Halloween Costume Ideas

So Halloween is just around the corner and every year the decision on what to dress up as can cause lots of stress. So this is your chance to help us out and pick what Ross and Gina's costume will be for this year. Think about what you have always wanted to see us dress up as, and then let us know. If your idea is clever enough, we just might use it!

Scooter Man

I don't know this man's real name but I'm going to refer to him as Simon, it seems appropriate.

It all started a few months ago when Ross called me on the phone laughing hysterically about this guy who he just saw on the UofU campus. He choked out a description of an older gentleman decked out in a suit wearing full pads and helmet over top. The guy had a scooter(the kind 10 year old sport on the neighborhood block) which he rode extremely slowly. One push and he brings both legs onto the scooter, waits until he is at almost a complete stop and then he would give another push.

This sounded pretty funny but I couldn't really appreciate the greatness of this story until Ross and were driving on state street near the freeway entrance Friday. I looked to my side and saw a great sight. I started jabbing Ross and when he looked over we were both overcome with joy. I don't know how Simon rode that scooter all the way from the U, but it must of taken him a long time. There Simon was dressed to the 9s, covered with knee and elbow pads... and of course his helmet. I give Simon mad props. He is true scooter die hard.

I can't help but have my curiosity raised by this sighting of Simon... how far does Simon ride that scooter everyday, weekly, monthly, and can you imagine yearly. Please if you spot Simon and his scooter let me know. Maybe if we map out his sightings we can estimate his travel.

I hope there are many more Simon sightings to come.

OCT. 17, 2008

One year ago to the day, I married the most beautiful girl in the world. After a long courtship with a few ups (Hawaii) and downs (Texas), and lots of pressure from Erika, Gina and I decided to tie the knot on the 17th of October 2007. (Erika, we would have done the same without all your pressure, just so you know!!) It was a great day. Our Wedding wasn't until later in the morning which allowed for us to take our time getting there. There was no crack of dawn alarm clock. Just a simple morning to prepare for the best day of my life. We got to the temple only to find that we, er Gina, had forgotten a few items that were needed to get into the temple. No worries, we got it all figured out and the Wedding still happened as scheduled! It was so wonderful sitting in the temple together and I will never forget looking into the eye's of my sweetie and telling her I love her. She looked beautiful in her dress. The weather outside was not the best, but it cooperated when we needed it to. It drizzled only for a moment or two, but it retrospect, it made the colors in our photos stand out even more!! They turned out really well. Our reception took some last minute preparations by Gina and I and a few of our fabulous friends who we could never thank enough. We got everything all put together just in time for us to start meeting our guests. Because of the weather we were a little cramped inside the Gallivan Center but it was so fun to share our day with so many people! The rain finally started to stop its cooperation just as we were leaving, which actually once again resulted in a really cool picture. However, the rain was not friendly to me when I tried to use my windshield wipers to clear off the water on my windshield. They failed miserably due to the outrageous number of oreos some people had stuck to the windshield. It was so bad I had to stop at a nearby gas station and use their windshield cleaner thing to scrape off the oreos! That night we had a great room in the downtown Hilton that my cousin hooked us up with, the Vice Presidential Sweet!! It was so cool! All and all the day was one to remember!! I will always remember that day and the promises I made to my sweetie. She is the love of my life and she is the greatest thing to happen to me, ever. I love you Gina! Oh and the thing I think will be in my mind as one of the most memorable things we did that day was how we occupied the time after the ceremony and before the reception! We went to lunch at Pier 49 pizza downtown and had lunch at the place we had dinner on our first "real" date! Come one, what did you think I would say!!

The End of an Era

For those of you who are not aware, I have become a little bit of a Yankee fan over the years. If you know me at all, seen the back of my car, or know the name of my dog, you probably figured out that I have a liking for the Yankees. I was 8 years old when I first played for the Yankees in little league, and for the next 7 years, I played for the Yankees even though I would go through different leagues. I didn't ever get to choose what team I was on, but the fact I played for the Yankees over and over again, I considered it fate. To say the least, even though my baseball years are through, I still consider myself a Yankee.

This year is a major year for the Yankees. No they are not going to win the world series, they didn't even make the playoffs! This year however, is the last year of the old Yankee Stadium. Also known as "the house that Babe built," Yankee Stadium has been one of the historic baseball fields still standing in America. The Yankees have called it home since 1923, when Babe Ruth was still blasting home runs out of the park. He hit three in the first game ever in Yankee Stadium against the Boston Red Sox. Since then, the stadium has been through a couple minor and one major renovations. The memories and moments from that stadium however, will forever stay the same. There have been many many moments that baseball will never forget. So many great players, both Yankee and non-Yankee, have played on that field. The Yankees alone have had many memories from their own players there. From Babe's home run records,

to Roger Maris' home run records, many of the old school players seem most prominent. Lou Gehrig will forever be remembered by his "luckiest man alive" speech, Don Larsen being hoisted up into the air by Yogi Berra after his perfect game in the world series, Reggie Jackson's three home runs in the '77 World Series earning him the name "Mr. October," Joe Dimaggio for being the games most all-around player and America's hero, or one of Mickey Mantle's three MVP seasons.

There are many who deserve to be mentioned on this list, but some that are most important to me are those I can remember watching and routing for as a kid. Paul O'Neil was one of my baseball heroes as a kid, as well as Andy Pettit (who I got to see pitch a game this past May!!)and many of their teammates were Yankees that I remember. Bernie Williams, Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, Tino Martinez, and Derek Jeter to name a few. Jeter was, and is, probably the most influential baseball player in my life. When he was first on the Yankees I was only 12 years old and I thought he was the greatest. He played infield like me, he was smaller like me, and the thing I liked most about him is that he just went out and played. He didn't trash talk, he was a humble guy that played ball really well. This past season he set the record for most hits by a Yankee in Yankee Stadium, a couple weeks before it was gone. More recently the Yankees have produced big names like Roger Clemens, Mariano Rivera (one of the greatest), Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada, and of course Alex Rodriguez who could possibly be one of the best players in the game. Granted he has had is fair share of controversy and scandal, but take all that away and you get a guy who has the potential of breaking the all time home run record and a solid defender at third base.. All baseball greats. The managers over the years have been great as well. Billy Martin would probably still be an off an on manager for the Yankees if he were still alive! Buck Showalter, Casey Stengel, Lou Piniella, Yogi Berra, and Joe McCarthy were all great managers for the Yankees, but most memorable to me is the great Joe Torre. He was one of the greatest in Yankee history leading the team to 4 world series titles, 12 consecutive playoff appearances, 6 pennants, and ten division titles. To me, Joe Torre is the Manager of the Yankees. He is a great man. Joe Giardi has big shoes to fill!

So as the "house that Babe built" is now the "house that Jeter closed," it is a sad day for many. The end of and era is tough for all followers, but this seems like part of people's life are leaving for good. The good news is, the Yankees are staying around, their new stadium is right across the road and is still named "Yankee Stadium." George Steinbrenner and his son Hank have done great things to bring the Yankees to where they are today, and I only hope to see the tradition of the Yankees live on for years to come. They are America's team. Go YANKEES!

Gina Rides Her First Centruy!!

So for those of you that do not know, my wife has recently picked up cycling. Our brother in laws are into it hard core and they have converted Gina. This year she was very dedicated to getting started and saved all her tip money from the ski season and used it to buy her a nice bike and all the gear she needed. After riding for a few months, she built up her endurance and Derrick (brother in law) convinced her to participate in the ULCER. The ULCER is a 111 mile race around Utah Lake!! Gina was a little nervous, but did very well. She finished in just over five hours, about three hours faster than she thought she would!! I am so proud of her, and wish I had the courage to do stuff like that. She is two up on me know, she has raced in a century and raced in a marathon!!

Death Hike

Ok, so this past weekend we went on this hike that literally almost killed us. It all started when my friend Jared Antczak called to invite me to hike with him to the top of twin peaks. I was talking to Gina about it, and kind of jokingly said that it would be fun. But seeing as how I almost didn't make it on a hike a week earlier with another friend of mine, I didn't think I could do it. Gina took the initiative and called Jared back and told him we were in!! Gina kept saying we could do it and that it could be that hard. HA! Ask her that now!
So Saturday came along and it was time to start our climb. We had intended on starting at 7 but didn't actually start up the trail til about 7:30. At first it was fun, steep at times, my heart was pounding and my lungs not working quite right, but it was ok. We joked with each other and the morale of our group of six was high. We had a description of the hike that we were using to judge how far we had gone and how far we had to go. Really it felt like we were following a treasure map. Anyway, a few misunderstandings from the reading made us feel like we were doing really well and making good time. It wasn't til about 2 hours later that we realized we were still at the beginning of the description instead of nearing the end like we had thought! Non the less, we were ok. We hiked a good 5 hours before we got to the "upper meadow" which really was not meadow at all. We stopped there for a few reasons; we were tired and wanted food and water, there was snow there and we wanted to play in it, and last but not least we wanted to look up at what we were about to climb. Looking back, we should have been able to tell right there that we should have turned around and called it a day.
However, we finished building snowmen and making snow angels and started up what would turn out to be the hardest, most intense climb of all our lives. It was so steep we had to use all fours at times. The ground was not solid but made up of loose gravel and boulders that were the size of basketballs all the way up to small elephants. Every step was sketchy, rocks sliding out from underneath you, falling over, looking up and seeing haw far you had to go, and looking down to see how far you had gone! It took us a good 2 hours plus to climb up that bowl to a saddle between two peaks, but the fun wasn't even close to being done.
From the saddle, not all of us continued. Those of us who did carried on following our treasue map trying to find ledges, eight foot walls, and cracks that we could climb up. We lost a couple more along the way, but those who prevailed to the top were rewarded with one of the best views I have ever seen. It truly was spectacular. You could see for miles and miles in all directions. The blissful scene was quick however as we made our way back down to the saddle to meet up with everyone else and we realized that what you go up, you must go down!! Climbing up the boulder field was a challenge and time consuming, but going down it was not easy at all. It was harder. It took us longer than going up. We all fell a few hundred times had moments where if we slipped it was a good 300 feet before we would have stopped! It was crazy. It was taking so long and by the time we got out of the boulder field and down a creek bed that was more rocks, it was about 8 o'clock and we still had about 3 to 4 miles to go! Oh and on top of that, we were all out of water and had been since about 4!! We were all dehydrated, fatigued and ready to be done. However, it was getting dark and we needed to get down quick! We carried on and on, the trail never seemed to get less steep or show signs of ending. Daylight quickly left us and we found ourselves in the dark! Luckily, our good friend Jared who we will forever be in debt too, realizing our situation had started to run down the trail. He past my little brother on the way and stole his car keys and continued running to the bottom, mind you he had hiked all the way to the top and was also out of water. He got to the bottom a little after 7:30, took the car to the seven eleven down at the bottom of the canyon. He bought a bunch of gatorades, waters, bananas, and some flashlights and quickly drove back up to the trailhead. He started the hike AGAIN and began to run up the trail to find us. All of us were on the verge of hullicinating, seeing lights and other things. The darkness made our depth perception go crazy making our us stumble and fall even more! Jared, 30 minutes back up the trail past my bro and his friend and gave them a light and some fluid. He then realizing we were still far out began to once again run to find us. He found us just as the it became pitch black and literally could not see anything! He found us and saved our lives. We thought that we had maybe fifteen more minutes to go, but in reality we had over an hour left to the bottom!! It would have taken us three times longer at least had we not had that light! We got back to our car a little after 10:30 at night, thankful to be alive!!! Jared, we love you!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!

Yeah BABY! We finally are putting out a new post. I know I know we are excited (mostly because this means everyone will stop hassling us for not updating our blog). Here in lies the problem... so much has happened since the last time we wrote we don't really know where to start. So we will start with today. Ummm... we went to church, took a nap, and now we are watching the olympics and doing laundry. Wow I sure do love sundays! Yesterday was pretty cool we went on a hike up to dog lake. We went with Melinda, my(gina's) sister and her three dogs. It was a fun hike. Ma's dogs rock, we were a little worried that good ole' Beau, Roxy, and particularly Mac might have some problems making it up the hike but they rocked all 6 miles. So that is the absolute latest and greatest with Ross and Gina. We are going to do a little backtracking in the next few posts, talk about our amazing New York trip, the autism walk(thanks to all those that supported us), trip to San FRAN to welcome back Clayson from the mission, John Mayer concert, 4th of July, animal planets liberty park expo, wakeboarding, the Fair, breaking dawn (holla!), and the ULCER. Wow that's a lot, hopefully we get to it all. OHH yeah here's a little taste of the awesomeness... Ross rockin' it our ward luau... we won some cupholders for our awesome outfits...and yes I am wearing my mom's moo moo that i'm pretty sure she got in the late 70's as pj's.