Sydney 2000 Memories...

(I doubt my work memories will interest anyone but me... but I just wanted to document these experiences a little bit and its fun for me to reminisce).
The company I used to work for brought performance groups (dancers) over to Sydney, Australia to perform at Olympic Venues for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. I was lucky enough to travel to Sydney twice - once for a pre-trip to go check it out and plan the trip for our groups and once during the Olympics. These pics are all from our pre-trip. I wish I could find photos from our trip during the Olympics. If I do, I'll post them here. But for now...
This is a pic of the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. We went running every morning (at like 4 AM b/c our time clocks were so screwy) through the botanical gardens and along the coastline. This is one of my most vivid memories of Sydney. It was spectacular.

We stayed in the city for the pre-trip, but when we brought our performance groups we actually stayed north of Sydney on an island. We took a small boat to/from the island everyday. It was beautiful and remote.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge. I actually climbed this bridge with a group of our performers during the Olympics trip. It was super fun.

The stage our groups performed on in Olympic park. (Among others, they also performed in town squares, an amusement park, etc.)

Sydney Harbor fountains. The Sydney Harbor is soooo spectacular, especially at night. Sydney is my favorite city that I've ever been.

Some Australian associates that I became friends with who helped us plan our trip. Whoa... I'm remembering some crazy stories right now about these guys. They were gay and they REALLY partied and told us some stories that made our sheltered Utah heads spin. But, good people that we enjoyed working with.

Auckland, New Zealand. We took just one day off work on the way to Australia and spent a day in New Zealand. All we had time for was a tour of Auckland. I would LOVE to go back there someday and explore the southern end, it is a beautiful place.

It's easy to see why SueAnn and I became such great friends. We had so many awesome experiences together. She is now the mother to 6 kids age 5 and under. Twin girls, triplet boys and a single boy. We don't see each other like we used to (her life is a crazy whirlwind), but she is still one of my favorite people and dearest friends. She doesn't blog, so she'll probably never see this post, but I love ya, SueAnn.

Festival of Gold Memories...

In another lifetime I used to be involved with some pretty awesome events. One of my favorites was called Festival of Gold - A choral festival for top choirs around the country to come and compete and perform in a spectacular concert at famous concert halls and cathedrals. (I'm pretty sure these pictures were taken at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC) I LOVED these concerts! My associate used to always say "A person is never more beautiful than when they sing." And he would create these masterpiece concerts that would take my breath away.
And these old guys in the pics were my dear friends. We used to party like rock stars with these dudes! They were renowned in their field of choral music and now, sadly, they have all passed on except one. I'm actually surprised that I don't have a pic of Dr. Jerold Ottley (the former MoTab director). After he retired from MoTab he adjudicated and directed for us sometimes. He and his wife, JoAnne, are so dear.
Anyway, I loved those days...

Kindergarten

These are our kindergarten pics. They were on display at our wedding, actually, in honor of our mothers who are both kindergarten teachers. (Barbs is now retired, though).

Naturally I had to see who Wyatt looks more like when we were his age.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

If we get to choose our own Heaven, Wyatt's heaven is going to be GOBLIN VALLEY

After a weekend camping in Goblin Valley I'm feeling rejuvenated. There's something about camping in the dirt, getting really sweaty from long hikes and coming home reeking of campfire that fills up my happy tank, ya know? And there are moments that happen on trips like these that just don't occur any other way. Like watching Steve and Wyatt simultaneously diving to the ground and scampering up a dry river bank on all fours in pursuit of a lizard. As you can see they caught that lizard. And the look on Wyatt's face? Pure joy!
We took Wyatt on the best hike. Little Wild Horse Canyon. It is an awesome hike through a slot canyon. 9 MILES! Even I was surprised that Wyatt made it that long. We went at Wyatt's pace (stopping to catch centepedes, dig holes in the sand, etc.) but we were out in just over 6 hours. Now thats some good family time that I've been craving for awhile now.

Daily Monotony of the Last Week

Steve & I got to be substitute coaches for Wyatt's soccer team the last two weeks b/c Jackie has been livin it up in So Utah two weekends in a row. We really had fun. I loved to watch Steve as coach to the 4/5 year olds. He did a great job. He is so patient and so good at teaching them all the important soccer skills such as where to stand as to not give the other team a chance. :) I can see more coaching of Wyatt's teams in our future...

Plus, the past two Saturdays 30 mins. soccer games have constituted our "quality time" together for the entire last two weeks. Steve has been super busy w/real estate work plus our rentals have been a nightmare as of late and has been working sometimes through the night til like 3AM. Poor sleepy guy. After we had to evict a guy for not paying his rent, he caused a bunch of damage in his apartment in our triplex including stealing the copper drain lines! I couldn't believe it. A person has to be pretty hard up to literally cut the drain lines out of our place just for the scrap value of the copper. We also have a home in Rose Park that we rent out that our tenant just moved and left the usual messes so I spent a few days this week trying to get the yard back into decent condition and cleaning inside. Here is a picture of the home we lovingly call "Goldie".

After feeling cooped up from cleaning Goldie I had to get outdoors again so Mark & I took Wyatt on a little hike to Ensign Peak. (Lame hike, but low enough that there's no snow...) We had fun hiking around the foothills behind the trail, too. We ended up having to bushwhack our way back down to our car. I love that Wyatt likes to hike. I just can't stand to be indoors for long and hiking is a good activity for us mostly b/c its an activity outside that I can do w/a 4 year old. (If only I could get him mountain biking so we could ride The Crest or Pipeline. Someday...)

And yesterday we had a rainy good time at the Zoo for our ward playgroup and then Tracy Aviary for a preschool fieldtrip. We still had fun even though we got rained on all day. Wyatt is his happiest when he's with his friends.

The Human Body

Wyatt and I saw this movie yesterday at Clark Planetarium. Fascinating movie. We saw our bodies as never before. The technology used in making this film was so cool. Our bodies are amazing - God's pinnacle creation! I think this is a must see - so educational. My favorite part of the experience was Wyatt telling Steve this morning "Sperms come from daddies and they have heads. Do you have sperms on your head, Daddy?" Hmmm....

BTW - It's Clark Planetarium's 5th anniversary so all shows all month of April are only $5 bucks. :)

Are you a UTAHHHN?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West   Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

So when I was hanging out w/Julie last week she said that she could totally hear my parents Utah accent. She said she couldn't hear it on me, though. I've had people ask me where I'm from before. This quiz doesn't really consider the idiocincricies of the true Utah language, though. i.e. I didn't see a question for "do you say what the heck?" :)