Ok, it has been a while, so here it goes. First of all I need to preface these remarks by saying that we thought that we lost our camera, and so these photos are late (explanation forthcoming). As most of you know, prior to our move out to Arizona, I heard another squeaking coming form a bearing on my Mazda. I debated and debated about just driving the sorry thing and seeing if it would make the trip, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to walk home from Amarillo, TX, so I decided to go and get the correct part and fix it. At the persuasion of Wyatt, I decided to try out Napa's bearings for a tensioner pulley on the timing belt. So I made the trek to Little Rock to pick

up the bearings and then came back and threw them in for the remainder of the afternoon (by the way, it is a sad state of affairs that I know the way to dismantle the timing belt in that car that I can do a complete change out and adjustment in less than 3.5 hours). At any rate once I had invested the effort to get the "better parts" from Napa, I compared them, and low and behold they were the exact same brand and part as the "junk" that Autozone sells. So after I put the Napa bearings in, I took the faulty, but lifetime guaranteed, bearings back to Autozone for a complete refund, and then took the Autozone bearings and put them into the Napa boxes and got a full refund from them as well.

So aside from the gas back and forth to Little Rock, and the time I invested in the change out, the car is once again in a reliable drivable condition for the trek west. The new pulleys seem to work well, and I suspect that I should anticipate another change out in about 18,000 more miles if these last as long as the ones that I just pulled out of the vehicle. The reason for the delay in the photos is that during the change out, geese kept flying overhead, and I left the camera on the top of the car. I kept hearing them and then taking a photo of them.

I think that this was one of the best shots - probably not the clearest, but it had a lot of birds and they were fairly centered. This is one of the sights that I will miss from living in the South. I wont miss the humidity nor the drive to see anyone, but I did like the wild life. Of course, maybe my car wont miss that part about it. In the 20 months that we lived there, I managed to hit a raccoon and an Opossum. Both of them tore apart my bumper. As luck would have it I hit them in the same spot on the front bumper. The first one tore out all of the plastic behind the bumper and the second one cracked the bumper. Also it will be nice not to have my windshield covered with the flying insects.

Rachel was helping me with the timing belt change out, and during the ordeal she pulled this hornet out of a crevecs in the front of the vehicle. This is one of the flying insects that I was referring to. These types of things were all over and you couldn't help but hit them - especially during the twilight hours (when you were on your way back and forth to work). Just before we made the move, Mylinda and Zeke came down for a visit. It was nice to see them, and I am sure that they enjoyed the 6 hour drive as opposed to their recent 20+ hour drive to visit people.

Rachel and Lauren seemed to get along better this go around then the last. Maybe they are getting older, or maybe they can both team up and pick on smaller people. For some reason kids are drawn to smaller kids. I don't know why but they like to exert their dominance over smaller people (or animals) than themselves, and take every opportunity to do just that. Weather it is "helping" or gouging out their eyes, they are always quick to pounce on smaller prey.

All in all the move went rather smoothly. We ended up moving into a different house that we had planned to, which put an extra week into the moving schedule. That wasn't much of an inconvenience at least for us, but poor Karren had to endure 7 extra days of kids destroying her house. She seemed to tolerate it rather well, and all in all wasn't too worse for the ware. The house that we moved into here isn't near as nice as the one we had there. Well that isn't quite right. Our AR home had a very nice layout but wasn't quality construction. This one (that we are renting) is of a better quality, it isn't laid out well - in fact seems to be laid out by a drunken contractor...

While at Karren's the kids enjoyed the constant book reading and animal torturing. Again smaller animals... This move was different than our last ones in that we now are in possession of an animal. Well our first move we also had an animal, but it was easily contained, and Zurich just stayed in his cage. This cat on the other hand needs more attention. Terra has taken to the idea of having a cat (and I don't really know why). I think that she likes it because it only needs attention once or twice a day and the rest of the time you can simply just throw it outside and not have to see/hear/smell/touch it. The kids love the cat, and try to torture it every chance they get.

After moving into this house, we managed to put up a Christmas tree and even a few decorations prior to Christmas. I don't know how we managed that, but it was mostly due to Terra's diligence. If it were up to me, I think that I would have taken this year off, and done it next year, but Terra is of a better temperament than I am.

One of the items that was left under our tree for our entertainment was the game of twister. I am not much of an action game person (twister, charades, sing along whatever, etc.) but the kids really seemed to have a good time. Ethen is just starting to get control of his limbs to the point that he has rather good dexterity and balance. The younger ones aren't quite there yet, but Ethen can most of the time beat his old parents who have lost the limberness of youth.

For new years we went out to Oracle and tried to play in the snow. We waited one day to long and the snow was in the late stages of melting when we got there. It wasn't a waste of time, because we were able to visit with others, and Mylinda and Zeke even put in an appearance. As nice as it was to live in AR, I am sure glad that I didn't have to make the drive back to that state at the conclusion of the extended weekend. I don't really care for those types of all day drives anymore. The first few times they were pretty fun and rather exciting, but after you have done them a dozen times they loose their appeal. I think that the kids lost the appeal after the first half of the first trip.

This is one of the greatest things that I have seen in a while. When I get tired of the mess that the kids continually make, I sometimes threaten them with putting their toys in the city landfill. Although I have succeeded a time or two to get a very limited selection of their possessions to my promised destination, their mother usually steps in and interjects some rationale into my devious plans to permanently clean up their room. Well today it was her turn. After telling them to pick up their junk for about half a day (they had a half day at school) she gave them the same ultimatum. Clean it up in 10 minutes or it all goes in the trash. Well far be it for me to stop her when she is on a roll, and this is what she threw out of their room.

I confess that I don't know the exact outcome, I retreated (after getting this photo) to the bedroom where the computer resides to post a much overdue letter. Unfortunately there weren't very many photos of the move (we thought our camera was lost when I drove the car away after changing the timing belt and couldn't find it on the top where I put it - only to find it in a place where we put it so we wouldn't loose it). In other news, our cat liked to climb up into the tree and play with the dangling ornaments. Ethen took the chance to photograph the event, and now it can live on forever on the internet.

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