Mission Impossible - B&T Logan Temple - March 7, 2009

Mission Impossible - choosing just a few favorites to post. I finally have their photos cropped and ready to save onto CDs for Brett & Tammy and their mothers. I decided I would post a few to share - this post is all about the pictures we took at the Logan Temple - March 7, 2009. P.S. Kurt & Carlee - thank you for letting me use your camera! I LOVE it!

Mr. and Mrs. Price coming out to greet their loved ones.

Here are the Loved Ones! I still love that leaf-less tree in the background, but we were very very squished on the stairs. There has got to be a better place to take group photos...

Everybody feels the Love! And it is pretty fun to ask people to kiss on cue.

Brett & Tammy didn't have any problems complying!

This may be the only photo I have that shows Tammy's long johns - she was smart and layered up for photos.

This next bunch of pictures don't need captions, they're just cute.

This one is SO cute of the couple, but I'm a bit cranky about the cars in the background. Oh well!

I don't know why the same corner looks so different. I must have changed the place where I stood to take these pictures. There must be a way to fix the coloring...

Uncle Doug, my lovely assistant, suggested this photo of their shoes & I LOVE IT! Thank you Uncle Doug for following us all around the temple grounds and carrying my jacket & camera bag & then being my chauffer to the luncheon.

I took this picture when we were "All Done" and walking back to the temple for Tammy & Brett to change clothes. Tammy was singing a little "We're Married! We're Married!" and that joy & love seem to pop out in the picture.
"Let's take a picture by this tree." So we did.

Knitting Aha! Moment - March 6, 2009

This story begins with crochet. I love to crochet. I learned how back in 2001 when my sister Kim was expecting her oldest, McKayla. I started by buying a pattern for making an afghan out of 54 different granny squares. A wonderful project because I was able to learn how to read the directions, practice different stiches, make small accomplishments and finally end up with a large afghan.

Then it got really fun & I made some baby blankets and sweaters and booties and hotpads and wash cloths and snowflakes and even some elephants and monkeys. This year I'm making little purses for my nieces' birthdays.

Then I found the most perfect pattern for a purse / scripture bag that I'd like to make for my Mom for her birthday. So cute with verigated blue wool yarn that you 'felt' to make it fuzzy and more dense. BUT the pattern is KNIT.

I've seen tons of cute knit patterns before this, but I've always told myself that I don't need a new hobby until I've done all the crochet projects that I want to do. I have so many ideas for projects that I think I'll never run out. But I caved!

I bought the pattern. I bought the yarn. I bought the knitting needles. I pulled out some yarn left over from an old project (a pink stuffed elefant) so that I could practice without ruining my beautiful new yarn. And I definitely needed to practice before jumping into a new hobby.

I'm so FRUSTRATED. The "Basic Stitches" instructions that came with the instructions for the purse are pretty easy to follow and I felt like I was doing it correctly, but the pictures show some perfect stitches like this:

And my results were coming out like this:



Over and over and over again. So I went to the internet and did some research and watched some videos. And over and over again, I did the stitches EXACTLY as they show it, but after 5 or 6 rows, it does not look like the picture. And all the videos and instructions show you how to do ONE row and then they end. I wanted to watch for 5 or 6 rows, so maybe I could figure out where I was going wrong.

Today I figured it out! With knitting and crochet, you turn your project around for each new row. In crochet when you do that, the basic stitches look identical from both sides, but in knitting they don't! So that's why my knitting didn't look like the pretty picture. They were knitting one stitch for one row, turning the project around and then doing a DIFFERENT stitch, turning it around and knitting the original stitch for the third row. But they didn't tell me that!

There are names for everything - my new vocabulary includes knit stitch, purl stitch, garter stitch (what I was doing over and over and over again), stockinette stitch (what I should have been doing to get the results that I wanted), and lots, lots more.

AHA!

Now I have a pretty little practice sample:

And I feel like I can actually try this purse pattern without making a mess out of the beautiful yarn and hopefully have an end product that I'll be happy to give as a birthday present.

Next Step: Practice with knitting in the round.

Ski Exchange - March 4, 2009

James took his new skis back to Backcountry.com and exchanged them for the other pair they have in stock.

Backcountry is shipping his 'weird' skis back to Liberty for a replacement.

Lucky for James, no delay and skis that are shaped correctly! Now all he needs are bindings!

Liberty Double Helix 190 cm skis - Tuesday March 3, 2009

Whoo Hoo! James brought home his new skis today. The Liberty Double Helix - they're listed as a Big Mountain performance ski and James could tell you all about the bamboo core and the camber, or lack of camber, or reverse camber, or tip-and-tail early rise....

These skis have been a long, long time coming. Sometime early LAST ski season, James sold his backcountry ski set-up (skis, bindings, skins) with the intent to use the money to buy a new set-up. Or at least to begin The Ski Fund toward that new set-up.

The Ski Fund got raided for something else - something extremely important like paying bills.

James re-seeded The Ski Fund by selling another pair of skis.

The Ski Fund got raided for car maintenance and moving expenses.

We've slowly, slowly re-seeded The Ski Fund with birthday money and James has saved his lunch money and finally here they are!

We get them home, and James takes them out of the plastic and tests the flex and has me stand on the skis to check the camber and tip and tail rise and start to plot how he's going to mount the bindings. Then he notices that his brand new skis are a little bit 'wrong'. He's got them lying side-by-side on the floor, with the center marks lined up. Ski number one's tip rises sooner than the other ski. And ski number two's tail rises sooner than the other ski. Obvious enough that I can even see that the tips and tails don't match like they should.

Poor James!

His new plan is to observe the other pair that Backcountry.com has for sale, to see if all the Liberty Double Helix skis were pressed that way. Then he'll have to decide if he can exchange his skis or live with the weirdness or return his skis and put the money back into The Ski Fund until he can choose another ski.

In any case, we've now got The Binding & Skins Fund and The Digital Camera Fund competing for our extra lunch money.

Sunset - February 2009

The view from our back porch - sometime in February 2009. James uses the flame from the oil refinery like a wind-sock - tells him how hard and in which direction the wind is blowing. After dark, the lights of the oil refinery are quite pretty - especially without contacts in and all lights sparkle.

(Finally got some film developed - stay tuned for more 'delayed' photos. And I found out the Cost-co by our house doesn't stock film anymore. I guess no one was buying it. Sigh.)

Busy Day & The Big LaPowSki - February 28, 2009

I spent Saturday with Grandma & Granddad Price. They drove to my house before 08:30 and we drove together to American Fork for Carson Price's baptism. He looked so cute all dressed up in his suit!

It was very fun to see Aunt Barb & Uncle Doug's family get together for such a fun event. Jeremy & Sandy & family came up from California and Kip & Amy & family came up from St. George. Only Eric was missing. Yummy, yummy lunch at Tom & Chanelle's house.

I didn't take any pictures with my camera, so you'll have to check on Tom & Chanelle's blog for pictures. Thanks for letting me participate in your day Carson!

Afterwards, we went to the Jordan River Temple for Grandma & Granddad to participate in Tammy's endowment. My recommend is expired (oops), so I spent a couple hours in the sun listening to the BYU v. UofU basketball game and trying to learn to knit. I'm getting pretty good, but I'm still frustrated at the 'knit' stitch... With five minutes left in the game & and BYU ahead by a small margin, my car battery died. I'd been sitting with the radio on & Granddad's GPS plugged in for a couple hours. Luckily, temple security has jumper cables. Uncle Glen & Granddad & the security guy rescued me and got the car started while I took a few pictures for Tammy & Brett.

I'm including a trio of my favorites. They're so happy together & I look forward to taking more pictures at their wedding and reception next weekend.

P.S. BYU won the game!

MEANWHILE...

We signed James up for the Big LePowSki! It was a fundraiser for the Billy Poole Fund and one of the sponsors is Backcountry.com. For less than the price of a regular day lift ticket at Brighton, James got a lift ticket and two clinics and lunch and a hat and a bunch of stickers and a bottle opener and an autographed poster and was able to mingle with professional big mountain skiers. He loved it!

It actually started on Thursday night with some ski films - we didn't go to that.

Friday night was the mandatory pre-registration with Meet The Athletes. We talked to a bunch of people - including Chris Davenport who would be doing a slide show on some of his adventures up at Alta on Monday night. James also met the Backcountry.com guy who works with the athletes and getting their links on the websites. I didn't know that Backcountry.com has a Pro Team, but it was fun to meet some of them.

On Saturday, James' morning clinic was with Chris Davenport and was about the basics of backcountry skiing - safety, picking lines, etc. James enjoyed skiing with a small group of people, getting skiing tips, and being the 2nd best in the group (only behind Chris)!

Chris Davenport & James at Brighton -

James now has Chris' autograph on his Survival ski jacket.

At lunch, James text'd me that it was sunny & warm & he wished I was there. I'm keeping him!

In the afternoon, James skied in a How to Huck Cliffs clinic. I guess the conditions weren't too friendly toward cliff jumping (very firm), but he still picked up some pointers.

Saturday night was a party / auction / raffle / fundraiser event. James went for an hour-or-so and did a little more mingling with the athletes.

Monday - March 2, 2009 - Chris Davenport was at Alta Ski Resort giving a presentation about one of his projects - Ski the 14ers. There are 54 mountain peaks in Colorado over 14,000 feet, and in one calendar year, he hiked & and then skied them all. He completed that project in January 2007, so we saw pictures of that adventure & then pictures from first descents on Denali and in Antarctica that he's done since.

It was a pretty relaxed event. Our Lady of the Snows Center was full of chairs & full of people. James even chatted with the guy from Backcountry.com again after the slide show (the one who works with their pro-athletes). The guy said he saw James skiing and was impressed and would drop by the warehouse and say "Hi" sometime. We were impressed he remembered meeting James, but I'm not surprised that James is impressive while skiing!

James is so jealous of Chris' goggle tan!

Brighton - February 21, 2009

Hooray for Dental Meetings! Dad was back in town this weekend for meetings, so we made sure to include a ski day at Brighton (Thanks Jen for tickets!!!). It was beautiful - blue, blue sky and nice and warm.

I'm borrowing Kurt & Carlee's digital camera for Brett & Tammy's wedding (March 7th!), so I'm grateful to have a couple extra weeks to get comfortable with a new-to-me set up. These are some of the 90+ pictures I took today. I love digital! THANK YOU Kurt & Carlee!

James - right now I can't remember where we were skiing, but I really like how this picture turned out. I like it so much, I'll make it the blog background for a while.

Dad skiing Lower Pioneer of Snake Creek. I had to lighten both these pictures, the contrast between the sunshine and shadow was too much. I think I need to read the manual.


Dad skiing Lower Pioneer off Snake Creek.

Watch out for trees! Skiing Power Line off Milli.

Gnarly old tree near Milli lift line.

Milli bowl viewed from Great Western Lift w/super zoom lens.

James in Milli Bowl. Isn't he amazing!