Found this gem of a blog post. It's a series of pictures taken for Glacier Park Magazine. Lots of gorgeous wildlife and scenic photos.

I really hope to get some of my debt taken care of so I can take my girls to places like this in the next couple of years. I have family in the Galatin Valley area in Montana which is about 8 hours south of Glacier National Park. My parents tell me I've been there before but apparently I was too young to remember it. Which means I could have been there anytime from birth to about 8 years old...

Another place I hope to go back to soon...one that I remember...is Monterey, CA. And make sure we're there on farmer's market night. There's a guy that sells a basket full of very fresh fried calamari for something like $3 with a good tartar sauce.






Image 'borrowed' from here.
























Then there's the Monterey Bay Aquarium which my girls have to go to sometime before they're 10. You can check out some grainy webcams. At one point they had a truly awesome exhibit of deep water jellyfish that all had some sort of bioluminescent pattern on them. And a lot of them had a moving 'light show'. It really was very cool to see but I don't think they have that exhibit any more. That's one of those things that I don't think I'll ever forget and am so glad I got to see.

Here is a picture of the Lone Cyprus tree on the Monetery Peninsula. You can see the stone wall they built around the roots to keep it from falling.





































A few times during my adolescence, my parents rented a house in Cayucos, which is about 3 hours south of Monterey. One time we had a house right on the beach, which was awesome, and the other times were in houses up on the hill overlooking the ocean.

Now that we're 1,300 miles inland it's a little pricier to make the trip than the 2 hour drive I was used to. But it certainly makes you appreciate it more.

Christmas Parade randomness

- Well, I had hopes that the cell phone pictures of my kids in the Christmas Parade would turn out better than they did. They weren't even worth posting. A good digital point-n-shoot is pretty high up on my Christmas list. As cheap as they've become, dSLR is still out of my price range. I used cnet's digital camera finder and now have 125 options to sort through...yippee! Although going through it a little, I think there's only 10-15 models, they just list every different model number, even if the only difference is the color. It looks like the only brands on their list is Nikon, Canon, Casio, and Panasonic. Any recommendations?

- It was cold at the parade. In the teens, I think. All my girls were on the church float and my littlest was the only one that didn't complain. Wish I was still so fascinated with life and new experiences that I wouldn't even notice incredibly painful toes.

- Praise the Lord, work is actually doing ok. Can't say so for our corporate office though. They've done 24% of what we have in November. That's just scary. We've actually done better in November than October and ours is a very seasonal industry.

- Home life isn't doing ok. My puny little mind is having a really hard time processing this stuff. I just can't imagine someone saying they want to save their marriage and then lie about where they ended up sleeping on Friday night. I just don't get it. Hopefully she'll be willing to meet with a professional counselor by herself soon. I've pretty much set that as an ultimatum. And the first few sessions are free so she has no argument against going...I guess we'll see. Patience is a virtuistic pain in the ass.

- She's not being spiteful or mean or anything like that. It just seems like she's unwilling to be honest with me. Me, being the external optimist (no, I didn't spell it wrong), still has hope that she'll come to some sort of realization that what she has now is worth fighting for...and then decide to fight for it in a productive manner.

- My bonus is going to show up on December 18th. That'll give me 5 whole days for Christmas shopping. 4 more than I need or even usually take! Woohoo!

G's 7th Birthday!

My eldest turned 7 yesterday. Had a pretty low-key party where she got a new sweatshirt and a new bike! Didn't get a picture of the bike, but she sure liked the butterfly cake her mom made for her.


And a couple pictures of the other two...for good measure.

Sunday morning randomness

- Snow. We got over a foot on Friday night and a little more last night. I enjoy sliding around while driving in the snow far too much. I don't like front wheel drive.

- I use my deep fryer too much too. Ever heard of deep fried bacon? I'm tellin' ya, it works pretty good. Crispy, not burnt, and in about a quarter of the time that microwave cooked bacon takes. And I'm sticking with my uneducated theory that it's healthier because it replaces the bacon fat with canola oil...yeah, that's right...it's healthier.

- One of my biggest gripes with restaurants is the portions that are too large. I know it's highly unlikely that they'll have portions that are just right, but c'mon, I'd rather not pay for an entire extra 'doggy bag' meal that I probably won't eat.

- With that said...why do I make too much food when I cook for myself?

- My oldest, KG, got 100% on her first spelling test. She is awesome.

- I haven't even been called once by the school office about AL (my middle one, new to kindergarten.) Whereas I've been called at least twice about KG. Not that she's done anything wrong, but had bloody noses or wasn't feeling good.

- If any of my kids have a head for math, they didn't get it from me.

- Would I rather not clean today...or would I rather not hear about it later? ...decisions, decisions.

- AL tells me that some neighborhood boy pulled KG's pants down. Time to start that gun collection.

- No, not to shoot them. Just threaten. Indirectly. "Come on in boy! Come check out my hunting room and shrunken head collection."

- KG has a great way of expressing her feelings that I hope my other 2 pick up on. She'll draw them. She was mad at me this morning for watching the news and not switching to cartoons right when she asked me. She drew a broken heart with her in one side and me on the other. When I eventually switched channels (which I told her I would do when the news was over), she drew a happy rainbow heart for me.

- Nothing's changed between my wife and I. I've stopped trying to 'get over' my idea that a lot of what she says is a lie. I know now some of it is a blatant attempt at hiding things, but I also think part of it is a habit she's formed abut telling the other person what she thinks they want to hear, no matter if she believes it or not.

- The debt management program we joined last year is a good deal. It's called Family Credit Management. For what I'm paying out, it costs around $30 a month and they negotiated one of my credit card interest rates down from 19% to 7%. We've been in it long enough that we're finally seeing some rapid decline in balance amounts.

Thanksgiving comes first!

(Due to Ananda Girl's prompting...)

Thanksgiving comes first! If only because of the food.

I'm a pessimist...and it probably shows...but I see Christmas ads before Thanksgiving as a mark of the degradation of our society. Specifically as concerned with greed. Corporate greed.

Ok, that's all done... Thanksgiving food is awesome! Why would anyone in their right mind want gloss over it or dilute it with thoughts of Christmas? If we took the presents out of Christmas, yet left the massive potluck style dinners of wonderful food, I would be perfectly content.

On the other hand, Christmas isn't quite Christmas anymore. Maybe that has something to do with my preference for Thanksgiving. I haven't been as successful as I would like in teaching my kids what Christmas is really about. I'm not going to go into the reasons why, but suffice it to say that it's difficult. All the commercialization and other influences seem to overpower any attempt I make at moving their focus.

Now that I think about it, I think it is easier at Thanksgiving to work with my kids and show them what thanksgiving really is. Christmas celebrates the birth of our Savior, but Thanksgiving gives us a prime opportunity to live like He wants us to.

But I sure like Christmas decorations. Now...if we did the same for Thanksgiving...would it be the perfect holiday?

Opportunity knocks....sometimes not very loudly

I wonder. It seems people and situations have been coming into my life lately that have a hint of professional and social networking to them. I haven't really been looking either.

The first was an invite to 'Wing Wednesdays' from a customer of ours, Tim. He's also the bro-in-law of my boss, but my boss doesn't go to the lunch. Tim is kind of the ring leader, but even if he's not there, at least 2 or 3 other guys show up. They all have something to do with construction, but there's an engineer/designer, a concrete contractor, an electrician, a HVAC guy, a lumber yard guy, Tim (the builder), and me (the truss guy.)

So we hang out, shoot the breeze, eat $0.50 wings and that's about it. One guy pays and it rotates. I like it. It's nice to look forward to and it seems like they still want me to come after attending for a couple months now.

Then there's the odd golf tournament that we (the company) sponsor. Being a building supplier, we're close to the start of the process, so we usually do the sponsoring and not get the invites as customers, but that's ok. It's good to meet new people, get to know your fellow industry people and have a good time. Free drink tickets aren't too bad either.

Our local salesman invited me to a tournament on Tuesday. It was cold. The weather report said 60 degrees, but it sure was a cold 60. Cloudy and rainy. And I played horribly. Couldn't hit a drive to save my life. The last few holes weren't too bad, but sheesh it was frustrating. Anyway...

I also started attending a new study at our church. It's not really a Bible study; we're studying ancient and not-so-ancient biblical philosophers. We're starting with Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. I've never really done anything like this and I just hope I'm up to the task.

But it's certainly another opportunity. There are a lot of smart guys in there and not all part of the same industry. Rather than professional networking, it's social. I haven't done too much of that lately. And I'm also hopeful that I can find a mentor there. I've been thinking quite a lot (and not praying enough) about finding a mentor. Our pastor did a series of sermons on the books of Kings and one of the things that jumped out at me is that the most successful kings had godly mentors to help them. When they ignored those mentors, they got hit pretty hard. Not that I aspire to be a king, but I desire very much to become a better father.

I'm not really looking for opportunities like this, but I'm glad they come. I just hope I'm aware enough to take advantage of them.

But through it all I wonder at our God. I wonder at the way He works. It just confirms to me that there is a heavenly Creator. One that loves us as a father would love his children. One that guides, teaches, and prods as necessary.

What to do...what to do...

My littlest turned 3 yesterday. She'll always be petite. Still wears some 18-24 month sized clothes. When they talk about percentiles, she doesn't even register on the scale.

But she is so sweet. A hug from her will cure the crappiest day. Almost is as sweet is how, when I lay down with her to get her to sleep sometimes, she'll reach out to hold my hand. It's enough to break my heart.

And it's beyond enough to make me feel like crap when I'm trying to decide what to do with my marriage. I don't know that God is still asking me to stick it out. We tried talking again the other night and it was the same old stuff. Some times it seems like she doesn't really want to save the marriage and is purposefully saying things to push me away. Other times I think that she trying to say something that is meaningful and along the lines of reconciliation, but the actual words she uses aren't that. And that's all besides the fact that she's still contacting at least one of the guys she slept with....*sigh*

I'm pretty much decided to separate from her. Besides the money issue, I don't know what to do about my girls. The only reason I wouldn't fight for sole custody is because of the crap that they would go through. I know of at least one case in my family that the dad rightly fought for custody, but basically because he was the only one with a full time job, and had a higher income potential, did he not get it. He has a lot of kids too. The judge thought it unreasonable for him to take care of 6 kids and have a full time job. Which makes sense, but sucks for the kids too as some of them don't really like their mom. My situation isn't that bad. My girls love their mom too, but at this point I doubt whether or not she can show them what a Godly marriage can be. I still believe that we could have that together, if we both seek Him, but I don't think she is.

I'm not really even considering legal divorce, just a separation. It's hard not to think what about what it might progress to though.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my job.

Fun times.

At least the weather is absolutely gorgeous. I took the rare opportunity to go golfing today with a co-worker and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Played a new course and didn't do too bad. Not as well as I would have liked, but you can't ask too much when you're making blind shots. I figured out what I've been doing wrong on my drives and actually corrected it. And I was able to give my co-worker a tip that helped his putting. Good stuff.