School Dayz...

On Monday two of the girls headed back to school.

They were very excited and so far have had a fantastic week of school!

Nat the 4th grader.
Sisters.

Haley the 7th grader.

Hey all you Loomis people.... Look who is Haley's Latin teacher! It's Dustin Simmons!

NO WAYYYYY!

This way cool teacher was once a young lad in our home ward back in Loomis, CA! His family is still in the same ward as Gene's sister and parents.

He is doing such a great job. We had Back to School Night tonight and he did a really good job explaining his class to the parents and telling us what the kids will be learning this year. (duh, Latin, I know... but so much more! Greek and Roman history! COOL!)

Hey Dustin! We'll be getting in touch soon so we can have you and your family over for dinner some time!

:)

Chloe went back to school on Wed. as a Junior and Linds starts kindergarten this Monday.

Let the fun begin!

Spanish Fork HOT SPRINGS!

Yesterday Gene and I had a really fun "Date Day/Night". After a full morning of taking the girls back to school shopping, he and I set off for a fun adventure. We drove the 1/2 hour drive to the hot springs in the Spanish Fork Canyon. It was so much fun. It was about an hour hike to the hot springs and then an hour back, and what a beautiful hike it was!

We hiked along a rushing river the whole way and came across cute little critters, tiny snakes, lizards and weird bugs.

We were warned that some people enjoy bathing in the hot springs NUDE!

There were only a few people (in bathing suits) there at the hot springs, so that was nice. Then we hiked up even further up to some more springs and lo and behold, a naked guy. But he was a very nice and courteous naked guy. He sat in the corner and kept to himself, unlike the naked guys that Gene's sister and her husband encountered last weekend. Those guys went ahead and stood up out of the water to talk to Ann and Keith and to give them directions! At least our naked guy just sat there. :)

Anyhow, after a great afternoon hiking and soaking in the natural springs, Gene and I went out to dinner and then to the movies to see "The Dark Night". What an incredible movie. It was very intense and very scary and Heath Ledger did an absolutely incredible job as the Joker.

Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

The river along the hike.

The trail. It was a pretty easy hike. It had some good, steep hills here and there, but overall, it was fairly easy.

More hiking trail.



Cool tree that fell over the water.

Finally... we made it to the springs!

One of the areas where the hot water flows out of the mountains.

Anyone ever been to Yellowstone?

These springs smell a lot like Yellowstone! (kinda stinky!)

Gene exploring. This pool was super hot and toasty!

You can see the awesome water falls in the background.

Water falls...

The falls are cold water, but it felt good after the long hike.

Me... you can see two of the pools behind me.

And a guy... a guy with clothes.

Meet my awesome brother!

My brother is the music director for the station we listened to as kids. He is doing such a great job!

Check out the links below.

Go Aaron!

Rock On!

In addition to our recent killer book and the awesome news that Tim Kwong is rejoining the LIVE 105 family,we recently got some nice industry accolades and cool press exposure from the SF Weekly.First, LIVE 105 just got nominated for Station of the Year and Music Director of the Year from R&R: http://www.radioandrecords.com/Conventions/con2008/awards/alt.asp
ROOT FOR LIVE 105!

Random-ness:

Just a few random pics from around here:

Socks is still the coolest cat ever. He is such a funny boy and is growing like a weed. He loves just hangin' with his girls.
My garden. Left to Right: Cucumbers, green beans, grape tomatoes, behind the grape, regular tomatoes and carrots.

YUM
We have been feasting upon our tomatoes and beans everyday, and it's been wonderful!
The carrots are awesome, too!

Yesterday Chloe and her BFF, Nicole were bored and decided to do some exciting chalk art on our driveway.

Can you guess who this guy is?

Any guesses?

Is it George Washington?.... or Joseph Smith? (that's who our dryer repair guy thought it was!)

Give up?!

It's Beethoven!

Yep, the girls got on the computer and printed out a picture of this famous composer, and sketched him on our driveway.

How random is that?

Have a very

Random

Day.

Sunflower Garden

It's amazing how those tiny sunflower seeds turn into these massive, beautiful flowers!
It's been fun watching them grow into these massive flowers!

Coldplay Rocks

http://www.coldplay.com/vivavideo1.php

I love this band.
My brother was just telling me how he got cool tickets for his daughter and her mother at the show in San Jose. They said it was the greatest show. So envious am I.
Check out this video... I love this song, it's my favorite.

There's a huge fire in our canyon!

A fire started this afternoon in the Payson Canyon, 2-3 miles south of our neighborhood. So far it has burned 150 acres? I think? There was a boy scout camp going on in a camp site in this canyon and they were all evacuated and had to leave their gear behind... our neighbor's son was one of those scouts. We drove over to Gene's brother's house (Paul) and took these pictures. Everyone is out looking at the fire, there were even a few softball games going on... it was crazy, police everywhere, fire engines... and then this fire. It's huge and there were these massive flare ups every time the wind picked up.

Paul needs to be ready to evacuate if the wind shifts... then we are in danger if the wind picks up and the flames keep heading this way.

Scary stuff....

These are the flames that are heading our way....

but it would have to burn through a ton before it got to us.
These next few are taken from Gene's brother's house.

Every time the wind picked up, there would be these 200+ foot flare ups.

Getting close to the neighborhood.

For you Paysonites... this is the neighborhood past the high school.

'Spring Lake'

Very scary, and very close.