John and Jenilyn Simpson

Jenilyn and I are guest characters on this weeks Simpsons.

We're Moving

We got ready to walk up to the July 4th parade last wednesday and found our car had been hit in the middle of the night by some drunk, blind or lazy driver who forgot to leave us his name and insurance information. The insurance company kindly totalled our car and we were getting over the fact that we had a nice large deductible.

So we had been talking about getting a new vehicle anyway and since we were going to be traveling to Idaho we decided to get ourselves a minivan (I know your jealous but try to keep it in perspective). We had a fun trip and enjoyed our new roomy transportation.

As we were pulling up from our long drive home we noticed our car halfway on our lawn and a large crater (similar to the ones we had seen in yellowstone) imbeded with red paint on the driver's side. It seemed our drunk, blind or lazy friend had begun to establish a routine for himself. Our neighbors all gathered around to tell us their stories of what they did or didn't hear or see. No good leads. So we tried calling the officer who had taken a report while we were gone but could not get ahold of him, apparently he was busy breaking up a knife fight down the street. So we decided to pull up a chair and watch the many police cars, flashing lights, officers with guns pulled hiding behind trees, and "last warnings" to the guy who was hiding in the ally behind our house who, by the way, was still armed with a knife. It's amazing how flashing lights and megaphones announcing to "stay in your houses with the doors locked" attract the more unfortunate side of our neighborhood, I suppose they wanted to make sure it wasn't their brother who needed help escaping from the police. Anyway it made for an exciting evening.
The next morning John noticed the trail of radiatior fluid left behind from our drunk, blind or lazy friend and decided to follow it while riding his bike. He followed it down the street, up and over a couple of blocks and ending in a drive way with a red car hiding behind a house just a few blocks down on our same street. He decided not to approach the car himself so he called the police again and the so far very helpful officer went to take a look himself, concluding that he could not enter the property to find out if it was the car in question without a warrant, which he would probably never obtain.
So despite our entertaining neighborhood we have decided to move.

Van Clan

July 10-14
This year for Van Clan we stayed in a cabin at Island Park, visited Yellowstone, got caught in a rain storm, played at the reservoir, participated in Van Clan Olympics (but sorely lost) and became more familiar with bears, buffalo and elk.


We had a little fun on the lake catching crawdads, getting sunburnt, and swimming in the green "alergy" water


We hiked down a slippery steep trail with a stroller (scary) to get a good view of Yellowstone Falls, so beautiful.

Alyssa caught a butterfly at the paint pots


Despite our busy schedule we still found time to relax and of course roast marshmallows on the gas BBQ

Blessing

July 8
We blessed Wes last sunday at home and had a party with our family afterwards. Wes had fun playing on his special blessing blanket from Rose.