Summer Updates

So to start, I few weeks ago I hiked Mount Timpanogos. It was hard and I smelled bad afterwards but it was totally worth it.

I went with a friend of mine and a group from his ward there in Provo. We hiked up from the Aspen Grove side. The weather was looking rather unfavorable but as soon as it cleared we headed up leaving the trail head parking lot about 7pm. We hiked about 6 miles that evening and camped at a glacial lake that night arriving there about 10:30pm as I recall. After a very cold and rocky night we got up early to be on the summit before sunrise. We were back at the car by 11am.

It was a great experience.

In other news scorpion season is apparently open. The other day I came down stairs to find this on top of my washer.

I'm not sure how he got up there, but if these things start dropping from the ceiling I will be freaking out. Yes, this one is quite small, but I'm sure his crusty compadres are lurking around somewhere.

By now you may or may not have heard that I am the Reserve Grand Champion of the White Pine County Fair.

Myself, my cousin who teaches culinary arts at the high school, and my grandmother entered some baked goods in the county fair and we did quite well if I do say so. The lemon poppy seed cake on the far left is the one I made and received the reserve grand champion ribbon.  The chocolate chip cookies I also made and they received a 1st place ribbon. The chocolate bunt cake my cousin made and it also received a 1st place ribbon (we all think it actually should have one, I mean it's chocolate after all). The loaf of wheat bread on the right my grandma put in and she received the grand champion ribbon. When confronted regarding the win my grandmother's response was, "well, how could it not have won." We're already gearing up for next year!

Now to some car updates:

I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but most of you have probably seen it.

This ended up in my garage this last spring and it has been a blast this summer. It was purchased from the original owner, and had been sitting for a number of years unused. I did the minimum amount of work to get it back on the road for the summer, but this winter it will get a more thorough going through.

I don't know how many of you knew that I purchased this 1980 Chevy LUV about a year ago. It was a great idea when I purchased it, but after several months of just not being able to get excited about working on it I decided to donate it to the high school auto shop. Hopefully it will serve better as a tax write-off.

You may remember the silver bug. Yesterday I got the bug out of its barn. (I actually had to remove a good deal of foliage from in front of the door to get it open). With the help of my car commiserator and his son we got the engine removed last night in only about 2 hours start to finish. It was a productive Saturday.