Hey guys check out what my little bro did! Pretty cool.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18033467&title=west-high-students-invent-biodiesel-fuel-process

Stake Conference, sort of.

So today was stake conference. It has never been one of my favorite Sundays of the year.  Our stake center, which is also our ward building, shares a parking lot with the newly dedicated temple here.  So what do you do when your stake center is next to the temple and the conference is entirely in Spanish and 5 out of the 6 members of the family don't speak Spanish and it's frankly too long to ask kids to sit there and not understand anything? You skip the meeting, go next door to the temple, and take a bunch of photos.  Here's a few.

I am NOT a bug!

They dress me up like an insect and then forget to give me the candy...something's wrong with this picture!

...Maddie's first Halloween experience.

Swimming 24/7

We have been underwater for the last week.  A tropical storm hit Mexico last week and as it did the rest of Central America caught the effects.  The tropical storm was immediately followed by a tropical depression.  I don't really know what that means.  Anyway it started raining about a week ago and hasn't stopped since.  When I say rain I mean constant, unending water plunging from the sky.  It has really only been an inconvenience for us since we live so close to where I work and our house is in a good spot away from any flood plain.  However for much of the country it has been horrible. Perhaps the biggest problem has been the landslides.  Bridges have been washed away and thousands have been displaced.  President Funes came on the t.v. on Saturday pleading with people who live in locations that have been evacuated to actually leave. Guatemala and Honduras are experiencing similar problems.  All schools have been closed since last Wednesday.  We've been really lucky to be in a good location and on Saturday we were able to get out to dinner and some fun for Vivian's birthday.  When we got to church yesterday they held sacrament meeting and then cancelled the other meetings and asked any one who could to go to another chapel where an effort to put together clothing and food for displaced families was taking place.  Traci and I took the kids home and then headed off to that chapel.  We arrived ready to work but soon realized that when you ask a bunch of mormons to serve you often have too good a turnout.  Below is a photo I snapped at the chapel.  The rain continued today and the kids' school is cancelled again tomorrow.  The schools are mostly closed due to the transportation dangers caused by flooding, landslides, bridges.  And just in case grandma reads this let me reiterate that we live in a safe location and have been unaffected by the dangers.   They say this could go on for a couple of more days.  Hopefully the rain will end and soon the sun will come out and offer a reprieve to all those that are suffering. 

New member of the family

So perhaps the biggest mistake that we made in this whole moving to DC and then out of the country thing was giving up Penasco.  At one point last Spring we tried to get him back but to no avail.  We learned the hard way that when you move your kids all over the place getting rid of their dog does not help with the emotional trauma that is already occurring.  So a few months ago we promised the kids that we would get another dog once we got settled in El Salvador.  It took us a while to find the right dog. But yesterday we finally made good on that promise. 

This is Blue.  Named for his one blue eye.  He is a german shepherd siberian husky mix.  He's like a baby, no worse.  I was up all night last night listening to him cry like an infant.  I almost put him out with the trash this morning.  But he is pretty cute.  Oh, we never really learn do we.

Just a few pics

Moving out of the country has definitely brought us closer together as a family.  Sometimes that means piling on top of each other on the couch.

Recipe for a relaxing day at the beach: 1) a lovely hammock 2) beautiful weather 3) some dude standing behind you with a large gun he may or may not be trained to use.

I just really liked this picture.

So, San Salvador is a pretty congested, urban city.  But you don't have to travel too far outside the city before this is the typical view out the car window.  I gotta say, that's a handsome cow.

Way to go, Jessie!

The Salt Lake Tribune article on Utah crime was pretty mundane, but the pictures were fabulous. Way to go, Jessie! They picked the perfect poster child to represent Sandy City! Pretty awesome!