We Love USU Basketball!!!

Since Bryan still has two more finals to study for, I decided I need to pick things up a bit, and add another post to our blog! One of the first things that came to mind was (of course!) Aggie Basketball. It is amazing. USU is awesome. And the games are so much fun! For those of you not from Logan, and have a distaste for the lack of sportsmanship from the crowd, well, I wish I could apologize. But I can't. The Aggies ROCK! And we know it! : )

Bry & I after the first game; we didn't take any pictures at the game...

The second game we went to was against Cal Poly (I think). The guy shooting in the picture below was a midget. That's what I decided anyway. Cause you totally have to be taller than that to play basketball! If you are any good anyway!

Bry and I at the second game - So fun!

So there is this one cheerleader that I wish would just go away. She has these huge, super fake-looking white teeth that stick out like a beaver's front teeth. I've been trying to get a picture of her, but it's kind of hard, as when she is facing us, she is usually jumping around, being annoying. But I mean, LOOK AT THOSE TEETH!! You can't tell me those are real. Otherwise, you'd have to be her, and let me pull on them... really hard.

Homecoming 2008!!!

So, I (Ali), have finally decided that I need to learn how this whole blogging thing works. Bry is usually the one to do it, but, due to his HUGE amount of homework, nothing new has been posted for a little while. So I'll mix it up a bit. I know it isn't going to be as exciting, but it'll have to do : ) After Bryan and I started dating, I would make small mentions of going to formal dances. Which never happened. He had some excuse about school dances being too expensive and such. I would have paid! I wanted to go to a formal dance with him SOOO bad! Oh well. That's something I just decided I would have to get over sooner or later. About a week before the homecoming dance, I mentioned something to Bryan about it. I don't think he realized how soon it was coming up. He told me that he wanted to go, and that it would be a lot of fun, since the only time we really have had a chance to dance was at our wedding reception. I'm kind of a brat sometimes, and just told him that no, we weren't going to go, and that I didn't want to go, and that it just wasn't going to happen. Little did I know that Bryan really did want to go. So I came home from work a day or two later to the flower plant that I told him I really liked, on the little table next to our front door, with our ticket to the homecoming dance sitting on top. I'm so happy that Bry has learned that a lot of the time when I say "no", I really mean "yes". He is learning SO quickly! ; ) After this wonderful event, I talked with my friend Elise Snow that I work with. (For those of you who don't know, her husband, John was roommates and friends with Bryan before they (and we) got married.) We planned to double, and go out to dinner beforehand. It was awesome! We went to Hamilton's, and enjoyed not only the good food, but the company, and looking all sorts of pretty and having people look at us.

John & Elise Snow

We then headed to the dance, which was actually rather fun, considering I don't know how to dance... at all. And I don't follow a lead very well either. Bryan will agree with me on that. After some fun live music, and some horrible singing in one of the rooms, we decided that we were exhausted, and headed home, not staying so Bryan could make me a true Aggie. Oh well. I'm pretty sure I'm okay with that. I'm an Aggie at heart : )

WEEZER!!

Last week we ran down to Salt Lake quick one night (it was even a school night!) to go to a Weezer concert. Kinda crazy, but it was definitely worth it! The two opening bands were both pretty lame, but that just made Weezer look all the better.
To give you an idea of how awesome they were, the lead singer for Weezer came out and sang the first couple songs with a sock over his head. They had a rubber ball (the kind you buy from Walmart for a dollar) on stage that they were kicking around randomly, as well as one of those mini trampolines. After seeing them live, we have a much greater appreciation for their nerdiness. They also played all their classics, The Sweater Song, My Name is Jonas, Buddy Holls, etc, it was great!!

Near the end of the show they had a bunch of random people from around Salt Lake come up on stage to play along with the band. They all brought whatever instrument they played (saxophones, guitars, acordians, irish whistlses, etc) and they all played the backup music for the band. Very random, but it was actually pretty cool!
Ali and I both agree that it was one of the better, if not the best concert either of us have ever been to.

Demolition Derby

One of our most memorable dates from back in the day before we got married was a demolition derby here in Logan. We unfortunately had to miss the first two this year, with people getting married or family vacations, but we were pretty excited when we found out they were going to have one more in Logan and we finally weren't going to be out of town that night!
It was a classic night of demolition derby goodness, with some pretty memorable moments. For instance, there was a somewhat faithful representation of Mater from Cars (see below), who unfortunately didn't do so well. And don't ask me how, but a pickup truck managed to nearly flip a suburban upside down (The bigger they are the harder they fall?). Wheels were popping off all over the place, drive shafts were falling off, and tires were usually little more than a flap of rubber somehow clinging to the rims. Good times!

Probably the most exciting event of the night was when the pickup above got flipped onto its side right in front of where we were sitting and caught on fire. We're not talking a little wussy fire, but probably about a 6-foot diameter fireball came off of his engine to start things off. They quickly pulled the driver from the truck (he was ok), got the flames out, and flipped it back on its wheels. Luckily, Ali managed to snap a picture of the fire before they got the fire put out.
We were trying to meet up with a bunch of friends there, unfortunately it was packed! Luckily we still got a spot with Garrett and Melissa, friends of ours who recently got hitched. Besides almost feeling like we we're going to die of smoke inhalation, it was an awesome night. If you've never been to a demolition derby, you are definitely missing out!

Lagoon!!

I'm a little late posting this, but we decided to spend our last day of the summer at Lagoon. It turns out that a couple of other people decided to do the same thing...I guess it was the busiest day of the year. Even though it was a little on the crowded side, we had a great time. It was Ali's first time at Lagoon, and I hadn't been there since high school.

One of the day's highlights was this awesome car's bumper...I've seen people duct tape a car back together, but band-aids!?!? Yup, pretty amazingly ghetto.

Some of the lines for rides we a little long, after getting in the Rattle Snake Rapids line we were informed that it would be at like 2 to 2 1/2 hours before we would get on the ride. Luckily, we decided to stick it out and it was really more like an hour or so. But, considering it was extremely hot that day we needed some cool refreshment. You've gotta love blue icees!

We also had to spend a while trying on all the sweet hats, and Ali did her best to convince me that we needed to buy some of them...I guess she had good reason, these fish hats were pretty awesome.

We pretty much spent all day there with our final ride being Wicked. It looked awesome, so we decided to save it as our last ride...unfortunately for us, I think everyone had the same idea. The line was insane!! After an hour and a half of waiting it was finally our turn, and it was awesome! I would have to say that it was probably my favorite ride of the day, a little short, but the crazy acceleration at the first, the complete vertical drop, and the corkscrew totally made it worth it. Ali liked it was well, but I think she's decided that the Colossus is her favorite because she almost blacked out around the double loop.
Lots of fun, a good way to end the summer! Now it's back to reality and school...

Bear Lake Adventure

We spent the first half of this week up with my family in Bear Lake. My Dad has turned it into a yearly tradition to rent a place up near Bear Lake and then spend a couple days there with the family. Here are some pictures of the cabin...

Monday
We started off the morning hiking the Limber Pine Trail, which is just right about where Logan Canyon hits Bear Lake. Limber Pine is supposed to be a 2500 year old tree, the hike was lots of fun, Landon especially enjoyed playing in the dirt the whole time. However, we're not quite sure we ever saw Limber Pine or not...oh well. Here are a couple pictures from the hike.

After getting back from the hike we spent the whole afternoon out on the lake riding waverunners. This was probably the highlight of the trip, it was actually quite windy and that made for some crazy huge waves as you got out to the middle of the lake. Ali and I shared a waverunner and she might not look like the type to do anything crazy, but you should have seen her jumping from wave to wave at crazy speeds, laughing the whole time. It might have helped that she didn't have her glasses on or contacts in, when you can't see how big the waves are I guess you don't worry about how fast you are hitting them!

Tuesday
Tuesday morning was the annual four-wheeling with Grandpa Dave. He and his friend Morris (who happens to be 92 years old!!) brought up a bunch of four wheelers and we started off in Franklin Basin and rode out to Camp Wilderness, an old abandoned scout camp that my dad went to when he was a kid. Then we down the "horse trail", which was a very narrow, rocky trail through dense trees. At one point we had to go down some really steep rocks for a hundred feet or so...it was crazy! Even crazier was that the guy leading us down it was 92, and he was down a lot quicker than the rest of us! We finished the trip by riding over to a place where a military plane carrying soldiers returning from Korea crashed in the 50's. There was a monument up there and you could still find a bunch of little pieces of the plane on the ground. It was a great ride, and we all managed to get plenty dirty!

After four wheeling we quickly headed down to the lake for some boating. My dad rented a boat and a water weenie, so we climbed up on that and he drug us around the lake for a while.

Tuesday night we all went to the Pickleville Playhouse for a chuckwagon dinner and their Wild West show. It was hilarious!! From the tall, happy looking white guy playing a Mexican villain (Juanito Badito), to the random rap number - we rarely stopped laughing.

Wednesday
Wednesday was our last day, so after packing and cleaning stuff up around the cabin we went into town to grab one last raspberry shake and then it was time for some horseback riding. We went up to Beaver Creek Lodge in Logan canyon a guide took us on a two hour horseback ride. Ali almost immediately fell in love with a horse when we got there, unfortunately he was too young and they wouldn't let her ride it. Our guide, Bryan, was a really nice guy and he took us up on the mountain just across from Beaver Mountain. We rode up to a ridge through pretty dense trees and then probably half way up the mountain and stopped for lunch. It was quite the climb to get up there, and we were all glad that it was the horses doing all the work! There was a really great view up there and then all the way back down. All our horses were great...well, except for Jason's, which couldn't seem to follow the horse in front of him, or stay on the trail. This was pretty funny because Ali was behind Jason, and Ali's horse would just follow Jason's wherever it went - through bushes, over rocks, etc.

And that was it for our vacation, we came home Wednesday afternoon and then I was off to work until ten o'clock that night. I guess it's back to reality now!

Rodeo

We went to the Rodeo last Friday here in Logan and it was great fun. The first date that Ali and I went on after we officially started dating was actually to the rodeo, so it was fun to relive those memories.


The "Poker Match" to start the rodeo was great, they several guys sit at a card table while they let an angry bull loose. The last guy to stay sitting at the table would win $500. 00! It was funny to watch the guys try to stay sitting as the bull flipped the card table over, trampling and nearly goring them all in the process.

Here's a video of some bull riding.

After the rodeo we wandered around the fairground for a while. Ali absolutely loved all the animals, I think she was just about heartbroken that we couldn't buy a baby goat. This goat to the left was Molly, she was very content on not letting Ali take her picture.

Nine Mile Canyon Trip

My Dad has been wanting to take the family down to Nine Mile Canyon the whole summer, so this past weekend he rented a 12-passenger "plig-van" and we made the trek out there. It ended up being quite the adventure, first off on our way down we got stuck on I-15 for like an hour because of some huge wreck. Luckily Leslie had brought a bunch of toys and activities to keep Landon happy, and as you can see, Ali and I made good use of the playdough.

After we got through that mess it was smooth sailing until the dirt roads, lets just say those giant vans don't do so well off-road! But we made it intact, here is a sampling of some of the awesome petroglyphs and scenery...

The trip back home went rather well, my Dad decided to head back up through Heber and Park City to see if the dirt roads were any better in that direction (they were a little nicer). We were making good time until we hit Parley's Canyon and they decided to shut it down to one lane for no apparent reason. So instead of getting back to Salt Lake at 9:00 we finally pulled in at about 11:30.

Even with all of our traffic problems up and back it was still an awesome trip, we highly recommend it to anyone!