I Think I Can...

I think I can... I think I can..... Nope. Austin found out what quicksand can do in a short amount of time. This was near a wash on the Arizona Strip. We had to take the truck way back in the desert and pull the 4-wheeler out. It was REALLY STUCK!

Austin's Day At The Dunes

(I know bad picture -but cool wheelie!)

We are sooo lucky!!! It finally rained on Monday evening in St. George. WE LOVE RAIN!!! (That's how it goes when you live in the desert.) So we took advantage of it and took Austin riding on Tuesday morning. The weather was actually cool enough to be outside and the sand was perfect. Austin took full advantage of this and borrowed his dad's wheels. Yup - he's on a 250 Motorcycle. He jumped the sand hills until he was exhausted. The only thing missing from this ride was Josh & Justin!!

California Trip 2008

So we have been running for a week now! I know, what's new?!?! Anyway, we got Josh on the Airplane to Peru last Thursday. I took him to SLC to meet up with Ty and head out on their outing to Peru. They had quite a miserable start to the trip. They missed their connection in Lima Peru. After all was said and done they spend almost 3 days in airports.

Becky and I took her kids and made a quick trip to Idaho. We went to mom's and spent a couple of days and got to see a little bit of the 24th of July activities. We left Oakley Saturday morning so I could make it back to St. George by Saturday evening.

Mel and I took Oz and his friend, Kaden, to California for a few days. We had a great time. We spent some time at the beach, Knott's Berry Farm and riding "Beach Cruisers". What a blast! Do you know how long it's been since I have ridden a real peddle bike - no gears, clutches or BRAKES! ( Well at least it had good old-fashioned push the peddle backwards brakes.) We decided that is the only way to travel on the beach. We covered about 10 miles of beach. It was awesome! These are a few of my favorite pictures. There's even a picture of me - upside down - on one of the rides.

As a side note - we got to feel a real Califonia earthquake!! It was pretty wild. We were driving down the road and it felt like Mel hit some really deep ruts. The car jigged sideways and I asked him what the heck he was doing. He said that it wasn't him. Just our luck we came to a stop light which put us right under and overpass. Guess what??? The ground was shaking. It wasn't the car! And there we sat under a freeway overpass. We thought that it was just the traffic over head making the ground move but as we drove a little further people were outside buildings and fire trucks were going crazy! Just so you know we didn't put all of this info together until later in the afternoon. I said I bet that was an earthquake. So we sent a text to ChaCha to ask if there was an earthquake in California today. They answered back that there had been and it was the largest since 1994. (FYI - ChaCha (242-242) is an information service that you can text for free if you have free texting on your phone. You can ask all kinds of questions, weather, temp, phone #'s, addresses etc. even trivia questions. It also keeps 12 year old boys busy on a long trips in the car. Try it - it's great!)

~The Snake~

Austin's 1st week-long Scout camp was July 15-19, 2008. There were six boys that went and Mel was recruited to go as an adult leader for a couple of days. (Mel -an adult - who knew?!?!) Anyway, Mel and Bro. Jones took the boys up to Cedar Mountain on Tuesday morning bright and early. They had a great time working on merit badges and other scout activities.
Mel said that Wednesday, Oz had a close encounter of the "snake" kind. As Oz walked through the tall grass he must have stepped on the tail of a snake. The snake then wrapped up around his leg. (Remember this is Austin the one who ALWAYS wears shorts.)
Austin shook his leg and got the snake off then the snake came back after him. Luckily, Mel was only a short distance away. Austin made it over to Mel before he had a total melt-down. Though a lot shaken and very disturbed, Austin stuck it out and stayed at camp even though Mel came home the next day. From the way they described the snake it was a small grass snake, skinny and green - but snake, never-the-less!!
We will write more when Oz gets home from camp and let you know how the rest of the week went!!

Burch Family Reunion 2008

We had an awesome time at the Burch Family Reunion this year! We met at the May Family Ranch located on the Salmon River between Challis and Stanley Idaho. There was sooo much to do that we could have stayed another couple of days. The kids fished at a pond and the older kids fished on the Salmon River. The first big attraction though was the 200 foot water slide. We only had one minor injury that required a trip to the Urgent Care 2o some odd miles away. We won't mention any names:)
We also got to float down the Salmon River, visit a couple ghost towns, pan for gold, scavenger hunt, water games and the kids favorite - catching candy as it was launched out of a potato gun.

This picture speaks for it's self!
Cousins are doing a little fishing.
Josh & Ty show us there wood carving skills. Notice Josh has the "tongue out of the mouth" technique going on.
This is one of my favorite pictures. Josh is helping Millie with her fishing pole.
Does this look like trouble or WHAT?!?!?

Kelsey panning for gold at the ghost town of Custer Idaho.
Grandma and Ethan take a break in front of the store at the ghost town.
Oz and Ty panning for gold. Rafting down the Salmon River was a blast!!
Ethan is ready to roll - let's get this boat on the water!

4th Of July

Here are a few pics from our 4th of July celebration. We spent the weekend with the Jensen family and enjoyed some of Mel's great cooking. Brian, Lorilee and Millie came down to Blackfoot (Idaho) to join us for a BBQ on Saturday. We had a great time catching up and just spending time with everyone!