Drink Party

We spent last weekend up in Midway and visited the 'famous' Dairy Keen little food joint. They had a fountain machine, for the 21st century! It is cool because there are basically countless options of drinks. You get the standards - pepsi, coke, fanta, etc...but when you click on individual drinks you are given further options to add Vanilla, Lime, Lemon, Raspberry, etc. I think I tried 10 different comboniations. Worst idea? Diet Coke with Orange twist. Egads, what was I thinking. I will say though that I fell in love the Vanilla Root Beer.

Now, I just have to figure out how to buy one of those bad boy machines for our house.

Utah site: Red Butte Hike

Every July 24th, my family does the Alta to Brighton Hike with all of the kids. But with the amount of snow this year, our pathway was going to be blocked by snow...so we improvised and we hiked Red Butte right in the Foothills. This hike is right above the University of Utah and gives you some pretty fabulous views over the whole valley. We also had a pretty good crew of about 20 of us trudging along the trail





About a month ago, there was a fire that went up through the hills. You could still see the scarred mountainside, but it was pretty cool to see how fast the green was coming back. Probably next year, the hill will be well on its way to looking just fine.

He needs to get NBA ready

Carter likes basketball. He likes to dribble the basketball. When he was 6 years old, he would dribble around our house and he dribbled it 1100 times in a row without messing up. Well, he is now midway through his second straight basketball camp. Last week, he attended the Advantage Basketball camp down at Thanksgiving Point. 9am till 5pm every day. He was one of the younger kids in it (8 years old to 17 years old) but he held his own. He liked it even though it nearly killed him every day. They did have a motivational speaker one of the days and Carter told me, 'It was so boring.' I asked what the speaker said and Carter replied, 'It was just blah, blah blah blah and blah.' Glad he got something out of that.



This week he is at the University of Utah basketball camp. First day at the Huntsman Center, we ran into the new Utah head coach, Larry Krystkoviak (Coach K). Carter introduced himself to the Coach and he then walked all the way around him and he looked up to Coach K and said, 'Wow, I am only as tall as the top of your shorts.' 6 foot 10 inch Coach K laughed. He has had a great time at the camp...he even won a Hustle award and Carter said he also won the 'Niftiest Passer Award for the best passer.' Not sure he won that award but he was happy.

Not that I am putting any pressure on him, but I have told him that I expect nothing less than him being at least a rotational player in the NBA.

Big package, little content

We went to a lovely movie the other night with our friends, R&A. You spend $3 for a box of M and M peanuts and you would think that there might be a few more than what you see here. 1/3rd full when opened. Awesome.

Utah site: This is the Place state park

It has been a while since I spotlighted something we did in Utah, usually a touristy type of spot, so here you go (if you are interested in seeing past 'adventures', click on the Tourist labels on the left side of the blog and you can see some of the things we have done. I took the boys and headed up with my sisters and their families up to This is the Place state park. I don't know what it is about that place, but it always feels about 10 degrees hotter there than it does anywhere else in the city.







We had a great time. We saw them light off a canon filled with candy...it was literally raining candy down on us. And because it was fired by a canon, all of the candy was slightly burned and had a nice smokey taste to it. The boys rode horses, saw how horseshoes were made, saw old time back robberies, had tug of wars.








Becks also competed in a watermelon eating contest. Halfway thru, he looked up at me and said 'All done.' I had to give him a stern look as I told him, 'No way, keep going, bring me home that Watermelon eating title.' He sadly shook his head in disgust and kept on eating. It is not a cheap park, but you can have a fun day hanging out there.

1985 called and they want their phone handset back

I am not quite sure if this is the coolest thing that I have seen with an iphone or if it is the stupidest thing that I have seen with an iphone. On top of that, this is Lenny Kravitz - and I am not sure if it sways my decision either way on this either. But I still may have to rock that out and purchase this...walking around my neighborhood with the iphone and a big huge cord and receiver hanging from it.

This is a fan 4th of July favorite. Enjoy!

I get such a great reader demand of this beautiful song, I just had to pass it along, again. Magical.