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!

Back in Town

Realizing it has been far to long since our last post, we figure it is time to tell of the goings on with the two of us.

As most may be aware at this point, our time living down in Zion National Park has come to an end. Bitter sweet is how we feel describes the feeling best, we loved it down there so much yet were excited to spend the holidays with family. We will miss the laid back lifestyle we had there, not having to worry about much except enjoying each day the way it was meant to be enjoyed. We made a lot of great friends down there and are sad that we had to leave them so soon. I was offered a permanent job down there as the Recreation Manager, but unfortunatley had to turn it down. Carynn needs to finish school and we didn't find it necessary to live 5.5 hours apart from each other. Who knows, maybe we will end up back down there in the future sometime.

We have been back in Bountiful now since the beginning of December and are almost feeling like we are settled in. We are living at Scotts moms house until we figure out certain job situations. Once we came home, Scott wasn't sure of his job situation at the Grand America Hotel since things had slowed down dramatically. Luckily after not working for two weeks he is back on the schedule and getting normal hours once again. Scott graduated in Parks Recreation and Tourism emphasizing in Resort Management, and what a relief that feels like not having to worry about the next assignment due. Not wasting any time to fill the void school once had, Scott auditioned and successfully made a role in the Phantom playing at Hale Center Theater. He will be playing the part of Joseph Bouqet. Not a huge part but he remains excited none the less.

Carynn is enjoying being back working at the Roof Restaurant in Salt Lake as a Hostess as well as learning to be an Assistant Server. She has quit her job at Geckos which has been a relief to her. Carynn is preparing to get back in to the swing of things with school at the University of Utah and is excited for that. Both of us will be applying for a job in march to fulfill an international experience for Carynn. If we are able to get the job we will be heading off in May to some tropical island, hopefully St Martin in the french carribean.

We both enjoyed this past christmas spending time with family and enjoying the snow. Though it has been a little weird getting used to traffic and street lights again, it is a nice feeling to be home. It will be even nicer when we are able to call a place of our own, 'home.' Maybe next year.

A year of rights re-gained!

*As most of you know who read this blog, our marriage was created on conflict and rivalry. As each of us entered into the agreement of marriage we fully understood the possible stress each of us may undertake throughout our lives. That's right, we each married into the rivalry of the Utah Utes and the Brigham Young Cougars.

I don't need to bring up the intensity this rivalry can have on fans or friends, even family; however, it can be tough for any Ute to walk on the same soil that a Cougar has recently been seen on, and vica versa. Each year as you all know the Utes and the Cougars face off together in what has been claimed as "the Holy War" and each year one side receives certain privileges after receiving the most sought after win.

The past two years as too many of us understand, has been a horrible and long two years. BYU winning with two lucky plays/catches to clinch the yearly rights. I am certainly proud to say:

The Utes have those rights this year baby!!

Now as painful as the last two years were, some may be able to (rightfully in my opinion) claim that the last two wins were two VERY lucky plays made by BYU. This year however, they have left nothing to chance with a very lopsided score of Utah:48 BYU:24, leaving nothing to doubt that the better team received the win, not to mention a glorious undefeated season!

What a Great Game!!

GO UTES!!

*These thoughts and ideas may not be shared by all who participate on this blog :)

A Saga Ends...

BEFORE...


















AFTER...

















ENOUGH SAID.