Hiking with the kids

Yesterday after my long swim at Bountiful Lake, I thought it would be a perfect day to take the kids on a hike. Cathi was gone to Ragnar's Wasatch back with her girlfriend runners, and I was home with the kids. So we went up to the white rock.


I had a small cooler with Gatorades, water, and some cereal bars. Leftovers from my planned swim. I put Oliver and Sam in a wagon and pulled them from the base of the City Creek gate, up a little over a mile to the trailhead for the short little .5 mile hike up the mountain. The kids had a ball. They were very obedient to the command to stay on the creek side of the road to avoid head on collisions with bikers coming down.

I told them about Brooke Hopkins, the college professer who came down to fast on his bike and swerved to miss some hikers who weren't following instructions, and fell off his bike and died much later due to his injuries. So they were surprisingly good about staying on the correct side of the road while walking up single file.

Nobody complained and they all were excited to make it to this "famous rock" where I took Jacob once before. When we got there, we took an empty Gatorade bottle and put $1.75 in it and buried it under the other rock next to the white rock.

When we got back to the car we still had a couple hours until our Father's Day celebration at Chuck a Rama in Bountiful with the Lows. So we went over to the Capital building and walked around in the basement. They took out all the cool displays! It was so boring in there compared to what I remember. So we didn't stay there for long. We ended up going to a park in Bountiful and played on the playground.

Thank goodness for 100 spf sunscreen! The kids ate a ton at the Chuck A Rama and I did too. Much more than I should have. But hey! It's Father's Day and I had given the kids a wonderful day instead of just sitting at home watching TV waiting for Cathi to come back home. Plus I just swam for 3:15 that morning, so I don't need to be down on myself for indulging a little.

Human Foosball

The other night when we had our combined activity the Beehive Leaders introduce 'Human Foosball'. They hooked each person to a piece of PVC pipe and taped the floor. The rule is they had to stay on the line. Then used the basketball court and a couple of small goals. It was so fun to watch them move side to side to get the ball. Using the walls, and passing to each other just like a good foosball player would. It was entertaining to watch.

Jacob scored a goal as the back defender by kicking it lightly up and over the field and right into the goal. It was a very lucky kick, but he did a funny victory dance afterwards.

Welcome home Cooper

Jacob and Cathi were very busy today looking at dogs online. Cathi looking for St. Bernards, Jacob for Beagles. Cathi found a St. Bernard for free, but we had to go to Minnesota to get it. Jacob found one for $200, but we had to go to Ogden to get it. Jacob definitely had the better deal. Plus in reference to my last post, I think a Beagle would be much easier to clean up after. I don't want cow pies in my back yard.
So Jacob and Cathi went to get Cooper, the new dog for our family. Jacob paid the $200 himself out of his own account, so technically it's HIS dog. Although we counseled him not to use it as a power struggle and let the other kids enjoy him and treat him as the family dog.

He's house trained already and 3 years old. He's a little pudgy (like me) and has about 5-10 pounds to lose, so we're being strict with the kids about not feeding him human food and leftovers. Annabel could get away with that, but not this dog.

Jacob loves him and is happy as a bird.

Love your dog, but not the poop?

Cathi and I saw this bench at a corner in Boise. Love it! The type of people to be too grossed out, or careless about picking it up, aren't probably the type to pay a dime to have someone else do it. I'd love to know how much that business is making.

A company success story - Treat your customers right and you'll get more business!

So this week I read about a good man who was badly injured in an accident. I've nearly had a similar life threatening accident happen to me and I know how fragile life can be! In sympathy for his situation I thought a small bouquet of flowers would be a nice gesture and brighten his day, and ordered some online. Oh boy was the company I chose a good move!

I went online and found ProFlowers. I did the order with the address that I got from anywho.com.

The next day when the delivery was supposed to take place, Cathi got a call from ProFlowers saying that the Order couldn't be delivered cause the address I gave didn't exist. What? So I did some more intense investigating. Found out a partial address from an Intelius report. I was still not sure of an East or West coordinate, so I ended up just giving in to traditional methods and called Joey Emig's house to get the address. I was hoping to exercise my PI skills. But I had already spent alot of extra time being an information gathering nerd.

I called ProFlowers back with the address to see if they could salvage the original order, but they refused to do that as they mentioned that the original delivery was probably not in a condition to be received, and said they would pay for another order as well as rush the delivery all at their expense. What! The wrong address wasn't their fault. I couldn't believe my ears.

So now they're probably losing money cause of me. The whole process went smooth and they were very kind. I'm definitely going back to ProFlowers should I ever need to deliver flowers again. That was a very refreshing experience considering a few of the last very crappy experiences I've had with customer satisfaction (I'm still pissed at you SquareTrade!)

Courage or stupidity

Last night at the stake youth activity, they had the youth do several activities such as:

1) Climbing a ladder that wasn't leaning against anything, just people at the base holding it vertical.
2) Climbing another ladder about 4-5 feet high and falling backwards to a row of friends with locked hands to catch.
3) Swinging a cement block that was tethered to basketball stand. It starts placed just below the persons face and then when it swings back, don't flinch.

Here's a picture of Jacob doing the cement block swing:
Well he must have been leaning backwards when he dropped it, cause he was brave, didn't flinch and it actually hit him in the chin. Not too bad. But it definitely did hit him. It didn't appear to hurt him.

There were a few others where it hit them in the chest. And there were some who totally flinched. This exercise was fun.

Afterwards they showed a clip of the Hoyt son and father who did an Ironman. It gave me inspiration for this weekend's 70.3. I'm excited and looking forward to it!

Jacob turns 12

This morning I took Jacob out for a birthday outing. We went to Walmart and got him a new outfit including a new watch, hat, sunglasses, shorts, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear. The works. He was very pleased. Then we went to Warren's for breakfast and he ordered a monster breakfast.

I hope I'm not spoiling him. He said Thank you several times. I have to treat that boy right, cause he's volunteered to be my support boater this year, including tonight at BL. Good thing I got him some biking gloves, otherwise he would get some serious blisters on his hands from rowing.

Happy Birthday Jacob, you're a good kid. And I'm excited to have you in Deacon's Quorum! You're very mature for your age and always so willing to help. I like how you're athletic and I can tell other boys your age like you and respect you. You represent the Gridley name very well. I love you.