TADAAAAAH!!

Well, most may have heard by now but if not...here's the big news.   I'm engaged.   Kristen and I have been dating for a little over 6 months.  She was able to come down to my place for Thanksgiving this last week and got to meet my entire family.  (sort of a road test to see if she still wants to be with me)  well....she passed.  I had planned to do it on wednesday but it was cold and rainy the entire day.  So I figured that I  would do it on Thanksgiving.  Again it was cold and rainy.  I only had one day left to ask her before we had to leave for Rexburg.  Luckily it was great weather on Friday.  So the plan was to use this activity called geo cacheing.  It's these little containers of trinkets that people put in random places and then put their coordinates on this website where people can look them up and then use their gps devices to find them.  Well, there's three of them fairly close to our house.  So I asked her about a month ago if she wanted to do that when she came down and so I told her that the coordinates would be ready when she got down here.  That way I could put the ring in my own spot without having to put the coordinates on the internet.  So when we were about to go out, I had dad take the ring to my spot and keep an eye on it.  All the while Kristen and I went  to the office to get the park's gps device.  dum dum dum...it  wasn't there.   bah!!!  So I improvised and told her that I knew the general where they were at and we could just look around there.  Luckily she's pretty gullicalf...even gullible and believed me.  Anyhoo...I took her to the first real one in case she caught on that this was how I was going to propose.  We looked around for a little while until we found it.  Then I drove past the second one so we went straight to the third one (which is where the ring was).  We walked up this small hill towards this cool rock formation.  All the while diverting her attention away from dad's truck on the other road.  We got to the top of the hill and began to look around the base of the rock.  I casually went over to where the ring was and exclaimed "i found it."  she came over and while I was down on one knee, I  turned around with the ring.  She said "you're tricky."  I then proceeded to propose and with a huge smile on her face she accepted. (believe it or not)  It worked out great.  We've sorta decided on april 11 as our date.  It's not set in stone but it's all we've got right now.  We're gonna get married in the Rexburg temple.  If you want any more details or have any more questions...let me know

Cheap netbooks

For anybody that might be interested in getting a little mini laptop like mine, it looks like they will be on sale this weekend for only $300. Not bad, considering I paid almost double that only a couple of months ago. I've got to quit being an early adopter of technology.

LINK

Costume Pictures

Sarah mentioned today that she wanted to see pictures of those costumes I made (or did you just mean the dress? Oh well) so I guess I'll post a few here! Me in my dress and wig as Toph Bei Fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender. A few of you might recognize it. The dress was made from a wedding dress, a long-sleeved t-shirt, quilt binding, duct tape, interfacing and some hand stitching. I think it turned out nice! Soon as I can, though, I'll be machine-sewing it all to make it more durable.The back shot of my wig. I wish I had found a longer one so I could have more hair to work with, but oh well. Jeez, do I look weird with black hair.

This is the costume I wore for most of the convention and for Halloween. I'm really happy with how the armor came out, having made it myself. That was a fun little experement in prop armor. Don't ask me about that weird expression. I think I was trying to look tough. Wish I had taken that dumb lanyard off, too...

Lastly, the outfit I came up with for the "rave" dance. It's supposed to be a punked-out version of that ^ costume up there. I had glowsticks taped to me all over the place. And sticking outta my hair. ^_^ Too bad the dance wasn't as fun as I was hoping it would be.

Oh, and one last picture you might find amusing:

There was a Transformer there. XD Soundwave, I think his name was. Poor guy couldn't fit through most of the doors, though.

So there you go! Proof of my insanity, but I still think they're pretty cool costumes.

Happy Birthday

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to my girl Sarah - Happy Birthday!

Its bitter sweet, but it seems like just yesterday we were all sleeping in the same room and shouting "don't sit down at all!" Another year has gone by and Sarah, you are still the coolest, most beautiful lady I know. You are always so creative and clever with every thing you do, always so kind and really make the rest of us feel lazy and uninteresting when ever we hear about one of your new "projects". You are an amazing and inspirational woman, and I have always been so proud of being able to call you my sister. I hope your day is beautiful and I hope tomorrow is even better. Your the best.




For this Birthday installment, I thought I'd go with a little smattering of cake batter on the face rather that the traditional placenta juice. Enjoy.

New Family Member

A while back, Sarah posted a blog about their new family member being their new car. Well now it's my turn. Jennifer and Mom have been agitating for a while about how much gas my truck uses, and how big it is and what a pain is is to see out the back with the camper shell on and so on and so on. So Mom and I were in St. George last week and we decided to look at something more fuel efficient. We ended up going back to the dealer we bought the Mitsubishi from and ended up getting a new Subaru Impreza. I got to thinking, and after 30 years of marriage, this the very first really new car we've ever had. We bought a Ford Escort once, but it was a demonstrator and had about 5000 miles on it when we got it. This one is brand new and so far, we like it rather a lot. The only thing to complain about may be the manual transmission. Jennifer is mad because she has to learn how to drive a clutch better. But it seems to be getting about 30 MPG and is lots of fun to drive. We figured Bryce would be pleased with us getting a Subaru.

^New Hotness --------------------Old and Busted^
(Will Smith, Men in Black II)
Anyway, things here are about as usual. I've been able to get up on Cedar Mountain lately and do some trail marking in preparation for the snowmobile season. Things have pretty much slowed down here at the park. We're planning on going to Provo this weekend for the BYU-SDSU football game - my cousin Blake offered to put us up and let us have 2 of his season tickets. Taylor and Daniel were able to get a couple more for Todd and Jennifer, so we are all going to be able to go. Should be lots of fun. The weather even looks decent.
Well, that's about it for me. We're looking forward to Thanksgiving more than you can imagine (or maybe not, since you are all coming as well). See you soon! Dad
P.S. Sorry about, the 'old and busted' crack, Todd. Couldn't resist. :)

Old Broncos and Big Buffalo

I haven't posted anything for a long time now and thought this was a good excuse to add something fun. Patrick and I went up to Antelope Island today for the yearly buffalo roundup. Thanks to dad's contacts in high places, we "volunteered" to help with said roundup by hopping in some old Broncos and cutting the herd at high and near poop inducing speeds. Chris, the ranger driving the Bronco, went through POST with dad and skillfully negotiated the chaos while we listened to Carrie Underwood on the radio... crazy. This certainly wasn't on my list of things to do before I die, but I'm glad I left room to pencil it in.

Other than that, life has been pretty hum drum. Rachelle and I have been really happy to have so much company this past month, including family and our good friend Bennett. Halloween wasn't very eventful but I did get to dress up a bit for school. I've posted a couple videos of the round up and my costume. Love you all.

Halloween - " On Location Weather Man"