Category: Personal

In an attempt to reduce the amount of bandwidth being sucked out of the site, I am going to archive McVideos, we will set a max of one page, or two… to the videos, and I might turn off the auto play so if you leave your browser open it doesn’t just keep playing… waht do you think. But to make it up to you I am offering a McVideos CD that will be mailed to you that will be able to pop into your computer and play the McVideos just as if you were on the site. So if you want one, throw a comment into this post and I’ll make you a copy. Otherwise, thanks for making McVideos such a huge success.

Other places, I just got CS3 at work, and will begin using that today, so far my impression of it is pretty low since it didn’t install properly the first time, and it installs over top of old versions meaning I had to go uninstall the older macromedia studio. Hopefully there is a speed boost that will make up for this lack of simplicity.

So I have a good friend who I haven’t seen for a while due to high gas prices and other variables, but I was talking with Josh Porter the other day who said he lost 140 114 pounds because he eats cheerios and a banana for breakfast then watches his intake on lunch and dinner… now he’s so skinny the girls he dates are bigger than he is. Check out this before and after. I’m starting the cheerios thing this week since all my size 34 shorts stopped fitting… 🙁

A well respected servant of God passed away today. President James Faust. Read his last message. A great teacher, and devoted man of God.

In other news, Tracy is doing well from what we hear, we are going to try and visit today if anyone wants to come with us. We heard she is having trouble running the mile in less than 12 mins…

If you’re married you should chuckle, laugh and giggle at this. And since I know most readers of McBlog are now married, I have no problem posting this here. Enjoy.

Today we said farewell to the McClan who has been visiting for a while. It has been realy really nice to have extra hands around to help and extra people to play with. We had a really good time yesterday at Snowbird, riding on the zip line and slide and other stuff. Watch for video/pics. Hopefully everyone gets home safely, and now we are back to the normal life. Luckily we only have a week or so before The T’s come out to close on a town home. We love having family in town, almost makes us want ya’ll to move closer 🙂

Happy birthday to Tyler and Gretchen! Tyler turns the big 16 today, and Gretchen is turning the little 29–again! 🙂 We are going out to dinner tonight after Tyler gets back from lacrosse camp, and I believe we will be consuming one of those Great American Chocolate Cakes from Costco– you know what I’m talking about– the 7-pounder! Well, hope Gretchen and Tyler have a great day!

Also, happy birthday to Ryan T. last Monday. We didn’t post it on that day, but better late than never, right?!? He is busy moving to S.F. this weekend, and he’s getting married in about 6 weeks! Yay for Ryan!

having a baby, they found out the gender this morning…

http://www.thepaynefultruth.info/?p=59

I got back today from a nice little Stake Relief Society Retreat. It was an overnight event, even though only like 20 people actually camped there (our homes were only 15 minutes away so most people just went home, then came back in the a.m.). I felt privileged to go to this event, especially because hardly anybody does this type of thing. It was up in Hobble Creek Canyon, at Jolley’s Ranch– such a beautiful area– I only wish we had had some sort of hiking/exercise time to explore the place a little during our stay! A lady in my ward brought her bike and rode around in the morning before breakfast, which was pretty smart of her. I’ll do that next year. But it was fun; lots of hanging out, fresh air, musical numbers, good food, and classes/speakers. The various classes were either spiritual, informative, or crafty, or a mixture of any of those. One of the classes I took was a CPR class that was really informative, because the ratios have been simplified to just one (30:2 ratio of compressions to ventilations, for all ages). Anyway, thank you to McMom and Pace for watching Chase so I could get away for this experience, and to Pace for “making me” spend the night (although it was not a very warm or comfortable night–it didn’t help that before bed we were discussing all the recent local bear sightings and the mauling of the poor little boy by that crazy bear). I really felt like I bonded with women from my ward and stake, and I also had a very uplifting experience. I think that every stake should do this sort of thing– I’m convinced that it makes us better women/wives/moms!

By the way, the photo shown here is not really from the retreat; I didn’t even bring my camera. Pace took this beautiful photo in Dec. 2005 in the redwoods at my parents’ property. Just wanted to give credit where credit was due!

Okay, I know I should have posted about this already by now since it’s been nearly a week since they left… But too bad. 🙂 Part of the TFam came to visit for a week and it was lots of fun! Those in attendance were TMom, Gino, and Jessica. Gino stayed for a few days, just long enough to wrestle with Chase, bond with Chase, build Chase some forts, etc. This uncle and nephew pair was quite cute, actually. Chase enjoyed putting on a show all week and barking like a dog for everyone (he’s obsessed with dogs).

Some highlights of the trip:

• Going to Costco and buying so much food (including chocolate cake!) that it hardly fit in the van with all of us in there (thanks for all the food, Parents!)
• Pulling weeds and planting flowers (thanks for all the flowers, Parents!)
• Going to Sandy to eat at the notorious restaurant The Mayan but finding out it was closed until the following week
• Watching t.v. on our 19″ substitute tv screen
• Shopping at the new and improved Gateway mall!
• Rachel and Joy making a dance video
• Townhouse hunting for TMom/Rachel/Jess–whoever ends up staying there
• Making s’mores and chatting around the backyard firepit
• Gino and Pace brother-in-law bonding via Battlefield 2 and Warcraft 3
• Going to the Aquarium in Sandy that looked like a grocery store on the outside but that ended up being decent on the inside
• Having TMom and Jess babysit so we could go out to dinner and fireworks
• Staying up way too late every night (they’re all a bunch of night owls)

We had a great time and we actually had plenty of room for everyone to sleep! Thank you, family, for all the fun and yard work and for spoiling us! And thank you to whoever cleaned out the microwave! Check out the new albums in McPhotos for visual stimulation; there are also some new ones in rotation on the homepage.

So it’s Friday, and I just finished a game of Warcraft during lunch at work. I’m here in a large software corp, where every employee has at least one computer and a network connection. I have to say, it truely is a great feeling when you play video games with other guys. It was my second time playing this map called Dota Allstars, I did really well for the extreme learning curve. I have to say it’s almost as good as winning a sports event. Guys you don’t even know coming up and saying “Good move”, “Nice job”, “There’s no mercy for you next time… not that you need it”, it just make Fridays really good. Also, I played Battlefield 2 with Gino on Wed night, after that I feel much more connected with Gino, and I think I’ll be his favorite brother in law for a while. What do you think? Are video games the ultimate bonding experience?