Back in Malaysia... But...

So sorry for the lack of posts over the last week or two. The truth is that since we have returned from Italy, life has picked up right where it left off. However, we have had one rather sad task to tackle:

Our wonderful 300 GB external hard drive, the one where thousands of our personal photos are stored, decided to stop working. Now, surely (you think) we've been backing it up, right? Well, not exactly. Photos are big, and backing up tens of gigabytes of photos takes many CDs, and no, we don't have a DVD burner.

SO, after spending last weekend patiently doing every diagnosis possible, we've been forced to send the drive back to Seagate, requesting their best "Data Recovery Services" and we hope for the best. Now, this isn't the end of the world by any stretch -- yes, we still have lots of other pictures, and some are in places like PhotoBucket or on other computers, but there are quite a few that would effectively be going down the drain if the data is unrecoverable. We shall see.

In other news....

ASHLEY is about a month and a half from her high school graduation. She hasn't succommed to senioritis, at least as far as I can tell. She is busy cramming for her three AP (Advanced Placement) exams which are about 3 weeks away. She will be sitting for Calculus, Physics, and US History. She's a smart cookie, that one.

CHERYL is busy arranging music for school, and just put together an awesome new song. I hope to load it here sometime so you can hear it. She is also leading worship at church almost every week. This is great experience for her. Even right now she is busy practicing piano.

BROOKE is being our awesome sophomore. Track season is basically done, but she is still busy. She has a band concert on Thursday. Time to break out that cool red trombone yet again.

ALFREDO is digging his Malaysian life. He has become a chillin' white poodle, and still literally stops traffic whenever we take him for walks.

I am still working hard for the next marathon, coming up the day after Ashley's graduation. Unfortunately Cheryl is going to be dropping out due to lack of time to train, and some nagging breathing problems. Ash is still targeting the race, but has been having some serious ITB pain for the past few long runs.

Tomorrow I'm off for Bangkok yet again. Just a quick one day trip; hope to be back in time for the band concert. Hey, the Olympic flame came through town today, and it looks like there weren't too many (if any at all) problems. Now it's off to Jakarta, just a few miles down.

Finally, we can all be very pleased that the Cubs have taken a 1/2 game lead after their Sunday win. 12-6 is a nice record, and a great way to start the year. Many many games to go.

greg