Carving Pumpkins...Sort Of?!

I have to apologize to Keith for not calling him on his Birthday. HAPPY BELATED B-DAY! I figure if you spent the day with Hannah Montana, then your brother calling you wouldn't have been that exciting. Thanks for posting the pictures. We thoroughly enjoyed the picture of Kacie...Sorry Kacie, but it's a CLASSIC! I have had many moments of silence for the Rockies over the past week. To make matters worse, I just watched the Broncos lose in overtime. It's a tough time to be a Coloradan. Things in Idaho Falls are going well. Riley is very excited to be Pocahontas for Halloween. Macie will be a Pirate. We have been practicing saying, Argh! There hasn't been much progress, but I'm confident she'll bring out her A-Game when it matters. We are also excited to go to Denver November 8th through the 13th - We all need a little break from reality.

Witness Protection

Ladies and gentlemen, after a stint in the Witness Protection Program I have resurfaced briefly in order to post a few pix on the blog. I have been promising Amy that I'd put our San Fran stuff up; I need to put the pic of Bubba in the ER up; and how could I live with myself if I didn't post the camera-phone images taken from the fabulous seats the Weasel and I had at the Hannah Montana concert. Enjoy.

KJ

P.S. Please observe a moment of silence for the Rockies.

We have a Bubba down!!

Keith sent me a text message last night saying that Bubba broke her leg playing soccer! He said she is doing okay, but I'm sure she is bummed about the prospect of not being able to play soccer for awhile while she heals! We'll all have to send lots of happy, positive thoughts her way! :)

33 and all is well!

Okay, so I'm not actually 33 years old yet...still 12+ hours until it becomes official, but I thought I'd post a quick update since Todd pointed out in his b-day wishes that there hasn't been a singles conference debriefing or a teaching update! (I'm editing to note the fact that I'm pretty darn sure it was actually Valerie, posting under Todd's name, who posted the b-day wishes!)

The singles conference was basically a bust, but Keith and I had a WONDERFUL time in San Francisco. I guess I had to travel all that way to find out that things are rough all over when it comes to finding a tall, handsome guy! Mostly the conference itself just served to make me feel extra disappointed and frustrated that things weren't/aren't going better (or really going at all, for that matter!) with the guy in Denver. But that's another post for another day! Here's one picture of us, freezing on a not-really tour bus. We were supposed to do speed dating, but no one was allowed to stand up on the second story of the bus...go fig! You can tell how excited we are! Ask Keith about the guy in the baseball cap....... :)



Like I said, Keith and I had a fabulous time together, and had some great quotes and memories come out of the trip. For instance, we had a guy in Chinatown try to get us into his tea shop by telling us that the tea would make us "sexy like hell." (At least that's what it sounded like...hard to say for sure with the accent!) Keith bought jewelry like a regular woman, and we almost died of a heart attack walking up steep streets to see the crookedest street in San Fran. I leave it to our resident photographer to share some of the pics he took...hopefully soon.

My teaching experience is going well! Some nights are better than others, but generally speaking I am enjoying the experience and think that the students are having a pretty good time as well! It's also nice to be earning a little bit of extra money on the side!! :)

Oh yes, I am well aware of the Twilight craze! I actually started reading that book awhile back, and just didn't care enough to finish it! Anyway, I'm sure that at this point there are some feelings of jealousy thrown into the mix that make it hard for me to be objective about the whole situation, but who knows...maybe someday I'll read the books.

Well, that is the birthday eve report from me! I'm sure glad that I was born into this family! We are so fortunate to get along so well, and to have such a good time together! Lots of love to all of you!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Amy, we hope you have a wonderful day! I am excited to hear about the singles conference and how teaching is going. The new novel rage around here is the Twilight series written by some BYU grad. I haven't convinced myself they are worth reading yet, but apparently everyone else thinks they are great. I just wondered if you have heard of them or if this is strictly a Utah-Idaho fad. NOt much new going on here. I returned all of the adorable boy clothes I had bought over the past three months...it was pretty sad. I guess it is nice that we have everything we need! Well, sleep in late, go out to eat, and have a fun day ;) - Val and Todd

IT'S A GIRL....AGAIN!

Well, we are happy to announce we will be adding another little girl to our family! After a Dr. Pepper and a copious amount of sugary treats, I have come to grips with the fact I must have done something terribly wrong in the preexistence :) When Valerie first told Macie we were having a girl, Macie said, "EH EH" I couldn't have said it any better myself. All joking aside, we are very grateful to have a healthy baby. I would ask, however, that you start praying now for us to be able to make it through adolescence.

Must Be An Idaho Potato

Riley and I were quite surprised when we pulled this gigantic red potato out of our garden this afternoon. Our first garden was definitely a learning experience, but I can say our carrots, beans, pumpkins, potatoes and tomatoes were a success. We are already looking forward to next year's crop.

SuiSlide

This slide video is from the Hinchcliff Reunion (Valerie's grandma's side of the family) this weekend at the West Piney Lodge near Swan Valley, ID. (I tried uploading a different video, but it died before it finished). The slide was definitely the highlight of the reunion for Riley. Macie was a little less enthusiastic about going down with Valerie and me. We went up Friday night and came back this morning. There was lots of food and lots of people I didn't know, but the food made it all worth it. I also caught an 11-inch Brook Trout in the stream running through the property.

These pictures of Riley are from her first day of Preschool.

Bummer!

I've tried eleventy-twelve times to add photos. With Todd and Keith's expert help, I've still been unsuccessful. I have the pictures on the desktop, but when I think I've added them to the blog, I'm sorely mistaken.

I just took Keith and Amy to the airport for the San Francisco Middle Singles' Experience. I should have had him walk me through the process. Technology makes me feel stupid!

I'm off to have my roots dyed, but will never give up!

Riley and her cousin Kade at the annual Mud Run for the local high school cross country runners. Valerie's sister Morgan ran in the race and Riley and Kade didn't have a problem staying entertained.


Macie enjoying her swing.

Here's a video of Riley and Macie doing their swing set routine. It's kind of long and not too exciting, but I figured the blog needed a new post.

Posting Photos

Maggie,

I'm not exactly sure how to upload pictures from Picasa to the blog, but I think I can walk you through uploading pictures from your desktop to the blog...Log into the blog by clicking on the Blogger.com icon in the top left corner of the screen. Once you log in you should have the option to create a new post - you have obviously been able to get this far. Anyway, then you want to click on the Add Image icon on the tool bar. This will allow you to browse for the images you saved to your desktop. You usually have the option to add five or six photos. Let me know if you try this and it still doesn't work. I think the key is to save your photos to a different location.

We haven't taken any pictures of Riley and Macie lately so I thought I would post some pcitures of Macie from when we took her to JC Penney a few months ago.

Pictures to share.....somewhere!

Because of my low-tech abilities, I have some wonderful pictures from the reunion, but don't seem to be able to share them! I downloaded them in Picasa2, but can't get them from there to here. Help!!

Anyway, I love looking at the pictures. I had such a great time with all of you. The time just passed too quickly!

Testing: 1, 2, 3

Testing: 1, 2, 3.

Just making sure this fancy new blog format we've been hearing so much about actually works, since all activity came to a screeching halt the day we switched over.

Is everyone alive and well?

In our news, I'm home alone with the boys for a couple days while Margie attends her brother Brett's wedding in Utah.

And, as you can tell, the boys are already keeping me very busy: Tourists Flee as Felix Nears, and Central America Braces for Felix.

Apparently, Felix's reputation is spreading. I had no idea!

New Blog Format

In order to make the blog more function (i.e. having the ability to put birthdays up) I had to switch to a newer version of blogger and get a new template. If anyone has any qualms with the color scheme we can change it (I did think Keith and Scott would like the hot pink Barbie template!). Hopefully all the birthdays are correct. I just took Scott's list and added the dates he was missing. If anyone has other lists or items they want on the blog just let me know. The new format makes it much easier to make updates.

In other news, I had a nice birthday yesterday (30-ouch! Lizzy is now the only Johnson child in her 20's - double ouch!). Valerie threw a surprise party for me Thursday night at her parents’ house. Looking back, I was a little too naive about the whole thing. The best part was when I showed up and saw one of my neighbors and his wife getting out of their car on the opposite side of the street from Valerie's parents. I said, "Hi, Dave. What are you guys doing over here?" He said he was going to a friend’s house for dinner and pointed to a house a few doors down. For most people this would have thrown up a big red flag, but I just said, 'Oh, really!' and proceeded to pull into Pat and Dale's driveway and go inside. As I walked into the house everyone screamed, 'Surprise'! And that's when I knew I had been duped. It was a fun evening with lots of good Dutch oven cooking and conversation. Riley also volunteered to give me my 30 spankings - it's a good thing she can only count to 15.

Yesterday, I just went to work and then Valerie and I went out to Dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Jalisco’s – located down by the ‘Falls’. After dinner we crossed the street to look at the river and a group of guys asked if I would take their picture, well in that group was Denney Crum. For those who don’t know, Crum was the men’s basketball coach at Louisville for 30 years. Apparently there were some other notable athletes in the group – so they said, but I didn’t recognize any of the names (before my time).

Anyway, thanks for all the birthday cards and calls. You made 30 not seem so gloomy!

Happy 40th !!!

Congratulations mom and dad on 40 years of marital bliss. We know that having good-looking, courteous, well-behaved, brilliant children helped make it easier, but it's still quite an accomplishment even if your children weren't all those things.

We love you and appreciate everything you've done for us over these many, many years!

Thanks!!

My Impending Retirement

I'm another step closer to retiring early and relying on Margie's mad skills to support my expensive lifestyle of sports cars, designer fashions, and gourmet food after Margie auditioned for and was cast in another play this week at a theatre that apparently actually pays its actors.

Margie will be playing the lead female role, Rachel Brown, in the play Inherit the Wind. The curtain goes up at the end of October, which is a lovely time to visit Pittsburgh, for those of you haven't been here yet.

Margie is also currently co-starring in our entry in the employees-only version of Heinz Ketchup's "Top This TV" ad contest. You can watch the admittedly amateurish result here. We're vying with about 40 other entries for three top prizes of 1.) a 57" screen TV (or $2,500), 2.) $1,500 cash, or 3.) $1,000 cash.

Birthdays, Part II

Birthday	Johnson
02/07	Felix
03/22	Lizzy
04/02	Margie
04/26	Grandpa
05/16	Maggie
05/24	Macie
07/XX	Valerie
07/16	Janet
07/30	Scott
08/05	Grandma
08/24	Todd
09/XX	Jamie
10/06	Amy
10/27	Keith
11/03	Rex
11/23	Lisa
11/XX	Riley
12/08	Kacie

Birthdays

As we all know, I have good intentions, but seldom hit the Birthday on the exact date.
I just looked at the Blog created by the children of a friend of mine and they have all the Birthdays listed on the Blog. It is a reminder everytime you check the blog.

One of you computer whiz kids--Would that be possible for the jimmysyme blog?

Unemployment

After seeing the photos posted by Scott--and I'm assuming they were shot by both Scott and Margie--I am really feeling like they missed their calling. Great pictures!! The video is also priceless and probably should have come with a Parental Advisory.

KJ

Uno Mas...

Also, don't forget to check out the Johnson Family Festivities Video.

6 1/2 minutes of pure insanity!