Weekend pics

Horse Wrangler

If you know Yzzy, you know she LOVES animals, in her 4 year old eyes, Doggies are king, Horses would be #2 and her family would come in a close 3rd! She has adopted a horse by the boys school, she has named it CupCake, it shares the fence with the school playground. When Jami picks up the boys if she has time she lets Yzz take a few carrotts or apples with them and they will go and feed this horse. Sometimes Bella will just get out of the suburban and runs on her own picking grass as she goes to feed to "her horsey, CupCake!" She loves horses but for various reasons she has never gotten to go with the boys when we have gone to see and ride Uncle Todd's horses. Friday Todd needed help moving some of his horses from a pasture in Lehi up to Heber, so Yzzy and I went to help him move 4 of them, Bella was actually very helpfull getting them into his horse trailer, Cole had gotten out of school while we were doing this, so we picked him up and headed up the canyon. Here are some pics of the adventure!

Bella riding Uncle Todd's reigning horse Bill, she was nervous at first but then in heaven!

A real smile starting to show through, she had the time of her life!

After turning Bill out in the pasture, she decided she should be the horse, Uncle Todd put the halter on her and Coley decided he should be the one to lead her around!
As you can tell she is having a blast!


She started off pretty tame but when Uncle Todd took the lead she turned into a BUCKIN' BRONC! At the end I think she was even trying to bite?

Uncle Todd finally got the wild horse settled down and loaded into the trailer, this may look odd but she has not stopped talking about this trip yet!

Coley boy being cool on some sprinklersAt some point I think she turned into a goat?

Thanks again Uncle Todd for the fun afternoon, whenever you need help Yzzy the horse wrangler is only a phone call away!

Canyon bike ride

Monday night was perfect weather, we wanted to do something fun as a family outside so Jami told the kids to grab their helmets we were going for a bike ride! We went up Provo Canyon to ride the Bridal Veil Falls trail. It was awesome, I thought it would be crowded with as perfect as the weather was but there were suprisingly few zoobies up the canyon which made it all the more fun!

Jami and the kids at the base of the falls (just after Yzzy taking a header off the rock, her pink princess helmet is floating just out of the picture)

As close to a full shot of the falls as I could get, with Jami and the kids at the base
Stopping for a drink and to pose for pics
The leaves were starting to change, I thought we had better pics of the colors, we will have to go back again for better fall color pictures
Bella found out why we call this crash corner! This same corner was whereTagg crashed his bike last year, when we came up to it this year, he jumped off of his bike, threw it on the ground and started yelling, "I'm not riding down that hill!!!!" He was right in front of Yzzy and Jami, this caused Bella to skid, slide, wobble, barely miss a pole and then fall off of her bike and onto her hands and side. Luckily for her she has a Mom that has raised boys and never goes anywhere without bandaids and wipes! Jami had her all cleaned up and the tears dried, I had to tell her to make a sad face for this picture.
Amazing how good an $8 bag of grocery store chicken, a piece of string cheese and a can of root beer tastes when your having fun with the ones you love the most!

Great weekend

Another great weekend fishing with Uncle Dale and Aunt Angie, this time Taggert and I went along, we went Saturday morning up on the upper Provo river in the flats between Deer Creek and Jordanell reservoirs. It was great, the leaves are changing, slight breeze, then it rained, there was hard rain, soft rain, rain that fell sideways, stinging rain and then it just stopped and we had sun, it was a great day.

Taggert & Uncle Dale

ROckin on the river
Taggert had one heck of a day, he caught 2 shoes, one size 9 (shown below) and one size 13!

Become the grasshopper, grasshopper!

I'm just happy to be here!

Can you find in this picture, one Dad, a Pancho, one Lefty and one dog?

Nice rug!


The "Afgan man"

I swear, any excuse to go all WT and loose the shirt! To much Kid Rock and Red Bull!

We went through allot of thick, heavy deep brush, did I say thick! We were toole hacking all day long, Dale carrying Super dog, me with Lefty, Coley boy and Aunt Angie carrying the fishing poles, camera, sweatshirts and picking up whatever fell out on the way!

This was an old shot from Nam, yes I did carry grenades in my back pockets... Why do you ask?
Yup, it was that muddy!

End of the day, dirty, worn out and still having fun! Thanks Uncle Dale and Aunt Angie for a very fun day!

Way better than T.V.

While we were unpacking we found our bug zapper, aka old sparky. This thing is huge, pictures don't do it justice, I know, for one to brag about the SIZE of something usually admits a "short" coming or inadequacy, but... not so in this case! It is supposed to be effective for like 2 acres, the box that it came in touted it as "The Executioner"! I plugged it in while I was out on the deck grilling it was awesome! The kids were inside the house watching T.V. and came out running, I don't know if it was from the lights dimming as we drained the power grid or if it was the sound of an electronic chainsaw frying the exoskeleton from unsuspecting bugs, needless to say, we spent the next hour or so cheering as bugs from all over Lindon made the commute to the house for our entertainment. At one point we were afraid that we might burn the house down from all the sparks and smoke this thing was spitting out! Like I said, way better than T.V.

These huge slabs of meat are Salmon, they look like and were the size of roasts, they were awe inspiring to say the least (once again bragging about the size of my meat?). Dale caught them in Alaska, they even brought us some Halibut, also amazing, but for some reason, Jami didn't feel the need to share? I felt like Fred Flinstone flipping these huge Salmon steaks, they were so good, thanks Dale and Angie!

We were so lucky to have Aunt Shauna & Uncle Todd at the house to enjoy the fireworks and slabs of meat! Ysabel once again has a new best friend, Shauna was able to come and stay with us for a few days and Yzzy was in heaven, they played all day long, painted toe nails, took pictures, played air hockey, chatted, chatted and chatted more!
Shauna, you are very, very patient and you have a big fan, and it took all the talking we could and lots of promises to get her to stop packing her bags to head to St. George to move in!

but who's counting anyways? or Viva la mower!

6 Lawn and leaf bags, to cut our new lawn!

I average between 4 and 5 lawn mower catcher bags per "big black bag". So in my simple Rainman mind that means 24-30 times I end up emptying the bag of my mower, it takes 3 hours to mow, cleaning up toys, fallen fruit, sticks and dog poo are another 20- 30 min. Then I start edging, run the blower and sweep / spray off whatever else needs done. I'm not complaining, just stating facts. I have cut allot of grass in my day, but have yet to run a mower out of gas on one lawn, this lawn takes 2 tanks of gas.

I have a call into T. Boone Pickens to see how we can utilize this never ending resource to help end our dependence and stop the stanglehold foreign oil has placed upon us!

I have been also been offered a roll in the upcoming sequel to The Lawn Mowerman II.

"God made him simple, his mower made him a God!"
I also have a whole new group of friends to hang with. Jami can't figure out why the smell of fresh cut grass and lawnmower exhaust arouses an unquenchable desire in me for a Beto's artery clogging, beef sweat dripping burrito!

LAKE POWELL 08

We had the best trip ever to Lake Powell, September is the perfect time of year to be in one of the funnest places in the state! The weather was perfect, there were no crowds, no storms, no wind, just a great time!

We got to go on Jim and Starla's new houseboat, it was pretty awesome, we had alot of fun with the Merbacks, the Hoopes, Uncle Tanner, cousin Cody Swenson and Tony Arnell.

You name it we did it, the pics below are just family and fishing, due to the strict nature of sponsorships and contracts we were unable to post any of our wake boarding or wake surfing pics, but keep your eyes open on the usual magazine covers, web sites and catalogues to see our mad skills!

Looking cool at Lake Powell

Tagg showing off his catch o' the day!

(give us a kissy fishy)


Cutey Booty!

Taggert taking the Nestea plunge!

We would never tangle our lines Dad?

Bella, Lefty, Pancho and Little Tanner showing off a whopper!

Coley boy going off the slide on the back of the houseboat!

We were visited nightly by weird animals, this is a ring tailed cat that climbed onto the boat and started eating out of our garbage, we also caught a bullfrog, had a few ravens land on the boat, saw lots of bats, bugs and fish, heard chinese ducks, and had alot of fun!
Grandpa Jim fishing with the boys!
Dont you wish your girls were hot like mine!

We really had a great time, thanks again Grandpa Jim and Grandma Starla, cant wait till next year for more fun at the lake, digging in the sand, navy seal diving, riding tubes, wake boards, surf boards, ski's, swimming, cliff jumping, bbq-ing, black ops night missions, lauging and having fun!