For Team Edward

Full Moon Lift Ride

Here we are at Sundance, ready to start our adventure on the full moon lift ride up the mountain ... Let's see if we'll still be laughing ...

Waiting for the sun to set before going on the lift ....

Don't ask me why, but I've taken a liking to photographing my feet in various places. Here they are dangling from the lift on our ride up.

Oh, hey ... there's the moon we've been after all night ... I need a better camera.  This picture didn't do the beauty of the full moon justice.

The altitude made us silly.

So glad Julie suggested that we do this. Sundance offers full moon lift rides in the months of May through September. $10 for adults for about a 45 minute ride. While the ride can be quite romantic, don't let singleness stop you from enjoying the ride with friends and/or family. We got there shortly before 9:00 PM to buy our tickets but waited until about 9:30 to get on the lift to ensure that we'll see the gorgeous full moon. I would recommend that you go there even earlier, enjoy dinner at one of the restaurants at Sundance, then take the ride (parking was a wee bit of a nightmare as we were leaving). Click here to be directed to Sundance's webpage about the rides. Julie, Janeen and I highly recommend it! Oh yeah ... I'd bring a jacket or sweatshirt, it got a bit chilly.

Aloha oe, Pinky! Thanks for the shout out!

Our friend, Pinky, is taking a leap of faith and moving back to California next week.  Tracie and I got together with her one last time at the SpagFac where we like to hang with her. Aloha oe ... until we meet again! We'll miss you, Pink! Good luck in sunny CA!

On our way out of the restaurant, I kidded Pinky about how hurt I am that she has not EVER done a shout out for me on her blog for my birthday.  Mind you that Pinky LIVES for the Sundance Festival and since I was unfortunately born at the end of January when the festival is going on, I have no place in Pinky's life during that time of the year ... Well, she more than made up for it. She not only gave me a shout out, but also a mini biography of sorts on her blog today.  It's All About Inge! Enjoy! Thanks, Pink, for the hilarious shout out!

"Da-kay! It's pronounced Da-kay!"

On our LA trip, we noticed that there were tons of tattoo parlors and cigar shops in LA. As we went on our merry way to various destinations, we played a spotting game, just like playing slug-bug, only with tattoo parlors and cigar stores ... "TATTOO" or "CIGARS" were constantly yelled in our rental car.  After a while it got old and we started to yell out random words on various signs. So, near our hotel, there's sushi restaurant in a strip mall and every time we passed it, Tracie and/or Janeen would yell out "Sushi Dake" (pronouncing "dake" like "fake") ... Of course it drove me nuts so I keep yelling back at them, "Da-kay! It's pronounced Da-kay!"

It's amazing what one can find on the internet these days.  Tracie and I related this portion of our trip to Pinky last night and look what she found. Pinky ROCKS!  Yes, there's a donut shop in the strip mall also. I think Tracie is thinking of calling the LA trip memoir, "Sushi Dake and the Donut Prince" ... yeah, it has a nice ring to it.

One Night Stand

I'm stealing this from Pinky's blog because it made me laugh out loud. I guess it's one way of getting some action ...

Getting the finger

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my massages and my massage therapist, Anne, is wonderful at working out the kinks and knots in my body ... still, I get a bit freaked out when she uses these plastic fingers to dig into some of the bad knots ... I wonder if anyone had ever thought to put one of these fingers in a Wendy's chili ... sorry, I just had to add that ...

"Stay out of jail in LA!"

Once I posted on facebook that we were going to Los Angeles for a long weekend, a few people commented that we should stay out of jail.  We saw these t-shirts while at the Farmers Market, so of course we had to take pictures (I mean, "mug shots") of them ...

L.A., Baby ...

Took a 4-day weekend to explore Los Angeles with Janeen and Tracie.  It was a fun weekend in the sun as it rained and even snowed in the mountains in Utah.  I also got to see an old school mate from Hawaii, Melissa (whom I've not seen in over 20 years,) and a former missionary and friend, Susilo, and his wife, Delilah, and daughter, Karina. Wasn't really long enough to explore some areas (museums, be a beach bum, take in a spa treatment or two, etc.), but I guess it'll be an excuse to go back another time ...

Words to live by ...

Thanks, Jim, for the reminder that no one likes a show off ...

When life hands you lemons ...

A few friends on facebook have "liked" a page called "Unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade's gonna suck." My question is, why does life have to hand you everything? Where is your contribution to make your life NOT suck? That's all I have to say about that ...

On a different note, a few years ago, someone put together a potluck party with lemons as the theme. I loved it! What comes to mind when you think about foods that include lemons? Lemondade, lemon bars, lemon pie, lemon cookies ... mostly desserts, right? Oh, I was so wrong! I found a recipe for lemon couscous, someone brought a tasty lemon chicken pasta dish ... I can't remember what all were brought to the table, but there were so much more than just desserts. Lesson learned that day -- when life hands you lemons, yes, you can make lemonades, but why stop there? Even with lemons, you can make a feast.

DDD: Freebird Tour 2010

This past Memorial Day, our DDD Group took a road trip to Brigham City to go to the Bear River Bird Refuge. The last time either Tracie and I went there was a good six years ago or so. We had a ton of fun spotting some pretty awesome fowls. In this bird-friendly excursion, we had hoped to look at some pretty birds, then eat a cow at Maddox. Unfortunately, Maddox was closed, so in keeping with the fowl theme, we at at Roosters in Ogden (where we ordered fowl-friendly pizza, fish and chips and fish tacos) and topped it off with dessert at Farr's ice cream parlor.

On a side note, for some weird reason, Tracie was just captivated by the door knobs of the ladies room at Roosters.

Persistence

Remember the birds' nest outside my door that got knocked down last week? It's back up and I finally got a picture of it with the birds in it. You can tell that there were still some remnant of old nest as it is lighter in color. The darker part is made of fresh mud. Persistent little birds! Despite the mess they make right below on the staircase, I'm kind of rooting for them.  I wonder if there are any eggs in the nest.

How Great Thou Art ...

I can't believe that I shared this picture with facebook a week ago and had not made the time to blog about it. I had actually been thinking about the Koolau mountain range for a while and last week I surfed the internet and found a picture that depicted the mountains as I will always remember them. When Julie taught her lesson on The Creation a couple of months and asked me to help out, I brought a bunch of pictures of nature I had taken throughout my travels and also shared a story about these mountains. I love the water falls that form and cascade down the crevacis of the mountains after a good rain storm. I remember riding the bus into town one day and as I came out of Wilson Tunnel, this vista appeared.  The words of a hymn I love came to mind:

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,

Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,

And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.

When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur

And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

While the Rocky Mountains that sorround me here in Utah are beautiful, it's a different type of beauty and majesty. I love the Koolau mountain range ... these are the mountains I grew up watching ... I miss those water falls! God is GREAT!