1. This enterprising person has probably *the* best slogan I’ve seen in a while:

2. The Iranians are busy keeping their loyal subjects safe from fowl espionage: “Iran busts ’spy pigeons’ near nuclear site”

Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected “spy pigeons” near Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday.One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.

“Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings,” the source was quoted as saying of the second pigeon.

The source gave no further description of the pigeons, neither their current status nor what their fate will be.

Natanz is home to Iran’s heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant, which is not far from Kashan.

The activity is the focus of Iran’s five-year standoff with the West, which that fears it aims to develop nuclear weapons.

Tehran vehemently denies the charge.

Last year, Iran issued a formal protest over the use of espionage by the United States to produce a key intelligence report on the country’s controversial nuclear programme.

This comes after last July’s squirrel crackdown:

Iranian intelligence operatives recently detained over a dozen squirrels found within the nation’s borders, claiming the rodents were serving as spies for Western powers determined to undermine the Islamic Republic.

“In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran’s borders,” state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. “The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services.”

Iranian police commander Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam confirmed the report, saying that a number of squirrels had been caught bearing foreign spy gear within Iran’s borders.

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Henry Charles was born on 15 OCT at 7:37 PM, after a short (but intense) labor. It was hard on Julie as well. He weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 21 inches long. So pretty much the same size as Lucy at birth. Poor kid even looks like Lucy! Henry is my grandfather’s name. Charles is my middle name, my dad’s middle name, and my great-grandfather’s name. So we definitely kept it in the family this time around.

Needless to say, his sisters were very excited and have been so cute in welcoming him home. Even Gwenyth has shown an interest.

Here are some pictures:

Everyone has been so wonderful. Thank you. My momma tolerated the girls for 48 hours and left us with a great meal. Thank you so much. We came home from the hospital on Friday (which was Julie’s birthday) to find that Tausha (well, Brian, I guess) had decorated our house with balloons and a big “It’s a boy!” sign.

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

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Abby and Grace are growing up and had picture day the other day. Because Grace was not feeling too well, I decided to grab a shot for myself because who knows how the school pictures are ever going to turn out. Aren’t they getting big?

Gwen is spending her last days in the pool. She thinks she is so big lounging in the tube while Brian “works and watches” nearby. We are going to miss the pool for a few months!

Baby brothers room is as finished as it’s going to get. I didn’t have a vision for this room but a cute bumper pad to start with (from Jana to help “get er done”. It’s simple and hopefully not overly girly as Brian has been stating with the polka dots. I hope this little guy makes it at our house.

The before complete mess of a nursery?! if you want to call it that

The afters

Also been painting the banisters. What a hellish monster job–priming 2 coats, then painting a white coat, followed by taping off and painting a brown/black coat. Only thing left is a coat or two of varnish and touch up–don’t know if I have it in me…really!

Another note my lovely had a birthday and turned 34–can’t believe it. We did it Brian style with Thai food and low key ice cream at Golden Spoon. He looks as good as he did at sixteen when I met him and I’m still crazy in love with him. He is a great support to me and our family and mostly he’s still my best friend. Love you, Brian

Now just to get this new little guy here. My Dr. is leaving town next Wednesday for a week and is concerned that I will get sectioned so this little guy may visit our family earlier than thought if I’m ready to go on Monday when he checks me. I can truly say we are crazy excited to have a little boy at our house to even out the progesterone levels. What a blessing new babies are. We’ll keep you posted. Now just for the name…hmmm…still a little stumped!

for more photos go here http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

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Catherine, I’ll post some pictures soon. Not as fancy as the ones currently on your blog, though. Just to set expectations. Julie’s been going like a crazy woman. I’ve hung more drapes in the last few weeks than I care to admit. And unfortunately that means Julie has bought more curtains in the last few weeks than she cares to admit to me. But the bill doesn’t lie.

The doctor says that the action might come next week. Julie went to see him today and he hopes that we’ll be able to get things going, perhaps as early as next Monday. I think that the new little man is just so excited to come see his polka-dotted blankets that he wants to come quickly.

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I’m a regular at marketwatch.com. They have cool widgets and stuff that geeks like me enjoy. And some serious tinfoil hat-type commenters. The also apparently have pretty clever marketing and sales departments:

That’s some nice targeted advertising. “Jack Daniels: Please enjoy responsibly.” I think that many will be “enjoying” after today, some probably not responsibly.

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Abigail and Grace have long lamented the fact that they don’t have their “own” laptops so that they can go out on the interwebs as they please. When reminded that they cost about $1000, Grace went off pouting, while Abby proudly exclaimed that she’s going to start saving. If that doesn’t perfectly demonstrate the 2 sisters, I don’t know what does.

Both girls like to play “Spawn of Satan,” . . . errr . . . I mean Webkinz whenever they can. It all starts innocently enough. You buy these cute, cuddly little animals that the new owner can adopt. But then you need to register them online. And then you need to give them clothes. And bathe them. And entertain them. And buy expensive jeans for them. And ground them. And so on. They just can’t understand why we don’t simply give them the password to the computer so that they can do as they please. Turning into a computer nerd is one reason. Another is . . . well . . . the interwebs.

We found this by the computer a couple of weeks ago:

You certainly can’t blame them for trying.

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Week one I literally sat upstairs with her every day–all day (I’m not joking). I would often fall asleep in the doorway of the bathroom while she’d read stacks of books. I found out real quick this kid’s a camel and has an unbelievable ability to store/hold peep (even forcing liquids). After a few successes and many mishaps I was thinking I was ready to throw the towel in last Sunday! When I went to put a diaper on her she was ecstatic and over the top! I couldn’t do it–I decided we had tried too hard and we were going to BRAVE THE STORM! While things are not perfect and we still have occasional accidents she has picked it up and we are entering week 3! I am too exhausted to write much more about this potty training experience but here are some pictures of the newest underwear-clad member of our family. Way to go Gwenyth!

The big sister that helped out with the training

Spent loads of time doing this!

Can’t believe we have 4 potty trained princesses

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

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Here’s the Afters

Got the french provincial dresser on Craig’s list for $40–what a steal (love the hardware) Big shout out to Michael and Ali for hauling it to us from the East side!

This desk/armoire had to be repainted from the move(s). It used to be a cheesy faux oak finish desk–it’s looking a little more girly these days. The girls are excited to have a place to do their homework and I’m excited to have a place to keep all their treasures aka junkie stuff. Abby asked me when she’s going to get a laptop. I asked her if she had a thousand or so dollars–things got real quiet.

found this dresser near a dumpster at UHAUL–add a little paint/hardware–good as new!

Now to finish off Lucy & Gwen’s room, start on the nursery, make curtains, finish painting the house and banisters—-uh ya right!!! BRian come home–I NEED HELP–my Brains going to explode!!

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Abigail started 4th grade. Grace started 2nd. And Lucy started preschool. They all seem really pleased with their teachers and we’re just pleased as punch that they’re so excited about school still. I’m thinking that they’ll get really ornery about it one of these days, but it works well for now.

Last weekend Grandpa was nice enough to take us all out on the boat. We hadn’t done that in a very long time. Sean and his girls initiated the whole thing, I think, and we were able to tag along. Julie and Jana both stayed home and enjoyed themselves way too much. Abigail and Grace both skied, and all 4 of them were in the tube at one point. It took a bit for Gwenyth to realize that she couldn’t swim across the lake, like she keeps thinking she can do in the pool.

Julie’s baby bump is coming along. She’s such a lovely pregnant woman, though her 7 month nesting period does get occasionally overwhelming for me. But I can’t complain too much. I’m not the one carrying. She’s been going crazy with different things, trying to get it all ready for “Baby Brother” — yes that’s the official name for now. Abigail and Grace’s room is all different. Lucy and Gwen are sleeping (successfully) in the same room now. Just the nursery to redo. I think I’ve mentioned before that the poor guy already has polka-dotted blankets. I’m not too sure about that. We’ll have to get pictures once it’s all done.

Everything else is going along well. I’m actually in Utah tonight and for the next few days for a product development meeting. It should be exciting. I seem to have too much going on besides that. Always some project that is the next big thing. You know, throw enough stuff at the wall and hope that something sticks.

Enjoy the rest of the pictures at flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

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We had a great time up in Utah. We rented the condo of a friend of a sister of a friend of a friend’s. They are in Law School (I think?) and are in California for the summer doing the intern thing. So we had a nice place to setup camp for the nearly 4 weeks we were in Pleasant Grove. 3 bedrooms, 2 (and 1/2!) bathrooms, with a small, but very functional trampoline out back. We only hope that the place survived. We think it did.

We went to Park City, up the canyon for picnics (and saw a moose!), to sliding rock up north of Alpine, and all sorts of fun places. We spent some good time with Julie’s parents, who seem to be doing well. I got beat handily by my sister in law in racquetball. Of course I played with some friends here in AZ on Tuesday night and got beat handily there as well. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.

I also got reacquainted with office life. There’s so much potential material there for The Office that it’s really quite depressing. But it was good to walk around and pretend to be relevant again. Now I will go back and crawl in my hole as I conquer the world from afar.

On the way back home, we had a nice stop over in Bryce Canyon for a Jenkins family reunion. As per the norm, I was the life of the party. I think. Bryce Canyon is an incredible place. I highly recommend it. There’s nothing like it on earth, I’d imagine. I imagine that because only about 30% of the people there spoke English as their native tongue. So apparently the falling dollar is helping these folks come over here for a song. And speaking of high, I didn’t know that the elevation was so high at Bryce. The resort/hotel place we stayed at must have been about 7800 feet. We drove up to a spot at the south end of the canyon that was 9100 feet! Wow. It was strange to wear a sweater and jeans on Saturday night at the rodeo (I’ll tell you later) and then be melting in the pool Sunday night in AZ.

We have lots of pictures to share, whether you like it or not. We’ll get them organized and shared as soon as we can. Lots happening. Julie is finally looking like she’s pregnant and is just lovely. The girls start school on August 11. So things are a-happening.

More later. Not 30+ days later. Maybe just a few.

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