Hunting Trip 2008

Check out that big boy sleeping in his bed. I didn't realize I was as stealthy and sneaky as I am.

Well, the annual hunting trip has ended. It was a lot of fun and I didn't bring home a dead animal to eat. At least that is my positive spin. As much as I would have loved to shoot my gun, it was fun hiking around the mountains. We went to a new area near Fish Lake. There were elk everywhere. We could hear them calling and bugeling all the time. It was way cool. My highlight of the trip was walking over this little rise and as I started down the trial on the other side I saw an elk laying there on the ground about 20 feet in front of me. I thought someone had poached it at first. Then it sort of swayed and I realized it was asleep. I pulled out my camera and took a picture and then crouched behind a nearby pine tree to watch. It was way cool. The elk slowly woke up and looked around and stood up and then slowly wandered up the mountain. I never thought I would get that close to an elk before. Not a bad size bull either. I also spent an evening touring the area around Boulder, UT between the Boulder mountains and The Grand Staircase Escalante. It is an amazing area. Wow, who thought that Utah would have all this different kinds of landscape. As I looked around I missed my wife and children. I wanted them to see the beautiful scenery. It was awesome.

Here are a couple pictures of the area I explored.

Vacationing in Washington DC

First of all, sorry about my last entry. It was very late and I was very tired. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Today is Saturday and we go home very early tomorrow. It has been a fun week. We have enjoyed seeing the sights and visiting with the Allens. I'm sure they can finally see the light, the Hamblin invasion is almost over. I think my favorite things to visit have been the historical and memorial sites. It was very cool to see the founding documents. It felt like a spiritual experience. It probably was. I can tell that those documents were written through inspiration from above.
I really enjoyed Gettysburg as well. It was an afternoon trip. That was a very large battle area, at least in my opinion. I always thought it would be one big field and you would be able to see where the different sides lined up and fought. It wasn't like that at all. The more i think about it, the more I realize that it makes sense that it would be a larger area as the armies advance and retreat and the battle changes over several days. What sacrifices those from the past have made for us now. They seem to have been so committed to greater causes and the greater good for the future. Do we have that commitment now?
We went to visit the monuments at night. That was very cool. The lights on the different buildings and columns and statues. I was impressed with the WWII memorial. Another group of people who seemed to see the bigger picture and sacrificed so much for the greater good and a more important cause than one person's life. So many died to prevent Nazism and Tyranny of the Axis forces. The other war memorials were impressive as well. It is good to see those soldiers of different wars honored.
We went to the Lincoln Memorial that night as well. It is so much bigger than i ever imagined. What a great man who understood what was happening in his time and understood the importance of his decisions. I'm glad he was there to make those decisions. The Jefferson Memorial was pretty cool too. A great founding father of our country who had so many great principles and ideals that he wanted to have as part of our society.
Well, I will try to post some pictures when we get home. I think we will go see Arlington Cemetery today and finish off the visit at the Air and Space museum. The big one so Abbie can walk through the planes and stuff like that. It will be fun. I am excited to see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I didn't realize it was guarded 24 hours per day with a change every 30 minutes. Goodbye blogger friends.

What took me so long?

I'm not sure what the deal is. I've been trying to log on to this for months to do a little update, but I couldn't unitl tonight. All of the sudden it just worked. Hopefully I can do this again.
Okay, so I am in Washington, DC with Alyssa and Abbie. Alyssa thought it would be fun for the two of us to take our newly baptized 8 year old on a trip with just the two of us. It has been fun and a little annoying too. One funny story. I am sitting on a park bench in the DC Mall area and I see a friend crossing the lawn. I yell his name and go over and say hello and we begin to talk. Abbie walks over and he says hello to her and asks her what she has seen today. You see her look to the side and think for a second and then she looks at him and says, "Seven Squirels." I cracked up right there. We had seen The Declaration of Independance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, The Capitol, the Supreme Court Building, the Botanical Gardens, and many other things and all she can think of is the wild life. That is Abbie.
We are having a great time visiting Alyssa's sister Tonya and her family. Abbie loves to play with the kids. It has been fun to visit with them each night. I wonder if they are getting tired of the invation. It is good to see family. It only takes a few minutes and it feels like we see each other all the time. Relationships are what life is all about. I hope I can remember what is truly important and share that with my wife and kids. I have a pretty good life.