tomato tragedy

take a look at this tomato plant. besides looking rather thirsty, what do you notice? is anything wrong with this picture?



of COURSE theres something wrong! there should be tomatoes on this tomato plant! if you refer to the previous post there is a picture which is perfectly suitable proof that this tomato plant should, in fact, be bending over with the weight of many juicy delicious roma tomatoes for katie to munch upon.

but no. katie's dream of tomatoes on toast has taken a tragic turn. i witnessed, first hand, a shady looking character purloining an unripe tomato from said tomato plant. the character has a grey complex, shifty eyes, short and lean build, and has a bushy tail. the following day, i found two green tomato carcasses on my deck. one carcass wasn't even a roma tomato. my deck had become the dumping place for this criminal's underhanded deeds! i promptly plucked any somewhat orange tomatoes off of the bush to ripen in the safe walls of my kitchen, only to find the following day that ALL of the remaining tomatoes had vanished. small, green, rotten,... this guy wiped it clean. therefore,...no tomatoes for katie.

any well-wishers may send tomatoes to katie at her home address. she promises to eat them promptly before anyone else can steal them.

silly in philly

happy summer to everyone!

my summer is about to get a bit better. i've been taking two graduate classes (to keep my certification up) through my school and today was the last day. hoorah! i just have to finish my two final projects and send them off. it was a lot to cram into two weeks, but we did have fun. one day we got to go to the zoo, and there were plenty of fun presentations. today we all made salt play-dough fishes and labeled the parts. if i may say so... my fish looked goooooood. i think i should change my profession to official salt play-dough sculptor of philadelphia.

glen continues to work hard as a dog, and look handsome as ever. he only has two more weeks and then its party central around here.

we got a fancy camera a few weeks ago, and we are having a blast with it. here are some of our favorite pictures.

glen is faster than a speeding train.


a wall at a local park


cute tomatoes from my tomato plant

Tired Roanokers

Hello fam! This will be a short post because we're sick of blogging. We just finished two long posts on the Jon and Alex Report. So check it out. But we wanted to post a few pictures especially for you all. For Dave (or Laurie), there is no difference between a DMD and a DDS. DMD stands for Doctor of Medical Dentistry and DDS stands for Doctor of Dental Science. They just give DMDs to the really good looking doctors. Alex constantly feels bad for the people who are DDS. Doesn't a DMD just sound better? Actually, each school chooses which degree they give. LTD stands for his limited corporation status. Doesn't it sound cool to be a corporation? Someday Jon could be his own corporation with Alex as an employee (among hygienists and assistants). It's primarily for tax and lawsuit considerations.

Uncle Dave, Aunt Jean, Elijah, Aubrey, Jonathan and Bruce

(that's the dog, not his chest hair).

Jon thinks Peter and Chrissy should get a vanity plate that says "2CHOOKS."

For Jon

Congratulations, Jon! The sign is COOL, although, it does make me realize one thing: I don't think you have what it takes to be a real dentist--specifically, a weird name. What is it with dentists and weird names. I see both "Roach" and "Dudley" up there. Jonathan Lubeck just sounds far too normal. Sorry. Maybe you can get it legally changed, or have a pen name (or I guess that would be an "Explorer" name??). Actually, a normal name will probably be an advantage for anyone doing a phone book search for a dentist :)

I also have a question for you--what is the difference between a "DDS" and a "DMD"? And is the "LTD" "Limited"? What is he limited to? No, I'm not making fun, I honestly don't know...

Anyway, congratulations! That's really cool to have your name up there and even cooler for what it means!

Sick little girl

Carol was sick this week. There are many more details than this, but I wanted to praise Laurie for her fabulous mothering skills. In order to get Carol to drink more, I got her a Jamba Juice. She loved it and whilst sitting on my lap, drank it really quickly. Then she started crying and reaching for mommy. I handed her over and then all of a sudden Laurie was covered in the juice that Carol had just drunk. Lucky for me, not so lucky for mommy. After getting her all cleaned up (this was all mommy--daddy was starting to feel ill at this point and was afraid to exacerbate the problem), we decided we'd take her to the doctor since she also had a fever of 102. We got to the doctor's office and the nurse wanted to weigh Carol. Here's my 1 moment of genius--I suggested that if we could put Carol's blanket on the scale, 0 the scale out and then set her on the blanket, she may tolerate it better. It worked. I'm smart. That's the end of my story, but Laurie has more. We got into the little office and then the nurse wanted to take Carol's pulse and oxygen levels, so she had to "tape" (it's a tape that only sticks to itself; very cool stuff) this little device onto Carol's foot. As she was doing it, she said, "... and she'll hate it, all babies do..." And she was right--Carol didn't seem to like the idea much, but then Laurie said, "Oh, look! A SHOE!" All of a sudden the tape was a GOOD thing, in fact, she wanted another one on the other foot. The nurse obliged. For the rest of the evening, even after we got home, Carol kept talking about her new shoes. They were COOL! The nurse was very impressed and even the Dr. mentioned that she had never seen any kid actually LIKE the oxygen sensor thingy taped on to their foot. Laurie is SMART!

By the way, Caorl is much better now, but Laurie has a fever and a sore throat, so we'll be praying for her speedy recovery for the next couple of days. I'll be taking tomorrow (Monday) off to help out and to take Carol to the zoo first thing in the morning when the tiger should be the most active. Hopefully I'll escape the sickness and hopefully the tiger will be frisky...

Blogs

Hi everyone! Sorry for the instructions that I think were sent to everyone. I was just trying to get Jon set up on the new version of the blogger. Yes, it's true. He never switched himself so I am doing it for him. By the way, we also set up a blog for the two of us. We'll still keep posting here but on the other one as well for friends and family. Our other blog is jonandalexlubeck.blogspot.com. In case you don't get to make it over there, check out this picture of Jon in front of his new sign!

An old riddle

30 white horses on a red hill.
First they champ
then they stamp
then they stand still...


ANSWER:
(Jon probably knows this one)




TEETH (without braces, mind you)

Birthday Boy

We had fun celebrating Jon's birthday on Monday night with Peter, Chrissy, Ivy and Rex. It's a good thing that Jon had two good helpers to open his presents because he had so many. Here are the pictures we got before the camera died. Whenever we start taking pictures, Rex loves to walk up to the camera. We have several shots like the second one here. Which reminds me, we've uploaded most of our pictures to our shutterfly account. It's jonandalexlubeck.shutterfly.com and the password is roanoke.

A mostly free flight

Click here for details

Just for YOU

Please click on your name (then try one from each of the other groups):


Jon
Glen
Grant

Michael
Alex
Katie

Karen
Peter
Chrissy


Like it? Go to this site for more details

Blue Couch Bluegrass

A bit of musicality for the webpage. This was about their second time going through the song. Katie thinks she messed up but I think it sounds great. The song is called "The wind that shakes the barley."

cool cats and a hot dog

boy did we have a fun weekend. jon and alex came up late friday night, and we partied hardy all the way to early tuesday morning. we hit the King Tut exhibit, we sampled the deliciousness of Rita's Italian Ice, ate some good ol' barbeque, had a cook out, and enjoyed lots of good company.
i am now officially hooked on Rita's.

It's a Boy!

It's true. We're having a boy! We had our big ultrasound this morning and found out that it's a boy and that everything looks good. We are so excited! Now we're really going to have to learn self-control when we go to the cute baby stores.

Love you all!

I miss you guys.

I have been thinking lately what fun it would be to play with all of you. As that is unlikely, I'll just have to tell you more Carol stories and read your stories over again and be satisfied.

Carol is very thoughtful at times. Sometimes when she is rubbing her My Little Pony's tail under her nose it will occur to her that Mommy would probably like to experience the soft fuzziness of the tail herself, so Carol will start rubbing the tail under Mommy's nose. :) She is also starting to say Thank You a lot more, which is so cute. If I hand her something or pick up something she dropped she will very politely say, "Do do." (Thank you.) We also bought a little potty seat for Carol. She thinks it is great fun. One of the tips that came with the seat was to let your little one sit on the seat fully clothed for the first week until they get used to it. All day long she will sign "potty" and insist on being placed on the seat. If you are too busy, you won't be for long because Carol won't let you forget what she wants. Carol also says "Uh oh" with the high pitched inflection on the first syllable. And when she says No she never says it in a commanding way. She always says it like its a question. "No?" We've figured out that its because that is how she usually hears it. "Do you want a banana? . . . No? Do you want some bread? . . . No?" Ba means bread, blanket, book, banana, etc. She adores Sesame Street videos. We get new ones from the library each week. They have a little wooden train toy that the little kids can climb into and rock on. Carol is nuts about trains now since Mandy's backyard touches the train tracks. Every time we're there a train or two goes by and Carol wants to be right at the fence and she keeps saying, "Choo choo!" So every time we go to the library we spend about half the time on this little train. Horses are still her favorite, though. She's always got at least one clenched in her little fist. She loves nursery, too. I'm glad. It is good to go to class again!

Love you all!
Laurie

A Day in the Life ...

Well, we're jealous that we haven't been anywhere exotic recently. So we broke out the photoshop to pretend we live exciting lives.

A Week in Paradise

Here we are, back in Roanoke. We miss our sunny skies and warm weather. The cold and rain isn't going to help us keep our Carribean tans (ok, part tan, part sunburn) for very long. Still, it was fun to come back and see Ivy's cute new haircut and hear Rex's new found growling talents.

We got there all safe and sound last Saturday and relished the convenience of travelling from the Roanoke airport. First thing upon arrival was exploration. We walked to nearest beach and checked out the local shops, including a little grocery store that we visited several times. And the most important thing we learned from our initial exploration was that we needed a car. That evening, we went to a delightful French restaurant near our condo.

We were able to get a car on Sunday morning and the nice car rental man, "Winston Churchill" escorted us to church, which we never would have been able to find without him. We thoroughly enjoyed church with the branch there, several members of which are attending med school on the island. Though few in number, the members in the branch were very kind and the Spirit was very strong. Sunday afternoon we went on further explorations of the island in our car and drove the loop around the island, passing through French and Dutch sides.

We started Monday in true tourist fashion; going to Mullet Bay Beach and getting a sunburn. We also went to a larger grocery store and stocked up on food and snacks for the week.

On Tuesday we went on a grand adventure. We went on a group trip to a small, uninhabited island about an hour away by boat for a snorkeling excursion. The boat we took was a large catamaran with about 40 other people on it. We pulled up to the inlet and went snorkeling right off the boat, while the crew took our bags to the beach. Jon had a slight crisis with sunblock in his eyes but then he and Alex had tons of fun seeing lots of tropical fish underwater. Alex knew that Jon would just love snorkeling! Alex was scared of touching the fish but she held Jon's hand. She lasted longer snorkeling with Jon than she had before. After snorkeling, the crew of the boat served us a sumptuous lunch of barbecue. We then relaxed on the beach for a bit before heading back to St. Maarten.

Wednesday's adventures took us to the Lotiere Farm, an eco-adventure park on one of the highest mountains of the island. We declined doing the zipline adventure course and chose to hike the property instead. What we really wanted to go the park for was the food. And it proved to be just as good as the tour book said it was; we also dug the fresh fruit smoothies. Jonathan had a pork-stuffed banana leaf and Alex had the chef's famous spinash curry chicken. After our bellies could hold no more, we drove on a crazy, one lane busted up road to the highest point on the mountain. Luckily we survived making it up and back down the mountain. After a late siesta, we returned to Mullet Bay for sunset.

We went to the capital of the Dutch side, Phillipsburg, on Thursday morning. We hunted the myriad of shops looking for treasures. But since we were not in the market for duty-free jewelry, electronics, or alcohol the only treasure we found was an ice cream shop that served delicious crepes. We actually made two separate trips to the ice cream shop (one for each of us) on the same day. Thursday afternoon, we returned once again to Mullet Bay Beach.

Friday morning, we caught a ferry on the oppposite side of the island (the French side) to Ilet Pinel. Ilet Pinel was another small, uninhabited island but this one was only a five minute boat ride. The sand was white, the water was blue and the umbrellas were yellow. The water was shallow, Jonathan waded a hundred yards out from the beach and the water never got higher than his chest. Once again, our nose for adventure (our taste buds) led us to lobster salad and a goat cheese hamburger served to us in a little grass hut. When we weren't wading in the water, we were relaxing on the beach and reading underneath our yellow umbrella. We took one of the last ferries back.

After checking out of our hotel on Saturday morning, we decided to go on one last adventure to Marigot, the capital on the French side of the island. Jon was a litte scared to go there because driving there is absolutely insane, lots of little roads and crazy drivers. But we were well rewarded with a parking spot and a good time. The shops in Marigot were a bit more fun than those in Phillipsburg. We also happened upon a sidewalk sale that was fun to wander around. Can you guess what our success of the morning was? It has to do with food. The most inspiring culinary experience of the week took place at a French patisserie. Unfortunately, only Alex was hungry and could fully enjoy the fruits of the cafe. Still, the few bites Jonathan enjoyed have him baking baguettes as we type and adding baking supplies to his birthday list.

The trip home went pretty smoothly, despite our bags not making it to Roanoke with us. As much as we miss the fun in the sun, it is always good to be back home. With our bags, which made their way home today. The only thing that could have made this vacation any better would have been the presence of any one of you.

As you have already seen, we have included a few select photographs for your viewing pleasure. In case you want to see all 91 photos (or more than 4), you can go to jonandalexlubeck.shutterfly.com and enter the password "roanoke".

Love to you all,

Jon and Alex

We're back!

We're finally back! We had problems with the new sign in. But hopefully it works now. I had a doctor's appointment this week and everything seems to be going well. I had an ultrasound and everything looked good. I also got to hear the heartbeat! Hooray!

We're also super excited to be leaving for our tropical vacation on Saturday. We'll post again next weekend after we get back!

Love to everyone,
Alex

Dandy.

Well, our big news is that Carol folds her arms during prayers now. She will sometimes stop in the middle of the prayer and start to play, but when she hears us say, "In the name of . . . ." she hastily folds her arms again and looks at us proudly- awaiting our cheers and applause. She has also begun a hitting phase. But she always kisses me after she hits me. And I get another kiss after she gets out of time-out for hitting me. David manages to get away without hits somehow. She is crazy about going outside but she's out of luck the last couple of days because the temperature has plummeted. We had such glorious spring weather but it snowed yesterday. Yuk. The nice weather is supposed to return soon, and thank goodness. It's been intolerable for both Carol and me. We have to get our wiggles out!

Our garden planning has begun! I love the spring. I'm going crazy with perennials. I know they won't bloom this year, but I have big hopes for next year.

Love you all muchas!
Laurie

1-2-3 testing

We're checking to see if our post will work.

the moolah

hello dear family! we had a fine but slightly disappointing weekend. we WERE going to head up to New York this past weekend. Unfortunately snow hit new york and ice hit philadelphia. too bad. but we did end up getting some good work done this weekend and then had dinner with our friends the Troutman's. Glen is in the midst of a heavy semester, and I'm working on a baby quilt for my friend Emma at school- so we kept busy.

today i started teaching two girls from my school piano lessons. One girl was in my kindergarten class last year, and the other girl was in the other kindergarten class. Both very sweet girls with very nice families. It is so fun! And its so funny to be paid in cash. I haven't separated tithing into a little bank since I was a kid. I think I'm going to steal my chip the chipmunk (peanut butter) bank back from grant.

tons of love coming your way!

Dela-where?

Glen honestly didn't know it could snow on a beach.


Cold.


We got a beach hobo to take this pic. Seriously.


Cape Henlopen State Park.


Glen took the sandpiper bird infestation into his own hands.

Highland Mills Bobsled Team

Grant hits the slopes ...



(Sorry, our camera can't really handle shooting right into the sun)

a lack of irresponsibiluty

We interviewed several people at work but will only be hiring one, which of course means that several will not get the job. One of the candidates that we decided to pass on wrote us this response after we told him that we had decided to hire someone else. Enjoy :)

* Names, email addresses and titles have been removed. Any portion of a sentence inside [square brackets] has been edited for anonymity.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: RE: Employment opportunity

I must tell you that I'm quite upset by this decision. I have in front of me a letter from Salt Lake Community College's Student Employment Services from your company stating "Student Employment Services has received a request from [your company]. In as much as you have previously been given information about their employment opportunity, they asked that we contact you. They are interested in having you contact them regarding the position if you are still interested." So this is what I did. I went to the college, discussed this letter with them, and than contacted you for an interview. I faithfully waited around for two weeks for the call from you, because I sincerly wanted the job, and made no attempt to apply elsewhere because I wanted to stay loyal because I really wanted the job, and thought my chances of being hired were great. But instead I got misled that I had hopes of getting the job, and instead was turned down for reasons that I'm unaware, and feel that the long delay is a lack of irresponsibiluty and professionalism. And have no desire to work for a company that is uncordinated in its hiring techniques. If your company was not interested in me, than why did it go through all of the trouble contacting the college to get a hold of me? because even the email exchange between the two of you also stated that I was qualified, and that you wanted to get with me about the position. I feel that all my efforts were a waste of time, and now I'm back to square one. Thanks for getting my hopes up over nothing.

[candidate's first name]

New Blog?

Katie and Glen-
I believe you are the blog masters for our blog. My Blogger wanted me to move to the new gmail sign in, which I did, and now it's giving me a hard time about the fact that you haven't moved to the new blog yet. Are you going to switch soon?

We'll post more, later--I wasn't even sure if this would work...

By the way, check out www.carolandsuch.shutterfly.com....

progress

Dear Family,
Sorry that I have been out of the bloggin' scene for so long. I of course intend to do better.

It has been a good week and weekend. This week I actually signed the contract to start on June 11th at the new practice. It should be an excellent birthday present for myself. I also told Dr. Dave at small smiles that I would be leaving in the summer. I didn't give my official 90 notice to the corporate headquarters but I wanted him to know because word gets around Roanoke. The doctor who's place I am taking is sending out letters this week anouncing his retirement and my taking over his patients. Dr. Dave was pretty nice about the whole thing.

Scouts was fun this week. We worked on the first aid merit badge. Those guys are so funny. Andy and I acted out a number of scenarios and then they had to tell us how they would treat us and they successfully killed us each and every time.

Alex's mom flew into North Carolina on Friday night so I got out of work early and we headed down and picked her up. We had a nice dinner at Chilli's. Since we do not have a chilli's in roanoke we had to take advantage of the one that is down there. Saturday was good too. We went out to Lynchburgh to a place called the Farm Basket. Some of Alex's co workers in Seattle had given her a gift certificate to there as a farewell gift and we just needed to finally go out and redeem it. It was a cute place. Much like Christmas Tree Hill. They had a little restraunt in there and we got some lunch and acquired a tart pan. On the way back we stopped in Bedford and went to the national D-Day memorial. It was very nice and interesting. It is in an extremely beautiful area looking up at the Peaks of Otter. The memorial is quite new and in fact is not even completed yet. They have plans for adding a number of additional sculptures and stuff. At night we had fun making a cheese souffle' and then Alex whomped us at cribbage. We watched some "Numbers" and then went to bed.
Today was stake conference and it was quite nice. Good talks and a very nice spirit was present. I feel uplifted and motivated to do a little better.

Well, I sure do love you all and will post again soon.
love Jonathan
P.S. as you can see the mandolin is nearing completion. I just need to make the nut at the top of the neck and cut grooves in the bridge and install the tall piece and string her up. Exciting eh?