Saturday, October 30, 2010

Halloween Happenings


This is Kade's first costume of the day. Not really, but every time he wears this he reminds me of Charlie Brown with the yellow and brown and his big bald head.



Mick getting revved up for a fun day of school partying.


This was the school parade. I love being able to go watch these kids. It's so nice to live in a tight close neighborhood where you are able to know so many of them.


These are of Tori at her Kindergarten Halloween party. She may look like a nice friendly witch, but she was a mean witch that morning. She was so mad at me because I was there to take her home and she didn't want to go.


These were taken at the Ward Trunk or Treat and Chili Cook-off. It was so much fun, but it was soooo cold. The kids ended up sitting in the car for a good portion of it because they were so cold-at which time we discovered that the heater does not work in the back vents of our car. Nice. This was also Kade's 2nd costume of the night as a turtle. He has also been a little devil with red horns which was my personal favorite but I didn't get a picture of it. Adam is dressed up as the first Doctor under Obama's new health care plan.

The kiddos are headed out now to do some real trick or treating. It's raining and super cold. We will see how long they last. I hope long enough to score me an Almond Joy.

Happy Halloween!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Lake Hardy 2010

This is Adam, I was reading older posts and they got a little confusing when I posted without letting myself know it was me.

So, a few years ago a friend, Kevin Arrington, and I went to Lake Hardy. It is on the mountain above Alpine UT. It is a pretty good trip. We hiked about 11 miles and climbed about 5000. I have wanted to go back since. I haven't made time etc, etc. I knew if I didn't go soon it would be too late in the year to make a trip.

I have been doing a little trail running lately and had the great idea that a run to Hardy would be a great way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I could get in a trail run and get back to Hardy. There happened to be a full moon. Everything looked great: get in a trail run, see Hardy again, and not miss out on the "daytime" activities of life: work, family, work, kids, work. Now came the easy part, finding someone else who wants to go with me. I started listing names and sending texts and emails and phone calls. I was sure there would be tons of people who wanted the chance to hang out with me. The trip to Hardy would just be icing on the cake. Of the 15 or so people I invited, my Bro, Jarod, was the only one who felt like I was good enough company to put himself through the meat grinder I was cooking up. Big thumbs up to brotherly love. I am sure Rhett, my other bro, would have gone too, but he is in St George. The three of us seem to be willing to do all kinds of torturous things to/for each other.

I knew it would be a bit of torture and would require plenty of extra calories. So, I spent the day packing away extra food. We had some Half and Half left over from when I was eating Peaches and Cream. I figured the stuff would go bad soon and had lots of calories. I poured me a glass of half and half, mixed in about 3 tablespoons of chocolate milk mix and put it down. I am not sure how many calories I picked up from my little drink but I'm sure it was lots. I don't know that I will try that again. I have always teased my Mom-in-law for using half and half on her cereal and now I am drinking the stuff. Funny how life changes.

I picked Jarod around 7 and we hit the trailhead at 7:30 pm. There were some guys there getting their horses loaded to head up the mountain so they could kill Bambie. One of them looked at my pack and said it was sure a small pack. I told him we were just going up and back. He shook his head and said we were crazy. I thought he was the crazy one, he is going to spend the morning trying to kill a deer with 4000 other people throwing lead around the mountain. We wanted to be off the mountain by 2 am or so. (good luck to them, cuz I saw more deer in the American Fork grocery store parking lot on my way home than I saw on the mountain)
I thought we would be able to get to the lake in about 2.5 hours and back to the truck in about 1.5 hours. As you will see, my estimate of a 4 hour trip was slightly optimistic.

We took off at a pretty good lope for about the first half mile, then the trail went skyward. We were going about as good as we could the whole way to lake. We had one mile that it took us almost an hour to cover. The trail is one steep sucker. The trip up was much more like a hike than a run, and a slow hike at that. We passed a group of deer hunters in a meadow up there and their horses eyes were glowing out in the trees at us. At least we think it was the horses, if not, they were most docile moose I have ever seen.

We got to the lake in about 3 hours and 17 min. My belly had not been cooperating for several minutes and I was getting really concerned because I didn't have any TP with me. About a mile from the truck I realized I had forgotten it, but was not about to go back down and up again. Luckily, I had my first aid kit with me. I found out last night, the santizer wipes I have had in the kit for 10 years, had dried out. I had my thermometer with me and the temp was mid 30's. I'll tell you what, no britches, temps that cool, sweaty, and a breeze coming down the canyon will suck every bit of body heat right out of you.

By the time I was able to get moving again I was shivering so bad I couldn't control it. I had some running tights that I hadn't put on yet and managed to wobble myself into them and they helped a bunch. I was amazed how something so thin could help retain so much heat.
Jarod and I looked at the lake for about 15 seconds, ate some frozen Snickers bars and headed back down again. The trail for about 1.5 miles below the lake is really hard to follow so it was slow going for that bit, then we were able to kick it up and run most the way back to the truck. I was able to ditch my long sleeved shirt and just work a short sleeve the rest of the way down.
We made it back to the truck in 2 hours 44 min. There were a few times we tripped and stumbled but didn't have any major falls. The moon was so bright we rarely needed our headlamps the whole way back. It was super pretty so be going through the trails with the oak leaves piled up and rustling in the breeze.

At some point on the way down I kicked a rock hard enough that it really hurt. When I got home and took my shoe off the end of my sock looked like it had a chunk of chocolate squished in it. I had kicked the rock hard enough it split my big toenail right down the center and it bled quite a bit.

I got home about 3 am, knocked out for a few hours and have really enjoyed hanging out with the fam. The quads hurt some today and the toe is sore but other than that I am feeling pretty good. I am so grateful to be able to do things like this. I am grateful for a wife who encourages me to go, for the health to be able to go, and the great places to go that are so close to home.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A few random things....

I made this wreath all with things from Dollar Tree. It looks even better in really life.
Tori making pumpkin cookies.

Mick and Kade taking a ride down the slide together.





Kade is playing with Mick's first garbage truck. Anyone that knows Mick well knows how much he used to love garbage trucks. He was obsessed with them. I have been very excited to pass this special toy onto his brother.


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Halloween 2006

Mick kept saying, " I'm Mick the Builder." This was probably his favorite costume to date.

Our teeny tiny witch.

Carving pumpkins.....









We spent a day at Harward Farms that year. Tori was terrified of the teenagers who were dressed up handing out candy. She hid behind her daddy's legs the whole time.

Halloween 2005

This was Tori's first Halloween and our first in Utah County in our Payson house. We traveled back down to our old ward's Halloween party in Hurricane. The kids were roasting in their hot costumes.





Victoria was the cutest little turtle because she was really crawling around at the time. Kade is going to wear it this year. I hope he is crawling for it, but it's not looking likely.





Such fun!


Halloween Past

I ran onto these old pics and decided to share. These are from 2004-6 years ago! Mick was only 2 and I was 7 months prego with Victoria and we lived in Hurricane at the time.

We are carving pumpkins with our old friends. Sadly, we ran into the husband a while ago up here in Utah County and they are no longer married. It made me so eternally thankful that after 10 years of marriage, I feel like Adam and I are still going strong.


These were shot at Staheli farm where there was a lot of activities and the corn maze.
Such easy care-free days we were enjoying and had no idea that we were. It's funny now to look back and see how much more complicated our lives have become. Now the question is: How do we get that back and make it less complicated? Anyone?