My new personal blog, titled “The Deformation Zone” can be found here: http://thedeformationzone.wordpress.com/. Yes, that is a weather term. I will talk about weather, sports, video games, and much more over on that blog.

My wife’s new blog, titled “Beyond Blissful” can be found here: http://beyond-blissful.blogspot.com/. She will continue her awesome posts about our family, her favorite things, the kids, etc.

And last but not least, yes, the current Weather Animator will be gone….from its current address. The new address (which is painfully long) can be found here: http://theweatheranimator.atspace.tv/WeatherAnimator/weathermodel.htm. I have no idea how long it will last as free or whatever, but it’s what I found and it works for now. Being an avid user of the Weather Animator, I will of course be watching it.

So that’s it for now. Please add our new blogs to your daily reading/blog aggregators/Google Reader/etc. Bear with us as we save content from our current blog over to the new blogs.

What is your favorite color? pink

What is your favorite animal? Piggie

What do you want to be when you grow up? Like Chloe

What is your favorite movie? Tangled

What makes you happy? Play with my dollhouse

What makes you sad? When Chloe be mean to me

What is your favorite food? Peanut Butter & Honey sandwich

What is your favorite song? Fences

What is your favorite game? Princess game on Chloe’s Innotab

What is your favorite snack? Fruit Snacks

What is your favorite drink? Apple Juice

What is your favorite ice cream? Vanilla with Chocolate

What is your favorite color? pink

Who is your best friend? Ellie, Emma, Aubrey, Ella, Josie and Carly

What is your favorite animal? Penguin

What do you want to be when you grow up? Famous Singer or Teacher

What is your favorite movie? Tangled

What makes you happy? My friends and my family

What makes you sad? Not getting invited to a party

What is your favorite food? Strawberries and chocolate ice cream

What is your favorite song? Dynomite and You Belong To Me

What is your favorite game? Sorry Sliders

What is your favorite snack? Fruit

What is your favorite drink? Chocolate milk

What is your favorite restaurant? Bakers Square

What is your favorite school activity? Daily 5

What is your favorite flower? Tulip

What is your favorite bird? peacock

What is your favorite ice cream? Chocolate

But I digress…on to the music…

So over the last 4-5 weeks I’ve started listening to my DMB collection, starting where I left off last fall. The details on the reviews below may be lacking a bit….

The Gorge – Special Edition (6-Disc) – September 6-8, 2002

I thought this collection was excellent. The set lists were great, including one of my favorite album tracks, ‘You Never Know. There were also a couple of versions of “Loving Wings”, a nice soft song that starts acoustic only, then builds to full band. Overall, a really good mix of songs and IMO, they stayed away from most stinkers. The ONLY thing I had issues with, was the quality of Dave’s voice. At times it sounded awful. This is, however, a known issue at the Gorge concerts. They always occur at the end of the summer tour and by then, Dave’s voice is SHOT. As a result, he has to change the melodies of some of his songs and it ends up sounding strange to me.

Eh Hee Single

Ok, this technically wasn’t an album….and this song wasn’t on any album. So that’s why it’s listed separately. As for the song, I liked it at first (and my daughter loved it too…lol). But now, I usually skip past the song. It’s not bad, but not one of my favorites.

Live Trax 1 - Worcester, MA – 12/8/98

This was the first ever “Live Trax” album to be released and it was a doozy. An excellent mix of their first 2 albums, with a bit from their newly released “Before These Crowded Streets” including a 20 minute ‘Last Stop’ to end the concert. Throw in appearances with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and you’ve got the makings of a great concert.

DMBLive – Prism Coffee House, Charlottesville, VA – 4/22/93

This was a Dave & Tim concert, all acoustic, to a very limited/small crowd. It sounded very intimate even on the recording. Overall I thought it was a great Dave and Tim show. Because of the date, this was a selection of songs only from their first 2 albums, with a few other Tim songs thrown in. My favorite track was actually a song that never came out on a studio album, Help Myself. Sounded great acoustically.

So, that’s it for right now…Next 5 albums:

• Live Trax 18 – Virginia Beach – 6/4/96
• DMBLive – Appalachian State
• Live at Luther College (Dave & Tim)
• Stand Up
• Live Trax 10 – Portugal  5/25/07

So the girls are both doing well and keeping us busy. We both love every minute of it. Now back to our movie, then bedtime, then typing my lesson plan for faith formation, menu planning for the next two weeks, creating a few Restaurant bags for friends with kids and hopefully a nice book.

So please, if you are already friends with me, join the group. If you aren’t friends with me (I’m looking at you WT moms ) please send me a FR and join the group. That is, if you want to stay updated with the weather.

Jon’s Weather Talk:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/233295090095971/

Later!

Jon

MID RANGE: Another quick moving storm system is progged by the models to move through the region late Wednesday night through the day on Thursday. This one could be a bit more interesting for a few reasons. This system will have less moisture to work with, but colder air both at the surface and aloft. A stripe of snow on the north side of this system is likely to accumulate to 2-4 inches which right now goes right through the Twin Cities metro, but slight track changes could make a huge difference. This ushers in a pretty good cold push for the end of the work week, with snow showers and flurries possible most of the day on Friday.

LA LA LAND (AKA LONG RANGE): As indicated by the title of this section, talking about something 7 days out is a hopeless thing. Details are almost always different when the forecast verifies. HOWEVER, trends in guidance can be looked at and used to indicate a potential stormy scenario. The latest guidance and guidance over the last few days has been indicating a potential winter storm this up coming weekend. There are obviously a lot of things to be ironed out, but this is the first time all winter that this strong of a signal has been indicated by the models. I will, of course, be keeping an eye on all available guidance and posting any updates.

DETAILS:

Monday: Increasing clouds. Chance for rain/snow showers late afternoon and evening. High: 41

Monday night: Rain/snow mix, changing to all snow after 8-9pm. Light snow through the night. Total accumulations of 1-2 inches possible metro wide. Low: 27

Tuesday: Morning flurries, with decreasing clouds through the day. No additional accumulation. High: 37

Tuesday night: Partly cloudy. Low: 25

Wednesday and Beyond: Potential accumulating snow both Thursday and during the weekend.

As always, if you have detailed questions, let me know in the comments!

I had a shock lately that has put some things in perspective. My weight is not where it should be so I am working on taking control of that. I am watching what I eat, limiting the snacks. No donuts, bakery items, little to no ice cream. It is a work in progress, but I am working at it. I have an amazing support group in my WT moms as there are many of us working on this goal. I am just thankful that I have people to turn to when I need the extra “hey you can do this” and also the “great job!”

At this point I am down 2 pounds. Weigh in will happen Thursday night/Friday morning and I am hoping that my work this week will pay off. I am still not 100% so working out is tough as I start coughing pretty quick after starting. Guess I need to get at it again though. I know I can do this!

On a better note… the girls are both doing well. They are keeping us on our toes and helping cause as much trouble as they can. You would think with the lack of snow that we have we could be outside, but it actually isn’t that much warmer. However, that may just be what I need to take the girls outside as the sun is coming up earlier in the morning and staying up a little later (YEAH!). Guess I just need to suck it up and deal with the cold. For one being from Minnesota (yes I am even from Southwest MN) I still hate the cold weather. The snow is okay if I am not driving in it, but the cold just isn’t my thing. CJ has found a new love in the song “Fen.ces”. This kid can easily sing the song and I don’t even listen to it. Even found out Jon doesn’t really either. C has it on her Inn.otab and I guess CJ loves singing and dancing to it. She is really funny, especially when she is singing it as she is getting ready to fall asleep at night. C is loving her swimming lessons and I am so glad to hear it. She starts a soccer camp soon and right now hoping she continues to enjoy it. Seems a few of the girls on her team have decided they don’t want to play anymore so not sure she will want to continue where we have her. Just not ready to spend the money to put her in the “elite” league with her classmates as it is roughly $200 or so. A lot of money if you ask me to play a sport with volunteers as the coaches. Then again I didn’t play soccer so I can’t talk much about the money side of it. C continues to amaze us with her reading knowledge. I find it funny that she loves math and then dislikes it. I think sometimes it is too easy and others she just wants to play. To be honest I wish I could let her unwind after school but if I do that she wouldn’t do her homework so we have a plan in place that all homework needs to be done before tv or anything else. Maybe once she shows that she can handle it a fun time at the park will happen first and then homework or when she doesn’t have any homework.

All is going well here. We are keeping busy with life and what it has to offer.

Again this year it was a ton of fun. Well except when someone always gets sick. This time it was our sweet niece. Thankfully it was Sunday and she was doing better Monday when they left for home. We all got there on Friday within minutes of each other. We enjoyed dinner at Famous Dave’s and down time. Saturday started with breakfast and then water park and ended with Buffalo Phil’s. Sunday was water park as well. There were some arcade games played, some Ma.gique.st dragons slayed, money spent at the outlet mall and of course clean up in the condo as well as a run to a super store that is only an exit away.

The kids had so much fun playing together and it was so wonderful to watch the two youngest who are only a day apart play together. They had so much fun. The older two enjoyed their time together as well. I think it was a challenge for both of them, though they seemed to work well around it. Of course C was the ring leader most of the time as the others would just follow her lead.

We are thankful that this is something that we can all enjoy as a family and that it is possible to do this. Here’s to next year!

When I got the news earlier this week it hit me, but maybe because I was away from home it wasn’t the devestation that I am now finding. You know, that wait it couldn’t really be true, but looking at his obituary online it really is. My heart hurts. The tears are flowing down my face as the realization comes forward that I have one grandparent left in my life. When I was 16 (just 16) I lost my grandpa P. It was so difficult to know that we wouldn’t go out to the farm anymore.  That same year I lost my great grandma D in May and New Years Eve lost my 5 year old cousin to a freak accident. During my junior or senior year I lost my great grandma K. After getting married I lost my great grandpa K, he lived to be 100 years old by one month how awesome is that! In 2003 I lost my 17 year old cousin to a car accident. She was killed by a drunk driver as was her best friend that was due to graduate that day. Not long after that I lost my other great-grandpa. Again he lived to be 100 years old by a month. Just last year my grandma K passed away after a long and amazing battle with cancer. It started out as breast cancer and ended up going into her bones. It slowly took her away from us, but it didn’t win. God won, because she was whole again and pain free. Now my grandpa. For a short time, we had 5 generations alive. C had a great-great grandpa and I have a beautiful picture to always remember that. Now there are three generations left on that side. The stories have ended and I never got them written down. Now I need to make time with siblings of my grandparents to get those stories for my girls to always have.

In my head I have some great memories of my grandparents. They aren’t always great and I can admit I wasn’t always the best grandchild, but I know I was loved by them both as were my girls. I remember making homemade ice cream on the machine that you had to hand crank. After it was made I would put Creme de Menthe on the vanilla ice cream and enjoy it. My grandma loved butterscotch. I remember staying with my grandma for a few weeks when she broke her ankle and was in a wheelchair. She allowed me to walk down to the local pool and go swimming even though I was suppose to stay with her. I would sit on the rollaway bed that was in the “loft” area before going into the two bedrooms upstairs and play with the buttons that grandma collected in a jar. I want to say I learned about Tom and Jerry’s at their house, though mine were always virgin. And memories that make me laugh as my favorite was singing happy birthday to a couple cans of pop. Yes they kept pop until someone either drank it or dumped it out without them knowing as they didn’t want to waste money. When my cousin passed away at the age of 5, they were staying with one of my uncles and their house caught fire. Thankfully no one was there at the time, but they did what they could to save as much as possible in their house, regardless if even years after the fire it still smelled just a little bit of fire.

My heart is very heavy tonight and I will get through this as I was the strong first grandchild a year ago just a few days after my birthday. I continue to work through the emotions that I have in my head and in my heart. The guilt I feel for not going down there and visiting family more, especially since they only live 3.5 hours away. My kids come first, but they also need to have time with their extended family while they are here. I need to get down there and get the stories from my lone grandparent of how she met my grandfather and their life on the farm. I seem to say this quite a bit but it just doesn’t happen. Now it needs to. I will be down there tomorrow, hopefully if the snow holds back so we can get down there safely.

I love you Grandpa. Enjoy the new car trips with Grandma. We all miss you both so very much but know that the angels watching over us are two amazing people.