Summer Lovin'

Well we've been so busy so long we've neglected our blog. So we are back with some quick updates on what's happened over the last few months. Kevin started working seven days on and seven days off during the day which is so much more fun that it was when he had to work all the evenings. Now we get to take a fun trip every other week. Tori finished her first year of medical school and has started working for the summer at a research lab. She is doing research on the genetics of hypertension. Last week when school finally got out Tori went with her family down to lake powell for the weekend and had a blast. She and Rosie learned how to drive the boat and jumped off the cliffs into the water in between laying out for a tan and gossiping with her mom Missy. Kevin and Justin were both sorely missed since Tori and Rosie had to be the "boys" and tie off the boats and set up and take down camp, not normally jobs of the princesses. Nonetheless Tori had a blast. Upon returning from lake powell Tori and Kevin immediately set off on a camping adventure all over Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. First they went to Wood road number 5, a famous camping spot in wilding tradition, to camp and fish. The river was beautiful and the company was good except for the numerous mosquitoes that plagued the camp. After a full day of hiking, fishing, and sunburns we took off from there to wyoming. We stayed at the cabin in Wyoming and went fishing/floating below the dam. It rained on us a bit but all in all was a fun adventure with Kevin's brother dave and his boys. The next day bright and early we set off for the beaverhead river to do some more fishing. Here we met one of Kevin's other brother's Scott and two of his girls. Despite the rain we had an awesome time and caught some huge browns on the river. Natalie, one of Scott's girls, was such a great fisherwoman that we practically had to drag her off the river at the end of the trip. From there we went up to Missoula Montana to see where Scott and his family have been living for the past couple of years while they were in law school. They have a great place but are excited to almost be done and have a lawyer in the family. While at Scott and Carolyn's house we decided that it would be fun to go see Glacier National park while we were in Montana. It was tons of fun and we stayed at beautiful Bowman lake where the deer are pretty much tame and the views are fantastic. Then on Tori's birthday we went to Boondock's with Tori's family and had a blast riding go karts, climbing rock walls, playing lazer tag and hitting a few balls in the batting cages. Tori says it was the best birthday ever.

March Madness

We have had an amazing march. It started out kinda slow and boring with work and school but as finals week approached so did spring break. Three days before spring break started we decided to go on a 7 day cruise to the mexican riviera. So the next couple of days were spent cramming for exams, finding work replacements, packing and booking airfare. Finals ended and early saturday morning we rushed to the airport (running behind as usual). Shockingly the airport security line was sooo long that we were going to miss our flight. Panicked we scanned the crowd and Tori saw one of her classmates who graciously let us cut in line with him. So we are eternally grateful to Umar (Tori's classmate) for letting us cut in line. Well we made our flight and made it safely to the cruise and enjoyed the next couple of days sunbathing on the back decks drinking strawberry daquiris. Tuesday we arrived in Puerto Vallarta where we took a small powerboat across the harbor to our huge four-wheel drive unimog. We rode in the back of the unimog along the coast and up the mountains to where we were outfitted with rock climbing gear and loaded onto our mules. We rode the mules up steep jungle paths until we reached the platforms that we zip lined to and from mountain top to mountain top. Then we repelled down a few waterfalls and slipped down rock slides into pools. The next day we spent walking along the beaches of Mazatlan sipping coconut milk and getting sunburnt. The last day in mexico was in Cabo San Lucas where we spent the morning riding horses on the beach and the afternoon ocean kayaking to a sea lion colony and snorkling along lover's beach. After that we just recouped and relaxed on our ship all the way back to LA and then flew home to join Scott and Carolyn and their adorable girls for dinner. Sunday was Skyler's homecoming and it was wonderful to see him and his family again. He's such a fun kid and we've certaintly missed him for the last couple of years. Well that's it so far! What a great month.

February Fun

We've had a great February so far. It has been tons of fun. First we had an amazing Valentine's Day. We went to the Grand America's "Grand Finale"desert presentation with Joe and Heidi and we completely stuffed our faces. Then we all went to Boondocks. At Boondocks we raced Go Karts in the freezing cold until they kicked us out, it was great. We also played lazer tag and video games forever.
This last weekend was president's day weekend. So, since we had time off work and school we went up to Alpine with Kevin's family. We had a blast riding snowmobiles and sledding. Here are a couple of pictures of us with the snowmobiles. When we were sledding we made an amazing jump (nicknamed the pancake turner) and nearly killed ourselves on it. You would start out on your stomach and always end up flat on your back. It was great. Here's a picture of me as I spun around to end on my back. We also desperately tried to shovel 4 or 5 ft. of snow off the roof of the older cabin and got pretty far before we tired out.

Do you see what I see?

Hey! So we've had an amazing and busy December. It started out by Justin (My little brother) getting his mission call to the Tempe Arizona mission. We are all so excited for him. It is going to be so great for him! Here is the fabulous picture that we took in the hospital of Justin reading his mission call. We are so proud of him and he is leaving on Janurary 23rd. We'll miss him but Rosie is excited to get his bedroom. Also this month we have had so crazy weather. At first it was freezing but the last few days around Christmas have been so warm that we went and fed the geese and went rollerblading and playing frisbee. Back when it was cold we made a great little snowman and here he is! Yes that is parsley for hair and those are grapes for eyes. We had to use what we could. We also experienced a loss as our nephew Tyson passed away this past month. He was incredibly fun to be around and he will be missed. On a lighter note we had an amazing Christmas with the exception of the little fact that I (Tori) was puking the majority of the day. Lucky me! We got some great presents though and still had a fun day. Kevin's favorite present seems to be his new Chocolate fountain. I love my new photo software and fishing vest. MERRY CHRISTMAS and a happy new year!

November News

The weather this fall has been amazing so we decided to take a break. It was a good idea since Tori has been studying too much anyway. We decided to dust off our rollerblades and drove to Sugarhouse Park. The park has some pretty steep hills which was a good workout but going downhill was by far the most fun. We also took time to feed the geese and ducks (local residents at the pond). We used an extra loaf of the over 2000 loaves of bread that Kevin helped slice and package at the LDS bakery here in Salt Lake (as a service project). Kevin figures that if he fattens the geese up this year, all the more to hunt next year. If the geese only knew, hehehe.

Here is a picture of us at the creek in Sugarhouse Park. It was so pretty we had to stop and take a few pictures. So as we retrieved the camera from the trunk, Kevin left the keys in the trunk of the car. We had plenty of time to get the right lighting, and time to get the right breeze, and time to wait for our friend to pick us up. Thankfully, Marci our newly wed buddy lives close to the condo and was willing to be bribed by the offer of a free dinner in exchange for a ride.

Kevin has been pretty busy this year being the Volunteer Director for AED (Alpha Epsion Delta) the pre-med honor society at the U. He helped organize the annual Fall Leaf Haul in Salt Lake City. We helped some elderly people by raking up their leaves before the snow hits. It's a good, active service project that has been fun for us to do over the years. Here is a picture of this year's group.
We also found out a few days ago that Kevin's paper "A Safe, Effective Novel Treatment For Head Lice: a lot of hot air" has been accepted by the Journal of Pediatrics which he is very excited about. If you would like to know more about the project click on the following link. http://darwin.biology.utah.edu/ProjectsHTML/CASPeRPage.html

Also in November Kevin, Rob and Justin went duck hunting. They had a great time and were all able to bag some ducks. Here's a picture of them after they dug the four-wheeler out one of the muddy ravines.