Squaw Peak

Squaw Peak. The very name conjures up images of parked cars, NCMOs, and ancient Indian lore. Now, this is one mountain that we have mastered; we can look at it with a sense of righteous pride and glorious accomplishment. On Saturday, 6/21/08 I, with a group of comrades (which includes my lovely wife) hiked this towering mass of a mountain in no less than 6 hours. We fought the scorching heat, near vertical inclines, and killer silk worms. Above all, we survived, and lived to tell the tale (i.e. blog about it.)

Enjoy the pictures! (That's what you're really here for, isn't it?)

Strawberry Explosion

So our strawberry patch has pretty much exploded the last few days. On Saturday we brought in a whole bowl full of them from the garden and then yesterday we got two bowlfuls from the garden. Wowsers! We have strawberry's coming out of our ears. I made a double batch of strawberry freezer jam with the first day's worth of berries and I've given most of them away, so I could make more jam, but I don't know what else to really make other than strawberry pie. Does anyone have any good recipes with strawberries?

These are our first batch of berries. The second time we harvested this bowl was overflowing and another one was just as full.

Demolished Memories

For all those people out there who worked at IT Training on BYU campus, this will be a very emotional moment. Are you ready? Here it comes...
The Knight Mangum building is ... gone. It exists now as only a pile of rubble where once used to stand the most wonderful (old) computer software classrooms and a decaying floor that was ripped up and turned into a graveyard for Halloween.

I managed to capture on photo some of the last standing moments of the KMB:

Here is a before and after picture of the old entrance to IT Training. Students and faculty used to enter here, and leave changed forever.

Goodbye, old friend...

Super Hero Bootcamp

At work I planned a senior agent retreat for the student supervisors to help them bond and build leadership skills. Our theme was super hero bootcamp and we played lots of games and ate yummy food from the Smokehouse and it was an absolute success. Here are some pictures from some of the games we played. Who knew you could make water balloon catapults out of cardboard boxes, rubber bands, duct tape, and water bottles?

Scholarship Request

One of my student employees and friend is going to grad school this fall. He has a little boy and needs money desperately to pay for school since his wife is going to be staying home to watch their little boy instead of working. He has entered a scholarship contest where you vote for his video. The link is http://www.whyideserveascholarship.com\
Click on the link and then in the upper right hand corner click login and create a login. After you create the login click browse also in the upper right hand corner and look for "Change the World" by Richard. I haven't been spammed by them so no worries about giving out your email address. Every 24 hours you can vote for him. Please do not use multiple email addresses as some people have been disqualified from the contest for this. Only one email address per person voting. For voting you also get the chance to be entered to win $1000 for every time you vote. It's a pretty cool idea and I really hope he wins so his family can help pay for a little bit of his grad school. I believe the contest is over in July so happy voting!

James' Long Lost Brother

So, everyone keeps telling James that he looks like Zach Braff, the lead guy in the sitcom Scrubs. He's always been a little skeptical that this is true, but when we did a search in google images this is what we came up with.

So basically they have the same lips and nose. You decide for yourselves and let me know what you think. My next project is to put Zach's hair on James' head and to see what that looks like. James is slowly teaching me how to use Photoshop and it's really fun!

St. George and Vegas Trip

For Memorial Day weekend James and I decided to take a little excursion down to Las Vegas with a small detour in St. George Utah. We left work early on Friday and drove to St. George which is about 3 1/2 hours away. We stayed at a hotel which we haven't really done since our honeymoon and went to the St. George Temple.




The next morning we drove the rest of the way to Las Vegas which is only an 1 1/2 hour drive. We got there pretty early and stayed with our old neighbors Jamie and Garth. Jamie and Garth shared our duplex when we first were married. We were hungry for lunch so we went to In-N-Out to get some burgers and then went to the Las Vegas temple.




When we got back we hung out at Jamie and Garth's house until dinner time when we went to downtown Vegas and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. James and I love to go to Hard Rock's whenever we go on vacation and buy shirts when we eat there.

Jamie and Garth then showed us the best parts of Vegas: The Bellagio and the Fountain show.






We then drove around town and took some other random pictures of the strip.


On Sunday we went to church with Jamie and Garth and I helped Jamie teach her Young Women's lesson. It was way fun. After church Jamie's parents and brother came over for dinner and we played the Wii.




On Monday we had to leave sadly. Jamie's family was having a BBQ at their house so we stopped by for a bit but then had to leave to drive back to Provo.


We stopped by Cove Fort on the way back, but we forgot to take the camera so we have no pictures. We loved our vacation so much and can't wait to visit Vegas and to see our friends again!