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!