Our friends Jodie and Wayne had their baby! Woohoo! Little Scotty was a little early, but a good healthy weight, and we're glad to have him in the world! This past week, both Misti and I went in a got some prescription eyeglasses. Now we're bugeyes. Darlene's back in the hospital for her gall bladder arrangement, but should be out again soon. Misti's been working on photo albums and scrapbooks a lot lately. They look really nice. I got another K-BULL 98 FM bumper sticker at Port of Subs a couple nights ago. I don't stick them on the car, however, but on the side of my computer.

The new Federal Poverty Guidelines came out this month (for work). I joined an online chat with city hall representatives yesterday and asked them why there are misspelled street signs in town. They said that they would have them fixed. =)

Becky tried her first Biter Biscuit today. They sure get slimy! Becky is really cute now when she laughs. She does this kinda nervous chuckle or something, it's hilarious. It's not a real laugh, but just something she picked up from one of us, I guess.   =)

I went over and helped my Dad set up his new computer tonight, and it works great. It's a new one, with Windows XP, a Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 19" monitor, and all the bells and whistles. I'm jealous.   =)

I also came across this neat website that makes really long URLs into shorter ones, especially good for including addresses in email messages. It's called MakeAShorterLink.com. Check it out.   =)

Well, our second round of strep throat turned out to be stomach flu and teething fever. But it's finally over now. Today my dad and I went to Staples (in Carson City) and went computer shopping. Tonight, I finished another audio book, "Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbitt. Today, I had a day off from work because of Presidents' Day. On Saturday, we got our taxes done at Jackson Hewitt.

During the last few days, I installed Cygwin on my computer (a GNU [Unix-like] operating system that runs on top of Windows). Now that I got Xfree86 functioning, I'm now trying to install KDE. My goal is to be able to use Konqueror (the KDE web browser) on my Windows 98 system. If I can get KDE going, I might even try Gnome and the Galeon browser. One step at a time, though.

I finished the book "The Client" by John Grisham this morning. We have the movie and I have seen it a few times, but I wanted to read the book for the details. So, I started reading it a while back and found that I couldn't put it down. And because I've seen the movie, and the characters from the movie, it was easier for me to relate them to the characters in the book and I could see the whole thing in my mind. It was really neat. Richard listens to audio books by John Grisham and that is what got me interested in reading "The Client". I must say, John Grisham is a very good author and seems to have a vast knowledge of law as he writes about it in most of his books. This book is definitely a good one.

Valentine's Day was nice for us yesterday. Becky and I cleaned house and prepared a special dinner for Richard - one of his favorites. We set up a nice table in the living room with candles and flowers, and had dinner. Becky wasn't too sure about the candles but was very interested in how they worked. After dinner we had a Peach Crisp for dessert. It was yummy.



Also for Valentine's Day, Richard and I exchanged flowers (which were very beautiful!) and Richard gave me a gift I can frame and hang on the wall. I love it! It was a completely wonderful day!

Becky sort of took her first step on Saturday (the 9th) when we were over visiting Richard's family. She was holding onto a piece of furniture and wanted to go to another one but she couldn't just reach over and grab it. So, she let go of the first, took one step, and grabbed onto the second. She has done it a couple more times at home since then. And she loves to stand up, let go, and just balance herself. She gets over excited sometimes and moves her arms around so she loses her balance, but she is getting better at standing in one spot without holding onto anything and keeping her balance pretty well. She'll be walking in no time.

Well, we're all sick again. I think I caught the second round of strep throat (again) from work, and Becky and Misti got the flu from somewhere. With our luck, that means we'll trade places next week, with me getting the flu, and Misti getting Strep. Luckily, Becky won't get strep, as it's an older person "thing".

Yesterday, we went to Carson City and visited the Nevada State Railroad Museum. We then ate a wonderful meal at IHOP. We also visited DuBois' Herbal Health Store, and Becky's grandma, grandpa, and aunt Bonny's house. Becky tried a pickle for the first time yesterday:



The song "Till There Was You" is featured in two films that we've seen again this week: Meredith Willson's "The Music Man", and "The Wedding Singer".

We've also watched a little bit of the Olympics this weekend, and a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Today I finished "A Walk Through the Fire" by Marcia Muller. A little slow moving at times, but generally a good mystery, with a neat Hawaiian vocabulary and interesting characters.

We have now driven our car over 20,000 miles.

Darlene is now back from the hospital. She's doing well and is "on the mend". Last night, we went to Brad and Emilie's for some pizza and a flick. We watched "Rat Race" and "The Hangnail". Then Brad introduced us to the concept of the "fart filter".     =)

Today, Becky went on her very first merry-go-round ride at Boomtown.