My Birthday, Year 26 (Part 1)

Once again, I had a fantastic birthday! If you haven't already guessed, I really REALLY love my birthday. Why? Because it's the best day of the year! This year's celebration started a little early with us taking Jeremy to see Toy Story 3. He loved it and was so good. He just sat in my lap the entire time. He now wants to go watch "Big Buzz Movie" every day... Hahaha. The other reason it started early this year was due to another battle in the Prank Wars saga. You see, my friend Nate Probert has a birthday two days before mine. I took him out to breakfast that morning and it just felt like there was still something missing... So we (Me, Tyson, Jason, Joe, and Rob Peterson) hit his car that night. It was hilarious and he was a great sport about it.

The problem with this plan of mine is that it gave the others ideas... The next night, Jason and the boys took me out for ice cream. While I was gone, this happened:

Yes, that would be my truck. And what is that in the bed of my truck? That would be a hose. Why a hose? To fill the bed with water. Why the water? So the goldfish don't die. Yes, my truck bed was filled with goldfish. Haha. Pretty good prank, I must admit. So yeah, I got 15 goldfish for my birthday!

I woke up early on birthday morn and Amber took my out to the truck where she'd filled it full of balloons that were filled with notes and money for my birthday as well as my new U of U hat! She also made breakfast for me, Jeff, and Jason before we went golfing. It was delicious! The golfing was great. It was the first time I'd been up to Eagle Wood and we all had a great time. Only lost one ball too. Not too shabby! Here's some pics:

Me and Jason carting it up.

Jeff searching the nearby weeds for his ball.

Nothing like drunk golfers... Lame.

My Birthday, Year 26 (Part 2)

After the golf excursion, I came home and we got ready to go to the Aquarium in Sandy. It was really cool! They've got plans to do a much larger one some day, but this one is pretty cool for now. Jeremy loved looking at the fish and watching the rays swim by in the petting pool. We even saw the sea turtle that had survived a shark attack! It was pretty rad. The penguin exhibit was really cool. They basically just form a line that jumps in the water, swims around, jumps out, walks to the other side, and starts over again. They were cool.

We were pretty tired after getting some lunch so we came home for a family nap and it was AMAZING! (I love the family nap time!!) We woke up just in time to get ready for dinner and we went to Outback Steakhouse with Mom, Rob, and Aerielle. It was really good. Mom made me homemade chocolate cake that was simply heavenly! Tim, Joe and Lisa Dryden even stopped by later for some cake as well.

I got some pretty great presents as well, which is always important right? Amber gave me a truck full of balloons and a sweet Utah Utes hat (see Part 1 pictures), some birthday spending money, and an overall wonderful day! Tim gave me a new snowboard movie. Jeff got some some sweet camping gear. Rob and Aerielle got me a Ute flag for my truck which I fly with pride. Krista and Hael got me a Ute hitch cover for my truck that's way sick. Mom, besides the chocolate cake from heaven, got me a sexy green plaid shirt. And I received some great birthday texts as well! Last, but definitely not least, Mom and Dad gave me a new table saw for the garage which I was spoiled enough to receive a few months ago to finish the tear drop and it's quickly becoming my new favorite tool. And Mom pulled a near water-to-wine miracle by resurrecting my bike from the dead and brought it down so we could pull Jeremy in his bike car! He loves it. It was a great surprise! Yeah, I'm a spoiled guy. Thanks again to everyone for making my birthday so awesome. :)

And look! Someone even put a huge banner up for below the golf course in Bountiful. I don't even know who it was. That sure was thoughtful of them!

Saturday Morning Fishing

Last Saturday I woke up early and went fishing with Jason at Pond's Park here in K-ville. I have to admit, I had my doubts about that place. But the fishing there is legit! Not because we caught anything, because we didn't. But we saw other people pull out lots of fish! Catfish, bass, blue gill, and even rainbow trout! So if we can ever figure out what they're doing that we're not, we'll be feeding multitudes with our loaves and fishes! Maybe it was the chicken liver we used as bait... Hmmm...

Jason and his "moss trout."

Prank Wars

"Somehow" I have found myself in the middle of some Prank Wars here in the neighborhood in our ward. It all started when Jason Condie's car got "Twilighted." What is Twilighted? Twilighted is the past tense of the verb, Twilight, as in, to Twilight someone. It would entail someone or something being covered in Twilight posters and vampire paraphernalia. In this case, it also involved plastic wrap and Vaseline... But again, I have "no idea" how it happened. (I don't see what the big deal is anyway, because Jason LOVES Twilight. So much, in fact, that he's adopted the name "Edward Cullen" for his pranking code name.) Anyway, Jason got Twilighted, sent out some verbal threats, attempted psychological warfare, blah blah blah. (He should have realized we're not smart enough for psychological warfare to work.)

So it's Monday night and we invited our friends Joe and Lisa Dryden over for dinner and Family Home Evening. Joe is an avid BYU fan and "somehow" had found a bunch of U of U stuff on his car. That same night, I got up at 12:30 to get a drink of water and I'm standing in the kitchen in the dark in my underwear when I see a car pull up to the driveway, watch Tyson Moody get out, climb in the back of my truck, and start writing on my window. I called Jason, the driver, Steve Earl, the passenger, and Tyson and let them know they got caught. (It was hilarious watching Jason drive away with Tyson chasing him down the street on foot...) So Joe and I had both been hit. And we were talking about different ways to return the favor when Lisa shared a prank that had been done to her in college. Apparently someone and run by the dorm and tossed a live duck into their apartment! I'm honestly not sure how we actually decided to go through with it, but "somehow" we found ourselves in the truck on our way to the Layton Park in search of a duck.

It turns out that ducks aren't that easy to catch. We had plenty of bread and they'd come to the shore, but the geese kept knocking them out of the way and were much more aggressive. After 20 minutes of trying to work around the honkers, we decided to improvise... So we caught a goose instead! We lured it between us and Joe caught it by the neck, no big deal. It actually was very calm. In fact, it just laid down until I picked it up. We threw a towel over it, waited until the coast was clear, and took off at a run and jumped into the back of the Dryden's Trailblazer. It was an pretty uneventful trip back towards Jason's house. Well, besides the fact that I was holding a giant white goose. (No really, this goose was huge.)

We pulled into the church parking lot, snapped a picture, grabbed a big quilt to hide our goose under, and made our way in the dark to Jason's house. The plan was to put the goose between the screen and the door, knock, and run. When they opened the door, the goose would run inside and mayhem would ensue! The only problem was, when we got to the door, our goose was so big it barely fit! And when I say barely, I mean that it probably shouldn't have fit... but we kind of made it fit... Anyway, we got the goose in the door, knocked, and ran! We watched from a safe distance and waited... and waited... and no open door. We started to worry about our feathered friend so I crept back up, made sure the coast was clear, and knocked again. Then I heard Jason's wife: "Yeah, we know it's there!"

Back at our hiding place, we watched Jason come out the side door, open the screen, and out popped the goose. By this time it had pooped all over his step and was now honking up a storm. Soon the neighbors came out and the whole street was trying to figure out what was causing all the commotion. It was about this time when Jason called me... "Well played," he said. "What are you talking about?" was my reply. "You put a GOOSE in my door!" Hahaha. I lied through my teeth and actually got him to think it wasn't me when I offered to come help him get rid of the thing. So I ran around the block, got in my truck, and pulled up just as if I had been at home enjoying a restful evening. As I pulled up, I saw three people walking up the street cautiously. A voice called out: "Juli...? Are you okay?" Jason's wife: "Yeah. Someone just put a goose in our door!" The three people came into the light and it was none other than the bishop, his wife, and the former bishop! "Who did this to you?" they asked. Juli: "It was him!" and pointed right at me. "How do you know it was me?!" I shot back. "Who else would it be?!" I thought quickly and replied: "If it was me, it would have been a dead deer." That seemed to pacify everyone. I'm not sure if I should be relieved or offended...

Back to the story. The bishop: "Wow. Well this is a lot better than toilet paper!" Hahahaha. That was the line of the night. So we chased the goose around the street, hoping it would fly away, but it didn't. In fact, it started following Jason around and laid down in the front yard as if it was nesting. We think it thought Jason was its mom. I told him he was stuck with it and left to eat dessert and revel in the glory of our prank. We started to feel bad, though. The goose wasn't leaving and Jason's daughter prayed that the goose would get home safe in her prayers so that kinda tugs at your heartstrings... So Joe and I went back over. Jason was out in the street chasing the goose away again. A dog saw it and started barking at it and right as we were pulling up, the thing ran headfirst into the front of the truck! We thought we'd killed it, but it was okay.

We told Jason it was us (this after confessing to the bishop on our way over) and we all know the best way to ice over a good prank on a friend. You invite the prankee to join the prankers in pranking another friend! We caught the goose, drove over to Steve Earl's house, and put it on his front porch! Joe rang the bell and we ran into the bushes and watched as he came to the front door, looked around, and saw a big white goose staring back at him. My favorite part of the whole thing was Steve saying: "Go home! Shoo! Stop honking!" Hahaha. Classic. We finally came out after he started to chase us down. We caught the goose again (by this time it was becoming quite well trained) and wrapped him in the quilt. He sat up front this time as we took him back to the park. We let him go back at the park and he thanked us for letting him be involved in our Family Home Evening activity. Actually, no. He started honking what I'm sure was goose profanity and all of a sudden the other geese started swimming towards us really fast, also honking obscenities, and got out on the shore and started coming at us! That's when we ran back to the truck and called it a night. Sigh... what a great night... what a great prank... what great friends...

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Post Note: I took that picture of the goose in the door and sent it to Jason as a memento... I've since received that same picture sent to me by three different people in the ward asking if I'd seen it. Of course I have! I took it! Yeah, the goose has gone viral! Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Book Club, Chapter 2

This month's meeting of the Book Club went down as another success. We even had a few new faces this time which was way good. Tyler Householder and his wife just happened to be at the restaurant on a date so he unintentionally joined the Book Club. (Hey, we'll take them however we can get them!) We all met at Dylan's for dinner and Jason introduced us to the Santa Fe burger: burger, fried egg, two types of cheeses, and jalapenos. I took mine without the peppers and Steve would've done the same... had he known! Yeah, things got a little hot for him pretty quick. Haha. Here's some pics of dinner:

Yours truly, Steve "Jalapeno" Earl, Joe Dryden, and his daughter.

Jason making gang signs and Colby doing his thang. Yo!

Steve again and Anton enjoying the Santa Fe.

After dinner, some of us had to disband but the rest went over to Boondocks for a little bowling action. Depending on who you ask, Jason or Steve or Colby won. I think it was Colby. Who knows? Normally, we would have called it a night right there. We decided to do some "missionary work" though and convert Joe (more specifically his car) to the truth and light of the University of Utah instead of the dark, dreary, and lonely world of a BYU fan. It was the least we could do for a friend. Friends don't let friends cheer for the Y. ;)

Jeremy Dancing

Krista and Hael Sealing

It's been really great having Krista and Hael here visiting from Alabama. We've done a lot of fun things. But the real reason they came was to be sealed in the temple. They got married over a year ago and I really respected their decision, especially on Hael's part, to go forward with the wedding as planned even though it couldn't take place in the temple yet because Krista had been sealed previously. Hael never hesitated about wanted to marry her and even though they didn't know if or when they'd be able to go to the temple together and be sealed, they had the faith that they were meant to be together and somehow it would work out. When we got the phone call that day, it truly felt like a miracle and the joy we all felt as a family was overwhelming. Our prayers had been answered. Being in the temple with them this weekend was incredible. Being a part of a temple sealing is always so unique and special no matter how many times you are blessed to participate. This time, though, was just a little more special because it was for our brother and sister who we'd fasted and prayed so hard for. It reminded me of the day I'd found out the Districts I'd served in on my mission in Brazil had finally become Stakes. Those areas were wonderful and the members there so strong, but they needed to become Stakes to enjoy all of the blessings of membership that the Church could offer them in that area. Krista and Hael can now enjoy ALL of the blessings of being an ETERNAL family and companionship. I'm so happy for them and so grateful to call them my family. How grateful I am to know the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that our families truly can be, are, and will be eternal forever...

Only At The Eastern Idaho State Fair...

For Labor Day, we decided to celebrate by driving up to Blackfoot Idaho with Rob, Aerielle, Hael, Krista, and Mom for the Eastern Idaho State Fair... which would mean there's a Western Idaho State Fair? Anyway, it was quite the experience. Nothing like greasy food and carnies! Jeremy really enjoyed himself seeing all of the animals. His biggest thrill was the tractors, though. I can honestly say he either rode or touched every tractor there! I could try to write about everything we saw and did, but the pictures are just so much better... Enjoy!

Cherry Hill

After getting back from hunting, Amber got off early and we took Jeremy to Cherry Hill's water park! It was the perfect day to be there. The weather was amazing and Jeremy LOVED it. We played in the pirate ship, went in the lazy river, swam in the big pool, played in the fountains, and even went down the big dragon slide! He was such a stud. After we came out of the slide, I asked him if he liked it and he said: "Dragon slide fun!" I asked him if he wanted to go again and he answered: "No. Dragon slide too scary!!" Hahaha. Love that little guy! Here's some pics and video:

Bow Hunt, Weekend 2

Well, this was a great hunting experience... That's about all that I can call it. Let me explain: Friday, I got off work at noon and drove up to our hunting spot and met Dave there. He had seen 5 bucks that morning so he was really optimistic about our chances of seeing something. We drove up to the area where he'd seen the deer and we set off through the trees. Two hours later, nothing. I guess we did find a chair to sit on but yeah, nothing. Isn't that always how it goes? So we started back to the truck. We were getting close to the truck and walking through the trees when out of the corner of my eye I see a deer. We stopped, watched it, and saw that it was a nice 3-point buck! I told Dave to switch me spots so he could get a distance on it with his range finder. I was turning to get around him when my stupid knee decides to slip out! Yeah, I almost fell right over. So I'm hopping around trying to get my knee right and Dave is like: "What are you doing?!" The deer meanwhile has moved out of sight and for all I know it's gone. Well, a truck drove up the road right then and by some miracle, the deer comes back into view and starts walking up a trail right in front of us! So we get behind a tree, set up the range finder, and see that this buck is going to walk right in front of us about 17 yards away! The wind is in our face, deer coming broadside, everything is going to be perfect. I get my arrow set and I'm waiting to pull back and... nothing. We waited and waited and no deer. We peer around the branches and the freaking deer is laying down right in the trail on the other side of the tree looking at us. So we're sitting there trying to decide how we're going to get a shot at a deer only 10 yards away. Finally, we decide that Dave will poke his head out to try and occupy its vision while I move down around the tree to get a shot. It takes about 5 minutes to move the couple of feet to where I can see its body without it noticing me. I've got about a foot wide hole between the branches where I can shoot and I draw back and somehow it just doesn't seem like that deer is 13 yards away like we thought. I asked Dave if he was sure and he's like: "Oh yeah, it's about 13. Just put your 20 yard pin a little low." So I put it low, took a deep breath, and let it fly! Deer jumps up, falls down, my heart soars to my throat, deer jumps back up, runs away, my heart sinks. Dave's all: "Did you hit it?!" I'm like: "I don't think so..." We walked up to where it was laying and paced out the distance... Less than 10 yards. My arrow was planted in the dirt, only missing its back my inches. Yep. Just tattoo "As If" across my forehead. Ten freaking yards away. It should be noted that I've spent my whole life using a primitive bow that requires getting the animal within 20 yards to get a decent shot. My first year with a compound bow, and all I want is my old bow back. Sigh... So anyway, we tried to follow the deer to see if we could find it again and no luck. We did, however, see two moose! A gnarly bull and cow that we were less than 100 yards away from! Here's some pics:

So we went back to camp and I was left to torture myself with what could have been. We went out again later that night, but nothing to see besides some stray does. I did find another balloon though! The funny thing was that it was in the same forest where I found the balloon last time! Crazy, huh? This one said: "I Love You." Haha. The next morning we woke up early and went out looking for elk, but didn't see anything. We scared up some more deer, but that was it. I'm still pretty bummed I missed that shot, but it was a blast and such a rush! Definitely made the whole season right there. I should have just jumped on it...