Blog Wars Episode I: The Phantom Post

Turmoil has engulfed the Vanderpool Republic. The ownership of the outlying parking spaces is in dispute.

Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly tricycles, the greedy RM's have stopped all parking on the small planet of Nielsen.

While the Family Home Evening Council endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the yard, to settle the conflict...

Easter pictures

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Easter

I wanted to wish everyone a happy Easter. We were sad to miss the big family Easter egg hunt. We all talked about running around grandma's yard with all the cousins and having a great lunch. We did miss it. Alan smoked his pork and brisket for Friday. We had neighbors and friends from school and church over. It was perfect. It got up to 91 degrees that day and we were a little worried about the heat but it cooled off beautifully and everyone seemed to have a great time. I am really going to miss our deck and amazing back yard. You just don't get the green sloping hills and all the beautiful trees in Arizona. The trees have all their new leaves and blossoms on them. St. Louis is stunning right now. There are tulips everywhere and everything is that new bright green with white, pink, purple, and fuschia blossoms. I never knew spring could be quite this amazing. Maybe I appreciate it a little more because the cold winter that seemed to last forever is finally over. I hear we had better enjoy this while it lasts because it gets hot and humid very soon.

Yesterday we planned a very last minute Easter egg hunt. We had two other families over from the ward and ate leftovers from Friday night. It turned out great. You really cant' go wrong with good food and hunting for eggs and candy. After Luke found his first egg he was perfectly content to sit on the lawn and explore the candy inside. His total score was two eggs. The other kids all found quite a bit more. It was nice.

This morning we were able to celebrate our Savior with a breakfast on the porch in the early morning. We ate more great food and read from the scriptures and talked of the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was a beautiful morning with birds singing, trees swaying and a cool breeze blowing. I am so grateful for the knowledge of a Savior that loves us and now guides our prophet and our church. I have been reading the New Testament lately in the four gospels and am so grateful for the record that we have of Christ's life and his ministry. I know that he lives today. Mark and I were talking this morning and he said that he would love to go and see the tomb where Jesus was buried. I told him about Jerusalem and how far away it is and how much I would love to go and see it as well and to walk where Jesus walked and feel the spirit of the Holy Land. Isn't it great that we really don't have to go all the way to Jerusalem to feel that though. We talked about the temple and that Jesus walks there today and we can invite that same spirit into our homes when we are doing what is right. Mark is very sensitive to the spirit and always identifies it when he feels it. He said, "I feel good just talking about it mom."

I am done rambling. I am grateful for my family and for the joy that I feel from family, nature, friends, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter Sunday!
Amy

James and Karla Vanderpool Family

Hi!
We are back from Costa Rica where we picked up one very tall, good looking local and tried to turn him back into a gringo. We rented a great car for the trip and got way more than our moneys worth. Costa Rican roads are 1950's vintage in the southern US where they forgot how to fill pot holes. I amazed we didn't blow a tire or four in some of those babies. We did meet and eat with a large variet of saints in their homes. They were gracious and kind and I only got sick for about five of the 9 days we were gone; no stamina like the youngsters. We saw monkeys, cota mondi's, guanas, and a ton of birds in the jungle. Fortunately we missed all the snakes and all the spiders but one very large one on the arm of a couch(not to worry, no one thought it was poisonous). We met a Northe Americano who had been living there for 42 years and was bitten twice in the foot by their most poisonous snake and barely survived. Of course he was running through the jungle bare foot at night chasing a crockadile when he stepped into a den of snakes. Not a real bright thing to do but certainly very macho. His daughter is a world champion boxer so I guess it runs in the family. We met the famous Willy and he was not a disappointment at all. He says the definition of a hippie is "highly intelligent person pursuing infinite enlightment" and I think he finally found it after 30 years pursuing a drunk, Indian, false prophet. You do meet alot of unusual Americans in Costa Rica, but the Ticas (natives) are wonderful. Changes meeting was a real highlight. We sat in the chapel surrounded by the Lord's finest and watched them sing, pray, clap and cry as their Mission President moved them around, opened new areas, promoted them and altogether changed their lives. He was amazing and so were they. After 8 missionaries, that was the first of that kind of a meeting we have ever attended. Thanks Cory for a unforgetable week.
MOM

working hard

Here is the phantom blog from April 8 that disappeared. Sorry everyone. Glad I found it!

If anyone ever asks you "are you working hard or hardly working?" grab them by the throat, squeeze, and ask "are you breathing hard or hardly breathing?"

The house is empty without mom and dad and tara, with the almost unnoticeable exception of Spencer, Rieko, and Taikito, oh and Sabine, oh, and Keshon and Keona. Oh wait, Miguel is still here too. Maybe it is that the house seems really empty because when I come home at 11, everyone is sleeping. Why don't they want to wait up for me? I don't understand it. Anyway, I am glad that Cory is coming home in a week because it will mean that the house isn't quite as empty anymore. We don't have anyone sleeping on top of the wheat bags yet. In all honesty, living at the Vanderpool house is the greatest blessing my family could ask for. I know it gets a little crazy, Mom, but we are VERY, VERY grateful!

Sorry we won't be there to greet Cory when he comes home. It is a very exciting time. I don't know how we are going to convince Mateo that he doesn't have to say "Please bless Uncle Cory and Colin that they can work hard."