A lot can happen in a few weeks! The past few have flown by as Jen has been woring at Allstate, I've been job hunting, and we've been figuring out trailor living. You'd think living in a trailor would come second nature. You just put a bunch of trash outside your trailor, drink a lot of beer, and eat cheetos...so far it's not that easy. We have small. Yes, our fridge is small, our microwave, table, chairs, cupboard space, and everything else is small. You have to be creative on what you keep. Now I know why "trailor pros" have crap outside everywhere. I couldn't find pink flamingoes for the yard so there are Tiki torches to give it that settled in feel. You would think Tiki torch smoke keep the evening free of those flyng critters, but not so much.

We have had bee and wasp attacks for a couple weeks. Yeah 7 wasps sharing you spacious quarters does not bring the good feelings of more the marrier. I freaked out on the initial battle, but returned with a friend to kill them. Why did I not man up and take care of the pests myself. Ignorance. Sure anyone can kill colorado or Michigan waspes...but these are California waspes. Who knows the kunning dangers they are capable of. I find knocking them down with WD40 and the swatting them as their wings are inopperable works oh so well. Just check the shower before you enter!!!

Jen has been learning the workings of Allstate and I am just checking into things and researching. I have not a clear pull to one field. I'm checking into electrical, plumbing (maybe), police, and many mechanical areas. Police and electrical have for sure application processes and openings. I went on a ride-along two nights ago ago and had a mini "COPS" episode. I did all of the following though in no particular order: drove 100 on the freeway, saw some meth people searched, a guy on a bike cuffed and searched at taser, a few gun drawn investigations of neighborhoods, many drive throughs of high drug neighborhoods, a semi leak of 50 gallons of diesel, a dead 72 year old lady...the trash-cluttered house had 30+ rats in cages and 10 tranchula spiders being raised as well. The Oakland police were getting ready to charge a hotel where some murderers were hiding out, but they were not in the room. Earlier that night the stopped someones life with an AK 47 mashine gun. All very interesting, but no suspects to ride with us...I suppose that is when it gets really exciting.

I'm helping Alan (our "landlord" friend) with some roof tearing off and wood dismantling. I'm out of shape fo shizzle and am enjoying doing some physical labor. We have posted some pics of the trailor and our neigboring animals. We hear many chattering squirels, and cars/motorcyles peeling out at the stop sign across the creek.

We have aquired free food at church twice now!! Once at a pot luck (fied chicken leftovers) where I met the police officer who steered me to the ride-along, and the at a church informational meeting (pizza). Maybe we should make the rounds of churches in the area and save money on groceries. I don't think Jen's gonna go for that. That's not a good activity, I suppose. (B.R.)
We are enjoying this Labor day weekend up at "The Ranch" where her parents live. Interesting...there are suspicions of a meth lab in the area. Around 3 to 5 in the morning there is a sweet smell of cooking.

We are continuing to adjust and I'm hopefully narrowing down the direction to move in career wise. Oh We are near a Trader Joes again...besides all the reasons to move, this is at the top in my book. Oh I hiked near the coast and saw 50+ elk. I also go some hot spots on my heals. Let me tell you Clark, a potato chip[ bag works nicely as a barrier in your boot to stop the friction. Give it a try in an emergency. Well hope all is wel where you are. This is Scott signing of from the land of wine and gun control...The Peoples Republic of California.

On Thursday, August 10th we pulled out of Colorado Springs with a 22 foot Penske truck, pulling a trailer with our 4Runner, followed by the Honda on the road. It was very sad to leave our home, but we were excited for the new adventures in a new home. On Sunday, August 6th we had an open house where we were able to say goodbye to all our friends.
If it weren't for our friends Steve, Barb, Taylor, and Julie, we would never have been able to pack and clean the house. Steve and Barb remained all day on Wednesday and we were out of the house by 5:30pm. We stayed at Dennis and Carol Korth's house for our last night in Colorado.
The beginning of the trip was very slow as the heavy Penske truck struggled over the Colorado Rockies. Finally we hit a steady 65 mph. The speed didn't last long as one of the rear tires on the trailer holding the Runner lost its tread. Scott would never have known if I hadn't seen it happen. Thank the Lord I saw it happen! We pulled over 30miles East of Grand Junction, CO. We were on the side of Hwy 70 for 3 1/2 hours before the tire was fixed and we could move on. Since the brake line on the trailer had been damaged we needed to get a new trailer. We carefully pulled the trailer into Grand Junction and switched out for a new trailer in the 105 degree heat. By 7pm (12 hours after we left Colorado Springs) we sat down for dinner. Since we should have been nearly to Vegas by that time we decided to push ahead another 1 1/2 hours to Green River Utah where we stayed the night. The next morning we pushed off once again. Things seemed to be going really well.... and then.... at about 2pm (the same time it happended the day before) we actually blew ANOTHER tire on the trailer. I had noticed the tire wobbling, but we were driving through a narrow and steep canyon and I was unable to warn Scott. I called him immediatly when we got out of the canyon and told him he should pull over at the next pull off. The next pull off wasn't soon enough because the tire blew. This time Scott heard the tire blow (it was LOUD and scary!) We were in Arizona, just before the Nevada boarder, and we had a pretty decent place to pull over on the side of the road. This time we only had to wait a short time before help came. We were back up and running in an hour and a half. By 10pm we landed in Barstow, CA. FINALLY we had reached our destination state!! Saturday morning we headed off again, up through Bakersfield, then up north on Hwy 99 to Jen's parent's house in Calaveras county. By 5:30pm we finally pulled into their driveway, totally exhausted, but happy to be "home". We will be heading down to "move into" our trailer tomorrow... so we will write more then...

Happy Summer! We are enjoying the warm, green and beautiful summer in Colorado Springs. There have been many thunder storms lately which help things cool down a bit in our house with no Air Conditioning. We have been busy painting ALL the brown trim in our house, making it white. This is a HUGE, and semingly never-ending project! Over the 4th of July we went camping at the Rocky Mountain National park area. We explored Grand Lake and the beautiful park.
We just returned from a short trip to California where we explored the options for moving there. After a LOT of prayer and consideration we decided to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us and make the move to California. We will be leaving the Springs on August 10th, and our townhome will go on the market at the end of July. Jen's parents are letting us use their 5th wheel trailer for a while until the house sells. Our friends in Vacaville, have graciously allowed us to use a piece of their property to put our trailer. (Vacaville is 30-40min west of Sacramento)
We are excited about this new adventure and we are actually looking forward to trailer life, as we know we will have a great story to tell our kids. Jen will be working as an office manager for her brother, Bill in his new Allstate office. Scott is still following up with two different Honda dealerships, as they may have openings in the next few weeks for technician positions. We are greatly encouraged by the people we have met in the Vacaville area, and we are excited about possibly being part of a great church there as well.
It is a HUGE move for us, but we know that in the long run it will be well worth it. We desire to be closer to one side of the family, and it has been an extreemely hard decision to decide between moving to Michigan or California. We know that we will have more opportunities to travel to Michigan when we live in California, and we look forward to spending more time with both sides of the family then we would if we stayed in Colorado. The hardest part is leaving Colorado and all the great friends we have made! We will miss it greatly here!
Sorry there aren't many pictures this time...

Aloha! We just returned from two weeks in Maui. (Scott still thinks it is 2005) It was very relaxing, and a lot of fun! We stayed with our friends Ryan and Stephanie and their nearly three year old, Jonah. (Picture of the boys- Ryan, Scott, and Jonah above left) We also had five nights in a condo right on the beach which was a little bit like a second honeymoon (at least a longer and extended honeymoon!) We enjoyed the warm, tropical climate as we played on the beaches, snorkeled, parasailed, and just relaxed. We also got to spend some time with our friends Jon and Elissa from Colorado Springs that were in Maui at the same time. We went snorkeling with them, and had dinner with Elissa's family.(Picture above )We rented a "ghetto" older model convertable mustang for part of the time we were there which broke down and was replaced with a slightly better convertable mustang plus two more free rental days! We had the opportunity to drive around the entire island. We explored the south/ east side with Steph and Ryan while we drove the "Road to Hana" and camped for two nights near the "Seven Sacred Pools". We hiked past many pools and through a bamboo forest to an amazing 400 foot waterfall where we were refreshed by the cool water falling down the shear cliff.

This is the picture of our campsite to the left. The right is Scott with his snorkel gear outside our condo.

You might be wondering what the "Breakfast Platters" picture is. Scott made sure this was a part of our blog. McDonalds Serves Spam in Hawaii. Hawaiians LOVE spam... so does Scott. He was stoaked to try spam in Maui.

Parasailing was a blast! As they reeled us back into the boat, they dipped our feet into the ocean.

This picture was taken at the "Seven Sacred Pools" Scott and Ryan jumped off the cliffs at the top waterfall... it made Steph and I a bit nervous, but they had a blast. The picture at the bottom is the view from our condo! Two weeks in Maui was a much needed vacation and break for us both! Mahalo Ryan, Steph, and Jonah!! Aloha Maui!!

School is OUT!!!! Today (5-25-06) was the LAST day of School... Not only for the kids, but especially for Scott and I! At Approximately 1 pm we turned in our keys and walked out of the building for the last time. We leave with mixed emotions.... relief that the job is over, but also sadness to leave colleagues we have come to know as good friends. We are So excited to begin new adventures, as neither of us will be returning to teaching next year. The kids that Scott is with are two of our favorites.. they were great boys and we were both priviledged to teach them! The top picture is of Scott with our Vice Principal, Phil. He has been an incredible encouragement for both Scott and I. He is an amazing Godly man and we were blessed to work with him. It has been a whirlwind year with getting married, dealing with crazy students, and struggling with very difficult circumstances at school. Through it all God has been faithful to give us strength to get through. Scott and I were shedding a few tears of joy today thinking about how we both arrived at this school ALONE, and now, a couple years later, we are leaving TOGETHER! God is good! We have really enjoyed driving to school together every morning.. we will miss that greatly! No, the picture is not us in front of a prision... that is our school... see why we were so eager to leave?!! We leave for Maui on the 30th for two weeks.... So we will be updating our blog after that... stay tuned. Love Scott and Jen

We just returned from Michigan where we had a second wedding reception and were able to spend time with family and friends. We are one of the few fortunate couples who are able to wear their wedding day attire twice. We had a photographer capture the day which was a little cooler than our wedding day. Jen's parents were there for the reception as well, and we enjoyed our short visit with them. After the reception Scott's parents took us up to Northern Michigan. We saw Lake Michigan, the Mackinac bridge, Lake Huron, and many other beautiful small lakes throughout the state. The weather was perfect and the days were beautiful! We also traveled south to visit Scott's sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. It made Jen's week when her new nephew, Ian, called her "Aunt Jen" for the first time. On the last Saturday before we came home we had an early Easter celebration at Scott's parent's house, complete with an easter egg hunt for Ian and the neighbor boy. Scott was also able to help his dad with some work in the yard. Our trip was very fun, but we came home very tired. We are counting the weeks left in the school year.

January began with a New Years Eve Eve celebration at our house just a few days after we returned from California. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends in Colorado Springs!! They are all like family to us! The picture on the top right is Jen with Leli and Lauri. We are all in a Bible study every tuesday night. They are wonderful Godly women! The picture on the bottom right is Scott and his former roomates. At the end of January we said goodbye to our wonderful friend Steve Biel (the guy who sang at our wedding, the guy on the right in the picutre) He moved to Louisiana to help with the relief efforts in Baton Rouge. We miss him SO much!!
February was a good month, but very tough at school. Scott and I both told the school we won't be returning next year. Two weeks after our decision was made the school began to experience a lot of turmoil after some careless decisions were made by the Board, much to the chagrin of most of the rest of the staff. It has been very stressful as we try to support our colleages and our principal. However, we are excited to see where God will lead us in our careers. Married life is great and we are continually thankful for what God has done in our lives to bring us together.

We enjoyed spending Christmas with both our parents and Jen's Brothers at Jen's parents new log home in the foothills of Northern California. Scott's parents remained in California for a week after the wedding and they were able to enjoy a warm California Christmas. We had a great time sitting on the deck by the fireplace, playing Texas Hold'em, playing with the Llammas, riding dirt bikes, and starting a Bon Fire in the rain. Scott got Bill and Adam to help him carve "Doberneck" into one of the falled trees along Jen's parent's driveway. We also enjoyed Tri-Tip for Christmas and Jen's dad's famous margaritas. Scott's dad was excited to wear shorts one of the days he was there. We were sad to see Scott's parents head back to Michigan Christmas morning. It was a very special first Christmas together!

We spent our honeymoon at a really beautiful home in Sqaw Valley California (about 10 minutes from Lake Tahoe). We were able to relax after months of planning the wedding and just enjoy the beauty of the mountains. It rained most of the time we were there, but we were able to take advantage of one sunny day to ride on the Tahoe Queen across the lake to see Emerald Bay. It was really a wonderful honeymoon!

We were married on December 17th in Napa Valley, California. IT was an amazing and beautiful wedding. We were surrounded by many family and friends who traveled from all over including Michigan, Colorado, and Virginia. Thank you to all of you who were such a special part of our wedding. It is truly a day we will remember for a lifetime!