Christmas Catch up

We love Christmas and Rosie loves having our front room decorated.  We were a little later than usual getting it completed this year but it turned out wonderfully.  Rosie's higlight is getting her Nativity out and placed on the table in the middle of the room.

Rosie got a new iPhone for Christmas (as well as her messaging upped from 200 to 1500, but that may have been more for John's heart) and Santa stuffed her stocking with some magazines she likes to read to get ideas for house decorating.

John got some books and other toys and games as well as some shelves for his garage.

John and Rosie were both off work for 2 weeks and got to spend a bunch of time with family (especially great since the Skinners were in town the 2nd week) and more importantly time together.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

My Poor Rosie

My Rosie has the lurgy.  At least that's what she keeps saying.  She was diagnosed with pneumonia the other day and the doctor gave her some medication to take.  I picked it up on my way home and she took it that night.  The next morning she woke up at 4am with this:

It got much worse as the day went on and she missed the Biggs Family Christmas party with the extended family.  That was something she had been looking forward to attending.
She was able to get another doctors appointment and she got a steroid shot to help with the rash/hives and some amoxicillin to take care of the pneumonia.  Hopefully she's better soon.  Needless to say, in her words, she is "soooo ready for 2010 to be over and 2011 to be here.  'Cuz I'm over it!"

Let there be Light(s)

 Well...
I think this of all posts is the one that most people have been waiting for.  Rosie certainly has been since the day she moved in with me and for her birthday this is what she wanted...

Get rid of the flying saucers in our kitchen.  She had already ridded the kitchen and herself of the big on over the table when her dad bought her a chandelier for her birthday a couple years ago.  And this is the after picture now that the 5 little ones are replaced with can lights...

The great thing is Rosie found a guy that does them for $85 a piece.  He even changed the fixture in the one over the sink to match.

Now to sell the old ones and make the change even cheaper.  Now I need to get him back over to solve the riddle of the fan lights.

John's business trip

John made a trip to China and Japan for work and you would never guess the amount of time spent at each correctly based on the pictures taken on the trip. He spent over a week in China and the only pictures that came back were of his hotel room.  Because he was workign in the assembly factory floor no cameras were allowed so he never took it with him and then forgot about it in the rooom safe.

 Interesting story about cameras on the factory floor was that he had his iPhone with him, which has a camera.  The first day he headed out to the floor they hadn't told him about the rule on cameras (as well as Thumb drives and phones) and fortunately he coudn't get in because the grounding straps he took with him didn't work and he had to go through the pass through back out of the floor.  When he took the phone out of his camera the engineer that was responsible for getting him access to the floor got really worried and ended up having to explain that he hadn't yet been out on the floor.  They eventually allowed him to keep his phone.  Now the part where it gets a bit more interesting.  Later in the week, he had forgotten to take his phone out of his pocket and had gone to the floor by himself.  Upon exiting he realized that he had his phone in his pocket.  This realization struck abject terror into his heart and then he remembered that every time he went through the metal detector it would beep because he never took his belt off and then he had to be hand wanded to ensure he didn't take anything from the factory floor.  So, thinking on his feet he decided to hide the phone in his pants right behind his belt buckle so when they hand wanded him they would think the belt had set it off.  He then walked through the metal detector as nonchalantly as possible knowing that he was going to get beeped and then hand wanded and hoping that as before they didn't ask him to pull the belt out to look behind it.
It had to be a one in a million shot going through the metal detector because it was the only time the entire week on the floor and mutliple trips per day that the thing didn't even beep.  Funny enough, that just out of habit he started to walk toward the hand wanding station and the guard waved him away.  Of course, if it had been detected now he would have had to try and explain why it was hidden if he weren't concealing the phone to hide something.
In his defense for lack of pictures, he did have big ideas of posting on our blog from CHina and posting pictures on Facbook while in China.  Great Plan but once there realized that the chinese government blocks all social media and he couldn't get on either of them.
The next stop was Japan and he was not even there for 3 days.  It was very interesting that they had their Christmas decorations up in early November.  It's expected in the USA, even in September, but Japan isn't really a christian country.  John asked one of the supplier representatives that he was visiting if Christmas was big there knowing full well the answer from serving in South Korea on his mission and his reply was, "Christmas not big, but shopping very big."  Sounds a lot like the USA is a bit.

On one of his train rides from place to place he noticed that he would be passing by Mount Fuji.  This is something his dad had always talked about wanting to visit.  So as he passed by, hoping it might be clear enough for a picture, he snapped as many as he could hoping one would be decent and this is the best one he was able to get.

Funny thing is with all the travelling most of the time was spent inside a companies facility or on a train and what he takes away from the trip...how clean the trains are and how they clean them:

Nearly a Perfect Saturday

I love Saturdays!  I think most people do for different reasons.  Mine is because I have time to work on our lawn and garden (which is the same thing for Rosie :)).  Not that I like the actual work so much, in fact most people who know me know that I'm a bit on the lazy side, but I love the results when stuff gets done and the house looks a little better than it did before.
Today I got up early (8:15am which is early for me on a Saturdays) and took Buddy to get groomed and get his back leg checked-more on that later.  Then I cam home and started assessing what exactly I was going to do with the old pavers I got from Mom's house.  I started a bit on Monday and found that things weren't going to work out as easily as I had thought and I was granted some inspiration to use some blocks I bought a while ago and never used because they didn't look right where I thought I was going to put them.  The worked really well as a transition from concrete to pavers and took up the space under the gate that was going to leave a gap quite nicely.

Of course, it's not a day of working with a hammer for a Biggs Man without wacking a finger or thumb so I got that out of the way right at the beginning.

I've still got a lot to do before its completed, but at least I got rid of all the tumbleweeds and got a few pavers down.  It kind of goes with out saying that lawnmowing got done it between laying pavers as well and the push mower never saw the light of day.  I'm sure most people would have progressed much further than I did but I'm okay with it taking a bit of time.

Remember the lazy thing up above!

Oh, about Buddy... He for whatever reason started limping yesterday and we still haven't been able to figure out whats going on.  Can't really see anything wrong and he doesn't limp all the time - or at least its not as noticeable.

Rosie Allergy Day

Rosie went to the doctor today to see if an allergy of some sort could be causing her issues.  She went into it with much trepidation and was only comforted when the ordeal was complete.  I say ordeal but as far as I could tell there wasn't much to it.  I had intended on taking the digital camera with us but forgot all about it this morning.  So Iphone pics will have to do.
Here is a picture just after they poked her with the samples.

Here is the after picture...

All in all it went relatively well and the food allergies were fairly benign.  There were only a few items that she reacted to at all.  That is until you go to the pollen allergies on her right side.  That lit up a bit.  Bermuda grass seemed to be bad.  Unfortunately, dog was one of her allergies, but to me it didn't seem terrible.  Cat and Mites were much worse.  Maybe we can scan her results later and post those as well.
The doctor reminded me of a chiropractor that I went to on occasion.  Once they have you they just keep telling you that you need to make follow up visits for the rest of your life or, "You're going to DIE!"  Okay, maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it still drives me nuts when they tell you that you should continue appointments so they can get rich.
That's what I heard anyway.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSIE!

To my friend, companion, love, and wife.  I love you Rosie and hope you had as good a birthday as you were able.
We weren't able to go out to dinner because that would have ended up being only for me anyway.  After debating for hours on whether to upgrade her phone or not, I came home empty handed.  I felt guilty even though I know you'll be happier with what you said you wanted it just doesn't seem right to me for you to get new lights in the kitchen for your birthday.
And birthday months I would rather not talk about, because this year you treated me to one that I just couldn't match.  I know the flowers were good earlier this week, but the chocolate mousses were obviously ill conceived and I couldn't ever really cook you breakfast in bed (shaking up an energy drink hardly makes for breakfast in bed).

And with all this you still seemed so happy tonight with just the FB wishes and a call from your family members.
I'm glad you had good friends around to make you feel special as well.  They know who they are:)

Family Reunion Zip Line

I came across some video I had forgotten about while downloading pictures.  ENJOY!

I think that is one of the biggest smiles I have seen from Christina.  Like a kid walking out of a candy store.

Sunday Dinner with Mom

We had Mom (and Chloe) over to our house for dinner today since we have moved to every other week's for family dinners.  It's nice to have her over occasionally so it's not just us sitting on the couch in front of the TV and we can remind ourselves how civilized people take dinner.  We don't always sit in front of the TV, but most often do.

Rosie formalizes dinner a bit more when we have guests as well and today we had Rosie's Olive Garden.  On the menu, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and Sausage, House Garden Salad, and Garlic Bread.  For dessert, Chocolate Pudding with fresh Strawberries.

We shared a game of Sequence as well which John won.  Pretty rude when you consider both women are celebrating their Birthday months.  Someone really should explain to him how this works given that he was thoroughly pampered during his birthday month.

Landscaping Saturday

Well it was much more than that but most Saturdays are that for John.  He usually mows it with the riding lawnmower but the blades are now bent (a separate story) and John doesn't like the way it cuts so the brainiac decided to use the push mower on the front lawn.  It seemed a good idea while he was making a pen for his sister to give as a gift because he had time while he waited for coats of super glue to dry on the pen, but it was a lot of work.
Needless to say the much bigger backyard was cut with the rider.

(I cheated and used an old picture but it pretty much captures what John's Saturday's are.)

We also had the joy of babysitting Everett for Jay & Kendra while they attended the temple.  That was fun though John spent most of the time out filling Rosie's shopping list in anticipation of Mom's dinner with us tomorrow.
It was funny because when Jay & Kendra came to pick up Bubby, Jay asked the question, "How was mowing the lawn with the push mower?"
He had seen the lines in the lawn and that the push mower had been moved and put the pieces together.
John's answer, "It won't happen again!"

I will post more often! And I'm calling everyone else to repentance :)

I read a blog the other day that motivated me.  It was a picture a day blog and the concept, to me anyway, is fantastic.  You take one picture a day that tends to represent that day and post it.  I'm going to try it.  I fairly sure that I won't be successful everyday, just as that author wasn't, but I like the idea.
My picture today is of someone I wish would post more often because I really thoroughly enjoy her posts and she is one of the inpsirations behind me blogging.

REPENT YE!  REPENT YE!  YE BLOGGING SLACKER :)

Please don't get mad at Rosie.  She doesn't know I took her phone to get the pictures and certainly doesn't know I'm posting this. :)

Native New Yorker with Bubby

I finally downloaded old pictures that I've had on my phone and figured they would make good blog posts.

This is from Native New Yorker.  We went to dinner with Mom, Jay & Kendra and of course Bubby.  It was all fun and games until Everett bumped a glass of water into Aunt Rosie's Coach purse.  We spent a little while trying to dry everything and still had a great time out.  This picture was taken jsut before the fated event.

Birthday Girl

While Rosie's niece was here visiting she celebrated her 16th Bday.  We took her out to Olive Garden which she seemed to really enjoy up to the time that I told her that she should try a Pepperocini.  I don't find them at all hot, but they are spicy and have a bite to them.
Apparently they are hot and Uncle John is a jerk!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETH!  Sweet Sixteen!

Fuddruckers with Beth

We've had Rosie's niece staying with us on and off for the past 5 weeks and Rosie thought it worthwhile to take her out to Fuddruckers for dinner one night.  Here's Rosie caught in the act of stealing some of John's food.

Not really but that is what it looks like and makes for a more interesting story.

Anyone that knows us well, knows that she has been struggling with eating due to some, as of yet,  undiscovered illness so it really wouldn't have done much good for her to be stealing for from me anyway.

Beth seemed to enjoy her meal, but was initially a little intimidated by the size of the burger that she ordered.  Rosie talked her into ordering a Strawberry shake which pretty well topped her off for the evening.  We originally planned to stop at Cold Stone Creamery, but after the shake there wasn't much reason for that.

Rosie's Hospital Trip

Rosie recently spent a morning at the hospital for a procedure to try and diagnose her illness.  She had a camera put down her throat into her stomach.  She was a real trooper through the whole thing despite being very nervous going into it.  We gave her a blessing the night before and everything went really well.  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, nothing abnormal was detected visually, though they also took some tissue samples as they sent the camera down.  The tissue samples were found to exhibit signs of Acid Reflux Disease and she has had some more doctor visits to determine steps going forward. 

Love You Babe!

Biggs Family Reunion

Over the fourth of July weekend we not only celebrated Independence Day we also had the Biggs Family Reunion.  It was held at my Uncle Harolds place up in Pinedale, AZ which isn't terribly far from where the old family cabin is so we diecided rather than waste time setting up a tent and all that we would stay in the old cabin.  Many people don't care to stay in it because it's old and small, but I guess because Todd and I grew up going to the cabin and staying in it that it doesn't really bother us much.  It's just old and small.

Rosie wasn't terribly impressed with the old place eitehr but was a good sport about the experience for the most part.  Below are some pictures of the cabin as well as a picture of the land it sits on.  The apple trees were trees that were planted shortly after the place was built by my grandpa years ago.  At least that's what I remember being told.

We stayed at the cabin the first 2 nights and then decided rather than spend time driving back and forth that the last nigth we would rough it a bit and sleep outside on the ground. We ended up getting some mats donated to sleep on and we were able to cuddle up and stay relatively warm for the night.

In Pinedale there's this old structure-at least it appears old, but I think I was told it's not nearly as old as one might think, that has been dubbed "The Leaning Tower of Pinedale" for obvious reasons and Rosie decided it was a good photo op.

Overall, we had a great time, but our camera ran out of charge and we forgot the charger at home.  It was great spending time with family

Watch Out Annie Oakley!!! Mrs. Rosie is in Town Now!

I'm proud of Rosie because she over came her fear of guns and did some fine shooting.  With some coaching from Harold and encouragement from Kevin, Daryl, and me she killed the box:)

Just in case people thought the pictures were staged we figured we would put up one of the videos :)

Father's Day Thought

Dads

Have a kind of language all their own. I know this because I've been listening. SURPRISE!
For example, when dad's say, "Be careful." or " Make sure you call me," it really means, "I'm never going to stop worrying about you."
When they say, "You look pretty," or “You’re growing up too fast,” they’re really saying, “I wish I could hang onto you just a little longer.”
And when they say, Who’s that guy again?” what they really mean is, “Noone will ever be good enough for my little Girl.”
Well don’t worry Dad because I love that you care about me enough to say all those things and I just want you to know that no matter where I go or whoever comes into my life, a big part of my heart will belong to you.
Happy Father’s Day!

Love,
Rosie

Father's Day -- Epiphanies

I was watching TV, if you can call a long ad for 60s music TV, late last night with Rosie and one of the songs triggered a well-timed Dad memory that I instantly thought would be great for Kendra's book for Everett.
It happened when James Dean sang one of his famous story ballads 'Big Bad John' and I figured it should be shared. It was another one of those moments Dad probably didn't even realize he was leaving an indelible impression on one of his kids.
It was at a church basketball game (you know this has to get good :)) and as always I was tagging along because I just knew if they came up short they would ask me to play with them even though I was only 10 or 11 at the time. I was sitting on the bench next to Gary Palmer and they were at our end of the court when a shot went up. I guess dad was one of the taller guys on the team at 6' 2" and he and someone from the other team went up for the rebound. All I remember of the next few moments was that it got pretty physical (I don't think that they actually got in a fight) and Dad came away with the ball that he then powered back up with a shot under the basket. It happened quickly and probably wouldn't have been a huge moment had it not been for Gary singing "BIG BAD JOHN" as he was going up for a the shot and getting hammered by the guy he took the ball from as well as another guy.
It was one of those moments for me when I realized something about my Dad that I guess I kind of knew but when this happened I remember thinking, "My Dad is really really cool!"

Then there was the time while he was the time while he was serving as a counselor on the 3rd Ward Bishopric with Bishop Mike O'Loughlin at a MIA activity. Dad was dressed up with a curtain in front of him and shoes on his hands with Mom behind him acting out with his hands and shoving loads of food into his mouth. He kept telling her to wait and the more he tried to keep her from loading more in, the more she tried to put in. Everyone was laughing as the hilarity continued to unfold and April Mleynek made the comment, "He's such a great sport." I remember at the time thinking that it was something for me to learn from because I didn't like to be laughed at and would never put myself in a position for such ridicule. From then on I decided that I would allow myself to be a little more vulnerable.

The last story I thought of while thinking of Dad was another MIA activity (He was very good about magnifying his callings). There was a competition where people were divided into teams and one person had to run to the other end of the Cultural Hall, Stand a bat up on end, put there forehead on the handle end, spin around several times, and then run back to the other end and tag the next person. Then they would run up and do the same until the last person was done. Dad was on my team and I was thinking our chances for winning this thing was probably really good. I was behind him with one person between us and he took off down the court like a banshee and made the spins before anyone else. Then it got a bit hairy (try running after spinning in circles with your head on a bat). He started on his way back and started leaning to his right. I knew instantly that this was not going to go well. The more he tried to run and catch himself the more he leaned. He went crashing down in a heap and slid head first in the cabinets under the stage where the tables and chairs were kept.
Needles to say it scared the crap out of me and I didn't care about winning anymore. To everyone else it was understandably hilarious, but I found no humor in it. At that exact moment I realized just how much I loved and worshipped my Dad and seeing him out of control, even for a stupid kids game, was not a good moment for me. Not that we always had the best of moments since I at the time was an all-knowing teenager, but my Dad was, well, DAD. The greatest human being on earth. He ended up getting his composure well enough to get back to tag the next person and the entire time he too was laughing. I don't remember the outcome of the race or even fulfilling my leg of the race, but that moment was left a clear mark on my memory of MY DAD.

I love and miss him. I miss not being able to ask him questions or calling him to tell him what new thing I've learned. Even after 2 years my heart aches a little. Oh the reunion though when we meet again! I look forward to that moment and that joy fills the ache every time!

Happy Birthday to Me!

What a perfect BIRTHDAY!  Rosie started off (in the spirit of her Birthday month lets say garbage that she seems to have gotten every woman in my family to buy into) making me breakfast before heading to work.  It was french toast with fresh berries.  She has actually been making a huge effort since June 1st to make me happy with breakfast and making my lunch for work that I'm usually to lazy to make on my own and so I would normally just go out to lunch.

Along side breakfast was a wonderful card from her and Buddy.  The picture above was of the envelope.  Who wouldn't feel special with a card titled like that?!

Then tonight after work we went to Mom's house for "Tommy's Birthday."  This turned out to be a huge surprise party for me with a Nacho bar that had all the fixings!  According to Rosie I have my sisters to thank for all this.  It was awesome and unfortunately we forgot our camera, but there were plenty of them there so hopefully we can get some copies and I will try to get some more posted.  I was very surprised and was impressed by the number of family members that showed up for the party.  I have a wonderful family and extended family and I thank them all for the cards and gifts!  It was much more than expected and I hope that there is a picture of the posters that Karli made for me.  They were well done.

Then I got home late and checked the voicemail messages.  I had a sweet Happy Birthday rendition from Mum (aka Houdini).  It was nice and greatly appreciated.  Then there were the Facebook birthday wished from family and friends and even a couple of emails.
It's not so bad getting older when you have family and friends that treat you like this on a special day.

Garden Follow Up

As noted previously, we have been blessed recently with a lot of fruit. If you want it come pick it or let John know you are coming and he may pick some for you. We have a lot of it. You will have to fight the birds for the Peaches. It would appear that they like those much more than the apricots because with the 2 right next to each other they have left the apricots alone for the most part.

Little did we realize just how blessed we are until John went out and started looking a little closer on Friday afternoon while Bella was visiting. He was trying to talk her into eating from the tree, but she wasn't having much to do with it for a while. She may still think if fruit doesn't come from the store it can't be very good. John plucks fruit every morning to eat on the way to work. You can see he will have choices for quite some time...
Above are the Peach and Apricot mentioned before.

Here are the Plum trees. The first one has put out fruit the last two years but it was never worth bragging about. Hopefully they get a bit bigger this year than years previous. This is the first year the other two have done anything and pretty much what you see is what you get with them, but we’re glad they’re putting fruit out because John was ready to pull them out of the ground if they didn’t give fruit.

Here is a picture of our Apple Tree. Rosie has volunteered her Mum to come and make some Crumble with the apples. Now just to get her here :). This tree is one of the youngest trees in the backyard and this is the first year for it to provide fruit and it’s already doing very well.

The Lemon tree is doing about what it does every year which is about as much as we really need. You can see some of last years growth as well as what will ripen for us later this year.

We’re please to see that the Navel Orange has some fruit on it that will mature through the year as well. John has planted a few of these and this is the first to grow and put on fruit. Hopefully they will make it that far. John’s Dad used to have a Navel Orange tree years ago that only put fruit on one year and they got plucked by a little boy that his Mom watched and it never put out fruit again. Funny story in retrospect, but it wasn’t at the time. Possible future blog.

Then we have the Pomegranate shrub. I think they are considered shrub and at least that is what this one is looking like.  It has a few fruit blooming and one has turned green and looks like fruit.  Trouble is Buddy likes to pluck them while they're red blossoms so we'll see what we get.  Should at least get the one green one he didn't get at.

We should mention the 2 sunflowers that sprung up from seeds dropped last year. John plans to plant some more this week. They are supposed to get about 6’ tall but these appear to have topped out at ~2’.

Lastly we have the grapevines. John has planted a few of these in the past and these are the first to actually grow and now are even putting out a few bunches.

John needs to spend a little time getting them back under control again, but we’re just happy to see fruit on them. We’re hoping some time in the near future to get some blackberry and raspberry bushes to grow but the times John has tried to get them to grow either the grub worms have gotten to them or they have died for other reasons. One time he got them to grow at his parent’s house but only got fruit off of the raspberries one year and never again after that.

If anybody knows someone who can help him we would really appreciate the help!

For the Love of Aunt Rosie

I think everyone understands on this Mother's Day what a wonderful mother Rosie would make based on the way she is around children and certainly the way children (especially nieces and nephews) are with Rosie. That said, I don't think any of her nieces, or nephews for that matter, feel about Aunt Rosie the way that Bella does.  Nobody comes between Bella and her Auntie Rosie.  And now we have a great example of not only that love, but Bella shows herself to be mature beyond her years and yet still 5 years old.  Listen to the 2 messages that wee Bella left for her Aunt Rosie:
http://sites.google.com/site/intheqc/our-music

Our Cup Runneth Over

If anyone wants peaches or apricots you won't have to buy them if you can beat the birds to them.
Both trees have decided to go nuts this year and the plum tree is giving out more fruit this year than we have ever seen.  Even the apple tree has decided to get into the act a bit this year.

John spent much of the day picking off excessive fruuit and cutting out bent limbs.

You can see all the fruit on the ground that he plucked from teh limbs as well as some of the limbs that had to be cut and still the tree has more fruit than we'll be able to keep up with.
And that is just the Peach tree.  The Apricot tree had on large limb that had to be lopped off because their was too much fruit and the limb was laying on the ground.

 

Today was a really warm day in the QC and John decided it was time to put out Buddy's pool again. after it appeared he was having trouble cooling down on his own while John was out mowing the lawn and Buddy was chasing flying bugs.

We didn't get a picture of Buddy in the pool but you can definitely tell he has been there and that he was badly in need of a bath.  He jumped in and lay down in the water as soon as John put the hose in the pool.

All the green grass is about dead and the Bermuda grass is just starting come up.  The transition is a bit frustrating until the grass is green again.