We love baseball!!

Our family was able to go to opening night for our baseball team here in town. We got to go with my sisters family and we all had a great time. Justin was hysterical and wired, especially after the snow cone, nachos, churro, peanuts, and pretzel that uncle chris spoiled him with. He got his picture by Oggie and got to watch fireworks...yeah we found out he doesn't like those at all. He was petrified during the whole fireworks display. One of the funniest moments of the night was around the 8th inning when everyone around us was getting really wasted and began heckling the umpire and visiting team. They were yelling mean stuff and justin was mimiking what he heard, he turned in to a mean little 3 year old.

Justin lovs to play with his cousins and these two are very funny together. I talk to my mom a lot how Justin is the oldest but not really, he gets to be the youngest in all his cousins families.

Oggie still scared him to death but he stood by him this time and posed. I was so proud of him!

Gas Rodeo 2009

Gary has a pretty cool job and one of our favorite things about it is the annual gas rodeo. It is pretty unique because not many careers set up events like this. It is a whole day of relay races, digging, gas meter assembly and for justin....lotsa CANDY!!! This is one of the events, it is a sand dig. Four guys dig as fast as they can to get to the bottom of a box full of sand.

As part of the relay Gary's job was to take this backhoe and pick up an egg and put it in a small cup.

This part of the rodeo is where the whole team works together to cut a 6 inch steel pipe.

This is Justin and Lindsy at the beginning of the day, they had a great time...but notice how clean they are.

It didn't take long for Justin to get totally covered in popsicle, orange soda, cheetos, tootsie roll, licorice....etc.. oh you could go on and on with the junk he ingested. yikes I'm a bad mom!! We'll have nothing but vegetables tomorrow!!!!

Lindsy just couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep on Gary. She went to bed at 6pm tonight and thus far (knock on wood) is still snoozin'.

That little cat nap didn't last long. She had a great day!

Justin's favorite part was driving the backhoe. They got to move orange cones all over the place and he used the controls. He had such a blast...can you see the perma-grin?

This is our family by our favorite tractor. I maneuvered this tractor and came in 3rd in the "beginners" competition. I'm kind of attached. :)

Grandpa and Grandpa Great!

This past Monday my Grandpa past away he was a great man and a wonderful Grandpa to everyone. Grandpa always had time for everyone even if he had never met them before. I can remember a million times being with Grandpa at the ice rink (Weber Co. were he ran it for years) and he would measure people for skates by looking at thier hands and having these great conversations with them and I would ask Grandpa who they were and he would just say some nice people who came to go ice skating. He may or may not have ever met them before but he always made them feel like his best friend. It was always the same way when Grandpa would haul me, Ed and Blake up to North Fork, he was friends with everyone. Having my own children now I can fully understand the commitment that Grandpa had taken on by dragging us around with him all of the time it just goes to show how much he loved all of his grandchildren.

Grandpa always was a man who had a strong belief in being a good example and that someone was always watching. He would always tell us to remember who we are and to remember that we come from a good family and that we have a lot to live up to. I remember a specific trip to California where we made a stop in Nevada somewhere and we were walking through the town and there was this ginormous slot machine the size of a pop machine on the sidewalk. Well, Grandpa gathered myself, Ed and Blake together to teach us the lesson that gambling doesn't pay, he pulled a dollar out of his wallet and placed it in the machine and pulled the lever and much to his suprise won five dollars! Grandpa still gave us the lecuture but I'm sure he was smiling inside.

Grandpa was also a very patient person, WAY more so than anyone I know. He was able to sit through any first grade reading book, any type of performance (whether it be for real or just the front room special performance),listen to all of the grandkids stories and actually be interested in all of them. He always made everyone feel very special. I can think of a great example of the patience that Grandpa had. It all started so inocently with myself, Ed and Blake shooting our BB guns in the backyard and I'm sure some sort of dare or challenge must have presented its self and our usuall target practice turned into a actuall all out BB gun fight. Well everything was going great untill for some odd reason Ed and myself were unable to convince Blake that he needed to stop crying and that BB's will eventually work there way out from under the skin and that's when Grandpa came out and called us all into the front room. I knew that Grandpa was very mad but he never did yell at us although we did get a strong talking to. Grandpa would always let boys be boys, we were always encouraged to explore and learn new things. I think that is one of the great things that I will take from him. Grandpa was always bringing home new and exciting animals for everyone to play with, and I know that is one thing my family has had a great time with.

It would be easy to go on and on with all the great memories and experiences of Grandpa and I know that everyone has their own to share but this time we will all have to find someone else to share them with besides Grandpa.

We'll miss you Grandpa!