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.