All continues to go well in the Mierins household. During family council last week it was decided our cat's new name is "Salem". The discussion was long and after several suggestions, this is what was settled upon. Our new addition is showing more and more personality and likes to bring toys to you so you can play with him. We are glad to have him.

As summer is quickly coming to an end the boys are not anxious to get back to school. Matthew finished summer school this week. He now has 4 weeks until starting 6th grade. He is looking forward to visits with his Grandma in NH and Grandparents in Idaho. Nikolas had an exciting week. Tuesday was pack meeting and he was awarding 6 belt loops. We are certainly proud of him.

Gail and Andy continue to stay busy with work. Andy was off to Las Vegas Thursday for some Bar Association meetings. He reported the meeting was great, just very hot. He was glad to get back to the northern part of the state. While it has been in the upper 90's where we are, he said it was about 108 degrees in Las Vegas. Gail has continued to hang pictures and the house is coming together.

We hope all is well wherever you are. Until next week.

Well, the big news of the week was the new addition to our family: Hunter. He is a two-year old cat we adopted from a person Andy knows from work. He joined us Monday evening and while it took a while for him to warm up to our family, he seems to be settling in well. He spent the first two days living under our wood stove, but then came out and now lives in Matthew's room. He wanders around at night keeping us safe from bugs and little critters. We are glad to have him and as soon as we can get him to sit still we will get a picture of him posted.

Otherwise our week was normal. Matthew has one more week of summer school and then will be off for a few weeks until the fall. The boys are enjoying having their own rooms and the attendant inability to blame the other for the messes made. We are slowly but surely getting pictures hung and set up around the house.

It was really warm this week. It hit 100 degrees twice this week and today looks to be about the same. Thankfully our nights get cool and with the huge ceiling fan we have it keeps the house nice and cool.

All goes well for Gail and Andy. Andy was off to Wendover Friday for Court and had a fairly quiet week otherwise. Gail is busy with her work and had time to do a Pampered Chef show Thursday evening. Each has commented on how quickly the summer has gone.

We are all doing quite well and hope the same for you.

We have survived another week and there were no disasters or crises. After a sewer backup, the van catching fire and the invasion of earwigs and spiders we are glad to have a break.

Nikolas spent the week with his grandparents in Idaho and he reports he had a good time swimming, playing with cousins and going camping with his grandpa and uncle. The big news is he got a haircut and after much resistance gave in and allowed it to happen. Matthew enjoyed having the house to himself, but half way through the week admitted he missed Nikolas. Andy, Gail and Matthew used Monday the holiday to work around the house and got much done. We did enjoy this year's fireworks but it did not come close to the show for Old Home Days in Northfield when the fireworks went off in the park behind our house.

Andy and Gail continued their normal routine of work. Andy's homicide trial has settled so he is a bit more relaxed. He has some trials coming up in September and October that he can start worrying about. Gail is continuing with her cleaning and looking forward to her NH trip coming up. Not much else to report.

We hope all is well.

Well, no exciting dilemmas this week, just a great trip to visit Gail's family. After week one's sewer back-up and last week's car fire, Gail and Andy were a bit apprehensive about this week. Thankfully no disasters. In fact it was a great week.

It was a fairly typical week for the summer. The boys are enjoying summer vacation, Gail and Andy continue to work. Andy was assigned a few months back to work with another public defender in his office on a homicide trial which was to begin in two weeks, but this week looks as if it has settled. This freed up him on some work and thus gave him reason to relax.

It got very warm in the 90's this week and we discovered our house has a great ceiling fan that sucks the warm air out of the house. It has helped to make the house much cooler. In addition, Gail and Andy got shades and some drapes up which has also helped keep the house cool.

Friday we left to go visit Gail's family and have a nice reunion in a Boise City Park. It was great to see family and we enjoyed the opportunity to get away. Gail and Andy did some car shopping and think they have found a replacement. We are just waiting to see what the insurance company is going to do about the Kia.

Nikolas is staying with Grandma and Grandpa this week and looking forward to some fun with his cousins, especially going camping.

We hope you all have a great week.

As you can see from the photo it was an interesting week at the new Mierins household. Friday afternoon Gail called Andy at work to tell him the van was on fire. She was working in the kitchen, looked outside when she heard a clicking sound and saw the windshield wipers go on, then smoke started pouring out of the van. Andy arrived home to fire trucks and police cars and while the boys were very excited, Gail was less than enthusiastic. It appears it was an electrical fire that began in the dashboard. As you can see the fire melted most of the driver's side, but thankfully other than one CD, none of the other things in the van were damaged. We are waiting to hear from the insurance company, so for now the van sits in front of the house. Outside of this it was a fairly calm week.

Matthew started summer school this week and all reports thus far are good. Nikolas and Matthew are enjoying their new rooms. Nikolas got a "ripstick" for his birthday and spends a good part of the day riding it up and down the sidewalk and in the eever increasing empty sections of the garage. We have all worked very hard this week to unpack boxes and there only a few remain. Then the fun of moving our storage unit stuff begins. That about sums up the week

We hope all is well wherever you may be.

We are slowly, but surely making a home. We are discovering it is a ton easier to pack up than to unpack. Despite a few setbacks, including a backed up sewer system, we are settling in. The boys enjoy having their own rooms and Andy was in his glory mowing the lawn Saturday. Gail did a fabulous job cleaning our apartment and cleaning the house so we could move in. Everyone is so glad to have a house and the room that comes with it. We were welcomed into our new ward by a cleaning committee that helped get the house clean so we could unpack boxes.

This morning was exciting. We travelled to Wendover to witness the sustaining and setting apart of our friend Brian as the new District President in Wendover. We are excited to have he and his family among our friends. The meeting was very spiritual and Andy was asked to participate in Brian's ordination as a High Priest. He was glad to be asked and to be a part of this wonderful event.

The boys are enjoying summer and especially having a yard to have water fights and play. Matthew will start summer school Monday, something he is not happy about.

We hope all is well wherever you may be.

We have made it into our new home. Our move went very smooth and now the fun task of having to unpack everything begins. Thankfully, it was relatively cool out and it did not rain.
We are all very excited about our new home. After living cramped up for so long we think we are in a palace. We will post pictures as we take some.

We have all been very busy leading up to our move. Andy enjoyed his trip to NH/Boston. He got to see several friends, enjoyed spending time with his family and took in two Red Sox games. He also said the conference was good.

The boys have successfully finished another year of school and are looking forward to a fun summer.

Sorry this is so short, it is late, we just got the computer up and running and now need to get to bed.

We hope you all have a great week.