joefree's blog

Saw these pictures and thought they looked so similar I had to share!

click to see slideshow->

We had some portraits taken at the temple. Check them out here.

Here is some more info on Melinda's homecoming.

Here are the streams (sorry they were broken up in mulitiples...but I have included a brief description of what is in each one)

Part 1 - On the road discussions before we get there
Part 2 - First sighting and hugs!
Part 3 - More hugs and interviews start.
Part 4 - Discussion in the car on the way home.
Part 4 - Discussion in the car on the way home.
Part 5 - More car discussion & first Lithuanian.
Part 6 - Poll questions flight story begins.
Part 7 - More on the flight and Sister Gubler.
Part 8 - Finish story arrive home.
Part 9 - First view of the sign and family picture.
Part 10 - Final clip of stream and good bye's

Here is Melinda's Mission Report in Sacrament mtg.

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We are so excited to have our whole family together for the first time in over two years!

The first to arrive is Becca. She lands in Phoenix Sky Harbor at 9am on Friday the 18th. I will be going to pick her up. I am going to test out ustream.tv to stream live audio and video from my iPhone to the web so you can all watch.

So go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lovebeingadad at 9am tomorrow morning and you should see a live video feed of Becca in the airport. You can go there early and see some clips I took at the Mountain View Holiday Dinners and Andrew's band concert.

Then at 10pm the main event. Melinda is to arrive at 10pm. So be sure to check out the site. The third and last leg of her flight will be coming from Chicago, American Airlines Aa1733 (if you want to check if they are on time).

Here is a video of our family on iChat. We were choosing names for Christmas, but had to spice it up a bit. Enjoy!

Check out this video of a totally amazing pseudo mobile grandson...

Thanks to so many that put us up and helped us in so many ways. Grandma and Grandpa Free, John and Jen Free, Ric and Jodie Jamison. Thanks!

Here are some photos of the trip:

Mike sent me his quick animation for a class. It is a bag of flour trying to jump across a Danish Bakery...this has danger, action, and heart. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

We showed up Sunday night rather than Monday afternoon...here is the "surprise".

OK, we post stuff about the most mundane things. But these guys make everything fun!

Last November during our Thanksgiving dinner in the backyard we saw several of these Peach Faced Love Bird Parrots high up in a neighbors tree. We kind of forgot about them.

Now that our sunflowers are ready to eat we found some in our back yard. The first of the movie shows one I was able to get. The last part shows 7 of them at once. However it was shot through my office window that needs cleaning! Sorry. But it was just amazing.

We think that a couple of these escaped and they have been propagating in our nice weather. So here they are enjoying the lovely hot August weather!

So we left at 5am on Saturday morning and went to one of our favorite camping spots, Canyon Creek. We fished then setup our little camp and had breakfast burritos and just enjoyed the cool weather and some friends, the Sowards.

I have uploaded a few videos:

1- A walk through of the little trail next to the stream, showing the wild raspberries and the great fishing holes.
view movie

2- A cool collection of butterflies eating...I'm not sure what. But they were cool
view movie

3- A little knoll we climbed that gave a nice view of a valley. It shows how fun it is for us to be together!
view movie

Then Sunday we picked our watermelon...

4- Our visiting guest Jeremy picked the watermelon for us.
view movie

5- Later that night we opened the watermelon...what was it going to be like?
view movie

6- Diana borrowed a dress for a girl's camp skit and Becca put it on...she is so funny.
view movie

That should bring you up to date.

Mike reported to the High Council at 6am, then to the ward in Sacrament at 11 and to the teacher's quorum at 1. Many people were there and we all enjoyed his words. Here is an audio recording we made for those of you that couldn't be here.

Michael Reports Audio (14.5MB) (be patient, it takes a while to download...but then it runs.)

Here is a rough video. I haven't had time to edit the nice video Josh took.