Issue #5 (Anniversary)

Dear Ashlee,

I am honored to be your husband of six years. We have come a long way from the reckless teens we used to be. I haven't lost that mischievous look that I get when I see you, and I know you haven't either. You have an eloquence in your writing that I do not, but let me just say that I love you.

Issue # 4 (***GAY-DAR***)

Fall Semester 2008

Last semester, Josh signed up for a martial arts class. He had already learned a lot of Aikido when he was in Iraq, due to one of his Sargent's being a teacher here in the States, so he thought it would be fun. When he came back the first day from class he was a little worried because there were a lot of smelly, crazy people taking the class. The only normal guy in there was the Teachers Assistant, we call him the Ninja Master. Everyday he came home from class he would tell me about the Ninja Master and how perfect it would be to set Marlee up with him. Apparently he was very muscular and had chiseled abs... So one day Josh told Marlee about him and Marlee said that she needed to go take pictures for one of her Photo classes anyway so she would just conveniently go take pictures of the hot Ninja Master. To make a long story short, the Ninja Master turned out to be gay and unfortunately for single women everywhere, was not and undoubtedly ever would be interested in the female race.

Sorry Mars-Bars :(

Issue #3 (Josh's Life as a Bloated Moth)

Wow... This post needs a lot of explaining!

A few months ago my mom and I were talking on the phone.
It was a normal conversation between us, mom telling me the latest depressing story she heard and then likening it to my family.

The story was from a talk she heard at her stake conference.

There was a boy who collected and raised moths.

(This, by the way, is a sick hobby, all the moth fuzz... yuck!)

Anyway he was waiting for his latest generation of baby moths to hatch,
and while watching the cocoons one day he noticed one had a hole in it and was wiggling and shaking all around, so he thought for sure this one was getting ready to hatch.
So the boy watched it for a while and it seemed to him like the baby moth wasn't going to be able to make it out of the cocoon on its own.
So he decided that he was going to help it, by peeling away the cocoon shell, from the hole.
When he opened it, he found a moth with a bloated abdomen and small, deformed wings.
A few minutes later the poor deformed moth died a cruel and untimely death.
It was all because that foolish boy decided to help it.
The boy later found out that before the moths can break out of their cocoons, they flap their little wings around to push the growth hormone from their abdomen into their wings to help them grow.
If the boy would have been patient and let the moth figure it out
on its own then it would have lived.

My mother's moral to the story was that I am the foolish boy who helped the moth get out of its cocoon before it was ready and unfortunately Josh is the bloated moth in the story.
My mom said that I tend to baby Josh too much
and cushion him from the unkindly blows of the world and by doing so
I make him have a bloated moth-like abdomen with little underdeveloped wings.
If I wouldn't do so much to make Josh's life easy, and let him struggle through his obstacles on his own, then maybe he could grow into a beautiful moth with large, fuzz covered, wings.

Thank you mom for the beautiful analogy,
I hope for nothing more than to help Josh reach his truest potential...

a moth with normal sized wings and a proportional abdomen.
We love you Mom! :)

Issue #2 (The Road Less Traveled)

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet, knowing how way leads onto way

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Frost

Unfortunately Josh chose the retarded road, but hey, it was still less traveled!

It's usually humiliating to get an easy question wrong.... but when your answer isn't even an option, you should probably reevaluate your decision to go to college.