Farewell to summer - we will miss ye

News and notes after a fun and eventful summer.
Trial run for family pictures. The rough draft if you will.

I dig the hair do.
And again...
We went to Deseret Thunder Raceway. I am not ashamed. The kids loved it...after we got some earplugs.
First season of soccer. As a former defender myself, I could't be prouder that this boy is a defensive monster (can you say that of a five year old?)
Learning the stairs
Birthdays (now 3)
Hiking with siblings.
Raging waters with cousins
Ninja destruction at the reunion
This lovely lady's golden birthday - I won't tell you how old, but her birthday is on the 30th.
Horses up in Logan.
N loves football. Here's his flag football debut. He did really well, but his team lost in the Super Bowl. He also knows more about football than me by now.
Had to get some work done around the house. Took out this load of trash but M made me bring it back.
And it's a good thing she did.
Birthdays galore. He's in a major monster truck stage.
I don't remember anything about this.

I've got a lot of catching up to do

It'll take a while. Here's a start.

Goodbye house. We loved you and you were great for us.

Hello house. I just couldn't resist putting this in. This is B's favorite postprandial activity, just hanging out on the dishwasher.More tomorrow.

Kentucky and so forth and so on.

The long national nightmare is over. We post again. Maybe that means the long national nightmare is just beginning.
In June we went to Louisville to visit aunts and uncles and cousins and had a lot of fun (though we were sad we didn't get down to Bham). They have a really fun place and it was very pretty. Though it was difficult to get the boys to realize that in between Wii sessions.
I'm on a plane, Dad.

At the races. We didn't bet anything, but we sure felt like it when everyone else was cheering.

Poor Barbaro.

Visiting stadiums is a traditio of ithe in-laws, so it's kind of ours now too.

The Utes play Louisville this year. I wanted to talk trash the whole time we were there.

You should see their place. It's a lot of fun. Lots of rope swings too.

I love these girls.

Good company at the swimming pool

At the entrance to Mammoth Caves. It's pretty cool. Literally. The temperature drops 15 or 20 degrees in about 50 steps down.

Birds that are comfortable with humans are a little bit scary, in my opinion.

Watch out!

Fun day at the Cincinnati zoo. Poor girl was sick all day.

Louisville temple.

June 20th I went with my sister and some friends to compete in the Huntington triathlon. It was rewarding, especially the walking out of the lake part and the finish line part.
Just thought I'd give you all a taste of the good stuff.

Bike to run transition

M at the finish line. She's even smiling.

Unbelievably cute, and good supporters too.

Finally painting to get ready to sell the house. What great help.

Our painting princess.

Up the canyon with the aunties.

She'll just wrap herself right around your finger

4th of July partying

Like I said...

So if you know anyone looking for a cute house in Price, send them our way. We really have put it up for sale - not going to Atlanta though, basically just around the corner.

Grand Canyon rim to rim - sort of

Our varsity and venture scouts left on Memorial Day to backpack through the Grand Canyon. They started on the North rim and planned on exiting the South on Friday morning. They needed someone to shuttle cars and I volunteered for a couple of reasons. I'm not in the YM anymore, but I still had some priests on the trip, and ever since I had some friends do this in high school, I've wanted to. So on Thursday I left with a neighbor and drove to the north rim, picked up two cars and drove to the south to leave the cars. He couldn't hike, so he stayed and waited for them to come up the next day. I had a pair of shoes to deliver to a friend who had busted through his, so I went down 5 miles and met them at Indian Garden campground for their last night. I got in about 7:30 and was supremely confident that I would be able to keep up my 3 mile an hour pace for the remaining 19 miles, so I predicted I would be done in about 7 more hours of hiking. Shows you how dumb I am. I failed to respect the fact that in the last 6 miles of the hike, you gain 6200 feet. Because I was packing light, I only took a solar blanket to sleep in that night. It was so loud I kept up the other leader next to me all night. I really am dumb. It rained for a couple of hours as well, so by about 3:00 I was ready to abandon my plans to leave around 5:00, so I just took off about 3:30 - alone (you people that abandoned me - you know who you are). It was actually a magnificent experience, and whoever came up with the especially creative name 'Grand Canyon' was really on to something. The climb up the North rim was brutal and seemed to go on forever, but I made it out safe and sound at 12:30 - thinking that I'd never do that again. But actually - if anybody wants to - just let me know. A few things: 1- Mule urine really really stinks 2-I met a hermit with no teeth that lives at ribbon falls for weeks at a time, hiding from the rangers 3-I met the funniest German couple with twin 5 year old boys 4-I met an even funnier English chap 5-I met a couple from Price that I had never met before - in the bottom of the Grand Canyon 6-Mule urine really stinks. Thanks to M for letting me take off for a few days to do this.

All fat and happy Thursday evening on the South rim.

Rim to rim to rim runners leave at like 2 in the morning and run down this. I would break my leg four times in the first mile.

Black long sleeve shirt, black vest. Stay classy.Colorado river.

I cannot take artsy photos.

Coming down

Warning - do not do what you are about to do.

Going up.Ribbon falls
The post-mortem