Family visit with Mom's Friend

Mom's friend was in town so she invited the family over for dinner to meet her. I had given Mom the camera to take some pictures, turns out we never did get a photo with with Mom & her friend...ooops!

Dad's Surgery

Dad's surgery started at 9am this morning. I believe it was finished at around 3pm. They only replaced the 1 valve and decided to do a triple by-pass instead of just the double. Apparently, 1 of the stints he had a couple years back had developed a 50% blockage.

Mom told me that dad had tubes coming out all over the place while recovering in ICU. Everything went very well and I'll be posting some pictures of him later tonight.

We'll keep him in our prayer and hopefully he'll be home this Saturday. I'm just amazed at what doctors are now able to accomplish.

Here is a short video Mom took of Dad's recovery room. All those machine are hooked up to him...Amazing!

Amanda's College Graduation

We are all so proud of Amanda's accomplishment of finishing her Associates Degree at the same time she has finished High School. Wow! Way to go Amanda!

1-800-goog-411

Hi All,

I just wanted to make sure everyone knew about Google's new free 411 information line. 411 calls are really expensive right now, but now they can be free!

Just dial 1-800-goog-411. Say the city and state and name of the business you're looking for and the computer will either connect you or give you the number and address. (It will be your choice)

So next time you're going to reach for the yellow pages or search the internet, just pick up the phone and give it a try...it has worked flawlessly for me.

-Bryan

PS...currently, you are not able to search for households with this number....yet.

Mom's Trip to Virgina

OK, get ready for a lot a grave sites! Mom will have to give a bit more information about the photos. I do know that the picture you'll see where a older man is standing by a grave is the story Mom told us at Madison's baptism where they were able to find her Great Uncles grave.

Madison's Baptism

Easter 2007

I think everyone had a great time. The weather was perfect and the $78.00 ham Kate gave us was delicious! Thank you Katie!

(Video of Mom handing out the money after the Easter egg hunt)

Mikaela's Baptism Photos

As always, you can find larger photos to save/download on the Flickr website: www.flickr.com/photos/bryanpetersen

How to insert a Slide Show

Hello All,

I've had some questions about how to post pictures and make slide shows. So I thought I'd do a quick tutorial for anyone interested.

First, you can get a free Flickr account at www.flickr.com. I use this site to upload all my pictures that I want to share. Once your pictures are uploaded, you will need to organize them into a "set". Each set you create will have a unique number assigned to it. When you click on the set, in the address bar you will be able to see the number at the end of the address. Here is an example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanpetersen/sets/72157594438469531/

Here the unique # is 72157594438469531

Once you have this #, you can head on over to the "flickr slide show generator", which is found on this site:

http://fabiocavassini.com.ar/SlideShowGenerator.html

There are 4 different options to insert information, however, for today we are only interested in the "set id" option. So in that field I enter the #72157594438469531. Once I have done this, I can hit the "Generate" button. Now you should be able to see a preview of the slide show you want to post in the blog. Also, you'll now notice that below the Generate button is HTML code that has been generated from the # you entered.

Now, the rest is easy...Just copy the HTML code you just generated and log into our Blogger site and start a new blog. You'll notice at the top of the box where you type in your text, there are two tabs. ("Edit Html" & "Compose") You need to make sure you are in the "Edit Html" tab before you paste the copied HTML code into the blog. You may want to do all your writing in the "Compose" tab, then switch over to the "Edit Html" tab to insert your slide show. That way you have more control over your font and text size. Once you paste in the HTML code, the system doesn't like you to switch back the "Compose" tab and usually kicks you all the way out.

So now, after these few steps, you should be able to share a slide show of any pictures you'd like. Here is what my example shows:

-Bryan

Mikaela's Baptism

Mikaela's Baptism!!
We are looking forward to Mikeala getting baptized on March 24th at 10:30! She is buzzing around with excitement and inviting everyone that she comes in contact with. Jesse has been practicing hard for his part in the play Macbeth. His performance will be April 11th at 9:00. Break a leg Jess!!! Bart is nowhere to be seen lately and probally won't be for the next 4 months. Two words BASEBALL SEASON!!!!

Elder Fleuranvil (Alex's companion), Kodi and Ariel Anderson (a brother and sister) at their baptism with Alex 2/11/2007.



These are the "Hardworking Nice Guys". Hey, they speak the truth!

Picture taken on 2/7/2007.

Alex is still at the same address for all those who would like to write, he would love to hear from you. He did want us to inform everyone that he can only write to his parents weekly and 1 friend per month. So we will post some of his letters on this site from time to time. Please give him your support and write... 10215 Lundeen Pkwy B5

Lake Stevens, WA. 98258.

Trip to Virginia

Hello Everyone,

Just a note to let everyone know that I am really getting excited for my trip to Virginia. Lillie and I will be leaving on April 24th and will be back home on May 1st. We are going to attend our class renunion on April 28. For the rest of the time we are going to do a lot of research on the Lilley line. I am not sure how Dad and Bryan and Sadee are going to do without me, but I guess they will have to manage. Anyway, I have had a great day. I went to the Family History Library and was very busy looking up stuff. It is really fun. Love you all. Until next time - - - Mom

Lori's Family Pictures

OK, I really just wanted to see if I could get a slide show to show up here on the Blog....Most of you have probably already seen these...

-Bry

Alex's Mission Photos

Here are some of Alex's Mission Photos. Sandy writes, "Alex did not give any messages with these photos. but he is loving the mission. Lately the allergies are bothering him, but he has a great attitude about it. Looks like he has a lot of fun too!

Lori's Moving Day

This move today goes down in Petersen history as the fastest move...I believe...EVER! Lynette, Bart, Jesse, Mikaela, Taylor, Craig, Chris, Bradley, Katie, Lori, Madison and myself all met at Lori's at about 10:30 this morning. Lori, apparently very anxious to get into her new townhouse, had already loaded her truck up twice and made the drive back and forth to her new place!

We had completely loaded and unloaded just about everything by 1:30pm. Lori will still have a lot of unpacking to do, and will still need to gather up some final "stuff" at the house. However, the vast majority is done and the furniture and appliances have found their new place in Lori's beautiful new home. Take a look for yourself, it a great little townhouse!



On a final note, I got rid of my phone service...so my new # is 801-938-6523, which is an unlimited Skype account eBay purchased for me. I still need to get a VoIP phone, so I can answer my calls, however for now it will be used kind of like a pager. Once I get the phone hooked up, I'll have to give you a call so you can hear the clarity...you just might want to get rid of your current phone system and switch over to Skype...especially when you see that it only costs a fraction of the cost of landlines and there is pretty much free long distance! http://www.skype.com/

WipeDrive...Reformatting your Hard Drive

Mom and Dad's computer has been getting very slowing over the past couple of years, and Mom was getting to the point where she just wanted to throw it out the window! Mine too was getting pretty slow and buggy, so I looked into reformatting the hard drives.

I had always been really timid about taking on such a task, however, after reading up about it...it really isn't that hard to do.

I found a program called WipeDrive. For $39.95, you get a disk that you place into your computer and then turn it on. It will take you to a screen where you can choose to completely wipe your hard drive clean...it's recommended you wipe it a couple of times, especially if you've had some viruses.

You first need to insure that any information, such as pictures and documents, are backed up to a disk...once you wipe the disk, they're gone and unless you have a "clean room" and special hard drive mirroring equipment, your not going to get any of it back. (The program claims that it wipes a disk to Pentagon standards, however, Craig tells me short of taking a blow torch to your drive, there is still a possibility of extracting what was written on it, however for our purposes, this will suffice to get all the information off the drive)

After the "wipe" is complete, you insert your computers back up disk(s) (They came with your computer) and once again turn on your computer. Your computer will now be restored to it original settings and program list, just like it was when you first bought it.

We were amazed at how fast our computers are now, and they are completely bug free...This was well worth the time and money spent...just like getting a new computer!

Here is the link to the website for WipeDrive:

http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase-hard-drive.php