Albion Basin

Last night Kennedy and I spent some time with the Duncan's and my parents in Little Cottonwood canyon. Right now is supposed to be the peak for wildflowers in the canyons, so Charlene planned a hotdog roast and we all went up. The canyon is absolutely beautiful to begin with. Add bright yellow, purple, red, yellow and orange wildflowers and it is amazing. We went for a great hike that took us through incredible fields of flowers. We even saw a few deer on the way. We had a hot dog roast with Corey as the cook and enjoyed a few minutes around a fire. It's amazing that it can be close to 100 in the valley and at the top of the canyon you need a jacket! It was nice to sit by a fire and warm up.

Kennedy loved being in the mountains. She led the way on the hike and almost hit several hikers with rocks as they passed by. I guess she's trying to take after her mom. (I've had a couple of rock incidences when I was younger.) Kennnedy loves being with the Duncan's and her grandparents. She gets so excited to see them and she kept us all entertained by showing off all of the sign language she has learned recently.

On the way out of the canyon we saw a huge moose. It was quite the attraction as there were several cars of people looking at it. Kennedy got out of the car and yelled "Hi Moose". Luckily it didn't pay much attention to her. Unfortunately it was too dark to get a good picture. My camera batteries were dead anyway. Kennedy was worn out and fell asleep on the way home. We had a fun and relaxing Sunday afternoon in the canyon.

Mr. Mac

After trying for three weeks to salvage the computer it was time to declare the battle over. The eMachine was officially declared deceased on Saturday as I took it apart in an attempt to save some of the data we had on the secondary hard drive. I can't say that I was all that sorry to see the computer die. I've been joking for months that I was hoping the computer would have an "accident" since I wanted to get the new iMac computer with the capability to run both OS X and Windows XP.

Tuesday I went down to the U of U bookstore and officially became a Mac owner. I've been playing with the new computer for the past couple of days and I have to say that I think I'll pretty much stick to the Mac side. I'm not going to become an Apple Nazi that refuses to touch all things Microsoft, but I really like how easy everything has been so far on the new computer. Now I just have to convince Tara that the new computer isn't complete until we have a high speed Internet connection!

Happy 24th

We had a dawn to dusk day for the 24th this year. It started out at the Pioneer Day parade in Mapleton. Surprisingly enough, it was a pretty long parade. There were fire engines, police cars, members of the Stake Presidency, and Smokey the Bear. All in all a pretty eclectic group.

After the parade, Tara played in an all-day softball tournament at the park. It was a co-ed tourney, but gues who wasn't invited to play? I guess I should have known that my place was with Kennedy while Tara was the star catcher on the team. I can't believe how long they could play out there with the temp being around 100 degrees from the time the games started.

We finished off the evening at the neighborhood party / fireworks display at the Clelands'. Kennedy wasn't too sure what to make of the fireworks, but the headgear was a favorite (at least for a little while).

Tell us More Mr. Science

All week long I've been in a Community Mapping class at work. Long story, short version - Using GPS waypoints and a software called ArcView you can create a map detailing out some kind of community issue. It's been great learning the software, the class has been a little long though. We've had about 10 instructors at various points in the week and it's "too many cooks in the kitchen." They are on top of each other trying teach 'one more point.' Jared Fawson and I have sat in the back of the room and tried to top one another with running commentary about the goins' on in class. I know that I'm only amusing to myself.

Today we went to Sugarhouse Park and measured various elements of the Parley's Stream. I was in charge of measuring pH levels and distributed oxygen levels. It was fun to play Mr. Science and find out about the stream and how it changes over distance. Just so you know the distributed oxygen level varied from 9.5 - 5.5, can you believe it?

You Know You're in Trouble When....

Over the past couple of weeks I've experienced the total joys of home ownership. Here's a list of the items around the house that have had problems since the start of July:

1. My lawnmower engine sounds like a bomb that's ready to explode.


2. Our car's radiator has been leaking fluid as fast as I've been sweating this summer.


3. My Ipod turned sad on me and began showing a frowny face (see the picture above).


4. My computer won't turn on any more. It acts like it's going to work and then immediately shuts down. That's always a good sign!


5. Tara did the dishes the other night and found that our garbage disposal is blocked and won't drain. Talk about a fun smell.


6. We were having a BBQ a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden my grill was on fire! Somehow there was a leak in the hose from the tank to the grill. It's never a good sign when you see flames coming from your control panel on the grill. I went to shut off the gas and the knobs melted. I shut off the propane from the tank, but I am in shock we didn't have a big boom! It would have ended the covili family blog as we know it.

I don't know why everything has to happen all at once, but it seems to be the way it is. We'll have to wait and see what August will bring, suffice to say, July's cost me a pretty penny.

Another Conference?

After spending a couple days at home we're back at another conference. Unfortunately we're not in San Diego, but we are in Cedar City!! I'm presenting at the Utah Rural Schools Association (URSA) Conference this week. It's a fun conference and a great chance to come down South and spend time with my parents.

Since I'm only presented a couple of sessions, I've had some good time to enjoy the country and do a little caching. Earlier we were able to find 18 caches and the highlight was a sunset hike up in the mountains east of Kannaraville. What a great view to end a big day out and about in rural Utah! Ross and Coleton thought they were going to die as we scaled across the ridge, but the scenery was spectacular and we made it back to the car in one piece.

I know the geocaching isn't exactly what most people do on their working vacation, but I can't think of anything else we'd rather do while roaming around in Utah's red rock!

Wrapping Up in San Diego

Today was the last day of the Conference, so I decided to go catch a few sessions. I am always impressed with how in touch UEN is with the hot topics in educational technology. In most of the sessions I’ve been to over the years I haven’t really seen anything that we aren’t working on in Utah. I guess that’s a compliment to the things we’re doing at UEN. Still, NECC is a good look at what’s going on and a chance to try and learn a few new things.

Since I didn’t spend any time with Tara and Kennedy yesterday, today was a family day. We walked around San Diego and then took the ferry over to Coronado Island. It was a good ride and it was fun to see Kennedy’s reaction to being on a boat. The entire trip all she has talked about are trains. We couldn’t go anywhere without Kennedy wanting to know when the next train was coming by. Even though the boat wasn’t very impressive to Kennedy, it was nice to get out on the ocean. We spent an hour walking around the beach and then headed back into San Diego for our last dinner in the Gaslight District.

Daddy's Day Off

I guess you could say that today was a Daddy’s Day Off. I went to the conference in the morning (the highlight for today was Nicolas Negroponte and the $100 laptop) and then had the rest of the day to myself. Tara and Kennedy headed off to the Wild Animal Park for the day, so I was alone to see and taste San Diego.

I started out going to lunch in Little Italy with Annie and Ross. I was fortunate to hook up with a couple of food connoisseurs who knew all the best places to eat. We went to an Italian market/restaurant named Filippi’s where I had some of the best lasagna ever. I am going to make a point of going online to find great Italian restaurants whenever I go out of town. After Filippi’s we stopped at the gelato shop next door for some Italian ice cream. That stuff is incredible!!!

Since I had the afternoon to myself, I hooked up with Ross from work and went geocaching. It was a lot of fun and we saw some interesting parts of San Diego! We started at the jail and worked our way around the city. I don’t really like urban caching very much, but when you’re in a big city you don’t have much of a choice.

My evening ended with dinner in a brewery with all the people from work who attended the conference. I can’t believe how much I’m eating on this trip. I am never going to get back on the diet at the rate I’m going. I guess I’m on vacation. Around 9 pm I met up with Tara and Kennedy. After a long day and the Park and the beach we went back to Little Italy for a late scoop of gelato and then headed back to the hotel for the night.

A Day with Shamu

After a rough morning at the Conference (I attended one session and the Keynote – an awesome speech by Dewitt Jones), I headed back the hotel to change and then I was off to Sea World to meet up with Tara, Kennedy, and the rest of my family.

Before entering the park, I stopped by In ‘N’ Out Burger to grab something to eat. That place is incredible!!! Too bad we don’t have any in Utah. I guess it’s actually good for my expanding waistband that we don’t have any more burger joints in SLC; I can’t handle any more super-sizing of myself.

Anyway, Sea World was a lot of fun. It was great to watch Kennedy react to all the different animals and fish. She loved Shamu! After the presentation was over, she kept making the sign for more and said repeatedly, “More Shamu!” She wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the killer whale, Tara and I both thought it was a pretty cool show. It was definitely worth the price of admission – if any mammal is worth a $50 ticket, that is.

Other highlights from Sea World included: the flying dolphin show, Arctic World and the sea otters, and Shark Attack – where you actually walk inside a giant aquarium. Any time that Kennedy could get up close to the creatures she giggled with excitement, making the day very worthwhile for both of us. We left the park late in the evening and went back to the hotel, a little sunburned and very tired.


Here's a nice family picture from SeaWorld

4th of July Fizzle

We celebrated the 4th of July in grand style with a trip to San Diego! Every year I go to a national conference on technology in education called NECC (National Education Computing Conference) and this year it's in California. Tough duty I know.

We started the day with Kennedy's first airplane ride. It went well, thanks to the laptop and Kennedy's favorite show - Signing Time. She watched the video twice and before you knew it, we landed in San Diego. It was fun to see how excited Kennedy was about an airplane ride - the only problem was she kept saying we were on a train. We couldn't convice her that we were actually on an airplane. Oh, well - at least she was happy.

After a lengthy delay at the rental car agency (they don't know anything about car seats!), we went to our hotel. We are staying at the W of San Diego, a pretty trendy hotel that caters to a rather elite crowd. What we are doing here I'll never know! It costs us $25 dollars a day just to park our car. Can you imagine being forced to valet park a Dodge Neon?! Anyway, we checked in and got a little rest before going out on the town for dinner and fireworks.

As you've read before, Kennedy is nuts over fireworks so she was very excited to see another show. The fireworks were set to start at 9 pm over the harbor, so we finished dinner and started over to the water about ten minutes til 9. We were about the harbor as we reached the final possible obstacle between us and the show. The railroad tracks had been silent all day - until 9 o'clock that is. What are the odds that the very minute before we reached the tracks a train started by. It slowed to a halt and by the time it passed by, the fireworks were finished. Can you believe it?! We boarded a shuttle, and went back to the swanky W for a deserved night's rest.

Dick's Fireworks Extravaganza

We just got back from Dick Engar’s Annual Fireworks Show.  What a night!  The event starts with two bands playing covers, with a few originals thrown in for good measure.  The Featherstone Trio opened the night playing a mix of rock and blues, highlighted with Dan playing a guitar solo behind his head.  Kennedy loved the music and danced the whole time with some of her friends in the neighborhood.  After the Trio, Dick’s band, Flying Angst, stole the show with several covers from the Kinks and some of their own music.

The real purpose behind the event came after the music – Fireworks!!!  Kennedy has been going on and on about fireworks since she saw some at the Springville Art City Days a few weeks ago.  It was all we could do to promise her that we’d see more fireworks at Dick’s show.  She loved the lights, not the sounds.  The screamers were a bit much for her and around ten she said, “Nite Nite Fireworks” – signaling our time to leave.  It was a fun night and it was great to see Dick in action.  He truly is a showman!

Hot Summer Days

Jared just posted his random thoughts on a Friday, so I thought I would post random thoughts about our summer so far. From Father's Day, to playing croquet in our backyard, swimming and play days with friends, we are staying busy. So goes the life of a stay at home mom and her kid. Of course, summer has been revolving around Kennedy, so we have been doing lots of playing. Just this week we have played with Kazzy and Coleman at Candace's house, been swimming at the Murray Pool with Coleton, Chloe and Liam and been to two different playgrounds. It's amazing how Kennedy thinks that the entire playground is hers and will walk around telling all the other kids "mine" as she plays. I'm hoping that we aren't raising the playground bully. We are really working on that sharing thing.


We had a fun Father's Day, even though Jared had to give up a few innings of his Red Sox game to go see my Dad at the cabin. It was worth it. Sometimes I wonder how much longer our parents will be around. I always want to spend as much time with them as possible. Jared was excited to celebrate his 2nd Father's Day. He really is a great dad. It's fun to watch him and Kennedy interact. Kennedy loves it when Daddy comes home from work. They have so much fun together.

We introduced Coleton to croquet and he seems to always want to play when he comes over, now. The last time we played we ended up playing some kind of jungle croquet through the rock garden and plants in our backyard. It was fun, although some of the plants didn't make it through the game.

As for swimming, Kennedy is a fish. She loves the water. We go about once a week and she loves every second of it. She loves playing with her cousins in the water. She especially likes "ring around the rosie" and going down the big slide. I'm sure we will be spending lots of time at the pool this summer.