Provo Autrey's

San Francisco Day 3

2010-05-05T22:20:00.006-06:00

The Brown's left us on day three (Friday). Their daughter needed to be back in Provo for her ACT test on Saturday. So they caught an afternoon flight back. So, over the Golden Gate bridge and lunch at a cafe in Sausalito. Sarah actually ordered spaghetti with mussels. I was ready to give her credit for trying and she surprised us all and finished them all. She's such an adventurous soul. After brunch we headed to Muir Woods.

Some of the tallest redwoods known (coastal redwoods) grow along the northern coast of California. Even taller than the Sequoia's of Sequoia National Park. This particular grove has been protected since 1900. You can see behind the girls a cross section of one of the trees. Very old, but very skinny. The coastal redwood shoots straight up then begins to fill out and it's just the opposite for the Sequoia, I guess. At least that's what I got from the brochures.

Kinda hard to entertain some kids in a forest. "It's just trees, Daddy!"

Sisterly love!!!
Girl Power!!!

A bright, sunny spot in the grove of 250 foot tall trees.

Stay on the path.

Pixies in fern gully.

I just thought this was funny. I looked back and the girls were intently photographing every little twig, fern, rivulet and bug.

One of the many walk through trees.

AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Looks like a rock in the creek doesn't it? It's a log from a long time ago. We hiked probably two miles on this trip.

Back in downtown San Francisco Sarah wanted to get her picture in front of the statue dedicated to Lillie Hitchcock Coit. She's the one the Coit Tower is named after. Did I tell you her story? When she was a young girl she was recued by firefighters and she was enamored with them from then on. This is a statue dedicated to the firemen who rescued her. Sarah loves this statue. She's (Sarah not Lillie) not grumpy, she just woke up from her nap back over the GG bridge.

Back to Coit Tower. This time it was open so we went up inside to the top to look out at the city. This is looking south toward the Market District with the Transamerica Pyramid.

After Coit Tower we headed to Ghirardeli Square for dinner at McCormick & Kuleto's. It's an upscale restaurant that overlooks SF Bay and the Olympic Swim Club of San Francisco. This was the view out the window we were sitting at for our dinner.

San Francisco Day 2

2010-04-21T20:35:00.012-06:00

Day two started out bright and early, well early for a vacation with two girls that like to sleep in. We had to be at the pier by 9am to catch a ferry out to Alcatraz Island.

Don't lean over too far, you might fall in.

That's Shari, Riley, Sarah and Janet on the top deck.

Looking back at the pier and Nob Hill.

We passed by Pier 39.

Looking south toward the Bay Bridge. Beautiful sunrise.

Looking toward our destination.

Chilly morning.

WARNING!!!

The white building in the forground is not the prison. It's the administration building and the remnants of the old gold rush and Civil War era fort. The bottom two floors were built to hold soldiers that protected the bay during the gold rush era an the top two floors were added just before and during the Civil War era. The building in the background and on top of the island is the actual prison where they started housing prisoners in 1934.

After the federal government abandoned the island in 1963 it sat empty until Native Americans occupied it for 18 month in 1969 and 1970. The Park Service is trying to keep the graffiti as part of the history of the island.

This is the old Social Hall for the staff. It was destroyed by fire during the occupation by the Native Americans.

My beautiful ladies before we headed up the hill to the prison.

The gulls are permanant residents.

This is the intake area of the prison.

They gave us headphones and an mp3 player with directions and a tour around the prison. It was kinda eerie. I paused mine one time and there wasn't anyone talking. There were hundreds of people wandering around and no one was talking.

This is a solitary confinement cell. It was in the same area as the infirmary. It had a solid door and they could close the door and turn off the light.

This is the infirmary with the solitary cells on the bottom right. They guys in the infirmary could look out the windows to the left and see the city in the distance.

This was the visiting area. No physical contact. Just the glass window.

Mandy in one of the general cells.

In the dining hall at the end of the tour. They're still working on the prison. All the walls have the same paint that was there when it was closed. Even the linoleum under our feet was the same that was there almost 50 years ago.

Back outside and on the north end of the island were the physical facilities. This is the main storage and construction facilities. They still use it. It's falling apart because of the salt air and being abandoned for so long, but it's still in use. At the far end is where they have a 1925 fire engine that's still in use. The park ranger that's in charge of it's care actually asked us in and showed it to us. He was really chatty. Full of information and wanting to share it all. Brian and I had a hard time leaving.

Enjoying time with my daughter on the ride back to SF.

Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Really loud, but the food was good.

What do teenage girls do at lunch while on vacation? Text! Silly question.

After lunch we got tickets for a ride on a bus converted to look like a cable car. It was the same company as the duck ride. The guy who drove this wasn't as fun as Cap'n Jeff the duck driver, but we had fun.

Along the way we saw this little motorcycle propelled thing. The kid looked like he was having fun, no?

The cable car bus took us across the Golden Gate bridge where I took this picture looking back at SF.

What a beautiful family.

The statue in the forground is in tribute to all the sailors who shipped out of SF during WWII, a lot of whom never came home.

Back in SF we went down some very steep streets. I was glad the bus had a low gear.

How would you like to live on this street. Good thing it doesn't snow there. Could you imagine a skiff of snow on that sidewalk? You'd end up in the Market District before you could stop. Beautiful architecture all around the city. At this block it was built after the 1906 earthquake.

Down in the Market District and Sharri wanted a picture of something ahead and I put my camera out the window and just shot. Hah.

Looking up (West) Lombard Street. Remember that name? The joke for the drivers was, "What's the crookedest street in the nation?" We'd all say Lombard and he'd reply, "Wall Street."

That night we finally made it to Coit Tower. It was closed but it was impressive anyway.

And so was the view from the parking lot. I love night views of cities. Reminds me of the sight from One Tree Hill in Auckland.

That night we also took in the sights and sounds of Pier 39. This is a little old lady that does a show for the crowds.

Looking toward Ghirradeli Square along the wharf.

Silly girls. Must be getting late. Time to go back to the hotel.

2010-04-15T22:07:00.010-06:00

So, we went to San Francisco for our Spring Break this year. Didn't want to do the same old Disneyland thing but wanted to go somewhere fun and exciting. It's been 15 years since Janet and I went, so we thought we'd take the kids and check it out. We left Tuesday the 6th after work and flew into Oakland, hopped in our rental car and drove over the Bay Bridge into downtown SF to stay at the Marriott. Wednesday morning we slept in a bit then went down to the wharf to meet our neighbors at the Aquarium of the Bay and hang out with them and take in the sites.

Street performers were everywhere. They loved having their pictures taken (for a tip).

Once in the aquarium we saw lots of the wildlife that lives in the bay. (not them...the jellyfish in the background).

Looks like either a hold up or he's sliding down the glass. All I could think of was Patrick from Sponge Bob Square Pants. That cartoon has ruined aquariums and documentaries for me forever.

Don't know if any of you have ever picked out your very own pearls, have you? These vendors guarentee that there's a pearl in every shell. They must x-ray them or something. Anyway, we did this at Disney World too. You look in the bucket and pick out the clam you want, then the helper opens it up and pulls out your pearl. Then they try to sell you the setting and all the peripherals...but that's not the story here. Sarah got a huge pearl and had it set, but Amanda had twin pearls in hers. She decided to not have hers set at that time. I took a long video of this and not too many pictures, sorry.

What trip isn't complete without your picture with the sea lions of Pier 39. They've actually sunk boats moored here. That's why they have thier own docks to lounge on.

Then it was off to ride the ducks! The old naval amphibious trucks. I caught this picture as we were walking down the Embarcadero on our way to catch one. The folks on the boat were having a blast.

Here we are about to boar our duck.

This is one of the buildings that was pointed out on our land tour. We started chuckling as the driver started to tell us the story of the building. Evidently some famous people stayed in this hotel while getting thier start in show business...Bette Middler, Barry Manilow, Robin Williams...well the driver was looking at us because of our strange reaction and we reminded him that we were from Utah. This after he'd asked our neighbor how many wives she had. Duh!

Sarah found some sunglasses that she liked. Doesn't she look cool?

We were all issued quackers when we boarded. While on the tour the driver played music to enhance the tour and we were encouraged to quack along. It was quite funny. You could tell the locals from the tourists and visitors to the city. The locals just went about their business while the visitors were looking up to see the strange site and weird noises.

Don't we have cute daughters?

Got kinda chilly when we dove into the bay and started driving around some of the piers.

But the captain (he's a captain while on the water and a driver while on land, actually has a captains license and bus driver license) let some of the folks drive the boat around the bay. We might have topped out at 3 knots.

This was the view from our duck looking back at downtown SF. Beautiful day, no? We had sunny warm weather the whole time we were there. The locals and shop owners kept telling us how lucky we were.

Back to Pier 39 for dinner after riding the duck. Just before we went into the resaurant I turned around to see this site. That's Coit Tower on the left and the Trans America Tower on the right and in the background. You can see how the flags are standing out straight. It was quite breezy, but we (or at least I) didn't even notice or care.

No tours to the top of the Trans America Tower (rats!) but we'll go to the top of Coit tower in a couple of days. Stay tuned for photos of that.

Happy kids. Waiting for dinner at Swiss Louis Italian & Seafood Restaurant. Great food.

Happy full kids. Naw. Just another photo of our beautiful daughters.

After dinner we were walking around the pier checking out the sites and shops and ran across this hall of mirrors. We had a lot of fun playing in here for more than half an hour. Notice the rubber gloves on our hands. They distributed them to us so we wouldn't smudge the mirrors as we held our hands out in front of us. Smart idea. Except it didn't work for the little girl I saw run right into a mirror, head first. Poor thing looked like one of those sparrows that runs into a plate glass window then looks around to see if anyone saw it, then runs away. I didn't get a picture of that, but I'll always remember it.

Our neighbor, Brian, trying to blow up his glove over his head. He never did quite get it all the way up. But we all had a laugh watching him try.

Just before we stepped into the hall of mirrors this container ship went by. They were going by all day, but in the fading sun and with the boats in the foreground, it just looked pretty.

News from Central Utah...

2010-03-15T14:40:00.005-06:00

Well you haven't heard from me in a while and I get nagged by Mom all the time so I thought I'd put this on the blog.

Sarah has joined the Provo Recreation Volleyball League. She has been practicing for the past couple of weeks and she will be assigned to a team this week.

I went to some of the practices and watched. She's pretty darn good. She has a knack (sp?) for the game. With a little more practice and playing time she'll do great. We're looking forward to watching her play this next month or two.

I looked into signing her up at a club team here in the valley...NOT!!! They wanted $800-$900. Yikes!!! She's gonna try out for the freshman team at school this summer. That will give her a lot of playing time. In the mean time I'll be practicing with her in the back yard.

I'd show you some pictures but my camera walked away. I'm looking on-line right now to purchase a new one. When I get it I'll take some pics of her playing.

LONG, LONG TIME...

2009-11-30T13:33:00.007-07:00

Okay, It's been almost a year. I've had the mistaken idea that I need to post photos with everything. Sad to say, I don't take that many photos. I'll do better.

Thought I'd catch everybody up on what happened over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Only had to work half a day on Wednesday. Got home around 2pm and decided to help Janet with a little bit of laundry. Found the clothes still wet so I turned the dryer back on and let them fluff. While we were waiting for that I mentioned that RC Willey was having a sale on beds so Janet and I went to the store to see if there was a bed we might want to buy. Janet has been putting up with my extra firm bed for years, so I thought it was time that she get a softer bed for her hip. It took a couple of hours but we found one that we both like.

Back to the laundry. Went back a couple of hours later and they're still wet. Did it once more, just in case I did something wrong. OOPS!! By this time it's almost 7pm and we've contacted the neighbors to play Nertz. Have you heard about our Nertz games? I'll tell you sometime. Anyway, I called the neighbors back and asked them if we could use their dryer to do a couple of loads. They are so nice. Well, we played cards 'til almost 11pm and I retreived our last load of clothes from their house. Thanks again Dave and Nancy.

Thanksgiving morning...I don't remember...I slept through it. Not really. Got up around 9am and watched a little tv and got ready for the day while Janet slaved away in the kitchen. Sarah and I went to the grocery store to use the "turkey bucks" that we had. It was the last day they were valid and we had $11.50 worth. Janet and Sarah and I are gonna use the turkey as the main portion of a Christmas dinner box to leave on someones doorstep here in the next couple of weeks. I heard that someone nearby lost their job just recently.

So, after getting things ready we loaded up the car and raced Eric and Britnee up the freeway to Grandma and Grandpa Schmalz's home. We had Eric and Britnee, Jessica and Josh, Sarah, DeAnn and her family and Karen and Tim there. Two long tables and lots of food. DeAnn brought stuffin' muffins. You bake the stuffing in muffin pans. I thought that was a pretty neat little trick. All the food was great and I overdid it, of course. Then while I slept it off the kids helped their mother put things away. I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone.

Friday morning we woke up and started cleaning our bedroom to make room for the new bed. Forgot all about the dryer not working. Well, I was hesitant to call out a repairman at the prices I was sure they would charge on a holiday weekend. I happened to be talking to the Bishop and asked him who he uses to fix appliances. He suggested one of our neighbors down the road and he came over to "take a look" with his tool bag in tow. We tore the thing apart and tested everything you can imagine. It came down to the heat sensor on the exhaust port. One inch long, quarter inch wide, plastic part that costs $10.00. And they had one at the parts store, in stock. I ran over and picked it up and put it in and the dryer is working great now. Could you imagine the cost of having a repairman out to do that? I figure well over a hundred dollars. We're gonna get a gift certificated for our neighbor and give it to him because he wouldn't take our money.

Saturday was the "BIG GAME." For those of you who don't live in Utah, that's the BYU vs Utah football game. Some have come to calling it the holy war. I don't subscribe to that because their are plenty of Mormons at the University of Utah. Heck, even the president of BYU is a graduate of Utah. What's even more ironic is that the president of Utah is a graduate of BYU. Huh? That's right. Anyway...The only thing that counts is that BYU won this particular game on Saturday. We went to our other neighbors house and they hosted us to a brunch and their 106 inch screen tv to watch the game. We had fun and food and plenty of it. Well, maybe not enough fun, because we wound up playing for Nertz at our house later that evening.

All in all it was a fun holiday and I'm looking forward to the Christmas season coming up. I hope all my family was happy and full of turkey. Here's wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.

Frosty Mornings at American Fork Boat Harbor

2009-01-16T11:11:00.003-07:00

I work for American Fork City. We have a boat harbor on Utah Lake. We leave the gates open all winter for the ice fishermen to access the lake. I drive down there a few times each winter to check out the icebergs that are driven up on the jetty or skip rocks on the ice to see how far I can get one out there (it sounds really cool on thin ice.) Once or twice a winter an inversion occurs and the air just over the lake is super cold while the mountain benches are warmer. Here are some pictures that I took this morning while down at the harbor.

8:30 am and the fog is still obscuring the sun.

The fog creates a coat of frost on the twigs of bushes and trees and continues to build each day as long as the weather doesn't get too high. This morning it was 5 to 10 degrees. It probably won't get above 25 degrees today.

You can see the tracks of the ice fishermen out across the ice. They'll disappear in the next storm. The ice here is probably 10 to 12 inches thick.

This is our "lighthouse" or marker. You can see this piece of pipe for miles out on the lake. It's about 10 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter and painted yellow. The street lamp is the light part of the lighthouse.

Very beautiful frost on barbed wire.

A few weeks ago I took a picture of this elk with my camera phone. You coudn't really see him all that well. Well, he hasn't come up to the fence since then so I can get a better photo of him. You can also see the frost on the fence and bullrush in the foreground.

Christmas...FINALLY!!

2009-01-16T10:56:00.004-07:00

Sorry it's taken so long to get photo's of Christmas on here. This is from just my camera. I need to download photo's from Janet's camera and add them. Enjoy the photo's...

Janet really enjoyed our time with G'ma and G'pa locked in the house because of the snowstorms that were pounding Utah during the holidays.

We spent most of our time playing games like domino's and...

push the dummy (thanks Donna and family.)

Christmas dinner was delicious, but it wasn't the same without Linda and her family. We were prepared and looking forward to their visits.

We had over a foot of snow by Christmas day. Add another foot a week later and we're still driving on snow packed roads today.

Sign of the times? Both G'ma and G'pa were playing with their new digital cameras.

Sarah was quite happy with all her new games and clothes...

Mandy really enjoyed her wrapping paper...

Merry Christmas little one.

Gas Prices

2008-12-09T11:40:00.003-07:00

Wouldn't you know. We decide to park the Suburban for the winter and the price of gas drops like a rock. We were paying over $100.00 to fill the thing up this past summer. Now I could fill it up for less than $50.00.

I was driving around town here and saw a sign advertising gas for $1.33 a gallon. I investigated a little further and discovered you had to buy a deluxe carwash to get the discounted gas. The price at the pump it currently $1.49!!!!! Can you remember that price? It's been 6 or 7 years. Back in the olden days.

I don't get it. 2 or 3 years ago the price of oil was about $20.00 a barrel and gas was about $2.00 a gallon. Right now oil is about $50.00 a barrel and the price of gas is $1.50. That doesn't make sense in my little brain. Guess that's why it took three attempts for me to pass my statistics class in college.

DEC 11, 2008...
UPDATE: I was driving through town this morning and the discounted price for gas with a deluxe carwash is now....$1.25!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it? I gotta get my car washed.

I'm just glad to see the price come down. Hopefully it will be this low (or lower) next summer when I go camping with the scouts and young women of the ward. Yea, low prices!!!!

Trailing A Lemon

2008-12-03T08:36:00.003-07:00

So, I went to get my morning soda at the local gas station. After I'd paid I turned around and look what this guy pulled in....

I realize that it's a little dark. It's cloudy today and I was using my phone. But it's about 10' long and 6' tall and may 5' wide. It's rounded on the front and comes to a fin on the back. The sleeping quarters are in the front and the back end lifts up to create a galley. It's home made from plans the guy got off the internet. Tin over a wooden frame. He even insulated it with the foam-in-a-can that you can buy at WalMart. It took about 25 cans of the stuff to do the whole thing. I talked to him for a few minutes and he showed me around and in it. He's on his way to Florida to see his Dad. Don't know where he's from. But I wish him luck. What an adventure!

My Buddy, Bruce, dubbed it The Lemon. Put some black stripes on it and a smile on the front and it could be The Bee.

Happy Thanksgiving...

2008-11-19T12:40:00.003-07:00

So, it's a week before Thanksgiving and the temperature yesterday was 70 degrees. The same for today. So Brian and I are going golfing this afternoon. What wonderful weather. It's supposed to be warm next week too. Think we can convince our wives that we need to go golfing on Thanksgiving morning? HA!

I was reading Donna's blog and had some thoughts of my own.

I do remember lots of pets on the farm. We had cats, dogs, cows, horses, goats, chickens, pigs, hamsters, gerbils, snakes...you name it, we had it. I lost the snake in my room and Mom had a fit and threatened me if I didn't find it before she came back from the grocery store. I found it and was promptly escorted out of the house with my 'pet' and told to let it go!

Cats. We had cats galore. Mom and we adopted Sleepy and she did have a ton of kittens. Dad calculated that she had at least 60 in her lifetime. The one that stayed the longest was Simon the part Siamese that went to California with us. He had an eventful life. When he was a kitten he and Sleepy went to sleep in the back of Dad's truck. He jumped in and went to work before they could bail out. They rode all the way to work with Dad. He called Mom from work and told her that she should come and get "HER" cat. When we got to Dad's truck there was only Sleepy. We couldn't find Simon for days. Mom and Donna knocked on doors down our road and low and behold they found Simon under the trailer of a little old lady. Simon had jumped out of the truck a couple hundred yards from the house. We figured that he'd jumped out while the truck was traveling at approximately 40mph. He lost a tooth and ripped his lip badly, but survived. He did drool when sound asleep for the rest of his life. YUCK!! Drool spots on your pillow!

Cows. I was a cow person. Still am. I'd rather have a cow for a pet anyday. Does that make me a redneck? I'm asked all the time what my favorite pet is and I respond, "Cow." Think about it. If the world is coming to an end people still have a hard time thinking of eating their cats, dogs and horses. No one thinks twice about eating a cow. Plus I just like bovine. Always have, always will. Wish I could keep on in my backyard, but the neighbors might not like that.

My memories of the cows on our farm are many. Butterball was a great cow. She was mild mannered and bore healthy calves. We ate most of them. I think she only had two or three heifers the rest were bulls. I don't think we ever named here but we had a black angus that was a hoot. She loved watermelon. If you stood by the fence and held up a watermelon rind and whistled she'd run to you. Full out run, not trot, not lope, run! She wanted to be the first there to get the most watermelon. Duke was my pet brahma. He was so tame. We had to get rid of him when we started buying registered stock. I remember the day still. It was foggy and cold. We herded all the cows into the front pasture to put them in the trailer. I was lagging behind and tried to cut Duke out and let him 'escape' to the back woods and we'd have to let him stay. Dad saw me and what I was trying to do and stopped me. I cried when I said goodbye. We replaced those cows with Buddy, Perla, and I can't remember all the names. We then had to get rid of them after a couple of years when we moved to CA. I tried to talk Dad into taking them with us, to no avail.

Dogs. Jack was our faithful mutt that we got off of the Pope family. We had a Jill too, but she got sick and had to be put down. Jack stayed with us for a few years. Probably 5 or 6 years. He was a wanderer. He wandered up into town one time and was 'adopted' by a family. Donna happened to be playing in town with some friends when she spotted him on a leash attached to a little boy. Donna called him and he tried to come, but the little boy dragged him back to his house. Don't know how but Mom and Donna went to the house and retrieved Jack. He still couldn't be stopped from wandering. He wandered into town and went through peoples trash cans and did it once too often. Someone shot him in the leg and he hopped home on three legs that fall. All winter long he stayed in his house/box and Donna and I fed him and watered him and put fresh hay in his house/box until he emerged in the spring with a limp and a large wound on his hind leg. He stayed a little closer to home after that. Too bad. He followed Mom into the woods when she went to visit Dad while he cut firewood. Jack bit into a cyanide trap meant for coyotes and died. Mom felt bad and didn't tell me about that until 5 years later when I was just home off my mission. I'd always thought that he'd been 'adopted' or shot again.

Seeing as it's Thanksgiving I'll tell the story of the Tom turkey. We had a Tom and a few hens that we kept for fun and the eggs. Big eggs! It was one of my chores to feed the chickens and the turkeys when I got home from school. The Tom was a mean one and tried to flog you when you entered his territory (the pen where he and his harem were kept.) Dad showed me how to push the Tom away with a stick to keep him at a distance. One day I guess I'd had a bad day at school. I don't know why. When I entered the turkey pen the Tom came at me and I reared back and baseball swung right at his head. WHACK!!!! And he fell over. I panicked and collected the eggs and headed back into the house to contemplate my punishment. When Dad got home I was too afraid to face him so I avoided him. About 30 minutes later Dad called me into the back yard. With fear and trepidation I dragged my feet into the backyard. Dad asked what was "wrong with the Tom?" I had only knocked him out and not knocked him off. I feined ignorace and considered it a boon. I did tell Dad at a later date exactly what had happened. But that Tom didn't bother me when I went into the pen after that.

We've had a few pets here in Provo too. Cats and a dog and some fish. Not the menagerie we had in Texas. But with luck we'll be able to find some land one day and have a few cows and chickens.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-02T22:43:00.005-07:00

Last Wednesday Janet and Sarah picked out 4 very large and pretty pumpkins. They were HUGE!

Mandy struggled taming her pumpkin...

Sarah dispatched hers with ease...

Mine was scrumptious...

I wasn't very inspired while carving mine...

Sarah wanted to do the pumpkins barfing, but it doesn't translate very well in the dark...

I think this one is Janet's...

Amanda's...

A nighttime shot of our front yard. I'll get a daytime shot that's clearer. Our's was referred to as the Scooby House or the Twinkling House (because of the blinking lights hanging from the trees.)

Halloween morning was gorgeous and red as the sun came up under the clouds...how does the saying go? Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. Sunday it rained all day.

Riley, Sarah, Sara, and Heather

Amanda and her boyfriend, Alec, dressed up as Jack Skellington and Sally from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" Amanda made both of their costumes from scratch.

Don't know if he looks better with or without the hat.
Pretty happy for a girl held together with stitches...

Thought you might be interested in what Janet has been up to the past week and a half. She's been putting up apple jelly and apple syrup. We had a bumper crop of red delicious apples. I think she said we'll have 12 quarts of syrup and I'll bet three times as much jelly. A lot of the jelly we'll put in the little half pints and give them away to co-workers for Christmas. This picture is just the first days product...

Snow, Snow, Stay Away...

2008-10-30T08:49:00.003-06:00

The weather report says that we're gonna have a snow storm early next week...just in time for the Presidential Election. We've been blessed with very good weather for the past couple of weeks. I've usally packed away the golf clubs for the season by now. Last night I took advantage of the mild weather and got in 9 holes. I tried to get all sorts of people to go with me, but to no avail. Janet volunteered to go with me but Sarah wanted to go pick out pumpkins for carving last night. I went by myself and it was a beautiful afternoon. 78 degrees and very little wind. Oh to live in a warmer climate, on a beach or a tropical island for that matter.

We carved pumpkins last night. 3 nights before Halloween is kinda late, but had we put them out a couple of weeks ago they would be rotting in the warm weather anyway. Janet and Sarah picked out some of the biggest we've had in a long time. I'll try to get Janet to publish her pictures of the festivities. First I'll have to teach her how.

Janet and the girls have had a blast decorating for Halloween this year. They've gone all out with lights and "Caution" tape. Now they're thinking of building ghosts. Again, I'll try to get photos of the decorations on line in the near future.

Father/Daughter Activity

2008-10-23T07:29:00.003-06:00

So, about a week ago the Young Women in our ward hosted a Father/Daughter acitivity. We played a couple of games. One was the matching game. We had two bulletin boards filled with fathers on one board and daughters on the other with the names on the backs of brightly colored cards. We were broken up into two teams and had to pick one card from each side. We took turns until we figured out where the matches were. It's the same game we played as kids, but I don't remember a name, other than the Matching Game.

Next we played a version of the Newlywed Game. I guess our version would be called How Well Do You Know Your Father/Daughter Game. Mandy and I know each other pretty well, but Sarah and I tied for the number of most correct answers.

Me and My Girls

Me and Sarah

Me and Moo

2008-10-22T15:01:00.006-06:00

Remember I said that I'd blog some photo's from Eric's ordination weekend? Here they are!

The Family
Wish I'd put my arm around Eric too.
Janet and Me
Eric and his Mommy
The four sibs
The whole gang
Eric loves this one
The three Amigos
This one's just cute
Looking forward

Cousins

I really like this one

Thanksgiving Point

2008-10-08T16:00:00.002-06:00

So everyone met at our house during the third weekend of September. It started out as the annual scrapbooking affair for Janet, Gail and Donna. They spend the weekend in Sandy, Utah at the South Town Conference Center and create scrapbook pages and buy lots and lots of stuff. You can see some of the pictures from their weekend at Donna's blog.

That was the start of it all. I don't know who convinced Mom to come out that weekend, but Donna paid for her ticket and now Mom was coming. Linda and I spent this weekend last year visiting Bob Sorensen and perusing the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum. This year Linda offered to spend the weekend up here vistiting with Mom and taking her around SLC to see the sites and any family history stuff. What a nice daughter.

Next we realized that Eric would be ordained some time just before that weekend. We asked Eric if he wanted to wait a few weeks and do it while his Aunts and Grandma were here? He really wanted to be ordained right then, but then thought about it and decided that I would be cool to have more family there for the occasion.

That's when Janet and I really started thinking hard about Dad coming out for his grandson's ordination. Dad was a little reluctant at first, but we were able to convince him to come out for a long weekend and Eric's ordination.

Then, about a couple of weeks later I hear that David is thinking of coming out too. Now that was really cool. David hadn't ever been to see us in Provo. I shouldn't complain, we've only been to his house once. But he drove all the way. He did say that he probably never do that again. That it's a little lonely on the road without his lovely wife. Not very good for a trucker, eh? But we're very glad that he decided to come.

So for Eric's ordination we had both sets of grandparents, Janet's sister DeAnn and her family, all my siblings, three of Linda's kids and one of her grandkids, and some of Eric's good friends. It was a very cool Sunday afternoon that we were able to capture in photo's by a photography friend. I'll put those on a later blog. But now...

I call this "Throw Daddy Off the Pier." We were looking at the cool Koi in the ponds at the Thanksgiving Point gardens.

Gail's daughter, Caroline.

Linda and I rented a golfcarts and we were glad we did after a couple of hours touring the 50 acres of gardens.

Sarah loved taking pictures of all the flowers and bugs and frogs and...you get the idea.

Sarah's pic of a pergola at the gardens, very cool huh?

Sarah's rose picture.

Me, Dad, Carolinea and David checking out the Koi.

Grandma wasn't interested in the fish so we sat and talked for a while.

After the gardens we headed over to the working farm. Can you believe that Sarah had never milked a cow before? I don't think she actually got any milk out?
Sarah and Caroline bought tickets and used them to ride the ponies.
Doesn't she look natural up there?
Caroline made fast friend with this little pony.
These are supposed to be the tallest man-made falls in the western hemisphere....

OOPS!! or OUCH!

2008-09-30T16:28:00.004-06:00

Okay, I didn't mean to do it. The other night I was coming in the front door and I slammed the door behind me. I remember seeing the cat (Sadie) sitting in the middle of the front room looking at me and the door. I just figured she would stay put. Well, never assume what a cat will do. She decided at the last second that she wanted out and that she could beat the closing door. I heard two distinct thumps. That was strange. I turned around and saw a tuft of fur on the floor. I thought to myself, "I sure hope that's one of her play mice." It wasn't.

As you can see I had scalped the end of her tail. And that's a quarter for size reference. It was pretty gross. I looked out the front door, but for some reason she was no where to be seen. Wonder why? I waited about a half hour and called out the side door and she actually came back in the house. She wasn't crying or anything. A little skittish, but amazingly she didn't seem to be in any pain. She joined us on our bed and we watched her to see if there were any serious problems. She just curled up on a blanket and went to sleep. But the "rat tail" that was left was quite gross. If you have a weak stomach don't click on the pictures for the close up.

After a couple of days the tail dried up and hasn't given her any trouble. She's been nibbling at it and has taken a few millimeters off over the past couple of weeks. I don't know if it will ever be completely gone. The fur ahs been closing around the wound but you can still see the little brown stub sticking out.

2008 Lakeside 7th Ward Youth Conference

2008-08-22T14:23:00.006-06:00

One of the members of our ward has family that still live on the family ranch in Star Valley Wyoming. They graciously hosted us on their ranch this past week. We had 7 girls and 5 boys with 5 leaders for three days of fun and learning.

We got there late Thursday afternoon and the host family had a dance all ready for the youth. While I cooked dinner in the dutch ovens the kids learned some square dance moves and go to know some of the youth from the local ward that had come to enjoy in the festivities. It looks nice and warm in the photos but the temperature was already beginning to drop as the sun set behind the mountains.

Good thing they had a large firepit. As we sat around the fire we listened to a couple from the valley that teach at the local high school and give inspirational talks to you groups. They talked about making friends and working to keep them by showing genuine concern for their needs.

Friday morning we went for hike up a bluff behind the farmhouse. When we got back, Rex, the host had some team building excersizes for the kids to try. One had the kids try to swing across an open space and land on a pallet and then each kid in turn went across. They had to get everyone across and had to help those that had a hard time. It took a while but they accomplished the task. Afterward Rex talked to them about what they had to do to accomplish their goal.

The next game was moving everyone on logs around without crossing the same person twice. I didn't get it. I'll admit it. The kids seemed to have fun with it and eventually had fun just jumping across and trying to stay on the logs. Mandy got kinda bored and took a seat.

In the afternoon we went across the road and played on their private lake. We couldn't swim in it but that was okay because we saw lots of leaches and water snakes. The kids played with the canoes and the floating docks and even the leaders got in the act with an impromptu guitar solo while standing in their boat.

Well, that's when my cameras batteries ran out. Later in the afternoon we went up in the mountains to a zip line and played on that for a couple of hours. While we were up there we saw lightning and heard the thunder and decided to head back. We didn't beat the weather. We got caught by a hail storm and rain for about half and hour. When we got back to the farmhouse we were soaked. Some dry clothes helped and then it was back to cooking for me. After dinner we had a fireside in the barn where it was a little warmer.

Saturday morning we did a service project for the Gomm's by moving some stones that they wanted to use in landscaping and some of the youth cut and raked grass around the lake to make it more accessible to boaters and hikers. After a couple of hours of work we fed the kids and hit the road back to Provo.

Our thanks to Bro. Gomm whose family owns the farm and showed us a great time.

Olympics

2008-08-20T07:23:00.006-06:00

So, how many of you are having a hard time turning off the tv at night and going to bed? I've dragged my butt to work each day this week. I have a little bit of an excuse. We were on vacation the first week of the games and it was easy to stay up late and sleep in the next day. That was easy to get used to. Maybe our businesses should just shut down for the two weeks of the olympics, it's only every four years! That actually sounds reasonable for those of us who work for the government. It would show national pride. But alas, the wheels of government continue to grind along no matter what is happening. I'll just have to deal with burning, red eyes and cat naps at lunch...or should I say that my boss will have to deal with it.

For those of you who haven't hear yet Amanda and Eric have recently bought cars. Two different reasons. Eric as an investment and Amanda for freedom and independence. Eric bought a little Acura hatchback from a friend and is fixing it up to re-sell for a profit. Amanda's is a Geo Storm that has been passed around the neighborhood. The last fellow to have it had abused it, but it's in reasonable shape for transportation to school, work and home.

Speaking of fixing up a vehicle, have you priced tires lately? I can remember just a short while ago seeing adds in the paper for $25 tires for small cars. Try doubling that. Then add the mounting fees and disposal fees and taxes and tire on that Geo was $69! Poor Amanda just about croaked when I told her how much it cost her. But now she has four good new tires and I feel better about her driving it around. The old tires were so bad that the whole car rocked back and forth as you went down the road. You could actually see the cables showing through the tread.

One last vehicle story. Our Suburban has been running poorly the last couple of years. It started with sputtering while trying to haul our camper trailer up hills. It progressed to sputtering while just trying to go uphill without anything in tow. I had a guy work on it and replace one of the injectors and clean the rest. Eric and I then replaced all the spark plugs, wires and rotor cap. That didn't fix it. Then went to a dealership and had them work on it. They replaced the fuel filter and replaced the head gasket. That made sense actually. Sucking air while trying to haul something at high speed. Quite a bit of money but what can you do. It still coughed uphill while pulling the trailer. At least it wouldn't do it without a load. Well, last week I pulled a trailer (much heavier than our camper trailer) up to Wyoming for Youth Conference. I was hesitant to volunteer to pull the trailer because of the problems we've had, but it was a necessity as it had all the food and baggage in it. I pulled that first hill out of our valley and waited for the usual sputtering. It never happened. When we stopped at a rest stop in Wyoming I almost said something to one of the other drivers. But I was scared that I might jinx it. The truck pulled some big and long hills on that trip, both up and back and never once hiccupped. I attribute it to the prayers of those on the trip and my wife at home who knew I was nervous using the 'Burb on this trip. Heck, she was the nervous one. Now I just hope that it's okay to pull our camper trailer for Labor Day weekend. Wish us luck!!

Oh, back to the Olympics. How many of you, at work, plug your ears while a sports report is on the radio, so you can go home and watch it that night. Acting like it's live. HA!

MIDWAY UTAH

2008-08-19T08:51:00.006-06:00

Janet and I own a time-share up in Midway, Utah. It's in the Heber Valley. We usually trade our week here for a week in Park City. There's really not a lot to do in Midway proper. There are only a few thousand residents, but the weather is cooler and the scenery is greener and prettier than Provo. We prefer Park City because of the old main street with all the shops and restaurants but we waited too long to book and missed out for this summer. Midway has a Swiss theme to the buildings and has a Swiss Days in late August. Some of the first families to settle in the area were Swiss converts who emigrated in the 1850's. So our condo project continued the theme.

One of my more favorite attractions is the golf. The course goes right by our condo. The condo we stayed in was the one you can see the roof on the left of this photo.

While up there we went to the Wasatch State Park. Right behind the visitors center they have a spring fed lake with fishing for the kids and ducks to feed. Well, they changed the law this year and you have to buy a license to fish when you turn twelve. But they didn't sell fishing licenses there at the vistors center. Huh? I thought for sure they'd sell fishing licenses at a state park. So we fed the ducks and enjoyed the quiet serenity of the park and lake. BTW Amanda is filming the ducks. That's what she's concentrating on with her phone.

Janet had the ducks eating out of her hands.

Eric and Sarah noticed these little black things crawling on the bottom on the lake and Eric picked one up to investigate closer. Then he said, "It's a leach! Yep, it's a leach. It just bit me." Sarah was grossed out but couldn't keep her eyes off of it.

After we left the state park we headed over to a resort called The Homestead. It's a collection of old buildings from the pioneers and new ones that make up a resort and conference center. They have one of the largest hot water cones in the area. Heber Valley is dotted with hot water pools that have formed calderas that have water that is kept warm year round by the geothermal action underground. The photos above are inside the cone (and borrowed, so don't rat me out.) You can pay to swim but you have to wear a flotation device because they're afraid that you might faint from the warm water. It has a year-round temperature of about 90 to 95 degrees. Or you can pay to scuba dive. The water is 65 feet deep but they limit you to 45 feet so as not to stir up the silt on the bottom. The visibility is 40-45 feet and the water glows blue from the light coming from the hole at the top of the cone.

The cone is 70 feet tall and has a stairway on the south side to the right in the trees.
Sarah ran up and down the stairs just to prove that she is in better shape than the rest of us. Eric couldn't prove himself because he had broken two toes and had a large gash on one of them from a swimming/rope swing accident the day before. Sorry, no pictures of that. But the story is he was swinging out over the water and wasn't able to let go because he would have landed on his girlfriend. He held on as long as he dared and when he finally did let go he landed in shallow water and rocks. The doctor at the insta-care told him that he should take it easy and they'll heal eventually.
Here're the kids looking down the cone to the water and swimmers below. I guess they've had trouble with drunk guests falling in the hole in the past. But you can see through the wire.
Turn around and there's our condo in the background. Right over Sarah's head and Eric's shoulder.

Ward Campout

2008-07-27T22:48:00.003-06:00

Oops! I forgot to blog our ward campout from a couple of weeks ago. We got a group campgound up Provo Canyon at a place called Rock Canyon Campground. It's straight up the mountain from Provo but you have to go through Provo Canyon and it takes a little while to get there but it's worth the drive. Set in a small mountain valley in amongst the pines and scrub oak.

Our Activities Committee chairwoman counted at least 60 people there on Friday night. The most popular thing to do with the teenagers and some of the adults was to play Uno Attack. They played for hours (with a break for dinner.) The rest of the time was spent visiting and swapping stories.

Dinner was bring your own. But dessert was an assortment of cobblers and homemade ice cream that was provided by the ward members. We had every kind of cobbler you can imagine.

We ate until we were ready to burst...and then we ate some more! I think there were at least 10 different kinds of cobblers. We enjoyed each others company and one of our ward members (Bro. Lapioli) brought his guitar and we sang primary songs around the campfire until 10pm.

Sarah learned a new trick. Can you touch your tongue to your nose?

She also made a new friend. This is a Shi Tzu owned by one of our neighbors and camping buddies. He was passed from kid to kid to be cuddled and loved. Sarah wound up being the last kid to hold him and she took advantage of the opportunity.

The next morning we had to get up early to get back to the house to take Tiffany to the airport. Along the way we stopped at a place called Squaw Peak overlook.

Overlooking Provo. Can you see our house out there?

Turn around and there's Mt Timanogos.

We had a great time. The mountain air was nice and cool and the company was even better.

Lagoon

2008-07-16T16:50:00.005-06:00

So, last week we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Lagoon Amusement Park. It was instigated by the invitation of our youngest by our next door neighbors. I'd never been, Janet hadn't been for 20 years or more. So off we went last Thursday.

One of the first rides we went on was the newest one, Wicked! It's a roller coaster that starts by shooting you straight up 110 feet, then straight down and into the twists and turns that you're used to. It also has a corkscrew loop about halfway through too. The two following photos are from the amusement parks website.

We don't have any photos of it, but we went on a ride called the Cliffhanger. It takes you over fountains of water while haning you upside down. It gets you all wet but that was okay because it was a hot and sunny day. Which is probably why we liked the ride over the park in the ski lift chairs.

And then there was the Rocket. They have two versions, Re-Entry and Blast Off. The Re-Entry ride takes you up 200 feet and then drops you down almost to the bottom then you bounce your way down on air pressure in the pipes. Sarah was so phyched when we got off the ride that she ran right around and got in line for the Blast Off portion. On Blast Off you are shot the 200 feet up and then bounce back down like the Re-Entry. It was nice and cool in the heat of the afternoon. The second photo is from the amusement park's website. There were some old fashioned rides that you would find at the county fair in your home state. There was the Tilt-A-Whirl that you see us in here...
The Turn of the Century swing ride. It's the usual merry-go-round swing attraction. But it wasn't installed until 1987 for Lagoon's 100th anniversary. It swings you out over a spring fed pond that the park is named for. We had just come from Rattle Snake Rapids when we decided to go on this ride to dry off.
There was the Space Scrambler that is a centrifugal ride that you squish your neighbor. Fun for first dates to see if she can handle close contact with you. You can see Janet was anxious to get out when we finished. She wasn't gonna wait for the attendant to open the door for us.

We found the bumper cars to be a lot of fun...
Sarah never slowed down and was rearing to go for more...
Mandy found a shady spot and took a nap...The highlight of the evening was the Sky Coaster. Notice the brave faces that we're showing. Inside we were nervous and throwing up (NAH!! not really). We were nervous but it was a long wait and hearing the screams of the other riders didn't help our nerves....

Here's how the park describes the ride...

The Sky Coaster is a sport/amusement attraction designed by Sky Fun 1, Inc. of Boulder, Colorado. The attraction offers all the thrills and excitement of skydiving and hang gliding.The attraction operates by putting the participant in a full body harness (usually referred to as a flight suit), that supports the flyer (from one to three at a time), in a prone position. The harness is then connected to the flight support cables.From a static point approximately 6 feet above the ground, the flyers are then pulled aloft by a launch cable to nearly the top of the launch tower. At this point the flyers are approximately 143 feet above the ground with the flight cables taut and the flight is ready to begin. Upon being given the signal, the flyers pull the rip cord, releasing them from the launch cable, and they begin to rapidly swing towards the ground at speeds reaching up to 80 mph. The overall feeling is similar to that of swooping along the ground in a hang glider, or that of skydiving.

Sorry. No Video. You'll just have to use your imagination....or go to You Tube and type in Sky Coaster and watch some videos of other rides to get the feel of what we did.

Before and After

2008-07-07T22:06:00.004-06:00

So, a couple of weeks ago Amanda decided to cut her hair off. Well, she asked JulieAnn Libutti to do it. JulieAnn is a gal around the corner. I've been after Amanda to cut her hair for a couple of years now. I think she last had short hair when she was about 12 or 13. She looked so cute. I've been bugging her about it ever since.

So...

BEFORE....

AFTER....

Isn't she cute!?!?!?

Ain't Life Funny...

2008-06-25T09:14:00.003-06:00

Five years ago Donna and her family went to Disney World. They took pictures of their girls wearing sombreros in the gift shop at the Pirates of The Carribean ride. Low and behold, five years, almost to the day, we took pictures of our girls wearing sombreros in the same gift shop. Life is funny that way.

New(er) Car

2008-06-24T17:19:00.003-06:00

It's a 1998 Honda Civic with 123,000 miles on it. We expect to get between 35 and 40 mpg.
No air conditioning, no power windows, no cruise control, no automatic transmission, nothing.

About a week before I took off for Varsity Scout Camp Janet and I took a little drive around town looking for something that would get better gas mileage than the Suburban that I was commuting in. We'd been thinking about it for some months now, at least I had. Janet was on board with the idea, but since it would be my car to commute in it was up to me to find something. I'd been keeping an eye open along the ride home each day and hadn't really seen anything. That's when we decided to look in some of the used car lots around town. We spent a couple of evenings looking and driving and were kinda getting discouraged. Our intial price range proved to be too low for our expectations. We didn't realize how Honda's hold their value and how much in demand they really are. Well, we re-visited a car lot that deals with mostly Honda's and there it was. We took a test drive and were sold. It's a good thing too, gas here is $3.98 and climbing. When I got back from my Moab/Varsity Scout trip it took almost 36 gallons and $142.00 to fill the Suburban.

Varsity Scout Camp in Moab, Utah

2008-06-13T11:48:00.010-06:00

Day 1

The first week of this month I went on a Scout camp with the Varsity Scouts from our ward (that's the 14-15 year olds, Teachers Quorum.) It was organized by the Stake and each ward was represented by a boy and a leader to help plan the trip. It was decided that we'd camp at Gold Bar Campground just outside of Moab, Utah on the Colorado River. Here is a link to the road we used to get to our camp site. It just so happens to be a scenic byway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_State_Route_279

Our camp is the group of tents in the left corner of the campground with the blue dining fly. The river is flowing left to right and was quite high. It had rained the previous two days and had rained that morning we got there. I was talking to some kids who had been camping there the previous two days and they were wet and miserable and ready to go home. They packed up that afternoon and headed home a day early. The rest of the week was perfect weather for our camp...too bad they didn't stick around.

The first thing after setting up camp we climbed to the top of the bluff overlooking the camp and the river, as you can see from the photos of the campground and my photo here with the bluff in the background. The plan was to rappel off the bluff.

Here I am getting hooked up to go over the cliff. There is a guy in our stake that is a climber and owns his own equipment and lots of it. He had two ropes over the cliff. One was 75 feet long, which is the one in the photo above and below. It was actually a little more technical that the other because there was a lip on the cliff and you had to take a little hop off the ledge or lip for your first step. I was a little scary for your first step. But with my long legs it didn't take much effort.

I was joking around waiting for the line to die down for the longer 100 foot rope when I asked, "Can I go down face first?" The guy looked at me and asked if I had already gone down once and I answered positively and he said, "Sure. Since you've already gone once." Then I thought to myself that I'd opened my mouth and now I was committed. I looked this up when I got home and the style is called "Australian." I guess because you do it backwards of the usual?

It doesn't look like I'm actually going down face first.

This is a few feet from the ground. By this time my whole body was so tense that when I jumped to the ground my legs just about gave out. I had to put my hands on my knees and let the tension leave my body. I took a couple of minutes.

There were three arches within walking distance of our campground. One was Jug Handle Arch (which I don't have a picture of), then Bow Tie Arch and Corona Arch. After a big dinner of Navajo Tacos we hiked about a mile up a canyon right across the road from our campsite to Bow Tie and Corona Arches.

Bow Tie Arch.

Me under Bow Tie Ach. The water was running down the rocks from all the rain that they'd gotten the previous two day. They'd gotten almost 1 inch in two day. Quite a lot in the desert.

Corona Arch with the sun lighting the cliffs in the back ground.

There aren't any people under the arch for perspective, but the trees are about 15 to 20 feet tall.

The reason for hiking to the arches was to hold a fireside. President Orton from the Stake Presidency spoke to the boys as the sun set and lit up the cliff behind him. It made for a dramitic setting.

Future arch. And the close of the first day.

Day 2

Day 2 was river rafting on the Colorado. We hired a rafting outfit out of Moab and they took us upriver and floated back to Moab. It was about 8 hours in all. I don't have any pictures, yet. I didn't want to take my digital camera on the river, but Steve Gorski (our YM's first counselor) had a camera that he'd brought just for the occasion. When He gets me his photo's I'll put some in here.

But I did take some pictures that evening. After dinner we had some free time and Matt Morrise (our Varsity Coach) and I headed up a nearby bluff and searched out some petroglyphs that I'd been told about.

Jacob's ladder?

Bear being shot by Indian's with accompanying Big Horn Sheep.

200 foot spire. Can't see the top. Sorry.

Day 3

The third day was our last. The plan was to break camp and drive out to a trail that we could bike on.

Breaking camp.

The name of the trail was "Klondike Trail." It was about 2.5 miles uphill to a bluff overlooking Arches National Park. Couldn't see any arches from there but the ride was fun, especially downhill. It's all slickrock. It sound and looks smooth, but believe me, it's not. You have to stop every once in a while to let your arms recover.

On one of my stops I noticed something on the ground. It looked familiar. I knew I'd seen something like it before. Then I started noticing more and more. They were dinosaur footprints. They were everywhere. I'll bet there were 30 or more in the area I was looking. I put the shoe there for perspective.

Someone had put rocks around these prints that were in a straight line. They did the same thing a couple of other places.

I wanted you to see the blooms on the cacti in the area. Where we were camped the blooms were all yellow. When we drove 10 miles away to bike near Arches National Park the blooms were all red.

When we were done we made some sandwiches and loaded up the bikes and headed for home. Three days, three activities and a lot of fun.

Sarah's Graduation!

2008-05-30T20:08:00.003-06:00

Well not really a graduation. It's only the 6th grade. But it's her last year at her elementary school. Junior High here we come.

Ain't she cute...and Sarah's kinda cute too!

Sarah sure does dress up a photo, don't she? We're very proud of her. She keeps up with her school work and she likes doing extra-curricular activities. She's just a well rounded young lady. Late that night we went out to dinner to celebrate. Sarah chose Pizza Factory. Eric was really excited...especially with the waitress. I kept trying to set them up, but he wouldn't have it.
Guess what Sarah and Mandy's favorite item on the menu is? No, really. Guess. Sarah's is the bread sticks, but Mandy's is in the previous photo...Apple Beer. Hah. Got ya. But she does like the bread sticks too.The proud Mom and Dad. Can you see gray creeping in on my temples.

Happy 17th Birthday Amanda

2008-05-30T18:52:00.007-06:00

May 14 is Amanda's birthday, but I just barely downloaded the photos tonight. I know that she looks kinda serious in this first photo, but she really is having good time as you will see is the following photos.One of her many presents.

This was her favorite present. Janet was able to find a dressing dummy for more than 50% off. Now she won't have to put her dress on and take it back off so many times. She's already using it. It's kinda creepy though. I'll walk past her room and see this person standing near the doorway, or so it seems.Always the happy-go-lucky gal.
Her restaurant of choice was Los Hermanos. They have an appetizer called Grande Nachos. They should put a warning in the menu that says "Family Size." It has everything. We all tried to help after we'd eaten our own meals, and we still only finished about half. But boy was it tasty.
After dinner we started playing with the silverware.
The winner was Sarah. We didn't realize how talented she is. Can you imagine this table full of people watching and cheering on this little girl? We were boistrous and noisy, but we had a lot of fun.

Voila!!! She does it in this one.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-28T11:36:00.002-06:00

Day 8

This all goes backward. You can see from the beginning of this post. Day 8. If you want to start on day one you need to go back to April's list and start at Day 1. Thanks.

Saturday morning we slept in and relaxed because we'd have a nice long flight home in the afternoon. I think we had to be out front and waiting for the bus by 1pm. Can't remember the exact time. That meant we had a few hours that morning to spend in the Magic Kingdom. So we loaded on the Monorail and headed over.

About halfway over to the park Sarah realized that she didn't have her park pass. Janet decided to ride around back to the hotel with her and Eric decided to also. Amanda and I went on without them just to shop on Main Street. We bummed along main and looked at pins and other trinkets. Found some earrings for Tiff and a shot glass with Tinker Bell on it for Jess.

Amanda and I were just about done shopping when Janet called and said they'd recovered Sarah's park pass from her luggage and they were coming to join us. Instead we decided to just meet them at the monorail and ride back to the hotel with them and shop for pins at the shop in the hotel lobby. We found a few that were good for framing in a shadow box for a remembrance kind of thing. We'll have to get that done and take some photos for the blog here.

Rode the bus to the airport and found out that the plane was delayed. Actually the plane was broken and they were waiting for a replacement to fly in from New Jersey to take its place. It was okay. We had dinner at the airport and were on the plane by 5:30-6:00 and home by about 9:30-10:00pm. Don't remember the exact time, but there was still light when we got there. It was dusty though. Guess we had a really bad windstorm that day and it was dusty enough that you couldn't see the mountains. Linda was heading home to Cedar that same eve and she was flabbergasted at how dusty it was.

Got home, unpacked and got to bed in plenty of time to get up early for church meetings the next morning.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-28T10:16:00.006-06:00

Day 7

Friday morning we got up early and headed to the Magic Kingdom (early entrance for resort guests). We entered the park and stayed to our left and went clockwise and tried to ride every ride. There were a few that we'd missed in previous visits and we wanted to experience everything because we were feeling to the departure time fast approaching. Just a day away.

Talk about the typical tourist. Amanda saw the ducks sleeping on the sidwalk as we left our room and had to get down on their level to take their picture. It was kinda humorous to see her waddling into position to get a closeup. I wish I'd taken a video of it.

We rode the Monorail from the Polynesian to the Magic Kingdom. You can see the Poly way in the background just to the left and behind the Grand Floridian with its red tile roof. Janet looked into rooms at the GF but it was twice the price but from what she saw on the website it was really, really, really nice and big. If you decide to go there yourself you might look into it. By the way....see the nice white sandy beach? You can walk along them, but you can't swim in the lake. There are signs all along the lake saying not to swim. Don't know why.

Remember the Jungle Cruise from when you were a kid. The last time we went to Disneyland the ride was closed, so we jumped aboard and enjoyed the ride.

Everyone was excited at the start of the day...except Eric who was still half asleep.

Next was the Pirates of the Carribean. I really was having fun.

Pirates is also Eric's favorite ride. He insisted that we ride it the first time we entered the park on Sunday and every other time we entered the park. I'm not complaining, it's my favorite too. It's been my favorite since I was a kid and went to Disneyland the first time as a kid.

So we got off the Pirates ride and were bumming around the tourist shop and Sarah and Amanda found this great big sombrero. What that had to do with the Carribean I don't know. But they had fun with it. Can you see all the pins that Sarah had collected by that time? We need to buy a shadow box and mount them for her so she can show them off and appreciate them more often than when she opens her underwear drawer.

There is some missing time between these pictures. After Pirates we got some lunch. After that we decided to go on Splash Mountain. Well, they had fixed the water squirter that gets you as you enter the mountain. We got soaked. I mean really soaked. I'm just glad I was wearing a nylon shirt and shorts.

We then decided that we wanted to ride the train around the park to dry off. After some searching we found an entrance and hopped aboard. At the Main Street stop you could see our resort way across the lake.

While we waited for the train to get moving Janet tried getting us all in one picture.

Think we were feeling a little giddy?

After the train ride we bumped into Amanda's best friend from back in Provo. Actually they'd been texting each other for days trying to get together. They were staying in a condo outside the park and did water parks and other things. They just happened to be in the Magic Kingdom this particular day. And we forgot to take a picture. No evidence. We talked with them for a couple of minutes and compared notes and said our goodbyes. They were headed to one of the water parks for the afternoon. They left for Provo the next morning bright and early.

After meeting Mandy's friend we headed over to the riverboat for a relaxing ride around Huck Finn's Island. I thought for sure that Sarah would want to check out the island, but no. So we rode the boat.

And took some pictures.

And texted the friend we'd just seen 30 minutes before.

Janet is too cool.

We didn't spend too much more time in the Magic Kingdom because we had a dinner reservation at EPCOT. But before we left I recieved a phone call from Linda. I tried to call her back but she had turned off her phone because she was going into a class or performance or something. So I left a message.

Our dinner reservation was at the Morrocan restaurant. It was called Marrakesh. It was really good food. I remember Janet some chicken with couscous. Eric had a lamb dish called mechoui. I had a shish kebab of beef with some hummus. I can't remember what Sarah or Amanda had. But we did have pastilla, or thin fry bread with cinnamon and sugar, for dessert.

Sarah got ahold of a camera while at the dinner table and took my picture. Eric was checking out the belly dancer who was teaching little girls how to dance.

After dinner we were waiting for the girls to get out of the restroom when my phone rang. It was Linda calling me back. I guess I'd forgotten to tell her that we were going to Florida that week. She was in Provo and was just letting me know she was in town because I'd complained that she never lets me know when she's in town. Well, she was letting me know. I told her I was in Morrocco. She hesitated and said she didn't believe me. So I told her where I was and we had a laugh.

There are no more pictures of this night. We spent the rest of the evening walking through the various countries' markets and displays. Germany, England, Canada, France, Morrocco, Japan, US, Norway, China. We wound up in front of China to take in the nightly fireworks display.

After the fireworks the park closed except for those with bracelets. We went over and rode the Mission to Mars ride and the ride that goes up into the ball that you associated with EPCOT. Don't know what that's called. By this time Janet and the girls were getting pooped out. They decided to hang back and wait while Eric and I got one last ride on the Soaring Over California. By the time we had finished that it was midnight and time to head back to the hotel.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-28T07:33:00.014-06:00

Day 6

Thursday morning Sarah and I got up and got going while Janet, Eric and Amanda slept in. Sarah was very excited to get over to the Animal Kingdom and ride the Expedition Everest roller coaster. I didn't want to risk my camera so I didn't take any pictures of that. Just before noon, or just after, I can't remember, Janet and the other kids joined up with us and we spent the afternoon together riding and having fun.

This was kinda cool. The characters are Goofy, Mickey and Pluto. The ride around in a boat on the lagoon and wave to the crowds. Then they dock and greet the visitors.

A stack of copper pots as part of the decorations while waiting for the Wild River ride. Notice the poncho sticking out from behind my back. The first day we rode this we had no protection. This time we were prepared.

I don't know. Maybe because we'd been to this park before, but we didn't take very many pictures this time around.

After spending the afternoon at the Animal Kingdom we headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. Janet got us seats at the luau they have each night at the Polynesian Resort where we stayed. It was very "PCC" (Polynesian Cultural Center) like at Laie, Hawaii. Dinner and a show and very well done. We had a blast.

Mandy was so hungry she tried to eat her lei. Really, see the plate in front of her....she ate the whole thing.

Our cuties.

Eric ate the most....and was very proud of it.

Tongan dancer.

Maori dancers.

Maori dancers with poi balls. It's tough to get the balls going on one hand, but they had two in each hand. I used to be able to do one hand, now I can't even get them going at all. I'll have to make some and practice at home.

Tahitian Dancers.

Then they brought out a guy that is supposed to be the World Champion Fire Dancer. He performed for almost 15 minutes and only set the stage on fire once. HA. He really did, but he just stepped on it and put it out. At one time he had two batons going at the same time.

Sarah was invited up to participate in a dance. She had a great time. I'm very proud of all my kids. They're game to try anything and participate. I don't think there was ever a time on this trip they didn't just get in there and go for it. I was a little chicken growing up and I regret not trying some things.

After dinner Sarah and I decided to go to the pool and relax.

But I couldn't. The water was cold. You can't tell but Sarah was shivering too. We decided to go back to the hotel room and get dressed and do something else.

The something else was video games at the game room at the hotel. It was packed full of video games and other such entertainment. Sarah, Janet and I spent a while there entertaining ourselves while Eric slept and Amanda texted her friends and walked on the beach.

Near midnight the fireworks started at the Magic Kingdom. It was graduation night at the Magic Kingdom. Seniors from around the area spend the night at the park starting at 10 or 11pm. and stay until 6 or 7am. I remember doing the same sort of thing at Disneyland during my senior year in SoCal. Anyway, Amanda and a spent a while on the end of the pier and took photos of the fireworks at the park.

Well....I took pictures and Amanda did....guess!

On the way back to the hotel I tried to take a photo of the building our room was in. Ours was on the ground floor, just inside the door on the left.

Amanda and I went to the main building and picked up Sarah and Janet and we headed to bed. You can tell I was ready for bed.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-12T12:43:00.011-06:00

Day 5

Another long day. We started with "Ohana Breakfast" with Lilo, Stitch, Pluto and Mickey. We then headed over to Disney's Hollywood Studios and then on to The Magic Kingdom for a night of Pirates and Princesses.

Lilo was a hit with the girls.

Stitch took a shine to Eric.

Mickey was a hit with us all and was a great host. The characters lead a parade of kids around the resturant with maracas. They turn up the music from the "Lilo and Stitch" movie and the kids and the characters dance along. It was quite fun.

Pluto made himself at home when he got to our table. I don't think Mandy makes a very good pillow. She's kinda lumpy in my opinion.

After he had his nap he got a kiss from Mandy.

Aren't my girls cute?

As we left the restaurant Sarah and I noticed a tiki by the door. I asked her if she could make that ugly of a face. What do you think? Can she?

After breakfast we caught the shuttle over to the Disney Hollywood Studios. There are a lot of shows as well as rides.

One of the first shows that we took in was the stunt driving show. I can't remember what it was called. But I remember seeing a Disney tv show based on this show. It was quite loud and fast and firey and a whole lot of fun. We also took in the Indiana Jones show. Just think of doing these shows every day two or three times a day all year long.

We had a late lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine In. It's set up like a drive-in theater. Even the booths are built to look like cars and you face a screen that plays trailers to all the old horrer movies from the 50's, including the snack bar commercials with the dancing coke cups and candy. After lunch we headed to the end of the park that had the Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Rollercoaster and rode them until it was time to head to our next destination.

After a fun filled day in Hollywood at about 7pm the Magic Kingdom was opened to invited guests only to experience the night of "Pirates and Princesses."

And I mean invited guests only. No general admission. We had to get a speacial armband. When we first entered the park there was a parade going down mainstreet and the kids weren't really interested in that so we headed to Tomorrowland. We had missed riding Space Mountain the last time we were there so we went there first. Wow, no line. We went right to the front and hopped on. Woohoo. When we got off we noticed that there was still no line so we ran, and I mean ran, around and hopped right back on. We did this 5 times straight before the parade ended and other guests started lining up.

We then headed over and rode Pirates of the Carribean and started the clockwise tour of all the rides around the park.

At about 10pm there was one of the biggest fireworks displays that I've ever witnessed. The Stadium of Fire in Provo has lasted longer, but this display was better choreographed and the variety of fireworks were incredible. There were the voices of Cap'n Hook and Smitty as they tried to storm Cinderella's Castle. The three good witches helped to repel the assault. There were fireworks from horizon to horizon and some coming from the castle.

I know this video doesn't do the fireworks justice. Just imagine music and voices.

After the fireworks show it was back to riding rides and collecting treasure. There were designated places around the park where cast members gave out strings of beads when you asked. We really didn't catch on too quick, so we didn't get a whole lot. But when we did we took advantage.

On the way out of the park the kids started getting goofy... again!

Then it got catchy and we jumped up on the curb with the cast members and helped them say goodby to all the guests that night.

That night we took the ferry back to our hotel. This is what we saw as we got back.

WOW!!! What a day

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-08T12:18:00.009-06:00

Day 4

We spent this whole day at EPCOT and we still didn't see it all.

We started off by riding some rides. The first was the General Motors Test Track. It's the fastest ride in the whole Disney Park system. It reaches 66 mph. You start indoors and run through some test systems. Then you test for speed and they send you outside around a banked oval. Wooohooo! Once you're through with the ride you have to pass through a showroom with all the new GM cars. Sarah has always been partial to the Hummer. She was soooo happy to sit in the drivers seat.

You can't see the whole car but this is the new Saturn Sky. But you can see the smile on her face.

The lines were kinda long that day and the kids were getting kinda goofy while waiting. We don't have any pictures from one the more popular rides from that morning/afternoon. It was the Mission To Mars. You can't take pictures because the ride is indoors and you're squeezed into a very tiny space. It is a centrifugal ride and your only reference is a small screen right in front of your face. You get the sensation of really blasting off from Cape Canaveral and slingshotting around the moon and landing on Mars. It was quite a good ride and passed the "Sarah's willing to do it again" test.
That night we ate a French restaurant. Boy was that good food. The waitress must have thought we were goofy tourists. We kept laughing and joking the whole time we were there. Alas, we took no pictures. But I put some of Sarah and Amanda in the Canada portion of the park.

Every evening at the EPCOT Center they put on a 20 minute fireworks display over the lake in the middle of the park. After we had dinner at the French restaurant we walked outside and enjoyed the fireworks.

After the fireworks we walked back under the giant sphere and down to the monorail and back to the hotel.

A nice couple took our picture as we waited for the monorail. This was the earliest we'd headed home this whole trip. Home by 10pm.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-07T14:22:00.011-06:00

Day 3

Well, since it was a late night the day before (3am, remember?) we slept in Monday. At least Eric and I did. Sarah, Mandy and Janet got up at around 10am and headed to the pool at our resort. Sarah had a blast playing on the slide in the volcano. Janet just lounged around in the pool and Amanda layed out on the beach by the lake. As you can tell from the photo it was a little cloudy.

Sarah landing in the pool.

After playing in the pool and relaxing we headed over to EPCOT for a late lunch or early dinner, whichever you prefer. Our reservations were for Tepan Edo. It's a Benihana-like set up. We were treated like royalty with our own private table. While we were in the Japan area we stopped and watched the taiko drummers at the Japanese temple.

Sarah watching the other diners while we waited for our table.

Amanda had a hard time with her chopsticks, which is kinda funny considering we go out to Chinese, Korean and Japanese restaurants back home on a regular basis.

After dinner we walked over to the boat ramp and took a boat ride over to the Hollywood Studios at Disney World Park. They had all sorts of rides and shows for us to go to. We watched the Muppets do a show and rode a Star Wars shuttle pod ride and took a Hollywood themed ride through the old days of the film industry.

Doesn't Eric look like he belongs in Hollywood?

Janet worked for 5 minutes to get this timed exposure. Isn't it great?

But one of the favorite rides in this park was the Holloywood Tower Hotel of Terror. It's the same as the one in the California Resort at Disneyland.

Sarah was soooo... excited to get on the rides. I think it was probably midnight by the time this picture was taken. I think we were running between the Hollywood Tower and the Rock-n-Rollin' Coaster for the last couple of hours we were in the park.

Janet and the kids in front of the Rock-n-Roller Coaster. It was an in-door roller coaster with a loop and two corkscrews. It has Aerosmith music pumped into the building and even speakers in the coaster itself. So you hear a lot of singing and screaming as you go on this ride.

We had another long day, as the park stayed open until 1am. The girls were getting kinda punchy by the time we started home and they danced right out of the gate.

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-05-02T11:34:00.006-06:00

Day 2

WOW!!! What a long day.

We'll start with HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sarah!

We started out the morning with breakfast at Cape May Resort over by the EPCOT Center. It's a very large hotel. We had breakfast with Goofy, Minnie, and Chip. As you can tell from the photos on the way over there it was cloudy and windy. A storm was approaching that would rain on us for most of the time at the Animal Kingdom. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Can you see the button on Sarah's chest. It says "Happy Birthday, Sarah." Every time one of the cast members saw that they would wish her a happy birthday. And I mean 'every' cast member, even the street sweepers and cashiers. Everyone wished her a Happy Birthday.

Sarah took this photo with her camera just before I had her and Mandy turn around so I could take their photo for myself. We were on our way to Cape May Resort where we had breakfast with...

Minnie...

Chip...

and Goofy.

After a filling breakfast we caught a bus and headed out to the Animal Kingdom. We were met at the gate by Rafiki, from "The Lion King."

We could match his blue bottom...

While we were out there we were rained on a little, but we saw cool African animals and rode the Expedition Everest roller coaster quite a few times. Not as many as Janet and Sarah. I think they went a total of 10 times, six times in a row while it was raining and no one else wanted to wait in line.

Come evening we were somewhat dried out and caught a bus back to the Magic Kingdom to take advantage of extra hours for the guests that were staying in the park resorts. I don't know how many people actually stay in the park resorts, but it wasn't all that busy. The extra hours started at 9pm and lasted until 3am. It was cool. By midnight the park was getting clearer, by 1am it was almost empty, by 2am we were running from ride to ride without any lines to wait in. It was great...I guess you could say, we were fit to be tied we were having so much fun...

Janet and Sarah were the only ones willing to ride on the log flume. The rest of us chickened out because we were nice and dry by this time.

And by this time (2:45am) Mandy was ready for bed...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sarah!!!!!

Our Disney World Vacation

2008-04-24T09:44:00.006-06:00

Day 1

My wonderful wife Janet is truly amazing. She was able to find us non-stop tickets to Orlando for the same price that would have had us stopping in Houston or Chicago. So no disembarking and waiting around for our connecting flights or having to repack everything in the overhead bins. We took off Saturday April 12th at about 10:00am. I think the flight was about five hours long.

When we got to Orlando we were picked up by the Disney World shuttle. That was another great idea by my lovely wife. No rental car to park. No fighting for parking spaces. No worries. They whisked us off to our resort, the Polynesian Resort, right there in the Disney World complex. It was one of the first resorts when the park opened.

When we got the resort we still had a couple of hours of sunlight and we were hungry. We hadn't eaten since our bagels for breakfast and some peanuts and pop on the plane. Again, Janet to the rescue. She had gotten us reservations at a restaurant in the EPCOT park. We hopped the monorail and went to the EPCOT Center and found our restaurant. It was a revolving restaurant with some of the cartoon characters roaming around to entertain the guests. And entertain they did. Amanda and Sarah bought autograph books on the way to the resaurant and we were visited by Pluto, Chip and Dale. Chip and Dale had a thing for Amanda and fought for her affection. Well, not actually fought. Chip started by writing in Amanda's book that she was cute and she should call him. He forgot to write his phone number, though. Dale found out and wrote in her book that Chip was dumb and less handsome and she should write him instead and wrote his number 555-DALE. When it was time to leave Chip escorted Amanda to the door and was about to leave with us when Dale showed up and rebuked Chip with hand gestures and stomping feet, when suddenly Chip knelt down and proposed to Amanda. It was all quite fun and entertaining. We joked mosted of the night that it was too bad that the characters were played by girls because of the diminutive size of the actors...HA HA...

I'm sorry. I'm having problems getting the pictures from my camera do download. I'll work on it and update this post later....Strike that! Well, I've obviously fixed the problem and have downloaded some more photos. I failed to mention that Mickey Mouse was there as well. You see him in a photo with Eric.

But I did get this photo from Janet's camera. It was a long day of flying and playing. And it was just the first day...

OUCH!!! That's gotta hurt...

2008-02-29T22:14:00.005-07:00

I was watching a rugby match on the tube the other day. I can't believe this guy actually got right back up and finished the game. Rugby players are tough.

PRESIDENT'S DAY WEEKEND

2008-02-29T21:21:00.009-07:00

Every President's Day weekend we go to Cedar City and spend the weekend with my sister and her family. We go on a hike, eat lots of good food, plays games and generally have a great time. This year was no different. Thanks so much for your hospitality Linda. You're the greatest.

My lovely sister

Eric, Mandy and Sarah

The canyon in Washington County where we took our hike

Game night: Boggle was the main game, but we tried Scattergories, Apples to Apples and Farkle

DOG PILE!!!

Loving sisters

King of the hill...Eric on top and Mandy just below on the left

They were thinking, "Hurry up so we can Boggle."

Don't know what they were playing

On the way home from our hike I heard snoring

You can see the Virgin River in the background. The Sandstone Arch is at the bottom of the hill right behind Amanda. Isn't she cute.

The gang under the Sandstone Arch

Sorry the pictures are out of order. They are hard to get in order on this webpage.

It's Winter here in Utah

2008-01-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's been a cold winter so far. It was just as cold last winter, but there wasn't all the snow that we're having this year. So far I think we've had at least 2 feet of snow. It melts in between storms a little but this past couple of weeks it hasn't had a chance to melt. Right now I think we have 1 foot in the back yard. Here are some pictures of Sarah and her friends having fun in the snow...

Janet doesn't like ice on the back steps, so she got out there and chisled it off.

Sarah and I nurtured the icicles off the back of the house. One of them actually grew to 6ft 2in in length....

CHRISTMAS

2007-12-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!

Santa Clause made a special visit to Grandma and Grandpa Schmalz's house.

It seemed everyone was happy with what they got for Christmas.

Shiny new clothes.

Eric made it over.

Jessica and Justin made it over later in the afternoon for dinner. We spent the afternoon and evening eating and playing games. It was a lot of fun!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

THANKSGIVING

2007-11-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving was a great time. Everyone came home but Tiffany. But that's okay because she was just here a couple of weekends ago. I'll put up some pictures that we took.

Janet outdid herself again. She cooked a 20 pound turkey (which was moist and wonderful) and ham and mashed potatoes and all the fixings that you can think of.

And thanks to Mom and Dad for the wonderful pecans. We've made at least four pies since getting them. I've enjoyed them raw and in the pies both. They're delicious.

All the family plus Charlie and JoAnn showed up around 4pm for the feast. Sarah and Amanda helped set up a beautiful table for us to enjoy. Janet brought out that beautiful tableclothe that she bought in the Virgin Islands. We ate quite a bit and then adjourned to the front room to talk and visit and open birthday cards and presents for Janet and Jessica. I always thought I was picked on because my birthday was close to Christmas. Every once in a while Janet and Jessica's birthday lands right on Thanksgiving. That's the pits. Thanks everyone for the nice cards for their birthdays.

Alas, poor Janet overdid it and got sick later that night. I think she was just overstressed about trying to make everything perfect. So while Janet rested up in the bedroom the kids and I played games in the kitchen. Amanda's boyfriend, Alec, came over and we played boggle, farkle and ended with some rousing games of mexican train that Janet came out and enjoyed. I guess we were making so much noise that she couldn't sleep. Everyone was gone by 10pm.

One of the presents that I got Janet was a retreat at a scrapbooking store. They called it "Crop Intstead of Shop." It started at 10am Friday morning (so you could really still go shop the early sales) and ended at 10pm that night. Janet actually went to Roberts Craft Store early Friday morning and bought one of those Cricket machines. So she loaded up her machine and went out to the craft store for the day. The kids and I just layed around and watched movies and relaxed. I think Janet finally made it home at about 9pm. She had a blast and is looking forward to the next retreat that she can go and show off her cricket machine.

Saturday was the BIG GAME! BYU vs. Utah. We went next door to our neighbors house and watched it on their huge television projector. I'll bet it's more than 70 inches. Anyway, we took over our leftover veggies and a fresh bowl of guacamole and chips and had a feast as we watched the Cougars beat the Utes 17 to 10 on a last minute play. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday night Nick came to stay with us and he and Hali came to church with us on Sunday.

A long and happy weekend.

I hope that everyone else had a Happy Thanksgiving!

I GOT HIM....I FINALLY GOT HIM....

2007-10-17T13:30:00.001-06:00

HIM is a gopher. I've been tormented by him this summer. He first appeared, or at least evidence of him appeared, in July. It was the ever-recognizable pile of dirt in the flower bed. I thought that I could drown him, so I put the hose down his hole and let water run through his tunnels for 30 minutes and the water was bubbling up in the gutter. I thought, "That ought to do it." Ha! The next day he had a new pile a few feet out in the lawn. Another dose of water will take care of that, I thought. Another 30 minutes of water and I let it alone. He was gone for a month or so. The great white hunter moves to the top of the food chain again.

Nope, he was just sneaky and didn't push up a pile to be seen by his adversary. He got a little cocky around Labor Day weekend. He decided that the thtreat was gone and pushed up a new pile of dirt closer to the house this time. I was pretty disgusted that I'd failed, so I let him have his day and I brewed over it. I did take a look at rodent poison at WalMart and I talked to Dad about what I should do. He actually offered to send me some magic beans. Actually castor beans. They're supposed to be poisonous to gophers. Don't know the biology or chemistry of it, but Dad swears by it. Being the cheapskate that I am I again stuck the hose down the hole and flooded his tunnels. This time he'd pushed up closer to the house and the water trick was better suited because of the downhill slope from the house. My thoughts were that it would fill his tunnels and really get him this time. Don't remember how long I let the water run this time, but it was a while. I finished up and watched for gopher hills for a few days. No signs. I got him this time. The great whited hunter to the summit again!

Nope. About a week ago I was walking out the front down and looked into the flower bed and noticed a fresh pile of dirt. Could it be? Naw. I killed him last time. I took a closer look and sure enough...I'm mad now, but still not willing to give up on my water method. I put the hose down his hole and turned on the water. Two hours later the water finally bubbles up in the gutter. Two hours? That's one ambitious gopher. Sure enough all the old holes are wet or flowing with water. He's got to be dead this time. I put enough water in there to fill a couple of kiddie pools. I must have flooded every nook and cranny of his system.

Nope!!!! Just before I took off for Park City for the weekend I noticed that he'd pushed fresh dirt into the hole that I was using to flood his residence. I didn't have time to deal with him before heading out for a long weekend. I just put him out of my mind and enjoyed my weekend with the family (we'll do a seperate post for the weekend in Park City.)

Monday, October 15th, 2007. I got home from work. It's a beautiful day. Sunny and warm after a rainy cold weekend. The birds are singing and the kids are playing and laughing. All is wonderful. I get to the front porch and look to the flower bed. There it is. The fresh pile of dirt. I grabbed the hose and went to work. I pushed the hose into the hole and started the water. I went around back to do something and about five minutes later I returned to the front yard and noticed that the water was already running down the road. Darn it!!! I walked down to the hole that I was using to flood the tunnels and looked in. While I was bent over I saw something move in the corner of my eye. I looked up and...EUREKA!!!! There the little booger is. Not little really. He was about five inches long and fat from eating my tulip bulbs. I ran over to him and thought that he would run away. Nope. He started coming at me. I was ready for a chase and he wanted to take me on. I raised my boot and he bared his teeth and raised his front paws. YIKES!!! He wants to fight. So, I dispatched him. One quick stomp and he was gone. I couldn't believe how quick it was over. I was kinda disappointed. I didn't have anyone to tell. Mandy was downstairs on the computer and Sarah was over at her friends house. Janet was at work, so I called her and let her know my good news. The great white hunter IS the victor.

Amazing what a fuss I've made over such a small animal, isn't it?

LABOR DAY WEEKEND...

2007-09-11T08:48:00.000-06:00

Well, we went camping for Labor Day again. It's a tradition that we have with other campers in our neighborhood. Plus a couple of other times each summer.

We camped in the same spot as the past couple of years. Clyde Creek, up by Strawberry Resevoir. Up high for the good weather but not too far away from home. Sorry, we forgot to take pictures. Really, we took the cameras but didn't bother to take any pictures. Go figure.

We went up Friday afternoon and set up camp. Janet, Amanda, Sarah and me. Eric didn't come because of work. He's got two jobs right now. He works at Macey's on the graveyard crew and at Blackjacks Pizza on weekends and some evenings during the week. Anyway, we got to camp with plenty of sunlight to set up. We were surprised by an extra camper in our camp. It was the Biorgi's. They used to live in our ward but still have contact with us through neighbors that they work with. That evening we ate and visited with our neighbors.

Saturday was bright and sunny and we (Sarah, Amanda and I) went down to the Lake and did some fishing. Actually Amanda just laid out in the sun by the water. Sarah want to play with the crawdads so Janet gave us a chicken leg and I tied it to some fishing line and put it out in the water. Just about 20 feet out in the water. Every couple of minutes we would drag the leg back in very slowly and the crawdads didn't want to let go. We would get the leg within a couple of feet of the shore and then yank it quickly onto the shore. We usually got about 3 or 4 crawdads onto the shore and Sarah would scramble to catch them before they crawled back into the lake. We forgot to bring a bucket for her to keep them in, so she made little pens out of rocks along the shore. She played with those crawdads for a couple of hours while I watched my pole. I thought that I would be skunked, but just before I gave up a fish took the bait. I pulled in an 18 inch cutthroat trout. But I couldn't keep it. The rules state that cutthroats between 14 and 24 inches long must be released. It's a breeding thing I think. Too bad too. It was a nice fish. Wish I'd thought to bring my camera to prove it. We were pooped by that time so we went back to camp and had dinner and visited some more. That night I came back to the house to watch the BYU football game and be home for church in the morning.

Sunday I didn't get back to camp until 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. When I got there Janet said that it had rained pretty hard there just a couple of hours before. While we were setting up to prepare dinner the clouds began to thicken up and it began to rain again. This time it rained for 2 and half hours solid. Not just a shower, but rain, hard and steady. Luckily we have a shelter that we set up for our kitchen area on these camps. It's about 12x20 and about 10 feet tall. It was okay as long as the rain came straight down. Janet and a couple of the others cooked chicken and made salads for dinner that night. One of the families tents began to leak and they were ready to head home when the Biorgi's offered the back of their trailer to them. It worked out perfect. Everyone had a dry and warm place to sleep that night.

Monday dawned sunny and warm again. After a nice breakfast we (Janet and I) borrowed a wheeler from on of our neighbors and drove down to a visitors center for the state park just a couple of miles down the road. While we were on the paved road a county sheriff's deputy stopped us and warned us that we weren't supposed to be on the road with an atv. I explained that the pit toilet that we usually use was closed and locked. He didn't think that was a good enough excuse. I asked if there was a back road or trail that led back to Clyde Creek and he answered negatively, but he would allow us to get back to the camp "this once." How nice of him. The atv was licensed and had lights, maybe not turn signals, but I thought we were safe. Oh well, we were given his reprieve or leave or whatever. We got away.

We spent that day riding wheelers and enjoying each others company. We packed up at about 4pm and headed home to the heat. It was supposedly the hottest Labor Day weekend in more than 50 years. It was in the mid to upper 90's everyday down in the valley. Up where we were it was in the 80's on Saturday and probably only the low 70's on Sunday because of the rain and clouds. But on Monday it was sunny and maybe 80 all day long. It was a beautiful weeken all-in-all.

Not Much New...

2007-08-20T10:39:00.000-06:00

Spent Saturday helping a neighbor put vinyl siding on his garage/addition. I wanted to learn how to do it so when we finally get around to adding a garage to our place I'll know what I'm doing. It was a service project for our high priests group. I got there a little late because I slept in (it's the only day I get to.) So I got there about 10am and we had luch about 12:30 back to work and stayed at it 'til 5pm when Janet came and got me. We had dinner plans with her parents for their anniversary. They were down this way for the weekend and decided to let us take them out to dinner. We went to "Sam Hawk" the Korean place that I've blogged about before. It was them and our two youngest and us.

THE SKY IS FALLING...THE SKY IS FALLING...

2007-08-14T09:28:00.000-06:00

Thought this was quite interesting...found it in the Washington Times via a headline on the "Drudge Report."

Before Gore
D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."
The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."
"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

Worth pondering
Reacting yesterday to word that certain European governments and officials are suddenly trying to abandon their costly "global warming" policies, Royal Astronomical Society fellow Benny Peiser, of the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain, recalls the teachings of Marcus Aurelius: "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Am I in the majority?

OKAY, SO IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME....

2007-08-10T08:17:00.001-06:00

I guess I'm just not into blogging like others. Don't really feel like my life is all that interesting to others. Don't do many exciting things or go that many exciting places. At least not that often.

Did go camping with the scouts this past month. July 18 thru 21 about 12 of us went to the Mirror Lake Pass in the high Uintas.

Taken up golfing...again...been going with my neighbor and his dad. Wish I had more time. I get very competitive and want to work on my game, but others things, such as work and family, seem to get in the way. Go figure. Need to find a job that requires me to go golfing with clients or potential clients. That's the kind of job for me. Sounds kinda selfish, don't it?

The weather here is finally starting to change for the better. Haven't seen 100 degrees in a couple of weeks now. Nights are starting to cool off too. This is the perfect time to head to the mountains for camping. Which reminds me that I need to get my fishing license so I can grill up some trout the camping trip we take. Last year the kids caught some crawdads and boiled them. They even ate them...all? Can't remember.

My lawn is starting to recover from all the heat and drought. Green is starting to cover the corners now. May not seem much to others, but I like the feel of lush green grass under my feet...and I do go barefoot a lot. I get home from work and change into shorts and a t-shirt and don't put shoes on again until I have too.

OKAY SO IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME!

2007-06-22T20:17:00.000-06:00

We went on a little trip this past month...Georgia and Florida were mighty fine. The smoke from the wildfires was a little bothersome at first, but that soon went away with the rain. The rest of the trip was great. As you can see from the photo above we had plenty to do...

Everyone was having fun...I'm so glad that all of get along so well. The kids played games and the adults played games and we sat around and talked and caught up and just enjoyed each others compay.

It was very nice to have Eric with us. Even if it was only for the first week. We enjoyed having him with us.

The first weekend we went to Florida, Destin to be exact. We had a hotel room right on the bay, the Fort Benning Rec. Area. It was small but we had a great view. We caught some fish off the pier and enjoyed the sunsets.

The white sand reminded me of snow...

Just had to add this picture of Mom. She was suffering from heat-stroke and was acting a little crazy. So we gave her some raspberry ice cream and had some fun...No! not really. She's just a fun loving and funny person and was having fun with the grandkids.

I'll post some more stuff later.

FOOD!!

2007-05-03T12:37:00.000-06:00

I love food. You can see by my svelt figure....240lbs....

But, I was sitting here with my tamales from 'Cafe Rio.' And I thought to myself..."What a great country we live in. With so many immigrants and all the recipes they bring with them..." I guess I was thinking of that because I'm listening to 'Rush Limbaugh Show' and how the hispanic immigration march turned into a riot in LA yesterday. That and I'm doing indexing for the church genealogy department these days. I've been seeing so many different immigrant family names on the records from the 1900 census in Massachusetts. It wasn't the hispanic families back then, it was British and other European people back then. It's interesting to see the amount of families.

So, anyway. Food. Janet and I try to go out each weekend for a date. We try not to make it a date at the grocery store, but sometimes you can't help that. But we get to eat out a couple of times a month and we try to make it a new place every once in a while. Here in Provo we have BYU and UVSC (which is almost 20,000 students now and soon to become a university next year) and they draw quite a few people from around the world. All of these restaurants are owned and run by people from the countries of origin, not returned missionaries trying to bring back food from the country they served in.

Just two weeks ago Janet and I had dinner at a Peruvian establishment. It was tasty. It wasn't anything like Mexican/American. No sauces. No tortillas. It was interesting. I don't quite know how to describe it. My dish was a fish and shrimp salad. Kind of a vinagrette tossed salad that was more onion than lettuce with lots of breaded fish and shrimp. It was really tasty and really big. I couldn't finish it. A little pricey though.

We've also found a nice little Korean place just down the road from us. They have some really good food. More meat than I was expecting. I guess I was thinking Chinese...rice, noodles, things like that.

We've also discovered a Thai place with some really spicey sauces. I've talked to Donna and offered to make a Thai curry dish that we've learned to cook at home. It's actually pretty easy to make, thus we make it at home at least once or twice a month.

And then there's the the Mexican fare that is all over the place around here. Janet was game the other weekend when we were shopping and I stopped in the Mexican food aisle. I was just looking at a package of corn husks and said to her, "We could do this." Well, she took the challenge and we bought all the ingredients and made plans to try our hands at it the next day (Sunday.) I got caught up at church and Janet, bless her heart, did the whole thing all herself. They were delicious. Won't be doing it again anytime soon though. It was quite involved. But if we were to work together I'm sure she'd be game again.

Boy, I really do love food.

Well, I've finished my tamales from Cafe Rio. I call today, "Tamale Thursday," because it's the only day Cafe Rio has tamales on their menu. And they're gooooood. Guess I oughta get back to work.

Busy Weekend For Our Family

2007-04-30T10:21:00.000-06:00

Well...not really the family, just me. The Stake President called this past Saturday afternoon and wanted to see Janet and I as soon as possible. We already had plans to go to a friends wedding reception at 6:30 pm and I had an appointment with the Bishop at 8 pm. So we squoze the Stake President in at 7:30 pm. I was all ready to be released and thanked for my time served. Janet was speculating all over the place...Bishop, counselor, high counsel....

Well, I was released! Then asked to serve as the first counselor to the new Bishop. His name is Steve Bjornberg. He and I went to school together a few years ago (to get our master's in Public Administration.) He was also the Young Men's President when we first moved into the ward 12 years ago and he called me as his first counselor back then. And to top it off he called Merrill Brockbank to be his second counselor the same as he did twelve years ago in the YM Presidency. LeeAnn Brockbank (Merrill's wife) pointed that out after we had been set apart. I thought about that for a moment and turned to Bishop Bjornberg and told him that if he were called as Stake President that we were moving.

Sunday was like a blur to me. You would think that I would be used to it, being in the previous bishopric. But for some reason I was still overwhelmed. I think it goes back to the fact that I was called into an existing situation and I was able to just follow the lead of Bishop Ferrin and Brian Brown. I'll admit, Brian and Bishop Ferrin did most of the work. I just tried to keep up with them and learn from them. I just hope that I learned enough to help Bishop Bjornberg make a smooth transition.

So, Dad. You almost got it. I'll call you later.

Weekend in Cedar...

2007-04-16T11:12:00.000-06:00

The family and I took off for Cedar to go to church with Linda and her family this past weekend. Nick's home and we wanted to hear him speak in Sacrament meeting. He did a great job. Sounded like potential Elder's Quorum presidency material. But I'll let Linda brag about him.

Janet, Gail, Mandy and Sarah spent Saturday morning at a scrapbooking fair in SLC. They started at 8am and didn't finish until 5:30pm. They got home at about 6:15pm and we were loaded up in the car and out on the road by 7:30pm. It was an uneventful drive down and we were in our beds at the hotel by 10:30pm.

Up and had breakfast and to church at Linda's ward by 11:00am. Like I said before Nick did a great job on his talk.

The rest of the afternoon we spent with Linda and her kids talking about mission experiences and kids. I thought there would be more visitors from the ward around to see Nick, but I guess they've already said their "Welcome home"s in the last couple of weeks. So it was mostly the Liebhardt side of the family hanging around the house. Linda put on a really good spread and we ate like pigs for a couple of hours. We finally got out of their hair about 7pm and home by 10pm.

IN THE BEGINNING...

2007-04-12T07:27:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are. My very first blog. I'm serious. The very first time I've put anything on the internet. I've been surfing the net since 1995 when I first searched for our surname (I'm still searching).

Donna is my inspiration. She's always willing to try new things. I've been watching and reading her new blog and I decided, "What the heck. I can do that too." Thanks Donna.