Just us with a couple of friends gettin our GROOVE on... MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

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50 words or less

So it's been while since we've blogged about our happenings, but we just installed the internet this morning after going nearly a month without it! I don't want to bore our numerous readers with monotonous details they don't really care about, so my goal is to take you through our last 5O DAYS in 50 WORDS OR LESS!! (Word count starting.....now)

San Diego!: Sea World, Beaches, Temple, Shopping, Very long car ride.

New Apartment:Moving sucks, But we are finally in our own place!

New Job:
Exciting. Fabulous. Park City is cold.

Party:
Cute kids, messy doughnuts, feeling dizzy.

Halloween:Blue!

We have never been busier but never been happier!

Two Years and a wonderful Wife!

Kind of weird to think about but we have successfully made it to our two year anniversary!! A lot of things have happened in those two short years but that is not what I am going to write about. Instead, I would like to share with all of you how lucky I feel I am to be married to the awesome, wonderful, beautiful woman that Carynn is.

I don't believe I ever understood true happiness until I met Carynn. From our first date to the present day, she has always had some kind of quirky way to make me smile or roll my eyes (in a loving way of course) and brighten my day. I love the adventurous spirit she has in her, and willingness to try new exciting things, even if she is terrified :). I am constantly amazed how she can be overloaded with school work, stressed with her job, and struggling with new languages yet still have the most positive attitude about teaching kids in nursery and finding time to prepare. Her spirituality has always been something that has astounded me. She never has a negative thing to say about people and always looks for the positive. She is dedicated to life, family, God, and always seems to put herself last. She is always there to support me in any and all endeavors I choose to pursue, and keeps me on track when I get a little side tracked. Thank you Carynn for being the best wife and example that I could ever hope for. Not referring to anything in the near future, I know you will be an awesome mother for our future children!

I feel very blessed to have been introduced to you Carynn, and have been able to spend these last two years of marriage with you. I look forward to many more years of excitement with you. I love you more than I can describe and hope that I will always be able to demonstrate that to you!

Things that I have learned in the last two years of Marriage:

Carynn likes to laugh- this doesn't mean that I can tickle her to induce such laughter.

Carynn is not fooled when I pass bodily noises off on the dog.

Mustard will only be in our fridge if I remind Carynn that we need it.

Oreos are a sacred item and should only be eaten with permission from Carynn.

If Carynn is reading, don't ask her what she is doing... she's reading!!

Tomato soup can actually be good.

Scary movies are something I must enjoy alone.

There is never a wrong time for flowers.

My jokes aren't necessarily as funny as I think they are, but Carynn gives me a nice chuckle or eye roll anyway.

Our body temperatures seem to always be polar opposites.

Happy Two Year Anniversary!! I love YOU!! :)

Press on! A better fate awaits thee. -Victor Hugo

After returning from living in Zion National Park and having to turn down a job that would allow us to live down there a couple more seasons, Scott was left with no greater option than to return to his previous work at the Grand America, a job he has not enjoyed for the last two years for various reasons. After several interviews at several different hotels and other tourism related companies, 10 months later Scott was finally able to land a job at the brand new St. Regis Deer Crest in Park City Utah!

It was a long yet comfortable interview that lasted 2.5 hours with my future boss and the director of operations of the hotel.

We are both extremely excited Scott received this job as it is a long awaited answer to our prayers! Having been turned down by several smaller hotels, Scott is happy to be able to remain in this sector of service. This hotel will have a 5-Diamond AAA status as well as the much more difficult to obtain 5-Star Mobile status. We are hoping that this company will provide a great future for us not only to fulfill our financial needs etc, but to fulfill our travel desires in the future with the awesome benefits that come with this company! Scott was told that there are very good chances to progress in this corporation depending on his flexibility to move... so who knows where we will be next year :)

First Date Movie :)

Here it is Folks, Carynn and Scotts video created for the Butler Family Reunion. We had a blast making this and hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Where Did Summer Go?

If you don't like reading people's travel logs, you might not want to read this post.

Summer came and left too quickly for us this year. Carynn's last day of School was August 5th. After a short few days of relaxing we were off to Lake Tahoe for the first entire Groves Family Reunion in 10 years. We spent the week swimming, playing games, eating lots of good food, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Scott spent one morning out on the sandy bike trails while Carynn did some hiking with her cousins. Scott got to meet a lot of new family members (even though he's been part of the family for nearly 2 years now) and it was fun to have almost everyone together again. Scott spent his 26th birthday in a hot car driving through the Nevada desert.

After our week in Tahoe we came home to spend a few days relaxing and visiting with with friends and family. We went to the Banks Family picnic and this time it was Carynn's turn to meet new faces and make new friends. I thinks everyone from the entire Banks extended family was there except our brother-in-law Tyler who was still in Vegas.

Less than a week after returning from Tahoe it was time to pack up once more. This time we were heading north and looking forward to a much more scenic drive. Little did we know that this drive would include crawling up Logan Canyon at 20 mph behind a cattle drive! It was actually a lot of fun. We eventually made it to Jackson Hole where Carynn's sister is performing in the Jackson Hole Playhouse all summer. She plays Frenchie in "Grease" and did an excellent job!

After Jackson we finally met up with the rest of Scott's family in Island Park. We had a great time going hiking, floating down the Snake River, and visiting Yellowstone. The weather was perfect and we always love being surrounded by our family and the beautiful creations around us.

On Top of the World!

Well it wasn't really the top of the world, but it was the top of Salt Lake City!

Yesterday we decided to take on the challenge of hiking to the top of Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the Salt Lake Valley. Here is some information about the hike:

Salt Lake City sits comfortably at about 4,800 ft above sea-level.

The peak of Mount Olympus is 9,000 ft above sea-level.

Difference- 4,200 feet!!

Trail distance: 6.4 miles round-trip

Average hiking time: 6-7 hours

Butler hiking time: 7.5 hours

The hike started off pretty decent with some steep switch-backs, but nothing we couldn't handle. About halfway up the mountain we ran into some other hikers making their way down the mountain. One gentleman said to us, "enjoy this part while you can. It gets a whole lot harder form here on up!" And he wasn't kidding. Not long after, we found ourselves climbing steeper and steeper, grabbing onto rocks, and getting an excellent work-out on our thighs! But ever time we looked up, the peak was getting closer and closer.

After some tough rock scrambling and even getting a little lost, we finally made it to the top!! The view of the valley was incredible. It was hard finding a place to sit down for lunch because the top of the mountain is just a big pile of sharp, jagged rocks. (Well, they aren't called the "sandy" mountains now, are they?!) We finally found a spot and ate our lunch before getting ready for the Return Journey.

We wanted to take a nice picture of us at the very top of Mount Olympus, so we pulled out our camera. I had charged the camera the night before so we could take it on the hike with us, but in the frantic harry to put it in my bag before we left the house, I neglected to make sure that the camera was actually turned off. It had been sitting in my bag and turned on for about 4 hours. Hence, no pictures :(

The hike back was just as hard as the hike up, but we finally made it back to the car and safely home. Now we can look out at the Wasatch Mountain range with our heads held a little higher, knowing that we conquered the highest of them all!

P.S. Thanks to Tiff and Will for inspiring us to take on this challenge!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!!

We are proud to say that we spent our 4th of July in an all-American way that even Uncle Sam would be proud of! It started off with a neighbor breakfast at our church (and really, can you get any more american than taking advantage of free food?!). It was definitely worth waking up at 8 a.m. for on a Saturday.

After breakfast we headed home and started getting ready for the rest of the adventures we had already planned for that day. We made some lunches, grabbed some blankets and the dog, and headed up the mountains for a beautiful summer picnic. It rained a little on our way up the mountain, but luckily the skies cleared up pretty quick and the rest of the day was perfect. We found our picnic site over-looking the breathtaking Little Dell Reservoir about halfway up Emigration Canyon. Since we had some time to kill, we even drove through different parts of the canyon we'd never seen before, but came out a little disappointed and learned that there was a good reason most of the travelers stay on the main road over-looking the water.

After our picnic we went and saw the movie UP. It is a very fun and very touching movie that we highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. We both admit that there were times we felt tears coming to our eyes. It is an emotional story about relationships and friendships, but neither of us expected to get all choked up about it!

After the movie we stopped for some ice cream at Arctic Circle before heading out again to finish the night in the most patriotic way we could think of- BASEBALL!! We went to the Salt Lake Bees game with our friends Tim and Susan and their little girl Sophia. The game was a lot of fun and we had a good time eating our foot-long hotdogs, singing during the 7th inning stretch, and cheering on the Bees! They lost 7-5 in the 12th inning, but it was still a good game with a lot of action. Since we bought the tickets that put us on the grass behind left field, and that was also where they were shooting the fireworks from, they moved everyone in our section down onto the field for the fireworks show. (I think Scott and Tim were more excited about being on the field than about the fireworks).

We had a great 4th and are glad we got to spend it together and with good friends. This was the first 4th of July where one of us wasn't out of town or working and we got to be together all day! We love the country we live in and the freedoms we enjoy.

With Love From Me to You!

I've never done anything like this before, but I got the idea from my sister and it sounded pretty cool!

OK! So this is how this works...The first 3 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me, just for you. Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! :)
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done some time within the next year.
4. You have no clue what it will be.
5. I will send it anywhere! It doesn't matter where you live!

The catch? The catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on their blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

(I was the second to sign up on my sister's blog, so now I'm doing my part...)

If you don't have a blog you can still comment and just make three things for whoever you'd like instead of waiting for them to sign up.

Be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

On your marks, get set, GO!

Mystery Meat

About four or so weeks ago Carynn recieved a mysterious call. She was instructed that a company who decides not to release their name would like to bring us by several steaks for free if we listen to a sales pitch getting us to buy more meat. "Sure" she thought, if all I have to do is listen, no harm done.
An appointment is set and we casually forget. Not to worry though because we recieve a similar call about a week later wanting to set up another appointment. Carynn being the unforgetful person that she is, has her mind sparked by this conversation and says something to the affect "you were supposed to be here on such and such date and nobody showed up?" "Really"they replied, "well lets set up another appointment and we will get you all taken care of.
This exact experience happened once more to her leaving us both baffled by this call and wondering how they even got the phone number since it was the hard line to the my moms house where we live, and which we never give out to anyone!?
I intercepted the following call after several appointments have been made and we, having reached the point of not caring about free steak, insist we don't want to have anything to do with this. After explaining to the other end about all the appointments made and no steak to show for it, we didn't want to make another appointment. "Really? we don't show any appointments arranged at all to come visit, I can set that up right now for you." After explaining several times that I didn't want it, I became frustrated and just hung up.
Little did I know that hanging up on these mysterious steak dealers would result in ANOTHER call!! Today I answered the phone, and the following is what transpired:
"Hello, Mr. Butler. I am calling from the *phone fuzz* company to set up an appointment..." blah blah blah
"What company?"
"The *phone fuzz*company." I gave up at that point thinking they have a button to push when asked that question that causes phone fuzz.
"How did you get this phone number?"
"Off of one of our *really weird name* list"
"Oh...ok?"
"We want to bring free steaks to you!!"
I mustered up all the patience I could at this point and explained that we were not interested and about all of the set up appointments before.
"Really? I don't see you having any appointments set up, I just have your name circled and thought I would call."
"Well, its no matter anyway because we don't want them, if you would please remove me from your list and have my name UN circled I would be appreciate it."
"Well that is really weird that you had them set up and that I don't show anything set up, I can have someone there tomorrow..."
"NO!" I proceeded to explain several times that I wish to be removed and don't want STEAKS!!
She finally complied and I hung up.

If I hear from this Mystery Meat Corporation again, I think I may stick to Salad!

Future Olympian!

Since we don't have any children of our own to brag about, we get to use our nieces and nephews for now!

Last week I had the chance to see our niece Carlie participate in a gymnastics competition. Carlie is 8 years old and in level 5 Gymnastics.  Most of the girls on her team are 10 or older, making Carlie the youngest competitor from her gym!  She moved through level 4 quickly and is well on her way to moving up the other levels quickly too!  In her age group Carlie got 2nd place on the uneven bars and 3rd place over all.  We are so proud! Look out Shawn Johnson, Carlie Sandberg's on your tail!!  

Here are some pictures from last week:

A Fun Trip full of unexpected events!!

Well our trip finally came, it just was not the trip we were expecting at all! Our original plans were to backpack down to the havasupai reservation and do some excellent hiking to amazing waterfalls. If you read our last blog you realize that this was cancelled a week before we were to leave due to the Swine Flue...(stupid pigs). We decided to still have a vacation since we 

both had already worked our work schedules out to have it off. 

Our new plans were to head down to Arches National Park for a few days, head down to Arizona to hike "the wave" then head up towards our old stomping grounds in Zion NP and ending up in Escalante to finish off a we

ek of great hiking... The following is our story:

Our first memory of this trip happens within the first ten minutes of leaving the driveway. Just getting on to the freeway our jeep dies! It won't start and we are frustrated after having put over $700.00 into it so it wouldn't die! After playing "pretend Mechanic" and jiggling

 everything possible under the hood, nothing happens. After sitting there for fifteen minutes, the Jeep just decides to start, WOO HOO we are off again. Things are fine until we enter the city of Lehi and it decides to die again... we pull off to the side, it starts... we are off ag... it dies. No starting this time. Our trip begins with these views:

We transferred everything we had into Rachel's (Carynn's Cousin) Jeep and decided to continue on. We made it to Moab and found a great campsite called Big Bend. Surrounded by towering red rock cliffs and staying right on the Colorado river it was the perfect campsite. 

Over the next two days we knocked out Arches hiking pretty much every regular trail possible resulting in some great views and experiences. Here are just a couple of our favorites:

We both had a great time getting out like this since we hadn't been out since December. Our plans at this point however became really messy. Since our Jeep was in Lehi getting fixed, we tried to rent a car in Moab, there just weren't any cars to rent. Saving you from all the crazy details of that, we ended up not continuing on through AZ and did not get to hang out with our friends or make it to Escalante. So really, everything that we had originally planned, not one thing went through. We had fun in Arches though and now we have a great vacation planned for another time. 

By the way, the jeep is now running... ... ...

Busy busy week

It has been quite the exciting and emotional week for us here in the Butler world.  It started with the stirring news last weekend that the backpacking trip we have been planning since January to the Havasupai Indian reservation was canceled.  4 months of planning, shopping, and getting excited all lost in a single moment!  Why was the trip canceled, do you ask?  Because the Indian Village that runs the area is afraid of catching the swine flu. Yup, that's right.  The swine flu ruined our plans!  So we've been re-organizing and planning and are now going to be spending a few days in Arches National Park.  We are excited and neither of us have been to arches, so it'll still be a fun trip, it's just not the trip we were originally planning.  We are also excited to meet up with Bryce and Hidie later next week to do some camping and hiking in the Escalante area.  I'm sure we'll have a full detail post of our trip in about  a week.

Also this last week, Carynn's family reached a milestone in their lives.  Carynn's youngest brother Riley went into the MTC on Wednesday to prepare to serve in the California Los Angeles mission and to learn the Spanish Language! We are so proud of him and

 know these next 24 months will go by faster than we think.  It was a

 very hard and emotional day for all of us, even for Scott who had to spend an entire afternoon in Happy Valley!  But we had a good time and we know Riley, I mean Elder Groves, will be a great missionary!

To cap off our hectic week, Scott participated in the Graduation Commencement Ceremonies at the University of Utah!  He received his diploma back in January but Carynn encouraged him to walk with his class at commencement anyway. It was fun and memorable, especially as Scott walked to the front of the room to receive his certificate and be recognized, we all heard his name announced as "Scott Warner Butler Mann."  He put the Mann part on last minute just for fun!  We all got a good laugh. The University Commencement was Carynn's favorite part because the guest speaker was the renowned author and historian David Mchollough.  He is best known for his biographies of Harry Truman and John Adams and his most recent book 1776.  He gave a wonderful speech that was very inspiring!  Well, for me anyway.  

To celebrate Scott's graduation we had a big family picnic at Liberty Park on Friday night.  It was fun to get all the siblings and nieces and nephews together and even have Katie and Tyler up form Las Vegas!  We are blessed to have such supportive families and friends. 

For a graduation gift Carynn, her parents, and Scott's mom gave Scott and DSLR camera that he hasn't been able to let go of since he got it!  These pictures are just a few he's experimented with.  As he learns how to use the camera I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more pictures, especially from our upcoming camping adventure!              

  

Our kickoff to Spring!!

The weather as most of you know who live in Utah, has recently not been something to brag about if you are like us and just want SPRING to show up already! Carynn and I have been able to enjoy two of the few days out and about and this last tuesday was one of them. We were out on a nice walk around the neighborhood when we had the great idea to get home and have a BBQ. A couple of things were wrong with this thought however; the meat we had was frozen, we weren't sure if we had buns and it was starting to get dark. We wasted no time to fulfill our needs and stopped by the 

local grocery store on our walk home to grab supplies. The result, four 1/4 lbs hamburgers turning out super juicy great, fresh cut veggies, a bag a chips, and a great night to kick off our official beginning to Spring! We just wish the weather would agree with our kickoff and give us more than one day to enjoy it!  

Simplicity of Ball on Wire

Last night Carynn and myself put together an impromptu date as I didn't have any rehearsal and Carynn was finished with school for the day. With no initial plan we headed downtown and ended up at the Clark Planetarium located in the Gateway mall. This was my first time at the Clark planetarium and hadn't been to anything like it since the Hansen Planetarium on state street that no longer exists. The following is our experience:

We entered playing with the idea of possibly seeing an I-max show, we never knew what we were in for. We started in the toys browsing balls that change colors when you throw them, other balls that grow and shrink and even a frame for a spider to build webs in for your garden. All this was fun but grew tiresome after looking around for a moment. As we continued to peruse the merchandise my ears seemed to be playing tricks on me as I seemed to be hearing chimes and whistles going off every few seconds. Eventually my eyes moved heaven word and noticed something incredible. 

Remember those gumball machines that you loved to by gum from, not because the gum was good, but because once you turned the knob the gumball would roll around these crazy designed wires in circles and go really fast among other things, only to have the excitement die once you received the gum. Imagine that same excitement, except on a much larger scale. The planetarium has this very over sized non-gumball ball maze that is captivating! Large balls are zooming over your head around a track keeping watchers thoroughly entertained. 

After forcing ourselves away from this wonder we continued to enjoy the settings learning more about the sun and space and all sorts of things. However to cap it off, on our way out we stumbled upon the machine that was creating all the noise of the chimes and bells and whistles! Now imagine the gumball machine... same size gumball... only the machine is TWO STORIES HIGH and the possibilities are absolutely endless, and no quarters are required! Displaying one of Newtons laws, the balls are sent on these intricately designed wires that do loop the loops, super fast spinning circles, work there way through mazes and best of all, at one point they leave the track and bounce on a trampoline device into free flight into a basket. 

Warning: This attraction is so captivating that if you wish to see every possible option you must be willing to devote at least 20 minutes as Carynn and I did, since there is not just one track but several for the balls to follow. Best part of all with this device, there is participation knobs that help the spectator get in on all the action! This is an absolute MUST see... if you have kids they would probably enjoy it too. Lucky for us there weren't any kids blocking up the knobs so Carynn and were having the time of our life! It took us back to our childhood days of ease and simplicity of a gumball rolling on a wire. What a great Date!

sale! Sale!! SALE!!!

So I have discovered within the last 2 1/2 years that Scott is easily persuaded by "Believe it or not" sales and "too good to be true" Hot items. Sadly within this time I have also fallen into the common and decieving trap of sellers and the all so knowledgeable Info-Mercial! Now I do admit, as cheesey and unrealistic as some of the sellers may be, not all products have been a dissappointment (although some have been more than others). Confused yet? Here are a few examples of what I'm describing:

>4 easy payments of $29.95 for shoe insoles for Scott to wear while at work. He saw them on an info-mercial at 2am. Guaraunteed to cure back pain and foot discomfort!


>3 1/2 hours of bargaining, arguing, and excrutiating boredom with a Time Share company- all for a free trip to Disneyland! (red-eye flight and Ghetto motel included- we ended up paying $300+ for the trip anyway.) I'm a little embarrassed to admit how close we were to giving into the time share gimicks.


>The Magic Bullet!! Don't get me wrong, we really do like it! But instead of magically grating cheese and chopping tomatoes with little to no effort, our tomatoes come out more soupy than chopped and the cheese just changes shape from a block to bunch of small balls. Also, if you let the motor run more than 5 seconds, it starts to smell like a burning car engine. But it makes great smoothies!! Good thing it was a wedding present :)


I'm telling you all of these stories to set you up for the adventurous tale of our very exciting weekend experience! We had heard a commercial on the radio for a Super Surplus Sale in Ogden. They advertised name brand camcorders, clothing, and electronics for blowout prices!

So what did we do? We spent the afternoon in Ogden of course! Our first red flag should have been the $7 entrance fee. The second one should have been the lack of people that spoke English. There was a plethora of rip-off sunglasses, watches, stereo systems. Also Camcorders and mp3 players with name brands such as TASHIKU nad MISUKA. What...you've never heard of 'em? Neither had we. The best deal we saw was a portable DVD player for $39! Oh, you just need to provide your own portable television... and connection cables. Not all came to a sour end. Scott found a couple of really nice Levi's on sale and we finished the afternoon watching a practice run of the Ogden Rodeo!!

I hope you have all learned a valuable lesson with these stories. And hopefully within a few years you will be happy to discover we have out grown our weakness for the craftiness of advertisements and when we hear that something is "too good to be true", we'll know that it really is.

Oh, have you seen the commercials for the new Slap-Chop? Looks like a winner!