Winter Wonderland

Well, I am all settled into our new home here in New York. I am getting our new house set up today and hopefully Nicole and the kids will be out here with me soon. The weather is pretty cold and PT in the mornings is chilly. But, I love it. I am going to start back on the blog again now that I am no longer in class every day. I'll get a post on here soon with the kids and their Halloween costumes. Happy Halloween!!

California Love

I returned home after a three day trip out to Sacramento. I have to say that I had an awesome time. The highlight of my trip was going on my CHP ride-along. I am still on an adrenaline high from it.

My saturday started out with me going out to American River College for the CHP written exam. The exam took place in the cafeteria an I have to say that there was a pretty large turn out. One of the proctors told me that over 800 applicants tested on Saturday both at ARC and another location. Despite that large turn out I am very optimistic about getting accepted.

As soon as I was done with the test I called Gary a CHP officer in the area to tell him I was done and to arrange a meeting soo I could ride along with him. I was introduced to Gary by my brother-in-law Sam (Thanks Sam.), and we quickly met up and took off. I'm not going to go into very many specifics about the events of the evening. I was very impressed by how busy all of the officers were the drunkies definately did a good job of keeping them busy.

To illustrate how fun this was imagine this: We get onto I-5 and pretty quickly Gary starts pacing behind a white Ford Mustang and quickly gauges the guys speed at 85mph (the limit is 65) as Gary starts to catch up to the Mustang and right before he puts on his lights, a Crappy Old Camaro passes us on the right and cuts us off. We are travelling at least 90mph in what is conspicuously a cop car and this didn't even see us. Gary immediately got on this guy and pulled him over, the conversation with this 18-year kid and Gary was pure gold. Gary's first question for the kid was to ask when that last time it was that he got his eyes checked because this kid had to be either blind or stupid not to see the cop car that he had passed.

The whole night was filled with fun times, Gary was a great guy and made the whole experience both insightful and enjoyable. I am more excited now by the prospect that I might be doing the same work myself if everything works out well. I'll complete the remainder of the testing battery soon.

I'll leave with a warning to anybody who might find themselves on I-5 on a Saturday evening, doublecheck that blind spot when you are making a lane change because apparantly those Chippies are dang hard to see.

It's snow fun

We've got some more snow recently. The kids are loving it. We have played, made snow angels and had some snowball fights. It has been difficult to make a decent snowman though because the snow is too powdery and doesn't stick together very well.

I'm glad that Alex and Zack are enjoying it, because I hate it. They don't have to excavate their car to get to work in the morning and shovel the driveway and sidewalk. I have realized now at my cynical age that snow is a liar. It looks white and clean and fun, but actually it's grey, dirty and a pain in the butt. However, I do get a kick out of watching the little ones play for hours until their little fingers tingle with frostbite and they have snot-cicles hanging from their noses. I guess their childhood innocence must be the reason why they are naive to the truth about snow.

I have attached a pic of Jennica that I took after she dozed off in the middle of playing in her walker. All I can say about this picture besides it's obvious cuteness is, why can't I crash and take a nap in the middle of the day as easily as this kid? It obviously takes talent. I admit to being a lazy man at heart, but I have not been able to dedicate nearly as much time as I wish to this pastime and as a result I lack the technique to pull off the kind of maneuver that Jennica has so easily mastered. All I can do is salute her and say, "That's my Girl!"

Captains Log

Welcome to the Pence family's new blog. We are kicking off 2008 by crossing over into a new realm of nerdiness. I thought that I would start off by explaining why I think that Original Star Trek is better than Next Generation. Just Kiddin', actually, I thought that this would be a great way to keep in touch with all of our friends and family across the country. We have so many people that we would love to visit with. But, since it's been so hard to keep in touch with everybody scattered in each direction, we would love to have you come and visit us here on our blog. I really hope that we can get some comments and posts back so our future posts can be geared toward what you want to hear about from the Pences.I will be adding pictures and slideshows of the kids hopefully by this weekend. I'm just going to keep this initial entry brief, it took me a little while to get this puppy started up. As for now, Live long and prosper...