earthquake

Three days ago there was an earthquake in the indian ocean that was rated at I think a 9.0. India, Sri Lanka and that whole coastline was just devestated by the tsunamis. At latest count the dead was 115,000 and the homeless and hungry must be even more. International aid is coming in to help bury the bodies and bring food. One thing that they are very worried about is the chance of disease with all the bodies laying there. Fresh water is another major concern. There are many pictures of bodies lying on the sand and of bulletin boards with pictures of kids from parents looking for them. The houses they lived in were not very sturdy and there were miles of just wreckage that couldn't stand up to the waves. They say that a good portion of the killed were children out on the beaches playing in the waves then the big one came and wiped everything out.

There have been theorists talking about if this could happen on the west coast and from what I've read that a long time ago (don't remember when, could have been as near as 300 years ago) there was an earthquake there that was just massive. Who knows. I'm sure that in the news there will be lots of "earthquake experts" out there spewing theories.

Christmas '04

The week before Christmas, Frank was on vacation so I had to work a bunch of hours so I was glad for 1600 on Friday. We were out of the store in really good time. Eric had all the lights turned off, I mean all the lights, just before 4 so people got the hint. We were really busy. Lots of people had those last minute home improvements for company.

I came home and we had our celebration. Olivia opened some books and that was it for her. She couldn't focus on any new presents because there were new books to look at!!! We then went to Decorah and stayed with my parents and crashed. Saturday, Olivia sledded for the first time. Man it was the best. I found our old orange plastic sleds up in the barn. I sat her on there and drug her around on the flat in front of the house. She giggled and laughed so we went down those small hills in front of the house and she just was awsome. She just was a giggle worm. So then we got very brave and sledded down the way up to the meadow the same track that Matt Weis built for us way back when. She just loved it so much. She giggled and giggled and laughed loudly. Oh it was great.

Mark and Dana got me a video game cartrige with mrs pac-man, galaga, xevious, pole position, and another game where you are a mouse. Its spiffy. Just plug it into the A/V jacks and away you go.

Olivia got lots of toys and stuff. She would rip at the present and tear a bit off. Then insist on handing that shred to someone. Then she would shred off another bit and hand it off and so on.
She seemed to enjoy her stuff. She got a leapfrog reading system.

On sunday we went to cho-sun and had some good food.

Olivia has a habit now of spitting out her food. She'll chew at it for a while then just spit it out. argh.

My glasses

I was getting up for the day and Olivia was playing around the bed. I stood up and reached for my glasses usually on a table by my bed. They weren't there. I figured I must have knocked them off when I turned the alarm off. I looked under the table and then on my dresser but couldn't find them. I asked Olivia if she had seen my glasses and she seemed to perk up and she squatted down to look around on the floor for them. I ignored her and kept looking for them around the table. Olivia started pointing under the bed and I kinda gave it a glace but thought that she was pointing at a teddy bear that had gotten under their. I looked and looked and Olivia was starting to get frustrated by how she was making noises. I thought OK, I'll look under there again. I bent down and got on my hands and knees and there under the middle of the bed my glasses had somehow worked themselves. Olivia squealed with glee that I had finally found them and I thanked her for finding my glasses that she had hidden. That little rat. I didn't think that she would know what I was talking about by glasses. Every day I'm amazed at the words she knows but doesn't know how to say.

Work

Well, its going ok
We're trying to do a lot of different ways of things. Trying to spend our payroll dollars on morning stockers and not have as many people in the day doing freight. So we're just doing counts, straightening, planograms. I dunno sometimes. Seems like we're walking on the proverbial razors edge from sales, payroll and getting stuff done. Who knows.

Olivia will point to her ear, nose, toes, bellybutton if asked now. She's so goofy. We watch lots of videos: evenescence, avril lavigne, pink, no doubt and gwen stefani, bowling for soup, and stuff.
real manly stuff

the weekend

Well, we went to decorah on saturday and had a lot of fun. Lori and Nicole Conway were there so we had to sleep up in my old room on an very uncomfortable bed. Olivia had a really fun time. Nicole is eleven and had fun playing with her. Nicole had never shot a gun before and Dad and I and her went up to the meadow and shot up a paper plate. She did very well once she figured it out. We also cut down a Christmas tree. She picked it out it was a cedar.

We met withPaul and Janet at cho sun's for supper. Janet had a bunch of her friends up and we ate with them. Then off to Steines' to hang out for a bit. Sunday we went to church and saw a lot of people we don't see very often. Ken VandeBurg told me that Travis is off in Syracuse NY working on his PhD so good for him. We saw Jim and Janet Thompson and Joyce Cote. Mom had fun showing off Olivia.

We met up with Steines' for brunch at the country kitchen and had pancakes.

We watched Iowa/Iowa State wrestling today. Iowa had 5 freshman in the lineup and lost 19-16 it was fun to watch. Most of the matches could have gone either way. Then we drove home in the rain and are now very tired.