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Where do I order these options for my car?

Sometime in the late 1990’s, one of our neighbors decided to get rid of an old ragtag ficus tree they’d had in their house for a while. We offered to take it, thinking it would add to our “recently out of college” decor. I named it Treebeard, aka Fangorn, after the ancient Ent from The Lord of the Rings.

Treebeard moved with us to Longmont and had a place of honor in the corner of our family room, where his leaves “shaded” us on the couch as we watched movies. He added a nice splash of green to the room, and all was good.

Over the years, though, branches died and he became more and more sparse. He was sort of crippled in a way, too– we had to attach a trunk to the wall via fishing wire to keep him from toppling. So I finally decided it was time to bid adieu.

The family room seems a little emptier without him. Farewell, noble Treebeard.

As part of our missionary paperwork, we have to submit a nice formal photo of ourselves. For some reason we forgot to do that for Kyra, and when she arrived on her mission, someone snapped a terrible cell-phone photo and it became her official photo for the rest of her mission.

So today, Zaque got a haircut and lost the mane he’s been sporting for a few years now. Missionary grooming standards require fairly short hair on the young men (a wise move), and it turns out he cleans up pretty good:

Then it was time for me and La. Ours turned out nicely, although as usual she looks way better than me:

Kyra couldn’t resist getting in on the action, so I gave her a glamour shot as well:

The last time I had a physical exam was when I was trying out for the high school baseball team. I was 15. In the intervening years, I haven’t been to a doctor for anything… no checkups, no physicals, no illnesses, no surgeries. It’s been pretty nice.

Now, as I’m preparing to serve a mission, I’m required to have a physical. Apparently the church wants to ensure that I’m not going to go into cardiac arrest or whatever while I’m serving. I didn’t see a way around it, so I resigned myself to the fact that I would, once again, need to visit a doctor.

Zaque and I did that today (he needs a physical for his mission as well). It took about half an hour and wasn’t too bad. In the end, all the tests came back positive. Apparently I’m still a fine specimen of health. Even after 32 years without doctors.

Can I go another thirty years without visiting a doctor? Fingers crossed…

I admit I was getting a little worried because I hadn’t received a birthday card from Carolyn Rose. A few weeks had passed after my birthday, and finally there was a card in the mailbox:

As it turned out, her husband Gary has been struggling with some health issues, and she was pretty busy around my birthday. She was very apologetic about not sending a card on time, but honestly, the fact that she was even thinking about it counts.

I don’t generally get birthday cards from anyone these days– including my lovely wife– but Carolyn has never missed a year. The tradition continues, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Thanks, Carolyn!

Somewhere in Casper, Wyoming there’s a gas station that has…

Dinosaurs!

Sharks!

And some strange short guy!

On our trip we stopped at Jimmy John’s for lunch, and the men’s bathroom had a bunch of signs on the tile walls. I snapped some photos because I thought they were pretty clever. Which one are you?

Retirement continues to creep a little closer, and with it the decision about where to live. Flathead Lake, Montana has been at the top of my list for a few months, and I finally convinced Laralee to drive up there with me to look at some houses and get a feel for the area. Kyra tagged along, which was a lot of fun.

We wanted to go in the dead of winter, to see how things were in the worst part of the year, but our schedules didn’t allow us to head up there until mid-March. As it happens, this year saw some record snowfall during February, so everything was blanketed in snow. After two days of driving, we stopped for our first up-close view of Flathead Lake:

Yeah, it was frozen over… something that’s apparently pretty rare. Parts of the lake were thawed, but large areas were covered in ice. Regardless, the weather was actually quite pleasant: sunny, in the upper 40’s, with beautiful blue skies. We grabbed some lunch and then started looking at houses.

There’s something a little weird (and admittedly deceptive) about calling real-estate agents to set up showings of houses we don’t actually intend to buy. Then again, there’s something a little weird about driving literally a thousand miles to look at houses we don’t actually intend to buy. I called this a “fact-finding trip”, because our real goal was to see what sorts of places are available, and what the area is like.

Kyra enjoyed touring the houses.

At one point, we were driving along the west shore of the lake and I shouted, “Hey, stop! I know that barn!” I jumped out of the car to snap a picture.

Sure enough, when I looked through my photo archives I found my earlier shot of it. This was taken in September 2001.

I remember our trip to the Pacific Northwest back in 2001– it was probably the time when I decided the Flathead/Glacier area was one of the most beautiful places I’d been. And it still is.

I’d poked around Zillow for a few weeks, choosing about 20 houses I really liked. I handed my list to Laralee and Kyra, and they whittled it down to eight. As it turned out, we looked at ten, because two of the realtors wanted to show off some of their other listings. It was fun to go through houses whose main floors are larger than my entire house, or see kitchens the size of most of my downstairs.

Not surprisingly, many of them had fantastic views of the lake. We ended up touring one house way up in the wilderness (many miles from the lake, due to a mistake the realtor made when he listed it). It was on five acres of private forest land, without another house in sight and only the quiet sounds of the woods for company. The woman who owned it explained that she and her husband had custom-built the house fifteen years before, and she had literally hand-picked stones used in the chimney and kitchen, and carefully aligned the grain on the wooden drawers and cabinets. It was absolutely stunning.

One of the houses is literally known as “The Castle” by people who go boating past it.

As it turned out, the interior of The Castle looked more like an Italian ristorante. What would it be like to eat dinner in this little alcove?

Another house was so fancy we couldn’t figure out how the toilets flushed. We suspect it had something to do with the little knob on top.

That same one had a great room that looked like one of those fancy home magazines you’d find in the reception area of a real-estate agency.

Apparently people really live like this! Several had amazing views of the lake, which looked like a frozen wasteland. Still, we were walking around without coats because it was so nice. It only looked cold.

In any case, we thoroughly enjoyed our tours. Throughout the process, I was asking each of the agents about the area, the weather, the town, and all sorts of related things. Although it was helpful to see the houses, it was even more helpful to hear about what the Flathead Lake area is like. As we were driving home today, I apologized to Laralee… before, I’d been sort of considering moving to Montana, but after this visit I’m convinced it’ll be awesome.

Now I have to convince her. Oh, and at some point we need to actually buy a house…

I have absolutely no context for this photo.

But if I’m reading it right, this guy just finished an Ironman race and is showing off what he used to look like. That’s an amazing transformation.

Set goals. Then accomplish them.

I saw this the other day, and found it both funny and thought-provoking.