Inside me a voice repeating the phrase, you've lost it you'll never get out of this maze!

Daylight Saving

Alpine Loop

 I heard rustling when I was taking this next picture so I looked up and found this friend!

Tilda Turns 3...and she's pretty happy about it.

 It was fun to watch a 3 year old get so excited about everything.

I was excited about giving the characters nose jobs.

Nana and Papa Kitty 

 Blowing out the candles.  Matilda actually asked for her cupcakes as soon as we sat down to eat dinner and was disappointed about the formality of having to eat her "meal" of pizza and veggies first.  

At long last, and it looks like they were still good.

 This one however was not informed until after eating her dinner that she would not be getting a cupcake...you can see how that went over.

 And then this miracle happened...Rose actually let me hold her(for quite a long time) and I even got some smiles out of her...eventually.

Happy Birthday Tills!

New Mexico

I got to go on a little road trip to Albuquerque the first week in  October to visit Baron, Cecily and Madison.  It was a lot of fun to spend time with them and see New Mexico for the first time.  The first full day I was there I drove around the west side of Albuquerque(a very important distinction) and stopped at a sculpture garden on the edge of the Rio Grande river.  I wandered around the garden and then into "backwoods" on some kind of trail till I saw a spider the size of my hand and decided to head back.  New Mexico is also referred to as the land of bugs as there are tons of bugs everywhere.  When I was out hiking I had to watch my feet constantly so as not to step on any bugs.

We went to dinner a El Brunos, a "New Mexican" food restaurant and then stopped at the temple grounds to end the evening.

The flowers above were in the "back woods" and here are some other photos from the first day.


The second day we headed out to the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.  We spent the afternoon hiking around and scaling the mountain.  It was a beautiful day and the hike was awesome.  I think the favorite parts were the slot canyons.  Also on the loop we hiked was a "cave" or rather a small indent in the mountain which was a bit anti-climatic but humorous.  On the way home we stopped by a Mormon Battalion Mounment and then went over to Cecily's parents to have her dad's famous Chili stew...which was awesome.

 Day 2: More Tent Rock photos.

The next day we got up at 5am to go see the hot air balloons at the Balloon Fiesta.  Unfortunately the wind was too strong so the balloons did not go up but they did do a "static inflation" where they inflated the balloons temporarily so we still got to see them...which was pretty cool.  We also went down to "Old Town" and walked around for a bit which was a lot of fun.

Photos of Balloons and Old town.

My last full day in Albuquerque I went to the Botanical Gardens which was amazing...but I really love gardens.  There were lots of different kinds of Gardens including the native desert gardens, Spanish garden, rose garden, Mediterranean garden, Japanese garden, citrus and animal farms, childrens garden and a butterfly enclosure.  Of course I went crazy with the photos and took about 500 pictures...here are 118 that I narrowed it down too (eeesh!)

After the gardens I met up with Cecily and Baron and we went...shooting.  That's right I held and fired a 9mm hand gun.  Now, I don't plan on applying for my concealed firearm permit or donning camo and becoming a hunter any time soon but I admit it was fun.  Cecily also got to try a first that night when we went out for sushi for dinner.  Here's the photos from shooting, sushi and two from the drive home the next day.

A big thanks to Baron Cecily and Madison for the fun times in New Mexico, I definitely want to visit again and see y'all soon!

Oregon!!

I got to go to Oregon in August to stay with the kiddos while Robin and Briton went on some kind of backpacking insanity.  I had a blast hanging out with the kids for a few days and was certainly glad that R&B returned ;-)  Going from 0 to 4 kids was a bit of an adjustment but we had so much fun.  Along with the day to day stuff(gymnastics, church, stores, park) we went to the children's museum, library, bowling and the beach.  The weather was awesome and I had a lot of fun with the kids.  I didn't take too many photos just because we were so busy and I found that supervising and playing with the kids was more of a priority.  But here's a few that I took.

Tree Hugger

Okay okay I know I'm not really a "tree hugger", but I really do love trees and these ones are pretty exceptional (and it's pretty cool that 3 of them are in Oregon)...

16 of the Most Magnificent Trees In the World!

Beck

I had the opportunity to see Beck in concert last Thursday...got to LOVE the Twilight Concert Series in SLC that allows me to see artists like BECK for $5!!!  It was awesome.  I have loved Beck for a long time and seeing him live reminded me of how talented he is.  I listened to an NPR special with him recently where the host of the show commented that he had reviewed the 12 ablums by Beck and while he was reviewing them he thought "man has Beck ever written a bad song?"  I submit that he has not and he's incredibly versatile writing music from styles of rock, blues, country, rap/hip hop, funk, jazz, and folk.  He recently released a new album "Morning Phase", which I bought without even listening to, and was very excited that he played about 5 songs from this album at the concert...they were beautiful. Waking Light was one of them...

and here's a taste of another style of music he's done, they played this at the show as well:

And then there was Ben

Okay, everyone knows I love Ben Folds, and I've seen him live a few times.  When I found out he was coming to play with the Utah Symphony I was curious...would it be like a Ben Folds concert? or a more serious night at the symphony?  Would they play his music? or would it be more classical?  The concert was up at Deer Valley at their amphitheater, which was a beautiful venue...

Not the show I was at but this was exactly what the sky looked like.

The show itself was pretty awesome.  Ben(yes we're on a first name basis) was funny, charming and brilliant on the piano.  The orchestra was also amazing...including a small choir.  I got lucky and knew every song they preformed and I got to hear several of my favorite songs of his.  Probably one of the funnest moments of the night was when Ben wrote a song impromptu on stage and constructed all the orchestra parts as well.  It was pretty incredible to watch him work and see the orchestra follow along and play a beautiful song with no sheet music -just following Ben's direction.

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Here's a video.  Fair warning there is swearing.  This clip is quite long so if you want to skip to the complete run through of the song skip to 7:45.  A little back ground here, the song is referred to as "Rock this Bitch" which is an inside joke for Fold's fans...the phrase was first used at a live concert by a fan who was yelling it in the audience in reference to the show.  At that concert Folds made up a song on stage as a joke using the fans words as the only line in the song.  Since that time fans have started requesting "rock this bitch" at concerts and Ben always just makes up a new song every time.  Someone was requesting it at our show so Ben stopped the set list and this happened...(the other lyrics he throws in are all in reference to things that had come up that night at the concert).

Budos Band

I went to see the Budos Band with a good friend on the 24th of July.  Honestly I had not heard their music before attending but I became a fan quickly while enjoying their music live.  They are an ensemble made up of horns, guitar/bass and percussion that play all instrumental music that is kind of jazz/funk/rock.  It was a really good time.  Here's a little sample...

Catching Up

I've had a bit of time off over the break and I was able to finally go through the 1200+ pictures on my 16GB SD card for my camera.  I've made some albums and have posted them here as a retrospect of some of the happenings of 2013.  I posted the oldest first so if you want to view them in chronological order you'll need to scroll down and move up from there... Hope y'all enjoy!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve with Baron, Cecily, Brie, Colby and Madison.
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Etc.

Here are some extras that didn't fit into other categories...More PHOTOS

Birthday at the Capitol

I made my annual trip to Capitol Reef this year for my birthday.  I never get tired of coming to this National Park...in fact it's kind of like coming to my home away from home.  It was a beautiful day and I loved the hike.

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So...I'm learning about cars.

I've started to take an interest in the mechanics of cars.  It started with a need to get my break pads changed and then having a friend that wanted to do it.  I didn't want him to just do it so I agree to let him help me learn how to do it.  It was the first time I had ever really gotten my hands dirty working on a car but I had fun and took tires off, got rotors turned, switch break pads etc.

The next project came when the clutch went out on the civic.  This was a much bigger job.  One that required us to take a lot of stuff out, drop the sub-frame, take out the transmission, the alternator, remove the clutch and the adjust the flywheel etc.  While switching out the clutch we also replaced the brake lines, flushed the transmission and cleaned up a lot of other parts.  It was a pretty big job, one that took a few days, but when we got it all put back together it felt really good to know exactly what had been done and have it work great.

I also attended a few midnight drag races over the summer.  This was a good opportunity to learn more about types of cars, racing tactics, alterations and modifications etc.  The whole thing has been kind of fun because now I can have conversations with people that know about cars and enjoy it but I think the best part is just knowing more about my own vehicle and not being completely confused when I look under the hood.

OREGON 2013!

I went to Oregon in August for a short needed break...

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Wetlands

I made many trips out to the wetlands in Farmington this year.  With it being five minutes from the house, it was a good way to get my nature fix during a year that was so busy that I didn't have time to go many places.
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Sigur Ros/ Denver Trip

I went to Denver in April with Baron to see Sigur Ros in Concert.  This was my second time seeing them  and I have to say that Sigur Ros easily have the best live shows I've ever seen.  It's just an incredible experience of light, art, atmosphere and incredibly profound music.  From the first note to the last the concert was just mesmerizing.  After the house lights came up at the end Baron and I were so overwhelmed by the awesomeness that we just sat there for about another 10 minutes staring at the stage unable to verbalize what had just happened.  It was also fun to be in Denver again and we were able to see some sights in downtown including the DAM(Denver Art Museum).  Denver really has a great art museum, 2 buildings, 5 and 7 floors of all types of art.  We also visited Red Rocks and were able to tour the amphitheater and take some trails in the area to see the red rock formations.  Over all the trip was a success and we had a lot of fun.

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Terrible News...

..the king of Halloween has been blown to smithereens.

AND

One of the new meds I am taking has made it so that I don't like the taste of Diet Coke any more. Yes you heard that right. I can't drink Diet Coke! I've have tried it over and over hoping it wasn't true and each time I get through about 1/4 of a can and then have to dump the rest. It's just not fair. I guess the good news is that my thyroid meds seem to be helping?

Highlights from Family Christmas Party