Dew Tour 2010

Yesterday was full of fun, dirt, action, sweat, sunburns, loosing our hearing in our left ears, too many people, standing in lines all day, and best of all ....tons of professional athletes from BMX, Skate, and FMX as well as a pro. snowboarder sighting Mark Frank Montoya. It was a fun day at the Dew Tour this year which was held at the Energy Solutions outside. It is a 4 day event with all sorts of extreme sports and athletes with amazing skills. We were even on TV for the BMX dirt finals. If you look close enough in the picture below, you can see Jeff in a black hat and I in a black shirt next to the side railing in front of the national guard banner a few rows back.

Ryan Nyquist (one of my favorite riders) throwing an "x-up"
You can kinda see us in this one too (Jeff is taking a picture)

It was amazing to actually see how huge these jumps were....20-45 feet high...plus the riders were getting huge air on top of that!

Mark Frank Montoya sat right below us during the BMX finals.

Ryan Nyquist after taking a run

I was amazed at how much the sport has evolved and the tricks are insane now...double back flips, 360 tail whips just to name a few

We stood in line for over an hour trying to get into the Skate Park finals with athletes like Ryan Sheckler and Paul Rodreguez, but since we had only bought the cheaper tickets our seats were not guarnteed so we got screwed out of seeing skating so we got in line for the amature BMX dirt finals...which we ended up waiting 1.5 hours for and luckily barely got seats...everyone else had standing room only

FMX guys including Jeremy "Twitch" Steinberg and Ronnie Faist (from the Metal Mulisha) and many other good riders.

Once again, I was amazed at how a few years ago the 'Backflip' was a huge deal and now everyone was throwing it like it was nothing.

A sample of all the free loot we got at the 'Village'. Jeff voluntered to be in a tug of war to win dickies pants and Won!!! We got lots of posters, bandanas, sunglasses, bags, and of course free mountain dew.

Labor Day Fun

Jeff and I both had Labor Day weekend off of work/school so we decided to relax a little and also do a little hiking and 4-wheeling. We went up to Tibble Fork with my family and 4-wheeled for a little while...it was fun but really busy up there.

Ster having fun crossing a river
Dad crossing the river

On Sunday, Jeff and I went up to Brighton to hike up to Lake Mary, Catherine, and Martha and Doglake. Well, we were only able to make it to Doglake and Lake Mary, but it was still fun because we had never been up there before (I didn't even know that there were lakes up there!)

This picture is hard to see, but this is Great Western and the cat track we usually ride on in the winter

Lake Mary

Dog Lake (this is usually completely covered up in the winter and is a favorite snowboarding spot for Jeff)

View from under the Crest chairlift

Also, we decided to splurge a bit and buy tickets to the Dew Tour (which is next weekend). I have always wanted to go so I am really excited to see Skateboard, BMX, and FMX and all of the pros like Ryan Sheckler, Shaun White, Metal Mulisha guys, and Ryan Nyquist. We also bought tickets to see Senses Fail and Bayside over Halloween weekend. They put on such a great show and we can't wait!

Week one...down!!!

Week one of my first internship is DONE!!! It was a rough one, but I am happy to be in the clinic and not back in the classroom. This week should be a little more organized (I hope) with MWF working with a variety of OP patients and T TH working with the hand therapist. I am really glad that I will be able to work with hands since that is what I would like to do eventually. The therapist I am working with is a wonderful teacher. Also, for this internship I am required to do an inservice, but since its associated with a school I get to teach the high school students how to research.....isn't that the most exciting topic ever!!! NOT! So I am having a really difficult time trying to make it interesting.

Also today I was called to be in the Nursery at church.....so NOT EXCITED for that one! I know its an easy calling but every ward I have been in for the past 10 years I have gone straight to primary and dont get a chance to meet anyone besides kids. I was really looking forward to adult classes. At least we won't be in this ward forever.

Jeff started school this last week too. He has been super busy with working and school, but it will finally pay off someday. He also got hired this week!!! I am proud of him for working so hard and supporting us! Pretty much we never see eachother anymore except for Friday nights and Sunday because our schedules are so crazy.

We are hoping to be able to do something fun next week for Labor day(if we get time off work)...maybe camping or Lagoon.

Summer is quickly coming to a close

We have had a busy summer filled with friends, family, and fun. We decided we had to make up for the 2 years of doing nothing in Flagstaff. Last weekend we went camping up American Fork canyon.....let me tell you that was an adventure just getting up there. We were supposed to go with our friend from Snow College, Bryce and his wife, but she put a rut in our plans, but as you can see we still went. Friday after helping Bryce out with some things it was 9 PM and we didnt think we could make it up to Granite Flats so we decided to drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon and hit up the Spruces.....well of course the campground was full. We decided to go to Bryce's parents house and BBQ our hotdogs in their fire pit and try again Saturday morning. Bryce was a trooper with all the things he was going through with his wife and still wanted to go. We got up to Granite Flats and their campground was full too! So we decided to camp out in the woods. We found a great little spot back in the trees and set up camp. It even had a bathroom :)

The boys playing ladder ball
This little guy was out to kill all of us. He was so funny to watch because he would swing off of these huge pine trees and drop all the green pine cones and he almost hit us many times. When we tried to get close to him he would start chattering and throw more pine cones down.

Sunday we decided to hang out for a little while at Tibble Fork and let Bryce do some fishing.

Monday night we went to watch a country band Due West play in a field in Bluffdale. (One of the guitarist's parents are in my parents ward). They were really good and are supposed to be on the radio starting this month

Shannon got to help them out during their sound check.

We also went to the Tooelle Demolition Derby with some of Jeff's work friends. It was a pretty entertaining derby and luckily the weather held up for a few hours.

School starts for both Jeff and I this next week.....it will be a crazy semester because Jeff will be working during the day and going to school 3 nights a week at SLCC to try and finish his Construction Management degree. I am starting my first internship and am a little nervous but excited because my first place is the West Jordan MountainLand where I was a tech for a few years.

Deer Creek and The Ataris Concert

It's nice to be back in Utah where we get to celebrate the 24th of July! This year Jeff didn't have to work on Friday or Saturday so my family decided to go boating at Deer Creek. It was perfect weather and filled with lots of tubing and swimming.

Jeff eating his favorite salad


Shannon and Jeff

Me and Jeff (hard to see, I know)

The rope swing the boys found

Last night Jeff and I went to see the Ataris at Kilby Court. We had never been to this venue and we expected it to be a little bigger than it was, but it ended up being an awesome show. (FYI Kilby is pretty much a garage in a ghetto ally in SLC). We were excited to see the Ataris because we grew up with their music during high school and during our Snow College years. We were able to be right next to the band because of how small this place was so it was sweet!

There were actually 4 bands before the Ataris went on but this was my favorite guy, Gasoline Heart. He played a few songs with the Ataris as well.

Jeff even got to meet Kris Roe(the singer of the Ataris) and take a pic. The singer was selling the band merch himself which was crazy.

Jeff got a new band shirt since none of his fit anymore and they have all been passed down to me

They played a lot of songs off of "So Long, Astoria" and "Blue Skies, Broken Hearts..." and they even played a song we had on our wedding video, "Won't spend another night alone". Another funny thing is how old and different the singer looked....back in the day he had long blonde hair and didn't wear glasses so it took us awhile to recognize him.