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!