And we return from our silence yet again. Or just me, I
guess. This week Darrell has been at scout camp with the deacons in our ward.
He loves scouting so he has been pretty excited for this. I’ve been here,
working, holding down the business as well as my amateur self can, checking
tons off my to-do list, and putting everything else possible before studying
for my insurance license exam. This, as you may have guessed, is one such
thing.
Darrell and I love summers together. It’s definitely taken
more effort to figure out where the good stuff happens now that we are in Utah
county than we are used to after both living in Cache Valley for so long. I’d
say it’s been pretty awesome though. Darrell fixed up the motorcycle so we take
that on Sunday rides sometimes. We’ve got our summer calendar marked with all
the outdoor movies and each nearby city’s summer festival/days, along with
anything else random I’ve been able to find. We mountain bike a few times a
week and have only fit in one hammock camping trip so far, but hope for a few
more. Last week we went down to Manti and saw the pageant with Darrell’s
parents because his dad was down there on a charter and neither of us have seen
it before. My main goal of the summer is to go ziplining in Provo canyon at
some point, and I think Darrell’s was accomplished with our mountain bike race
a few weeks back. (More on that in a minute.) We both do a lot with the youth,
and more on our yard than we like but less than we should since the house was
empty for so long before we bought it. For the lawn being so dead the rest of
the yard sure has jungled out with our massive bushes and tree shoots and weeds
coming up everywhere. Darrell has been siding our shed (another skill this
house has blessed us to need to acquire) and I’ve been raking, trimming, and
weeding into large piles we will have to take in a few loads to the dump
sometime soon.
We went up to Logan a few weeks ago so Darrell could go to a
friend’s bachelor party, I could see two of my favorite study abroad friends,
and to have some time with Darrell’s family. We’ve watched A LOT of world cup
soccer, and got to see my sister and her family when they drove through Salt
Lake on their way to Washington D.C. for the summer. They have 4 kids and we
always enjoy whenever we get to see them and the kiddos. We’ve been to a few
weddings already this summer, with more coming and a trip to Omaha for my other
sister’s wedding in August.
I’m still enjoying not commuting and working less away from
home, thus more at home. I’ve been using our new Blendtec blender a ridiculous
amount, learning how to grill, and love having more good produce out now that
it’s summer. There is a guy just across State Street from us who has orchards
and calls me whenever he thinks I might want something he’s picking that week.
And while we are waiting mostly until next spring to plant our actual garden, a
few of my herbs are coming in well and we planted a peach tree in our backyard
this week! (It’s an Elberta; thus his name is Albert.)
Darrell is working hard as usual. He’s been doing a ton of
networking in the area, picking up some additional products and companies to
offer, and working on a few big proposals that will hopefully lead to good
things later on. He’s been awesome taking me mountain biking with him again
this year and being willing to work on the yard, sprinklers, etc with me even
though it’s no fun now that the evenings are so warm. Also, our cat likes him
best which is okay with me at 4:00 in the morning when she asks him to let her
outside to play instead of me, but not so great when she thinks she has
snuggling dibs. Furry traitor.
So, bike race. Darrell got me into mountain bike the summer
before we got married. I went a few times that year on his old bike, went when
we could fit it in after I got off work on my early nights and before it got
dark last summer, and this summer I’ve been going with him pretty consistently
1-2 times a week. I even got me a new bike last year from Deer Creek’s rental
fleet at the end of the season. J
Full suspension 29er=Kaela liking mountain biking more. Darrell has been
mountain biking since he was a teenager and is awesome, so I work to keep up
with him. We were talking to some friends in our ward months back and Ely,
Nevada came up. For those (probably almost all) of you who haven’t heard of
Ely, it’s just past McGill, Nevada. J
Basically it’s in the middle of nowhere. Darrell’s cousin and her family have a
ranch about 30 minutes from there. Our friend
from the ward is from Ely and her dad runs an enduro mountain bike race each
year, so they invited us when they found out we were fans. I don’t like failing
at things, but after looking at the map of each class in the race Darrell and I
decided we’d really regret it if we didn’t sign up. So we printed some jerseys with our logo, went
on a few test rides, and just kept getting more excited. We were a little
worried about the mileage and elevation (mine was 13 miles and 1200 feet,
Darrell’s was 26 miles and 3500 feet) but were surprised how well we did. I
could have gone a couple more miles after mine, but I was glad I picked the
racing class I did because the next class up was an additional 6 miles. Don’t
think I would have enjoyed that as much. Darrell and I rode together for the
first portion of the race through a couple casinos in town and part of the way
up the mountain. He kept going and I moved on to my timed “downhill” sections. I
got done about 2 hours before him, so Darrell’s cousin and her husband brought
their kids into town to have a picnic with me while we waited to cheer for
Darrell as he rode back to the park after his finish. Darrell and I spent the
rest of the day laying around the park, watching the pro and expert riders come
down the crazy downhill trail on Whorehouse Hill. (Yes, that’s what it’s
called.) They had a dinner for all the riders after the races finished and then
a drawing and awards. I won 1st place out of the women in my class
(there were only 4 women) and Darrell got 11th overall in his class
of over 40 riders. The only disappointment for the day was that we didn’t get
to partake of the free beer they handed out at the end of the races. That’s
what you get for being a Mormon participating in a race called Fears, Tears and Beers I guess.
Switching writers now, and I (Darrell) want to give a quick
report on our scout trip. We took off Monday
morning for camp Tife located in the mountain above Mt. Pleasant. We had one of the smallest patrols with only
three boys but these kids delivered! Each morning there was a competition to
earn the spirit stick, the award for the troop that does their troop yell the
best. Every morning a new word was
introduced as a challenge to change up their yells. Even though they only had three boys, they
were successful in winning the spirit stick twice! They are some pretty great kids. They all worked really hard to earn merit
badges and we all had a great time. Me
and the other scout leader, Marc Brown, figured that we would have a lot of
time to sleep, read, go hiking, and otherwise kick back and enjoy a nice week
in the mountains. We did a lot of those
plus did a lot of training on how to be better scout leaders. We learned a ton of things that are going to
help us create a program that is designed for the success of the boys.
