Christmas Lights!!

Last night we all headed out to Rancho Cucamonga because there is almost an entire neighborhood (probably about 100 houses) that is totally decked out with the most Christmas lights that I have ever seen in my life! It took us a couple of hours to walk through the entire neighborhood and I don't even think that we saw all of them. The houses were absolutely amazing. Oh yeah, just on a random note, among the thousands of people in that neighborhood last night, who do we happen to run into? DEV and LISA! It was so random. Oh yeah, and a big thank you to the Jewish people for the free hot chocolate and cookies! Anyway, here are some pictures:

Triton Company Party in Salt Lake

This weekend all of here who work at my apartment complex went down to Salt Lake City for Triton's annual company party. This is the first time that anyone went from up here because it is such a long drive and they usually have them on a weeknight when nobody from up here can go. Anyway, this year they had it on a Friday night and they offered to put us all up in the hotel where the party was being held. So on Friday right after class I headed down with my managers and made it just in time for the start of the party. The party was at the Raddison hotel about 1 block from Temple Square. It was a pretty nice place! After the hors d'oeuvres we went into the "wasatch room" where a nice dinner was all set up for us. When we sat down, there were wine glasses on the table with a mystery red liquid in them and we were all wondering if it was alcohol so we were all a little nervous to try it. We were obviously some of the only Mormon people there and we probably stood out! So after smelling it, and me trying it, we discovered that it was just fruit punch and we felt kinda stupid. Anyway, the dinner was great and afterwords me and Janae headed over to temple square to check out the lights. Overall, it was a great weekend!

This is my hotel room with an awesome "Select Comfort" Sleep Number bed. My sleep number is 45 just in case anyone was wondering!



Here I am trying that mystery red drink at our table. It was actually way good. I had like 3 glasses!






Here are some nice cars that I saw while down there. There was the new Challenger, Nissan GTR, and a Noble.




This is what it looked like out my window this morning! It finally snowed! It is starting to melt already. Bummer.

Truck-trade trip and Hailee's Party

Last weekend I headed home to California and man was it an awesome trip!! I went there to bring up the famous "farm truck" for the winter since my little Ranger just doesn't do too well on the Rexburg ice. And that weekend just so happened to be the weekend of Hailee's first birthday party! We all had so much fun and let me tell you, she is growing up so stinking fast. The last time I saw her she was just starting to crawl and now she is walking all around the house! It blew me away. She sure is adorable though. Anyway, I wish I could have stayed longer because driving almost 2,000 miles in 4 days is not cool. So now I am back up here in Rexburg enjoying the current temperature of 23 degrees at 10:10am. Here are some pics from the trip:


Hailee, Mommy & Daddy opening presents

Me and Hailee kicking back, telling jokes, and laughing!

She was nice enough to share her cake with me!

Me, Hailee, Kipper, and Sarah




Got the Hummer all cleaned up and Oil Changed. It is parked at the house next door that has been vacant for over a year. Thats why the grass is completely dead! It is nice having 2 driveways!

The Farm Truck!! I got that thing all cleaned up and installed 2 spotlights on the bumper. They look sweet and completely light up these dark country roads up here. It is so much bigger than my ranger. I love driving it! Back home it is a total hillbilly truck (hence the name!) but once I got up here to Idaho, I have gotten so many complements. I thought that was so funny! At first I thought people were joking....I guess it fits in here in Idaho!



This is the smoke that you could see from our house from the Corona Fire.

GORILLAS ON THE LOOSE IN REXBURG!

This is by far the most random night that I have ever had. It started off with the idea of going to the Civil Defense caves and somehow evolved into putting on gorilla costumes and scaring the heck out of people. Anyway, we borrowed these costumes from a guy named Trevor's roommates. We don't even know who they are but they let us borrow them. Anyway, we went around to apartment complexes and if people were sitting on the couch next to the window, we would lightly tap on the window and when they looked up make really loud gorilla noises and would scare them to death. It was soooo funny! Then we started knocking on random doors and when they would answer the three of us would have our faces right in the door. Every time without fail the girl who answered the door screamed and then we would run inside the apartment and do random gorilla stuff and then we would run out and go to another apartment. On a few apartments they just told us to come in so we ran in REALLY loud and in one of the apartments one girl jumped over the couch to hide and another girl took off running down the hall to her room screaming bloody murder. I guess you wouldn't expect 3 gorillas to come running in your apartment. So we did this for like 3 hours. We went into parties, through a drive-thru and by the end we would just walk into apartments silently, sit down, and wait for people to come out. It confused the heck out of people. It was so funny! I don't think that I have ever laughed so hard. Anyway, it was such a random but fun night!

I had to test it out so when my two friends came out the door to the right, I jumped out and scared them. IT WORKED!

This is when we went and sat down in an apartment and waited for them to come out. It was actually my apartment and my roommates were freaked out then I started chasing one of them down the hall and he was sooo freaked out! It was so funny!

Here we are running into a random apartment

My 40 Mile Ride

So today I was feeling the urge to go for a ride. So I did just that! I was originally going to go for a short ride since I was going by myself but it turned into a VERY long ride, but SOO awesome! I was riding for almost 3 hours and didn't even make a dent in the trails. I will take you along on my ride

I unloaded the machine on my trailer that now tilts! My manager and I cut the weld on the trailer that was preventing it from tilting. So now it is WAY easy to load and unload. 1st stop on my ride was Kelly's Canyon Ski Resort.


I had never ridden to the ski resort before and really had no idea how to get there but after exploring for quite a while, I came across it. I started heading up the trail where I took this picture and got a little ways up the trail and got stuck. It got pretty steep and really rocks and there came a point where the machine was just too wide to get up. So I had to go down backwards down this steep rocky hill. Kinda creepy but fun!

I hate how cameras don't show how steep things really are! After getting stuck, I found a place called "Y Junction" and there were a ton of trucks parked there with trailers. I knew that something WAY cool had to be close by. So I rode for a little ways and found a trailhead for a trail called Poison Flat.

This trail was so stinking awesome!!! I rode it for quite a ways until it started raining so I started to head back. Once I was almost back to the trailhead, it stopped raining so I turned around and kept going! Here are some pictures from that trail.

After exploring for quite some time, I went down the back side of the mountain and ran into the Snake river. It was totally beautiful.

At this point I realized that I was getting low on gas so I started to head back, exploring here and there on the way back. At this point I was at mile 25 so I still had a ways to go.

By the end of the trip, I rode almost 42 miles. It was soooo fun! Now I need to go and wash the quad! Oh yeah, check out this sweet house that I stopped to look at. It is about 3 blocks from the temple and has been vacant since before I left on my mission. I have no idea why but it is soooo nice! It is still for sale. I think that we should buy it! I will keep dreaming. Here are some pics though. I would have to admid that my truck looks pretty good in that driveway!