Olympics

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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.