Down on the Farm

Summer would not be complete without some farm work (and a sewing camp!).  Some of the workers preferred to bring their bottle and wear their helmet. Safety first (and thirst first) folks.

Bear Lake: Round 1

Perhaps since we've lived away for many Bear Lake trips, we thought we should go twice in the same month.  Here's some of the many pictures from round one.

Marta Moment #21

This goes back a year and a half but it's still funny.

As you know (or maybe you don't but you will soon), the MARTA, Atlanta's public transportation system is relatively inefficient, unreliable, and unorganized.

I caught myself one day wondering how they could possibly be so late day after day, week after week, and month after month with a new issue every day.

That's when I noticed one of their problems. Their clocks are all wrong.  Click on the picture below to see it larger:

At first, you might notice the lady getting very mad at me that I'm taking her picture. More on that later... But look at the two clocks that are 5 feet apart. One says "8:04" and the other says "8:09." I don't know about you but a 5 minute difference between two clocks 5 feet apart is pretty terrible considering these are used for payments of parking, transactions, etc. This has actually caused more than one very mad person, who was trying to leave the parking lot on Thursday at 11:58pm, but Marta thought it was Friday already, and was charged for 2 days since it was "parts of two days."

(By the way, the system in Moscow was phenomenal... at least when I was there. I missed the metro many times during my eight years in Georgia.)

Anyway, I actually tracked these Marta clocks for many months and the worst it ever got was six minutes difference before someone would reset them. However, a few weeks later the same thing would occur. It was always hilarious! Well, that's pretty typical of the Marta and just the tip of their iceberg of problems.

So, now onto this lady. What happened you ask? Well, she sends out some security personnel to talk to me on the platform in front of everyone else. Very interesting.

She's says I can't take pictures of the Marta.

I respond: "Excuse me? Isn't the Marta public property? We all pay state taxes.  We can take pictures of the state capitol, no? Why can't I take pictures of the Marta?"

"Well, only terrorists take pictures of the Marta."

"Oh, so now I'm a terrorist!?"

Anyway, it gets worse from there but my blood is already curdling just remembering it and since it's been at least 18 months since that day I should really just let it go...

Birthdays

We celebrated the birthdays of 2 countries this last month and the 90th birthday of Great Grandma!  Big parties!  Fireworks, late nights, too much food, swimming, rock throwing, and kite flying were all part of the festivities.  All with 130 different relatives total in 10 days time.  And that is actually not an exaggeration . . . 

Summer Underway!

Summer is in full swing, complete with visits to/from friends and family, swimming, destroying the house daily, eating popsicles, short hikes, pony rides, reading, French, one allergic reaction to sunscreen, visits to BYU, constant reminders to be quiet during nap time and movies when someone loses their energy and patience (that would be me!).