4th of July Traditions

The Family '08

Traditions can be good and they can be bad. Traditions of censorship like those at BYU are bad... I say that mainly just to poke those Y fans out there reading because it's rivalry week!

Side Note: I love this week. GO UTES!

Okay, back on topic. I love certain traditions we have. One in particular that I have a love-hate relationship with is the 4th of July family celebration. We all....ALL...head up to my Dad's cabin and set up a miniature city on the grass. This year, there were 3 motor homes, a couple tents, and a ton of cars/trucks. Once everyone is there, it's a barrage of fishing, four-wheeling, flaming 'mallows and fireworks. We take everyone out fishing, too many people in a little tin boat, and fish until the cows come home. I guess in this case it would be the fish, not cows. It was a slow year though since the powers that be in the DWR aren't the sharpest crayons in the box. That's a different issue. The town of Scofield (yes, there is an official town with a hall, a school, a store, a fire department and everything) hosts the Pleasant Valley Days, including a parade, a knick knack fair, a dance, a breakfast and everything. We participate every year in the parade. Each year lots of work goes into getting all the grandkids into a float somehow. The number of children now....exceedingly great thereof. Hence the love and hate. What a great time, but it's exhausting, and a state of barely controlled chaos!

This year it was grandpa's African animal safari. The kids wore those animal masks...lions and tigers and bears...oh my! Dad walked behind with the safari hat and a crop...I guess the whip would have been too much. It was great fun and the kids collect about 5 bags too much candy.

By the way, Mark has his Miss America wave for the parade down packed!

It's packed by the way. You'd think this would be a small affair with the town having a population of less than 100 officially, but no, you'd be wrong. This place is PACKED. It's actually really pretty in this setting and really laid back. That night, the greatest fireworks display you can find. Not just because they go all out and get the fireworks kits you'd see (like I did) at Taylorsville Dayzz and other events of it's size, but because they launch them from from the island in the middle of the lake. The mountains around the lake with all the cabins make for great stadium seating with nothing to block your view. Eye level with the fireworks and looking across a perfect mirror of a lake. My favorites are the extra loud ones...they echo around the valley. Prior to this show there is a boat "light" parade, which is rather entertaining because I'm pretty sure that everyone out there with christmas lights on their boats are nearly drunk and can barely see their own hand. But it snakes its way disjointedly around the lake and parks next to the island in the hopes of catching a flaming shard of firework.

What a great time. I was merely satisfied to stare at the completed roof that was such a process to install. Probably the best part of this year's festivites was the surpise arrival of my uncle Mark from Minnesota. He drove out with Barb and his granddaughter and pulled up to surprise everyone. I love my uncle Mark. I would call him my favorite, but I think that each one is so uniquely different that each is a favorite for some reason or another. Uncle Mark is favorite in the category of "Most Exactly Like John Candy in Uncle Buck." He taught me every dirty thing I know, threatened my life when I did stupid things and has to be one of the most fun guys to hang with ever. He's always been, and still is, the only person who calls me Rupert and gets away with it cleanly.

More to come. As for now I'm back to applications for Rach and I, research, and waiting for the next call from "God" (Uncle Mark) telling my wife to give me a swift kick in the butt and tell me it's holy intervention.

Creativity

I thought I'd post a simple update as well as pose a question. Seeing as the few who actually read our lethargic blog are immensely creative as well as some of the smartest people I know, I thought I'd pose this question:

When you have to generate it, how do you approach important writing? Do you have a process? Or is it seemingly closer to Andy Ludwig's, offensive coordinator for the Utes, process which apparently utilizes a blindfold, some darts, and a play list covered board?

I know how to write....well...mostly. I've never excelled in English classes, I guess that's why I didn't choose it as my major. Though I enjoy reading, and comprehend it, I'm slow at it. Grammar work, as well as a class sized discussion of 'what really lies inside the Heart of Darkness' was as good as NyQuil for me. Normally, when I sit and write, there is little process to it unless it's for work or for school. I have a template for engineering memos, I have a format for corporate license agreements and MTA's, but is there a proper way or process to write important, yet creatively driven and completely open-ended pieces?

The reason I posted this is I'm down to the final bullet I have to check off before a wave of my law school applications can be sent in - The Personal Statement (now is when you gasp and the dun dun dun occurs somewhere off set). It's a 2 page opportunity for an applicant to say whatever it is the admissions personnel can't glean from the rest of your application...which isn't much, by the way. The application consists of your LSAT score, your degree and cumulative undergraduate GPA, any other schooling you've completed, an extensive work history (all the way back to high school), and a one page resume that encompasses these jobs as well as any other achievements you can squeeze onto an 8x11 sheet of tree pulp while still making it readable. I've got some vague ideas I've generated for my personal statement, experiences I want to include, but is there a 'preferred' method of laying them out, tying them together and making the whole boat float, or shine? ..if you get my drift/horrible metaphor. As of now, I think I'm just goint to utilize my standard - an outline of sorts, but filling in the gaps is proving difficult.

As far as updates go, which I've thus far neglected, I'm proud to say we are alive and well...er...at least alive. I've spent this week fighting off a rather unique and bothersome virus. Rach has spent it rejoicing in the fact that 5.5 more weeks and she's out of the hardest semester she's come up against to date. I'm about 3/4 of the way done with the basic components of my applications, which will move the process to proofreading and submitting each one, and then completing a set of applications one at a time by completing all their supplemental forms. I have a list of 15 or so schools I'll be applying to. Rachel is getting her applications ready for 5 or so of my schools' PhD in Statistics/Biostatistics/Bioinformatics programs. She's incredibly busy. Otherwise, I'm neck deep in lab research, still trying to get my thesis writing moving faster, working at the technology commercialization office at the U, and I just picked up an LSAT tutor student who is getting ready for the December test. Elvis and Hanna are defiant teenagers (17 months old) who now sport their training collars all day long because they're pretty...not because I need to shock them through the window all day long because they are misbehaving ;).

I plan on posting more old updates for your entertainment as some time frees up, but I have a feeling that it's a date not prior to the date all my applications are complete.

Taylorsville Dayzz

Over the weekend prior to the 4th of July we had an interesting experience. We (mainly my mom and dad) set up a booth at Taylorsville Dayzz for my dad's orthodontic practice. It started earlier in the morning with a horse drawn buggy ride through the streets of T-Ville in the T-Ville parade. It was even complete with the full on parade wave coming from my dad. What's really interesting about this whole endevour wasn't the advertising component, but rather the amount of people that know my dad in the community. He's been practicing now for nigh on 40 years... yep... wow. His practice started in WVC just a few miles north on 2700 West. He graduated from Loyola Chigaco, moved home to Utah, leased office space and ortho equipment, and put a sign out front and an ad in the phonebook and waited for patients to stream through the door. Needless to say that stream didn't really start for...oh...about 3 years. SCARY! I can't believe he did that. Different times I guess. Long story short, he's now the largest practice on the west side of the Salt Lake valley and has treated multiple generations within families in the community. He has patients that come from out of state to see him...yes...even for regular checkup appointments. Sorry for the schpeel, I'm pretty proud of him though.

Anyone say Gerald Poulsen for Taylorsville Mayor? ha ha, kidding...but I bet he'd get quite a few votes just to stir things up a bit...I'd like to think he'd get more for governor than SuperDale...wow...can anyone else believe that he's running for governor? I'm lost...or will be if he draws (and he probably will) more than 2% of the votes given a margin of error of 2%.

Above is a picture of the booth set up, complete with a prize wheel...yep...they went all out! :) Also, a picture of my mom working the booth.

We stopped in to check things out just to make sure everything was good. What we found...people love our dogs! I think they're amazed by how small Hanna is for a german shepherd and how fluffy Elvis is. I also found it interesting that animal control was walking around checking registration tags on the dogs. Lucky for us both of ours are current, but we saw many a dogs get the boot from the city park. The only problem we had was ELVIS...he has a phobia...or problem. He hates, or more likely is terrified of, little dogs, especially weiner dogs. No idea why, but he has issues, major ones.

At the end, we tried to scramble out of the park prior to the firework show. We missed the exit by about 30 seconds and ended up sitting in the car in the middle of a large row of cars watching the fireworks. This makes for great fun with dogs... in case anyone didn't know, dogs and fireworks DON'T mix. So I spent 30 minutes with Hanna sitting on my lap whining with her heartbeat at lightning pace and able to be felt in my chest. Then, to add to the fun. A bunch of 4 wheel drives decided that they wanted to honk at us to move...even though we were in a line of cars in which car number one was a police car parked horizontally. They then jumped the curb and tried to drive past him and out...what great entertainment to see a bunch of "intelligent" young men with dates in the car get pulled over...still makes me laugh...hold on...ok, I'm done.

Everything went off without a hitch other than that and I think it was really beneficial.

Again, this was written while watching TV, so disregard the mistakes and incompletely formed ideas. One day, I'll post something worth reading that wasn't written with me using blogging as an excuse to watch sports...not that I really care, but I picked the Rays as my team (for no reason really, bandwagon mainly)...of course...they lost. I'm bad karma.

Goodnight!

Batting Clean-Up

Wow, so Rachel took over the posting responsibilities there for bit since she will likely disappear for the next 4 months now that school started. I've been fighting the technology age old battle of PC versus Owner....and subsequently PC v. Owner's forehead....on the screen. Buy a mac people.....buy a mac. Speaking of which, we just bought Rach one out of necessity for her program and it's sure great to finally have 2 computers again, one of which runs like a champ.

I figured I'd bat a little clean up and fill in any gaps that we may have missed. So yes, the semester is running now at full steam for both of us, and we're grateful for it to be here, but sad that Summer is over. We did have a really good Summer, much better than the last one. Our goal was to PLAY, even if we did it the cheap-o student way. Last Summer that was the goal, but we ended up roofing my parents cabin for 3 months. The most difficult part was the very end, putting up a stove pipe that is 12 feet tall and weighs A LOT. Did I mention that this was to be done without damaging its shiny...soft....finish, without damaging the roof, while hanging off the roof that is too slippery (because it's metal and covered in dust from the road behind the cabin) to walk on...yep, we're pretty proud of it. We finished it finally this May.

What am I even more proud of? My official life decision not to become a metal roofer of A-frame cabins... :-)

What does all this roofing lead to when it's done? A wet Elvis...

and yes, you're right...German Shepherds really weren't meant to be wet (ugly Elvis), but we're sure not going to stop them!

We sold the Mark Twain finally! Yes, for those of you who don't know, let me recap a story for you:

• We got a boat for free from my Aunt (it was her late husband's), we helped her move, we found it on the side of the house.

• We rehabilitated it, fixed, polished, cleaned, painted, and tuned up all that was necessary to make it a great boat.

• We tested it out on Deer Creek to make sure that everything worked.

• We took it to a boat shop for work, who also gave it a clean bill of health.

• Family members took their children on it fishing.

• We finally got up for a big trip with it and my dad's boat to Lake Mead....and sank it...er...nearly sank it (sitting in the middle of a lake a mile from shore in 100 feet of water while water rushes in and is already at knee level).

• we saved it...after much stress and fast action, forklifted it at the lake to tow it home, then pulled it into pieces and put it up for sale.

So, now you are informed if you weren't previously. At any rate, we finally got it posted for sale in May, and the trailer and boat sold within hours....all we have left is the motor and controls, and it will be posted soon as well.

Well, there's the hole where the motor nearly fell off...no worries, we saved everything.

What Rachel failed to mention was that while she was making and writing tributes to new friends, I was in the background with my old friend. We'll post more about a trip to San Francisco later, but we hooked up with Doug and Mariah before they headed off for the bay. You can tell who the businessman is and who the lazy one is! We're so proud of Doug... ;-)

We like our friends!

Well, we went to Moab, as you've read from Rachel's posts. We had such a great time down there. I only wish I had figured out a way to get Rach a mountain bike so we could have done some biking. I think she would have been grateful for a nice bike ride as opposed to the trauma we put her through in the Jeeps.

So, we went saw Newspaper Rock, which is some really cool hierogliphs (petrogliphs?).

After elephant hill, there's a fun little section that is nice and narrow, I hope the following pictures can adequately show that. Keep in mind that Jeeps are rather narrow vehicles compared to trucks, Hummers, etc.

I like the scratches down the wall, apparently people try to fit trucks down here because they think that theirs is somehow more narrow than the other trucks that are called out as being too wide on the sign leading into this area. I wish I was there for that!

Of course, when it's 105 degrees outside, you look for shade wherever you can find it.

She ran out once I told her I went in looking for what was making that suspicious rattling noise...

And finally, we're on our way back down. This part is about 100 yards from the parking lot at the base of the hill...so it's the first and last thing you get to see on your trip. All in all, tons of fun, and worth every non-airconditioned minute.

So this is the last bit of Moab we'll make you deal with. I thought I'd throw in just because it's pretty, and we all like to look at pretty things, right?
I can't remember the exact name of this canyon, but I think it's something like 'The Boulevard' since it looks like a bunch of skyscraper buildings lined up. What's really cool is that you can see the different layers of formation on these sheer walls (of course that's a little too much nerd to expose in yourself, so only admire it secretly...I'll wait).

At the foot of Delicate Arch...

And finally, chillin on Main Street Moab with los padres. Yes, it had been a long day, and yes, that is my blue bandage of LSAT death on my knee. Note to all those still reading: do not put away roofing knives the night before one of most important tests of your life....you will accidentally slice your knee open and end up with stitches and a horrible reaction to the tetanus shot in the ER. All this took place in June.

Well, I think that I'll have to call it quits on this rambling soon. I must apologize for any spelling or simple grammatical mistakes, I'm working on some lab work at the same time, using blogging as a distraction during which I've convinced myself that I'm actually 'thinking' and therefore being productive.

I hope this rambling finds everyone doing well! Hopefully....more to come. Cross your fingers!

More MOAB

After our jeep ride we of course had to stop by the delicate arch. I've only been there once and I think I was 12 years old at the time, so I forgot how breath-taking it is.

The hike wasn't too bad, other than it being really hot. There isn't a lot of shade along the way. I also wouldn't recommend you do the hike in high heels. I only say that because we saw a couple of tourists walking down the trail in high heels... we didn't see them on our way down. So they must have made it down okay.

I think that almost wraps up our Moab trip. We also drove through Devil's Garden and went passed balance rock. All in all it was a great trip!

MOAB!!

Since Rob and I will probably be living out of the state for the next couple of years when he starts law school, we have decided to take some trips to some of the beautiful places in Utah. One of which was Moab. I have only been there once and it was a long time ago. I forgot how amazing it is. I took a couple of pictures as we were driving to Moab, this one was my favorite

...Just in case you haven't noticed any of the other holes in the rocks in Moab... since there aren't very many. Actually, the funniest thing about this picture is that there really isn't a hole in the rock where the arrow points. Just on the other side of this 'rock' there is a little restaurant called 'Hole N' The Rock'. We didn't go there, so I'm not sure, but I think that there's a hike next to the restaurant that goes to a hole in a rock. Here is some more of the scenery.


Rob's dad really wanted to take us on this fun jeep trail in Canyonlands called Elephant Hill. According to many of the books written on the jeep trails in Canyonlands, Elephant Hill was ranked a 4 out of 10 as compared to to the jeep trails in Moab. I'm definately not a big jeeper, but I've been on a couple of trails with Rob and his family and a 4 out of 10 didn't sound too bad to me.


Rob's sister, Megan, and I rode in the back of Ryan's (Megan's husband) 1984 CJ-7. Don't be fooled by our smiling faces. What this picture doesn't tell you is that while we were going over Elephant Hill, I probably repented 100 times, heard words from Megan I didn't even know she knew, said some myself, and pratically peed my pants. I don't know how Ryan drove over the 'hill' so calmly, the jeep felt like it was bouncing everywhere. Rob kept reminding me not to stick my arms out, because if we rolled, I'd break them. I know one thing's for sure, I'm not going on any jeep trail in Moab over a 2 out of 10. You should have seen the look on all of the girl's faces when Rob's dad said the only way back was back over Elephant Hill. I rode in Rob's sister, Yvette's jeep the way back over. They have a 2008 four door jeep wrangler. Needless to say, I could have taken a nap the way back over, the ride was so smooth. She had air conditioning, a dvd player... her seven year old daughter was even doing word searches and coloring in a coloring book as we went over Elephant Hell. I will have to say, it was pretty much worth it to see the confluence, where the green and colorado rivers meet.



It was really cool to see how different the colors of the two rivers are.


... There will be more Moab to come. Unfortunately, my computer has been really slow.

Tribute to my New Friends

You know your life is boring when you talk to an old friend after, oh, six months and you have nothing new to report, nothing has changed... still studying.... still working... Well, now that summer is here without school, I've been trying to catch up with old friends. I've also been trying to make new friends. I'm sure Rob gets sick of me telling him how hard it is to make friends once you're married. I don't know if any of you other girls feel the same way--it might just be me. I now somewhat understand how hard it is for a guy to ask a girl out the first time. Every time I meet someone who I think would be fun to hang out with I'm always asking Rob, 'how long should I wait before I call?' or 'should we just do dinner and a movie?' Either way, I found the easiest way to make new friends is to just steal his. So to all of you who may not know these people, here are some of my new friends.








This is Amber, her and Rob have been friends since they were like 3 years old. She's like a girl version of Rob. Rob and I talk A LOT, and we like to discuss different points of view on different issues. Because Rob is going to law school, he always has the better argument. Amber is currently in law school, and whenever I want to win an argument, I call her. Amber is totally my role model. She is going to law school, working, and has 2 kids. I have no idea how she can do it as I can barely keep my two dogs alive. Plus, she's super tough. She's been through a lot and I love her attitude about life. She doesn't take crap from anyone. Unfortunately, she lives in Arizona and probably will for a long time. Who knows? Maybe Rob will go to law school in Arizona. As much as I hate how hot it is down there, it'd be way fun to live next to Amber and her family!





This is Mariah. So she wasn't Rob's friend before she was mine, but her husband Doug has been friends with Rob for a long time. So Rob and I just decided that she's my new fashion consultant. She always dresses so nice and looks so cute....while going to grad school and working. That's harder than it looks. At her wedding I remember her dad saying that she got a job when she was 16 at Dairy Queen or something just so she could buy clothes. This is great for me because before I got married, I never knew how to dress and never liked shopping. Her and Doug are currently in San Francisco for the summer. Before they left we went shopping. I only got a couple of things, but Rob loves them. He says I need to hang out with Mariah more often. Aside from her fashion sense, she's really fun to hang out with. I'm so glad she is at BYU with me. She brings some sanity into my world of grad school!

Well-- I'm out, I hope I can post more. This whole blogging thing can be difficult. I know how to use computers, but I'm pretty sure a 2nd grader can blog better than me.

Oh and just a side note to Rob's latest blog-- Regis and Kelly are incorrect about living to 140. They are extrapolating the data they have as no one has ever lived to be 140 (except for Moses). But that's okay eh? You always say it'd be better to die young!