Tallest Peak in Utah? Check. Photographic evidence to prove it? Check. 30 Miles and 5000 ft elevation change in three days? Check.
Mad Dog and I just through Gunpoint Pass.
View from Kings Peak. Wow.
Tallest character in Utah. You're welcome for this NOT being a close-up. Very nasty facial hair was brewing at this point.
High-altitude-snow-run-off-lake swim? Yes, please.
High Altitude sun bathing? Twice as effective? Par for the course.
From Carrie
Parents and I at the Cedar City Parade.
Showing off Cedar City's 'Guns'...What other Parades have tanks? Communist countries.
A "Happy Birthday, America" CupCake. By Jenny.
Holidays mean more time with VAN-imal. And since I find Vanimal to be the most photogenic in the family, that means more pictures. Bon apetite.
Just-waking-up-from-a-nap Van.
Hello Patriotic Suspenders.
Some of the family watching Jim Gaffigan. The kicker here, Van OBVIOUSLY loves my laugh, as this picture so appropriately captures. Favorite Uncle? Undoubtedly.
This isn't Van. Don't worry, I don't have some time-traveling future-picture-taking camera. It's Patriotic Dad at the Parade. Sleeping. Favorite shot.
I have found TWO Black Widow Spiders in the past few days. I feel like I'm on of Expedition Africa.
At least the size of a fist....maybe just a new born babies fist though. 
The famed hourglass red mark on the abdomen.
Maybe the Panguitch Hot Air Balloon Rally is so shockingly awesome because who would go to Panguitch and expect to see anything so spectacular.
The Rally is a new sort of tradition; It's tenth year. The rally has grown to 35 balloons launching each morning for a weekend. It's a kickoff everyday to some surprisingly neat things that include, but are not limited to, a "dusk glow" [balloons lighting up at night], a 5k, a FREE Pancake breakfast, a Harley Davidson Parade, a normal Parade and a DUSK GLOW Dance.
I loved it so much that I took way to many pictures [88]. Here are just a few...
The Balloons 'Waking up' [Yawn!]
Lift Off
Cool Eclipse
Cool Parents
Cool Pic
PS, Just in time for the Fourth of July, a little Patriotic love from the Corvettes in the parking lot :)
The Title is in reference to a pair of TOMS Shoes I just ordered. I'm very excited about these little guys. I'm posting this because a year ago I talked about how I wanted to try out a pair of these. Well, this is follow through...I have follow-through-ability. Very important. [Tawni, do you read this?]
Should be a good summer shoe.
It takes a village to raise a child. As far as bikes are concerned, that's true. I decided to repaint the Nishiki, so I enlisted the help of SuperStar Painter and Bachelor of Fine Arts Major David Hawkins. His attention to detail and skill were a great value to the project. Cousin Rob helped disassemble the bike and the sanding and painting got underway.
Rob and I doing some late night heating and scraping. [The family resemblance is obvious in this picture. We're hair-identical twins]
Setting up the frame and fork at B-66 to use some power tools.
Using the power tools. It was exciting and a little disheartening. What took us hours and hours to do was getting done in a matter of minutes. 15+ hours sanding by hand = 45 minutes in the shop.
I saw a preview on TV not to long ago for a new Debra Messing TV show called The Starter Wife. It looks horrible. Just last week I bought my first road bike, a Nishiki Olympic 61 cm; My Starter Bike. It's already much more promising. 
The bike is in good working order [right now]. I've had no flat tires, no chain / derailleur malfunctions and I've even received a few whistles from passers-by [Some of that last statement was false]. Even though in good working order, the list of potential upgrades is already growing. The first modifications are aesthetically functional; so look for some updates soon!!
May 20th we went to Fenway to catch a Red Sox game. My first in Fenway. The event started off memorable enough, we got free parking! Parking in Boston isn't like parking out west, which there is a lot of. Out east, the parking is limited and the cost is high. So we drove up to Yawkey Way and decided to work from the inside out, to see if we couldn't stumble upon some great parking. Right at Fenway we asked a cop [sidenote, all cops are used as traffic mediators in Boston...they do no actual crime solving...strictly traffic enforcement] if he could give us some tips for where to park. It was useless....Better said, the Cop was useless.
He told us that the $30 parking was as good as any and that we should pay it. We explained we were from back West, and $30 isn't something you pay for parking. He then officially welcomed us to Boston. We drove another few hundred feet and saw a parking garage...Someone was leaving. The mechanical arm that would have normal blocked our entrance was stuck up. After a slick maneuver worthy of a James Bond movie, we slid into a spot in the back of the Garage. Unbeknownst to the parking attendants, we had scored a Parking spot, feet from Fenway. This was destined to be a great experience.
The game was memorable, and the Bostonian crowd was in Good spirits/form for the event. 
There was a slight nip in the air, and the possibility of rain hung heavy over the stadium.. But the scare of the clouds was much worse then there light drizzle bite. Fenway Park has this cool thing outside of it, at Gate B, called the Scalp Free Zone. You go there looking for tickets and you can buy them from other people, but the cool part is that you buy them at face value. You work through a Red Sox employee and he acts as the mediator for the transaction. Genius. Pictured is the Scalp Free zone.
We got to the game, a little early but there were no complaints from any of the three of us. It was our first trip to Fenway and it seemed that we needed the extra time to soak in the experience. We arrived at the stadium about two hours early, and it was surprisingly full. That was our first hint that this was going to be a different experience. We got to our seats [ ] right next to Pesky Pole. We walked around the stadium for a minute and got out to Yawkey Way. We were done exploring the historic ballpark and headed back to our seats in time to hear the introduction to the lineup. The Red Sox were playing the Royals, a matchup I had seen at Kaufman Stadium four years earlier. Jon Lester pitched the 18th No-Hitter in Red Sox history the previous night, and the crowd seemed especially alleviated knowing that history was made the night before. 
The chill in the air was becoming stronger and stronger as the night progressed, but so was the excitement in the air. Before long, we were standing and stretching in the seventh inning. Every hit ball, even if for a split second, seemed like it was heading our way, only to land sections away in the glove of another lucky fan. Tradition runs deep at Fenway and the eighth inning we stood and sang Sweet Caroline. I felt apart of a club. There was a brotherhood there. Before we even sat down, Jonathan Papelbon was running onto the field to "Wild Thing." Chills were running down our necks. The stadium was electric. They played Drop Kick Murphy's "I'm shipping out to Boston", the song that IS Boston in my eyes.
The Boylston Street Apple store is our new Boston Playground. Macrumors reported that the store, which opened on May 15th, is the largest apple store in the U.S. It's three stories, with the top story dedicated purely to software, the second story dedicated to purely Macbooks, Macbook Pro's, Air's and CPU's, and the first floor to iPods...I've been in Boston less then two weeks and we've already been by twice, with a semi-major purchase in the works for tomorrow morning :) I love the playgroud.
Fall River Massachusetts is home of Battleships Cove which houses the USS Massachusetts, the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr, the USS Lionfish and some german boat called the Hiddensee. The day we went, it was drizzling rain at the Cove but there wasn't any wind. The light rain gave everything a feel that it had just been cleaned, and the boats seemed even more brilliant then when we had passed them the days before.
Looking through a Periscope. Very U-571 of us. 
Fall River also has a large Portuguese population. 47% of the population describe themselves as being of Portuguese descent, the largest percentage of any city in the United States. The Portuguese came over back in the 1940's and 1950's because Fall River used to be a large port for fishing, and that was something they were super good at in Portugal. This is a picture of the Portuguese Navy at Battleship Cove.:)
Rhode Island is the funniest state in the Union....Well, the funniest state we've been to so far.
To its credit, Rhode Island is, as seen on the sign, Home of the 2008 World Scholar Athlete Games, Hall of Fame Tennis Championships, College Sailing National Championship, and the Golden Retriever National Specialty. But just to be cool, we saw the Ocean, in the Ocean state. Bam. To it's credit, It was the best twenty minutes of that trip.
Im getting sick of having to log onto Britten Newbill's MySpace page to listen to his music, but its so good that I can't stop it. Britten is a really good friend of Truman's from Nashville. Story has it they performed in Show Choir together at Beech HS. Britten went on to the Berklee School of Music in Boston and now writes and makes music in Nashville.
I have to keep going to his myspace page because he never gives out his music to anyone. I bet we can get it from him eventually. Im gonna send him a message on Facebook asking to break the tradition. Hopefully this blog shout out will help.
My two favorite songs are 'SHE' and 'REAL ONE.' Listen up
