS, the Church's stand on who you should vote for:
LDS Church statement of political neutrality

We will be garnishing one little girl's wages

Several weeks ago, our Honda Odyssey started exhibiting some strange behavior. We would be driving along and out of the blue, the speakers would start blaring static. Even if our radio wasn't turned on. If pushed different buttons or controls it would change the pitch of the static and then eventually the static would usually stop.

This would happen off and on and we hard time discovering any pattern to it. We hesitated to take it to a shop, because it was so inconsistent and we did know if we could reproduce while at the mechanics. Then last Sunday our parking lights came on by themselves and would not turn off. I had to disconnect the battery so that it would not drain overnight. Monday morning I took the van to a Honda dealer. By the time I got to the dealer, the parking lights had shut themselves off. I explained to the mechanic the weird electrical problems we had been having and he said they would try to track it down and that it was probably a short or ground somewhere in the system.

I called the mechanic several times throughout the day to see if they had found anything and they kept telling me the were still trying to track it down. Finally around 3:00 they called me. They said the problem was due to "an excess of change in the radio". That's right there was about 75 cents worth of change that had been stuck into the radio. Apparently inside the radio there are open wires and the radio itself is connected directly to one of the van's main computers. The change moving around would cause random shorts and grounds causing the strange behavior that we have seen.

So had to 75 cents get into the radio. Well, what we do know is that Connie caught Gracie trying to stick a quarter through the CD slot a few weeks ago. So best guess it that Grace had already stuck a few in by the time Connie caught her. The total bill to fix the van came to $270. So we will be garnishing Grace's wages for a little while.

Bike Thief

My faithful stead of the last 3 or 4 years, my Trek 1000 road bike got stolen last week.  For years I have it out in my car port the night before I ride it work.  Last wednesday morning I walked at 6:00 am to ride to work and it was no where to be found.  We later found that the thief had also taken Connie's purse from inside our van.  Though he was thoughtful enough to take the van and house keys that were in her purse and put them on the front seat. 

The Zoo

Saturday Kevin took Sam and Grace to the zoo while Connie did some stuff with her sister.

Look Ma! No training wheels

Sam shed his training wheels from his bike this week. He can totally start and stop by himself and go up and down hills. He is awesome!

Cutest Two Year Old In The World

Gracie just turned two! She is the cutest two year old in the world. For her birthday we got her a pink camelbak and a tricycle. For those of you who know Grace, a camelbak is the perfect gift. For a long time her 'lovey' has been a sippy cup, and she drinks so much water that we swear she must have died of dehydration in another life. One of her first words and one of her most common word still today is 'lellow', which means water. Why lellow means water we are not entirely sure. My personally theory is it is derived from the word 'bottle'. But anyway, it is clear that Grace loves water. So know with her pink Camelbak, she can get it whenever she wants.

Bear Lake

Connie's brother Rick invited us to his lake house up at Bear Lake. We had a great time and tried wake surfing for the first time. It was very fun. It is kind of like wake boarding, but you use a real surf board and you weight the back of the boat so that it make a wake big enough to surf on. You start with a tow rope and then once you get good enough to stay in the right part of the wave so you don't need the rope you throw it in. We never quite got to where we stay with the boat without using the rope a little bit, but that just means we will have to go again. Sam got to water-skiing for the first time. He didn't go behind a boat though, he was pulled behing a 4 wheeler in about a foot of water. It was amazing.