Monthly Archives: August 2008

“Oh Brother”

In Audrey’s favorite books (The Magic Tree House series), one of the main characters, Jack, always says, “Oh, brother!” Audrey can be heard saying this all the time, especially when Kate does something silly.

Well, we found out today that Audrey and Kate are going to be having a little brother next February! I’ll be honest, I’m excited to have another male influence in the home. The girls have no idea what they’re in for. In fact, I don’t know what I’m in for to be a dad to a boy. Hopefully he’ll like playing with Polly Pockets and princesses, because we have a lot of those.

Canoeing at Jordanelle

Bryan had a great idea to go canoeing at Jordanelle state park as one of our reunion activities. He found a great deal on canoes from the University of Utah, but we had to come up with our own trailer to haul the boats. I pinged a friend in Utah and after a quick Google search, he found http://www.troop410.com which is a Scout troop in Salt Lake City with a number of canoes and kayaks available to rent WITH a trailer. Troop 410 rented their 9 boats to us for a day at an amazing price and our trip that day was probably one of the best activities of the week, in my opinion.

I took a picture of the trailer so I would know how to put all the boats back on in the correct place.

The Boats

The Boats

Kate sitting at the dock in a canoe waiting for Jeana and her cousin Holland.

Kate in the Canoe

Kate in the Canoe

Touching the buoy. Holland is a cousin, seated between Audrey and Kate in the picture.

Touching a buoy out on the water

Touching a buoy out on the water

Jeana demonstrating her kayaking prowess. She recently took lessons from someone in Austin.

Jeana in a kayak

Jeana in a kayak

Me trying to look like I know what I’m doing.

Scott in the kayak

Scott in the kayak

Taking the canoe back across the reservoir to load on the trailer. This canoe, “Old Town”, was very tipsy. I didn’t like it. I don’t think anyone took it out on the water (other than me getting it from the dock to where we were stationed).

Pushing off with the girls in \"Old Town\"

Moab

Last year we stopped at Four Corners on our trip to Utah. This year we skipped Four Corners because we didn’t have time to hike in Moab last year. When we got out of the car at Arches National Park the temperature was extremely hot, I think it was 103 degrees. I was hoping to find some respite from the Texas heat on this trip, but none was found in Southern Utah!

Audrey, Kate, and Jeana at Arches

Audrey, Kate, and Jeana at Arches

Kate hiking to see Delicate Arch

Kate hiking to see Delicate Arch

When we would stop to take a drink break, I would realize how steep the trail was we were hiking on. Imagine having “little girl” legs hiking up a steep trail!

Audrey and Kate with Delicate Arch

Audrey and Kate with Delicate Arch

It seemed like every Utah license plate we saw for the rest of the trip was acknowledged by Audrey yelling, “I see the arch!”

Audrey hiking after Delicate Arch

Audrey hiking after Delicate Arch

Kate dying of thirst in Arches

Kate dying of thirst in Arches

Balanced Rock

Balanced Rock

When I was about 8 years old my family went to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. We stopped at Arches National Park and the two things I remember from that stop were red gravel/dirt and Balanced Rock. The scenery in Arches is absolutely incredible, and none of the photos we took adequately express the beauty.

State Lines 2008

Stopping at state lines is fun to me. Our friends, Scot and Becca, have taken pictures of their daughter Riley with a stuffed animal to show how she has grown over the last year. I think taking photos at state lines is my equivalent.

Each time we approached a state line this last trip, we debated whether we should stop or not because Kate was usually asleep at those times. Her sleeping schedule was all over the place during this vacation, and the last thing we wanted was Grumpy Grumperson in the back seat!

A Hint of New Mexico - 2008

A Hint of New Mexico - 2008

We really need to plan something to do in Colorado because our route just clips the southwest corner of the state.

Audrey and Kate in Colorado - 2008

Audrey and Kate in Colorado - 2008

Jeana and the girls in Colorado - 2008

Jeana and the girls in Colorado - 2008

Idaho actually turned out to be a quick, unexpected trip. We decided we would go see my grandma in Blackfoot since we don’t get to see her very often.

Scott and the girls in Idaho - 2008

Scott and the girls in Idaho - 2008

Another way we justified the trip to Idaho was to also make a trip up to Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Pictures will come later of course. We had talked up Old Faithful for weeks before our trip and I was excited to take the girls to a place I went so many times as a kid.

Scott and the girls in Montana - 2008

Scott and the girls in Montana - 2008

There’s no place like home. Driving back into Texas is such a good feeling because two-thirds of the drive is done!

Scott and the girls driving back into Texas

Scott and the girls driving back into Texas

Interstate Family Home Evening

My family in Utah used to get together once a month for a family home evening. After a few of the more nerdy and geeky family members got chatting, we decided we’d try to roll out a way to send/view live video feeds of each family.

After a month of research and development, we came up with a flash application to have five concurrent video feeds streaming over the internet. We just concluded another monthly FHE – this was the second time using the streaming video web page. We had family connected from Texas, Utah, and two separate locations in Idaho. The inter-web at its finest!

Here is a screen shot of our FHE in progress:

August FHE Screenshot

August FHE Screenshot