BSA Adventure

At the Eastern Idaho State Fair, our kids had a fun time playing at the various stations at the Boy Scouts of America booth. One of the activities was to stand in front of a green screen and have your picture taken. They would then superimpose your picture on an adventure shot.

John did a shot of himself rock climbing and we did a family picture that we had put onto a raft.

We just got the pictures today and thought they turned out great!

Radio Frequency Procedure

Yesterday I had my Radio Frequency Procedure. I appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers this week as I have had the tests and then had the procedure performed. I am hoping and praying that this will provide me with significant relief for a good amount of time.

After the initial tests on Monday, I stayed the night with our friends, the Kosmicki's there in Provo. I then worked most of the morning and then headed to my procedure at the pain clinic. Just as my appointment was scheduled to being, Ken Kosmicki texted me and asked me if I needed a blessing. I responded that I wish I would have thought about it that morning, or even in the prior evening. I thanked him and told him I would be ok. He texted me back and said that he just happened to be passing by the clinic as he was heading to drop stuff off at his company's office. We agreed to quickly meet up.

Ken parked his big Heating and Air Conditioning service van in the parking lot. He opened the side doors and I sat on the steps leading into the side of his van. He gave me a nice little blessing right there in the parking lot. I was grateful that he was willing to do that kind gesture for me. We said our goodbyes and Ken headed back off to work again.

I went back in and waiting for my procedure. They were running a couple of hours behind. I had wanted to drive back to Idaho that night so I told them not to order their narcotics for the procedure. I wanted to be alert enough to drive afterward. So, to prepare myself for not having the stronger medicine, I took some percocet an hour before my scheduled time. Due to them running behind I was worried that my percocet would wear off before the procedure ever took place. Luckily it ended up not being too painful and I sailed through it without screaming too much. :-).

After several insertions of the needle, they finally got it in a very good position. They were able to measure the signals coming from the nerve and they said that was about the closest they have been able to get to a nerve before (which is a very good thing). They performed the surgery which, in effect, killed that particular nerve's pain receptors. They told me that I may have some pain over the next week or two, so I can't really gauge the success of the operation until after about a month.

They gave me a little xray photo of a step in the procedure. It shows the needle and the wire coming into the need. I thought I would post it with this entry :-).

Today I have had a lot of pain relief. There is still some pain, but it is a lot better than before. I still have a lot of drugs in my back, so it is hard to tell what is what when it comes to what is relieving the pain.

I'll keep you all in touch to let you know how it goes after about a month's time.

The passing of a friend

Amber and I have a friend who has, for many years, had the dream of climbing Mt. Everest. She has spent the past few years spending a lot of time outdoors with outdoor sports such as hiking, biking, etc. This year, she finally got her chance to head up to Everest.

She has sent a couple of emails in the past few days logging her journey and adventure.

Her email yesterday said that they were still at an airport waiting for their Nepal flight that had been delayed because of a storm. This morning I was notified by a friend in Provo that Leuzi Cardoso's plane had crashed in Nepal and that she, along with all 14 passengers did not survive.

This is a terrible tragedy for the family. Leuzi has a son serving a mission in the Morristown, NJ mission. Her husband and I have sat next to each other on the High Council in our Provo stake for several years. We have been friends for about 10 years. She was also Jace's nursery teacher while we were still in Provo.

Amber and I saw Leuzi as she was purchasing a camera for her Mt. Everest climb. She was really excited about the great adventure that awaited her. It is hard to fathom that this tragic accident has occurred. She will definitely be missed by our family.

Our future Realtor

We just had the people come over to see our house that are going to be buying it.  The wife has never been to the house — her husband had picked it out for the family when he was down here several weeks ago.

The visit went fine and the family is just sweet and nice.  During their tour of the house, Aliece had put together a plate of cookies and presented them to our buyers.  They politely thanked her and each took one.

After the people left, Amber was confused because she didn't let Aliece bake any cookies this morning and she was wondering where the cookies came from.

After Amber's inquiry, Aliece told her that she had pulled two cookies out of the pantry (who knows how old they were — weeks?) and then didn't have enough so she took some cookie dough from the fridge and formed it to make it look like a baked cookie.

So, to our chagrin, our "buyers" just ate two old, stale cookies and one lump of raw cookie dough!!

Hopefully the sale still goes through!

Aylee's first temple experience

Amber and I took Aylee to the Provo temple early this morning so that
she could do some Baptisms for the Dead. We had a really neat time in
the temple together. They let me do the baptisms and confirmations for
Aylee. It was a sweet experience.

There are few feelings sweeter than having one of your children in the
temple with you. We're proud of Aylee and hope one day to have all of
our kids in the temple together.

Aylee is Twelve!!

I thought the day that one of my kids would end up in the Mutual program of the church would be many years away. How did it sneak up on me so quickly?

Our little girl is now a Young Woman!

Aylee kicked the day off by going to see the Bishop for a Temple Recommend. Amber and I will be taking her to do baptisms for the dead early tomorrow morning. Then on Tuesday, she heads off to Young Women's Camp. Busy week!

We made a little video for Aylee today: Happy Birthday Aylee

new apostle song

This song welcomes elder andersen. to see movie, type in this link.


http://mormonsoprano.com/2009/04/08/lds-apostle-song-welcomes-andersen/

Love A's

A Mouse in the House!

Jake’s wish for Kitty was to give her a mouse to play with. He was so excited when we moved into Estep’s because living in the country usually means mice. Not so in the sturdy built Estep house–to Jake’s disappointment. Then he started asking if we could just buy a mouse that she could play with. Ew! AS IF! The other day, Jake’s dream came true. He spotted a mouse in the house. He yelled for me to get Kitty. I brought Kitty and placed her directly in front of the mouse. Luckily this mouse was a little baby mouse and not very experienced in the way of predators. Kitty had a chance. And she blew it. Seriously, I always knew she would die if she got lost outside. She has absolutely no survival skills. She was interested in the mouse enough to follow it around the house. But her tracking skills were sadly lacking. The mouse was not even trying to avoid her and yet it managed to evade her. I, of course, was very good at tracking that little rodent as I did not want it roaming freely in the house. This mouse was actually quite a good little mouse. It walked up to the front door which I had open and walked right out the door all by itself. We got rid of the mouse! Without any mouse traps and with no thanks to Kitty!

A Ghost is Loose

Jace is into ghosts right now - big time. The other day he lost his
Yankee hat. We searched everywhere. Finally, we gave up. Any time we
would put on our Yankee hats, we would ask Jace, "Where is your hat?"
His response lately has been, "Ghost take it".

We have since found his hat, but that still has not deterred him and his
Ghost convictions. When a toy goes missing, etc, when I ask him where
it is he still responds, "Ghost take it."

Archery

A while ago, mom signed us up for an archery class. We would shoot arrows for an hour and on the last two or three days, the teacher put up a yellow dot, and if we shot it, he would buy us a soda. Nobody got the soda. It would kind of get boring after shooting for 30 minuets. But we did learn to shoot a bow and arrow!

Love you guys!
A's

Piano Recital for Aliece

Yesterday evening we visited a neighbor's home to watch Aliece perform
in her first piano recital. She was a little bit nervous, but she
performed like a pro! It is fun seeing our kids show their talent on
the piano. I hope they can all stick with it so that they can use the
piano in their lives for both fun and service.

Little Red Riding Hood - A Reading

During the last week of school Aliece's class did a reader's theater of
an improvised story of "Little Red Riding Hood". This is a picture of
Aliece in her costume as the Mother of little Red and next to her is our
neighbor, Jim Tucker as a narrator.

Aliece is always fun to watch in reader's theater performances. She
always reads clearly and fluently. She also knows how to play her part!

John Earns his Bear Award

This past Tuesday, Johnny was honored in the monthly Pack Meeting for
having earned his "Bear Award." He is now ready to move into Webelo's
scouts (his last year of Cub Scouts) at the turn of his birthday.

John is now madly earning a bunch of gold and silver arrow points before
his birthday.

Woohoo John!

Alayna's Last Days as a Kindergartner

Alayna celebrated her last days as a kindergartner at the school last
week by enjoying a field day that mostly consisted of chalk art and
Popsicles! She has had a very enjoyable year with her first school
teacher, Mrs. Holyoak. Alayne is excited to be moving on into full-time
school in the fall when she starts the first grade!

Aylee Graduates from Elementary School

Last week, Aylee received a number of honors, awards, and even a graduation from Lakeview Elementary school.

It is hard to believe that our oldest girl will be moving into middle school/Jr. High this fall!

Aylee had an amazing 6th grade year. She was honored with a number of awards during both the graduation ceremony last wednesday and an awards ceremony the following friday.

During her graduation she was honored as one of six individuals of the 100 graduating, to get the top academic honor at the school, the Presidential Academic Gold Seal award.

Mom, Jen, Chloe, and Karly came down and stayed for the week to celebrate the occasion with us.


On Friday, there was a special recognition and awards assembly at the school. Aylee received another set of important honors there. At the assembly, she received the National Fitness Award and Fantastic Attendence.

The most honorable award of them was presented on behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Provo. It was the "Hope of America" award. This award was given based on citizenship, academics, and service. We were really proud of her with this award.



We were pretty amazed with Aylee's accomplishments this year. We are excited to see how well rounded Aylee has become with her skills and interests.

Go Aylee!

Our little "fairy"

When I first saw Jace when amber took this picture I thought he got beat
up by one of the kids. It turns out, our little two year old man has
gotten into a bad habit of sneaking into Aliece's toy makeup kit to doll
himself up.

Should I be worried?

Popularity

This year has been an interesting one for our kids. With Aylee just
finishing up the sixth grade, she has come to notice the concept of
popularity. Of course, when the oldest one experiences these things,
the younger ones get exposed to the conversations as well.

A lot of the girls that are popular in school tend to be squeely,
obnoxious, and rude. We have had discussions with Aylee about
popularity and how Amber and I never were in the "popular" crowd, nor
did we ever try to be. It just wasn't us.

Well, the other day, Alayna was whiny and squeely about everything -
such as, "Oooooh...don't touch me!!!", and "That is mine, give it back
now!!" She was using a tired, whiney, high pitched voice. After one of
her bouts of sqeeling, Amber and I overheard Aliece exclaim, "Alayna,
you are starting to sound popular!"

I think Aliece has it figured out!

Memorial Day Trip - Goblin Valley

This will be a more "formal" post - I wrote it up for our RadRoadTrips.com website, but I wanted the trip to be included in our blog...

On Memorial Day we woke up the kids at about 6:30 AM and loaded them in "Big Red", our family Suburban. We provided them with entertainment and activities to keep them busy on the trip. For the ride down they worked on RadRoadTrip's own, free Utah Travel Passport for kids. On the way back we all listened to a funny audio CD for kids, The Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost: The Ghosthunters, Book 1.

We arrived at Goblin Valley at around 10:30 in the morning. By this time the sun was up and it was already pretty warm outside. To be daring, we took our jogging/biking stroller along with us. It was going to be tough terrain for the stroller, but with the big wheels and high clearance, we figured it would survive. We actually were able to pack a medium sized, 2-gallon water cooler in the stroller along with a picnic blanket and a couple of folding camping chairs for my wife and me.



The kids had a great time walking several hundred feet and then stopping and climbing on the set of "Goblins" or rocks that they thought looked fun. Watch out McDonald's Play Place, Mother Nature knows how to make the ultimate kids' playground.

It was definitely a hot day, though. We try to visit Goblin Valley with "Early" in mind -- "Early in the Year" and "Early in the day". The kids each had their own water bottle. This was a MUST. They downed their bottles within an hour. We were lucky to have the stroller and the insulated water jug so that we could provide all of the refills that they needed during our hike.



After about an hour into the adventure, we tried to find what little shade there was -- provided only by towering piles of rock. There we broke out our picnic lunch. All of the hiking and climbing made the kids ravenous. Our family downed 10 peanut butter and honey sandwiches in one sitting!

One thing we did not prepare well for on our trip was having sunscreen. The red rocks of the goblin valley desert landscape seems to reflect and magnify the sun's intensity. After two hours of visiting the valley, we knew we would be dealing with some sunburns.



By Noon, the temperature was pretty hot. We let the kids climb a larger rock wall while Amber and I sat in some receding shade. While we were resting we heard a number of families get all excited about a little girl half way up a flat rock cliff. They all looked pretty nervous. My wife and I listened a minute or two before we realized they were probably talking about our 5-year old. Sure enough, that little climber of ours was pretty high up there. We sent the older kids up to fetch her and bring her down to a level that would relax the other nervous parents watching the scene. That girl of ours has always had a knack for climbing anything she sees!

As the one-o'clock hour approached, we decided we had had enough sun and exercise for the day. We headed back to the Suburban to rest our weary legs and to let the youngest ones take a much needed nap. The stroller had been a good idea, though we were the only ones with the contraption. It worked well, but it was hard to push back up the steep hill that takes you to the Goblin Valley parking lot, but we made it.



The kids had a blast during our hike at Goblin Valley. We added a detour at the end of our trip to visit a dinosaur quarry nearby. That was a fun, restful experience compared to the hike at Goblin Valley. The kids were able to see real dinosaur bones in the process of being excavated by professional paleontologists.

It was a very great day trip for our family. Goblin Valley is a must see if you are in the vicinity of Southern Utah and you have younger kids that just don't seem to run out of energy. We guarantee that by the time you are done visiting the state park, your kids will be happy to sit and rest in a cool vehicle!

About Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley was formed by years of wind and water carving unique goblin-like sculptures out of rock. This process has created an outdoor playground of sorts that inspires imagination and adventure. The landscape offers unlimited walking, exploring, or hiking opportunities. You can easily spend several hours hiking, playing and enjoying the goblin forms that you find here.

Near the entrance to the park there are excellent off-highway vehicle and biking routes to explore. Please note that ATV's and bikes are not allowed inside the park itself (beyond the parking lot).

This amazing valley was first discovered by cowboys searching for cattle. Several years later, Arthur Chaffin, owner/operator of the Hite Ferry on the Colorado River, and two companions were searching for an alternate route between two Utah cities, Green River and Cainsville. They stumbled upon this alien landscape were awed by what they saw -- a valley of strange-shaped rock formations surrounded by a wall of eroded cliffs.



Directions:
- 24 miles south of I-70 on Highway 24, turn at Temple Mountain junction, follow signs 12 miles to park.
- 20 miles north of the town of Hanksville on Highway 24, turn at Temple Mountain junction, follow signs 12 miles to park.

There is a nearby park & campground with sites that can accommodate large motor homes, interior paved roads, observation overlook, a new culinary water system, modern rest rooms, hot water showers, and a sanitary dump station. Each spacious campsite has a picnic table, paved parking pad and barbecue grill.

Fees for the park: $7 day fee per vehicle & $16 camping fee.

You can contact the state park for more details:
Goblin Valley State Park
P.O. Box 637
Green River, UT 84525-0637
(435) 275-4584
parkcomment@utah.gov
http://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/goblin-valley

Impromtu Kid Party

Jake and Shantell were in Provo this weekend to attend a wedding for someone in Shantell's family. While they were here they borrowed our Sam's Club card to purchase some tires for their car. While Amber and I were on a date together later in the evening, jake and Shantell stopped by the house to drop the card off. They had a little extra time, however, because I got a phone call from Aylee telling me with excitement in her voice that they were going to have a party while we were gone. I asked her to explain and she said that Jake and Shan were running to the store to get some things so that they all could have a party while Amber and I were out.

Jake and Shan ran to a nearby gas station and bought some ice cream, candy bars, and root beer. They came back and let the kids choose between Root Beer Floats and Milk Shakes. It was a hit! The kids had a great time. When Amber and I finally got home that night the kids were excited to tell us all about their "party". They thought that was pretty neat.

Alayna insisted that Jake and Shantell left some treats for Amber and I. She searched the kitchen and the pantry but to no avail. She went to bed still trying to figure out what happened to that treat.

Amber and I watched a movie before heading to bed that night. As we went upstairs Amber found three candy bars sitting on our pillows on the bed. I guess the mystery was solved in a fun way.

Thanks Jake and Shantell for taking the time to party with the kids. It definitely made an impression!

Bike it up at the festival

On Saturday morning we got the kids up bright and early and road off to Logan, UT to participate in the fifth annual Cache Valley Bike Festival. Adam is the creator of the Utah State University program called "Blue Bikes" - a non-profit organization that takes old bike donations, overhaul them, and provide them to students to rent for a semester or year. Fees typically range from free to nearly free.

Each year their organization sponsors, plans, and runs the Cache Valley Bike Festival. This is our second year of attending and we had a great time.

Activities included drag races, slow races, bike tire tube changing contests, helmet fittings, maintenance classes, overhaul classes, fitness booths, bikes for people with special needs, raffles, and of course, the coveted bike toss.

Our kids participated in most of the events and had a great time at each one. They won several events and received prizes. Amber put 13.00 into the raffle (The main funding event for the festival) and won many prizes totaling to about $80.00.

We ended the day at Adee, Adam, and Beck's house for a yummy dinner of spaghetti, with a birthday cherry pie for Adam.

To see a video of our day's adventures, check out the 3 minute clips here:


Or click on the following link: Cache Valley Bike Festival - 2010