Both photos are great, Stacy! I think you should use them both. Give people a choice. Your daughter is a beautiful girl and looks lovely both as a blond and a highlighted brunette. The brunette hair just blew me away though. It looks like it could have been her natural color, only even better because of the highlighting. You're used to seeing her blond so that looks better to you now, but I'm curious about how you'll view the two colors once you've gotten used to the new color (if she keeps it that long). Joyce - mom to a 29 year old who has changed her hair color more times then I can count!

I'm late expressing my wishes.....I've been computer-less for a few days. I hate that! Anyway, I hope you ALL had wonderful birthdays. Did you get your coffee made for you Dottie?

Sorry, sorry for not getting back sooner. I taught 4th graders today. The culvert in the pictures is about 1500 feet long and thousands of pounds. The diameter is only 8 inches but it took both arms and both legs for me to lift any section of culvert off the ground. We actually had TWO 1500 feet pieces of culvert to wind up that day. The spindle in the picture holds one length of tube and sits in a pasture on the other side of the fence. When I saw the culvert all twisted up in the ditch I knew the tornado hopped over our house, only destroying part of our tree line and most of the chairs and plants on my deck. We were extremely lucky. Several of our neighbors were not so lucky. One a couple, a few miles west of us lost their entire house. My FIL, lost a couple of very large irrigation pivots but they were eventually replaced. The culvert was a pain to pick up but not anything to complain about considering what others faced after this early summer tornado. I called my dh to ask him about the pipe this afternoon, hoping I could fill you all in a bit better. Well, he was on his back putting a clutch in his truck,,,so the mini version for its use is conservation. Our neighbor who owns a construction company had been using this tube for quite some time. My dh and his farming family have to deal with so much erosion every year, they thought this would be a good answer to many of their problems. Pipe like this can be cut into whatever length needed with only a big sharp knife. As Stacy said, we have so many dry streams that turn into small rivers, our ponds overflow. The tubes can be put into dams which take the excess water from high levels on one side to a lower, safer level somewhere on the other side. Field water ways can drain into the tubes which also lead to places elsewhere, most of the time, down a winding hill. Across from our house we have a pond & dam with another larger overflow lake on the other side. On every side of our land the water flows into that small lake, saving a lower part of our town (a few miles away )from flooding. That's it as far as I know.

Lydia, It's pretty cold in Omaha compared to SL in those months. Compared to the early 80's , I personally think the snow fall has been much less. Still, there are weeks where the snow and ice never melt. Luckly Omaha is fairly well equipt for bad winter weather, plenty of snow plows, sand, etc.. Years ago after moving here as a teen, I lived about 1 1/2 hours away from Omaha. Didn't know much about snow and didn't have a garage for my car. It was brutal scraping my car off some days. If the weather permits, I would recommend at least coving the front of the car with a tarp. Sometimes life comes to a halt if the snow is really bad, everyone trys to stay home. It depends but I'm guessing maybe 3 times a winter it gets bad enough for school to be out. Our superintendent is always the last one to call school off tho. I recall last year the buses going into ditches because of the ice and finally he calls school off. The electricity failed in our building, which made it impossible for the lunch ladies to make lunch, they were so bent out of shape. The kids that made it were loving it. What will your DD be doing in Omaha, Lydia?