Weekend

For my birthday Jesse gave me an awesome pair of boots. They were delivered in a huge box so Jesse decided to make a fort for Gavin. Baby G loved it!!

On Sunday we went to Memory Grove with my family and let Hendrix play in the water. It was such a beautiful day and it was a lot of fun.

Splish Splash

Don't you love baby bathtime?

LAGOON

We went to Lagoon last week and it was a blast. If you haven't been in a few years I definitely suggest you go! They have some really fun rides and it's so much better than it used to be.

Gavin loved the train and the merry-go-round.

Weekend at the Cabin

We spent a relaxing weekend at the cabin. The weather was perfect and it was actually pretty chilly up there which was a nice change. Here we are hanging out Friday night.

Getting ready to go for a walk. Gavin loved riding in the backpack; thanks Liz and Ken!

The view from the cabin we will one day buy; yeah right! In our dreams!!!

Elise getting dangerously close to falling in the river!

Riding in the back of dad's brand new truck. Isn't it pretty! This brought back such memories of riding in the back of a truck at the cabin. We used to do it all the time when we were kids.

This is the closest Gavin got to riding the 4-wheelers.

Very stylish!

And no trip to the cabin would be complete without some pictures of the beautiful wilderness.

Our Weekend

We spent our weekend painting our living room and dining room. It didn't take as long as I thought and I think it turned out really pretty. What do you think?

BEFORE

AFTER

To expand or not to expand

…that is the question en vogue. I’m not making the painfully obscure reference to a scene in So I Married and Axe Murderer where Mike Myers and his co-star are running around one evening after their date imitating Russian ballerinas–although, I suppose that I have now made that reference…

We have all heard the lame excuses made by commissioners, coaches, and Presidents of BCS schools. Their lame duck arguments amount to little more than hot air and the sheer volume of hot air spewing from them is enough to resurrect the Hindenburg.

The BCS forced our hand and essentially gave the Mountain West Conference no choice but to step in line with the new BCS agreement or else lose out on any remote possibility to share a piece of their the cash cow. Please do not mistake that as acceptance or approval of the current system. Without signing the agreement, the MWC would have been completely on its own, would have taken multi-hundred-thousand-dollar pay cuts (at minimum) from bowls, and lost dozens of talented recruits. They were bullied into their decision so I hope people won’t be too critical of it.

The question is, “Now what?” People have been buzzing about an imminent invitation for Utah and BYU to join the PAC-10 for decades. Others are now talking about expanding the Mountain West. Here are my two cents on both schools of thought.

The chances of the PAC-10 opening its arms to become the PAC-12 still sound remote. While I think it would be beneficial to their conference to welcome in two storied programs with winning traditions, I think it is presumptuous to assume that they would invite us. Increasing their conference to 12 schools would probably boost their credibility against the “mighty” SEC and Big 12 but only if they improve their overall talent. An invitation for Utah and BYU would mean further travel for away games and the absence of the ever-popular game in Las Vegas not to mention losing a quality game against TCU from the schedule. Some teams in the PAC-10 would upgrade our schedules, while other would most definitely do the opposite.

With that said, I think the chances of this happening are very slim. I don’t think there is any evidence to believe that it will happen so I hope you are not one of the myriads holding your breath.

Another option over which the conference would have more control would be incorporating more teams into the MWC. Unlike many people think, it is not just the privilege of the more prominent conferences to raid the smaller conferences and pick out teams they want. Increasing the conference by one team to make it ten would, in my opinion, be counter productive. Each team would have to schedule one more conference game eliminating the chance to play against bigger programs. The change in how the MWC would be perceived would be negligible and perhaps even negative.

What if, on the other hand, we added three teams? Now we would be looking at splitting the conference into two divisions and perhaps scheduling one fewer conference game. It would still be difficult to get BCS programs to schedule games with our programs but the opportunity would at least exist. The MWC teams would have a little more control over the ever-elusive “strength of schedule” argument. This might be a good thing, but it also might be bad. The popular candidate to join our ranks would of course be Boise State, although I am reluctant to think that the WAC would just let them go. We would then be challenged to find two more decent teams to accompany Boise State in an expansion. Do I hear the faint cry of Snow College being drowned out by turkeys?

I’d love you hear what you think.

Last Week

Last week Gavin and I were lucky enough to go to Denver with my family for a few days. Jesse couldn't come because of work so unfortunately we had to leave him behind. I did not expect to enjoy Denver as much as I did; it's a really cool city.

We spent a lot of time in downtown Denver which was really cool. They have a mall that goes for miles and there is a lot of restaurants and shopping. I hope Salt Lake's downtown is like that someday.

Eating at Cheesecake Factory

The reason for this trip was the Colorado Rockies. Marcus is a huge fan and he had never been to an MLB game. We went to two Rockies games while we were there and it was so much fun!

Coors Field was beautiful and there were so many cool things about it! The seats were angled toward the pitching mound so you didn't have to turn your head the whole game. They had a great area for kids and their concessions were awesome. It was by far one of the best stadiums I have ever been to.

The coolest thing we got to do while we were there was go to batting practice and meet the Rockies players. The owner of the Rockies is a U of U alum so I was able to use some connections and get us on the field for practice. It was fantastic and Marcus was in heaven!

Here is Marcus with his favorite player, Todd Helton. All the players were so nice and it was so fun to see Marcus so excited. It was a great trip.

Last week was also great because it was one of my favorite holidays: the 24th of July! We have a tradition to hang out in front of the mortuary the night before the parade. It's always fun and it's a great place to peopl-watch. It was of course very hot so Gavin loved getting sprayed with the water bottle.

We love, love, love the parade and I was so happy Gavin enjoyed it too!