Chris Farley LIVES!! (do you believe in reincarnation?)

This is where our family will be in a couple

of weeks (that's me jumping):



I'm excited because it will be the first time our entire family has gone camping (at least I think..) and we'll get to spend the time on a beautiful lake with boats and lot's of jumping off this rock. Maybe I'll gear up enough to go diving into the lake from here if I do it enough. Russ certainly did it, but that dude can do anything.

Our most recent camping trip

This past weekend we camped in the desert on one night, and at over 10k feet the next. Only in Utah.

We went down to the San Rafael Swell area on Friday and checked out the Hidden Splendor mine (we only went into the beginning of it because we didn't want to get cancer from all the radiation). We then drove up to the Head of Sinbad and camped there. It was a beautiful spot situated between two high cliffs, so it was much cooler in there. There were a few pictograph panels close by as well.

The next day we drove along the Buckhorn draw area and saw some more pictographs and the beautiful scenery of that area. We then headed up through Castle Dale and onto Joes Valley reservoir and spent the rest of the day there swimming and soaking in the sun. Naturally, we hit up our favorite rock jumping spot on the lake. We then drove up above the lake and made camp on top of the Mountain range between Ephraim and Castle Dale. It was extremely beautiful up there. There is an old forrest ranger station up there too. It reminds me of an area you see on TV where it's out in the middle of nowhere. Just by itself.

The only thing that sucked about it all was the sleeping that night. Something (like a deer) was in our campsite eating stuff. We could hear it for about an hour and I had to pee like crazy, so I gave Alene the 20" maglight and a kife, I carried the bear spray and we slowly opened the tent. Once it was opened, we booked it for our car. Whatever it was, it was gone. We then drove out into the open so we could both relieve ourselves with a clear view of what was around us. We then drove back to the campsite and slept in the car for a couple of hours, before moving back into the tent. With the recent bear attack in Utah, I was a little on edge.

The next morning we drove down into Ephraim and came home.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

June Camping

Here are some video clips from the trip:

June camping video clips

One thing Alene has brought to the marriage

(not the only thing, but one thing):




I used to never TOUCH bell peppers before I met Alene. However, since we've been married I've come to love them dearly (almost as much as I love her). My favorite is the red bell pepper.

Caiden made the All-Star team

I received a call on Sunday night from the league president. She said that Caiden had been selected to be on the All-Star team representing their league. I thought it was cool because he is on of two 7 year olds on a team consisting mostly of 8 and a few 9 year olds.

This is his first year of playing organized baseball, but he seems to be taking to it OK. If there was one thing that frustrated me, it would be that he's so passive and quiet and it seems he could be making more efforts on his catches and with his running. However, I am proud of him for trying in general.

I think he was selected because of his hitting. If he has a clear strike, he will make contact with the ball. What he needs to work on is not swinging at balls outside of the strike zone (i.e. too high or low).

He has practice every day for the next two weeks (except Sunday), then they play in a tournament. If they make it to the top 3 of the tournament, they will go onto a state tournament. It should be a lot of fun. I'm putting together a video of all his baseball highlights and I'll post it soon.

Had a good time doing a one-night camp at Maple Canyon

Alene and I knew we needed to get away for at least two of the 5 weekends this month of June (5 weekends??), so we had our sights set on somewhere in the Uintas (Clyde Lake trail), but we got a ton of rain in the valley last week, which meant two things: We found a leak in our new roof, and Clyde Lake will likely have a lot of snow and be cold.

We opted for Maple Canyon. We brought Caiden's cousin Brady, who is always funny and fun to be with. When we first got there, we pulled off the side of the road at the first Box canyon. The hike to the back was much shorter than I remember. In fact, it's funny how you do a hike the first time and it seems SOOO long, but the second time it seems much shorter. I think it's the same way with driving too.

Anyway, all the campsites were full, so we kept driving up the road until it turned into this really bumpy/rocky dirt road. The subaru did a great job driving up that thing. We went over the ridge to the back and then down into a beautiful, heavily forrested area. We found the perfect campsite (well, actually April and Bill found it a few weeks before us I guess). We did some hiking around the area later that day (after getting set up).

The next day we drove to the top of Maple Canyon and hiked down to a large Cave that you have to climb up a rope to get into it. I was proud of Caiden because he was able to get up there, despite being really scared (it's about a 15-20' wall you have to climb up). We hiked back up to the top, stopping off to climb some other rocks to get a good view of the canyon as well as the rest of San Pete Valley. It's really a pretty valley. Alene hiked down the rest of the trail (backside) and we drove down to meet her. We ended up doing a bit of some exploring (well, I did at least; Caiden and Brady started a caterpillar collection and they just played with them while I drove). I found some cool trails and a few AWESOME campsites back there. One campsite had enough room for a LARGE group of people if you wanted, very flat, but up really high on the mountain.

We got back down the mountain in about 40 minutes and found Alene already back down and had started hiking up the dirt road to meet us. She was amazing. She must have flown down the backside.

Here are some pictures from the trip: Maple Canyon June 2007

I can't wait for our next trip. So far Bill has suggested driving to Joes Valley and camping, then driving down through Castle Dale to see the wedge overlook. Then we're going to use my GPS to find the MK tunnels. They're a set of tunnels that the Military started to dig for NORAD, but then pulled out because they figured the Granite up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado was much better than the sandstone down in the Swell of Utah. We'll then head back to Joes Valley and do some swimming and rock jumping. Should be a fun trip.

We're going to be pretty busy from then on out. I'm playing some paintball on the following saturday, then we'll be leaving for WA to visit Alene's brother and his family. Then we'll be doing my family camping trip to Joes Valley.