Spring is about to SPRING! . . .

. . . or is it?

From 2011-03-19

I took this 15 second video from our porch this morning. I think Mother Nature may have missed the memo announcing that spring arrives tomorrow March 20th!

. . .and, the Winner IS!!!

We recently participated in a contest for the local elementary school children to write us an advertisement for our Tax Service.


Here (in reverse order) are the winners (as selected by one of our Tax Professionals).

3rd Place:

2nd Place:

. . . and The Winner IS:

Winter Storm December 2010

I noticed that Lynda's camera has a "YouTube" option, so I tried filming a snow storm from my home office window. I pan to the right, open the window (brrrr) and then pan all the way to my left. Just an experiment.





I think if you 'point and click' on it you will be taken to a Picasa web site where you can view it. It is a minute and twenty seconds long.

Washington Wrigley Christmas

It looks like we'll be having a White Christmas!

Pictures taken Thursday from inside the house.

Washington Wrigley Christmas Tree

The flocking of our Christmas tree started this morning. It is still in progress as I publish this picture. It was taken from our front porch. Tree will remain outside. This type of flocking tends to melt and make a mess.

Barn>Garage Part II

I am actually a bit behind. These are pictures of the gravel they BLEW in to the soon to be garage. The area took two truck loads (10 yards of gravel). Cement was laid yesterday. Pictures to follow in Garage III.

Out goes the Barn, in comes the Garage-Part I

Last week we completed finance and contractor negotiations. This past weekend we began converting our pole barn (vintage 2006) to a garage, storage, workshop. That would translate get everything out, lay 1,050 sq feet of concrete, move water pressure tank, install water filter, put up external walls, windows, garage door, pedestrian doors and enclose overhead storage.

We got our home of three years (aka 'The Trailer', aka 'Jeff n Tami's Guest House', aka 'Trailer For Sale') moved Saturday and began clearing out
. Disregarding the trashed cat scratcher, the blue foam stuff on the left was insulation for under the trailer and will now be used as part of the insulation in the garage.

The pump house I built in 2008 was dis-assembled. It will be re-plumbed and moved inside the new garage. That will give it a better chance of withstanding our winters.

More to come. Stay tuned!

Fun Run - Two of Three

Colville had it's second of three "Fun Runs" Saturday June 19th. The following is a link to 8 of the 80+ pictures Lynda & I took. We were cheerleaders for 'THE BLOCK BLOC'!

COLVILLE'S SECOND RUN - 2010

This was a 3 mile event (eat your heart out Jeff!). The final leg will be a 5K this August.

To be crowned as a PRINCESS!

The cost of becoming a princess at GrandMa's

PRICELESS!

for all others

There's MasterCard!

3k Run

Well, it is not up to the standards Jeff is use to, but our little town of Colville hosted a 'Fun Run' on Saturday (5/15/2010). We sponsored five of our healthier employees. There were less then 40 runners and if you count families of our runners and one employee who did not have a TeeShirt (we provided those too), we had nine of the participants! That makes it about a 25% H&R Block Run!

Here is a link to where to find it on FaceBook. I put the pictures there so our employees could easily see them:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062199&id=1359793344&l=754388535d

There is another event June 19th (3 miles) and August 7th (5K). We have at least two more employees who say they will participate in those. There could be an entire wave of green!

WW trip to CA

No where near as fancy as Aunt Nany's slide show, but meets our TBR requirements. :o)




If you want music in the background. . .hummm something like California Dreaming by the Mamas & Papas!

I think if you double click the slideshow it get a bit bigger.

Lynda completes formal training

Lynda has completed her classroom studies and is now a Master Gardener-Apprentice. Next she must serve one year as an intern before she is officially a Master Gardener!

Now she gets to go out and dig in the dirt (so, what's changed?).

2010-04-20

Above are two (blurrey) pictures I took of the final class. (Note: You must 'click' on the picture to see both) They had a potluck dinner to celebrate the conclusion. I didn't get any of the food. :o(

Lynda, Up close and personal

For those of you wanting to get a closer look at the inside of Lynda's shoulder, here's you chance. The following are three of the ten photos the surgeon gave us from the operation he performed on Lynda's right shoulder.

Drop Box

While in there repairing the rotator cuff, he discovered a fracture (which he glued back together) and a lot of arthritis that he scraped away. As long as he was cutting on the right side, he went ahead and replaced the joint between the thumb and the rest of the hand.

He did this on the left hand a few years back. Lynda refers to the joint as a cadaver joint. I think that is all the detail I want. For those wanting more information...please call Lynda!

Curtains @ the Wrigley Wranch

http://picasaweb.google.com/wrigleyk/CurtainsTheWrigleyWranch?feat=embedwebsite

I think the idea is you can 'click' on the above picture and see all 8 of the shots I took while they were fixing the 'settling' that took place on our home. Still to be resolved is the resetting of the floor (buckled in spots) and then the repair of the floor cover caused by the aforementioned. :o(

HRB IV

We pause this commercial for a brief programming note:

Please scroll down

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!!
more HRB tomorrow.

note: All our 2009 pictures are archived. This is all I could come up with. :o(

HRB VI - The FOS

But first . . . the breakroom! An important part of any business. This one happen to also be the other half of our Manager's Office.




And (finally!) the Fortress of Solitude (aka The FOS). If you ignore all the wiring in the ceiling, not a bad place. There are two computers, a printer, pictures of children and grandchildren. We brought the phone network in to the office this week, carpet, even a table that some may recognize from my home office in Idaho.

We can access the Internet and HRB Network, monitor activity at workstations, receive calls and conference with the bee hive of activity upstairs. Soon there will be a wireless network to allow our laptop computers on to the World Wide Web.

We could even prepare taxes if we were so inclined!

Okay, that's it! Everyone who is interested has seen more than they ever wanted to see about our new franchise.

"At H&R Block, You've Got People" No, wait. That was last year's slogan. "Click, Call or Come Over" :o)

HRB V

This is our Office Manager's "office". Computers on the ground to the left in the picture are leaving. All new units have been installed to better serve the customer.

Here, 'Terry the Tech' works to upgrade our network. Operation REWIND took place this past weekend. We had the office re-imaged from a company owned unit to a franchise owned unit.

Another Tax Pro (Sara) comes in on her own time to adjust a filing for a client.

Coming up in HRB VI (the last of the series)? The long awaited Fortress of Solitude (aka Ken & Lynda's office)

HRB III

More 'action' shots.

Here a Tax Pro gives some valuable advise to some poor individual who bought some other tax software and thought he/she could do their taxes at home.

There is alot of paper involved in getting your taxes done right!

Of course, there is the glue that keeps it all together-LYNDA!

HRB II

Now we move inside.

This is one of our three receptionists (Erica). They greet the clients, take incoming calls, collect our fees and keep the office running. We refer to them as our CSPs (Customer Service Professionals)

Below is what the client sees as they are following a tax professional to their work station.

And here are two of our eleven tax professionals working through the tax interview process.

Actually, you can only see our most senior pro (Mary). She has been doing other folks taxes for HRB (and now us) for over 20 years. You can almost see Murry working further behind her with his client.

Can HRB III be far behind?

H&R Block welcomes YOU!

Jeff 'suggested' it was about time for Lynda and I to publish a few pictures of our new enterprise.



First a few views from the street.

Both this picture and above are what one would see heading west on Highway 395 (if you were to stand in the middle of the street like I was).

Next in the series we will take you inside! Stay tuned for HRB II

Below is the same (leased) building looking towards the east.

From 2010-02-26