INSPERATIONAL MESSAGE FOR SEPTEMBER

I figured this was a good one to follow after all the Olympic posts.

Non-Virgin Lagoon Day

We recently held the 4th annual "Non-Virgin Lagoon Day".

This all started about 4 years ago when Lariann and myself went to lagoon with some of our married friends. I'm not sure who first started calling it "Non-Virgin Lagoon Day" (probably Marc Lunt) but we go to lagoon and the name has stuck.

It's not as exclusive as you might think. My brother Tyler has brought several dates to Non-Virgin Lagoon day. My sister Alison was set up on a blind date one time and brought our cousin Sarah with her another time. Greg took his then girl friend now wife Stacy before she went on her mission.

Lets have a look at this years participants.

Here's my cute little wife Lariann and my self on the space scrambler and on Odysea lagoons new ride. It's kind of like the dumbo ride at disney land only you get a little wet.

My brother Tyler and his lovely wife Brooke on the turn of the century and at wicked. Lariann decided not to ride rattle snake rapids so Tyler, Brooke and I did.



Finally here is my long time friend Marc Lunt with his beautiful wife Hali (pronounced Holly). They are riding the flying aces and also on odysea.

It was another successful Non-virgin Lagoon Day. I would also like to take this time to thank our corporate sponsors they really help make Non-Virgin Lagoon Day everything it can be.

Olympic results

We now have the results for the Olympic popularity poll. Like the Olympic games we had some controversy. After further investigation it was discovered the taekwondo, who had run away the vote, had in fact been using steroids and therefore had to be disqualified.

We had some events that received only a single vote. Equestrian, pentathlon, rowing, shooting, softball and water polo. And another group that received double those votes at two a piece, triathlon, soccer, sailing and baseball. Diving and kayak were able to one up those and gain three votes each. All of theses events with the exception of baseball are events I would never sit down and watch if it wasn't in the Olympics. I think that's pretty much the same for every one else out there.

Volleyball was able to slip past track & field and basketball despite the best efforts of Kobe and LeBron. What a great games it was for volleyball. The U.S. medaled in every volleyball event. Picking up three golds and one silver. Plus they wear some great uniforms.

Swimming was two better then volleyball. I think we all tuned in every night to watch Michael Phelps inch closer and closer to getting his eight gold medals. It seemed like every race another world record would fall.

Finally gymnastics comes out on top. With Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin leading team USA it was a very successful Olympics. Even the men managed to pick up some medals.

With the close of the games it will probably be another four years before I watch a gymnastics meet or a water polo game and I can now go back to hating Kobe Bryant. So now we can get back to whats really important. The Major League Baseball pennant races. Go CARDINALS!

What's your favorite?

I've decided to stick with the olympic theme here. I want to know what everyones favorite olympic events are. I've set up a poll so feel free to vote for your favorite and leave a coment telling us why.

We'll see which event gets the Bronze, Silver & Gold in popularity.

Olympics

Once every four years the Olympic games come along and suddenly I am spending 2 weeks glued to my TV watching athletes I've never heard of participating in sports I normally would not watch. Suddenly names like Shawn Johnson, Michael Phelps & Nastia Liukin replace Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals) & Alex Smith (San Francisco 49ers) as athletes that I follow closely.

I'm on pins and needles every time Michael Phelps races. Will he win a gold and get one step closer to the 8 he needs to pass Mark Spitz for the most gold medals in one Olympics. Currently he's at 7 and I think he can do it. Swimming is not a sport that I would watch, but suddenly since it's the Olympics I have to see it.
I will stay up to midnight just to see the Americans embarrass the French, not that that is hard to do, I mean they are the French after all.

Gymnastics is another sport that for some reason is an absolute must watch for me. Maybe it's because back when I was in high school during the Atlanta games I thought some of the girls were pretty cute and so I became obsessed with it.But now here I am at 29 and I find my self blown away by what these men and girls are able to do. I actually understand how this sport is scored now, though I'm still certain you have to have a computer from NASA to get it. One I thing I don't get is why these girls put with wedgies like this. That would drive me crazy. Some one needs to invent the wedgie-less leotard.









Now some of these sports I do watch on a regular basis. Take basketball for example. Up until the Athens games this was a sport we just dominated. Now the rest of the world has caught up to us and it's a little more interesting.
Plus having Jazzmen Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer gives me another reason to watch. Hopefully this team that they call the "Redeem Team" will be able to restore USA Basketballs former glory.





Other sports I will refuse to watch, like badminton. Any thing that most normal people would play in their back yard with their grandmother just doesn't belong. I refuse to watch a sport that uses a shuttle cock.







Something I wonder is how on earth did we get so bad at baseball? This is our sport, much like basketball we've slipped in international competition. Unlike basketball though this doesn't appear to be resolving itself any time soon. I know that since its right in the middle of the MLB season we're not going to get guys like Derek Jeter and Randy Johnson. But other countries are sending their best players while we suffer through minor league rejects. How did Taiwan, Cuba and South Korea become power houses in Olympic baseball?





So I will continue to tune in every morning and evening to watch more of our athlete "Go for the Gold" in sports I probably wont watch again for 4 more years. frack and field anyone?

Gregs Wedding

My little brother Greg got married last friday on 8/8/08 to a nice girl named Stacy. They were married at the Bountiful Temple. Our daughter Lucy had the opportunity to find out how boring weddings can really be. She wanted to run around and play at the temple; we wanted her to sit still for pictures. She wanted to get out of her high chair at the wedding breakfast, run around and play; we wanted her to sit still and eat her breakfast. At the reception she wanted to run around and play we wanted to show her off to friends and family whom we hadn't seen in a while.
So with that here are some of the highlights.


The classic emerging from the temple shots.





We tried to keep Lucy and her cousin Britian entertained by showing them the fountain, they wanted to splash in the fountain.



Here's what my parents family looks like now that we've added Stacy.






Gregs cousins decorated/trashed his car. No body planned ahead and brought any supplies so some of my cousins ran home and grabbed some common house hold itmes to throw on his car.


Greg and Stacy had PIE at their reception 4 kinds of PIE. I made it a point to have a slice of each and eat it infront of them while they stood in line.



This is what Lucy and her cousin Britian wanted to do, play on the floor.
By the time we took her home she was exhausted, she fell asleep on the short 1.5 mile ride home. And we just left her in her fancy dress and put her to bed.

Insperational message for August.

I don't know if any of you work in places where they do things the same way over and over only because that's how they've always done it. But the fire and EMS field sure can be that way sometimes. New equipment or new techniques seem to frighten some people. We've added some new equipment here at KFD recently with mixed reviews. Though I think some of our recent changes are for the better.

Beauty Hurts

There's nothing Lucy hates more than having her hair done. It's alot of crying, screaming and squirming. Which just makes it harder to make things straight and even.


But the finished product is worth all the fuss.