Pagosapalooza 2009

Oliver, Jacob, and I went camping with my Bro in law, Jim, his three boys (London, Gabe, and Hayden), and his brothers Spencer, and Ken. We went to Pagosa Springs, on the border of New Mexico and Colorado. This place is one of the most beautiful on Earth. Our campsite was perfect because we were 70 yards from a cool river, but there was a tiny stream in between, which prevented the little boys from crossing, but gave them something to safely play in. We had a great time. Instead of a run down, I’m going to give a FUN DOWN! The Taskers are master fishermen, so they were doing that most the time. Ollie and Jacob and I got a lot of river dogging, reading, and great downtime in.

The place

The dude

Oliver's cousin Gabe is a verifiable lizard whisperer, and had caught a bunch of these horny toads. Oliver didn't like to pick them up, but always wanted one on his shirt for him to hang out with, so he was always begging everyone to take one from the box and put it on him.

He actually didn't like the big ones on him and was always asking for the one of the "baby lizard" variety, as seen here.

This comfy, versatile outfit is why women weren't allowed on the trip.

Buddies

Cousin buddies

Feat of strength. London has an Air Soft gun that was so awesome. And he was a crack shot with it. He shot this can off my head without incident from a good 30 or 40 ft away. We later devised a game where we shot each other on the run.

River King with his heir

More feats of strength. (you can stop watching at 30 seconds, nothing happens afterward.)

Dallas Weekend

Food Network, yummy homemade pesto pasta, Grimaldi's Pizza, great shopping, Sprinkles Cupcakes, REAL Italian gelato, and lots and lots of girl talk. Does that sound like a good time or what? That's what I did last weekend on a quick trip to Dallas to visit my twin sister, Rachel and her family. Whenever Rachel and I get to get together it's bound to be good times and this trip was no different. We had such a nice, relaxing, catch-up weekend.


Sheree, my roomate Freshman year at BYU, whom I haven't seen in like 5 years now lives right up the street from Rachel. Small world... She had us over for lunch and it was so fun to meet her cute kids and have a long-since-overdue catch-up.

My brother-in-law, Brian takes AMAZING pictures and this was one of my faves from the weekend. This is Rachel's girl, Kate. She's such a cutie!

One night we went to a concert at this neat outdoor mall before we ate at the famous Grimaldi's Pizza. This is Rachel's new little one, Lauren. She's 10 weeks older than Amelia and they loved exchanging smiles the whole weekend and were even caught holding hands a couple of times.

Sweet little Taylor (Rachel's 2nd) giving me a kiss on the cheek. I loved spending time with Rachel's girls- they are so sweet!

And here's "Double Trouble", as they used to call us on our high school soccer team. Our two baby girls might be following in our footsteps...

PS- You should know that I pilfered these pics off Sheree and Rachel's blogs since Christian had the camera for a boys camping trip that same weekend to Pagosa Springs, CO (more to come...). If you'd like to see more of Brian's photography, go here.

Birthday

I don’t typically do B-day tributes but I am going to make an exception in Eliza’s case because A. she does these b-day tributes for everyone else, and B. Younger siblings naturally complement their older siblings--an older sibling usually knows how brilliant or holy or awesome their younger sibling thinks they are--but the niceties don’t flow as easily downstream. The younger sibling might know that their croquet ability or shoe fashion sense is admired, and that’s as good as it gets. Then it all changes when the older siblings get into their 70s and their youngers have a few good years to mock the broken hips and uncontrolled public flatulence. Eliza is a victim of this evil tradition, so she deserves a write up from me, not as her older brother, but simply as Sharkman, citizen of the world.

Eliza has always been one of the most interesting people you know. From the time she was 5 or 6 and sprained her ankle and had 2 little American twins who were somehow born with British accents follow her around the backyard with pillows to lay her ankle on, to the time she admitted on her blog that she runs out onto the golf course whenever it rains, sobbing and mumbling things about Mr. Darcy, to anytime you hang out with her for 5 minutes, she is always capable of being very funny, interesting, smart, engaging, self aware, original, helpful, patient, merciful, wise, loving, open, generous, extremely attuned, selfless, and game, game, game. Piggy is always game for anything social and fun. That’s a huge deal to me. She is a great mom and has a strong and deep soul. And when she dances, man, she leaves it all on the floor.

Everyone has a few people that fall into the category of “always comfortable and always fun to be around.” Eliza is on my list and, I’m sure, the same list of many others.

I’m so grateful Lizey was born 23 or 24 years ago because she has added so much color, wit, goodness, and great times to the family and to my life.

Happy birthday, Pig.


Christian

Mini Me

We took Oliver miniature golfing a week or so ago for the first time. We went with our friends, the Ritchies, who are in town for the summer from BYU doing a law school internship (is that what you call them???). It was so fun to hang with them just like old times. They were really our first friends in Albuquerque and the funnest, most easy-going couple. We were really sad when they up ad left us to go to BYU Law School and can't wait til they come back to ABQ for good! Here's to a fun night of mini golf and to a fun summer!