A trip to the Zoo

So being the college student that I am I decided not study one day, but rather go with Kristen up to see our good friends Spencer and Laura up in Salt Lake. We had decided to go to the Hogle Zoo after a generous breakfast they made for us. I must say they were also patient since we were about an hour late getting there... oops. I, being my smart logical self, decided to wear a BYU shirt for our trip to the zoo which was located right near the U of U. I spent the remainder of my day observing the animals trying to stay sane in their cages and those regarding me and my shirt in disgust. I was very entertained as it seemed that both blue and red filled the zoo. But the minor distraction of loyalty did not deter us from enjoying the animals we went to see.




Our future pet... isn't he precious... I somehow don't think Kristen would find him so cute as he lays on our couch. I think he's got the lounging thing down though.


The baby giraffe, Kristen and Laura had a good time walkin back and forth tryin to get a good shot of this little guy,


We couldn't decide what happened to the bear... the mo-hawk thing with his fur was pretty entertaining...

Kristen had a great time with the small monkeys and proceeded to tell me we should get one... I would definately rather hear our future daughter, hypothetically, ask for a pony rather than a monkey. As it turned out, Kristen pretty much wanted any small animal that looked cute, so unfortunately when I asked for a Leopard she said no. We saw various monkeys, a Tiger, snow leapords, snakes, alligators, frogs, camels, a gorilla, bears, cougars, rhino's, elephants, zebra, penguins, even a baby giraffe, etc. The trip was fun, but definitely hot. We found ourselves lingering around mist spray machines provided at various locations around the zoo. We had a lot of fun watching the penguins as they swam around and darted through the water after each other and fish.


Here they go, follow the leader...


They all seemed to move in groups, unsure of moving too far without others approval first

It was entertaining at first to watch one penguin observe the rising water level of the pond they use... all of the others watched him as he waited moved back and forth as if encouraging others to join him while still deciding if the water was inviting enough himself. He finally jumped in and started swimming, after that most of the other penguins jumped in after him... guess it was safe since he did it. It funny if life how similar we all are... don't want to do something unless someone else does it first cause then ya know thats it's all ok... the penguin band wagon.


Wildcat... he was hiding in a little cave area, but one of the few big cats that was even remotely awake...


I guess we didn't get the sleep schedule for the cats... they were all pretty much asleep.


This was the only gorilla, he just wandered around and headed for a door opening at one point as if he was telling us that he knew it was meal time and he was hungry. The food didn't arrive though so he walked over to some shade and crashed...

Good times at the Zoo.

The Air Show...

The Air Force Air Show was always something I remembered growing up and so when I heard that it was taking place this year I told Kristen we should go. She was great about it and seemed excited to watch it despite not knowing who the Thunderbirds were.... We were honestly very lucky in our trip north to my parents house in South Ogden because there was a massive accident on I-15 that we were able to avoid, though we were worried for all those involved. We arrived at our destination and met with my parents, my sister, and her daughter. We went for a walk to the new library up there to kill some time before the real show started. I reminisced with Kristen about growing up and hearing the Thunderbirds fly over the roof top as if they were going to clip the nearest tree.




The time for the show finally arrived and it just so happened that some of our extended family pulled up next to us to watch the show too. We were entertained by the Queen of the moment, Lexi, until the show started. She was trying to be persuaded into visiting people as they held out the offering of chocolate, a common weakness in our genes, she was not to be persuaded though because she found the real source of the goodness. The show was great and we had at least five passes directly over our heads with between 4 and 6 Thunderbirds each time.



I must say though that despite our fun at the show, I learned that the camera Kristen's ... I had several moments of user difficulty trying to capture good pictures of the planes as they flew over. I finally passed the camera back to Kristen in defeat and frustration not knowing how a small black box could beat me so easily... maybe engineering might not be the best choice for my future profession... no just kidding, it doesn't require photography expertise, right?

The Fat Kid, family, Park City ... a memorable combination.

The tale of two sizes... I was always known as chicken legs and stick boy growing up because, I can admit, I pretty much stand on toothpicks for legs. I have learned however that my size and slender shape can be deceiving. That is how it was when Kristen and I made a trip to Park City to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Matt and Dayna. They were very generous in inviting us to come see them while they had some alone time from their wonderful children, Joel and Emme.

We decided to go get some food when we arrived, but the decision as to where to go was a whole different issue (as is the case when food is discussed in our families). We finally decided on a popular pizza place not far down the road and when we arrived I saw the Fat Kid. I knew there was going to be trouble the moment Kristen explained what the Fat Kid was doing... challenging me. I had already decided I would not back down, and so we accepted the challenge. I proceeded to show the Fat Kid that despite my slender appearance somehow my stomache can expand in places I don't know exist. I was told that my performance against the food which consisted of... about half or maybe a little more of the Fat Kid ( it's a 20" pizza with Pepperoni, Ricotta, and Spinach... despite my confident demeanor at the table it was bigger than I expected, but tasted great), half of my brother's philly steak and cheese sandwich (which was large... I basically had my own sandwich), almost half of Dayna's chicken... sandwich (also a good size sandwich which would have been smaller, but as it turned out Kristen only wanted a bite... for a taster), a healthy portion of fries, and most anything else that was not wanted to be eaten at the time... was shocking and maybe a little disturbing since I didn't feel that the food slowed me down at all. I would say that I won that bout and even impressed Kristen, who was only slightly surprised... though now I am questioning why I am informing you all about this... I just sound like a pig. Oh well...

We had a lot of fun up in Park City with Matt and Dayna. We were going to go miniature golfing but things didn't quite turn out to be what we had anticipated... it was more of a compact mini course you could pack up and take with you on trips for kids to play with, like connect the dots or something, we were all relatively disappointed... so we ended up going to a movie instead and chillin after. The day was great and we had no worries, though we were unable to show off our mad-Tiger putting skills... maybe next time. We stayed in Park City for a few hours, talked and laughed. We shared one of our traditions with them as we all got Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Apples, something we do just about every time we are in Park City. We then decided that we should get back to Provo before it got too late, the joys of early morning meetings.

Quick stop in Washington on our way through Summer...

I must say, everyone says time flies when you're having fun... what about when you are doin work and school, is that classified as fun? It does make time go by faster and can be enjoyable at times... so I guess it is. We kept busy with each passing day and month but were both very happy to get out of Utah County and make a quick detour to Spokane in July. The weather was nice, though it seemed to my little mind that the hot Utah days seemed to take a vacation with us. I am not saying that its our fault nor that we wanted the heat of summer to follow us but it did, maybe it was afraid of being forgotten. I don't know why, but either way it was nice and warm while we were in Washington.


Here I am, caught here, confused and disoriented... somehow I thought I should be doing homework on vacation... in a short time I was set straight and productivity showed me that it was a silly idea.

We had a great time there despite the warm weather. We spent the days doing various activities such as swimming, climbing, visiting with family, etc. and the nights playin cards, watchin the fireworks, and relaxin. I did see though that my poor example as a husband has affected my sweet and innocent wife. As we proceeded to prepare for our trip north my wife had the wonderful idea of surprising her parents who already knew we were coming... I have previously shown an example of having fun with whats true and whats slightly varying from truth when it came to visiting my family. Kristen had the great idea of varying from truth when it came to explaining when we would be arriving in Washington, which became later than expected due to unforeseen events (lies). Despite my objections (assistance) to this dirty (amusing) little plan everything seemed to play out as she desired, until everyone almost fell asleep before we pulled in. That entrance into the weekend was a sure sign that the trip was definitely worth it.


Climbin around... always good fun... though Kristen informed me that its not always fun for your hands...





Dylan, showing us how the real climbing is done...

Some of the memorable moments in Spokane were, to name a few, the family get together in mom and dad's backyard, flying off the slip and slide at that get together with Ryan and Kristin to follow suit after, seeing Cohen, getting family pictures taken, bouldering, playing cards, moving a piano, swimming at the beach area and watching a massive jet boat enter the water (though we never saw it take off... too bad), playing games as couples, sitting on the roof watchin various firework shows from neighboring cities and then the neighbors, eating at Zips (a ritual I don't think we will miss whenever in Washington, or so I am told), watching Nate dodge water balloons as he played both soccer and volleyball with a volleyball (though if I remember right... Nate dodging the balloon made for a wet Ashley), seeing grandpa, watching Dylan and Leila track down Chloe, and just catchin up on the good ol' times with family. We really enjoyed ourselves, but were forced to leave town... as responsibilities in happy valley pulled us back to reality. It is nice to see family and is always worth the time even if for a short few days over a weekend.


Dylan and Leila runnin and having fun... while dad relaxes and mom was not in the picture, the jury is still debating if she intentionally missed or accidentally missed the pictures...


Nate and Ash


Ryan, Kristin, and Cohen


Chloe, gettin some fresh air and jumpin around on various objects that seemed stable. To both Chloe's and our surprise the noises that followed informed us that not everything was as stable as it seemed. She also showed us how real vacation is supposed to be spent as only she could...




If any of the details are incorrect I am not responsible, Kristen is not here to keep me in line at the moment and I am left to think for myself... always dangerous.

Summer's here... or was...

Well isn't it nice to see that summer is almost he.. or wait... dang, its just our blog that thinks summer is almost here judging by our last post... Guess we are a little behind. This is the first time I, Dave, will have posted on our blog so bear with me.
Kristen and I are both doing well. There have been several things that we should have posted and will post about, but thats where all of your wonderful understanding and caring... did I suck up enough for forgiveness yet? Moving on... I hope the post makes sense since I don't really know what I am doing, though one may ask if I ever have... not likely. I am one of those who goes about life with a smile and a nod. Because really does it look like I know what I am doin...?

We have done quite a bit though this summer such as, made a trip up to Washington where we hung out with family and did some bouldering etc.,
had some family get togethers in Utah, made it through work and classes, resolved our car issues, went to the zoo, ate a Fat Kid, learned to play Castle Crashers from Joel, realized Kristen wants a cat or should I say kitten and a Yorky, Kristen survived not having channel 13 and found her show SYTYCD, I got tutoring lessons from my niece for Hydraulics (lucky she was there, she helped me pass the class), watched friends leave happy valley while I consoled Kristen telling her that someday we would grow up too...(while still gazing into the dark abyss that is future classes knowing that someone said my day would come too), got more responsibilities... whats up with that too? Just because someone gets older its assumed they are wiser?
Definitely something wrong with that thought process, 'cause they have not met me yet... though I must say Kristen is livin up to it so maybe I am the "exception" to the rule. I can live with that. We also had the chance to help friends move... I don't think I have been asked to help move so many pianos in one summer... not that I moved them much, generally I got moved by them and acted more as a cushion between the piano and the wall or gate or door... you get the picture. The piano in Washington was a fun one though... definitely one to remember.




Well thats enough for the first post... the details will come in the near future.