Bitter-Sweet moments

Matt left for the MTC on July 15th.  It was a bitter sweet moment cause I know he's supposed to go, but I don't really want him to.  We've become really close over the past year and a half, and I'm really going to miss him.  Last summer we worked together literally all day, every day.  We washed windows together, and both worked the same nights at Little America.  Then he lived with me in provo during the 2008-2009 school year.  He's become one of my best friends.  I'm excited for him though, don't get me wrong.  He's going to have some awesome experiences.  He's going to the Baltic mission (Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania- in between Finland and Russia).  He's speaking russian, so he's got his work cut out for him.  I'm excited to start getting his letters.

Incase some of you haven't heard, they do the MTC drop off a little different now.  When I went in there was like an hour meeting and you watched sappy Mormon ads, the MTC president spoke to you, and there was the dreaded two doors.  The missionary went out one, and the family went out the other.  Your emotions really got ramped up.  But the way they do it now is you drive up to the curb inside the MTC, where there are some missionaries there waiting to help with the bags.  You have about 3 minutes to say good bye and off he goes with one of the other missionaries.  You watch him walk away.  It's a little emotional (but I didn't cry or anything like that), but I like this way better than the other way. Its like a band-aid.  Just rip it off and get over it.  Good Luck Matt, I love ya. 

The Big Race

On Saturday, July 11th Amanda and I went to a stock-car race in Ephraim.  It was really fun!  Its a dirt track called "Wild Bills Raceway."  It only cost $7 and lasted for 3 hours.  They had a bunch of different races like tough trucks, stock cars, modifieds, trucks, etc.  The tough trucks was one of the coolest because they were going off 6 ft jumps and ramming each other.  The wind picked up and blew all the dirt towards the grand stands, so there were some pretty miserable people for about 20 minutes.

My favorite race of the night was the last race.  They took all the stock cars (which was about 15) and had them all on the track at the same time.  They had to do 20 laps.  It was awesome because the drivers were so aggressive.  they would run each other off the coarse, or into the cement wall (as seen in picture above).  The drivers would come around the last corner and they would be cruising.  The track was dirt so they would have a hard time keeping control of the car, and sometimes would hit the wall.

One cool thing that happened was in the last race a car started on fire twice!  The first time the driver had no idea cause it was under the hood, shooting out the wheel wells.  So everybody was screaming, and eventually the flag guy ran over and had him get out of the car.  But the fire extinguisher they had didn't work.  So eventually the water truck got over and put it out.  So they towed him to the pits.  Then somebody else went off the track, so they stopped the race, and he was back from the pits before they started.  They did a few more laps and his car started on fire again!  This time he got out a little quicker, dove into another car, grabbed a fire extinguisher and put it out himself.  It was an exciting race.

This video is fun.  It shows how fast the cars were whizzing by the grand stands. (A white flag means they have one more lap in the race.)

It's been a while

So it has been a long time since I have updated this blog.  Lets see, where to begin.............

Well on June 28th my little brother Matt had his farewell.  It was really good.  I can't believe he is going on a mission already!  I'm gonna miss him a lot.  Luckily he hasn't left yet, so I've been able to hang out with him a little more.  We had a time share at Snowbird the week of the 4th, so that was fun.  I didn't get to go up too much, but I had a lot of fun when I did.  

Yesterday we all went up Millcreek Canyon for a Bbq.  We roasted hot dogs, starbursts, and smores.  Then Amanda, the boys and I played in the river.  It was really cold, so cold in fact my 3 year old nephew Isaac started crying until his feet got numb.  Then he was fine.  After the canyon we went back to my house and Isaac developed quite the crush on Amanda.  He was kissing her as much as he possibly could, and she was a good sport about it.  But he was trying to be subtle about it.  He would wrestle with both of us on the lovesac and tell her to kiss his forehead.  Then it moved to the eye, then the cheek, then the chin, then finally the lips.  Well I guess he liked that one the most cause that is what he tried for the rest of the night.  It was pretty funny.  Things started to obviously get awkward for Amanda fast, so I told him he couldn't kiss my girlfriend and that he had to find his own.  He told me to throw him on Amanda (she was laying on the lovesac). I told he I wouldn't cause he would just try to kiss her more.  He assured me that he wouldn't and said "just throw me on her so I land on her mouth." Ha ha, needless to say their dad came down to put them in bed just in the nick of time.  You gotta love Nephews.

Fly, Fight, And Win

Saturday Amanda and I went up to Hill Air Force base in Ogden for an air show.  It was incredible!  It made me even more excited to be an Air Force pilot.  A few friends came along to complete the experience (Gordy, Crave, and Mike with their girls).  The Thunder Birds were the main attraction.  They are the Air Force equivalent of the Blue Angels.  They were so amazing.  These two pilots would go straight at each other each going 1,000 mph and turn at the last minute, barely missing each other by about ten feet.  It was crazy.  Then one of the F-16's came cruising above the runway and went straight up 3 miles in about 15 seconds.  There were six planes, and they would be doing barrel rolls and twists and turns in perfect formation.  Each planes wing was about 5 feet from the plane next to them.  I've never seen anything so cool.

 It was really loud, so not everyone had fun.  Ha Ha

This video is them flying in diamond formation.  They were turning in perfect unison.  I guess you just need to look at the video to believe it.  Check it out.  There isn't much room for mistakes in this line of work.

All-in-all the day was great.  I took all these pictures and video by the way.  Enjoy.

Lake Powell 2009

So My family went to lake powell this week.  It was really fun.  We hit the road monday morning and drove through price down to southern Utah.  It was Trent and I in a car, Eric, Matt and Dave in a car, and the parents in the Tahoe.  We got to the lake with enough time to put the boat in the water and do some cliff jumping and wakeboarding.  The water felt so nice and warm. 

The next day we spent boating around all day, finding canyons such as iceberg canyon for good water.  We got some good tube wars in, and then went back to the trailer for a nice BBQ beef dinner.  By the end of each day people were pretty tired.  So we started a t

he movie "What about Bob," but everybody went to bed before we finished it.

The following day we went to Hole in the rock (where pioneers crossed Glenn Canyon in the 1850's), Dangling rope marina, and rainbow bridge.  It was pretty neat.  Trent went back to provo that morning (thats why he brought his own car).  We saw some really cool canyons and an natural arch. 

The trip was pretty fun.  The last day we went to some old indian ruins and walked around them.  Then did some skiing and wakeboarding.  All-in-all the trip couldn't have been better and it was really fun to be with the family.  Hopefully some day we can do it again.

Ben Kweller - Penny On The Train Track

This video is hilarious! Check it out and see if you laugh as much as I did.

I Wanna get away, I wanna fly away

Today My old flight instructor (Todd) and I went flying around Salt lake.  It was pretty fun.  We took off from Spanish Fork and flew over the point of the mountain into salt lake.  We buzzed my house and old neighborhood, flew over the old Olympus High School, and a few temples like Draper, Mt. Timpanogos, and Provo.  We flew in a Piper Arrow.  The whole flight lasted about and hour.  Man, I love flying so much!