About a week ago we got the opportunity to go through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. We sort of went for Hailey’s birthday, but it just happened to be a good day to go. We invited my whole family and Emily’s parents and went through as a group. The temple is incredibly beautiful and there’s definitely a special feeling there even though it hasn’t been dedicated yet. There is a set large staircases in the middle of the temple which give it a very unique feeling. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but they give a very “homey” feeling as you walk in. There are several special features that make it unique and special and I can’t wait to be able to attend a session there. It was a great end to Hailey’s birthday and the fact that my dad took us to Panda Express when we were done helped a bit too.

This week I got the opportunity to head down to California with my Dad and brothers to go scuba diving. We’d been planning this trip for quite a while, but due to people constantly bailing out, we weren’t sure we were going to get to go until about 2 weeks ago. Luckily, we were still able to make it work.

On Wednesday morning we got up and on the road by 8am and drove straight through to Long Beach harbor with only a couple gas stops. After arriving at the harbor and putting all our dive gear on the boat, we drove into town and got some dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp house. After some fine seafood we went back and bunked down on the boat. The next morning the crew got the boat up and running around 4:30am while the rest of us were still sleeping. I finally woke up about 8 while we were headed across the channel to Catalina Island. After grabbing some pancakes in the galley, the captain shouted out to inform us that a pod of Dolphins was swimming along the bow of the boat. It was a good start to the day.

After arriving at our first dive location we all started getting our gear on. The fog that had rolled in the night before was still laying low on the island and the captain pulled out his bagpipes to play for us as we got in the water for the first time of the day. With the fog and the bagpipes, it was a little like diving off the shore of Scotland, but lots warmer. We made 4 dives that day at Ship rock and Two Harbors. The last dive of the day was by far the best as we got to dive through a cool kelp forest just outside of Two Harbors. We saw lots of starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers and we even found a random shark egg drifting along the rocks on the bottom. There were tons off cool overhangs and walls to explore and the visibility and colors were great. My Dad’s neighbor even caught a small octopus and brought it up to the boat. After diving that evening, we ferried onto the beach and had steak cook out on the beach.

Friday morning we got another early start and made 3 dives at Rock Quarry and Whale Rock. Again, the last dive of the day was the best and we saw multiple Spanish Dancers and even a horned shark. There were some great wall dives and we explored lots of cool terrain. Although diving through the kelp is one of my favorite things. I love the surreal feeling as the kelp sways back and forth around you. It’s like flying through a quiet forest, except the whole forest seems to move around you. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it, but it’s a cool experience.

After finishing up our dives we cruised back to the harbor at Long Beach and we all hopped in our cars and started the long drive home. We were all tired and sore and a little sunburnt so a long drive was the last thing any of us wanted to do, but we made it as far as Mesquite before crashing at a family friends vacation home. We slept late and after getting a big breakfast at the Casa Blanca casino, we finished up the drive home. It was a quick trip with lots of road time, but the diving was great and it’s always fun to get away now and then. We didn’t get any underwater pictures this trip, but check below for the pictures and videos we did take…

And here’s some video of the dolphins…

And here’s Captain Greg and his bagpipes…

The auto show came through Utah a couple weeks ago and I decided to take the kids to see all the nifty new cars. Because its always fun to go see all the hot new expensive cars I’ll never drive. I’m sure the kids didn’t actually care about the cars at all, but it was a fun outing anyway. Jack slept through most of it, but the girls had fun being car models. Every time Mallory saw a fast looking car she wanted to pose and get her picture taken. What a cheeze ball. We got to see the hot new Dodge Challenger and the 540hp Corvette ZR1. WE also saw some cool classic Detroit Metal as well. My camera didn’t like the lighting in the South Town Convention Center, but here’s the ones that mostly turned out:

After the show we decided to stop off at Wendys and get frostys. That was the girls favorite part of the day I think and, to be perfectly honest, it was my favorite part too. There’s nothin’ like a nice cold Frosty. Mmmmmmmmm!

We went to Bear Lake for Thanksgiving this year and while we were waiting for the women to finish up with dinner Mallory and I cruised up the canyon with Grandpa and Tony and Janis and family for some shotgun shootin’ fun. We shot some clays and then pulled out the pistols for some target shooting. Mallory even took a couple shots with the shotgun and uncle Ben’s .22 revolver. After some clean-up (the kids collected all the used shotgun shellls) we headed back down to the cabin for some turkey. Unfortunately we had to be back in town the following day so Emily could be to work so we drove up to the cabin early and came home late the same day. By the time we got home we were all ready to crash, but we always have fun at the cabin.