National Arboretum
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Big Koi Fish at the National Arboretum
July 4th Concert at the Capitol
Oliver at the water park
Fourth of July 2008
Welcome to our new site
Welcome to our new website! We hope that you enjoy it. This (hopefully) brief post will explain the impetus for this site and introduce you to the structure of our site.
For some time, I have been working on coding a new website. Although I was partially motivated by aesthetics, a more driving force was the need for automated page creation. Creating html image galleries by hand was taking too much of my time. After some investigation, I decided to use an open source content management system, Drupal. The main advantage of such a system is that all of our website structure is stored in relational databases. Consequently, I was able to program all of the repetitive html code to be dynamically generated as I add new content. The punchline? Our site is now much easier to maintain, so you can expect us to add photos, videos, and blog posts much more frequently. (An added advantage is that Kay will now be able to add posts as well!)
While the major changes to our site are structural, and thus remain unseen, you will probably notice that many visual elements of our site have received a major face lift. Perhaps most exciting is that by using open source code, we are now able to feature our videos in flash format, which allows us to use a larger video screen size yet still keep our video file size down. Expect to see additional artistic changes in the coming weeks as Kay works her magic.
On to the site itself . . . There are many new features that we hope you will take advantage of. First, please vote in our frequently changing polls. (You have to vote to see the results, and I know you want to see the results!) Second, we have set up the ability for you to leave comments on our photos, videos, and blogs. We’ll try to respond if you leave a comment, and we’d love it if you respond to other people’s comments. To this end, we have included a link on your navigation bar (left side of the page) that says “Recent Comments”. This will list all of the posts that have had comments on them, sorted by the most recent comment. In addition, under the link you will find a tab that says “My Recent Comments” which shows only the posts that you have commented on. We are hopeful that this will assist you in keeping track of any replies to the comments you make. Finally, we encourage you to check the “personal contact form” setting on your account. (Under “My account”, edit). This will allow users of the site to click on your comments and send you an email. Your actual email address is not revealed, so your privacy is protected.
Please have a look around and let us know if you have any feedback or questions by using the contact tab at the top of the page.
We hope you come back often!
Fun at the Park
Haircut!
Chef Oliver
General Conference Thoughts and Update
After just finishing watching the second session of General Conference on the Internet (a world conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints where members are instructed by Church leaders) I am very grateful for the blessings of technology. It is amazing to sit in my apartment and hear the prophet as he speaks in Salt Lake City. I am grateful that there is a prophet on the earth today, Thomas S. Monson, to lead and direct us. I told Oliver all about prophets as we watched Conference today; he might not know what I am saying right now, but I want him to learn very early how important it is to me to learn what the Lord wants to tell us through the prophet.
Oliver keeps getting cuter every day. He loves to do whatever Mom is doing and he follows her around the house all day long. All of that crawling is hard work; the knees of some of his pants are starting to wear through! He is so excited that he is able to reach new places now, and he spends much of his time exploring what he can get into. Luckily, Dad installed locks on the kitchen cupboards so that Oliver can’t get into too much trouble! Oliver still loves to play at the park and he recently discovered that he loves to go down the slide. He also learned how to climb up the stairs at the park and he is pretty proud of himself!
Kay Lynn continues to do a fantastic job at being a mom and wife. She enjoyed the money she got for her birthday and combined it with money we had saved from Christmas to get new bedroom furniture (well, actually used—but new to us), drapes and bedding. Our redecorated bedroom looks amazing and it finally feels like we are “home” rather than just living out of our suitcases. (Stay tuned for picture updates) Kay is also finishing a large painting of boats (a special request from Jason) to hang in their bedroom. The painting looks amazing and Jason is incredibly excited to hang it up.
Jason is busier than ever at work. A couple of weeks ago his boss pulled him off of the paper he was working on so that he could help her prepare for a briefing in front of the Board of Governors. He was frustrated about that, but it has turned out to be a blessing as he has been able to work closely with an economist on a paper examining the market influence of Sovereign Wealth Funds. The topic is generating a lot of interest both in the academic world and in Congress. Jason and this economist are co-authoring a paper and will submit it to the Journal of Financial Economics sometime this summer. With any luck, it will be accepted!
We love you all! If you haven’t had a chance to see any of our church’s General Conference, check it out (along with other great programming) at http://www.byu.tv/