El Paso Longboarding

Kyle found a nice long-ish smooth road in a quiet subdivision. I think he got up to about 23 mph before the hill leveled out.

First Track Meet: The Richland Jamboree

After waiting outside in GORGEOUS weather for 3 1/2 hours and in chilly weather for 1 1/2 hours, we finally saw Kyle vault for the first time this year. Right off, Kyle tied his personal best of 11' 6" and made a respectable run at 12'. I think he would have done better at 12:00 noon, when pole vaulting started than at 6:30, when he finished. Kyle thinks not. Michele and Drew know how long it takes to get through ANY event at the Jamboree. Here is a link to Kyle's stats at AthleticNet. It updates almost immediately after the meet, so check back a couple of times a week to see how he is doing.

On a side note: Kyle's coach wanted him to try long-jump at the meet so he worked with the long-jumpers for the first time on Friday. He jumped 17' 4". That was farther than any other jumper in the school and a varsity distance! Woo Hoo, Kyle!

11' 6" Vault

12' Attempt

The More the Merrier!

Since I'm not afraid of using vinyl with my Cricut anymore, I made a couple more projects:

1. The long-awaited "Cornwell" board for Drew and Chrissy.
2. A small tile for someone with a whiner in their family...I can't decide if I should give it to Dan or Chrissy :)

Monson Quote Plaque

I made this plaque as a birthday present for my friend, Kathryn Rhoten. This is my first venture using vinyl with my Cricut. It took a LONG time, but it was fun and turned out pretty well.

It Grieveth Me That I Should Lose This Tree

The River (Clump) Birch tree that has been in the center of our front yard for more than 25 years came down today. It was in poor health and had many dead and dying branches, so it was time.

The decision to remove the tree today was made about a week ago but it just so happened that a few of Kyle's friends decided to T-P our yard last night. The condemned tree was well-adorned with toilet paper, much of it way too high to reach for clean-up. Usually when that happens we hit the t.p. with water from a hose until it falls down. Since the tree was coming down anyway we left most of it there. Kyle texted his friends and said something like "you're not going to believe this...the toilet paper was too high in the tree for us to get it down, so my Dad just cut down the tree! Thanks a lot! That tree was over 20 years old!"

Many neighbors stopped to watch the tree-felling and all commented on the t.p. Everyone agreed that telling Kyle's friends the story of the toilet paper being the cause for removing the tree was pretty funny.

The first thing that had to be done we remove the two smaller trunks of the three. Bruce did that with his gas-powered chain saw. Kyle pulled a rope that was looped around each trunk to make sure they fell where they were supposed to (they were supposed to fall NOT on the house). Each trunk successfully fell NOT on the house.

Next, Bruce used the gas chain saw and Kyle used the electric chain saw to reduce the trunks to firewood, branches and sawdust.

This afternoon, Carl van Katwijk brought his heavy duty chain saw over to take down the main part of the tree. He did this in exchange for the wood of the main trunk. Oh, and also because he is a good guy!

The view out the front door after the two smaller trunks were cut.

Kyle using the electric chain saw.

Tying a rock to the rope to facilitate getting the rope around the top of the tree.

Preparing to throw the rock-laden rope over a sturdy branch.

Dueling Chain Saws: Cutting the branches off the trunks and making firewood

Bruce's first attempt at getting the rope over a branch (I have three more videos exactly like this one...I won't bore you)

...finally got the rope over a branch...not the branch we wanted.

Spent, Bruce gives up the fight

Kyle's turn to try. Repeat same shot two or three times.

Almost Crafty

I am NOT a scrapbooker, but when I saw a Cricut machine for about 60% off, I bought it for Bruce to give me for Christmas (when you know what you want, grab it, especially at 6:30 AM on "Black Friday!"). So far I have cut out some vinyl letters for a friend's picture frame, made some captions for the missionary board at Seminary and put together the fun birth announcements from the newspaper (pictured below).

I had intended to just mount these on cardstock and laminate them, but the new cutting machine could help make them cute. In theory these were easy projects:

1. Cut out the name and shapes on the Cricut.
2. Glue them on cardstock.
3. Glue the newspaper clipping.
4. Trim up the whole thing.
5. Laminate and cut it out again.
   

It would have been fast if the letters weren't so small! Now that I see a magnified version, some of the letters are crooked! Darn! These were hard to attach. The largest letters are 1 inch tall while the shortest are less than 1/3 of an inch.

Can't wait to give these to the families!

Kyle's 100 Breaststroke Race - Walla Walla Pentathalon

This is a video of Kyle's 100 Breast race in the Walla Walla on December 12, 2009 . Each swimmer swam five events: free, back, breast, fly and IM. As you can tell, Kyle has bulked up quite a bit since his freshman year.