Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Headstone and a blast from the past

Lisa's headstone is finally done. It turned out so well too. It's exactly the way she wanted it. After we put Lisa on home hospice care, she and I took a trip to the funeral home so that she could pick out her casket and headstone and plan out her entire funeral. This is what she picked out. It's still weird for me to see my own name on a headstone.

On a crazy side note, one of Kamille's friends was browsing Lisa's facebook page and came across this photo from the Big Cottonwood marathon back in 2013. Her friend noticed that the guy in the red shirt in the background is Kamille's late husband Clint. Clint was battling his bone cancer at that time and it was the motivation for Kamille to run a marathon. Lisa had finished up her year long chemo and radiation treatments a few months earlier and was using this race as motivation to keep pushing herself. I love that this photo captured two amazing cancer warriors in the middle of their trials and battles.
Upon discovering this photo of Lisa and Clint in the same shot, some other friends did some digging and found some more photos that showed how our paths had crossed three years ago. We found out that Kamille and Lisa not only ran the same race, but finished at the same time. The official race times show that they finished 3 seconds apart.

You can see Kamille's son Gunner in this photo running along side Lisa and Aubrey.

And this photo shows that Gunner was out there supporting Kamille. Had the camera panned out we would have captured both Lisa and Kamille easily in the same photo.

You can see Lisa's mom and dad in the background of this photo of Kamille, Neiska and Wyatt.

It's funny how the world is so much smaller than we realize. I'm convinced that the Lord is much more intimately involved in our lives than we even realize.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Camping with cousins

Last weekend my brother and his wife came in town with their kids. My parents took their kids up camping by where we go elk hunting. Kristin and I decided that we would lend a hand helping our parents and get all the cousins together for a fun weekend of red neck fun. My cousin Jaron caught wind of this trip and brought his family along as well. It was a great weekend in the mountains spent with family.

I brought some pistols and rifles for the kids to shoot. They all really enjoyed shooting.


 Charlie was her normal adorable self.

Here's a picture of all my parents grandkids, plus Jaron's two kids, in one photo. It was quite the crew.

That evening my dad, Jaron, Chris and I went out to do some scouting for my dad's elk hunt. It is such beautiful country up there.







That night I slept out under the stars with Blake. He was so excited to sleep by me and look at all of those stars. I showed him some constellations, some of the planets, the milky way, and we even saw a brilliant, long lasting shooting star.

I brought my RZR up there and took everyone for some fun rides. I taught my nephew Trevor how to drive it, and let my mom, Jaron, my dad, Kristin and Chris drive it. They are all fans. It's been super fun to use with the family.







We had to leave home Saturday afternoon before everyone else because we had tickets to the Heber Valley demolition derby. Not long after hitting the highway all of the kids were out cold. That's always a good sign of a successful trip when they are exhausted like that.

That night I took all of the kids to the demolition derby. They loved it!






As soon as we were leaving and walking back to the truck they were all begging me to take them again next year. I think I'm doing this dad job right by the looks of the smiles on my kids faces.