Summer Time!

Hi, all.

Summer is gearing up to be VERY BUSY for us here, and different than the usual summers.

Jen is almost done with her courses and her master's. All of her academic courses are done, and all she has left is to complete her necessary hours (She has to do 400 by graduation) and to pass her board exams this December, so this summer she is taking time off work to focus on her volunteering. She is splitting up her time between two schools in her district - a high school and an elementary school - and will be doing this for 6 weeks. When she finishes in July, she'll have an entire month off before reporting back to her school for work.

Jeff has also been completing his coursework as well. For the past year, he has been enrolled in Pathways, the online prerequisite courses for BYU - Idaho, and has been very successful thus far. When he completes his courses (also in July) he can transfer to the online program the university has, and he will complete his business degree through the school.

We also have the usual craziness that comes with owning dogs and living life in general. Such events include:

- Going to see Motown The Musical. We hadn't gone in FOREVER to see a live show, so we ran to San Jose and enjoyed some great music and had a blast.
- Reshelving the books. Our home is overloaded with books (not that it's a bad thing!) so we put in a new unit into the family room. Now every book has a home... until we bring home more!

- Gardening. We started a garden again this year. So far, it's peppers, corn and tomatoes that are growing but we have zucchini and other plants we want to buy for the summer. Wish us luck!

Color Run

In addition to trying to eat better, we are both trying to be more active. This year we had participated in a SuperHero 5K (running around dressed as a super hero and you get a cape!) as well as the Insane Inflatable 5K (you go through a lot of inflatable obstacles). In May, we participated in The Color Run. This is a 5K that people throw different colors of cornstarch on you in order to make your white shirt super colorful! This time, instead of just the two of us, we invited our nieces Rachel and Amy, and Jen's sisters to come along with us.

There are photos somewhere on Facebook of the event, but here's the only one we could find to download. We think it gives you a good idea of how colorful the event was!

Dogs, dogs and more dogs

For a while we have had a large pack. In addition to our five (Fox, Jacob, Pepino, Callie and Ichabod), we also were allowing Laredo, our friend's dog, to squat in the house. Well, our home is (at least temporarily) the Perry 7!

While walking the dogs, a small little dog ran out from the lake. When we called him, he ran right up to us. We posted flyers everywhere but no one claimed him, so he is staying with us while Sarah our niece looks for an apartment and then she will adopt him!

Sam (short for Samwise Gamgee) absolutely has a pitbull face... but the rest of him??? We think someone was a kind of beagle/bassett hound, because he has THE SHORTEST LEGS!!! Hence, the name, Samwise, one of the hobbits from Lord of the Rings, since he is a hobbit-sized pittie. Just imagine having a puppy that will never grow. That's Sam.

He's a very sweet dog that gets along fine with everyone (although he and Pepino can be nasty to each other). So we're happy that our pack has another dog-cousin!

UL: Jake with Sam
UR: Fox
LL: Callie
LR: Pepino with Ichabod