motorcycle riding class

i decided since i have my new vino, that i would take a basic motorcycle riding course. it was a 3 day thing, Wednesday from 5-10pm, Friday from 5-dark, and Saturday from 7:30 am-3:00 pm. the first day was a classroom setting where we watched really cheesy videos and learned basic concepts out of a book. where you aware that a good rider tries to minimize risks? imagine that.

anyway, so the class wasn't all that exciting but Friday and Saturday we got to ride. we practiced riding in the parking lot across the street from the BYU stadium. i had never driven a motorcycle that had a clutch before and so i was a little nervous to learn. IT TURNED OUT TO BE SO MUCH FUN!!! i thought riding the vino was a good time, but there is something about a bigger motorcycle and shifting the gears that is really exciting. Now, mind you, the motorcycles we rode were not super large motorcycles, none of them were over 250cc. if you don't know what that means, it just means that it is a small engine motorcycle, like a Honda Rebel (Google it.)

i had so much fun and i passed the class. Now all i have to do is go and show the drivers license division my certificate and i get the motorcycle endorsement on my license.

fishing at gooseberry

last week we took the boys to the store and bought them fishing poles. jared chose a batman fishing pole and isaac chose a superman fishing pole. while camping this past weekend, we took them to a reservoir to fish with their new poles. jared caught two fish (which we released because i don't eat fish). isaac wouldn't hold his fishing pole still long enough to catch anything.

like monkeys.... or hyenas.... or ....

Lately, the boys have been acting like .....

The first offense. While Sylvia that sitter was there, they went into the backyard, turned on the hose and got soaking wet. Getting wet is not a big deal. But then they took off their clothes, made a big mud puddle with the water and painted each other from head to toe with the mud. Sylvia soon discovers the mudfest and brings the boys into the house and cleans them up. When Nathan gets home he talks to them about what is appropriate outside and what is not (getting naked, painting each other with mud, etc.). He puts them into time out for a while.

The second offense. Not too long after the first offense, Nathan comes home to find Sylvia standing at the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard. She tells Nathan that the boys are outside playing in the water, completely soaked and they won't come in and she cannot go out there and get them. Nathan asks why she can't go out side and she tells him that every time she opens the door, the boys try to squirt her with the water. Nathan goes outside, the boys scatter because dad means business. Nathan cleans them up and they sit in their room for the rest of the night for playing in the water again and trying to squirt the babysitter.

The third offense. If anyone needs their garage floor painted, I have helpers. Yes, Nathan came home one day to find the boys in the garage, painting. They got out a can of paint, somehow managed to get the lid off the can of paint and then painted the floor of the garage as well as some tile we had out there. They claimed to be painting a wooden box we had made for Jared a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, they didn't get paint all over themselves, just all over the garage. They spent the majority of the evening in their room and then had to scrape as much of the paint off as they could.

Of course they have never been perfect little angels but why all of sudden are they behaving so extremely? I know.... they are probably bored and, although we love Syvlia to death, she really doesn't discipline the kids. Now I know that this is probably normal behavior for little boys, but I was a perfect child, I am certain. I don't deserve this type of aggravation.

my new ride

isn't it cute!! nathan surprised me a couple of weeks ago with a 2007 Yamaha Vino. this is not a picture of my vino, but it looks exactly the same, team yamaha blue and all. it gets 85-90 miles per gallon and it only takes me an additional 5-10 minutes to get to work.

and yes i do wear a pink half helmet with racing stripes on it. i look pretty cool.

amelia's piggy tails

YEAH!!!!!

amelia finally has some hair that i can do something with. there is still not much up front, but the back is starting to get longer. I decided to try and put her hair in pig tails the other day and it worked. i tried curling her hair with a very small curling iron today and she didn't think that was too great.

pictures from a recent trip to zion's national park

nathan and i at the top of angel's landing -- this was a crazy hike!

my brother shane and i climbed out onto this ledge


this picture was to show how steep and crazy the switchbacks are on the hike.

my brother shane at the top of angel's landing

nathan on the trail

t-ball

jared has been playing t-ball the past month. he is finally starting to understand what is going on and what he is supposed to do. isaac doesn't understand why he can't play too. i will have to get him involved with something else soon. nathan and i also started playing on the co-ed church team.