Sunday, September 21, 2014

Weekend trip to Victor

Last weekend we had regional conference instead of our normal sacrament meeting so we decided to head up to Victor for the weekend to visit my cousins.  We drove up on Friday and stayed with my cousin Jayson.  His two younger kids are the same age as our kids, and they were instantly buddies. Our kids really enjoyed playing with Jayson's massive great Dane dog Odin and playing the xbox with is kids.  They had a huge sleep over in the living room, and Blake and Creed slept in the same bed.


I went with Jayson to the high school football game that Friday night and got to chat with my cousin Zane and his wife Betsy while at the game.  It was a fun fall evening at the game.
The next day Jayson had to take Caleb to Rigby for his football game, so Lisa and I decided to go visit some of our other family members.  We went next door and had a good, long conversation with my Uncle Jay and Aunt Joan.  It was so fun catching up with them and chatting.  Then we went and visited with my cousin Clint and his wife Lori.  They have grand kids about the same age as our kids so they had some fun toys for Aubrey and Blake to play with.

Once Jayson and Caleb returned from the game Saturday afternoon we headed over to Teton National Park and did some hiking and site seeing with the kids.  The Tetons are, in my opinion, the most beautiful and photogenic mountains in the world.  The weather was awesome for the day excursion.

We took a boat across Jenny's Lake to the other side and hiked back.  Here's a picture of Jayson and his daughter Tyler.



Tucker loved playing and hanging out with Jayson's son Caleb.  The two are about the same age.


On our hike back we encountered a cow moose just off the trail.  The kids got to stand within about 10 feet of her while she was eating.



The scenery was spectacular that day.


After a fun day in the park we headed back into Jackson Hole and went to the candy store.  Boy did that make the kids day.  On the way back to the car we got the traditional photo next to the antler arch.

On our way back to Jayson's house we stopped to take our photo next to the street sign where my dad grew up.  Calderwood Road.  Yup, that's officially it's name.

That night Jayson, Anne, Lisa and I went into Driggs and had dinner at a great Thai food restaurant.  Jayson wasn't lying when he said it was really good food.  Thanks for the recommendation!
Sunday morning we packed up and decided to head home.  On our way out we stopped off at my other cousin Tresha's house and visited with her for a while.  Blake and Cole really had fun petting and playing with her dog.  On the way out of town, I took this photo of the Teton's from the Idaho side.  So gorgeous.

We drove through Rexburg so that Lisa could go by the temple and her old apartment again.


While it was a quick trip, it was a fun one that we all enjoyed.  We need to be better at taking trips up to the valley even if they are just short ones like this.  Here's to more in the future!

BYU vs. Houston

Last week Lisa and I decided to buy some of the extra tickets available for the BYU vs Houston football game that was held on Thursday night.  We love to take our kids to sporting events, and decided that this would be a great evening for Tucker and Aubrey to attend.  I have season tickets with my dad, so I bought four extra tickets for Lisa, Tucker, Aubrey and Lisa's mom to attend.

We arrived early to enjoy the pre-game festivities and get some fun concession food at the stadium.  I won a water bottle from the Marines booth for doing 15 pull ups.  Hoo rah!

LES is such a beautiful stadium in the fall.  It's a great game atmosphere.


The game was played on September 11th so BYU decided to do a bunch of special tributes in memory of 9-11.  The opening had this HUGE flag that covered the entire field.  The BYU players held the flag on one side while the Houston players held it on the other.  This is the view from Lisa's seats.


Here's the view from my seat.


They also had a bunch of video messages from BYU fans who are serving over seas in Afghanistan and Iraq.  They even had one really emotional moment where a serviceman was sending his greetings to his family via video that they played on the jumbotron.  His wife and young daughter were on the field watching the message.  Then at the end of the message he ran on to the field, much to their surprise.  He wasn't scheduled to come home until December, so they were shocked. It was quite touching.

At one point the entire East stand helped to display a couple of cool messages.


It was a fun night, BYU won, and Lisa was able to meet up with her cousin Lindsay who is attending BYU.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Park City Mountain Resort adventures

A couple weeks ago we were gifted 6 VIP passes to the slides and park stuff at PCMR by a vendor in town that I do business with.  Well, actually Lisa was gifted them because the owner knows of her and thinks she's awesome.  Which she is.  
We decided to put them to use two Saturdays ago when the weather was absolutely perfect for the rides.  We had an awesome day together as a family.  The kids really enjoyed all the cool rides there. We started out with the alpine coaster.  None of the kids were tall enough to ride by themselves so Lisa and I had to switch up riding with them.  Cole enjoyed how fast it was.

While Lisa and I took Tucker and Aubrey, Cole and Blake waited on the bench.  They were looking so cute together in this photo.


At one point there is a camera that takes your photo.  We would always pull funny faces with our kids.  We didn't buy any of the photos, but I did manage to sneak a shot of this photo from their monitor.

After several times going down the alpine coaster we then went to the bungee jump on the tramps.  We all had fun doing flips.  Lisa was showing off her skills.

Tucker got the hang of it really quickly and looked like a pro.

Aubrey didn't want to be out done by her brother so she was quickly doing her flips too.

Even little Cole got in on the fun.  Blake was unfortunately too small to do this one, but he enjoyed watching.

Then we took the chair lift up to go do the alpine slide.  The colors were starting to peak and added to the beauty that day.


After a round at the alpine slide we went to the blow up slide and the rock climbing wall.




Then we took the kids over to the airplane ride that reminded us so much of Lagoon.  It was cool because they were the only ones on the ride at the moment.




Then we played a round of miniature golf.  That was quite an adventure watching them try to golf.


Then we finished the day off with one final ride down the alpine slide.  Lisa totally caught up to Tucker and Aubrey on the way down.  Those little midgets didn't quite weigh enough to get the good speeds that we adults do.
It was a great day and I highly recommend going for anyone that lives in the area.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Chicago

Right after our Lake Powell trip Lisa and I flew out to Chicago for my dental implant convention.  Lisa and I met in Chicago 12 years ago and haven't been back to that wonderful city since.  We absolutely loved our time there and hold a special place in our heart for Chi-town.  Needless to say we were incredibly excited to return.  We flew into Chicago late Wednesday night and finally got to our hotel around 1:00 in the morning.  When we woke up, we were treated with this view from our hotel room.  It was stunning.

I went to a bone grafting class in the morning, and then Lisa and I went out on the town for the rest of the day.  We rented the economy car, and boy was I glad we did.  Parking in Chicago can be incredibly challenging.  Thankfully our tiny Mazda fit in some of the smallest parking spots.

We went to lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant and then did a self guided walking tour of some of the famous sculptures found in Chicago.  My favorite was Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, or more commonly known as "the bean".  It's this massive sculpture made out of polished stainless steel.  It has some really fun reflections of the city skyline.



Underneath the bean is a concave portion that provides some crazy circus like reflections.

A selfie on the side of the bean.  You can see the rain dripping down the side of it.


Also at Millenium Park is this huge glass structure that has images projected from the inside out.  This one of the lady was fun.  She would open her mouth sometimes and water would spew out of that spot.

Another cool sculpture was the Picasso in Daley Plaza.

The final sculpture we visited was the Flamingo by Calder.  It was cool, but not as impressive as The Bean.

On our way back to the car we found where historic Route 66 begins.

After our sculpture tour we went to the Hancock Center and went to the top of the observatory.  The weather was unseasonably cool and rainy while we were there.  We got some great views up top, but didn't get to see as far as we would have normally due to fog and rain.  After enjoying the views above Chicago we did a little shopping on Michigan Avenue.  Lisa got some cool shoes for 80% off.

That night we went to a restaurant that one of my patients owns.  It's called the Dawson, and the food was awesome. My patient got us a reservation and told the staff to take care of us.  We were treated like royalty.  The food was delicious and the atmosphere was very fun.  I guess it pays to know the right people.

For the appetizer we ordered the mussels.  Lisa normally isn't a big shell fish fan, but she did enjoy these.  They were the best mussels I've ever tried.


The next morning I took this little panorama shot from our hotel room. I couldn't get enough of that view.

After a full day of classes, Lisa and I ended the night at the awards ceremony for the ICOI where I received an award of Fellowship in the organization.


Here we are all dressed up in our fancy clothes.  We are a good looking couple if I do say so myself.

Saturday I went to classes again in the morning, and then we headed up for an afternoon at Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play our dental school team, the Baltimore Orioles.  One of our first dates was to a Cubs game, so we were excited to return and watch two of our favorite teams play.  We had some awesome seats about 12 rows up by third base.


We ordered a foot long Chicago dog and this helmet full of nachos.  So delicious.


The game unfortunately got rained out for 3 hours, and we had an evening show to go to so we didn't get to see beyond the 3rd inning, but it was still a blast.  

On the way to our show, I took this photo of the Hancock Center from street level.  It's tall, over 1,100 feet tall. For those of you from Utah that aren't familiar with it, the Church Office building is only 435 feet tall.  The Sears Tower, another Chicago skyscraper, is 1,451 feet tall.  Lisa and I did that sky deck when we were living in Chicago.  We love the skyscrapers there.

Our dinner appointment was at Navy Pier.  We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp company. It was a tasty dinner.

While we were waiting for the show to start, we enjoyed the sunset over the Chicago skyline.  Navy Pier offers a great vantage point at sunset.



We had a lot of fun at the show.  It was a Chinese Cirque type of show.  They were incredibly talented acrobats.

That night after the show we returned to the hotel for one final evening of enjoying the views from our room.


We got to see the firework show they hold every Saturday night in the summer at Navy Pier.

We also got to see a building pay tribute to the local little league baseball team from Chicago that went to the Little League World Series championship game.

It was such a fun trip to Chicago, and it was a great way to cap off our summer of adventures.