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.

Bryce Canyon and Red Canyon Fun

Carynn and I ventured out to our neighboring National Park, Bryce Canyon. Having never been to it before we only had pictured ideas in our heads as well as other peoples input on what it was like. The general statement was "it is very different from Zion" and today we can attest to that same statement. We enjoyed our time there and enjoyed the scenery that was provided. However, we felt that once you saw one group of "hoodoos" you could pretty much say you have seen them all. One thing I will say, because of the varieties and different shapes that are constantly changing in Bryce Canyon, it would be a great place for any type of photographer.

We did three hikes in the park: The Queens Garden, The Navajo Loop, and Wall Street. Each hike connected into the next and we were able to walk right down into the hoodoos and see them very up close. It was a fun hike and provided an enjoyable view around each corner but I think we both agree that we both enjoy Zion more.

One of the original plans was to bike through some of the park but upon arriving we found out that in order to do that we have to stay on the main road - Boring. Instead, we got some advice from one of the rangers who instructed us to head over to Red Canyon. We did a great ride called Thunder Mountain Trail. It gave me a very distinct feeling that I was on Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland. It had some really fun ups and downs and really twisty roads. It became pretty difficult towards the end when we were descending 1000 feet within about one and a half miles. In other words, it was really steep. Carynn walked most of those hills while I attempted them and eventually walked occaisionally.

There was some great scenery up on some of the ridges we rode across and the trail definatley offered a challenge. I think I may have enoyed it a little more than Carynn since this was her first experience ever trail riding, but she did a great job and finished up. It was a twenty mile round trip ride that helped us be a little sore the morning after but it is always worth it!

The Narrows

Carynn and I had the opportunity to have two days off in a row this last week; we decided to take full advantage of that.


Not long ago we decided that we wanted to hike the Narrows. After some planning, packing, and scrambling last minute, we were off to our two day adventure. Several people may be familiar with the Narrows hike in Zion. Most people that know of it however, have probablly not even seen half of it.


The full hike of the Narrows is a 16-mile hike that is one way. It starts at a place called Chamberlains Ranch that is 13-miles up the road from where we live which made accessing it very convenient. You hike along in through the virgin river the entire time. The water temperature when we hiked was about 52 degrees. If you are in the sun the entire time and only crossing the river occaisionally, the water would have been quite tolerable. When you are in the water for 75% of the time and see the sunlight for 15 minutes total throughout your day however, you need something a little more. We rented some dry pants, neoprine socks and some specially designed water hiking shoes.

Our hike started out as I mentioned at Chamberlains Ranch. We crossed beautiful meadows, thick forests and leaves that were so incredibly vibrant it would blow your mind! Taking short breaks here and there to take pictures and adjust our packs, we were able to really soak in the beauty of the area before the canyon.

Right before entering into Zion and exiting Chamberlains ranch, Carynn needed to staop to make a couple of adjustments to her pack. As we were adjusting it, we heard a gun shot way off in the woods (it was during hunting season) and no soon we heard a extremly loud crack no more than fifteen feet away from us. The bullet had escaped the woods and hit a large rock right by us. Had Carynn not stopped to adjust her pack, we would have been right in the line of fire. Thank goodness we said a prayer before left, someone had to have been watching out for us! That was our only heart racing part of our trip.

We stopped for lunch and dressed ourselves in our dry pant outfits. Not the easiest things to put on since it is a lot of rubber gaskets that squeeze your ankles but the proved to be very effective. We trudged on, walking stick in hand mile after mile. Time kept ticking and the light started to fade. Looking at our map we realized we were about two miles from our campsite, and if we kept with the pace we were going we were going to be setting up our camp in some pretty dark blackness of night. We decided to step it up and just bust through the next two miles. We covered that ground in fourty minutes, pretty good good for carrying 30 - 50 pound packs through rocky rivers with fast flowing water.

We arrived at campsite nine after covering 10 miles in 7 hours and 43 minutes. It was a welcome treat to get out of the dry pants and into some warm wool socks and eat some warm chili and soup. The night was a lot warmer than we were anticipating which made sleeping very easy; the morning however was a little more chilly than we would have liked.

We held off putting our wet dry-pants back on as long as we could as we packed up our camp. Once we got them on and got back in the cold river though, we warmed right up. We hiked for another 2 miles to the point where people that want to do just a day hike can go. This is where we saw the first person we had seen on the hike. We had been the only two that day to hike all the way through the Narrows and everyone wanted to talk to us asking us how it was and if it is any different on the upper portion. We felt like our own little hiking celebrities. We saw a lot of neat waterfalls, of course the cool narrow part of the Narrows amongst other things. Unfortunatley, the walls are so high that it doesn't let a lot of light in making it very difficult for our pictures to turn out. We didn't take many of the canyon because it just turned out to look like a rock wall. My advice, get a permit, pack your bag and take the adventure of doing all 16-miles of the Narrows.

By the time we got out of the canyon after hiking about 6-miles in 5 hours and 5 minutes, we accomplished all 16-miles in 12 hours and 49 minutes. That is of course excluding the overnight part and is just reffering to hiking specifically. All in all, a LOT of fun.






Our hike started at the top right of the map where the upper red line begins. Follow it all the way to the end of the red line and that is what we did. Ignore the second red line, that is a different canyon that connects to the Narrows.

Family time

This last weekend, October 16th through the 19th, we had most of Carynns family come up and visit us. We were excited to see everyone and get a chance to host them and show them around what we call home. After everyone had arrived very late, or early depending on how you look at 2:30 in the morning, they had a nice liesurly morning. I had to work all day but Carynn got to go down into the park with her family and granparents and do a little hiking, go to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants here and do a little shopping with everyone.

Thursday night I had arranged a big paintball game between our family and my friend Bryce and his brothers who were also up here visiting. We triumphed the first game which was great considering the majority of our team had never played before. The second game was not so lucky, it was what some call being "skunked" "wiped out" "annialated." Our whole team was demolished by Bryces team and I don't think we got one of their players out. The third game was a little more balanced but we still lost. I think everyone on both sides really had a great time.

Saturday was kind of the big day. We started off early in the morning on an ATV ride with our orange vests and all due to hunting season. We had rock wall climbing challenges, ping pong competitions and skeet shooting. We all headed back down into the park after all that and hiked Angels Landing. Carynn really wanted to take everyone on that, and I think it provided a challenge and surprise for all of them.

Sunday morning we went on one more ATV ride to some different trails. Afterword, we all said our goodbyes and I went back to work. It was a lot of fun having them all up here being able to do everything. For those of you who haven't come up, well time is running out!

1. When city kids get thrown into the country they want to get their hands on anything they can.

2. The paintball crew

3. The fam at the top of Angels Landing