You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop

In memory of our upcoming celebration of Independence Day, I thought I'd post this e-mail forwarded to me by my Grandmother-in-law, herself quite a patriot. You can check out her blog at http://libertybelle-usa.blogspot.com/. I hope you have a great weekend and remember the great cost of our freedom!

At a time when our president and other politicians tend to apologize for our country's prior actions, here's a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our country.

JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early-60s when
DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaule said he wanted all US
military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded, "Does that include those who are buried here?"

DeGuale did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the
Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom
beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for
in return is enough to bury those that did not return."

You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers
were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?"

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three
hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?"

You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AND
THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE....

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.
At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport
in his carry on.

"You have been to France before, Monsieur?" the customs officer asked
sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he
quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in
1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen
to show a passport to."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Boys' Camping Trip

Every year our church schedules a fishing trip for the men and often their sons as well. So C and P went this year (E is still just a bit too much for a trip like this- maybe next year). Every year they've gone to Groundhog Lake in Colorado. Peter is now thoroughly convinced he wants to live in CO when he grows up. He tried to convince Christian that we should actually move up there as soon as possible, moving all our extended family up with us of course. :) The rest of us went and spent the weekend with Grace and Ransom, which I have no pictures of, but we enjoyed nevertheless. Oh yes! Peter caught four fish, all on his own this year, as well as reeling in a few for a very kind and patient man.

The camp



Peter holding a crawdad (bait)

Christian also spent an extra day in CO helping a friend install some cabinets that he had made for them last month and these pictures he took on his way to their house.

A beaver dam

The Rockies

Steps and Stuff

Well, I'll post the funnest first- Berea taking a few steps. Tirzah is starting to stand a little, but mostly thinks it's a game and enjoys falling back into my arms. Berea's just Little Miss Adventure (I can foresee Tirzah getting in trouble a lot for Berea's ideas...).


The fire is well over 14,000 acres now, but is 25% contained (which is good). Here's our new view- blackened and smoky. :(


Yesterday the kids and I painted Peter's loft bed and the wall underneath (to hide all the drawings and dried boogers on the wall mostly). I survived when Elijah started painting the wrong wall and I survived when I discovered paint all over the bathroom and kitchen from cleaning up. I even survived when I discovered that paint had leaked through the drop cloths onto the carpet. Tips for survival: Comet powder works wonders for removing paint from walls, toilets, cabinets, etc. Scissors work great for removing dried paint from carpet (shh- don't tell Christian). Fingernails and shower puff things work decently for removing dried paint from children. Conditioner actually works great for removing dried paint from hair.



Related to painting yesterday...while moving the computer desk we found Elijah's water bottle that's been missing for well over 2 months! It was really driving me crazy, as I KNEW it was in the house somewhere and had even looked under the desk several times. I even dreamed about finding it. So we are all (at least Elijah and I) rejoicing.


Yesterday one of our petunias bloomed! This is a matter of great pride as C started these indoors back in March. We didn't have much luck with any other flowers we tried starting indoors, so we're excited that this one made it!


And that's all for now!

10,000 acres or more

If you go to http://www.knau.org/ and click on the map, you'll see the perimeter of the fire, as of yesterday. This morning they have been flying around and getting new perimeters, so it will probably change today. If you zoom in a little to see the words, our house is close to Neptune Drive, on the East side of Hwy 89, Northeast of Silver Saddle. The news reports are saying the fire actually reached some back yards in Timberline but the fire fighters were able to ward them off! They seem to be doing an astounding job. http://www.azdailysun.com/ has a couple great articles. Today there isn't supposed to be much wind, so hopefully they'll be able to get it more under control before the winds start up again. Anyway, sorry, no new pictures- last night the flames were all over the hill that had just a line of flames the night before last. It would be beautiful if it wasn't so sad.

Fire Update

The fire's up to almost 9,000 acres now, though the view looks a lot better to me. Maybe they've stopped the fire in the tree tops and it's mostly on the ground now? I don't know. Here are a couple pictures from this morning from our vantage point...

 

 

Big Fire

This fire just started this morning and is over 3,000 acres already! Neighborhoods around us are being evacuated due to smoke, but so far we are smoke-free. If the wind died down I'm sure we'd get a lot of smoke, but that's really what needs to happen to slow down the fire. Anyway, here are some pictures taken from our back yard...

 

These flames were in the tree tops and were actually extinguished pretty quickly by helicopter or plane. 

 

A silhouette of a helicopter in the orange smoke- at about 5:00pm.

 

7:30pm- you can see it's come down a ways in the last couple of hours. 

  

8:00- now we can see the flames

 

And about 8:30 (taken with a telephoto lens- it's not that close, nevertheless I think we'll pack a bag in case the smoke gets bad in the middle of the night...)

Date!

Yay for the Lantings taking the kids to give us some time off! We spent our time on a little hike/picnic in Kelly Canyon- it was SOOO refreshing to not only be alone with my best friend, but also to see so much green (Not that you can see much of it in the pictures...but there were ferns and oaks and wildflowers along with all the ponderosas...)!

On our way home we saw a beautiful sunburst coming through the mountains and later in the evening (after we were home) we were blessed with a downpour for a couple minutes. Looking forward to some more green!

Twin Mix-up

Story: This morning Christian got up with a crying baby. He pulled her out of Tirzah's bed, but lo and behold, it was Berea. My first thought upon hearing this was that maybe Peter got up in the night with them (we don't hear them very well these days with the fan on in our room) and mixed them up. But no, that wouldn't work- he could only get one at a time, and he wouldn't put one back in a bed where there was already a baby...And then I remembered...last night the girls had a really hard time going to sleep- they had cried for an hour almost before we decided to get them up, turn out the lights and try to calm them down. Well, Christian got "Berea" and I got "Tirzah" from their dark room and off we went to the dark living room. Well, I got "Tirzah" calmed down a little and put her back in bed where she started crying again. Repeat scenario with "Berea". Well, eventually they did fall asleep and proceeded to sleep all night. I KNEW I put the babies back in the beds they came from, so it had to have been Christian, who put them both down in the first place. He was recounting to me that he put Berea down first last night because Tirzah was following him down the hall, as it is always Tirzah who follows him. But I distinctly remembered that it was Berea following him, and therein lay the problem. :) And of course that's why the babies were crying so much- they weren't in their own beds with their own stuffed animals! And of course that happened to be the ONE night that we didn't have any lights on when we got them out of bed (we normally at least have one on). Well, lesson #467 on twins learned. :)

Oh-So-Kissable

Drool and all, who can resist?

Wupatki

Anne got to go out of town for a friend's birthday party, so we decided to take advantage of the free national parks weekend and take a quick trip to Wupatki Nat'l Monument, which is about a half hour drive from our house. (In case you're wondering, the next dates that are free entrance into the national parks are August 14th and 15th, then I think Sept. 25th and Nov. 11th.)

 The boys are obviously having a great time. :) As soon as we got out of the car practically, Elijah fell in the parking lot and scraped his knee. Amazingly enough I actually had a little first aid kit in the glove compartment so we got a couple band-aids on and he survived (he can be a tad dramatic).

The ruins were made by I think either the Anasazi or the Sinagua indians (maybe used by both? I honestly didn't pay much attention) I think about 800 years ago. It has 100 rooms.

We're making our way down to the ball court and blowhole (a natural hole in the ground that blows air during the day and sucks it in at night).

A very cool piece of sandstone that's been eroded away over the years.

Hey, who paved the forest? This area is actually covered with volcanic cinders- there are hundreds of small volcanoes in our area, all of which are at least dormant. Hopefully they don't come back to life during my lifetime. :)

This is a picture of a lava flow. And I can't think of anything interesting to add to that statement. 

Last, but not least, a picture of our San Fransisco Peaks, which was a large volcano once upon a time. I don't think that snow will be there long with the crazy-hot weather we've been having!

Targets and Summer Do's

So far the target is turning out to be a worthy investment- a whole evening and morning has passed and I'm pretty sure the boys haven't peed on the floor yet- a record for sure! The website where I bought them from (http://www.toiletmarksman.com/) also carries stickers that look like flies, but I thought that would drive me a little too crazy, as flies are on my "dislike with a passion" list. Anyway, it's pretty amazing how boys are just driven to aim at something if there's something to aim at! Otherwise, well, you know.
On a slightly more civilized note, P and E are now sporting their summer hair- they still look a little funny at this point, but I know I'll get used to it and will for sure appreciate not having to cut their hair as often! And of course A had to jump in for a picture- she's still a bit grouchy at me from cutting her hair last summer, so we'll not be trying that again yet. :)