I think spring is coming. Some days it does not feel like it so much. I was surprised by a bit of rain this morning. It was really quite light. At first I thought I was getting a mist from the water sprinklers but realized that they were running on the wrong part of the yard to drift onto the driveway.

The flowers are coming and the grass is starting to green up. And the front porch is beginning to look inviting even if the temperatures have been a bit too cool to sit out there yet. It will not be many days now and we will be sitting on the porch and enjoying the weather.

Ground Breaking Photos

The ground was broken for the new church building in Zillah on Friday April 10, 2009. I was asked to give a bit of history of the church in the area and of the Zillah Ward. The Zillah Ward was organized in August of 1992 and has been meeting in the Toppenish building since the ward was organized. The construction of the buidling will take about one year to complete. I was asked to pose in pictures with about four different groups breaking ground. One with the "diginitaries", one with the current bishopric, one with our family and one with former and current bishops and stake presidentcy members past and present. After the ceremony the activities committee served muffins, cookies, and hot chocolate.

Article about the church groundbreaking

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/04/10/zillah-ward-breaks-ground-for-first-lds-church-in-town


This is an article in the Yakima paper.

Spring Break

We went to Provo, Salt Lake, Preston, Rexburg and Idaho Falls for spring break. Next time some one suggests spring break we should find some place warmer. We did enjoy the experience just the same. There was a time or two though that we wished we had the four wheel drive instead of the van.

Check this out

Have any of you tried Del Monte Fruit Chillers? They come in a plastic cup and you freeze them overnight and then have a good fruity frozen dessert. Well, now they have something new it is a Del Monte Fruit Chiller tube. Here is a website that Mom's and Grandma's can check out.
www.delmontefruitchillers.com If you want to see some advertising of this item it will be on the Nickleodean Kids choice awards on March 30.

California Part II

Now that I have had a little bit of time to get back into normal things I thought I would talk a little bit about my California trip. The purpose of the trip was to take a class in Lean Maufacturing to start on the path to Bronze Certification. Our instructors were from Incito Consulting Group. http://www.incitoconsultants.com/ Most of their experience was from the auto manufacturing industry which is a bit different from food manufacturing but the overall concepts are the same.

We had three days of really intensive training which also included some mock manufacturing situations. At the end of the three days was a test.

Each night after class we had the chance to visit some of the restaurants in Visalia for dinner. I think I have eaten enough meat to last for a few days. We ate at a steak house called the Double LL a couple of times. They are known for their generous servings. Another night we ate at a Brazilian Charrasco restaurant. All of their meat is cooked on a spit and carved right onto your plate. It is all you can eat...imagine that. Oh and by the way they did have guarana which of course I ordered. http://www.guaranaantarctica.eu/about.htm

We got home about a quarter to one on Saturday morning--we traveled from Fresno to Sea-tac to Yakima on Horizon Air.

Home

I am home from a week of training in California. It was pretty intense, especially the three hour test at the end of the week. Glad I am not in school every day. One thing about it though is we got plenty to eat.