How to get rid of bad dreams

At lunch today, we were talking about why Kyler woke up at 1:00am this morning. He said he had some bad dreams and after about 4 times of us going in to calm him down, we had him come into our room with his sleeping bag. Ilea mentioned that she always stays in bed. We asked her if she had bad dreams. She said "Yes, but do you know how I get rid of bad dreams? I smile and think of happy things. ... I think of whatever 'amnial' I'm sleeping with and pretend that they are floating around with hearts everywhere."

Pool of Pumpkins

We went to get pumpkins this afternoon at the local pumpkin patch, take some pictures and take a hay ride. It turns out that the pumpkin patch was very wet and smelly and they weren't giving hay rides. We bought a few small gords and ended up going to Fred Meyer to get the pumpkins. The pumpkins at Fred Meyer were very cheap and huge. There were almost no small ones. We ended up getting 3 of their smallest and they were all around 12-15 lbs. The funny thing was they were in these huge boxes (4' x 4' x 4') filled to the top with large pumpkins. They had the boxes such that you couldn't get to the boxes in the back without climbing all over the boxes/pumpkins in the front. So we let the kids climb on the pumpkins to find them. It turns out the kids cannot carry the 15 lbs pumpkins so I had to get on and climb on them as well. During our adventure, Ilea said we were in a "pool of pumpkins". We got some good pictures.

Ilea is so sweet!

Ilea is regularly a very loving, and caring girl. She is very thoughtful and sweet. This week, Kyler, Ilea, and I were playing Sorry!. Ilea said she wanted me to win. I asked her why, and she said because she loves me. She regularly finds a yellow bowl for me to put my cereal in because she knows yellow is my favorite color.

Today she drew me a very special valentine that I'll keep forever! On the front it says., " Love momy most". Inside it says "momy I love you as much as the stars. You are the best mom i kut avr hv. Mom I love you I love you with ol my heort" On the back it says Love Mom. It is so great. It almost made me cry! She has such a sweet look on her face, and big loving eyes. She is the best little girl in the world!

Adding this blog to Thunderbird 0.8 email client

For those that are using the Thunderbird email client...

Once you have installed Thunderbird version 0.8 (to check what version you are using see Help->About) installed, follow these steps to get this blog added to Thunderbird:

1. Select Tools->Account Settings
   
2. Select "Add Account" in the lower right corner
   
3. Select "RSS News & Blogs" and then "Next"
   
4. Give the account a name. I called mine "Blogs" and select "Next", then "Finish"
   
5. A new account should have been added in the white rectangle on the right. (Look for the account name that you gave it.) Select that account.
   
6. Select the "Manage Subscriptions" button
   
7. Click "Add"
   
8. Put the following URL in the "Feed URL" box and click "OK":
   http://www.hijkk.net/blog/atom.xml
   
9. Close the account settings dialog box.
   
10. in the normal Thunderbird folder window, select the "+" next to the folder with the name of the account you specified in #4.
    
11. You should see an entry with "Howard Family Blog" and some new messages. Just read them as you would any usual mail. Delete them when you are finished if you want.
    

For additional blogs that you want to track, just follow steps 1, 5, 6, 7 & 8.

Moving stones

Today, I spent the day working on the Franklin Falls trail with the Washington Trails Association (WTA). Franklin Falls is just west of Snoqualmie Pass and it is a trail that we hiked back in May of this year with a group of friends from our church. There were 4 volunteers and 2 WTA members. We spent the whole time making some raised trails. This involved building some trail forms from 6" diameter posts and moving some rocks and gravel into the forms. We ended up moving an awful lot of stones and gravel from about a 1/4 mile away using some mortorized wheelbarrows.

In addition to the above stones, I also moved two more (kidney) stones just before bed :) Still with no pain. I'm very glad to be over with that part of it. I suspect that the work I did today helped cause the stones to move into my bladder. I'm not too worried about the final stone as I suspect it will pass in a similar manner. What was really surprising was the size, shape and color of the stones. They kind of looked coco rice crispies, but with little spikes around them. They were about 6mm long and 4 wide. It is hard to believe that they made it clear through my system.