Rain, Rain

We've had a very wet 2009 and unseasonably cool June.

Rainfall totals
Whole month of June 08 - .54 inches
Whole month of June 09 - 3.93 inches

All year 2008 - 16.99
Jan to Jun 30th 2009 - 21.05

more than a bike

This make look like just a purple bmx bike, but it's much more than that.

When I turned 8 yrs old, I got a brand new bike for my birthday. Last year, I took that bike from my parents house with the idea that I'd fix it up and let Ryan ride it, I started on it and decided it would be too expensive to fix it up and ended up buying Ryan a new bike.

So my now 26 year bmx old bike sat in my garage, in pieces. Until one of the neighborhood kids (and one of my varsity scouts) came by and wanted to buy it. This young man is great with bikes and appears to spend most of his waking hours either riding, fixing, painting, building, modifying, etc one of his many bikes.

On one hand, I wanted to keep the bike, as it was my 8 year old birthday present, but on the other hand, it was just a bunch of bike parts that I'd never do anything with. The young man offered me $10 bucks for it, which I agreed. He was so excited. The bike was "complete" but didn't have tubes or tires.

2 days later, the Young Man came riding up on the bike below and he asked "Do you like the bike?" It was my bike. He had switched out a few things and completely painted it. Wow. Pretty amazing.

Camping Vacation

Life has been so busy, we decided to take a little family vacation and go camping. We went to Maple Lake, which is just up Payson Canyon.

Of course it started raining as we drove up the canyon. A few years ago, we went camping at Maple Lake with some friends. On the drive up the canyon, it hailed on us. (so much I pulled to the side of the road and hoped my van wasn't ruined.) As it started raining as we drove up the canyon this year, I told Deni, well at least it isn't hailing on us like last time. Famous last words. We got to our camping spot and decided to sit in the car for a few minutes to wait out the rain and low and behold, a few pieces of hail fell. Luckily there were only 4 of 5 pieces of hail that we saw on the windshield.

We found a great spot and set up our tent under a massive tree. There was just enough room to set up the tent, our chairs and campchef in this dry area.

Here's Ryan with his new haircut.



The kids wanted a fire, so while Ryan and I went fishing in the lake, Deni drove down the mountain to buy some overpriced box of wood, so we could have a fire and have smores. Deni got back about 9:30pm. Deni attempted to persuade the kids that it was late and we should save the wood for the morning, but they really wanted the fire at night, so I used my firebuilding skills and got the fire going. By 10pm we were done with smores and we put the kids to bed. Deni and I sat up aroudn the fire until at least 11pm waiting for it to burn itself out. It was great to sit around the fire and talk, no kids, clear sky, it was great.

The next day we spent most of the day biking and fishing.

Sydney walking down to the lake.



Sydney caught this picture of me fishing. If you can tell from the picture, the camera wasn't quite straight when she took the picture. I was leaning in an attempt to straighten out the picture (but it didn't seem to help). Although many were catching fish around us, I didn't catch anything. All I caught was this moss.


Ryan and Deni out in the canoe. It's been a while since we've used our canoe. It's a little work to get it out to the lake, but sure is fun once you get it there.

Maple Lake is beautiful. It is by far my favorite camping spot around. Plus it's close. Only about a 20 minute drive from the house.



All in all, the trip was great.

When we left, Ryan and I biked down about 5 miles down Payson Canyon. Of course it was all downhill, so it was a great ride for both of us. I let Ryan lead down the hill, reminding him to brake when we got going a little faster than he should. He was getting down in the aero position, it was fun to watch.

Just for the record, I didn't do it

Ryan has been wanting a summer haircut, in particular a mo-hawk.

Deni finally did it while I was at work today.

Summer finally arrived

It hit 93 Degrees today, needless to say we had to finally turn on the AC today. We've had an unseasonably cool and rainy May and June, and it's been nice. As of today, we are at 120% of last years rainfall and we are only half way through the year.

I was amazed driving up Provo Canyon last weekend with how green the canyon was (as green as it can be for a desert) It was also amazing to see the reservoirs completely full. I'm not sure I've ever seen the Reservoirs that full in the last 12 years of living here.

She did it

Deni survived the Wasatch Back Relay and is sleeping like a baby. I guess she woke up Friday morning at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep and didn't sleep any in the van in between runs last night, so she was quite tired. She conquered the mountain.

I put the kids down for bed. Deni was out before I could finish prayers with the kids.

You volunteered for what?

It's never good to get a phone call before 7am on a Saturday.

I had expected Deni to call me this morning and let me know if she was on schedule for her 10:30am run through Heber, UT, however I didn't expect her to call so early. The kids and I were going to drive up and cheer her on, as she ran by. Apparently her run around 1am this morning went well, however one of her teammates after her ended up passing out. Her teammate, who has completed multiple marathons, is okay now, but it appears that body doesn't really respond well to a combination of running and lack of sleep.

Due to a series of unfortunate events, Deni's running schedule has changed. Deni is no longer running through Heber, UT. Deni has taken on the most difficult leg of the whole race. 4 miles long, uphill, with an elevation gain of 1678 feet. That description doesn't do it justice. Maybe the picture below will. Notice the graph on the bottom.



With an average 7.9% incline, those abrupt changes in direction in the road are switch backs. Out of the 36 legs in the race, this is deemed as the hardest part of the race. Not only is it a constant steep incline for 4 miles, however she's already run twice in the last 16 hours and hasn't slept at all. She'll complete her run at an altitude of 8875 feet above sea level. This is the peak of the mountain and the next runner will run down the otherside of the mountain into Park City. The altitude of our house sits at about 4740 ft, so starting at just over 7000ft and running to 8875ft, is impressive.

Because of the terrain, they won't allow spectators up there to watch her, however we'll plan on being at the finish line in Park City to watch the team come across the finish line together.

One down, two to go.

Deni signed up to run a 180 mile relay race with some friends and family (not this family.... but rather some cousins on her side Mom's side.) The race is called the Ragnar Relay, more specifically, the Utah version is called the Wasatch Back Relay. The race is from Logan, Ut to Park City, Ut. During the relay, Deni run three times. Her projected running times are 5:30pm, 1:00am and then about 10:30am tomorrow. The rest of the time, she's on the team van attempting to sleep. The race never stops and sounds like it is 24 hour craziness until the team reaches the finish line.

Today was the big day. Deni left about 10am and headed toward Logan. The race actually started around noon, but since she wasn't the first runner in the relay, she didn't need to be there at the start. She's runner 7 of 12, and there are 36 legs.

I took th day off to watch the kids. They were great today. They helped clean up, spent some time reading and playing by themselves. Next we ate lunch on the trampoline and then the kids went to play with friends.

I'm tackled a few yard projects. We have a Lilac bush that has grown out of control. I haven't had the right tools to trim it, so I've just let it go. I decided today was the day to trim it. I did some reading on how to properly trim a Lilac bush and called my dad for some advice and then started hacking away. My biggest concern was that the bush was covering Ryan's window well and that he wouldn't be able to get out if needed. When I talked to my dad, he recommended to cut it down by 1/3. Uh, after getting in there, I think I left about 1/3. Right now, it looks oftly barren, but it needed to be done. I'm sure it will be fine next year. I then cut the remaining seed pods off, so it will bloom better next year.

Deni called us just before 7pm to tell us she had finished her first running leg. She ran 4 miles in 33:50 minutes. One down, two to go. I doubt she'll get any sleep between now and 1am.

After dinner the kids went out to sell Gatoride, candy and Otter pops, while I mowed the lawn. For whatever reason, they sure enjoy going out and making money. The weather hasn't cooperated with their little business in the last few weeks, but we finally hit over 80 degrees, so the kids felt like it was time.

Guaranteed 48% increase

My garden as of today, June 14th.

I increased my tomato population to 20 tomato plants this year.



We tried a few new things. We planted beans, peas, and carrots.



Lots of new things for 2009. We added this new box this year. (shown below) 16 feet long by 3 feet wide, 48 new square feet. Increasing our garden size by 48%. We planted Squash, Zucchini, potatoes and cucumbers in this new spot. Freeing up our garden for more Salsa ingredients.



Also new for 2009. Apple tree. This was a bare root tree we got and planted a few months ago. Although I'm excited about the addition of this tree, it will take a few years before I expect to see any apples.



2 new peach trees. These were also bare root trees we planted and although the peach trees are not thriving as well as the apple tree, they are doing ok. Also on the right hand side, our raspberry transplants from last year actually survived and are on their way produce some berries this fall.

Marathon photographer

A friend at work, Shaun, ran the Utah Valley Marathon today. I attended to be "the photographer" and offer my support.

I was able to catch a few pictures at mile markers 7, 11, 21 and the finish line.



This was the first time I had actually watched a marathon live. It's quite amazing to watch people overcome and actually run 26.2 miles. There were all sorts of people. Tall, short, overweight, skinny, muscular, men, women, youth, disabled, etc. It's amazing the emotions you feel as you watch people run.

Deni and the kids also came to the finish line at Provo Mall, where they saw a neighbor cross the finish line, as well as my friend Shaun.