I had some help loading the truck last night. It took less than 2 hours thanks to everyone who showed up. I could not have done it without you guys! It again hits home how much I am going to miss all the friends and family we have made here. SLC has been a great place for me. I have realized who I am while living here and that is in large part because I met and fell in love with AD. I do not know, nor care to know, where I would be without her in my life. I guess that is love.

As for that bike race in France, I am really bummed. I was hoping that this year would mark the first of the "clean" tours. Instead, it is more of a circus than ever. I truly love the sport of cycling--second only to skiing--and I hate to see it going through this. I know there are lots of clean guys out there that are successfully making a living as Pro's. The ones I know personally work their asses off, literally. They are class acts and stand-up guys who I have gained even more respect for in the past days.

Enough on the soap box, time to get driving the big rig up to the country of Montana. Then back to SLC for a couple of weeks to finish the thesis and defend.

Now if only the Yankees would stop playing .800 baseball!

My grandfather likes to tease me that we do in fact have indoor plumbing in the country of Montana. When we bought the house, we suspected that we had some rot and other issues to contend with in that area. It had to go and we got into it the day after closing. Here is Beth getting some aggression out:

















You can see here that we had to contend issues all the way down through the subfloor, not to mention the layers of wallpaper (green area below the window):

















We decided to replace everything except the ceiling and the medicine cabinet. Plaster is fun; sorry for the dust on the lens:

















Well somewhere along the way a bunch of work got done (thanks Dingmans!!!) and we now have a tiled floor:

















Not to mention we learned that AD is a wiz when it comes to working with a trowel and grout. Check out the river rocks from the stream near the house she grew up in:













In addition, the floor in the bedroom is done and next is painting the walls:













Plus a new kitchen sink, new plumbing, vastly improved electrical and some house warming gifts and we are about ready to move in! Unfortunately, the lawn went from jungle to brown after it was mowed and they only give you one free beer when you tell them that you just moved in down the street.

Now if only my thesis would finish writing itself.....