Special Kitty and Special Doggy...

About 4 months ago, Sandy was chasing Jasper Belle around and Jasper Belle was clawing at Sandy. Now, they are sleeping together, never thought the day would come. I am glad they are best friends now.

Broken down freezer at Kent's= $0.50 tv dinners....

Tony would have died and gone to heaven today when somebody announced that all the frozen pizzas and tv dinners are at a mere fifty cents each because the freezer at the grocery store was broken. So we got a few tv dinners and pizzas and a lot of Red Baren sandwiches for my lunches. We got 40 items and that was $20! Somebody got all the Digenoros before us but we got some other good kind of pizza instead. It completely filled up our downstairs freezer. Tony would love that because of all those late night work shifts and he can have all those tv dinners for his dinner while he is at work during dinner time. All those tv dinners and Red Baren frozen sandwiches will last me a month for my lunches at work.

The final finish...

My cabinets are completely done. I did the countertop all by myself too and I made it so it has birch wood on the edges of the counter. It looks really pretty. The cabinets look real pretty too. I just got this electric heating stove and it works great! It makes it look like fire inside of the stove and it has a blower and has 5,000 btus. It also has a thermostat so I can just set it where I want it and it stays at the same temperature all night. Lastnight, I set it where I wanted and I felt real comfortable, it is even a better temperature than the house at night. Sandy slept in the cabin lastnight with me and she did not complain at all. I really like my stove, it is one of the best things I ever got. I only used 750 watts on it lastnight and it can go up to 1500 watts, that is for the minus's this winter. My next project is to make a tv stand made out of birch and it will be 4 feet high and have cabinet doors for the tv. It will be like the one in mom's kitchen but with doors. I have a tv out there already and you can watch 150 channels out there but I will get a dvd player for it later. My cabin should be sweet. It is sweet already!

24 hours of pain and glory....

This has got to be the hardest sport event in the world, it looks even harder than the Tour de France. The 24 hour solo race. I just got this video in the mail yesterday and watched it with dad lastnight and it made me appreciate that I am not one of those racers. They race a solid 24 hours(has lights at night), each lap has 1,000 feet of climbing and they do 34 laps. That is a hell 34,000 feet of climbing in 24 hours! That is higher than Mt. Everest(Mt. Everest is 29,000 feet)! The video is about a quest of one racer going for his 7th World Champion title in 24 Solo Race. His name is Chris Eatough. He is the man! He trains 6 days a week, 60 miles a day on a road bike for 50 weeks. I only ride 2 climbs a week and one 60 mile road ride a week! This guy rides way more than I do! Anyways, when I watched these racers on the video, I did not see one smile, it did not look like they were having fun. I mean, what's the point? Riding 24 hours and killing yourself? I don't know, sounds like they sure do get a lot of exercise, but it is way too much exercise and your body could shut down. That's what happened to one of the racers, Craig Gordon, who finished 3rd. His liver expanded 20 times and his legs completely shut down, he had to go to the hospital afterwards, for a while. And there's no smiling after the race, they just cry. Doesn't sound like fun to me. The most I will ride is probably 6 hours and that is it. I rode 5 and a half hours once and boy I was one tired puppy. Anyways, the video was awesome, good music, less talk, and it showed a lot more riding than "Off Road to Athens". If you ever want to see one person suffer the hell itself, don't be shy to ask to borrow my video.

2008 Barlow Reunion Trip Plan....

As we all sat down together as a family at Crown Burgers. we all have decided that each person, or couple, plans the Barlow Reunion each year and decides what to do for all of us and the rest of us would just go along. We all decided that it is MY turn to plan the reunion for the summer of 2008. So, I am going to plan this and we all do this (even though Karen comes or not next summer). This is what I decided to do, so here goes, we are going to rent one RV from Cruise America in Provo, Tony brings his trailer and we are going to the Skyline or somewhere in Ephraim Canyon. It will be on a weekend in July somewhere. So the trip is on whether you like it or not. Just remember, each of you get a turn and you can decide whatever you want to do when you get your turn. So, I choose this. I know there is like 75% in this family don't like to sleep in tents and that is why we are renting a RV. We are all helping pay for the RV rental except Tony's family because they will have their own. Karen and Rob, since you are good cooks, I choose you to be our camping cooks for the whole trip. So plan a food schedule and we all will help you pay for the food. Tony has a gas stove outside, or you can cook over the fire, or you can cook on the RV stove. That's your job, Grandma and Grandpa Barlow, your job is to entertain all the kids, Becky, your job is to watch all the dogs and make sure they don't fight. Mike and Laura, your in charge of all the drinks, I don't want Diet Coke, I want fruit punch or lemonade but you can get Diet Coke for everybody else and Tony some Mountain Dew. Tony and Shelly, you are in charge of your own toys and you decide whether or not you will let anybody drive the buggy around and stuff. Maybe you can take us to places on your Bronco. I am in charge of the trip plans. This should be fun. We can go on hikes, go fishing at community or somewhere, maybe Pete's Hole, eat good food, enjoy the fresh mountain air and the scenery, and sometimes sit in the RV and watch movies and play games. We are going for 2 nights and the RV rental is $525 for three nights plus $96 for gas. We can go for three nights if you want to because we have the RV for 3 nights but we will plan for two nights this time. So, that is it, we are all doing this trip, no exceptions.

My week off project...

My boss said to take the week off this week because we can't work on our next project yet so I decided to turn my cabin inside out. Doesn't look a lot better? I thought the blue kinda looked funny and I would rather have just natural cedar and spray a transparent oil on it. So I took all the siding down, pulled the nails out and twisted the siding around and nailed them back on. It took a good old two days. I really like it a whole lot better and it makes it more like a real cabin. Actually, it looks really beautiful! With all the knots on the wood makes it look rustic. I also installed my cabinets in the cabin, even though the doors and drawers are not made yet and I am glad I put them in before making the drawers and doors because it turns out I need to put in shorter drawers because the ladder is in the way and shorter drawers would work with the ladder there. I should be making the counter top, doors, and drawers next week when I go back to work so I can work on them after work in the shop. Soon as I get my next paycheck, I will definitely buy a stove because it gets cold in there now!

The cabinets are done.

I just laquered the cabinets I am building for my cabin today. They are made out of birch, same as mom's cabinets except mom's are stained. I just put a clear coat on mine to match the cabin. It has been a very rainy day today(Saturday the 22nd) so I did bike today to Mt. Pleasant and up to the Whispering Pines road(25 min. climb) just outside of Mt. Pleasant this morning about 9:00. Then rode back home and as SOON as got in the car, it started raining like heck and it kept raining for 4 hours. Talk about pure, pure, pure, luck! I hope Tony and everybody didn't get rained on at the Dew Tour today. I was going to the BYU game today with my counselor but there was no ticket for me. I am really glad I didn't go because I would have been miserable in the rain all day. I had more fun working on my cabinet and riding my bike in the morning than go to the BYU game anyway. The Dew Tour would have been fun too but not in the rain! Maybe the events in the Energy Solutions Arena, it would have been fun.