Christmas season

I don't usually like to write alot with my blogs, as I am aware that the more I do the more opportunity I have to demonstrate to the world my biggest faults, but this Christmas season some things occurred to me that I feel I have to share. It started the day at work when we handed out gifts and the feelings that came when each of us received a thoughtful gift from a friend. That feeling continued to Christmas day when my lovely daughters were more excited to watch their sisters opened a present then to see what they got. I know that this time of year has been over commercialized but that doest matter to me. I felt the true meaning of Christmas this year and I hope you did to. If all you were concerned about was the value of the present you received then you really are missing out on the most valuable present of all, the gift of charity. Now please excuse all the faults in this rant I just felt like I needed to share my feelings this year. I know that most of you come here to see the pictures of the beautiful girls so I have included some. I love you all and hope that you have a great 2009.

Good Cause

Some times in life I think about how blessed I am and wonder why? Why do I not have more challenges? I think the answer is that someone has to be in a position to help others. On the right side of my blog is that opportunity, there is a family where the husband died from cancer and now the wife needs help. My sister-in-law is trying to help and we need you. So take a look at your life and think about what you have and realize that you are in a position to help.

Ashlynne's Birthday

On Monday we celebrated Ashlynne's birthday, my little girl turned 4. That morning she woke up and went around telling everyone "happy birthday" it was cute. Then when I put her down I kissed her and said happy birthday Ashlynne and she said "happy birthday too daddy", don't you wish they would stay young. She was very spoiled and loved the presents and the cards she got from Grandma and Grandpa Rollins, Aunt Stacey and Uncle Jason, and Uncle Beau and Aunt Mellisa and her cousins.

Our Hallowen pictures and notice the pumkins I bet you cant tell which one Jenn made.

Party

A couple of weekends ago some friends of ours invited us to a Halloween party. Even though it was a trick to get us to visit their home in the middle of nowhere J/K Lori :) we had a great time! I stole these pictures off Lori's blog thanks for posting them Lori. It was a great time and Jen's door prize was a whoopi cushion that my girls really love.

Here is Jen as my cow girl He Haw and this is me as General Electric (I know shocking)

pumpkin picking

This Saturday we went to a farm where we got to take a hay ride to a pumpkin patch. The kids picked out two huge pumpkins and Jenn and I get two and took them home. It was a good time and the kids are excited to start to carve them. You might have noticed that Mayson’s hair is real short she cut off a foot to donate it to Locks of Love, she looks so much older.

Busy Mayson

These past couple of weeks has been pretty busy for Mayson. She started soccer on Saturday and after went to get her ears pierced. Then on Monday she started school, below is a visual representation of these events.


My cute girl going to school


She looks so much older with her ears pierced even though her face doesnt show it she was so brave

Off to school off to school to prove to dad that I'm no fool

Duck, Tooth, and Missionary

Well I will start off with the tooth, Mayson lost her first tooth this week and it was funny how it happened. It was very loose but she would not let me pull it (I was going to do the dad thing and say I would do it on three and then pull on twoJ). So she was eating a carrot and ran to me and said “Dad my tooth is gone and I ate it”. She was upset because she was looking forward to putting it under her pillow. Jenn had her draw a picture of it and put that under and low and behold the fairy did come. Then for family home evening we decided to go to the library (Beau, a library is a place you can borrow books for free just in case you didn’t know) well there is a duck pond there so we had fun feeding them. Then lastly Jenny’s brother JC came home from his mission and the girls were real excited to see him until they actually did and then things were overwhelming for them, but it was good to see him.

Jordan ate more bread then the ducks!

Camping

Well Mayson is 5 and Ashlynne is 3 and I thought it was time that they experienced camping, so I brought the idea up with my friend Bryan and with three of his kids we all went camping. We left work early on Friday and got packed up and headed up to Mantua. I was going to borrow my in-laws tent but it was nowhere to be found so I bought one before heading up. When we got to the camp ground it was a nice place although the camp was really packed and it felt crowded. All in all it was fun though as we did all the things I did when I was young; smores, cane fishing, bows and arrows. The only down falls were the tent and that night. The tent was impossible to set up Bryan and I were pouring over the picture instructions all the time trying to keep an eye out on the 5 little kids, but we got it in a tent form and then I realized that I’m too old to sleep on the ground eeek.

Commute

So I thought I would blog about the joins of commuting, see I live 35 miles away from my job and this is usually spent as 35 min on the road in mine or a fellow carpooler’s car. However yesterday was a little different, we left work slightly late but nothing that would have delayed us. I was driving my car and when we got down I-215 the signs said “right lanes closed at mile post 314 expect serious delays”. This is something that we have seen through the construction season that is summer in Utah and thought great it’s going to take another 15 min to get home tonight, boy we were wrong! Just after the sign 215 stopped, and when I mean stopped I mean we were moving as fast as kiddy ride in Disney Land. We made an educated decision to get off at the next exit and try an alternate road Redwood. When we got to redwood the cars were lined up all the way north to a point where we could not see an end. Trying desperately to hear on the radio what was going on we headed back south to try to make our way to I-15. We got to I-15 and it was stopped to. One hour and a half since we have left work we passed the reason things were so bad. An oversized tanker had flipped off its truck and slid to block all of I-15. It was amazing to see but the three hour commute was not a great price to pay for this show. (Although to see Beau’s bare feet hanging out my back window didn’t help either)

tulum

These are pictures from our trip to Tulum, It was my fav place we visited.

This was an aqueduct imagine that its not just the Romans.

A view of the main temple.

Real Mayan hand prints look at the color after all the years.

One of the lookout towers.

Cancun Part 1

Okay, if there is one thing I have learned in my 31 years of sustained breathing on this rock is always listen to two people, these two people are your wife and your mother. So in response to my mother’s pleads to put some Cancun pictures and to do more blogging I present the following, please enjoy!

This is the view from our hotel window, yes it was as wonderful as you think.

This was one of my favorite buildings in Chichen Itza (see if you can find Josh)

Jenn and I infront of an observatory this whole place is awsome!!!

In front of the famos temple there.
They have some fascination with skulls.

Tagged from Lori

1. Thor, 2. Italian Blue DS Decapotable, 3. Green River high bridges, 4. Green Womble House, 5. jared letto lo amoo (L), 6. Bahama Mama!, 7. Pieces of Europe, 8. Raspberry - Swirl Cheesecake, 9. Potentially so rich, practically extremely poor, 10. The Calvo Family - Holidays, 11. World's Largest Truck, 12. Buck Shot w/ P.D. Blank template


1-Thor 2-Italian 3-Greenriver high 4-green
5-Jared Leto (This is for my wife..if you can't beat them join them) 6-Bahama Mama Sin Alcohol 7- Europe 8-Cheesecake
9- Life Rich 10- My Family 11- large 12- Blank.



Here is how you can play too:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.



The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (kid version: favorite animal?)

Our Film Festival

At my job every year we do a film festival, this year Bryan and I were asked to be incharge and we even did our own film. This is the trailer we shot for it, enjoy.

Okay wow what a long weekend it started when Jenn and I went to The Cure on Friday. Most of the friends I went with have already blogged about it but I’ll put my spin on it. I mostly went for my wife who is a bigger Cure fan then me. I do like most of their songs and know a fair share of them. I went in excited but I was blown away by them. They are an older band each close or at 50 years old (sorry mom and dad but that’s old for a rock band). They played for over 3 hours. That’s right boys and girls they were amazing. If you get the chance do yourself a favor and go. This is not to mention that the lead guitarist was wearing 6 inch high heel boots for all that time.

Then on Saturday I took Mayson, Ashlynne, and Jordan on a hike with Bryan and his brother kinda of a daddy daughter hike. We went up this canyon call Adams Canyon and it’s not a super easy hike but all the kids did great. I had to carry Jordan all the way so it wasn’t super easy for me either. The hike was gorgeous I have never seen the canyon so green. It was like Oregon stopped to say hi to Utah. Everyone had fun and the girls are asking when we can go on another hike. It rained all day on Memorial day so I just ran and we cleaned the house.

This is Bryan's brother I just wanted to show The kids

some of the hike was difficult