Memorial Day Weekend

Noelle is spending the Memorial Day weekend with her parents in St. George. They are moving from one house to another. I am in Salem Oregon helping with an upgrade of Valley Health and Postal Employees FCU. We got to the CU on Friday after they closed and stayed there until 1:30 AM Saturday. We showed back up at 10:00 AM and stayed until just before 12:00 AM. Today we got there at 10:00 AM and got all the things done by 12:00 noon. As a result, we decided to go to McMinnville. There is an museum for airplanes. They have the Spruce Goose that Howard Hughes had built. It is amazing!!! If the plane were placed on a football field sideways, the wings would go 10 feet into each end zone and the front and back would be in the stands. The tail is eight stories high.



I also have some other pictures of the museum. I am lucky enough to be with Steve Stanley (Project Manager) and Dave Wride (Programmer), who have a wealth of knowledge about planes. They were spouting off the names of the planes, dates, and other information about the planes. I just took pictures of the planes that looked cool to me. I don't know anything about them though.


Noelle is going to take some pictures of her parents' house in St. George. I'll consider putting them on the blog.

New Things

So here are some of the new things to us. We recently had the kitchen redone. Here are some of the pictures of the results.
We had our cabinets refinished and antiqued, granite countertops put in and new sinks. We then had a neighbor put in the tile backsplash. I still need to finish things by putting the handles on the cabinets. We also had the same granite and new sinks put in the upstairs bathrooms.




The other new thing is new to me. I got rid of the jeep and traded that in for a Toyota pickup. It isn't new... Just new to me. It is a 2005 with 42000 miles. I completely consider myself spoiled and I have Noelle to thank for that.

Our Trip to Hawaii

Noelle and I had the pleasure of going to Hawaii for a 12 day vacation. I have to say that our trip was so much fun. We first went to Maui and spent five days there. Then we went to Oahu and stayed at Waikiki for seven days. I have to say that it was a great, great vacation to spend all that time with Noelle.
To the left is a picture we took while in Lahaina in Maui.

We were able to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center and take a little shuttle over to the temple, which was gorgeous.





While in Waikiki, we stayed at a hotel called the Moana Surfrider. The original portion of the hotel was the first hotel in Waikiki dating back to 1901. Below is a picture of the main entry to the hotel. Sorry it is a little dark. We forgot to take a picture of us in front of it when it was light outside. There were so many people getting married at this hotel. It was a great place to stay. I would suggest making sure that if anyone considers staying there, that they make sure to book a room in the tower not in the original portion of the hotel. We spent one night there before upgrading.



We also went to a luau at Paradise Cove. I personally was much more impressed with the luau at Paradise Cove over the luau at the PCC. The luau had a number of activities including spear throwing, hula, great shows, and a fantastic view of the ocean. Below are some pictures of that.









One of my absolute favorites was one of the things that took the shortest amount of time. I loved going to Pearl Harbor. I can't describe the kinds of feelings that I felt while at the actual memorial. I had to add the full shot of the memorial. I may consider putting some of the other pictures up later from the memorial.


As I go through more of the pictures, I may add more to this posting or following postings.

The Weather in Utah

Okay, so I didn't take any pictures of Mississippi.

I thought I would include some pictures as examples of the weather in Utah. The first are of some flowers in the yard yesterday morning before work. I took some pics of the mountains and you can see the clouds are starting to form.

I awoke this morning to a couple of inches of snow. That is where the last pic fits in. That is the same flower mound.



We have been watching the kids next door since Friday. I write we, but everyone that knows us knows that Noelle really took over that responsibility. In fact, she was on her own with the kids until I came back from MS on Saturday. She was also pretty much on her own with them until I came home from a work thing yesterday. She is amazing!!!

This snow just makes me think: Two weeks from Friday, we'll be in Hawaii...

Here in the South

Well, I'm now in Mississippi. It was a frustrating couple of days. I have a trainer that we picked up from another business unit here to see how the process is for Credit Union training on the TCCUS-sme system. We got to Muna Federal CU to set up the hardware and found out that the hardware didn't arrive on Friday. We got the hardware delivered today, but it was damaged in transit. I had to have an IBM tech come to get the IBM working. That put us 1/2 a day behind.

This area doesn't have a lot of people, but they are very nice. The people really epitomize "Southern Hospitality." I sat next to a man from Meridian MS on the flight from Atlanta and had a great conversation with him. At the end of the conversation he gave me his card and said that if there was anything that we needed or anything that he could do for me, to give him a call. That is not the kind of thing that normally happens on a flight. I'll make sure to take some pictures of Meridian to post on the blog.

I have to say that after three months of not being on the road, I am really missing Noelle. I do think that a little travel is good for us though. It really makes me appreciate her.... I don't think that I show that appreciation enough....

Music

Today I started to think about music and media in general. Noelle and I went to our neighbor's to see the progress of the construction of their home, and our neighbor began talking about the power of music in a person's life. I am amazed at the ablity that media can affect our attitude. I look at my itunes and notice all the playlists that I have created depending on my attitude at the moment. A lot of times, the music that I have in the playlists only keeps me in the mindset of that attitude rather than helping me to a better outlook.

I don't think I had realized until today, the extent of my dependence on media. Throughout the day I am either listening to music, or checking up on current events through the internet.