My love of moshing

Posted by Mark:

You know how you go through phases in life? Like on my mission I went through a grilled cheese sandwich phase where I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches with a bowl of top ramen every day for lunch. That lasted a few months but I soon grew tired of it and moved onto my next food phase. Well, when I got home from my mission I went through a concert phase (I know the concert and grilled cheese sandwich phase don’t exactly relate well but food phases are the only thing I can think of right now). Anyway, I got home and was trying to get back into the whole “music scene.” Mostly trying to figure out who I liked and who I didn’t.

So after a bit of research and suggestions from my good friend Chris Leppert, I started listening to a few bands to which I soon quite enjoyed. Shortly thereafter I found out that these bands would be coming to town and playing in extremely small venues. This was unusual and new for me because before this time I had only been to two concerts in my life. Dave Mathews Band and Depeshe Mode. Both these concerts were held in the E-center where you were restricted to the seat your ticket told you to sit (not that fun). However, after going to these smaller venues, I fell in love with the entire concert experience that these relatively obscure bands brought.

I loved how close you could get to the stage by just muscling your way forward through the throngs of people. I loved being surrounded by fellow fans that would yell out the lyrics to the songs just as loud as I would. I loved the loud music that resonated throughout my body. But most of all I loved the mosh pits. Now most of you might think this is stupid and extremely violent, but anyone that participates regularly in mosh pits will agree that there are several different levels of mosh pitting. These different levels ranged from the simple group of people just jumping up and down in unison all the way to the better known and violent kinds that consisted of people throwing powerful fists and elbows causing serious pain and discomfort. I tended to stick to the mid level mosh pits. There was just something fun about jumping around pushing others about and the occasional crowd surfing that made the evening extremely rewarding.

I really couldn’t tell you how many concerts I went to during this little phase in life but it was a lot! If I had to pick a favorite concert it would have to be the Dashboard Confessional concert back in 2005. This concert was at a private party hosted by Le-Tigre clothing up in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. Not only is Dashboard my absolute favorite band ever, I think I enjoyed this specific concert so much because I randomly stumbled upon it while reading the newspaper. At first I was disheartened to learn that it was a private party and there was no amount of money that one could pay to get tickets (believe me I know because I tried bribing anyone I talked to). I wasn’t about to let this bit of bad news stop me. To make a long story short, I went up to Park City anyway and hung around outside the venue for almost 3 hours in the freezing cold of January. Then just before throwing in the towel and return home defeated, almost commando like, I masterfully devised a plan in which I jumped a wall, hid behind a sign, and ran out of sight behind at least a dozen 300 pound bouncers (who also wouldn’t be bribed) until I emerged victorious inside the venue free to enjoy the concert to my liking. Looking back I think I was on an adrenalin high from the sneaking into the concert, but couple that with the fact that this was the first time I had seen my favorite band live... you get the best concert ever!

Like most phases in life I matured and grew out of it. I got tired of finding a few dozen bruises all over my body the next day, I got tired of being squished and surrounded by 1000 sweaty adolescent kids. But most of all I think what changed me was having a serious girlfriend/wife. Kimmi wasn’t exactly blessed with the height gene so when she got into those kinds of crowds she would be swallowed by the people around her (Side note by Kimmi: I used to like mosh pits until the horrible day that a 300 lb sweaty man was dropped on me while he was trying to crowd surf. I vowed never again!) So yeah I cared greatly for my wife's safety. We still went to a few concerts here and there, but tried to stay away from the large hoards of people. Lastly, moving to Twin Falls didn’t help much. If you can imagine, south eastern Idaho isn’t exactly a hot bed for band tours.

Now upon moving back to Salt Lake we will once again have the chance to start attending a few select concerts here and there and last week Kimmi was gracious enough to alert me of an impromptu Dashboard Confessional concert at our favorite Venue “In the Venue” (not really a clever name for a venue). When Kimmi called to tell me of the event, I nearly fell off my chair in the excitement of trying to hang up from the voice message that she left and getting online to buy tickets! I quickly had two tickets and looked forward to the next day’s concert. The reason we love this specific venue so much is because we can avoid the herd of people congregating around the stage and head straight up to their over 21 balcony level that wraps around the entire building. Up here we have a great view and we were able to get a great seat perched high in the rafters to just enjoy the music without being surrounded by psycho teenagers.

The concert was fantastic. It was an acoustic set in which he played songs predominantly from his first few albums (the albums I love the most). Even the opening band was a group that Kimmi and I strongly enjoy so the entire evening was a huge success. I walked away, as usual, without a voice and extremely satisfied with my return to the SLC concert scene.

Conclusion: Hands down the 2nd best concert I’ve ever been to!

P.S. If you recall from my last post our camera is out of juice so we were unable to personally take photos of the event. Luckily, we sat next to a nice couple who upon asking us if we’d take a photo of them, agreed in return to take a photo of us and email it to me after the show. Personally, I think we got the better end of the deal.Here are the photos! Enjoy.

Here we are in our great seats. As you can see we were literally in the rafters. The bench we sat on was at least six feet above the balcony I spoke of in the post.

This is the opening band New Found Glory. They said that this was the first acoustic tour they've ever done and found it different not to see the entire crowd mosh pitting to their songs. They were a very funny band live. PLease notice the formal wear they decided on just for us.

And this is the ah-inspiring Dashboard Confessional. I think this is now the fourth time I've seen him live. Great, great, band. Love it.

REALLY long update about the Dibb family. Grab a chair and a glass of eggnog cause you have a lot to read today!

Posted by Mark:

As a great deal of you most likely know, Kimmi and I are officially back living and working in SLC. I’d like to declare that my slackness in updating my blog is entirely due to the fact that we’ve been quite busy re-acclimating to some sort of normalcy in our day to day life. I can’t say that we are fully back to that point, but when the day comes that you start getting people coming up to you and asking why we haven’t updated our blog in so long, you know it’s time to take a few minutes and give a bit of an update.

I’ll warn you in advance that if you were looking forward to some lovely photos that you are so used to seeing on our blog then you will most likely be sorely disappointed. I anticipate this post to be entirely words. Truly one of the worst parts about moving is that you lose all competency as to where your stuff is or what box you packed which item. Such is the story with our camera charger. The battery on the camera is dead and we are 50% sure as to which box the charger is packed in but we are 0% sure as to where the box is placed inside Ken and Linda’s garage. In the next few days we should be relocating all the boxes currently residing in the garage to our newly built shed(see below), so we should be able to find the cord at that point (or at least we’ll know for sure if it’s in the box we think it is in).

Upon leaving the lovely town of Twin Falls we have placed our beloved home for sale and until the house sells we will not be able to purchase a new home (because who wants to pay two mortgage payments!! Not me). So until that bitter sweet day arrives we have planted our roots in the basement of Kimmi’s parents house in Murray. Our living arrangements may be tight, but I can’t complain to its freeness and the fact that on most nights Kimmi’s mom makes a fantastic home cooked meal for dinner. Due to our lack of storage space almost all of our known possessions are stored in the garage. Not wanting to plug up Ken and Linda’s garage for a few months Kimmi came up with a brilliant idea. Instead of throwing perfectly good money away to the monthly fee of a storage unit we would purchase a relatively inexpensive shed to erect on the side of the house and store all the stuff in there. Then after we find a new place to live we can either take the shed with us, sell the shed to Ken and Linda to use at their own personal convenience, OR sell it to Joe Schmo on craigslist. Thus saving the all mighty $$.

We spent a great deal of our Thanksgiving weekend building this shed and after hundreds and hundreds of screws and bolts we were almost completely done! It took about two more after work evenings to complete the entire project. I must point out that Kimmi is a fantastic site supervisor. She kept me from the frustration of trying to decipher the gibberish (a.k.a. Instructions) as well as keeping me from the many times that I felt that I knew best and wanted to jimmy rig a solution to a problem that could easily be solved by referring to the above gibberish. Granted, my ideas would have worked, but in the long run I probably would have made it worse. I think we spent a good 10 hours building this thing not including the time I spent building a lovely wooden foundation for it to rest on. When it is done we will be ready to free the garage from the clutter that is our stuff and of course replace it with the items that are our cars. I think Kimmi and I could both do without having to go start our frigid cars each morning so we don’t die of frostbite on the way to the Trax station.

Yes you did read correctly, we are taking Trax to work every day! This is especially new and unusual for me due to the fact that I used to have a dead set resolve to never in my life ride Utah’s light rail system. Not that I don’t think Trax is a wonderful thing for Salt Lake, I just liked the look on peoples face when I told them of my quest (since for so long Trax had no convenience for me). It was easy to go these 10 years without riding the thing. Oh well, 10 years is a pretty good run. Anyway on to what we’re doing in life. Kimmi has a great job at the University of Utah Hospital in their H&I Lab. Don’t ask me to spell out what the letters “H” and “I” mean because I can barely say them as words let alone put them on paper. All I know is that she works in the lab that deals with organ transplants where she gets to test their compatibilities to potential patients. She loves it. Not only is it something new and exciting for her to learn but she doesn’t have to work ridiculous hours. We are starting to live what a great majority of the world calls a normal life. 8 to 5 Monday through Friday with weekends and holidays off! It’s great.

As for me, after deciding to give up the car business, I applied myself to much pondering and research as to what I wanted to do with my future professional career. It was quite odd to be 26 and not have an answer to the question so commonly asked throughout childhood “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Anyway, among my searching, I found myself continually drawn wherever I looked to the Procurement & Purchasing profession. Upon deciding that this was my new calling in life I began applying to a bunch of jobs here, there, and everywhere. I soon had the frightful realization that I wasn’t exactly looking for a new career during the best time of US history. Thankfully my grandfather caught word that I was looking for a job and it just so happened he is currently heading up a ginormous worldwide organization. Like the fantastic grandfather that he is, he lined me up a few interviews in a few of the departmental areas I was interested in and Voila! I’m now working for the Church in their Materials Management Department! Specifically I work on a team called the Global Supply Chain Management Team who at the moment are spearheading the effort to create an e-store for the Distribution Center in order to replace the old one and make it more user-friendly and more widely used. I would tell you more about what I do but I doubt you’d find it as fascinating as Kimmi’s organ transplant stuff. Regardless I must say that I am extremely pleased with the job and I lavish in the plethora of knowledge I get to work around on a daily basis. Truly it’s like being in college again, without the nasty amount of tests and homework that I so hated.

Anyway, life is good and what an incredibly interesting year it’s been at the Mark & Kimmi Dibb home! It’s not every day you flip your world upside down but we’ve come out on the other side alive and happy. We are excited to back in Utah among friends and family. Of course we are sad to leave our house behind in Idaho and the close friends we made there but in the long run we feel it’s the best move for ourselves and our one-day down the road family. I hope I did a good enough job authoring our update. If you have any questions don’t be shy to ask. I probably forgot something! Sorry again that it’s all just words. Maybe I’ll try to find some photo that we took on our camera before it gave up the ghost.

Here you go! I felt bad that I didn't post any photos so I found this one that we took at Ken and Linda's house before the camera died....this is Beatrice's new favorite place to sleep.

Halloween 2009

Posted by Mark:

Some friends in the ward threw a little shin-dig at their house for Halloween, so of course we jumped at the opportunity to dress up for at least one party this year. We decided to go as Secret Service agents because really it was quite inexpensive! I own the suit already, I own the sun glasses already.... all we had to buy was a black blazer from the D.I. for Kimmi and 64 cents worth of wire at Lowes for our nifty ear pieces!! Anyway here is the result.... Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

A costume is never complete unless you take on the FULL personality of the interpretation.... here we are...two secret service agents DEEP in love... showing all the affection for one another that we know how.


"The perimeter is secure...I repeat... The perimeter is secure....P.S. don't eat the devil eggs they smell a bit dodgy"

What a good wife

Posted by Mark:

So last weekend Kimmi and I made a little road trip to SLC (one of our last thankfully...I grow weary of that long drive). We decided to take a load of boxes down in order to take a small chunk out of the large amount of stuff we'll be moving down in a few weeks. We had a fun trip. Lots to do as always, and lots of friends and family to see. Our good friend Megan Asper was up from Arizona so we spent time with her since we've been deprived of her company now that they've left Utah to pursue bigger and better things.

A big chunk of our time was spent at my parents house rescuing all my childhood memories that are strewn throughout my parents house. You see, after 19 years of living on Mile High Drive and 29 years of living in the Mt. Olympus 9th ward, my parents have decided to pull up stakes and downsize to a smaller home in the east millcreek area. Now since they are downsizing, my parents are on the war path with all the little nick-knacks we children collected over our young lives, yet decided not to take with us when we left the nest. So the warning has gone out that if we don't take it now it will end up in the trash or at the D.I. It was kind of fun going through my old stuff finding old photos and letters from friends back in the 90's. However after going through my stuff I felt bad for my older brother who lives in North Carolina and is unable to come to Salt Lake till Christmas. With that being the case his stuff was in grave danger. And me being the nice and loving brother that I am I volunteered to be his surrogate and do the sorting and memory rescuing for him. I'm pretty sure I did a good job... better at least then my dad would have done. I made three piles, stuff I knew he'd want, stuff I didn't think he wanted (a.k.a. Trash) and stuff to ask him about. When I was done, Alan and I had a fun conversation going through that pile over the phone. I was confused as to the stuff that he actually wanted to keep.... like all his homework assignments and tests from High School???... Anyway our rooms are now ready to be completely gutted of all stuff to the hearts content of my parents.


Lastly, and in regards to the title of this post, there was of course a Utah football game over the weekend that I desperately wanted to attend (I missed far to many while living in Idaho). I made a lot of phone calls trying to locate myself a ticket to the game but was highly unsuccessful. I was even willing to buy tickets from people on KSL.com but even they wouldn't call me back (at least the ones that were somewhat of a reasonable price). Anyway in the final hours my good friend Nate called me back to tell me that he located two tickets for me and they would be waiting for me at will call....I was SOOO excited.... On top of that my good wife reluctantly volunteered to be my football companion. So very nice of her. She was a trooper. Even when it began to rain! We had a fun time....well at least I know I did.

What was even more fun was the fact that my grandpa was getting the game ball at this game! Usually no one really pays attention to the presentation of the game ball but I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear the great uproar of cheers and clapping that came as my grandpa stepped onto the field to be recognized. Anyway, all in all it was a fun weekend.

Our House

As most of you know by now, we are moving back to Salt Lake and have put our house on the market. We are hopeful that we can sell it quickly, but we can always use an extra hand. Here is the link to our House Blog. If you know of anyone looking for a house, please have them take a look! Enjoy!

This is funny

Posted by Mark

I found this on facebook and thought it was pretty funny.....Take that Provo! No one likes you!!! Not even Dwight Schrute! I didn't know he moonlighted as a taxi cab driver....

Today's craft project brought to you by Kimmi

Glass Jar Etchings!

I saw this awesome idea in my beloved Martha Stewart Magazine and just had to copy it for my new kitchen! I absolutely loved the way they turned out! I found these jars at Walmart, found the stickers and etching cream at my local Michael's, and the pattern idea in my head! So while Mark and I watched some Friends on tv, I worked away. I must say the hardest part about it was making my lines straight. I had the keep setting them down and look at them from afar. I finally got my lines and letters on and headed outside for 5 minutes of etching. It was an easy project and I am very happy with the way they turned out. They are happily sitting on my counter top full of flour, sugar, and treats for Beatrice!

The pictures aren't the best, but you get the idea.....

A few events I have neglected to write about

Posted by Mark:

Well it's 3am and I'm quite bored waiting for my wife to get home from work this evening.... and since its been for ever since we posted anything I guess I'll load some photos of some stuff we've been up to over the last little while.

A few weeks ago I agreed to go fishing with Kimmi's step-dad Ken, my future brother in law Pat, and my little bro. Jeff. It sounded like some good fun seeing that I hadn't been fishing in years! Not trying to brag, but after you've been fishing in Alaska nothing else quite feels the same. It kind of ruins you for life. If you don't catch a large strong fighting fish on every cast it isn’t worth getting out of bed. Anyway, I was promised the fact that they had never come home empty handed from the fishing hole we were headed to so I lowered my pride and dusted off my fishing gear. If nothing else it was fun to get up into the beautiful Utah mountains and breathe some fresh air.



To be honest after 20 or 30 minutes of fruitless casting I began retreating to my prior beliefs and really almost threw in the towel. However I decided to do a bit of exploring up the river in order to find the perfect fishing hole. It wasn't much longer after that I hit the mother load! Although the fish we caught were rather small, it was entertaining to begin reaping the rewards of my perseverance. This one here was a really pretty Brook Trout so I thought I'd get a picture.



Later that night we met up with our good friends Tim and Ashley and went to dinner at one of our favorite summer restaurants, Cafe Trio. We love it because they have a great outside patio to dine on.... and of course they have some great food as well. I had the spaghetti and meatball (singular). The meatball is the size of a baseball! Very tasty . Then we made our way to the Utah State Fair! I've found that many people go to state fairs for very different reasons... some like the rides, some like the food, some like to see all the weirdos that strangely crawl out from under their rocks (a.k.a Tooele) to attend. For me however I go to see the farm animals!

We all very much enjoyed the goat house. Kimmi and I both would like to one day have a pet goat...you know, one of those really little ones.. I think they are cute and they'd be great for keeping the weeds down and eating my grass clippings. Kimmi and I also want a pet duck....just in case you were wondering...


It was hard to get Ashley away from this pen of goats because she was convinced she had found her soul mate. Still to this day she talks about how much she misses that goat.


Out of respect for my grandfather I made it a point to walk through the chicken house even though my wife has a avid fear of birds (why she wants a pet duck in spite of which I'm still not sure). My grandpa has always raised chickens and I wanted to represent him and examine the prize winning Rhode Island Red's that they had on hand. If you are curious, this is the ONLY breed of chicken my grandpa will own.

The chicken in the picture is of course NOT a Rhode Island Red but you get the idea... This one was just one of the prize winning roosters.... I liked it cause it had a massive comb.... Quick side note story....In my last area of my mission I decided it would be REALLY cool to have a pet chicken in our backyard so that we could have fresh eggs every morning.... My only dilemma was that I wasn’t really sure how.... or where to get a chicken so the idea kind of got pushed aside... However, one day we were walking down the street tracting, when low and behold a angelic white chicken was just making its way down the street of this suburb in Melbourne.... I thought my prayers had been answered!! Having to think quickly I instructed my companion to run a little ways down the street to get our car and my plan was to somehow catch the bird and stick it in the trunk.... this really wasn't a well thought out plan because what kind of chicken WANTS to be caught.... needless to say it didn’t work and my intended pet chicken ran into someone’s fenced back yard! Dang it!! I was pretty sad that day and have been traumatized because of such sadness...hence being able to recall this story with very little mental strain.


These pictures were taken in the fish house... I always liked this place with all the big aquariums with the giant trout. They were nice enough to place some items to pose with.


Although I'm glad my height made this photo all the more fun. In looking at it I’m kind of scared of my eyes!


Ashley and Kimmi liked the goats so much they decided to pretend and BE goats.



As always we had a fun time exploring the State Fair and I was proud to say I made it away without getting any kind of animal born disease.

The finished product

Posted by Mark

You've probably heard us talking endlessly that we've been remodeling our kitchen. Well, I'm happy to report that it's finally done!!!! Yeah for us!!! It took some seriously long hours, but it was well worth it. Thankfully, to give me a little boost of motivation to finish in a timely manner, my Dad was coming to Burley (a town 30 minutes east of us) in order to go to my cousin's mission farewell. When talking about coming to the farewell, my dad said he'd like to come see the finished kitchen. Therefore, I had a deadline to meet. I probably spent 4 or 5 days straight working all day and into the night, sometimes to 3 or 4 in the morning. By the end of it I thought I was going to die. It was as if I had just completed the iron man competition and had to crawl to bed and lay straight on my back so my poor spine could return to a more normal curvature. The most time consuming and arduous effort was put into the demo of the kitchen floor. Under the linoleum, I found plywood nailed down by at least 1000 inch long staples (no exaggeration here)! I spent an entire day with my buddy the vise grips pulling them all up one at a time. Stupidly, I didn't wear gloves so a acquired a few nasty blisters. Under the plywood was more linoleum, and finally under that were actual tiles. I found it frightening to learn that I listened to 40 hours of Pandora radio during those few days... I only know this because they cap you at 40 free hours a month before making you buy the expansion package. Anyway, in the end it looks awesome! I am very proud of our work and we are enjoying all our new and improved amenities. To list a few: our awesome dishwasher, disposal, a single basin sink deeper than four inches, handles that stay attached to their cabinets when you pull on them, bright lights, fresh paint, gorgeous floor, etc! Here are some photos of before and after. Enjoy!

Thanks to all those that helped in the transformation!

It's the simple things...

Posted by Mark:

You know the saying goes that "absence makes the heart grow fonder?" Well, I declare that it's not just a saying....it's a true fact of life! I know I'VE experienced the reality of this statement... Whether it's with my family, my friends, or above all my good wife. When we are apart, even though I do my best to put on a brave face and make do the best I can, it doesn't change the fact that when we are once again reunited with those we lost, it changes you.... you appreciate them more....you take a bit better care of them....and most of all you swear up and down that you will NEVER let this separation happen again..... Let me introduce you to an old friend of mine that I was graciously reunited with this evening.

His name is Fisher and Paykel....and he's a dishwasher.



It's been two long years since the days that I had the pleasure to use one of these great pieces of innovation and wonder in my own home. Sadly, with the great joys of owning a home built in the 1940's is the fact that they aren't generally stocked with all the modern fixings. But hey, we were willing to sacrifice convenience in order to get such a awesome house. But this week all that has changed. The kitchen remodel is all but done!!! We of course still need to paint and put in the new floors so you wont receive the full blog post reviewing the transformation until that time, but in order to test out my installation skills, I ran a load of dishes in our new fancy dancy single drawer dishwasher... and let me tell you it was like Christmas in August! Who knew clean dishes would bring so much joy to a mans heart, but they have! I'm pretty much gitty right now. The days of washing the dishes by hand and letting them air dry on the counter top are over!

Anyway I just wanted to shout this joyous news from the rooftops in the only way I really know how.... by blogging.

P.S. I really am quite proud of myself for the fact that I only had to make two trips to Lowes today in order to put all my projects together! You may laugh at this fact but that's no easy feet for me.... considering how much I had to do, and how little experience I have in the plumbing and electrical department. Just to list a few items I had to do today: install the new sink, new faucet, new valves, hoses, installing and plumbing the new disposal, (this is another new item for our kitchen of which I'm sure will get some props in another post, but I have yet to use it other then to make sure it works, so it will have to wait until I get gitty over that too) I had to wire the disposals power input and on/off switch, and last but not least, plumb the dishwasher.

This morning while I was wandering around Lowes buying all the items off my list I kept asking myself "I wonder how many times I'm going to be here today???" I made it all the way to the end of my install thinking I had accomplished the unachievable one trip to Lowes, but I reluctantly realized I needed one last rubber coupler to complete the connection from the P-trap to the wall. Therefore, one additional drive to my favorite home improvement store was needed. Even though I was excited to think that I almost made it all in one outing, I'm still happy with two.

Well until next time...farewell.

Help us out!

For some reason, our blog site decided to delete all of our addresses without our permission. So, help us out! If you don't see your name on the right hand side of our blog, PLEASE leave us your address. We don't want to miss out on any of our favorite bloggers! Thanks!

Vacation #2: Disneyland

Posted by Mark: (it's another long one!)

Kimmi's work arrangement at the hospital, 7 days on and 7 days off, definitely has its advantages. The greatest being the obvious bonus of being able to go on vacation at the drop of a hat during her allotted week off. This happened to be that kind of situation.

We have some good friends, Ashley and Tim, and for a great deal of time during our many years of friendship, we've never been on vacation together.....but not for lack of trying! It just never seemed to work out for one reason or another. Luckily this all changed this month when they announced to us their intentions to go to the happiest place on earth! At first Kimmi and I weren't sure if we were going to go.... but circumstances presented itself to the point that at the last second we decided to tag along! We are very glad we did. We had a blast. And much like our last vacation to tell the story I will do so through pictures.

Now one thing I thought was fun was that we had quite a few different legs within this journey. Like mini vacations amongst one BIG vacation. Our first leg, even before meeting up with Ashely and Tim, took us to a little town over in east Idaho called Menan. I'll explain why we were there in a second but first I wanted to point out that we reached a mile stone during this initial drive, and I was fortunate enough to see and take a picture of the event. Its not every day your jeep turns over 100,000 miles!


Leg #1:
The reason for driving to no-where's-ville Idaho was to go visit and say goodbye to our friends Megan and Kendall Asper (plus their son Lachlan of course). Kendall got into medical school down in Arizona so they are leaving us and moving far far away. We shall miss them. Fortunately our schedules coincided enough that we had this chance to go visit them while they were visiting Kendall's parents who live in Menan. We spent the evening with them greatly enjoying their company.

First off I have to say that we were extensively grateful that Kendall's family was gracious enough to allow Beatrice to come and stay at their nice house. Not many would do that. Beatrice was grateful too. She LOVED their big yard and spent a great deal of time just running endlessly around the large, well tailored lawn.




While at the Aspers we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. Though I enjoy the HP movies greatly I really am more of a purest. They just grazed the surface of the book and I decided that they should start the movie production all over again and instead just make a mini series of like 30 dvds so they can act out the books word for word.....that would be better I think.

What else did you do in Menan you might ask? Well we did what every other self respecting tourist visiting Idaho should do! We went and drove to the top of the volcanic Crater! (Mt. Kilauea eat your heart out!) Megan and Kendall's lean mean Pacifica was rugged enough to carry us to the top of the mountain.




Sadly in the place of molten hot magma is just a hay field.....oh well.


Plus you can't miss the Elk Farm! (sadly the elk preferred the sprinklers to coming and visiting us at the fence)


Leg #2:
After our over night stay in Menan, we drove down to SLC where we had a Mormon Tabernacle choir concert to get to. It was their annual 24th of July celebration, and as always, the Mo tab was AWESOME. They never cease to amaze me.

Fantastic view from my Grandparents new apartment balcony.


Later that evening, after playing some cards with Kimmi's parents, Lindsey (Kimmi's sister)walked in the house and announced those 4 words everyone loves to hear, "Who wants a pedicure?" Lindsey is going to school to become an estitician, so she needs to hone her pedicure skills. Kimmi and I were more then willing to volunteer. Although I'm not sure how excited Lindsey was to work on my water skis called feet.


Leg #3:
We finally met up with Ashley and Tim and began our journey to California. We really didn't want to drive the 14 hours in one fowl swoop, so we made a pit stop for the evening in Sin City. Ashley and Tim both have siblings that live in Vegas so they stayed with them. Kimmi and I stayed with our friends the Leppert's. Even though it was a very short stay, we were very glad we stopped. We were able to see Chris and Taylor's cute house and most importantly we were able to see their even cuter little daughter, Claire.

Best part of going on road trips with multiple people? Multiple drivers! The leg from SLC to St. George was my responsibility.


Kimmi kept occupied with her embroidery.... she does fine work....


Ashely and Tim relaxing in the back.



After a very delicious dinner with the Lepperts I asked sheepishly if we could be touristy and stop in front of the Las Vegas sign to take photos. I was happy to hear that they were more then willing to stop and actually they had never taken photos in front of the sign even though Taylor grew up in Las Vegas. I guess it's kind of like my own mom who grew up in SLC with some of the greatest skiing on earth, yet she's never even gone near the slopes.
Thanks again Chris and Taylor for letting us stay over!


Leg #4:
Now that we're well rested it's ON TO DISNEYLAND!
It was quite fun to go to Disneyland with Kimmi. Thanks to her many visits she's become an expert as to where to go and which way to get there. Me on the other hand haven't been to Disneyland in 15 years or so. I was prepared though and brought my own hat. Kimmi's sister Lindsey came home from Disneyland a few years back and gave me a Peter Pan hat. Generally when I get these kinds of gifts I don't have a clue what to do with them so it just went up into my closet to gather dust. But when packing for this trip I knew that this was as good a time as ever to bring it. I'm glad I did too because it appears that the peter pan hat isn't a well known item because I got a lot of attention from wearing it. A lot of people complimented me on it and pointed it out....although the attention wasn't always welcome. At one point we were walking down Main Street and the Mad Hatter caught sight of me (pretty easy to do when im already over six feet tall and then have a 12 inch red feather sticking up from my head). Anyway he started chasing me down and making quite the scene. Nothing like being accosted by a Disney character.



On Buzz Lightyear....one of my more favorite rides


On It's a small world...one of my least favorite rides


After the Mad Hatter attack I made sure the rest of us bought hats so I wasn't alone anymore. Kimmi got a cute Mickey Mouse hat.




I'm proud to say that we single handedly broke the Matter horn. We were the last bobsled to go down the mountain before it shut down for 45 minutes. What was dumb was that we were about 10 feet from the unloading point yet they still made us sit in the car for 15 minutes before they finally came and let us exit prematurely. I still kind of wish we broke down IN the mountain so we could see the inside. oh well maybe next time.


One day we ate lunch in this restaurant thats actually INSIDE the pirates of the carribean ride. While eating you could see the people in their little boats drifting past. Quite a cool restaurant with a great atmosphere.


My poor wife got the front seat on splash mountain one day and this is what resulted after heading down the big hill.


Waiting in the longest line we ever waited in. It's the new Toy story ride Woodys Roundup. Well worth the wait. Plus they let you wear these spiffy glasses as you wait.


My cute wife


Leg #5:
Lastly on this fun trip we went down to Sea World. Well worth the 1.5 hour drive from Disneyland. I will be the first to admit that I was always one of those kids who made fun of other kids who brought to school Shamu binders or shamu T-shirts, but now that I'm grown up and actually went and saw Sea World for myself I will say that I thought Shamu was pretty dang cool! If I was still in elementary school, I'd probably be sporting a nice shamu binder myself!

I enjoyed the little pools where you could play with the star fish and the sting rays.


Flamingos...Kimmi's favorite animal


Kimmi and Ashley had a bit too much fun in the gift shop. Im sure all the asian tourists thought we were nuts.





I preferred the more docile manatee


I tried to take a few photos of the shamu and other whale shows but my camera was too slow and couldnt capture the whale in mid air. These are my best two.



Anyway, we had a great time. Sure our feet took a few days to recover from all the walking we did. I wished I had a pedometer to tally up how many miles we walked, but still none of us really minded. It just made for a painfull walk back to the hotel after the daily festivities. But hey, its Disneyland, everyone walks funny there!