Charles in Charge

Trav's side of the family goes big or goes home.

This is home base. Trav's parents just closed on this beautiful home in the Park City/Heber area. We fit 6 1/2 kids under the age of 5 and 10 adults in this pad.

We eased into the week long reunion with an 8 mile bike race up Sundance.
I would like to say that I did it all but I was two minutes late to register for the race and I guess the people didn't want to take my money so they shut me out! I was going to bike up anyway with the crowd, but when we got down to the start of the race, the lamos said, "you have to have sleeves to race," (I guess its more professional that way) and I only had on a tank top. I got mad and just biked the two miles up the canyon where we parked. I was huffing and puffing pretty hard, that 8 miles up would have killed me.

On the other hand, Wes, my fabulous brother in law, gave the shirt off his back to Kimberly. She also only had on a tank top, but had already paid for the race. Poor guy had to bike up with a mountain bike and no shirt or helmet. What a stud!

These were our awesome fans

Next event was the camping trip. No, not just an ordinary camping spot. We went to a place in the Uintas where 4-wheel drive was required and the only living things around for miles were the blood thirsty mosquitoes. They were so happy to see us.

We got to stay in this extravagant car tent away from the dirt and bugs.

This is the inside

Avery did pretty good the first night, but the second night, I had to remember that I didn't have a newborn baby. She woke up every two hours! Desperate times call for desperate measures and the only way she would go back to sleep was a midnight cap. So I basically nursed her all night long. So naturally, in the morning, I was starved and could have eaten a cow. I'm so happy that Kimberly was in charge of breakfasts because I gobbled it up. Thanks Kimbi.

Camping was fun. We hiked, ate, had fires, talked, went on walks, etc.

We made an important discovery with Avery. When she refuses to take a nap, put her in her stroller and start walking. Its a guarantee, even if she was kicking and screaming before, that in ten seconds, she will be asleep.

A special thanks to Kimberly (again) for letting us borrow fleece PJ's for Avery. It was perfect that they were huge because it wouldn't allow her to crawl around at night. Also a special shout out to Traci for having the guts to go out running all by herself with all the lions, tigers and bears around.

I think I am done camping for the year!

Other fun things we did were:

ATVing up Daniels Summit

Can you tell Tracie was a first timer!

We made a nude slip and slide in the backyard

(I tried to find the least explicit photos)

We also went to outdoor BBQ's and concerts throughout the week.

We were extremely busy this trip, and I almost need a vacation from my vacation, but we had the best time!!! Kevin was an all-star planner. I loved the games, the desserts, the scenery, the bike rides, the tennis tournament (notice how I didn't go into detail on that one, oh that's because we lost to the Wilton's, boo!), the swimming, and of course the people!

We have a whole month left here. Trav starts his rotation on Monday so the playing will not be as intense. I miss this place. I think I am one with the mountains, and they will be hard to leave!

Keepin' up with the Jones's

It all started with the Jones/Butler side.

We sprinted out of our car as soon as we pulled into Draper. We were in that bad boy for 18 hours!!! Avery did great, Delores (our car) was who we were worried about. She was acting up, so we couldn't go over 60 MPH for half of the trip. Very frustrating!

Anyway, as soon as we got to Draper, we said hi to the parents and the Jolley family, then we slept. We had driven the whole night and were dilirious. As soon as we caught up on our sleep, we left to go camping. We went to Scofield with the whole Butler side of the family.

This was Avery's first camping trip

She loved all of her cousins and all of the attention. She didn't love the tent. We wussed out and ended up sleeping on the floor of my aunts little cabin. So much for catching up on sleep.

The thing I think I will remember the most about this little trip is when we decided to take one rhino and fill it with me, Trav, my dad, TC all four grandkids and snikkers the dog to venture on a very steep and scary ride. My mother in law would have been so mad. For some crazy reason I just trust my dad with my life. I don't know why because I was scared for most of the trip, but it worked out.

It was a short and sweet trip, one day. My family is not the camping type and by the end of the trip we had to call the "wah"mbulence.

I either look like a giant or my sister looks like a pygmy in this picture

A couple of days later we decided we hadn't had enough of the great outdoors, so we went to Snowbird ski resort. We didn't really have a plan. We knew we wanted to hike a little bit. My mom had the brilliant idea to hike up to the tram and back with a baby. I was reluctant, but I guess I trust her with my life too, so agreed. Again, here I am, alive to tell the story, but I don't know if I will keep this trusting my parents with my life business up.

This is how the story went:

We were all happy and content, maybe even a little bit of singing was going on.

I was noticing that the trail was getting harder and harder to see. Before we knew it, the trail was gone and we were on the face of the mountain. Come to find out, we didn't even start on the right trail.

I was tempted to turn around, but it was pretty steep. We continued on and found some sort of trail. We definitely ignored the signs that said to stay off. I kept thinking, "aren't those the kind of signs you obey, its a freaking mountain and people die here!"

Our little girl was doing awesome. We did have to stop and feed her (I wasn't planning on such an intense hike and didn't bring much food so had to feed her the natural way), change her and even switch drivers

It started to get long. The temperature seemed to be plummeting along with Avery's patience (OK and mine too). The beautiful scenery all of a sudden turned into a snowy tundra. Avery had had enough of the backpack, so my mom took her out and held her and she quickly fell asleep in my moms arms. It was getting pretty slippery. We had to walk on the side of my mom so she wouldn't fall. Each step was pretty scary. We were getting pretty close, when we noticed one of those rescue sleds on the side. We snatched it up, had my mom sit on it with our sleeping baby (I don't know how she slept during all of that) and pushed the sled.

The operator of the ski lift was watching all of this. I was so embarrassed, I was going to pretend that my mom was Avery's mom!

We got to a point where the snow was cleared and in 20 minutes we were at the top!

Avery was the coolest baby that day!

We were a little scared to ask the tram attendant if we could grab a lift since we didn't pay for a ticket. He was the nicest guy and said that since we hiked a the way up here, we could ride down for free. Thank you Steve!

We were so spent!

We were 11,000 feet high

We are a little retarded, but what a fun adventure. One of these days I'm not going to live to tell the story.

The rest of the week consisted of swimming, BBQ's, movies, games, etc

I love my crazy family! Even if they are trying to kill me.

This was just the beginning...

So Far...

We haven't been to the motherland since Christmas, so we decided to come home to Utah for a bit. When I say a bit I mean 7 weeks. I've mentioned before that we are kind of babies when it comes to being away from our families for too long, but come on, anyone would want to come home if they knew they were to be getting free babysitting, luxurious housing, attention (mostly Avery), the best activities planned, beautiful scenery... oh and of course seeing loved ones. Its been about three weeks already since we have been here and its been fun, exhausting, adventurous, stressful, humorous, gluttonous, laid back, serious, beautiful, etc. It all started with...

It's Time!

Hey there, Travis here. I wanted to make a quick post to announce that the time has finally come to make the jump to a private blog. This has been a long time coming as we have toyed with the idea for months, but it finally took a mean-spirited comment that was left for us to ignite the fire of CHANGE (say that word with a crazy emotional voting season voice for greater effect). When my wife, who by the way hardly has a prideful or malicious bone in her body, showed me what was written, I was reminded that there are a lot of lunatics out there who love nothing more than to spew ignorance on-line. I have heard that there are only so many friends who can be invited, so if you would like to continue to visit us here, please send us your email.

To "me" (kind of a narcicistic name, if you ask "me"), next time you feel inclined to chip in, instead of making a cowardly anonymous hate speech message, I encourage you to simply drop by so we can talk about your insecurities at length. Hopefully, however, this will be the last post you see on our blog, so the issue will rest here.

BOOM!!!

Before I start the real meaning of this post, I have to pose a question. Why do fireworks attract a lot of "less than affluent" people? We will call them WT for short. The city we live in contains a lot of WT and a lot of fireworks stands. This whole week the WT have been out lighting fireworks, doesn't matter what time of day, noon, ten pm, there have been constant booms. If you didn't have a lot of money, wouldn't it be wiser to spend your money on other things, you know, like food? Maybe they just love America and want to show their appreciation?

Okay, now the real reason for posting. The best day of the year. The fourth of July! People think its weird that this is my favorite holiday. But this is why:

8:30 am-10:30 am- Breakfast in Parkville with friends. Everyone was so festive.

10:30 am-noon- Parkville parade... there honestly wasn't one float, just a bunch of cars, dogs, politicians and advertisements, but I still loved it.

noon-1:30 pm- naps all around

1:30 pm-2:30 pm- Tennis with the Kanooths and Hendricks

2:30 pm- 4:30 pm- Kim and I went on an awesome bike ride. I just bought my first pair of spandex bike shorts... I'm one of those people now.

6:00 pm -8:00 pm- Block BBQ and some fireworks (like I said the WT start before its even dark.)

8:00 pm -10:30 pm- Fireworks galore. It felt like we were in a war. The rules here are not quite as strict as in Utah.

I don't think she likes the fourth of July as much as I do. She was terrified. We had to take her inside for the whole show. Somehow she managed to go to sleep with all the noise outside. Poor little girl!

10:30 pm- midnight- Watching the movie "Independence Day" at the Hendricks. I forgot how much I loved that movie. Remember the speech by the president? I promise I would vote for him to be the real president (him and president Palmer).

In conclusion, the day was great. Our country is great. Our soldiers are great. We will be in Utah for the 24Th (that is Utah's birthday)! That is probably the second best day of the year. Can't wait!!!

Grace

This is Avery's middle name, but she didn't inherit it from her Dad.

The Harmon's, our neighbors, moved. Before they moved we had a huge neighborhood olympics in honor of them. You might be thinking, how cute, those little kids would have a blast. Little kids weren't invited. This was strictly for adults. Each couple had to bring an olympic game. It could be anything from wit, talent, strength, speed, etc. Some events were paper football (you know the flicking it in the goal post game from middle school), feeding your partner from chop sticks, an blind folded eating contest, a water balloon launching contest, and other really weird ones.

Trav and I ended up winning the whole olympics (pending the urine test results). Looks like we are going to have to defend the title for next year. The Harmon's gave prizes (or junk that they didn't want to pack). Third place was the Kanooths, they went home with a "candom," don't ask. Second place was the Shawcrofts, Krista may have broken her tail bone in the leap frog competition, but that didn't stand in their way of bringing home the beloved punching bag. And the champion Charles family got to take home a really sweet picnic basket.

We will miss the Harmon's! They brought lots of traditions to the Riverside town homes that will last for a long time. Good luck in Denver!

PS I realize that I haven't done an Avery post in a long time, but that is her fault. The other day, during her nap, I uploaded like 20 pictures and wrote some really witty stuff. She woke up from her nap, I sat her down, and went to go and heat up some milk. The little ninny crawled to the computer and totally deleted the whole post. The girl likes her privacy. Sorry, I will do what I can to post really soon!

The Perfect Storm

We love thunder storms. Last night was the best thunder storm we have ever been apart of. We layed in bed, turned off all the lights, opened the blinds, got in spooning position and just watched the sky. For about at least an hour, the sky was never dark. The thunder was so loud! The little bubber didn't even stir, I think these storms lull her to sleep. It lulled me to sleep. I usually try to stay awake during the storms because they are so fun to watch, but this one just kept going and going and before too long I drifted off to la la land. I don't know why I love these storms so much, maybe its the feeling of being nice and cozy in a warm house with the people I love during such a vulnerable event going on outside. The midwest rocks (ask me that in 2 months and I will say the midwest sucks!) My grandma Gladys loves thunder storms. She would have loved last nights. I should call her.

The Story of Our Door Mat...

Our door mat's name is Mary.

We named her after our only friendly neighbor in Overland Park. When we were moving into our one bedroom apartment almost three years ago, Mary was just watching us. At first I thought she was kind of creepy. I mean, didn't she have any thing better to do than watch us unload our Budget van? Soon after though, we got acquainted and we began to love Mary.

She was retired, lonely and probably almost 80 years old. She was the neighbor who I borrowed sugar from. She had a really eclectic apartment, and every time I would walk inside, I just wanted to browse. There were different colors of non matching furniture, pictures from the seventies, and tons of old magazines and newspapers laying around. About ten months after we moved in, Mary announced to us that she was moving. She said, "in the three years I have lived here, you two were the only ones who talked to me." She wanted to move to a place where there were other old folks who would want to play cards and knit with. We were sad, but understood. But crap, who was I going to borrow sugar from?

So the day came, and we said good bye, and Mary was on to bigger and better things. We didn't exchange any contact information or anything. But we did notice that she left her door mat behind, and then we also noticed that we never bought a door mat. Travis and I looked at each other and decided that Mary would want us to have it. So we snatched it and it has been ours for almost two lovely years.

Like I said, we call the door mat Mary because we think it has a part of Mary in it. Every so often we will find it trying to crawl back to the real Mary. After big storms (actually probably just a light breeze), Mary will be located ten feet down the street, or sometimes we will find her all curled up and we will just laugh and say, "Mary, what do you think you are doing?" We will never give up on our door mat because we never want to forget the original owner. Who knows, she could even be dead right now, but her memory lives on right on our doorstep. I just hope Mary (the door mat) survives this week, lots of storms a coming our way.

Funny Man

Did anyone catch Conan's big opening show on Monday? Well I didn't. I fell asleep at 10:25. But I did Tivo it and watch it the next day. Would it be ignorant to say that Conan O'Brien is the funniest man on the planet? If you don't think this man is funny than we don't have the same humor. Who am I to judge though?

I do have to say that I am a bit of a late night talk show guru. I remember the days of Arsineo Hall (does that date me?). I would throw my fists at the TV and hoot and holler just because that was what you did. I didn't really appreciate late night until I was maybe in middle school. Correct me if I am wrong Mom, but I don't recall having a set bed time when I was that old. I remember staying up to watch David Letterman's top ten, then I would go to bed. I loved Letterman. Then he started getting all political and belligerent. So I moved on to Leno.

Leno just reminded me of a nice uncle. He was funny, but I never really laughed too hard. In high school, I had a midnight curfew. When you are a teenager sometimes those late nights contain drama. Maybe the boy I liked didn't talk to me, or my friends were being weird. Instead of going home and crying myself to sleep on my huge pillow, I would wind down with a bowl of cereal while watching Conan. This probably saved my parents millions on therapy (jokes, my teenage years were actually a piece of cake, it was those darn college years).

5 years ago, when they announced that Conan would take over for Jay in 2009, I jumped for joy because staying up till 11:37 pm was tough for me. I can't recall how many times this man brought me to tears. In fact, my cheeks were a little wet watching last nights show, that "twit of the week" bit got me good!

There is just something about finishing your day off with a good laugh. I hope Conan stays true and lives a good long life as the late night king... I just appointed him to that position but hopefully you will agree, if you don't than your humor is LAME (and if you took offense to that, then this post is probably really making you mad)!