thisis a test of the emergency broacast system. This is only a test. should this have been an actual emergency, you would have been given instructions. I repeat, this is only a test, it is not a tornado, or an earthquack, or a terrorist attack, or a flood, or a mudslide, neither has the economy collapsed. blah blah blah blah blah. yakkity, schmakity. is this thing on?!??!?1?!

It's been good to be back in Utah. Emily is back working in the office. I can tell I'm not the only one that thinks she's pretty special, because she was met with a large "Welcome Back" sign and decorations everywhere in her office. When I got back to my old job, all I got was a couple people asking "where did you go again?" I'm happy and excited to be back working again though. I've been placed on the coveted BYU Broadcasting (KBYU) audit. It's been really fun, and I've learned a lot.

We've been living at my parents house for a few weeks now, and it's been fun but we are both anxious to get our own place. We get free food, dishnetwork, internet service, use of washer and dryer, and use of the theater room. On the other hand, most of our stuff is still in boxes, cluttering up our room, and the rest is in storage. This includes all our wedding gifts that we still haven't opened and used. We love always being around family but, it just doesn't quite feel like we are our own family unit/module/entity here.

Searching for a place to live sounded kinda fun at first, but it really sucks. We searched for weeks before we found somewhere acceptable. Does anybody else out there hate looking for apartments? Seriously, I'd rather slit my wrists and do one-handed pushups in salt water with a fifty pound rock strapped to my back with barbed wire! It's impossible to find something within a reasonable price that doesn't require a significant compromise.

Our favorite one (sarcastic) was in the basment of a single middle-aged man's house. We were attracted by the fact that he was going to let us use some space in his backyard for our own garden. As we took the tour, one of his multiple cats followed us around. We were surpised to discover the place had no oven and no dishwasher. He said we could use the washer and dryer which was located in our living quarters in the basement, but he would come down occasionaly to do his own laundry as well as to use his office. We politely declined the apartment.

We finally settled on a place in south Orem - almost in Provo. We can't move in until May 7th but we feel less out of place having a place locked in place if you know what I mean.

-Daniel for the Gerows

P.S. Sorry no super cute, awwwwwww, melt-your-heart baby photos. I posted no photos at all in protest. (Just kidding we love baby pictures! We don't have any new pictures to post, so I had to come up with something!)

Happy January...er, I mean April

This was the scene outside of our bedroom window this morning. Understandably I thought I was in a time-warp and it was January again.

It is beautiful though isn't it?

The poor little blossoms looks so cold and smooshed under all that heavy snow!

Let's Go Fly A Kite

The first Saturday we were back from Texas was the Annual Gerow Family Kite Fly. Every year the Gerow family gets together at Uncle Orville's farm in Goshen, Utah (basically the middle of nowhere), to fly kites and have a potluck bbq lunch.

I'd never flown a kite before so I was really excited about it. It was a perfect day to fly too; the sun was shining and the wind was a blowin.

Daniel and I decided to share a kite, so we took turns letting her go. We had a hard time of it at first becuase we forgot to let out the tail :) But once we figured that part out, she just kept going up, up, up and away.

We let out all of the string she came with, then tied on an extra spool. When we let all of that one out, when tied on a third spool. When the third spool was all let out, we tied on a fourth! The kite was so high that if you looked away at all, it was really hard to locate the faint red speck in the big blue sky again.

When we decided to tie the string onto a wind-up contraption so it would be easier to pull the kite in, apparently the knot wasn't tight enough because as soon as we let go the kite got away!

Well, we had fun while it lasted and felt proud that we got our kite to go the very highest.

Here are some pictures of the family:




Dad, Mom, Michael, Grandma, Daniel, Emily, Matthew sporting our kerchiefs.

Daniel on the horse. I'm not sure what he's doing.

Matthew vs. Kite

Mom and Dad watching Michael fly.

Dad, Michael and Matthew putting the kites together.

April Fool's

So, I'm not really one for April Fool's Day. I don't like people playing jokes on me, and I'm usually too lazy to think of a joke to play on someone else. But this year I participated and it was a huge success.

Mom Gerow's birthday is April 1st. So Daniel and I decided to play a joke on her. After we went to dinner, she opened presents. Daniel and I saved ours for last. When she opened the card, this is what she saw:At first she was surprised at the fact that it wasn't a monkey card (they have a tradition in their family that everyone gets a "monkey" card for their birthday). She was like, "oh what a cute bear." Then she started reading the card, sort of out loud but mostly to herself. When she got to the word grandma she stopped, looked confused, then with wide-eyes turned to us and started jumping up and down, squealing with excitement. "Really?! Oh yeah!! Yeah! Yeah!"

Then Daniel shouted April Fool's! It's a good thing he took the initiative to do so because I was laughing too hard. We really wish we would have gotten it on tape. It was a perfect April Fool's.