A Sunday Afternoon Adventure

Every time we go up to Tony grove Lake, we always have the feeling, 'We should come up here more often!' The only problem is that it is inaccessible for about 8 months of the year because of snow.

The flowers seem to know that they have only a small time frame to bloom so they do it all at once!

                                     

(did you see what I did with all the colors there?)

Here are some more random ones

One of the most adventurous parts was trying not to miss all these amazing photo opportunities!

^Callie took this one ^

~~~~...On to the next Adventure!...~~~~~

A little adventure

Last Saturday while I was at a pool party at my Regional Vice President's house, we all heard this unusual thwumping (yes, I meant to spell it that way) helicopter sound in the distance. As it got closer, none of us could identify whether it sounded more like a helicopter or an airplane. Finally it came into view and we realized it was the magnificent melding of both worlds!  

Is it a plane? Is it a helicopter? Is it both? Is it neither? The answer is yes! It is classified as a tilt-rotor. The engines/props can rotate so the blades are horizontal for a vertical takeoff and then change position in mid air for airplane style flying. Callie and I got to see it up close and personal today over at the airport. My understanding is that they were doing some upgrades on some of the electrical/ computer systems in order to make more efficient, etc.  They chose Cache Valley specifically because of the ideal conditions here; the high altitude, clear air, and some other technical flying terms. Plus did you see that sky today? Talk about blue...

"Bunzie" said she wanted to be in the pictures too!

The ideal flying conditions also brought in a regional/ national glider competition this weekend. They said that the natural updrafts from all the mountains made it a perfect area for them to do their thing in as well. I'd hate to see what one of those propeller blades would do to one of those glider planes. Here's one getting towed up into the air.

interesting

The stringy things on the flower of this Purple Velvet plant remind me of an attempt to sew a button on a shirt using  yellow thread!

4th of July and stuff

We've had a busy couple of weeks! June 30th we went to see the Beach Boys, July 1st we went to a wedding reception for one of Debbie's friends, which she also made the cake for. We drove straight from the reception to the University to see the Diamond Rio concert and Logan city's fireworks show.

 

We had a little break for Saturday and Sunday. We had the day off from workon Monday for the holiday, but it was spent being busy around the house instead of relaxing. Tuesday through Saturday I was working like a crazy man at the Sprinkler Store. Sunday was church, This week so far has been crazy at the store, yesterday was the birthday (I am now officially closer to being 40 than 30! Eeek!). 

 Today I worked all day at the store. It was busy enough that I couldn't sneak away for a lunch break. Pure craziness. After that I went home for a quick bite to eat, then went back out to go do a merchandising job for a couple MORE hours! I knew that today was my only opportunity to do some blogging because tomorrow is my Primerica meeting, and Friday we get to pick up Callie so I will definitely be occupied till who knows when.

 Here are some pictures from that list of events:

'Nuff said!

At age 70, Mike Love is the only original  member of the Beach Boys and has been rocking with this band for 50 years! Plus he keeps a very full tour schedule! 

The rest of them haven't been there for quite so long, but it was still a great concert! Deb's anniversary present to me/us were tickets to see the show in correlation with Cache Valley's annual Cruise-in car show. They sang for two solid hours and it was amazing! It reminded me of driving all the way to Grandma's house in Idaho singing along to a Beach Boys tape in that big grey station wagon. 

I have some videos of it, but they will have to wait until later because it is about 1:00 in the morning.

I don't remember the exact cultivar name of this plant but it is a variety of Aspidistra or " Cast Iron" plants. Despite the fact that it is nearly indestructable, as the name implies, it just plain cool with all those random little gold spots all over it. Deb got it for me for my birthday last year.  This morning it gave me a nice little surprise! see if you can find it... (near the bottom of the picture)

The flower actually blooms on top of the soil, just like that! Very unique! It must be pretty happy where it's at because I expected it to take at least a couple years to get established and mature enough to flower!

And here is another speciality- an african violet with variegated leaves!

 I was at a friend's house a couple years ago and she had a violet that looked like it was very sick from a distance. Upon closer inspection I found that it was completely healthy and vibrant, not faded and sun-bleached as I had previously thought. I got a leaf of it from her and started a new plant of my own.  When it started growing, I was a little disappointed because the leaves were all growing in solid green! Maybe I got a dud and it reverted back to a normal plant style!  'Oh well' I thought. African violets are fun to have anyway!

Well it grew and grew, and I saw the mottled leaves starting to grow out from the center! Woo hoo! It hasn't flowered yet, but I'm sure that it will soon. The multi-colored leaves are interesting enough right now anyway. 

THREE DAYS!!!

THREE DAYS!!!
THREE DAYS!!!

til

TWO YEARS!!!
TWO YEARS!!!

....And.....we're back!

Today Deb surprised me with a father's day present of getting the internet here at home! This means that blog posts, facebook updates, and regular ol' emails will be occurring more frequently again! to start us off, I'll put up some pictures of Callie to show you all how grown up she's getting. These first two are from our ward camp-out a couple weeks ago and the other one is from last Tuesday's visit.

Here are a couple more from the campout. Callie took this one of me all by herself!

This photo below has not been altered in any way. It really is that green!

A 180-ish degree turn around looking up the ridge is this view:

 A closer shot

Well, enough blog fun for tonight . . . I've got a busy day tomorrow full of stencils to trace and sprinklers to count. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

 Love, Zach