Bonney Family Blog

So I went to take Jesse to lunch with friends this afternoon. On the way back up Jayfield Dr a UPS driver had parked his truck on the left side of the road (my side) facing me. The car in front of me passed the truck and then the UPS driver must not have seen me. He proceeded to pull out back across my lane to get into his lane. I blew my horn at him and he swerved right at me. In just a few seconds I had to make the decision to either hit the UPS truck head on or try to miss it entirely. I pulled right and aimed for very small opening between a parked car and a tree. Luckily I was able to some how make that opening and only side swiped the parked car and the tree. At first the police officer said I was partly to blame for the accident because I lost control of my vehicle and hit the parked car. I was furious since the UPS truck was on my side of the road and I had nowhere to go! Later the police officer called me back and indicated that the official police report showed the UPS driver at fault and indicated that I swerved to avoid the collision. I wasn’t hurt at all, just a lot of damage to Spring’s car.

The small opening that I had to fit the car into, as you can see clipped the backend of the Expidition and broke the tail light, but it could have been a lot worse.

The UPS driver actually told the police that he was on the correct side of the road and that he never parked on the incorrect side of the road. Yet in this picture, you can clearly see his tire tracks in front of the mailbox pulling back onto the road.

The damage to the front end after the accident.

Another view of the front end.

Also got the back end, must have got the back end of the parked car with it.

We will be taking the car tomorrow to the shop to get a quote of the damage. Hoping we don’t have any issues with UPS paying for the damages.

A friend sent me this email and well it just could not be more accurate! I think EVERY teenager should hear these words before they get out of high school and EVERY high school should teach them!

Love him or hate him , he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
 
Rule 1 : Life is not fair – get used to it! 
Rule 2 : The world doesn’t care about your
self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.  
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6 : If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault , so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now.. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on…
If you don’t agree stick your head in the sand and take a deep breath!
If you can read this -Thank a teacher!
If you can read this in English thank a soldier!!!

Heard this poem today at a friends Mom’s funeral and well it has really made me think about life in general. This poem really got to me on so many levels.

The Dash Poem
by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke of the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
And more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

So since Spring doesn’t really like fruit, she was trying to find a way to eat some that would work for her. She started doing some research on fruit smoothies and at first tried to do the chocolate thing. First one she tried was a chocolate banana smoothie, which I guess was ok, but not really what she was looking for. Then we found this one that we modified a little bit and it really is good. I usually have one at work each morning for breakfast and then sometimes another one later at night for a snack.

Orange/Banana/Pineapple Smoothie
(this makes roughly 24oz)

• 1/8 cup Sugar (we use Splenda and that works as well)
• 8oz Orange Juice
• 1/2 cup Vanilla Yoguart
• 1/2 banana
• 6-8 pineapple chunks (we have used from the canned pineapple, if you are using fresh pineapple, you may need to adjust based on size.)
• 4 ice cubes

We will also add some vanilla protein to this after a workout. It’s a great way to get fruit into your diet especially if you don’t like fruit. We have actually gotten the kids to drink these from time to time! Another twist on the above recipe, we ran out of pineapple and had bought some raspberries. So I added about 6 raspberries instead of the pineapple and it was still really good!

Well on Sunday the last vestiges of hurricane Ike came crashing into Cincinnati. It hit around noon or so, with the major winds kicking up strong by 1:30. The power was knocked out about 2:30 and then the real damage started. First it was the siding on the backside of our chimney, then pieces on the house started flying off. The cover to our exhaust fan busted off and left a hole in our roof that had to be covered on Tuesday night so that rain wouldn’t get into it. The total damages haven’t yet been calculated in terms of dollars, but we are going to have to have the entire house re-sided along with some repairs to the roof. I did get pictures of the damages so I will get those posted once we fix some network issues in the house.

We where lucky in the power area. We only lost power for about 8-9 hours, where most folks where without power in our area until Wednesday night! The biggest bummer was that we lost cable/internet services until just this morning.

We have heard that wind gusts where near 85mph and sustained winds in the 65-70mph range! That was the most helpless feeling I have ever had, just sitting there listening and watching my house rip apart and not a thing I could do about it. As I said to Spring and the kids though, now try and imagine wind speeds of twice what we got hit with and that was near the winds that hit Texas along with rain! At least we didn’t have any rain with ours or it would have been miserable. We are hoping that we can get the siding done in the next couple of weeks, but all the roofers/contractors are so busy now after the storm I don’t even have a date scheduled or a quote yet.

So yea, we aren’t really pleased with mother nature or hurricane Ike at the present time.

Finally getting around to putting up some of the pictures from the damage. The house has finally been fixed, but it took until just before Thanksgiving before it was complete!

That’s right, after three years of trying to wrap up her degree, Spring will finally graduate this weekend on Saturday! The ceremony will be held down at the Aronoff Center in downtown Cincinnati on Saturday June 27th at 12:00pm.

If you get time drop her an email and congratulate her, she has worked hard and we are all so proud of you for finishing up your degree!

We will be having a combination graduation party and 4th of July party on Friday the 4th, hope to see you there!

Well the first of the children has graduated. Morgan graduated from Fairfield High School on Sunday, June 8, 2008! It was a fantastic ceremony, even if it was a little long. Over 600 students walked on Sunday and the entire ceremony lasted just about 3 hours.

We had a party for Morgan on Saturday with a lot of family and friends. Pictures of both events plus the “attack” on her car have been posted in our family gallery.

For those that either made the actualy ceremony or sent cards and well wishes, we thank you very much for your support of Morgan on this special day. Now she is off to enjoy the summer before she starts her studies to become a fire fighter.

Congratulations Morgan! We love you and are so proud of you! And no matter what, you will always remain my Little Girl.

Well after a server upgrade on the home server, the family photo album is back up and running. The photos will be added over the next few days. Sorry but anyone who had registered in the past will need to reregister as it was lost during the upgrade.

If you are having a rough day and just really need to put things into perspective check out this video. I was first introduced to the Jon “Blazeman” Blais story last summer when I first watched the NBC coverage of the 2006 Ironman Hawaii World Championships. Jon suffered from ALS or more frequently known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Watch the video, if it doesn’t tug at your heart, then nothing will and if it doesn’t make you appreciate the little things in life, again nothing will!

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Some of you might have noticed a new link in our links section. This is all of the music that we have collected over the years. You are free to listen to it and browse what we have on file. You will need an account set up and there is no way for me to automate this, so if you would like to listen to our music, drop me an email and I will get an account setup for you.