Halloween Festivities

I can't believe Halloween is over! It went by too fast. I am sad to say that this is the first year that I haven't dressed up. With Ben's injury and me being sick we never really thought about a costume.

A couple weeks before Halloween we carved pumpkins with some of our friends. We really enjoy being able to get together with our friends that we miss at the singles ward.

Here are Jen and Abby showing their finished pumpkins.

Wes working on his.

Ben and I with our finished pumpkins. Ben did a bat, and since mine looked like it had a scar on it I did Two Face. I don't have the best pumpkin carving skills, but I still love doing it every year. After, we took all the pumpkin seeds home and roasted them. That is my favorite part!

Ben was having fun with his camera

Our snow covered Jack-O-Lanterns

The night before Halloween we went to dinner and saw Thriller with our friends Aaron & Krista, and Josh & Jessica. We went last year and Ben enjoyed it, so he wanted to go again. I love it, but it sure makes me miss dancing.
We didn't get a picture with the zombie dancers, but here we are in front of Kingsbury hall.

On Halloween we didn't do too much. We ran errands during the day, and at night we passed out candy to the trick or treaters and watched part of the U black out game. We also went to the old white church near our stake center. They open it up twice a year on July 4th and Halloween. They have been making it into a Haunted house every year. It was pretty good. I screamed a little. Then we watched Young Frankenstein. It's a classic. It was Ben's first time watching it. I don't think he liked it as much as I do.
On Sunday we went to Ben's parent's for dinner. The kids were dressed up in their Halloween costumes, and we forgot to take pictures. Dinner was great and Ben's Mom made my favorite Jell-o. It is delicious. Then the kids made ghost suckers with melted white chocolate and chocolate chips. Ben even joined in on the fun. Ben's Mom always has great "cwafts" (as Cole would say) for the kids (and Ben). I really enjoy being part of their family!

Well I'm sad it is over, and hopefully next year we will be able to dress up.
Now on to Thanksgiving and Christmas the best time of the year!

The past month.

Well on Sunday it was a month since we got married. I can't believe how fast that month went. We sure have been busy. We have done a lot of stuff. Ben of course has been able to go ride a few times. It is perfect weather to go, and he has had a lot of fun going.

Thanks to my buddy A-bag for this photo, nice shot from Tooele last Sat.

My nephew Jack turned one on September 29th. They had an Elmo birthday party for him and invited us all to come. He sure got a lot of presents and loved opening them.

Amy made him a sweet Elmo cake.

We all had hats to wear to celebrate with him.

My sister Brooke and her husband Ethan.

Dan, Jack, and Amy

I can't believe Jack is one. He grew so fast and is such a fun cute little guy. He can entertain all of us. I'm sure glad we got to celebrate with him.

Jack didn't even know what was going on. The candle wasn't amusing to him at all.

He did love eating it and smushing it in his face.

My mom loves celebrating the Holidays. This Halloween she will be in North Carolina visiting my sister and her family. So we celebrated early, last Friday. She made delicious soup for dinner.

I also gave Jack his second hair cut. He is pretty squirmy. He was interested in what I was doing to his hair. He loved it when I would spray him with my squirt bottle. Then I styled his hair. He sure is a cutie.

Then family tradition we always decorate cookies. No matter how old we are we still have fun doing it.

Dan even decorated a cookie as slimer off of Ghostbusters. He loves that movie.

Thanks mom for always throwing holiday family parties. We love them!

Jack even learned how to frost cookies. I think he would rather eat all the sweets than decorate. He had chocolate drool. Couldn't sneak him a treat it would show.

My cousin Stacy plays right full back for BYU Soccer. We have been wanting to go to a game for awhile, and we finally got the chance to go on Saturday. They played TCU. She is awesome and fun to watch. I wish we could have gone to more games. They have one home game left and probably won't be able to make it so hopefully we get the chance to go more next year.

Cosmo always knows how to entertain the crowd.

It was a great game. Those girls are more gnarly than we thought with all the grabbing and pulling. They had some good battles. And BYU won 2-0! (two-Nil)

After the game they come up to the fence and pass out their player cards. So I got a picture with her.

Ben put her player card in his wallet for safe keeping. He is a true fan!

Wedding Excitement!

Our Honeymoon:

We went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and stayed at the Marriott's Beach Place Towers. It was a great place to stay. Thanks Dad for hooking us up!

This is a view from the hotel out to the ocean. They had a bunch of shops and vendors walking to the beach. It was fun to look at some of them. They even sold alligator heads!

Along the street of our Hotel they have a bunch of Restaurants and Swim Shops.
"Tuck that thing in boy or your gonna get it caught on a trip wire"
Who said it and what movie?

We had the chance to eat at a couple of places. It was really good and it was nice to sit by the beach and eat.

The beach was so nice. The sand was nice and the water was so warm!

We did see some strange things though on the beach.

One day we went to the Everglades to go on an Air boat ride. They also had a little exhibit of animals. They had some pretty big Alligators! Sad to say the ones in the exhibit were the only ones we saw. We didn't spot any on the air boat ride.

Also for donating $2 we got to hold a baby alligator. It looked more like a teenager alligator than a baby. I wasn't too sure about holding one, but I did!

Another day we drove down to Miami & Miami Beach and went to all of their great shops. Ben was excited to see this store there. They have some crazy stuff. It was fun to go in.

Downtown Miami

Too bad Basketball hadn't started yet. That would have been fun to go to a game and see D wade get his game on,

but we got to go to a baseball game in the Land Shark Stadium. The Marlins played the Phillies.

Ryan Howard is one of the best players in the Major Leagues so it was fun to see him play and he had his usual good game.

On the airplane we met a lady who was from Florida and she gave us a great list of places to go. One she wrote down was Saw Grass Mills Mall. It was one of the biggest malls I have ever been too. They had so many stores and they also had a Rain Forest Cafe so we ate there.

It was a great trip. And very relaxing. It was really hard to come back home and face reality! Hopefully we will get the chance to go on another trip again soon!

We haven't gotten all of our wedding pictures from our photographer yet, but here is a link to her blog with her favorites that she posted, and also the ones that my dad took that day if you haven't seen them yet:
For Harmony's Photography click here
For my dad's click here

Also if you would like to see our engagement pictures that my dad took click here

Brit and I went up the canyon today (9/30/09) to check out the newly fallen snow up on the Mtns. Here are from before and after pictures. The snow is here! Yeah baby!

Tuesday

Some dedicated kids "getting theirs"

Hot August Nights

Quick update on what has been going on lately.

The Tour of Utah is a big Road Bicycle race here in Utah. It actually comes right by the house so I got the schedule and looked at the time they were supposed to pass by. I went down to the road and along with a handful of others we cheered them on as they road by. It's pretty amazing how fast they go, and I imagine they keep the same pace the whole time. Yesterday I think they road like 100 miles!

And there they go up the canyon. With all of the support vehicles following.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

David Zabriske, A utah native and world class cyclist riding for Garmin Slipstrem.

Floyd Landis riding for Team Ouch. Floyd actually won the Tour de France a few years back but was accused of doping and had it taken away.

The Peloton

Brit had her B-day on Aug. 11th. I had a surprise party for her. Nikita.

Random Non-riding MX Photos from the other day.

Ragnar and Havasupai

Here are photos from the last few weeks, Jen and I ran the Ragnar a week and a half ago. It's a relay race from Logan to Park City. It was pretty hard, but a fun experience.

Finish Line

Running down Deer Valley Ski resort, my last of 3 legs, this one was 7.3 miles

Jens 2nd run, at night. She didn't like running by herself at night, but she did a great job and had a few really hard legs. I was proud of you Jen!

My 1st leg, running up old Snowbasin road.

Jen running

This past weekend I went to Havasupai with Travee and a few buddies. It's in the bottom of the Grand canyon and is located on an Native American Reservation. It was an 11 hr drive, past Vegas and a 10 mile hike but well worth it. So beautiful!

Beaver Falls, about another 3 mile hike from where everyone camps.

It was really green in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Havasu Falls.

There was an LDS chapel in the small village. We went on Sunday to the only service they have, Sac. Mtg. Sad to say though it was pretty boring, even for Utah standards. But my view from my seat in Sac. Mtg was awesome of the enormous red cliffs!

Part of the Crew.

One of my Fav. photos of the trip.

The dreaded switchbacks

Travee and I slept in the parking lot along with a ton of other people, not very comfortable

Hoover Dam was awesome at night

Video of Havasu falls, early in the morning when we got up.

Disney Cruise 2009 son!

So as usual I am just going to let my photos do all the talking. I went on a Disney Cruise this last week with Brit and her family. We flew into Orlando Florida last friday after work and got back this morning (sunday). I had such a good time and it was probably the best vacation I probably have ever taken. I usually just do Moto or Snowboard type trips so it was nice to go on my first cruise and go somewhere tropical with nice beaches. Sat. the day before we came home we had the change to go to Disney world too. It's amazing how big of an empire Disney is with the various parks! It took me about an hour just to upload the photos and videos so unfortunately the pics are out of order, it would take me too long to sort them chronologically, so hope you enjoy the pics as I had a great time. One thing I realized is how big Disney was in my life as a child. I remember watching so many of their movies, Aladdin, Little Mermaind, Beauty and the Beast, and all the cartoons like Tail Spin. Big thanks to Brits parents and family for having me along. Hopefully they didn't get too sick of me and my lame jokes and antics.

Epcot at Disney world

Animal Kingdom and the Everest Ride

We were able to hit up 3 different Islands, this one is owned by Disney, called Castaway Cay

On a bike ride throughout the Island

Castaway Cay from the ship, they have one of the ship they used in Pirates of the Caribbean Movie.

Semi-casual night

They had various activities to do during the days we were at sea. Kit decorating, mine was Jazz and RSL inspired. I took it with my to castaway Cay and tried to fly it but unfortunately it couldn't stand up to the winds of the incoming storm and the string broke and was a victim to the island.

Mickey

Chip or Dale? I cant remember which one had the red nose.

So I had planned to propose to Brit sometime on the cruise, in a nut shell... we went snorkeling on St. Tomas. While in the water looking around at tropical fish, I pulled the ring out of my pocket and showed it to her under the water, shes wallowed some water and then said yes and that was it!


We stopped on Tortola also, but took a boat to a neighboring island called The Virgin Gorda. They had some sweet beaches and caves. Here we are at "The Baths"




Our servers throughout the week, Simon from The Phillipines, and Maria from Argentina. They were great and had a good time spiting my spanish to Maria.

We got to go to a behind the scenes making of Disney's Pixar new movie "Up" from one of the creators, later on in the week we got to wee it in 3D, I thought it was pretty good, not quiet as good as Cars or Toy Story, but still good. And Andy's boys will be happy to know they are making a Cars 2 as well as Toy Story 3.

I love to eat and the Food on the cruise was off the Hook! Sooooo much food all the time and such good quality, the food was one of my most fav. things of the cruise.

Almost every night the would have a movie or a really good on stage theatre show, here are all the characters on stage.

This was my fav. desert of the trip, Choc. Lava cake. I had one, asked for another and Simon brought me 2 more! My mom would have loved it.

Chicken Parm, Lobster tail, and Tuna.

They gave us a Cake for the engagement.

Duck, it tasted like chicken.....

On St. Thomas we went snorkeling on Coki Beach, this guy made a smoothie for us, but I wanted to snap a photo showing this is the type of guy I think of when I think of the carribean.

More awesome deserts, I love fruit so I liked the one on the left.

They had a pirate inspired dinner one night.

Yum.

Fillet Mignon over mashed tatoes served with scallops.

Choc. Cheese Cake

Swordfish, it was pretty good.

I like cooked asparagus with butter

Formal Night

Since the NBA playoffs were going, they showed it on the big screen just about every night, now this is the way to watch a BBall game, a huge screen and all you can eat pizza and ice cream.

Just getting on the ship. Aye Aye Mate

The first and last night we stayed at on of Disneys resort hotels, this one is called the Pop Century.

My good buddy Paul Dimond lives in Florida about 3 hrs away from Orlando, we had planned to hook up while I was there, so it was good to see them. He and his wife have an adorable family. Good seeing ya Pauly! Say Hi to Ells, Park Dog, and Olivia.

One of the rides we went on at Hollywood studios. It was fun.

I got a pretty good burn a few days in.

A storm rolling in while we were on Castaway Cay, it rained pretty good while on our bike ride, but it was kind of fun riding in the tropical rain fall.

St. Thomas

My ancient mayan sand castle, that ones for you Travee.

This ones for you marko

Kiddie Pool

The ship was huge

Yet another awesome desert

We went to a plate and Cake decorating Demo

All you can eat soft serve, yeah playa!

A few videos