Hanging out with the cool kids

Eliza and I took a trip to SLC in January. We enjoy our yearly snow fun. We bundled up in the "best of the best" hand-me-downs from the Murdocks. Eliza liked the snow as soon as she realized she could eat it.She also became quite proficient at Brown Bear.


This girl will sit on your lap for hours if you read to her. She had lots of grandma reading time.


We watched a few swim meets of Natalie's while we were there. Eliza kept on trying to take her shirt off and run into the pool. We may have another water lover.
And we caught her singing her ABC's. Wait for the big finish.


Love, Gunsons

Vote for Natalie

Dear Faithful readers of this blog (if there are any),

Natalie has been nominated to be Ironman of the Week but needs our votes for her to win.  She tore it up at the state meet last week winning 2 individual golds and 2 relay golds as well as leading the team to the overall championship.  Vote for her at utblaze.com.  You can vote once per day.  Also, for those who are interested....here is a video of her getting interviewed...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpcMrcqBBk

So they say it's your birthday

can't beat brothers like these.  happy birthday y'all!

State Champs

Way to go Natalie! Check out her quotes!

Day 1
http://www.tribpreps.com/sltrib/tribpreps/53442683-190/skyline-200-freestyle-girls.html.csp

Day 2
http://www.tribpreps.com/sltrib/tribpreps/53445928-190/freestyle-100-skyline-girls.html.csp

And not sure if this picture link will show up, but I'm pretty sure it's Natalie in the water,
http://www.tribpreps.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=DsR5YAw0NmtiNmKR7FIlRM$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYt_AxEJMzxTwZ1xRyiDkyM2WCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Rich and Matt.

Wind Armageddon

Today at home base on Parleys Terrace, 95 mph wind gusts whipped through Salt Lake.  Hurricane speeds.  We estimate between 7am and 8am the worst damage was done to our neighborhood and two lovely trees in our backyard.  Here is way too many pictures for you to look at.  Oh and for those of you who stopped checking the blog, Danny has a very nice post he put up two days ago you all should go look at and no, it is not one of his DIY home improvement projects, it's of his cute kids and we even get a sighting of Rich on the blog.  Woah!

The Before Picture (and check out all those pea-pods!)

After picture.  That tree looks lonely.  Lets get Bob Ross to fix this painting; every happy tree needs a friend.

Both major trees that went down, also took out the power line that went along back there.

I'm 6'3" (taller than both Rich and Dan ha) so there's your reference point.

Close up of the damage to the tree, sprinklers (dang), the power line is actually broken (top left of the picture) and the cracked cement curb. 

Remember the top of the dirt is probably 8' and the roots extend at least to 10'.   Oh and the grass is torn up. 

Trees are heavy

 Now here are a few shots of the neighborhood.  There was serious destruction and it seemed like our neighborhood was ground zero.  

Enslin's big tree.  It crumbled some cement as the roots came up and rumor has it that it was on top of cars, but I never saw cars under it.  

The Big Nasty is down.  That is the big tree between the Wade's and the Enslin's.  The Wade's also lost one on the other side of their driveway.  See below.  Unfortunately their weird lady water statue survived.  

Both trees from Rich Adam's yard.  Good thing he retired long ago and didn't need to go to work.  

This one cause some serious alarm.  This is on the side of the Enslin's house and the tree fell across power lines and onto the Wade's house.  This one actually started a fire but was quickly controlled.  I don't know the extent of the damages.  

Looks like the big tree swing at the Warner's (Stillman's) house has finally swung its last swing.  Mom said that is some special breed of tree that is super heavy.

Big tree meets smaller house on Stringham Ave.  

On Dallin St.

These big hunks fell onto the Owen's house.  That is easily 20 feet in diameter and 10 feet in the air.  They had two trees fall onto their house.  The 2nd is just out of the picture frame to the left.  

The second huge tree on the Owen's house.

Two trees at the Nowell's house.

Quick view of the shallow roots of the trees that fell in front of the Wade's house.

Alice Anderson joined in on the fun

Another one bites the dust!

 Probably 15 trees were down in the two blocks around our house.  That is only the front yard trees that we could see.  Many more are likely down that nobody can see from the street like our house.  It's crazy!

A little familiale update

One of the 7 wonders of the world

This one can SLEEP!

Our future linebacker

A bicycle built for 3

Thanksgiving walk in Great Falls with Uncle Drew & Aunt Matalie

"I can sleep through the flash, watch me!"

Walking home from Sam's school

The babysitter

Dont' worry, it's faux white leopard.

The hospital beach - soaking some rays

Getting ready to bust out (only to return for the bilirubin lights the next day)

Day 1

First few minutes

We are the 3 amigos

No one saw it coming...

Someone committed to BYU today. More of this in years to come! The team is excited for you Natalie.

New Toy

Watch out streets of provo


looking cool...particularly at the end

My yearly post...

So it has been a while since I have contributed to the blog....but I haven't had any material to post until recently. Well Rob, Tally, and I went on a little adventure up in the Unita's last weekend and had a blast. We got above the snow line where we are quite sure nobody has been since the fall. For good reason too, the overnight low was probably near 20 degrees as Rob who slept out on a hammock woke up with ice frozen around his face and on his sleeping bag. It was freezing but I was in my tent. Thanks to the lack of people so far this year we saw Moose, Elk, Deer, Coyotes, Squirrels, Fish, and a few birds. There was still a lot of snow even though our elevation wasn't all that high. All the rivers and mountain roads were flooded. The lake was also quite flooded as were all the surrounding meadows. Everything was just a marsh up there. It is pretty crazy this year. The lake also had snow along the beaches and I had the bright idea to go swimming in it. That was really cold and refreshing. See below for a few pictures.

Rob and I near the lake at our campsite.


A pretty reflection picture of the lake.

Immediately post swim....looks like the beach the week before didn't quite give me a summer tan yet. Maybe I should have taken off my blue Star Trek Suit a bit more in Newport...

Arrival to the lake standing in a marsh

Another shot of the marsh

Here is a pretty good shot of our friend Bullwinkle!

Just tossed into the end of the post are a few shots of me at Snowbird this year. On the day we went up it was definite white out conditions and NOBODY was there. We literally had deep pow and first tracks all day long. We also had 40 mph winds to endure and times when we couldn't see further than 5 feet in front of us....so it was all worth it!

Below, is the gate showing a particular run is closed but we had been over there snowboarding all morning before they put up the sign and shut down some of our fun.

Double chin? Look Ma, I think I'm gaining weight!

Here is the big mile marker of the year.... 200,000 miles! Happy birthday Acura!