Last week at Grandma and Grandpa's

Here it is another week and we will see what might break down this week. As some of you already know we have had to replace our air conditioner in the house, the air conditioner in the car, the hot water heater and now we have no air conditioning in the truck. Oh, yes, the car repair man took his "Car Stethoscope" and tells that we have a bearing going out in the car now.

Needless to say, I wish it were either time for winter or that we drove a horse and buggy!

On the brighter side, Kate and I made some flubber the other day. What fun--I hadn't made any of that since all of you grandchildren were small. Maybe in a few years Addy and Baby Rivers will be ready to try their hand at flubber!

Outside of this Grandpa is doing his rehab and doing o.k. Only has 7 more sessions before he is finished.

We both volunteered at the library one day and I volunteered at the Cosmo one day.

Family dinner was at the pasture last week and we checked out the rat "catchers" (traps)

while we were there. One more rat fell by the wayside! There seems to be a lot of those this year. Earlier one had carried away the little plastic hubcaps from the mowers.

We hope you all have a good week and nothing breaks down at your house.

Love to all, Grandma & Grandpa

P.S. Excuse the format-I did not get the pictures with the appropriate text. If anyone wants to send me directions I would love to hear from you.

A Day In The Morning of... well ... me. I guess.

"Your eyes slowly open, you turn over with the creak of the bed and look at the clock. It's dark outside, no clouds, only the stars and the moon that provide the sky's background. The time, 4:12. Laying back down your eyes slowly droop down to help you back in to the peaceful slumber that you previously had awakened from. Darkness. Suddenly, a bright light as your eyes open and you see the sun's corpuscular rays shining down over the land of which you call home. The clock now says, 11:11." That's how I start most of my summer days. Breakfast, then an hour later lunch. That's just the boring stuff. Well my summer started out as the past three have with my dad's music camp. Before that however there is not an Ultimate game I would want to miss. So we, my brother and I, went to WSU where us, East, and WSU play our weekly summer games on Sunday at 6. That was a great way to start the summer. I went to the music camp had real fun. It was great. For the talent show my friend and I played the song crayons can melt on us for all I care by relient k. The night I got back I just washed my clothes and repacked for I was going to Minnesota for a week. Minnesota was amazing. The weather perfect. The Lake was a little bit cold, but we got used to it. Erik and I went swimming everyday. We came home not much happened that I remember then came the National Youth Gathering. That was one of the best experiences so far. I won't write everything but I will create a sort of organization tablet to show you as much as I remember.

So
Day 1 Wed.
- Leave church at 3:30, bus ride for 22 hours, route Wichita-Kc-St.Louis-Memphis-New Orleans(we stopped for breakfast in Mississippi.
Day 2 Thurs.
- We stayed at the Loews hotel it would probably be easier for you to go to their website, WWW.loewshotels.com/, to see how amazing it was. We walked a couple of blocks south to a restaurant called Mulate's Cajun Restaurant. It was VERY good. I had Oysters for the first time. Not bad. We then went back and swam/slept.
Day 3 Fri.
- This was pregathering so we did volunteer work as a district. What we did was help move the South district from its temporary home after Katrina to its new permanent place. This involved moving boxes and taking up tiled floors and yard work. So Thank you Johnston, Beaver workdays. Afterwords we went back and headed to Michaul's a live music restaurant. The band was this pretty old guy that was just a BEAST on guitar. Then when he played his last song he said he had to go home and get ready for his day job. WHAT? THIS MAN HAS A DAY JOB! I know I was that surprised to. With his talent he needed no day job.
Day 4 Sat.
- We started out with a bayou tour. It was pretty awesome we got to touch an albino alligator and eat crayfish/shrimp. Then we went to the original Cafe Du Monde. It was amazing. the Beignets are to die for though you might if you eat all of the excess powdered sugar. That night we went to the best pizza place. It was called "The Louisiana Pizza Kitchen." Let's just say because of that place here is disgusting. Also they had an amazing Mozzarella salad. I also bought harmonicas and the green fedora that I wear.
Day 5 Sun.
- We went to paint a mural at a facility that helps kids after they're kicked out of foster care or the orphanage. Afterwords we drove the bus through the Lower 9th ward. This is the worst place out of all New Orleans. Many buildings were just gone, crumbled, crumbling, or there were cars in bayous and cars in houses. Then there were the Brad Pitt houses which were pretty cool because they were built so that if another hurricane comes they will just float on the top of the water.
Day 6 Mon.
- This day all took place in the convention center. It started out with a Bible study. Then it led into a big room full of activities. There were obstacle courses and other things, but I'm going to talk about the biggest one. It's called Persecution. It was so great that you had to reserve a time to go. More or less its a couple hours in the life of a persecuted christian. It was pretty intense. The story was that someone finally got an entire Bible put together. So we would follow our guide through all these halls. Our cover was that we were trying to find the bounce house. We got caught and they took one of our guides away. Then we took the back way and our last leader told us where to run. Then when he went into the patrols we ran and we could here gun shots in the distance. We ran into a room and sat down to read the Bible. It was somewhere from Corinthians. Then in a second we were pinned up against the wall with flashlights and "guns" in our faces. Then it ended with the question of whether we would die for our faith. Intense stuff. There are apparently over 60 countries where Christians are persecuted. If you want to you can go to the site its www.persecute.org I think. Later that night we went to the Stellar Kart concert. It was good. They played a cover a whole new world. They were what Blink 182 would be like if they were christian. Later that night we went on Riverboat ride with the Kansas and Rocky Mt. Districts. It was really smooth.
Day 7 Tues.
-What we did was go to these sessions that were for different things. One we went to was for addictions such as drugs and alcohol. It was called Things You Can't Tell Your Mom. Before it started the band Remedy Drive played a three song set before hand. Which made up the decision to go to their concert later on. So we went but right about the time it was supposed to start a girl got her knee dislocated. Which took about 30 minutes out of the show. They ended up drugging here so she could not feel the pain anymore. The concert was amazing. The singer would do headstands on the piano and sing or play the piano. It was really energetic and good.
Day 8 Wed.
we woke up went to the last Mass Event, you may noticed how I have left these out. Don't worry, then left for our overnight drive home.
Day 9 Thurs.
-We took a different route through Texas and Oklahoma. We arrived at 8 in the morning.
Mass Events
-Here you go. It was AMAZING! There was a huge cross that rose up the first night with tons of fireworks! Then there were little things that were hilarious all the way through. but the last night was amazing! At the end we rushed the stage but before that up in the 3rd balcony a bright light came from a tunnel and smoke filled the around and a man that was portraying Jesus stepped out. Awesome! There is so much more but I guess you can ask me that next time you see me.

The next big thing that happened was Ultimate camp. This was only from wed. to sat. It was amazing. we would get up run a couple of miles at 7:30 am then do drills and scrimage for the rest of the day. with a lot of fun in the middle We also went to the pasture for a night and played night ultimate with a light up disc and those crack wristbands that light up. It was intense. We played an exhibition game at Harrison park Saturday nightas the ending game. It could not have ended better.

Today I got up at 7 and went to school. I wasn't ready. Though I have a good feeling about it. It should be exciting with taking the orchestra to the Midwest Clinic in Chicago then going to Tanzania to see Andy. Maybe our Ultimate team will play at Nationals again because it should be in KC, Independence, Missouri, or Boulder, Colorado.

I didn't get to read as much as I would have liked to but I read Candide by Voltaire and am now reading Ender's Game by Henry Scott Card. Well you may notice some misspelling or grammatical errors but I justs wanted to get this in before getting any more emails.

Miss all of you,
Samuel/Sam/Samu/Sam'l/any others I have forgotten
Shook

Summer Comes to a Close

It is officially August 8th. This means that it is time for school to start again and routines to begin again. I have Inservice tomorrow. So...what did we do this summer?



In June, we went to Florida for vacation. We visited St Augustine, Florida (picture) and met up with Dan's extended family. It was fun to see them all. Most importantly we got to spend time with Dan's brother, Michael, who is now in Afghanistan. We got to go to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios with the family. It was hot, but fun to watch our nephews enjoy Disney(picture).
We also got to be at Universal Studios (with Jody and Gary) the day before Harry Potter opened. To wrap up our trip, Dan and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary where we spent our honeymoon(picture). Aside from me not being able to ride many rides, we enjoyed the trip!

At the end of June and throughout July, I spent time finishing--yes, FINISHING!--my master's degree. I completed 8 exams and a project. Now I'm waiting to see whether I'll graduate this summer or fall (probably fall). Dan spent many weekends playing gigs throughout Wichita and surrounding communities. He also finished up a redesign for the KWCH websites at work. You can check out his work: kwch.com and catchitkansas.com and kansascw.com.

Brisco (picture) has enjoyed having us home and knows something is up. He has been demanding more attention. He spends most of his days sleeping, chewing on his bone, playing with his toys, and ignoring the rabbits in our backyard.

We have the nursery painted and look forward to getting it further set up later this week with the help of Mom and Grandma. The baby spends its days kicking, rolling, and napping (in Sarah's tummy of course)! We got to see it in June (picture). According to the information we've read, it is now weighing in at over 1 lb and 12 inches long. What was your favorite thing this summer??

Another adventure with the Johnston's

As seems to be the pattern in summers past, the Johnston's are yet again on the road. It has been a busy year for Mom, Dad and myself. Each of us have had our individual projects and most of those came to a place where they could be paused for two weeks (a rare simultaneous open block for us three, let me assure you). Mind you, in the Johnston family even our vacations must be planned and so in March we decided it would be a great idea for the three of us to take an Epic train trip following our Epic European vacation last summer.

To be honest, in my mind, the train trip seemed far less Epic then it actually has turned out to be. But so goes most of our trips in the Johnston family. It looks simple on paper but then in the execution of the itinerary you realize that "Oops! Maybe this was more than we thought it was." What generally resulted in our younger days (when the Johnston family was just 6) was a breakdown from each child. Generally, David would breakdown because he was tired about 4-5 days in. Then Mary would follow because we weren't all getting along (but I think mainly it was because she was a sympathetic breakdowner). Sarah and I would hold on generally for a couple more days before each of us would have our times too. But you knew you weren't actually on a Johnston vacation until David blew the whistle.

For those of you not keeping track at home (and believe me, it would probably be a part-time job to try to), let me fill you in on our travel plan and then what our travels have turned out like so far. We started out at 4:00 am bright and early on July 25th in Hutchinson. We boarded the Southwest Chief Amtrak train bound for Los Angeles, CA. We went back to sleep for a bit but to be honest, you have to get use to sleeping on a train. Generally takes about 3 hours to get use to all of the noises and the clackty-clack of the train. We were up the next morning to enjoy a delightful breakfast on the train and then counted our time down to LA by both station stops and meals. Very few people know this, but if you buy a sleeping car ticket (or the equivalent 1st class fare on the East coast) you get your meals free. Everything except alcohol. Take that airlines. (Oh yes, I went there) And the food is surprisingly delightful.
We arrived in LA on July 26th a little worse for the wear but surprisingly well rested. We ventured off to San Diego, CA and enjoyed a number of different activities. Most of you will be getting postcards from the Zoo which was massive (see the Panda above :-) ). The only missing was a train. They even had a gondola which went above the park!! We explored San Diego (or San D-ah-Go as Ron Burgundy would say) by car, train, foot and boat. It was a nice time to be had for all. We returned to LA on the 27th and departed for Seattle, WA on Amtrak's Coast Starlight #14 at 10:15 am on July 28th. This was one of the most breathtaking train rides of my life. You should definitely try to take this train once in your lifetime. In addition to the regular amenities offered to sleeping car passengers, Amtrak added a special car on this trip called the Pacific Parlor Car which was reserved for Sleeping Car Passengers only and served treats, had wine and cheese tastings an had special Amtrak merchandise available.

We arrived in Seattle, WA at 8:15 in the evening on July 29th. It was a wonderful ride. We stayed that night (after walking through a rather sketchy part of Seattle) in the Arctic Club in downtown Seattle. My favorite part of the trip thus far was our tour of the Boeing factory in Everett, WA the next morning, July 30th. We had an Airbus enthusiast among our tour group who was promptly shut out of the conversation by the tour guide. It was quite humorous although you did feel a little bit sorry for the Airbus enthusiast. To set the tone for you readers out there, the tour guide ended his narration with "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." CLASSIC!

It was then off to Timberline Lodge via a 2.5 hour traffic jam caused by a multiple (IE 14 or more) car accident on the Northbound lane. It was a fairly serious accident although, it appeared, there were no major injures. So what should have been a 3.5 hour drive to Mt. Hood and Timberline Lodge in Oregon turned into a 6 hour trek on I-5 Southbound via traffic accident. We had a very pleasant dinner at the lodge and it was an early bed time for all. The next morning, July 31st, we departed to Portland via Malmouth Falls and the Rose Gardens. Both were beautiful. If those among you came and visited me in Lincoln while I was up there in schoool, imagine the Sunken Gardens expanded to acreage similar to the pasture. It was beautiful. But if we wanted to turn the pasture into these gardens, not matter how talented Grandma may be, it would certainly take a full-time army operation on our part.

We drove up to Seattle today, August 1st, and enjoyed some time at the Pike's Street Market (finding the originally Starbucks for Mary) before heading to the Space Needle for lunch. Good food and good company abounds this trip. I am very fortunate to be a Johnston and of Kinast lineage.

Next our adventures take us aboard Amtrak Train #8, the Empire Builder to East Glacier National Park. And then onto Chicago and home. August 7th at 4:10 am, it is my hope to be safely in my own bed.

For now, this ends my first Kinast blog post. Enjoy some pictures from our trip to supplement this posting.