Easter 2008

We had our family easter egg hunt this year...with a few changes...

First change was that it was at my parent's home instead of at our grandparent's home. Grandma and Papaw weren't up for a bunch of entertaining on account of some health drama. But they were able to come over to Mom and Dad's for lunch...and they brought the eggs for the big hunt.

The second change was that the weather stunk, so we did our hunt in the house. Luckily, the house is pretty big, so we were able to still have a fun time. Kraig, Megan, and Colin had a blast.

What was the same was a nice time with a tasty meal enjoying each other's company.

The kids got these bunny ears in their easter baskets from Grandma Smoker. We couldn't resist getting a few cute pictures.
It seems that each equinox, my dad enjoys standing an egg on end. When we were over for our easter egg hunt yesterday, it was no different, so we snapped this picture of it. You can balance an egg on its end only on the spring and fall equinoxes +/- three days.

When we got home from Marion, we colored easter eggs. We had a pretty good time. We didn't have the "girl color"/"boy color" drama to the extent that we did last year...



This morning we got our new Easter clothes on a headed to church. I think they were looking sharp...

Smuggler's Gulch

Nate and I have both worked on a project this year called "Smuggler's Gulch." It is a project to construct a portion of the US (California) /Mexico border fence and patrol road. Its a pretty interesting project. I went on a field visit last week. Here's a few pictures...

This first picture is a shot of the existing fence. Its a steel plate type wall about 15'-20' in height. In the Smuggler's Gulch project area, north of this wall (US side) is wilderness and south of this wall (Mexico side) is the city of Tijuana.

This second picture is from the top of Spooner's Mesa looking east over Smuggler's Gulch. Smuggler's Gulch is a canyon/stream that flows from south to north from Tijuana into the US. This stream functions as an outflow for the city of Tijuana's sanitary sewage. As the stream/sewage enters the US, it is diverted into a wastewater treatment plant. After seeing it and smelling it for myself, how neighborly...

Anyway, what you are looking at is a hill about 350' tall. You can see the fence as the black line in the middle of the picture. On the right of the black line is Mexico, on the left, the US. If you look closely, you can see a missing portion of the fence where there was a slope failure.

This third picure was taken from the floor of the gulch, looking east and up toward that slope failure. You can see the fence sticking up at the top. Again, Mexico on right, US on left. You cannot see all the way to the top of the hill in this picture. You can only see up to where the roadway turns north in picture 2 above. I'd guess the top of this cliff is about 200' up.

This pictures just can't do this place justice. It is a massive, amazing, beautiful place...if you just ignore the sewage. How lucky are we to work for a company which gives us the opportunity to work on these amazing projects?

2008 - The Year of Travel...

So far this year has had Nate and I on the road a lot. There have been 12 weeks so far... and Nate has been gone for 3 weeks and I've been gone for 2...while that might not seem like a lot to some people, its a ton for us. The next couple of months promise to be much of the same.


If you're keeping track, Nate spent 1 week in Kansas City and 2 weeks in San Diego. I spent both my weeks away in San Diego. There have been no overlapping travel, thank goodness.

The kids are doing pretty well with the whole thing. One thing we started when I was away was I called at bedtime and read the bedtime story to them. I think everyone has enjoyed it, including Nate since it helped him keep the same bedtime routine for them. The only trick is finding an empty room to read a silly story (including doing the character voices) in the middle of a contractor's office... So far, I've managed. :)

Vintage Photos

Our daycare had a photographer come in and take these vintage photos. We've purchased the proofs and the right to reproduce the photos, so if you'd like a copy, just let us know which one, the size, how many, etc... and we'll order them.

Enjoy.