Watching Prince Caspian

Tonight we're watching "Prince Caspian." I think most people know that author C. S. Lewis created religious parodies to his characters in the books, the most well known being Aslan the Lion and Jesus the Christ. Throughout the movie, the characters spend most of their time wondering why Aslan hasn't come to help and them and rely only on their own strength. The youngest girl, Lucy, is the only one who has been able to see or hear Aslan. It's not until they learn that instead of Aslan coming to them, they should have been coming to Him that they are saved. Maybe we all need to spend less time waiting and more time truly SEEKING Christ in our lives.

Thanksgiving in Montana

Here's the pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to Montana:

It's Been A While...

Well, it's been a while since I've last posted. Seems like the past month has gone by in a blur. Thankfully, all is well with us and we continue to be blessed immensely by the Lord. It's hard to believe that it's already December! The weather has definitely been cold enough, but we're still without much snow. The biggest change in the past month has been Jeremy. Somehow, he has decided it's time to talk and his vocabulary has increased so much! It's so amazing to see him grow up. What a miracle life is. It's been really great to have Tim living here with us. The poor guy works so hard. He leaves early and comes home late. But he always keeps a smile on his face. We had the cold bug bite at home, but we're all feeling better again now. We also took a great trip to Montana for Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa sure were happy to have us up to visit. It was the first time that our entire family has been together alone in more than two years. It almost didn't happen though! Tim had some truck issues the night we left and had to have Jeff come to the rescue. But he made it up and we had a great Thanksgiving together. He came home with us on Friday night and we spent most of Saturday truck shopping again. Now I understand why people don't buy new vehicles very often! Quite a draining experience. But he got a steezy new Chevy Colorado! It suits him well. While we have been continually blessed, it's also been a time of trying faith. Not that anything bad has happened, but the Lord has really been testing our faith. It has been difficult, but we're stronger and closer as a family. Even after nearly four years of marriage, Amber and I continue to grow closer. And thus we see that this is how we grow.

Priesthood Interview

Tonight, as Elder's Quorum President, I had the opportunity to do Priesthood Interviews with some of the Elders in our ward. Unfortunately, only one of the three actually showed up. But that one made up for the others that didn't come. I admit that I really feel overwhelmed at times with this calling and responsibility and have to question if I'm doing everything correctly. (Being as young as I am in the presence of men sometimes twice my age doesn't help that feeling!) As I talked to this good brother tonight, though, he shared some of the experiences that he and his Home Teaching companion have had. The more he talked, the more I realized how they were meant to serve together and that they were meant to have the families that they do. It just seemed so perfect and meant to be. It's amazing to see that the world really isn't such a huge place and that it actually can be quite small when paths begin to cross. And I felt in that moment that I'd got that assignment right. It goes to show that inspiration and revelation are real and that God is aware of each one of us. They've been blessed by doing Home Teaching together. Their families have been blessed by them as their Home Teachers. And I've been blessed by seeing their joy in serving, their success, and feeling edified and sustained by the Spirit in my efforts. I love these moments in life, the little successes in the Lord's service.

They're Back!

Okay, so this is a week late... Haha. It's funny how all of a sudden I don't have as much time to blog as I did a week ago! But that's okay. I'd gladly have it this way if it means having Amber and Jeremy back home with me. So yeah, they're back! I survived!! I can't even begin to express how much I missed them. I went to find them in the airport and expected them to be flying in from Dallas-FW, which meant I'd have about 30 minutes to wait. So I found a nice chair and settled in playing Tiger Woods on my iPhone. After about 5 minutes, a cute little boy walked up to me and grabbed my leg and it was JEREMY! They had flown in from Oklahoma and actually found ME instead of the other way around. It sure was crazy to see Jeremy. He just looked so much bigger and so much like a little BOY! He preferred to walk instead of be held, he wasn't nearly as shy, and his voice was even different! It was so good to see him, but made me kind of sad that I had missed a whole week of him. He changes sooooo fast and I don't want to miss a second of it. And now we're back home together. :) The schedule seems a bit more hectic again and there's always something that Jeremy's pulled out that needs to be picked up, but it's so great... I missed that so much. I just plain love my life and having them in it.

Dark Canyon

Well, we came, we saw, we conquered! Another great trip and another great adventure. As previously posted, the trip started out on a high note at 5 a.m. and continued on climbing. We had some difficulty picking a location for our latest adventure because we couldn't decide if we wanted to do a desert or forest setting. Turns out we got both-- and so much more! Jeff and I were at Kirkham's in Salt Lake looking for supplies and just happened to notice a short description of the Dark Canyon Wilderness in Southern Utah. After some www research, we decided that was the place for us! Dark Canyon, termed "Utah's Grand Canyon," is located in the extreme southeastern part of Utah, near Blanding.

It was about a 7 hour drive and it was a great trip to break in the new truck. We were a little concerned about winter weather, but our timing was great and we got in behind the storm, so our roads were really good overall. We pulled into Montecello to find 6 inches of fresh pow pow and blowing winds. We had to stop for a map and tried the BLM and Visitor's Center before finally having success at the Forest Service station. I guess "success" is a strong word because ol' "Cleatus" wasn't much help at all. "Hermmm, I guess you could try goin' up thar. Nobuddies been up thar in weeks, but, uh, it might be opened up. Hermmm." Thanks, Cleatus. "Is there a map we could have or buy?" asked Jeff. "Hermmm, well, ya can't buy one because there's nobuddy here to take yer money." (That was a head scratcher because there were at least 5 human beings there in the office, but I guess the "special someone" who takes money was out that day.) But Cleatus was gracious enough to give us an old map of the area and pointed us out the best road to the trail head. (See above left.)

Well, Cleatus also told us that there'd be 8 inches of fresh pow in Blanding, but there wasn't. The roads were great and we took a beautiful trip through the desert on a winding dirt road as we approached the summit to the trail head. We did hit snow at the pass, one foot of fresh to be exact, but the truck ate that up for lunch and spit it out the tailpipe. It was gnarly. And we were pleasantly surprised to find "Butts Point!" Don't believe me? Check out the pic on el righto! (That's Spanish for "the righto.") See? Didn't believe me did you? Yeah, we've been to Butts Point.

When we reached the trail head, we signed up at the sign-in sheet. We were again surprised here to see how far away most groups had come to hike Dark Canyon! There was Ohio, North Carolina, New York... And everyone we had mentioned our trip to before we left had never heard of it before. There was even someone from Butte, Montana! Representin' the MT! Word. So of course we had a pre-hike shot and then set off.

We somehow missed (or forgotten) lunch in all our excitement and anticipation and I think that came back to bite us as we only made it two hours in the first afternoon before stopping for the night. The hike was beautiful, though. A couple inches of snow, aspens, pines, rocks, riverbeds, and red soil. We passed a couple of caves and overhangs before finally spotting a decent sized cave that was above the trail. We thought this looked rather inviting, so we climbed up to it... only to see that it was twenty feet off the valley floor! There was a nice overhang under the cave, however, and that served as our first campsite. The wind was really blowing for several hours after we arrived, but slowed down during dinner and was nonexistent during the night. This was without a doubt the best night's sleep I've ever had outdoors! Why? Can you say go to sleep at 6:30 p.m. and wake up at 8:00 a.m.? Yeah. I rockstarred that night's sleep. Steezy. So I woke up super refreshed and ready to rock n' roll!

Day 2 started off really well. We hiked for about an hour or so and I noticed what looked like a ruin up on the east canyon wall and sure enough, we had found our first Anasazi ruin of the trip. We threw down our packs and started climbing up the rocks toward the ruin. It looked impossible at first, but we found the way as we got closer to the top. It was in pristine condition and was absolutely amazing. The first picture at the top of this post is of this ruin. It's just so amazing to see a piece of history like that and know that this was someone's home. And what a view! It was just awesome. Jeff got some really amazing pics of this ruin. It was the one he had most wanted to see and we were super stoked to have not only found it, but been able to climb to it and even sit inside it. The construction alone was breathtaking to say the least. These people really knew what they were doing! It was awesome. And the coolest part was seeing their fingerprints in the clay as they assembled the walls. Being able to put my own fingers in these prints just gave me the chills. It was amazing.

We got our packs back on and forged on. Now it is important to note that we were planning on going 10 miles at least this day and I really think we would've done it too... had we not run into the marshes. We reached the Cherry Canyon trail 10 minutes after the first ruin and then our trail became all but impossible to follow with all of the criss-crossing game trails and snow and marsh grass. We were never lost, but we definitely lost the trail for hours and hours. Cleatus' map wasn't as helpful as we had thought, being old, and we spent most of the day guessing at where we were. We started running low on water at this point as well and had to stop to collect icicles and snow in our bottles, hoping the sun would melt it as we hiked. Pretty much the only good thing that came out of these hours of trudging was finding the second Anasazi ruin above us on the canyon wall. Too bad we didn't have time to stop and check it out. We pushed ourselves extremely hard for how discouraged we were and actually found a couple frozen pools of water that we were able to boil to refill our bottles. (This picture pretty much sums up the day.) We finally made it through the longest 3-4 miles of my life and reached the narrow canyon again. We thought we had made it to the eastern turn, but somehow we continued going north and north and north... Yeah. Around 4:30 we were exhausted and settled for the next decent campsite that we could find... which was an actual campsite. Haha. So we set up a shelter, completely bewildered as to where the heck we were. We called this place "Camp Discouragement." We didn't even bother taking a picture, although it was a nice shelter and campsite. However, I was successful at starting the fire with flint and steel, so the day wasn't a complete failure. In fact, I was pretty stoked on that.

We realized before falling asleep that we'd never make the full 40 mile loop after our slow progression that day. We awoke the next morning, ate breakfast, and started back out the winding narrow canyon. The good thing was that we were able to enjoy this part a lot more than the day before since we weren't as discouraged. We were again low on water after only having a drip waterfall to "fill" our bottles the night before, so we were happy to stop at our waterhole when we reached it. We had an early lunch and Jeff experienced his best meal of the trip: Easy Mac. Who knew Easy Mac could be soooo good? He was super stoked on that. We found the trail and realized that we weren't too far off the day before, but we definitely took the more difficult route. The great thing about retracing your trail is that it's not nearly as long the second time! We made good time and when we saw the second ruin, we decided to investigate and explore it this time. And what a good thing we did! It wasn't in as good of condition because part of a wall had collapsed with erosion, but we found pictographs above it on the cave wall! And the spirit and feeling that surrounded this ruin where so much stronger than the first! It was a very sacred and special experience being there on this holy ground. You could just feel the spirit of the Anasazi people and that this was a sacred spot for them.

We got back to our packs and continued on. Even though we had found a trail, there were so many other trails that it was hard to know whether or not we were on THE trail. So yeah, we spent another hour or more walking through the marshes trying to forge our way back to Cherry Canyon. By the time we finally made it, we passed out on the ground at the foot of the sign to rest before making our final accent up to a cave we had seen on the first day that would become our camp for night 3. We made decent time up to our destination and the cave turned out to be our favorite campsite of the trip. We knew we were only 1 1/2 hours at most from the truck, and our spirits were a lot higher at the prospects of a short hike in the morning. We had a great Halloween in the cave and even had some candy to share. We also stayed up later that night than any other on the trip: 9:00! Haha. It was a great site though. We melted more snow and ate most of the rest of our rations. The cave was nice and warm from our fire and we slept great. I miss that cave already. We'll call that place "Camp Steez."

With the time change, we woke up early the next morning and got out an hour earlier than normal. The last leg of the hike was a tough one as we already had 20 miles on our legs and backs in only 3 days, but we made it out. The truck was a very welcome site to say the least. It was also a delight to have gallon jugs of water waiting for us as well... water we didn't need to boil or filter or that we didn't have to feel guilty about taking more than 3 swallows of. The snow was all gone on the pass and we drove out on clear roads. Seeing the trail head sign again was strange because we had just been there a few days before, but we'd gone through so much to get back there. And we'll probably never be back there ever again...

Well, it was an amazing trip. Like I said, we really pushed ourselves to our limits on this trip. Whether it was the lack of water, the grueling hikes, the lost trails, or the disappointment of not getting where we wanted to be, this hike really tested our strengths. This was definately the toughest and most physically and mentally demanding hike I've ever done before. But we did it! The country literally was wilderness, but it was incredible to be out there. There was sign of elk, mountain lion, deer, and more everywhere! It had about every type of terrain imaginable and it was great to experience it all in one trip. And it was just amazing to see the Anasazi ruins. It's good to be back home now and have things like a toilet and clean water at our convenience again, but everything was put back into perspective once again. In the second "Jurassic Park" film, there's a part of the movie where they're walking through the jungle and the group leader recounts a story of a man who hiked Mt. Everest alone and without oxygen. When the rescue team found him, he was barely alive and nearly frozen. When they got him down to base camp they asked him, "Why did you go up there to die?!" He looked at them and said, "I didn't. I went up there to LIVE." That's how I feel about the outdoors as well.

theBRIGADE Takes Another Step Higher

Before I get into the detailed account of our Dark Canyon trip, I need to share our latest vision and progressive step of creativity and passion. We've now taken theBRIGADE in another new direction and expanded it to our hiking/backpacking crew. I guess anything we do together anymore is under theBRIGADE banner and tB colors, but this is now official. This is our new logo for theBRIGADE adventure crew. It has begun.

Surprise On Morning One

Morning one! Just got outta the shower and Jeff jumped out from behind the door and surprised me. Wow didn't see that coming. Sign of good things to come!! 5 a.m. hiking sesh, you know they're gonna pursue! Or insue... What's the word?

First Night...

Well, tonight's my first night without Amber and Jeremy. I worked nearly 12 hours, played basketball, and packed for my backpacking trip tomorrow so that kept me occupied. But lying in bed right now kinda brings me back to the reality that they're not here. Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked for my trip and glad they could go... But I miss them terribly. I didn't need them to leave to realize this, but I know that I can't live without them. They're my reason for living and my guiding stars. They're my source of happiness and joy and my examples. I love you guys! Be safe. 7 days left...

Skeet Shoot!

Today was our Elders Quorum Skeet Shoot Extravaganza! I admit that I was a little skeptical after only a couple guys raised their hands to confirm their attendance on Sunday and after all of 5 people were able to come to our golf activity... Yeah, no worries today! We had like 20 guys show it up!! It was rad. We went up to the gun range in Fruit Heights and "skatted" to our hearts' contents. We had two throwers going and it sounded like we were in the middle of a war with all the shotguns going off. Sooooo sick. After over an hour, I felt like I'd been kicked in the shoulder by a mule, but it was well worth it. Guess there's just something about guns that bring the men out in hoards. Haha. I think I "skot" a good twenty rounds. At my last "skeetin'" I went 5 for 5! Not too shabby. Tim and I wanted to take out a couple of real pigeons that were on the telephone wire outside the house after we got back, but decided against it. Thus, our EQ "Skat" event was a roaring success!

Tim and the boys take aim!

Your's truly, "skeeting" like it's '99.

More Random Jeremy Pics

Here's my latest installment of "Random Jeremy." Enjoy.

Grandpa got Jeremy this Cabela's hoodie at our latest

trip down to Lehi and he looks so steezy in it. The butter

knife in his hands was just the cherry on top. Steezy!

Today before church, Jeremy took Amber's sunglasses

and kept trying to play with them so she tried putting

them on his face and he loved it. What a ham. But sure

does make for a great pic! One of my all-time favorites.

Yeah, this one didn’t turn out super great, but I think
you get the idea of where I was going with it. This
was at the Tabernacle during church when Jeremy
was ready to go home 30 minutes before the meeting
was over. There’s a lot of cool stained glass in the
building and he loves to play by it. With a better camera
this would be way more rad, but I like it anyway. Word
to the iPhone.

Our First "Catch"

Today was another one of those great "Dad Moments." Jeremy and I had our first "catch" today! For some reason, he's never shown much interest in throwing things (which is a GOOD thing so far) and while he liked playing with the ball, he never really threw it to me. Today was the day, though! He would pick it with both hands and throw it to me as he yelled, "Bahhhh!" It was awesome. Whenever I think about today I think about the movie "Field of Dreams." In part of the movie, Ray confesses that while growing up he told his dad that he wouldn't play catch with him. "Can you believe it? An American boy refusing to have a catch with his dad?" he would later tell his friend. And at the end of the movie, just as his dad is about to disappear into the corn field he yells, "Dad! You wanna have a catch?" Yeah, it sounds corny, but nothing beats having a catch with your son... or your dad. I'm so grateful that I've had plenty of "catches" with my dad and I can't wait for the future ones with Jeremy.

Greatest License Plate EVER!

So I was at work this week and stumbled upon this little beauty in the garage. Enough said.

Funniest YouTube Video EVER!

Okay so I'm really easily entertained! I get it. But I still think this is the funniest YouTube video of all time that I've ever seen. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P4wUG7Zllo

Tim: Week 1

My brother Tim has officially been living in the basement with us now for one week and it's been really great. We've always gotten along really well so it wasn't a question of "if" it would work out. But even I didn't see it being this great to have him home with us. I guess I forgot how much I really missed him while he was gone on his mission for 2 years. It's been a really great week. Amber helped him put a resume together and within 2 hours of applying, he had an interview and job down in Salt Lake City. He's now a spa tech and will do service work for Arctic Spas. Jeff and I kid him that he's going to be "cougar bait" but it'll be a really great opportunity for him. And the pay is really good too. It's just so amazing to me how well everything has worked out for him since coming home and this is just one example. I mean so many people can't even get an interview let alone a job right now for way less than what he received. Just proof that when we ask for God's help, somehow things work out with hard work and a little faith. He's even got a date lined up for this coming weekend! Gnarly. He and Jeremy have really bonded well. It's really cool to see them grow close together. And most of all, it's great to have my brother back. We had such an awesome and blessed childhood together and it's so awesome that the adventures can continue again. On top of that, there's just something special about having the Spirit of a recently returned missionary in your home... Tim had to go back up to Montana this past weekend and we really missed him. It's funny because his room looks just like it did back at Mom and Dad's and even smells the same! So when I went in there while he was gone I got a case of the "saudades" as we call them in Brazil. But again, it's great to have him home. Hopefully this week he won't be stuck working 12 hours shifts anymore! Anyway, I love you, bro. Glad you're here with us!

Tim's new abode. (AKA "La Casa de Tim-O")

Who wouldn't want to live with us?!

The Next Generation of Tape Balling

A new generation of tapeballing has begun... Carry on my son. Carry on.

Jeremy's First Haircut

Mom gave Jeremy his first haircut this past weekend! Judging from the pictures, he REALLY liked it! Haha. Yeah, he was pretty upset. He sure was cute though. I don't wanna speak for Amber, but I bet she was pretty stoked about giving him his first haircut. Overall, though, I think it went pretty well. Lucky for Jeremy his hair doesn't grow very fast so he won't have to worry about another haircut for quite a while...

Happy Birfday, Jeff

Since Jeff has been a lame-o about keeping his blog updated, I'll just go ahead and announce his birfday for him. Happy freaking birthday, ol' buddy. A song comes to mind when I think about this situation. It's entitled "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day. Why? Because our birthdays are at the end of September, duh! Yeah, it's always exciting when the 29th and 30th roll around. Somehow we always end up buying two of whatever present we get each other. (That's the sign of a REALLY good present after all!) This year was the same. Jeff got me an iPhone case (and one for himself) and I got him a car charger (and one for myself) and we both bought black trucks last week... Hmm. Yeah, that's how we roll. So happy birfday to us!!

My Birfday, Take 25. ACTION!

Happy freaking birthday to ME! The big 25 this year. I'm getting old. I think this is the year when my body starts to break down and I should probably start looking for a cane and hearing aides. Jk. It was a wonderful day, thanks to Amber. Sometimes I think that she gets more excited for my birthday than I do... And that's saying a lot because I really, REALLY love my birthday! Every year though, she seems to come up with something new and special to make it the best yet. She didn't disappoint this year at all! I came home from work to a huge banner on the garage (which I've always wanted by the way) and a huge birthday card she made herself with candy bars on it! She even added chocolate turtles so I didn't have to ask "Where are the TURTLES?!" (Office reference.) She let me pick anything that I wanted to do for the day and this is probably the first birthday where I didn't know. I didn't even really want anything either. Not that I wasn't ever happy before with what I already had, but this year, I honestly couldn't think of a single thing I could be lacking. I have everything I could have ever dreamed of, imagined, or wanted. So I chose to take a nap (hahaha), take Jeremy to the park and play, go window shopping at the mall with Amber, go to dinner, and then take a walk together or watch a movie on the couch at home. Sounds like a perfect day to me! And it was!! The nap was exquisite, the park was fantastic and Jeremy had a blast, the window shopping turned into real shopping (always a plus), dinner was awesome at Ruby River Steakhouse, and the evening together was wonderful. I couldn't imagine a better birthday...

Here's my birthday banner! Handmade with love!

Jeremy takes control (literally) at the park.

Jeremy prepares for the decent. Gnarly.

The kid is steezy. Enough said.

In the end, we decided dad better go down with him.

This would be our new truck! Okay, so yeah, pretty much the

greatest birthday present EVER! Since our old truck wouldn't pass

inspection, we decided to look into getting a new one and turns out

we were buying at just the right time! Needless to say, we LOVE it!

Jeremy also loves it because he can see out so much better.

What a sexy truck! Uhnn!

Amber and I in the truck.

Found this cool zebra print hat at TJ Maxx. Couldn't resist a pic.

Tim's Home!

Wow! WOOOOOW! Two years have come and gone and my little brother is home from California! I still almost can't believe it even though it's already been a whole week! Just so crazy. So last Tuesday, Tim came home. He had a very convenient lay-over in Salt Lake City before heading up north to Montana to see Mom and Dad. Amber, Jeremy, Jeff, and I went do to the airport to see him and keep him company for a few hours. Despite some car trouble (see "I Hate Cars Right Now" post), we made it just in time. In fact, we only waited about the grand total of 5 minutes for him to come down the escalator. Not bad at all. Gotta admit, he looked pretty darn good and it was great to see him again. Even though I think we all were a little worried that he'd hate us because he's such an amazing guy and so much the better now even than he was before, everything seemed just about normal. It was really really great to see him and hug him and have my little brother back home. As you can see from the picture above, he hasn't changed a bit in two years! Hahaha. And this was the first time that he saw and met Jeremy in person. Jeremy was a little scared at first and had that look like: "Dad, who is this guy holding me?!" but after a few minutes they were best of friends! (Probably due to the fact that Tim was holding the Goldfish as much as anything else. Jk.) So it was great. Here's some pics:

Awaiting Tim's arrival.

And at long last, here's the man!

Bro hug!

Jeremy and Uncle Tim.

theBRIGADE founders, back together again!

Family pic.

So Tim actually met up with the missionaries going to take

his place! One last lesson for Elder Olsen. They ate it up.