6 month catch up

well here we go. i have decided to forego my innate desire to spend time cleaning up in the garage and get sarah caught up on her blog. here is a major catchup post that covers the last 6 months. Feel free to skip it. It's mostly for our own records, and because sarah has a hangup about getting back to blogging without catching up first.

we spent plenty of time at Seven Peaks this summer, and Oliver made and achieved the goal of going on every single slide - multiple times. Even the big scary ones.

we spent the 4th of July at capistrano beach with my parents and my sister and her boys peter and tommy

june practiced a lot and got the hang of balancing on her glider bike.

the first of many pictures to follow proving that june is awesome

on the way home from the beach we continued our wiley family tradition of stopping in primm nevada to go on the rides and decompress. here you can see the great contrast to be found between the boys and june when riding the log ride.

the boys and I went on the father and sons overnight. the boys made soda bottle rockets which would fly amazingly high but would certainly kill you, or at least cause significant bodily damage if they hit you on the way down. (the nose cones were full of rocks)

we spent a day up at utah lake to rent a waverunner and do some swimming.
and eating go-gurt and crackers.
the earnest kids joined us for a while before heading off to their new lives in north carolina.

huck turned 1

we spent a lot of time in the nice park in front of grandma and grandpa z's house. grandma's tennis ball pitching machine was a big hit with june and the older boys. this picture is worth clicking on and looking at the bigger version just for the sky.

grandma z made us tin foil dinners which we enjoyed around the fire pit. i'm pretty sure that corn dog might have been microwaved however.

the boys went back to school hoping to earn awards for brightest shoes.

june went back on the slide hoping to earn an award for widest hair

the boys really got into flying off the swings at the park

sarah and i went to capistrano beach with our good friends the hardys, the kendricks and the wells.

the lower lights started playing firesides with our first in the provo utah east stake

oliver and brenden helped me build them a new, larger jump ramp

oliver demonstrates how the ramp is to be used

brenden turned 11 and to celebrate it was back to salt lake for our annual trip to the mountain dew extreme sports tour. here are brenden and oliver with some famous bmx guy who's name i dont know, but his mom clearly shops at all the same places that sarah does.

i'm quite sure that the 6 pack of cream soda would be listed very near the top of brendens favorite birthday presents. the boy likes his soda.

exhibit b demonstrating june's awesomeness

sarah, along with courtney kendrick, mindy gledhill, and justin hackworth, planned a rooftop concert series in downtown provo. last summer they held two concerts, the second of which featured the lower lights as well as libbie linton. they are already gearing up for 6 concerts for this summer.

this is from the after party following the lower lights concert. i just think it's an awesome picture of my beautiful wife.

with my new calling in the bishopric, i'm rarely able to leave church soon after it's over. i found all of these vagrants waiting for me one day. soon after they decided to drive themselves in the morning.

sarah got this fortune, which although troubling, is also kind of awesome.

brenden showcased his super creative and inventive side when he dressed up as a bmx rider for halloween. here he is at his school halloween parade. note the new neon yellow bike which was his other favorite birthday present.

i need to say right now, if you have little kids who have not yet become really into carving pumpkins, please, im begging you, steer clear of the kits that have these templates in them. we made this drastic mistake one year and there is just no going back. now the kids expect that every pumpkin is a huge work of art with intense detail. here's how it usually goes:
"dad, i want to make this frankenstein"
"but oliver, that looks pretty complicated, maybe you could choose something simpler?"
"i can do this dad, but you could just help me a little"

then we smash cut to 3 hours later, me still sitting out there carving this dumb, overly elaborate pumpkin while oliver, having retired hours ago, is enjoying dinner and tv inside.
pumpkin templates are like mini vans - lame, and there is no going back.

huck was a duck for halloween, although im not sure he ever even went outside in this outfit. oliver, along with every other boy in the neighborhood, was an army guy.

june was super girl

brenden and i went up hobble creek canyon in springville to go motorcycle riding. the trail was too hard and i fell and got all bruised up on some rocks, so it was a short ride

in november we went back to california for rachel and ken's wedding. a few days before we went to disneyland. the boys were pretty open about trying the rides and found splash mountain to be a real favorite. i think oliver went on it 10 times. brenden wanted to go so much he even went by himself.

and oliver talked sarah into going with him

june enjoyed the more mellow rides

brett joined us halfway through the day

here is huck in his wedding outfit

here is huck proving that he really has a long way to go in the decorum department

the lower lights played a sold out show at the post theater in salt lake on a very snowy night.

huck is also pretty awesome

somehow i managed to get oliver and brenden to help out with the snow shoveling

here's brenden and oliver hanging out in the studio with tyler from neon trees.

somewhere along the way here huck learned to walk. here he is demonstrating that ability as we look for a christmas tree

nearly every picture we have lately features some pretty awesome face from oliver. this one has a bonus feature displaying brenden's 11 year oldness

sarah decorated the mantle with all kinds of girly red stuff. it looked really good, although the bowl of red peanut m&m's didnt really stand a chance of making it all the way to christmas day.

the kids got the traditional matching christmas jammies.

here are the kids waiting at the bottom of the stairs where santa clause put up a wrapping paper wall. note oliver's face.

seriously, june is awesome

after christmas it was back to california to spend a week and new years eve with my family. santa brought oliver a new bike and sarah and i a new camera. this picture illustrates both.

in the off chance that one day huck is a mild mannered mellow mathmatician or philosopher or something, let me just state for the record that i didnt see it coming. this kid is extreme. if our other kids were 100% on the kid energy scale, huck is 190%.

we decided to build a ramp for peter and tommy as a christmas present.

santa really put his thinking cap on and brought june a scooter that no boy would ever want to take.

brenden and his cousin peter both got the same present from santa clause - four days at woodward west action sports camp.

this place is enormous and is a favorite training spot for all the bmx and skateboarding professionals. despite our worries, the boys loved it and are looking forward to going back.

huck doesnt really get the skee ball rules

another great huck trait is a total lack of desire to stay close by. he loves to wander. recently at church i was watching him, and YES, i was really watching him. i turned for a just a split second, turned back and he was gone. so headed after him, got to the foyer outside the chapel but he was nowhere to be found. knowing that there was no way he got farther along than that, i headed back the other way to go to the cultural hall/gym. huck loves to go in there every once in a while and just yell to hear his echo. anyway, i got there and again, he was nowhere to be found. that's when i heard it. someone in the chapel was banging on the high notes of the piano, loudly.
the chapel wasnt empty mind you. another ward was in the middle of their testimony meeting. yes, someone was at the pulpit bearing their testimony. well, i knew what that sound was so i went running down the hall and by the time i got into the chapel i found a lady carrying huck down the aisle asking everyone if he was their kid.

they opened a new place called 'the provo beach resort' in the local shopping area. its supposed to be like going to the santa monica pier fun zone or something. it's not like that at all. but they do have a ropes course thing -

lots of video games

a pinewood derby track with a digital counter that tells the times, speed, etc, and even a flowrider wavepool thing.

and finally, one more picture of june. she pretty much wears these jammies all the time. not just every night. ALL the time.

ok everyone, there you go. now if you would be so kind and just write a comment telling sarah what a tragedy it would be for her to waste all this effort and not continue blogging from here on out, that would be much appreciated. otherwise, see you in 6 months.