I'm still getting caught up!

Okay, okay. I haven't posted anything in almost a month; my records show it too. One person is faithfully checking every day. I love you, Mom! Anyway, here's the link to my Utah pictures on Flickr, and here's the address, for the hyperlink-challenged: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7249600@N03/

I don't have pictures from my week of sailing with my Crew, yet, but I'll edit this post when I do. It should suffice to say that we had absolutely great weather: partly cloudy most day, but good skies, good winds, and good seas.

Work has been hectic. We're moving around a lot of faculty, and replacing and upgrading a lot of computers. I'm also working on doing so significant upgrades to our computer room infrastructure, and our directory service.

We've also been going to the doctor a lot. Luckily, I have lots of sick time to use, so I do.

Girls Camp

So we got in from SLC at about 2:30 am, which left me with about 3 hours of sleep before girls camp. We started off doing COPE the first part of the morning, before we drove 6 hours to West Virginia. Between the 24 girls and 5 leaders, we counted over 200 ticks. Pretty gross, huh!! I was really impressed with one of our girls, Laura who has a mild case of cerebral palsy. She did all of the high elements, as well of all of the team events without complaint. And even though it was hard for her, she never gave up.

Anyways, we rafted the New River, which was awesome. The weather was perfect, the rapids were running at a great level. We even conspired together to push the bishop out of the raft, which we succeeded. The girls then pushed me out, but hey, what can you do!

I am really amazed at the youth in our stake, especially in our ward. These girls are awesome. Some of these girls come from challenging home lives and yet they are so strong in the gospel. They strive to do what is right and I was really humbled by them.

On the way home, I definitely drove more on the road than at the beginning, for which I am sure that the girls were extremely grateful. It was definitely an awesome experience, after which I was extremely dead to the world. Life is great in the fast lane!

Utah Fun

So, I'm a little behind in posting info but better late than never I say. Anyways, Utah was a lot of fun and very busy. It was great seeing the fam and Dena B, although I guess she's not really Dena B. anymore. Pics are still on the camera at Joe's work but I really will try and post pictures later. I decided to input a picture of Cocoa since she had to miss the fun. I will reinsert real pictures later!! We got in around noon on Thursday. We ate lunch with my parents who were in town for a couple of hours and then we were able to spend some time with Dena and Steve. The boys went rock climbing and the girls had a "girl talk!" It was awesome. Of course, this was really just a manipulative ploy on mine and Dena's part-get the boys to bond so Steve will want to move out to VA for school!! Shoot-now the secrets out!

Anyways, the rest of the weekend was spent mostly with family, which was awesome as well. Emily really glowed. We got a chance to spend time with Ben and Shannon, which was nice since we haven't seen them since their wedding. Joe really does have an awesome family! Mine is pretty cool as well, of course. Coming back, our flight got delayed by about 2 1/2 hours so we didn't get home until almost 2:30am, and then it was off to girl's camp.