Griff and Unkie Sean fishing!

Sean and Stacy were nice enough to watch Griff while I went to the football game (see below :-D ) and Sean took Griff Fishing down on the Provo river. Sean has gotten into fly fishing and he lent Griff a regular pole. They didn't catch anything, and the excuses from Griff have included: "All the fish were in the deep end," "Sean didn't know what he was doing," "And the fish just weren't hungry." Yeah, he's a pretty funny kid.

Here are some pics Sean took and sent to me:

Utes take out the Beavers!

I went to the Utes game on Thursday 10/02 and it was EASILY in the top 3 or 4 sporting events I've attended in real life (D-Backs World Series win over the Yankees, Sun Devils win over #1 Nebraska, Utes Fiesta Bowl win over Pitt to be the first team to break the BCS and this - so top 4)

Utah about to score to go up 13-9 in the first half

My friend Rich Kent was out from Virginia and he's a huge Ute fan, like myself, so he was a worthy recipient of my other ticket. He and I were college roommates for a while at the U. We had known each other from Mtn View where were the only guys in Basketball class that weren't on the basketball team (yeah both of us should have been and we got screwed, so the coach let us in the class to "make up for it" whatever, my year they went 2-17 LOL). Anyway, I digress.

Rich, in his "Where's Waldo" Utah shirt and me in a tall hat! Jeez!

This game was all Utah in the first half for the most part, other than giving up a late touchdown. The second half was a different story and saw the Beav's go up by 8 with only 2:11 to go. All the "fans" that left missed the greatest 2:11 I've ever seen in sports, quite possibly. The Utes ran a pefect set of downs AND got the 2-point conversion to tie the game with 1:29 to go. The Beav's then proceeded to play for OT I guess cuz they gave the ball back to the UTES!!! With Louie Sakoda??? One of the, if not THE, best kickers in the NCAA right now???? CRAZY! We thought the Utes would get him a few yards and let him try a super long kick, but they actually pulled the trigger on a play down the field and IT WORKED!!!! They Utes were on the 20, and Sakoda (to the deafening chants of LOUIE, LOUIE, LOUIE!!!) buried the 37-yard FG to WIN the game, the place was crazy - as loud as any stadium I've been in and we all ran out onto the field, it was a blast!

Out on the field after the HUGE win!

What a great game, good to see you Rich, glad you could catch a great game!!!!!

Here's some video:

Utes vs Wildcats

After driving 6 hours on a beautiful Saturday to go to Idaho and back, I got back in time to go to the Utes game against Weber State. This was the first game I've been able to go to, I missed the first home game due to being in AZ for the ASU reunion. So, I was pretty excited to go.

The seats I got are pretty good - 1st row on the east side, looking at the south end zone. It makes it a bit hard to see the North end zone action, but anything south of midfield is pretty awesome. The crowd around us isn't super animated, but it was just Weber State. Some guys in our area had more fun making fun of the WSU cheerleaders that were right in front of us (super annoying after a while) because the game was in hand before halftime.

So, hopefully the rest of the games will have the same outcome! 5-0 is a nice start for the Utes, they may have a test this week with OSU, who just beat #1 USC again!

I got some video of a touchdown pass, though the quality doesn't appear too good. Still gives you an idea of where the seats are. It was pretty dang fun, and I'm excited to go to the rest of the games!

Nickelcade again!

Yep, Griff is addicted to the Nickelcade :-D

Here's some video:

Then we hit CPK and Sports Authority before enjoying a fresh peach shake at Taco Amigo!!!!

Nickelcade and Pizza!

I've known about this place for a long time but I've never been. Then I thought, Griff constantly wants to play the video games wherever we go but they're like $1 and he doesn't really know how to play. But here, a nickel or 2 or 3 is much easier to swallow as he "learns" to play the games. Plus, the have classic games that I know how to play :-D So, we went over to the NICKELCADE!!!! $2.25 per person to get in and then we got about 6 or 7 bucks in nickels and played for like 2.5 hours! It was pretty fun and Griff was into it the whole time. He especially likes the race car or motorcycle games.

That's Super Mario Brothers! Great classic game.

I was never good at this game and I'm still not :-D

Oh, yeah - BURGER TIME!!!

DK Junior, I used to be good at this game, let's just say it's not like riding a bike.

Then, I got a recommendation for a pizza place in the "plaza" or whatever you want to call it that never got finished in the middle of Orem (the place that was supposed to have the new Hale Center Theatre, condos, shops, restaurants, etc.) But Pizzeria 712 is the only shop in there I think. Some of the condos might be done as well? Anyway, turns out it a froofy pizza place not for kids. I was wondering why the host was looking at us weird when we came in, just Griff and I. Then the server didn't say 2 words to us the whole time - like warning us that the corn on the cob that Griff wanted was COVERED in sauce. I really liked it, Griff wouldn't touch it. The pizza was good and Griff ate plenty of that, but I think he would have been a lot happier at Chuck E. Cheese. Regardless, we had a good time sitting out on the porch enjoying some really nice weather.

Great Weather out on the porch

Griff enjoying his wood-stove cheese pizza - pretty good, just not a kid's place really.

Park City

Sorry folks I have been severely slacking! Work has been insane lately. BUT, no excuses, here's a long awaited update:

Griff and I went to Park City to ride the Alpine Slide. When I looked it up online to see the schedule and cost, I noticed something I'd never seen before - the Alpine COASTER! Oh, we had to do both rides. I probably would have done the zipline too, but in all honesty it was a little pricey for one ride down each thing. SO, we stuck with the slide and the coaster and we were not disappointed! Plus as you can see, the weather was PERFECT! There is some video of each, and you'll hear me say I like that the only thing they tell you on the coaster is the car is attached to the rails and can't come off so there's no need to use the brake! LOL, OK - GAME ON - we went FAST!!!!!!!! Griff was a LITTLE tentative at first, but then he was totally into it and he loved it! I did too, it was pretty dang fun.






Getting set for the coaster!



Heading up the mountain! (couldn't get Griff in very well :-) )

Then we headed over to the slide. Griff was scared of this for some reason, but we saw a lot of people going down while we were going up Payday (the ski lift) and he got more and more excited. By the time we got to the top he was ready to RUN over to the slide to go down. And we had a blast - we went really fast again, though this ride doesn't move like the coaster (though you could potentially flip the cart out of the slide so it's exciting in its own right.

Heading up the ski lift

Heading down the slide!!!

After we did the coaster and slide we went and got some delicious dinner at the little restaurant right there at the foot of the lifts. It's amazing to me how good ski resort food can be sometimes, or maybe I was just REALLY hungry, but it was a tasty meal. Then we went and played in the maze for a while, but once Griff discovered you could short-cut the whole thing, he just kept doing that instead of exploring, it was pretty funny.

Griff is such a good boy and I can't believe how big he's getting and it sure is fun to go do stuff like this with him! I really like being his dad. :-)

Utah State Fair, or "how to eat fried foods"

I went to the Utah State Fair. I'm not sure I've ever been. I'm trying to remember if we used to go as kids in elementary school for a field trip, but I'm not sure. I THINK we did. Anyway, I had no idea what to expect, except they have deep fried PB&J sandwiches on a stick! I had to have one...or so I thought.

When we got there, we went into the displays in the first building we came upon. It was all weird sculpture, pottery, ceramics and carving. Seriously, it looked like you could pretty much submit ANYTHING to get a ribbon. There was also a huge display of scrap-book pages. I thought it was kind of weird you could get ribbons for scrap-book pages, but after seeing some of the aforementioned "sculptures" I wasn't surprised by anything anymore. It did appear that maybe 3 ladies and their kids had submitted scrap-book pages and won all the ribbons (and they seem to give away a LOT of ribbons!)

Then there was the butter sculpture:


Can you imagine how gross your hands would feel after doing this? Or would they be super soft like on Seinfeld? Anyway, seems like a weird excuse to play in butter.

We went and checked out a couple of other displays, it was kind of like a live infomercial for everything you never needed, it was kind of weird (have I stated that enough yet?) I don't know if we just missed it but there was no prize-winning pig, no Utah's biggest Watermelon, nothing! But you could buy a "Sham-WOW!!!" if you wanted to!

We did the big yellow slide that was kind of fun, and then I did the mechanical bull. Watch me wipe out in this video! My shoulder and neck are just now feeling good again. It is amazingly fun, yet really hard once he starts getting serious with the "bucking" part! It was so fun.


Then we got out to look for food. We had the DELICIOUS corn on the cob with a little butter and pepper, I also threw a little hot sauce on there, SO GOOD!!! WE really should have stopped with that, but we kept going. We had a corn dog and fries, a Navajo taco and a funnel cake. The funnel cake was the BIG mistake...BIG mistake. They taste good for a second then immediately go to work on your gastrointestinal track. HELLO pepto! Sheesh!

Back to the deep fried PB&J, we were in line to get one and we heard a kind of WT lady say they weren't good. If SHE didn't think they were good, there was no way I was going to waste $5 on one (Yeah, EVERYTHING at the fair is super pricey!) I bet she likes SPAM! ;-)

After that, we did the ferris wheel, but there were always doubts as to the safety of rides that are packed up and hauled around in semi's, so we didn't do anymore than that.

Still, it was pretty fun. Don't know that I'd go twice in one year, but there are many other fried foods to try! :-D

Soccer night with Griff!

Griff started out the night as goalie.

I gave him a couple of pointers, as I've seen the other goalies kind of sit there and watch the ball go by. So I told him the SECOND that ball crosses into the goal box POUNCE on it like it's yours and somebody is trying to steal it! Well, he did just that. Check out the video it was pretty funny but also he did REALLY well.

The other team was ALL boys except for one girl and that was too many boys for Griff to defend against when he wasn't goalie and this poor kid tried to defend them all, he ran and ran and ran, I've never seen him SO sweaty. I was really proud of him for hustling so much. Unfortunately, Griff didn't play goalie the whole match and his team got blown out - 7-0 and Griff missed like 4 goals, it just wasn't his night or his team's, but they all have a lot of fun! BTW, I was really impressed with the other team's coach, he was totally cool about things but he has obviously had practices and his team knew what to do to win. Yet, they all still had fun! Imagine that! Anyway, I think as long as there are good snacks afterwards, the kids don't really care who won or lost, so that's good :-D

Trip to Tempe!

Some friends from ASU decided to have a little get-together in Tempe over the weekend. We stayed at the Buttes which is an interesting resort just off the 10 in Tempe. It is literally built right into and around the rock that sits about Tempe Diablo Stadium where the Angels play spring traning ball.

Looking out from the Lobby toward Camelback Mtn (can you see it in the distance?)

Looking down toward the pool.

Looking up at the restaurant

The pool was REALLY nice and we spent a lot of time out there. Bad idea for me since I've been using some medication to clear up my skin - I got a bit burned despite using sunblock. I don't think sunblock works in 110 degree AZ heat LOL

The pool from the bridge (see below)

My friend Scott getting his cannonball on!

On Friday night we went to a REALLY good Italian/Mediterranean restaurant called Cafe Boa on the famous Mill Ave in downtown Tempe. It was really good and a really nice meal to catch up with everyone. If you're ever in Tempe looking for a really nice restaurant at pretty reasonable prices, this is a really nice option. (No pics, my dumb phone camera doesn't have a flash)

On Saturday Night we went to Macayo's for some delicious Mexican food prior to the ASU vs Stanford football game at Sun Devil Stadium.

Clockwise from bottom left: Guido (came all the Way from Germany!), Lori (from LA), Andrea (from DC), Keith (from DC), Scott (from Minneapolis), Chang (from Chicago) and me.

Then we walked over to the stadium and marveled in the Gold that surrounded us. The crowd was really good and really loud. Sun Devil stadium is super loud. We all reminisced about when Jake Plummer took the Devils to a HUGE upset win over then #1 Nebraska 19-0 and we were there! It was so dang cool.

Sun Devil Stadium

Amongst the throngs of fans!

Looking down over the field at kickoff.

This game was very good too, the Devils won 41-17.

Then Sunday we went to breakfast together, chit-chatted for a while and then most of the gang had to take off.

This is the dining room at the hotel - this is the actual side of the mountain - the room is just built right into it, it's pretty cool.

Overall it was pretty fun. I'm glad I went, seeing old friends and of course seeing my #2 team win is always good.

Griff's soccer match 9/2

Griff's latest soccer match was a good one. I'll let you guess how many goals he scored, let's just say he'll be wanting to play for a bigger club next season and I think he'll bring a huge transfer fee. His team won 7-3. He did a pretty good job not taking the ball away from his team-mates so I was happy about that. I think the highlight of the match was Griff scoring from the opening kick off - yep, one kick straight from the center circle to the goal, with the goalie just watching it go by - TEACH THE KIDS SOMETHING!!!! JEEZ! Sorry, this is just getting a bit annoying. At least in Kaja's league they teach them rule #1 is "don't touch the ball with your hands." In this league they just don't care. I'm not sure why you bother if you don't teach them a few things at this age. I had a dad come up to me and tell me he was upset last week that Griff took the ball away from his son. I totally understand, and I've already spoken to Griff about this, but this guy is the coach's husband - well then, why don't you TEACH them what to do??? Is it me? It's him right? I'm pretty sure it's him. Another highlight was the goalies for Griff's team taking a few shots for the team. And then one of the little girls on the other team screaming at her coach, "I'VE HAD IT, I'M SICK OF THIS" until he took her off the field, it was pretty funny.

So, I told Griff to work on his defense this match and he was really good for the most part. Sometimes the kids just forget what they're doing. That's totally fine, and for the most part he did a great job getting back and taking the ball back from the other team. He is so much bigger than most of the other kids he kind of mows them over sometimes, but he's not aggressive about knocking them over or anything, just about getting the ball back, so that's good.

I still love that he is out there just having fun and smiling and laughing most of the time, which is pretty funny in and of itself.

His next match is Saturday at 11:00 on the East Field at Highland Town Center Park - 5490 W 10700 N in Highland. I can't make this game, I'll be out of town, so the more people that can make it out to cheer for him, the happier he'll be!!!

Discovery Gateway

After a morning full of Swedish pancakes and more family time, Griff and I headed home to clean up some, do some laundry and have some lunch. Then we decided to head downtown to Gateway to check out the Discovery Gateway children's museum place. It is kind of expensive for what you get to do, and they definitely shouldn't charge parents to go in, but Griff had a pretty fun time for a couple of hours (I was ready to go after 30 minutes :-D ). He made some new friends and ran around like a crazy person and I tried to keep up. Here are some pics:


Griff playing in the water


Watching his "helicopter" fly above the wind tube (obviously he liked this one!)


Playing on the real helicopter they have on the roof.


Stamping pictures


Playing with the air tubes that send the plastic balls all over the place in this area.


Riding trigger.


Shopping for veggies.


Eating a chocolate-dipped cone at Dairy Queen, he was really into it, as you can see! LOL

Jim & Jill's farewell

Sunday was the big farewell for mom and dad to head off to New Zealand for their mission. It was really good, both of them gave really good talks and made us all very proud. I think I can speak for all the kids (this is my site :-D ) when I say we're really proud of them for taking this time off from their lives to go serve this mission. I'm sure they'll be great missionaries and do lots of really good work with the people of new Zealand.

I was lazy and only took one picture, so you may need to check Stacy's blog, I think she took more :-D

This is at the "Open House" after the farewell. Lots of delicious fruit and pastries and good family chatting!

Fish Fry at P&A's

Those of you who check out Andrea's blog know that Paul went to Alaska with the Jeff's men and caught a lot of fish. So today, he grilled some up for everyone and we go to enjoy some Salmon, Halibut, and Yellow Eye. The Salmon was really tasty as was the Halibut, I wasn't a fan of the Yellow Eye, it was really pretty tasteless. So, we all enjoyed the fish (well most of us, there are some non-fish-fans in the family, but that's their problem.) Thanks P&A!!!

Then the guys had a croquet game. It took forever! I could not get the ball through the wickets, I kept jumping my ball over them and having to come back and try again, it was annoying and the rest of the guys got WAY ahead. It ended up working into my strategy to lull everyone else to sleep while I slowly but surely caught up. Well, it almost worked, but Paul finally caught up to me and killed me, so I ended up taking 2nd. Still pretty funny considering my slooooooow start.

Here are some pics:

Yeah, I'm WAAAAAAY behind!

You can barely see the other guys they're so far ahead.

Sean even started taking pics for Stacy's blog he was so far ahead.

The girls and kids wondering what was taking so dang long (seriously, Paul's lawn is so deep it took easily 1.5 hours to finish this game. :-D )

Griffin goes to School!

I got to take Griff to school and pick him up. 1) I can't believe how big he is! 4' tall and 56 lbs! I can no longer let him run and jump on me as he will take me down! 2) I am so happy how excited he is to go to school! I'm so proud of him!

I asked him if he likes school and he said yes. I asked him if he's making friends and he said yes. I asked him if he liked his teacher and he said yes! So, it sounds like Kindergarten is agreeing with Griff so far, I'm very happy about that!

Oh, he's also pretty excited about getting to ride the bus some days. I remember riding the bus when I was little, the bus driver had ALL of his teeth drilled and filled, he was like a living jack-o-lantern, it was a little freaky for a little kid - maybe that's why I've always been a good brusher :-D All the buses at Griff's school have pictures in them so the kids know which one is theirs (I just had to remember the number???? Whatever) and Griff's is a monkey - how appropriate is that!

So, here are a couple of pics of Griff in some of his new school clothes and shoes!

All set to go! Backpack and all!!!

Cool new shoes too!!! Look how big that kid is!!!

Griff Soccer update 8/26/2008

Griff had another soccer match today and the Red Raiders got back on the winning path. The first halg was a bit slow but Luke had 2 goals to put the team up 2-0 at the half. Griff played really well in a defensive position, stopping at least 2 break-aways and helping to keep the clean sheet.

In the second half things really heated up. Griff went off for 4 goals and should have had 2 more but one scooted across the goal mouth and one went off the woodwork (or PVC pipe as the case might be). One of the girls on Griff's team had a terrific cracker of a shot on goal (about the first one to come off the ground that I can remember) but it was right at the goalkeeper and he was up to the task - meaning he let it crack off his chest and it bounced away from the goal, I'm impressed he didn't go down, it was a good shot. Then the smallest girl on the field - I mean she is HALF Griffin's size took the ball all the way from half-field and made a terrific goal - the first one by a girl on Griff's team and the place went Crazy!!!! It was pretty funny, but it was a really good goal - nothing flukey about it all! Then, the defense broke down and the other team did manage one goal, but it was a good break away and score, so nothing to be ashamed about there.

So, after 4 matches, Griff is averaging 2.5 goals per game - not bad! Now if we can get them to spread out and pass the ball, we'll be in business! I mean the level of magnet ball this game was so dang funny. I'm not kidding when I say they got stuck in one spot for no less than a full minute and a half not going anywhere, everyone was just cracking up. Good times!

Draper Fire

I'm sure all of you (in Utah) have seen the fire, or at least the smoke, from the fire up in the foothills above Draper. It has spread SO far! It's amazing how fast it moved - the winds up there are pretty strong. Fortunately for me, it's all north of my house so I haven't even smelled the smoke. I took a ride up on the Bonneville Shoreline trail and got these pics that are kind of cool. The color of the sunset is caused by the smoke (which, I'm sure you could figure out given the title of the post :-) )

See the dot of light in the smoke in the right of the pic? That's the helicopter dumping water on the fire.

East coast trip

I got to go out to Connecticut recently for work and figured I'd take advantage and visit Boston for the first time (I have been through Logan airport before, but that hardly counts).

I flew into Hartford CT and drove down to Stamford for my meetings. Things went well with my clients so I'm happy about that and things are still going well with them since, another thumbs up there! So, when I was done with my meetings, I drove to Boston (about 1.5 hours the other direction from Hartford, but not a bad drive at all - until I tried to go back to Hartford - unreal traffic!!!)

Here are some pics, I didn't have time to do a lot, so I mostly stuck around the area around Fenway, which was really fun! I will make plans to go back and visit another time. By the way, you should all know how I feel about East Coast sporting teams, but going to Fenway was REALLY cool, there is so much history there and I took the tour, which was really good and well worth the $12! The Sox have an amazing history, yet I still don't care if they win or lose ;-) I have more pics if anyone wants to see them.

(click to make larger):

Yep, you can even go to Fenway High School :-D

This bar is in the stadium and has a huge open section in Left field so you can sit and watch the game at field level, pretty cool!

The sports bar attached to the stadium where I ate dinner, SUPER GOOD clam chowder!

YAY! We're #2!!! I just thought this was funny, it's right across from the stadium.

Where I had lunch, I went with the pizza and was disappointed, guess that's why you've never heard of Boston-style pizza.

The latest World Series banners for you new "fans" ;-)

The field from atop the Green Monster, These are such cool seats!

View of Boston from Fenway

Me and the Green Monster (sounds like a Disney movie title or something doesn't it???)

The Green Monstah!

Me outside Fenway, photo taken by a little chinese guy who I tried to help take pics of his son and him but his camera was toast! They're going to get home and not have a single clear picture. I felt bad and even tried to let them use my lens, but it wasn't compatible with the camera body he had. Oh well...

I'm pretty sure the guy driving this lovely Fenway-mobile lived in it. Definitely a die-hard fan but he needs to install a shower. I would have gotten a picture of him, but I was afraid he'd attack and bite me and give me rabies or something!!!