Trip Outline Part I

Well...so here is the deal. First I'll outline the trip, then comment on specific details and some fun quotes. We first flew to SLC on Saturday (July 11). Our plane was delayed and it was a hassle, but I won't bore you with the details. My brother Brent met us at the airport and took us to his home. As they say in Utah, church was attended, cousins reunited, good food eaten, and a wonderful time enjoyed by all. The following Monday we headed down to Gooseberry Creek for Jamie's extended family reunion. It is just past Salina, Utah, for those of you who know what that means. About a half hour before we arrived, I was looking at the scrubby flora and was beginning to have evil thoughts about Jamie's aunt Mary, but it turned out nice (and I apologized). Up in the canyon there were a lot of quacking aspen and cedar. It was nice. There will be a story about the cabin later, but after a short moment of wondering if the kids and I were going to be comfortable and have fun, it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Gooseberry Memorable Events:
* Haunted cabin - pictures to follow...
* (Re)building a raft for fun - " " "
* Amazing stars...You could see ripples in the milky way. I guess 8,000 feet of altitude and little pollution filled atmosphere does that. I stared in wonder each night.
This picture is the closest I could find to what we saw, but it is only a sliver of it, and it does not capture the majesty of the sight.
http://www.atu.edu/msi/STARLAB/SL%20Cylinders/Astronomy/Milky%20Way%20Galaxy%20Starfield.jpg
* Lots of stories and fun games

Bran was a little bored at first, but then when we were talking his attention perked up when he realized that around the table there were 4 or 5 people who had lived in Japan. We had some great talks with everyone.

Finally blogging again - tennis now, trip later...

Well, we had an eventful trip, and have many wonderful memories. Thanks to those of you who had a hand in supplying them. There are fragments of our tale on Facebook, but more details coming here later. In the meantime, it is tennis season, and Michelle is enjoying her high school sport experience so far. She has been working hard, and made the JV team. She had her first doubles match yesterday, and they won in two sets, although the second set went 7-5. She made some good shots, got very hot and tired (it was over 90 here yesterday for a change), and outlasted the Midpark doubles girls. We'll put up a picture later...

The birthday girl

This is from a week or two ago, but one of the things Michelle got for her birthday was this lime wedge floatie. It has been so cold here that this is what she resorted to. I thought it was cute (and sad): today is the first hot day we have had for ... a long time, and tomorrow we are leaving for vacation. : (

Chipmunks and Celery

The other day Bran and I were walking over to the rec center to exercise and on our way we saw a chipmunk run across the sidewalk in front of us. Looking at the small size of the little guy, I commented that it would take a few of them to make a good meal. Brandon replied that "They the animal equivalent of celery - they would take more energy to catch than they would provide (as nourishment)." I guess I'm glad we have other options. We are starting to work on packing and things. See all you westerners soon!

Chris Rice

Michelle and I are interested in Chris Rice, a singer-songwriter with Christian tendencies. Some of his work is overtly Christian, some is just wholesome and fun.

His most famous song is probably the one about cartoons being saved, although it is more silly than some of his other stuff. You can see a video someone made for it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFJ_rykyA4

Our favorite song is actually his lemonade song. It is hard to listen to it without breaking into a big smile. Lemonade is from his album called, "What a Heat is Beating For", and you can hear it all at:

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=1792689&albumid=8166636

A scout is....

I recently got back from a very eventful scout camp, and my family was debriefing me on the camp happenings. I commented that sometimes the scouts didn't embody some elements of the scout law and Michelle looked perplexed. I began to quote the law: "A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous..." As I got to "courteous", Michelle started to giggle. I continued, "kind, obedient...", and here the fits of laughter began. When I got to "clean" she was hysterical, and when I finished with "reverent" she was laughing so hard that she was silent because she lost her wind, and was just shaking convulsively - then she broke into sobs of hysteric laughter. By that time we were all laughing so hard that some of us were crying. I guess that might have been an editorial comment on her expectations of boys her age.

Baptism fun!

Recently our young friends Eric and Winter got baptized. They are grandchildren of one of my home teaching families, and took lessons from Sisters Allan and Nelson. We had a good time, and they are great. The sisters took them out to Kirtland, which they really enjoyed, and on the way back they played an alphabet game. Winter got to the letter "J", and was wondering what to add to her list of things to take on a trip. Sister Nelson mentioned that Jesus started with J. Eric piped up with, "Choose Jesus, Winter. He's got your back". We thought it was pretty funny.