Lawnmower vs Eye Glasses

Deni went to an all day Scout Training today, so I had the kids all to myself today. I tried to sleep in, however couldn't, so I got up around 7:30am.

I went outside and it was nice and cool, with the normal Spanish Fork wind. The lawn needed to be mowed, so I decided I'd get out and do it while the weather was nice. Ryan woke up before I got out the door, so I sent him to watch cartoons while I worked on the lawn.

I finished the Front lawn and then came into the house to get the kids some breakfast. After breakfast, I started on the back lawn. I was 95% complete and finishing up around the swingset, when a sound from under the lawnmower came that sounded like I had hit a toy with the lawnmower. I pulled the lawnmower back in anticipation of seeing a some Happy Meal Toy obliterated. To my dismay, I saw pieces of Ryan's glasses everywhere.

Here is what I could find.



Frames and lenses are gone. I'm not sure running over glasses with a Lawnmower is a covered by our insurance.

Luckily, Ryan has an older backup pair of glasses, that he may just be wearing until the magic date comes that our insurance will pay for another pair.

Garden Growth Timelapse

I invested alot of money into my garden this year. I automated the watering and built new tomato cages. The little tomato cages sold at stores just don't cut it. So I bought a 150 x 5 foot roll of remesh and built new cages. They are 5 feet tall and anywhere from 19 to 22 inches across. Here are a few pictures from this summer that show the growth of my garden.

6/28/08



8/8/08



8/23/08



As you can see from the picture, the tomatoes are over 5 feet tall and growing out the top of my new cages.

Ryan the bobcat

Tonight was Ryan's first Cub Scout Pack Meeting. He attending a Cub Scout day camp a few weeks ago (right before his 8th bday) where he earned some awards (belt loops). Also for the last few weeks Ryan and I have worked on passing off his Bobcat badge and he was able to complete it.

The kids started out Pack meeting by starting a fire (for their smoares a little bit later.) Ryan watching and listening patiently, while the fire is started.



I never thought I'd see Deni in a Scouting uniform. However she was called as the Primary President about a month ago and was instructed to get her full Scout Uniform as well as to get trained and involved in Scouting. It was great timing, as Ryan is just starting Cub Scouts.



As is customary, the Mom's get a pin when a Cub Scout/Scout gets a rank advancement. Here is Ryan attempting to pin it onto Deni's shirt. I would/should have been up there with them, but who would have taken the pictures then?





Ryan was able to accomplish getting the pin in with any bloodshed, which is great.

After the awards, we played some games. One was with a huge parachute.

First day of 3rd Grade

I had Deni snap this picture right before I left for work. Ryan's first day of 3rd grade. Ryan's teacher is Mrs. Penrod



I didn't notice this originally when I posted the picture, but look at the "ghost" in the window behind us. Sydney had just gotten out of the bath and still had her robe on.

How about those Onions?

It's harvest time. We picked some Onions from the garden tonight. How about those Onions?



This is the first year I've been successful at growing onions. I'm going to plant more onions next year.

We also picked almost a full 5 gallon bucket full of tomatoes and peppers. You know what that means? It's Salsa time.

Deni made up a batch of salsa today. 11 quarts, not a big batch, but will do for our first harvest from our garden.

Happy 8th Birthday Ryan

Today is Ryan's 8th Birthday. I'm getting old. It's amazing how fast my kids are growing up. I can't remember to many things from my early childhood, however I do have some memory's of being Age 8. For my 8th birthday, I got a brand new Schwinn BMX bike. And of course, I remember right after I was baptized (with Carolyn Bond Swan) going outside of the church and doing cartwheels. Not sure why I did that, but I remember it. Enough about me. I guess I have to be careful as Ryan will be able to remember things from here on when he gets older like me.

I don't normally reflect about how Ryan is a miracle child on his normal birthday, as that reflection usually comes on his Bone Marrow Birthday in March, however Ryan is truly a miracle and a blessing in our lives. We aren't sure what life would be like without Ryan.

Ryan is an smart little kid. He's excited and counting down the days until school starts. He must get that from Deni's side of the family. (well he gets the smarts from his dad and the desire to go back to school from his mom's side of the family - grin). Most kids are dreading the day they have to go back to school, but not Ryan. We hope he stays like that always. We are grateful that Ryan likes school and does so well. Ryan loves to read and to be read to. Give him a choice between reading a good book with Dad or Mom or going outside to play, he will usually choose the book.

Ryan is also a funny kid, always trying to make us laugh. I think he makes me laugh at least once a day. I am very grateful to have Ryan in our family.

For Ryan's birthday he got a really cool Star Wars Lego toy. (It had over 500 pieces). Here Ryan and Deni are putting it together.



Happy Birthday Ryan. We love you.

Happy Early 8th Birthday Ryan

We celebrated Ryan's 8th birthday today, a few days early. We took him and a few friends to Boondocks, a fun center about 50 minutes north of Spanish Fork. Deni had been purchasing gift certificates to Boondocks when they went on sale at 50% off. However even at 50% off it was still an expensive birthday party. We took our family (4 of us) plus 4 other kids, so a total of 8.

We left about 11am and headed up north. When we got to Boondocks, we started out by having lunch and eating pizza. Then Ryan opened presents. Although, we didn't give him our present. We wanted to keep it until his real birthday



Then a little cake (that Deni made.)



We then headed outside to ride go carts. They had to wait almost an hour in line to ride, however they got to drive their own go-carts.



Next we went in and played Laser Tag. The teams weren't even, but that's ok. It was Deni, myself, one other adult versus about 10 teenagers. I told them if they lost, then they really suck.

After Laser Tag, we headed back outside and did some putt-putt golf.



We then headed back inside again for the kids to use their 20 tokens. Most of them ended playing games that gave them tickets which allowed them to buy some little toys. It was quite the feat to keep an eye on six kids running all over, but we somehow kept them all together and didn't lose one.

Ryan ended up with the most tickets, thanks to his Mom. He left with 4 or 5 toys, one being a pretty cool "Captain Jack Sparrow" Pirate Hat (and fake hair.)

We headed home about 4:45pm. Roughly 6 hours chasing kids around and attempting to keep them all happy was tiring it was nice to take them home and have just the four of us again.

Ryan had quite the birthday party today.

Week long vacation

I'm not sure you can call attending a week long Scout summer camp with eighteen 12 to 16 year olds a vacation. However, this week (August 4th through August 8th) I was in Moab, UT with all the Young Men in our ward (all Deacons, Teachers and Priest.) We ended up with 18 boys and 6 leaders and a few dad's of boys.

We originally planned taking a canoe trip down the Colorado River, but after attempting to rent canoes for that stretch of river, we decided to change it to a raft trip. No one would rent canoes to us after we told them were we were wanting to take them.

We left about 7am Monday August 4th. It's about a 3 hour trip to Moab from Spanish Fork. As we got into Moab, we turned left and headed up Highway 128 (Highway 128 follows the Colorado River). We drove about 8 miles up stream to the Big Bend Campground and made our base camp.

Here's a picture of my little tent at our campsite. The scenery was amazing.



We ran the river 4 of the 5 days. Each stretch was about 5 - 7 miles long. We also took a hike called "Negro Bill" This hike ends at the Morning Glory Natural Bridge, which is the 6th largest natural bridge in the United States. You can see the bridge just to the right of me above the trees.



The Colorado River is usually a light brown color (shown below).



However due to some heavy rain storms we had while we were there, the river would change from Brown to a bright Red color after the rain. Then usually by the next day, it was back to it's brown color again. Quite amazing. As we were running the river, you would see little side streams come into the river and you'd see the river being half brown and half red. Quite the experience.



On the last day of running the river, I decided to take my canoe down the river with the Young Men's President. There were a few rapids that I was concerned about however I decided we would try it. We launched from Hittle Bottom with 3 rafts and 1 canoe. Immediately, the 3 rafts had their eye on swamping us. We played with the three rafts for a while. We would dodge close to them and quickly take off. However it was warm and we knew this cat an mouse game wouldn't stop until they had swamped us. So we let them swamp us. The water always felt good on a hot day. Shortly there after, we stopped at the cliffs we had been to the day before. They boys enjoyed jumping off the cliffs. I nicknamed the 2 jumping points 'Stupid' and 'Really Stupid'. 'Stupid' was about a 10 to 15 feet drop, where 'Really Stupid' was more like a 30+ foot drop. I told the boys I was "Stupid" but not "Really Stupid".

We continued down the river, leaving before the rafts. Canoes travel much faster then rafts so we didn't see the rest of our group for the rest of the trip. We had to stop because of a rather large rain and lightening storm. We pulled off for about ten minutes, then decided to continue down the river. We made it through "Rocky Rapids", which was our stopping point for the day. We were at least an hour or two ahead of the rest of the group. We thought we could sit at Rocky Rapids and wait for them or we could continue down the river and head for our camp (we were camped right on the river.) It was roughly another 7 -8 miles down stream. We decided to go for it. I thought Rocky Rapids was going to be the worst rapids and we had made it through them, so I thought we were in for some smooth sailing.

However, a little bit further down the river, we were just about halfway through a shorter but bigger rapid stretch when Alan, who was behind me steering us quite well through the rapids, yells "We're sinking" Up to that point, I had thought we were doing quite well. We were keeping the canoe straight, even though the nose of the canoe was cutting through the rapids. Alan is a bit heavier than I am, so each time we cut through a rapid, the water went right to the back and made it heavier and heavier. We also had a few places where the rapids would come in from the side as well. All of this combined together put alot of water in the canoe that I wasn't aware of and it followed gravity to the back of the canoe, which made the back of the canoe sink.

From the time Alan yelled we were sinking, to the time the canoe went under was about 2 seconds. We were still in the rapids, however the water was too deep for me to touch. The canoe turned sideways. As we were both in the water, I yelled that we needed to get the nose of the canoe going downstream. I was worried about hitting a huge rock and wrapping my canoe around a rock. By looking at the water, you wouldn't think that it could wrap a canoe around a rock, but once you are in the water, you can feel the power of the water. We somehow got the canoe pointing downstream and then we pushed as hard as we could in an attempt to get the canoe to the side of the river. We set out sites on a little beach about 20 yards down river, but because the canoe was upside down, filled with water and because of the swiftness of the water, we were unable to make it to the beach. We did make it to the side about another 20 yards down the river. It's amazing how heavy a swamped canoe is.

After we got to the side of the river, emptied the canoe and headed on our way down, we laughed about the experience, however it wasn't too funny as we were going through it. We made it safely down the river to our campsite without any other incidents. However we were alot more careful than we had been earlier.

All in all, I had a great time in Moab. Now I need to take my family there and run the river with them.

Wet Clothes

Ryan had a birthday party to go to this morning and Sydney was feeling left out, so I filled our little swimming pool in the front yard to let it warm up. When Ryan left, Sydney got in her swimming suit and went out to play in the water. Deni and I both went out to play and watch her. I took my wallet out of my back pocket and set it on the porch steps. As Sydney was going to jump in, Deni started sneaking up behind her to splash her. So I did what any good husband would do. I snuck up on Deni (as she was sneaking up to get Sydney wet) and when she was close enough to the pool I grabbed her from behind and put her in the pool, clothes and all. After I did it and as she was trying to get up, I asked Deni if she had her cell phone in her pocket. Of course she looked me in the eye and replied that she did. Dang, I just ruined her cell phone. Then she started laughing..... funny joke. Oh well, I guess she had to get me back for putting her in the pool with all her clothes on. From there, it started a massive water fight in which we all ended up in the pool.

Here are a few pictures of Deni and Sydney having a water fight.





After the water fight, Deni, Sydney and I ended up all laying in the pool. It barely fit us all, but was fun to spend some one on one time with Sydney.

Taking it easy

Last year we rushed up to Burley and rushed home after the race. This year we thought we would take it easy and not rush things.

We stayed at the RV spot until today, Sunday, and then headed home around noon. On the way home we stopped to see Stefanie and Garrin and some potential new places for their business, since UTA is kicking the out of their current spot to expand I-15.

After meeting them in Lehi, we stopped for some dinner. It was a good thing we stopped for dinner. Just as we were coming into Provo, I thought I heard something. My first thought was that the bike trailer had fallen off the back and it was dragging out bikes. Then I thought, no, that's impossible so I didn't say anything. Then within 30 seconds, a truck drove up next to us and pointed towards the back of the trailer. Then I really thought our bikes were gone. Dad was driving and pulled over to the side of I-15. It turns out that a tire on the trailer had blown. It took us at least 30 to 45 minutes to change it. The hardest part was getting the spare tire off, as it was locked to the back of the trailer.

A nice State Trooper pulled over to make sure we were ok and helped us change the tire. By this time it was about 7pm. We pulled into Spanish Fork just after 7pm and unloaded everything out of the trailer.

It's been a nice vacation and fun to spend it with my parents.